Her mouth curved. “It is fine, Logan. I am certain I can manage.”
His eyes dropped to her hands. Her shaking hands.
Now, why in God’s name were her hands shaking?
She did not let the moment linger before she tucked them into the pockets of her dress. Her gaze flicked up and trailed over his beard.
“You look like trouble,” she remarked. “Less laird than pirate.”
“Aye,” he said. “That is what I am.”
“The beard is achoice,” she whispered, then walked to the basin. A razor lay on the edge, clean and glistening. She picked it up and turned back. “If you intend to sit with other elders and lairds, you should not look like you slept in a rope coil.”
“And what would ye have me do?”
She nodded at the one chair. “Sit.”
His eyebrows rose. “Ye are fond of ordering me around.”
“I am Lady MacLellan,” she said. “Sit.”
They held each other’s eyes, then he dragged the chair into the middle of the room and sat. His hands rested on his thighs, and his shoulders stayed tight.
She stepped behind him, and up close, she saw the scar near his ear and the fine white line at his hairline.
“Do not move,” she murmured.
“Ye daenae need to tell me twice. I like having two ears.”
She laughed and set the blade against the edge of his beard. Her fingers wanted to tremble, but she forced them to steady.
“My brother started to grow a beard at fourteen. I had to shave him twice before he learned.”
“And I assume you couldnae do it more than twice because ye slit his throat?”
“For a man with a razor at his throat, ye are quite the jester.”
He shrugged as she hooked her hand under his jaw and tilted his head back.
Perhaps it was the light in the room or just her blood pumping in her veins, but his eyes looked more mesmerizing than usual. The dark brown in them seemed to shine, and if he noticed, how she stared at him, he said nothing.
She swallowed and kept her gaze on his jaw instead. His skin was warm, and she worked as carefully as she could. Once, her knuckles brushed his mouth, and his breath hitched. Again, when she ran the razor along his throat.
“Hold still,” she muttered.
“Ye are the one shaking,” he pointed out, voice lower now.
She turned around to face him. “Turn toward the light.”
He did.
The candle accentuated the angle of his cheekbones. She cleared the hair under his lip, then along the hollow of his neck. Her fingers slid where the blade had been.
The only sounds were their breathing and the soft scrape of steel.
When she finished, she stepped back and let the razor hang at her side.
“There,” she said. “See?”
