He pressed the backs of his fingers to her cheek, his expression tense with worry. “Praise God there is no fever.”
She scooted away from his touch and pressed back against the headboard. “Robbie lied,” she said. “I am not sick.” She hugged her knees to her chest. Heaven help her, what a feckin’ mess. “I merely wanted some sleep.”
He frustrated her even more by rumbling with a low, seductive chuckle while climbing into her bed. “I see, m’lady.”
“No, ye do not.” She scooted again, putting more space between them. “Thanks to yer nearly naked entrance, Grissa now knows what we did.”
“I chose her to be yer maid because ye can trust her,” he said quietly. His understanding smile made her heart flutter. Her traitorous body hummed with readiness as he tucked an errant curl behind her ear. “She will keep all yer confidences, m’lady.”
“That is not the point.” Weariness, frustration, and an overwhelming mix of emotions threatened to reduce her to a sobbing mess. She covered her face with both hands. “She will think I am a…a slut. Or worse, a plotting female trying to control her chieftain with sex.”
“I can think of worse ways for ye to try to control me.”
She dropped her hands and glared at him. “Ye know what I mean.”
“Why did ye leave my bed?” The caring in his tone touched her heart, making it swell with an aching she preferred not to address. He reached over and grazed a fingertip along the back of her hand. “When I awoke and ye werena there, I worried after ye. For what we had done and yer earlier reservations about joining me in my bed. Then when I tried our door, it was locked. Why, my precious dove? Why, after the wonderful night we shared?”
His questions caught her off guard. She stared at him, trying to think of something, anything but the truth. She couldn’t tell him she had allowed herself to be seduced because she wanted to be. Or that for the first time in her life, her loneliness had overpowered her. She had already told him that much. At least, she thought she had. The alcohol she had consumed made her memory of the things she had said a bit fuzzy. However, the things they had done remained quite clear in her mind. Strange thing, alcohol.
She bowed her head, unable to face him any longer. “Last night was a mistake,” she confessed. “I should never have come to ye. Ye need to go, aye?” She shook her head. “I am sorry.”
“Last night was not a mistake.” He scooped her hand into his and brushed kisses across her fingers. “Mila.”
The way he said her name—deep, rasping, coaxing as a siren’s song. She struggled against his hypnotic spell. This dear man would die in a few months if she could not change history. “Teague,” she said without meeting his gaze. “Please go.” A distraught gasp escaped her. Her tone lacked the conviction she needed. “Ye should go. Now.”
“Are ye certain, lass?”
Ever so gently, he pulled her into his arms and cradled her close. After a tender kiss to the top of her head, he combed her hair with his fingers. The mesmerizing strokes threatened to be her undoing. She could feel herself melting into him, relaxing under his touch.
“I will leave ye be if ye truly wish it,” he said softly. “But I need ye to say it with meaning.” He settled more comfortably back against the headboard and pillowed her head on his chest. “Mila?”
His warmth against her cheek. The strong firmness of his chest beneath her. Their perfection together. How they fit each other like long-lost pieces of a puzzle. All this lulled her even more. Against her will, her heavy eyelids closed.
“No,” she whispered. “I guess ye can stay. For now.”
“Sleep, my own,” he said. “Find yer rest here safe in my arms. I willna allow anyone or anything to trouble ye ever again.”
Oh, how she wished that was true. She hugged him closer, panicking as tears squeezed free, rolled down her cheek, and splashed onto him.
“Lass.” He gathered her up so he could look her in the face. With a touch as gentle as a whisper, he wiped the tears away. “What is it? Tell me so I can make it right.” He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead, then disarmed her even more with that crooked smile. “No one will ever hurt ye again. I swear it.”
She ran her fingertips through the short hairs of his neatly trimmed beard. If only she could tell him the truth. The need to protect him from what lay ahead ached within her. The urgency to save him from his fate grew stronger with each passing minute.
A soft sob escaped her. “Dinna go near Stirling the rest of this year. Nor most of next year either. Promise me, aye?”
“Why, m’lady?”
Maybe she could make him think she had the sight. Grissa had hoped for such, said it would be a boon to the clan. If she worded things just right, surely she could pull it off. “Ye will be arrested near Stirling in late November, then hanged, drawn, and quartered in December.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, praying that her plan worked. This could go so very wrong in so many ways.
His jaw tightened and his dark brows drew together into a fierce knot. In fact, his entire body tensed beneath her. But he didn’t speak. Just eyed her with an unreadable expression.
Heaven help her. Perhaps her instincts had been dead wrong. She tried to ease away.
“How do ye know this?”
“I saw it.” That was not a lie. An artist’s rendering in the history book depicted the terrible execution alongside the article. “But I only discovered it was about you when Grissa told me yer full name.” Again. All that was true.
“And what do they charge me with?” His tone had gone cold as death.
