He tasted faintly of mint and something darker. His lips were warm and sure, coaxing a response she did not know she was capable of giving. Her toes curled in her boots. The edge of the cutting table pressed into her hip, anchoring her in the midst of the dizzy heat.
When his tongue teased lightly on her bottom lip, she forgot entirely that they stood in a shop where anyone might walk in. Forgotten were O’Douglas and alliances and rules. There was only the way every nerve in her body seemed to wake at once.
She parted her lips on a faint sigh.
He deepened the kiss, slow and devastating. His thumb stroked the hollow just below her ear and she thought she might melt straight into the floor.
A faint sound in the back room snapped back into her awareness.
Footsteps.
She tore her mouth from his on a gasp. He drew back at once, chest rising and falling heavily, eyes dark and hazy.
They stared at each other.
The sound of Mistress Kinnaird humming drifted closer.
Without speaking, they stepped apart. Ariella’s hands flew to her hair, fingers smoothing and patting as if that could tame what they had just done. Maxwell turned a fraction away, jaw hard, his hands curling into loose fists at his sides.
By the time the modiste reappeared, arms full of ledgers, Ariella stood with what she hoped was a decorous distance between them and what she suspected was far too much color in her cheeks.
“All in order,” Mistress Kinnaird said happily. “We will have the first two gowns ready in a fortnight. The silk will take longer, but it shall be worth the wait.”
“I am sure it will,” Ariella managed.
Maxwell’s voice came rougher and more firm than usual. “We need at least two by tomorrow, Lilas.”
“T — tomorrow, me laird?”
Maxwell dropped a larger bag of coin on the counter, and repeated himself. “Delivered to the keep, the green and brown. And the silk, by the end of the week.”
“Me Laird, it is only me.”
“Consider that half, Lilas, and I will ensure ye receive the other half tomorrow upon delivery.”
Mistress Kinnaird bowed nervously. “It will be delivered by luncheon, me laird. Me lady.”
Maxwell grabbed Ariella’s hand and led her out of the shop like two people who had just survived a lightning strike.
The ride home was a study in silence.
No surface questions. No teasing. No anything.
The clop of hooves on the road, the whisper of wind through heather, the creak of leather beneath them. Every so often, Ariella risked a glance sideways.
Once, she caught him looking back.
Their eyes met for a fraction of a heartbeat.
Both of them looked away at once.
She spent the entire journey replaying the moment. Her impulsive kiss. His arm around her waist. The way he had answered, the way he had touched her with such careful hunger.
A kiss that should not have happened.
Scratch that.Anotherkiss that should not have happened. But it did happen.
By the time the towers of McNeill came into view, her heart was a confused tangle of longing and dread.
