“Because you wield a heavy sword,” she snipped, something inside her rebelling against being lulled.
“As can James,” came his unruffled reply. “With practice. And if you let him.”
“Let him?” She blinked. “There is nothing I would not do for him.”
“It gladdens my heart to hear it.” His bliss-spending hands stilled for a moment. “For when we truly love someone, my lady, sometimes we must also care enough to let go of them.”
He began kneading her shoulders then, much as he’d done earlier. And, as before, cascades of warm, pleasurable tingles slid through her at his touch.
His magical touch.
Caterine sighed, her eyelids growing heavy.
“Sleep, sweeting,” he said. His wondrous hands loosened her muscles – and her cares – one by one, easing her into a dreamlike state where the air was soft, misty, and warm.
A place where the arms cradling her proved more inviting than all the pillows mounded high upon her bed.
She also appreciated the rhythmic rise and fall of his warrior’s chest, his steady breathing. Even his soft snores gave her more comfort than she’d ever known.
Snores?
Her eyes snapped open.
Watery, gray light leaked through the shutter slats, heralding the approach of a new day.
Unfortunately, the cold embers in the hearth seemed to mock her. They gave irrefutable evidence she’d spent the night in Sir Marmaduke Strongbow’s arms.
More than that, she’d slept well there.
As had Leo.
Her little dog lay curled against the Sassunach’s feet. And much to her astonishment, Leo appeared most content.
Aharrumphrose in her throat, but lodged there with the startling realization that she felt no less at ease waking wrapped in her champion’s warmth, shielded by his goodness and strength.
Sometimes we must care enough to let go.
His words came out of nowhere, or perhaps they’d lingered through the night, floating in the darkness, waiting. Hovering on the threshold of some magical place the night had tried to take her, in the hopes of capturing her with the rising sun?
Care enough to let go.
Could she?
Abandon all she knew and loved…and the darkness inside her?
Could her champion slay her hidden foes as easily as he meant to rid her of more tangible menaces?
As she lay snuggled against him in the darkness, she stared into the deep, gray silence of the new day and wondered.
Chapter 28
The laird’s due.
To most, fortress, title, and power.
To James Keith, an empty ewer of soured wine, an equally drained chalice, and a raging ache in his temples.
His laird’sduty, pacing the broad sweep of his bedchamber’s curving bank of windows and keeping his gaze trained on the narrow spit of land connecting Dunlaidir’s walled compound with the rugged cliffs of the mainland. His circuit around his room, a cold vigil he’d kept all through the night as his burning eyes attested.
