“Another week.”
Before she could reply, he proved that her suspicion was well-warranted by revealing what he’d been hiding behind his back.
She sucked in her breath, the gleam of metal shimmering like a jewel in the morning sunlight in his hand.
She met his trying-not-to-laugh gaze.
“You are an evil man Niall Lamont.”
He didn’t bother to deny it and lowered the small knife that he’d been dangling like an apple from a tree right in front of her eyes. Suddenly she understood Eve’s temptation. “Then you do not want it?”
She snatched it from his hand before he could slide it back in the scabbard. “You know very well that I do.” She turned the knife in her hand, the handle fitting perfectly. It was as if it had been made for her. Suddenly she realized that it had. “You had it made for me. That was where you went yesterday.”
It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t need to respond. She felt something in her chest squeeze hard. If he’d wanted to find a way back into her heart, he would have been hard-pressed to find a more perfect gift. As he no doubt well knew.
Niall Lamont did still know her better than anyone in the world. That hadn’t changed after all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Niall got his week. And over the next few days, he felt as if he’d gotten far more. He was earning Annie’s trust again. He could feel that formidable will dissolving. That steely barrier she’d erected around her heart eroding.
He was winning her back, and it took everything he had not to try to race to the finish line. But her words a few days ago had chilled him. He knew that in the world they lived in men’s base urges were often given free rein and excused as nature. Rape as a weapon of war was a manifestation of that belief.
But that wasn’t him, and it wasn’t all men. He needed to show her that.
Annie had experienced violence, force, and lust. He wasn’t going to do anything to create confusion in her mind about him, his level of control, or his intentions.
Even if it killed him.
And there had been plenty of times in the past few days that it nearly had. She’d relaxed, which meant that when they were training, she didn’t so obviously attempt to avoid any kind of bodily contact with him. Once or twice, he thought she might have even gone out of her way to instigate and prolong the contact that did occur.
Yesterday, when he’d been teaching her a footwork maneuver to put her opponent on the ground, she’d fallen on top of him. When she’d slowly worked her way up his body to sitting astride him, his blood was pounding so hard and hot he thought it would burst from his veins.
No matter how many thoughts of cold dunks in the loch or naked old nuns that he tried to picture, he hadn’t been able to control the blood rush to one part of his body. And he was too big a man to hide behind the leather of his jerkin and trews.
She’d pretended not to feel his erection, but it had been too prominent to miss. The fact that she didn’t move or attempt to shift her weight from that very throbbing part of him made the throbbing all that much worse.
He’d controlled his needs all right. With a very cold bath and a very firm grip of his hand later that night.
She might not want him the same way she once had, but she didn’tnotwant him either. He just had to give her time. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how much time he had left.
He’d ridden out with Patrick the other day not just to look at the land, as he’d told her, but also because they’d heard rumors of the king’s men in the area, and Niall wanted to get word to his clansmen who were waiting nearby. He had them hunting for his pursuers right now to try to send them in the wrong direction.
Niall needed to tell Annie his plans, but he sensed that she wasn’t ready yet, and he didn’t want to force a decision on her before she needed to make one. But that day was fast approaching. He could feel the urgency in the cold air of the Michaelmas season upon them.
Niall thought that he’d done a good job of containing the knowledge of his identity to a select handful of Patrick’s guardsmen and immediate family until the end of the second week of training when he learned differently—while simultaneously ensuring that his presence would not remain a secret for long.
There was a small group of Campbell guardsmen whom Niall usually tried to avoid. The men were part of the contingent that Jamie Campbell had insisted upon at the castle when his sister married Patrick. Niall understood that their captain, Donnan, whom Patrick trusted, had been informed of his true identity, but the rest of the Campbells had been told that he was a “Murray” (aka MacGregor) clansman. But as Niall’s resemblance to his sister, Caitrina—their new lady—was marked, he thought it better not to draw too much attention to himself.
There was one Campbell guardsman in particular whom Niall didn’t like the looks of. Or rather, more precisely, he didn’t like the way the young guardsman looked at Annie. More than once, Niall had caught him staring at her for too long—too intently—and then whispering something in one of his compatriots’ ears, which inevitably caused smirks and laughter. It made Niall’s hackles rise. He didn’t need to know what the other man was saying to know that he wouldn’t like it.
He found out just how much he didn’t like it on the evening of a feast that was being held to celebrate the wedding of one of Patrick’s guardsmen. Niall arrived late after he and Robbie MacGregor—who’d returned from his errand at Molach—had sparred longer than they intended. It turned out the young guardsman was nearly his equal with a long sword, and the chance to have real competition had proved invigorating. The fact that they were in love with the same woman might have given their sparring an added edge, but Robbie seemed to accept Niall’s presence with a stoic good grace that made it hard not to like him.
With most of the tables full by the time they arrived, Niall and Robbie took a seat in the back of the room behind a table of boisterous Campbell guardsmen. From the sounds of it, thecuirmand ale had obviously been flowing for some time.
Niall was seated almost directly behind the young guardsman he didn’t like—Connell, he’d heard him called—when Annie rushed past them. She was obviously late, too, as her dark hair, which hung loosely down her back from under her simple linen coif, fell in damp waves down her back. Her cheeks were flushed as if she’d just stepped from her bath, and the plush velvet crimson gown she was wearing clung to her form as if slightly damp.
She looked mouthwateringly beautiful, and Niall’s wasn’t the only gaze that followed her form down the aisle.
