“Do you remember me?” he asked her, finally. She glanced up at him, and then straight down to the ground again, clutching her drink even tighter to her chest.
“Yes, I do,” she admitted finally. “We met… I mean, I think we met at the celebration for the wedding, a while ago.”
The way she spoke, it was almost as though she were trying to dodge the truth. The moment she had laid eyes on him, it was obvious that she knew who he was. She might have tried to pretend that she did not, but there was no shadow of a doubt in his mind that he had burned himself onto her memory, just as she had done for him.
He hadn’t gotten her name, the first night they had met. He’d hardly thought to ask. Something as prosaic as a name seemed unimportant, when her small, soft body was pressed against his. The scent of her hair, violets and a sweet musk, had filled his senses, and it left no room for anything else. He had heard the tone to her voice, the lilt of her English accent, and had known instantly that she wasn’t from around these parts—which only made her more intriguing to him. Someone who had known a life so different to the one he had known, he could only imagine everything she had experienced—and everything she had yet to experience, everything he could show her.
“I dinnae think I got yer name last time we spoke.”
“Mary.”
Mary.It seemed to suit her, something soft and innocent. A smile curled up his lips.
“And are you going to tell me what you’re called?” she demanded, her voice suddenly taking on an edge of defiance. Oh, he liked that. He liked the tone to her voice, the sureness in it. There was clearly more depth to this girl than he had given her credit for, and he only found her more intriguing with every passing second.
But before he could reply, a man appeared at her side. From the look on his face, Kiernan could tell that he was family. Only men who were related would have looked so concerned about his presence close to a woman they knew.
“Laird Fraser,” Arran greeted him calmly. “A pleasure to see you here. Perhaps ye’d like to meet with some of our other guests…”
“I’m fine where I am, my Laird” Kiernan replied. Arran bristled slightly. Clearly, it was not the answer he had been looking for. Mary, for her part, glanced up between the two of them with confusion, clearly not sure what to make of all of this.
“Kiernan,” Arran replied, his voice dropping slightly. Kiernan, of course, had heard tell of Arran’s reputation, but he was sure it would have softened since he had gotten married, especially since he now had a child in the world.
“Leave my sister-in-law alone, if you know what’s good for ye.”
His voice left no room for argument, his tone sharp and insistent. Mary’s lips parted, as though she wanted to protest, but Arran didn’t even look at her.
“Perhaps we should ask the lady what she thinks,Arran,” Kiernan shot back. He was challenging Arran. No wonder he was so protective of this girl, if she was the sister to his own bride.
“Arran, I’m quite capable of?—”
“Laird Fraser,” Arran cut her off. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer, that much, he was making clear. A smile spread further up Kiernan’s lips, his usual response to finding himself in the midst of a confrontation. It was an instinct that had gotten him in trouble plenty of times over the years, but one that, even after all this time, he struggled to shake.
But, he supposed, this was truly the celebration of the birth of Arran’s son. He should not choose today, of all days, to dig his heels in and insist that he get his time alone with Mary. There would come another chance for that, when the time was right. For now, he had made his impression, he had gotten her name. All else could wait.
He took Mary’s hand for a moment, squeezing it lightly.
“A pleasure to see you again, my lady.”
With that, he backed off into the crowd, leaving Mary staring after him, her hand tingling from the pressure of where he had just touched her, and her lips parted in shock.
Then, Mary rounded on Arran.
“What was all that about?” she demanded. She felt bad for snapping at him so on a day like this one, but she was irritated, and she could not very well hide it.
“Stay away from that man, Mary.”
Arran intoned his command in a low voice, watching as Kiernan—that was his name, wasn’t it? Mary was quite sure that she had heard Arran refer to him in such terms—vanished into the crowd. She noticed a few other women glancing in his direction, and had to bite back even more annoyance. After so long, she had finally found the man she had been thinking about all this time, only for her brother-in-law to cut in and stop her from doing what she wanted to do.
Whatever that might have been.
“It’s fer your own good, lass,” he snapped back at her, his voice dropping into a low and threatening tone that toldher everything she needed to know. No matter how much she might have craved his presence, that man was bad news. As she glanced after him once more, though, she found herself wondering justhowbad that news could have been, given the way her body tingled in response to him.
“Why? What has he done?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing. He shook his head.
“Keep yer distance. Ye’ll never need to find out.”
Before she could interrogate him on the matter any further, a slightly drunken woman appeared at his side to offer her congratulations on the birth of his son. Arran quickly covered his anger with a smile, and it was as though the confrontation with Kiernan hadn’t happened at all.
