“Lass—”
Pulling the covers up around her ears, Trish shook her head down deeper into the pillow. “Find another place to sleep, Maxwell. Go foist yourself somewhere else.”
ChapterEight
Trish centered the door facing between her shoulder blades, leaned hard against the wooden beam and slid her body up and down.Damn. She hated wool. Even with a linen tunic between her skin and the borrowed dress, the heavy weave scratched her skin like a branch of stinging nettles. Trish didn’t care what Ciara advised. As soon as she figured out where they’d stashed them, she was switching back into her own clothes.
Giving up on the useless rubbing, Trish grabbed the neckline of the dress and yanked it back up into place. The dress’s previous owner must’ve been at least two sizes bigger because there was plenty of room to spare. She smoothed her hands along the darted seams running down the sides. Trish frowned, noticing the unusually small circumference of her waist. She must’ve lost a few pounds while she’d been out of commission. Peeping inside the front of the gown, Trish shook her head. Yep. The girls had definitely shrunk at least a full cup size. The boobs were always the first to go.
Her stomach growled as the warm yeasty fragrance of baking bread wafted under her nose. Trish sniffed in an approving lungful of the mouth-watering scent, swallowing hard against her empty belly flooding her taste buds with anticipation. She was starving. Maybe if she followed her nose, she’d score a buttered crust of the delicious stuff.
Trish trailed her hands against the pale gray wall of the hallway, concentrating on maintaining her balance. Her stomach growled a louder protest as a fresh wave of savory aromas floated through the air. Pressing a hand against her gurgling waist, Trish curled her toes in the soft doeskin slippers as a brief wave of dizziness stopped her in her tracks. The roughly woven carpet centered on the floor didn’t look like it would be a very adequate cushion for a fall. Trish leaned against the wall and closed her eyes until the spinning sensation passed. She wasn’t about to bust her butt in the hallway on her first foray out of her room. She inhaled deeply through her nose and blew out short, controlled bursts from between tightly pursed lips. “I can do this. I’m just a little weak. I’ve just got to get my land legs.”
“What the hell are ye doin’, woman? Are ye tryin’ to end up back in the sickbed?”
Trish jumped at the sound of the booming voice and flattened her back against the wall. Maxwell. She should’ve known. He’d been a bit bossy ever since she’d ousted him from her room when she’d first regained her health. Bracing her hands against the stone blocks at her back, she bit back one of her favorite expletives and opted for good old sarcasm instead. “So, you think startling the living crap out of me is going to help matters?”
Maxwell’s scowl deepened; his bushy eyebrows knotted tighter over an irritated gaze. “Ciara said ye wished to join the family downstairs. She also said she told ye I’d be up here soon to fetch ye and help ye navigate the staircase. Ye’re still a bit weak and ye don’t know yer way around the keep. Do ye never listen to what’s best for ye?”
Trish flattened her palms tighter against the grainy surface of the wall and steadied her balance by shifting her feet a few more inches apart. “I believe I know what’s better for me than anyone else around here.” Irritation fueled more adrenaline in her veins, flushing her skin with prickly heat. “And I know my way around this keep as well as you do. Back in my time, I usually stay here about five months out of the year.” Lordy, she wished she’d found her clothes. This wool was eating her alive. Trish slid one hand up the bell-shaped sleeve of the other arm and scratched as high as she could reach.
Maxwell glared at her, thumbs hooked in the wide black belt around his waist and feet spread as though he were about to tackle any entity happening along. He didn’t say a word, just narrowed his eyes into a fierce stare and slightly tilted his head.
“Don’t stand there glaring at me like that. That look might scare children but it doesn’t faze me in the least.” Trish yanked her sleeve back into place, pushed away from the wall, and turned to walk away. The red weave of the carpeting centered in the hallway heaved up like a rolling wave, undulating back and forth in her field of vision with a nauseating spin. Trish slapped a hand across her mouth and swallowed hard against the rising bile burning at the back of her throat. She staggered sideways. The walls spun faster and dodged away from her extended hand. Trish closed her eyes as a pair of rock-hard arms circled about her shoulders and scooped behind her knees to pull her against a warm firm chest.
“Ye’ve not eaten in days, woman. Ye’re weak as a newborn calf.” Maxwell settled Trish more comfortably against his body, his voice lowering to a gentler scold as he leveled his gaze with hers. “And ye’re a damn sight too stubborn for yer own well-being.”
The steady beat of Maxwell’s strong pulse thumped through the scratchy folds of wool and warmed Trish’s flesh.Safety. Possessiveness. Caring. Claiming traits intuitively transmitted into her awareness with every beat of Maxwell’s heart. Trish shivered against the mesmerizing comfort she felt while cocooned in Maxwell’s arms. What the hell was wrong with her? He was just a hard-headed man. Trish squirmed against his broad chest. “I’m fine. Put me down. My head started swimming a bit because I turned too fast.”
Maxwell’s warm breath caressed her cheek as his arms tightened their hold. His full lips flattened into a determined line beneath the curls of his reddish mustache as he swung into a long-legged stride.
Trish wiggled again and poked his shoulder, struggling against the annoying urge to relinquish the fight and snuggle deeper into his arms. “I said you could put me down. I’m not dizzy anymore. I can take it from here.”
Silence. Maxwell stared straight ahead, swinging Trish back and forth in his arms with the rolling rhythm of his gait.
“Are you ignoring me?” Trish poked him again.
Maxwell’s bottom lip twitched but he still didn’t say a word. He just hitched her higher against his chest and sidled sideways down the curving staircase.
“Latharn was right. You are an insufferable asshole.” Trish yanked her arms into an irritated cross over her chest. One way or another, she’d show Maxwell Sullivan thatfifteenth-century behavior toward women wasn’t going to work with her. “And I’m gonna tell Ramsay that his father described you perfectly.”
Maxwell’s bottom lip twitched again, as did the corner of his right eye. Trish couldn’t tell if the man was about to growl or burst into booms of laughter. “Would you please do me the courtesy of responding?”
A quiet chuckle rumbled up from Maxwell’s chest. “Sorry, lass. I guess ye could say I was lost in my thoughts.”
“Lost in your thoughts?” Trish huffed.Damn him.How the hell could he be lost in his thoughts while lugging her down an endless flight of steps? Trish shifted her shoulders against the hardened muscles cradling her body.Damn him straight to hell!The more Maxwell pissed her off, the worse the infernal wool irritated her skin. She couldn’t decide which was worse: burning with fury or prickling from the attack of the flesh-eating wool. “Well since I’m apparently too boring to hold your attention, would you mind telling me what you were thinking?”
One corner of Maxwell’s mouth trembled beneath the shadow of his mustache as he paused on the first landing of the curved staircase. “I was just remembering a mare I once had. Ye are quite a bit like her.”
She reminded him of a horse? Trish clawed at the itching skin burning at the back of her neck. If he ever set her down, she was going to kill him—aftershe stripped off the torturous dress setting her skin on fire. “And how, pray tell, do I remind you of a mare you once owned?”
Maxwell’s face finally split into a blinding smile as he settled Trish on the carved wooden bench waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “My sweet little mare was quite the beauty. All who saw her loved her. But ye’d best take care when drawing close to her stall or ye would discover the viciousness of her bite.”
The viciousness of her bite? Trish clenched her teeth with an irritated grind, as she rubbed her itching back against the jagged carvings of the bench. She’d show himbite. “You’re quite the charmer, Maxwell. No wonder your sweet little mare tried to bite you. Whatever happened to her?”
Maxwell grinned and before Trish realized what he was doing, slid his hand down the back of her dress and scratched the elusive burning itch prickling just out of reach between her shoulder blades. The very itch she’d been dying to scratch ever since donning the cursed dress.
Oh lord have mercy. Please don’t stop.Trish shivered and without thinking, flexed her back and turned into Maxwell’s hand. “Lower and more to the right.”
