“I think we have better things to do than cater to the duke.” Aila cocked her head and studied him. There was something in his expression…not humor or irritation. Not even worry. Nay, it almost looked like anticipation. Giving Rab one last scratch, she straightened. “What? What are ye thinking?”
“I thought I might do as Argyll requested.” His hands fisted, a muscle twitching in his cheek. Long strides carried him down the hallway. “Beard the lion in his den, so to speak.”
She chased him with Rab on her heels as they descended the stairs. Finn waited for her at the bottom. “My apologies. I’m rather distracted.”
“Justified and forgiven,” she assured him. “It’s been a day.”
With a nod, he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm as they strolled toward their rooms.
“A day I would have thought ye’d have had enough of by now,” she added. “Are ye certain ye want to go down there?”
“I need to face what I saw there this afternoon.” His jaw worked, then hardened. “I need to face a great many things. Odd thing to ken that the world one has dwelled in and accepted for so long can be proven false in the blink of an eye.”
“I’m here for ye, Finn,” she assured. “In any way ye need me to be.”
A faint smile hovered on his lips. “I wouldnae make that offer too freely, lass. There is a part of me wanting to forget all my woes in the arms of a bonny lass. Ye have a way of taking me to a place where there is nae thought, only feeling. Where I lose myself completely. I have a mind to take ye there.”
As poignant desire began to pool in her belly about halfway through his speech, Aila wouldn’t argue if he wanted to do exactly that. It would be far more pleasurable than the rest of the day had been thus far. She tossed him a saucy grin. “I have a mind to let ye.”
He caught her behind the nape and kissed her hard, almost desperately. She melted against his hard body not caring that he was as wet and cold as she. The shiver that stole down the length of her body had nothing to do with the chill. In seconds, she was positively steamy.
“Finn,” she sighed and threw back her head as his hot mouth skimmed down her neck. “I’ve missed ye so much. It’s been horrible without ye.”
A huff of humor brushed her neck before he lifted his head to smile down at her. “All that? The hours since I fell asleep with ye in my arms have seemed an eternity. I woke alone and lonely, I’ll admit. Even so, ’twas a matter of a mere four or five hours from morning until I found ye in the passage. Hardly enough time to be missed.”
“For me, it was two weeks.”
Her confession had an effect quite the opposite of the one she expected. He stared down at her, his expression unreadable. “How?”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I went back to my time for a bit.”
“A bit? Two weeks seems rather long fora bit.” His brow deepened into a scowl as he worked it out. The disguise, her attempts to evade him. The whole shebang. He hadn’t been wrong earlier, he was clever. “Yeleftme?”
Chapter 32
“Finn, I…” What could she say?
Turning on his heel, he opened the door to his bedchamber. Aila was afraid he would slam it in her face. To her surprise, he left it ajar and she took it as an invitation to follow. Rab sat near the fireplace, gaze swiveling from her to Finn and back again as if he were curious how this would play out. Aila was curious too. Sitting on the edge of his bed, she experienced a sense ofdéjà vu. Except Finn wasn’t stripping off his clothes for her and he wasn’t arming himself for an attack as he’d been not long ago
Without a word, he shed his wet clothing and briskly dried himself with a towel without deigning to look at her. When he did finally speak, she practically jumped off the bed. “Somewhere amid yer frantic sluffing of that heinous costume earlier —” he pointed at the pile still on the floor “— I thought ye promised me the truth in all things. Was it something I said? Or did? I ken I’ve been an arse.”
“Oh, Finn, nay.” Remorse tightened her chest. “Ye did nothing wrong. In fact, I’d go so far as to say ye’ve done everything rather right.”
“Obviously no’ everything.”
Throwing the towel aside, he strode to his chest of drawers. His broad back bulging with muscle tapering down to narrow hips. Firm arse and thick thighs. She should have been drooling. All Aila could see, however, was him walking away from her. Who would blame him? She’d even admit that she’d pushed him along. Maybe so far, she’d never get him back. She’d been such a numpty.
He yanked on a pair of black breeches and bent to pull on a pair of white stockings before rather ruthlessly shoving his feet into leather shoes with shining silver buckles. Straightening, his lips tight and expression shuttered, Aila wallowed in her many regrets. Already she had hurt him when it was the last thing she’d ever wanted.
“Ye did startle me that night. Last night,” she clarified for his point of view. “It was nothing ye said or did wrong. It was me and my problems that I ran from. No’ ye.”
With a gruff scoff of disbelief, Finn pulled a crisp white linen shirt over his head and stood in front of a small mirror to tie his cravat in an intricate knot.
“More to the point, I ran away from what ye made me feel.” The confession was hard to deliver. Brontë had been right about everything.
His gaze shifted to her in the mirror. “And what was that?”
Loved.“To be honest, I was a little freaked out by the intensity of it.”
