Malcolm laughed, a crack of sound so bright and free that Viola felt her own heart take flight along with her body.
She half twisted to see him grinning behind her, his teeth flashing white against his dark beard.
Dragging her feet on the ground, Viola slowed her swinging. Malcolm rested a firm palm against her spine, slowing her further and setting her heart to racing.
“You laugh,” she pointed a finger at him as the swing came to a stop, “but that was only the beginning of the madcappery. Ethan flailed to free himself, tugging on his coat, but the dratted sheep would not let it go.” She mimed a frantic pulling motion. “So Ethan twisted out of his coat—truly, he is to be commended on his quick thinking and flexible elbows—but the moment he freed himself, Fergus dropped the coat and went after Ethan himself.”
Malcolm sagged against one rope of the swing, shoulders shaking with mirth, head bowed as he gasped for air.
Viola giggled uncontrollably. “It was the best entertainment I’ve had in years. Ethan streaked across the Stewart’s back garden, shrieking at Fergus to, ‘Lay off, ye dafteejit!’ Naturally, Lady Stewart’s butler and two footmen joined in the pursuit. They made quite the merry band—servants chasing Fergus chasing Ethan. Fergus is astonishingly swift for a sheep, I must say. The beast would latch onto an article of Ethan’s clothing as he ran, so your brother was obliged to contort himself to strip out of it. I had no idea his brogue could be so thick. Ethan gave the lot of us a rather eye-opening glimpse into his Scots vocabulary.”
“He is a p-poet, after all,” Malcolm wheezed. “Words are his p-profession.”
“Well, he was a credit to you all in that regard. Lady Stewart fainted right about the time Ethan climbed the garden wall and stood atop it, cursing both Fergus’s manners and parentage in an astonishingly creative manner. By that point, Ethan had lost his waistcoat, neckcloth, half a shirt sleeve, and his right shoe to the beast’s apparently amorous pursuit. The poor sheep merely pawed at the stone, bleated his thwarted displeasure, and head-butted every servant who attempted to wrangle him away.”
That was the final straw. Malcolm bent down, hands on his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks and into his beard.
Seeing Malcolm Penn-Leith doubled-over in laughter was as breathtaking a sight as the aurora borealis, though perhaps even more rare.
Surely laughter had been sparse in his life since his wife’s death. But, oh, he was a man born to laugh. To soak up life’s joys.
His cackling, wheezing mirth was contagious. Viola leaned on the swing’s rope, gasping for air herself.
Malcolm collapsed onto the swing beside her, as if his legs were no longer up to the task of holding him upright.
“Oh, oh!” he panted, wiping tears off his beard.
Viola laughed with him, surprised that they both fit on the swing and all too aware of how close they were. Her legs faced one way, his the other. But they now touched from hip to shoulder, her side pressed against his. If she tilted her head a scant few inches, she could rest her cheek on his shoulder.
Malcolm swiped at his eyes. “I cannae wait to tease Ethan. I shall never let him live that down.”
“You cannot! ’Twould be cruel. Poor Ethan was beet-red and mortified.”
“Och!Ethan’s never been mortified a day in his life. He was merely red from exertion, I am sure. Trust me, he’ll be telling the tale with gusto outwith a week. It will be my own pleasure tae remind him of his humiliation for the next fifty years of our lives. ’Tis how we show our love.”
“I will never understand men. Or brothers, for that matter.”
He pressed a hand to his side. “I needed that laugh, but I fear I may have strained a stomach muscle.”
Running his thumbs under his eyes one last time, he turned to her.
And froze.
As if finally realizing that there was scarcely a whisper of space between them. That with the slightest dip of his head, they would be kissing.
His eyes danced over her face, emotions flickering so quickly—humor? longing? alarm?—she couldn’t identify them clearly.
Without seeking permission, her gaze focused on his lips. Something dipped low in her stomach, heat spooling through her veins. How would it feel to kiss a man with a beard? But not any man, she supposed.Thisman. This tender, unyielding force of a Scot.
Viola didn’t move. She scarcely breathed.
Don’t go,she wanted to murmur.Stay here for a while.
Canting an inch closer to him, she willed him to dip down, to kiss her.
His nostrils flared as his eyes found her mouth.
Lifting upward, Viola closed the distance, lips trembl—
