“I’ve always wanted to make more of a connection to the Gunns, one clan of distillers to another. My father always praised ye when I was a child, and now that we’ve rebuilt our distillery, I’d love to talk about your process.”
Kirsty grinned as Ciaran’s shoulders went taut with tension.
“Ach, dinnae think that ye can use your pretty face to charm us out of our secrets,” Kirsty said, wagging a playful finger at Ewan. “We?—”
“We dinnae distill any longer.” Ciaran’s words were flat and held no room for argument. “Any secrets are the secrets of the past.”
His words cut through the lightheartedness of the conversation, leaving the air between them fraught with tension.
Ewan frowned. “That’s strange,” he muttered, though it sounded a great deal more as though he felt it was suspicious, not merely odd. “I thought I recently heard a merchant talking of Gunn spirits at market.”
An iron band clenched around Ciaran’s heart.
“Nay,” he said in that same forbidding tone. “We havenae distilled since before the rebellion. The king forbade it. We wouldnae risk his displeasure.”
Ewan got the same disgusted look on his face that any good Scotsman did upon reference to the tyrannical English king,and, for once, Ciaran didn’t have to hide his own reaction, which was precisely aligned with Ewan’s.
“I see,” Ewan commented so mildly that it could only mean that his mind was churning.
Ciaran might have recognized that, but he was still relieved when the conversation turned to safer topics.
Arran McPherson cajoled his wife into joining him for a dance, leaving the space between Ciaran and Eilidh unobstructed. While Kirsty amused herself telling tales of clan gatherings past.
He’d tried again to catch Eilidh’s eye, but she ignored him. He could no longer say that she was doing anything but purposefully ignoring him.
And he, like an idiot, did not let it lie.
“Are ye having a pleasant evening?” he ventured, mentally kicking himself.
Why did he care if she ignored him? Just because she’d been kind to him while he was convalescing didn’t mean… It didn’t mean anything at all.
She gave him a polite smile that had none of the mischief he’d come to associate with her in it. She scarcely looked feylike at all.
“I am,” she said.
And then… nothing.
Frustration bloomed in Ciaran along with something that felt faintly like shame. Had he really expected that he could scold her in public and then have her forget all about it?
Well, yes. Yes, he had. He’d mistaken her kindness for something weak, had assumed that her cheerful, sometimes silly demeanor meant that she was a fool.
That hadn’t been right. He felt strangely apologetic about it, not that it would be wise to say any such thing aloud.
Even worse than regret was that this realization made him like her that much more.
He really ought to let it go, ought to let this chill between them turn to frost. That would be the wise thing. He should avoid making any connections while he was here and then get the hell away from the Donagheys as soon as possible.
But he must have taken some heretofore undiagnosed blow to the head during his injuries, because he found himself speaking again.
“That’s… good,” he said inanely. “You like dancing?”
Jesus Christ, where was an enemy when you needed one? If someone had leapt out of the shadows just then and run him through with a sword, Ciaran would have used his dying breath to thank them for putting him out of his misery.
Because now it wasn’t only Eilidh looking at him strangely—it was Kirsty, too, a sly look in her expression that spelled trouble.
“Aye,” Eilidh agreed, tone still cool. “I like dancing.”
Another guard, this one at least old enough to grow a beard, passed by just in time to hear this comment.
