Not only that, it was a song she was familiar with, one that she dearly loved as a young bairn. It was the song she had expected to one day dance with her suitor to and fall madly in love. A couple nearly bumped into them and Gretna had to move closer to Remy, who immediately placed his hand at her lower back, his touch burning her through several layers of clothing.
They would never get anywhere right now. Turning to him, she tugged on his tunic.
“Dance with mah.”
Perhaps if they were part of the fray, then she could get close to the high table once more and find James, repair something from this horrid night so far.
Remy’s eyes widened. “Wot?”
“Dance with mah,” she repeated, arching a brow. “Unless ye donna know how.”
His lips quickened to a grin and he swept her in his arms, earning a squeal from Gretna as he did so.
“Lass, ye dinna know wot ye have started.”
Gretna rested her hand on his shoulder, feeling her heart start to race with excitement.
“Show mah then, Remy Wallace.”
8
He was dancing with Gretna. Remy placed his hands on her slim waist and lifted her into the air, watching as her eyes lit with excitement before he settled her on her feet.
“How’s that for dancing?” he taunted, falling back into the step of the dance.
“Not bad,” she answered, a teasing smile on her face. “But tis one move, Remy Wallace. I donna know if ye can handle the rest.”
Oh, he could, very much so. Dancing was something that he had learned at a young age, a means to get the lasses to let him come near them. There was nothing more successful to have a lass allow him to pull her onto the dance floor, knowing he could woo her into his bed before the end of a song.
Of course, that wasn’t what he was trying to do with Gretna. In all fairness, she had asked him to dance, and whatever her motive behind doing so, he didn’t care.
She was letting him touch her with his worn, calloused hands. She was smiling at him and not that arse of a Scot that thought he could handle someone as fiery as Gretna Wallace. It had taken all that Remy had not to storm over there the firsttime James McCellan had touched Gretna, wanting to caution him about taking such liberties with a laird’s sister.
It had been the look on Gretna’s face that had stopped him, remembering what Ian had told Remy about his sister.
“She wants love,”he had said with a laugh.“Love! If mah sister is not careful, love will have her living in a hovel somewhere with a Scot that canna provide for her.”
Gretna, in Remy’s eyes, deserved a fine keep such as this. She deserved to have the title of Lady and nothing less.
But love? Remy didn’t see the art of love on McCellan’s face.
“Remy?”
Realizing he had been lost in his thoughts, Remy winked at Gretna. “Sorry, lass. I got caught up in the music.” He knew he hadn’t missed a step. He could dance the steps in his sleep.
She eyed him suspiciously but he just swung her around with the other dancers until she was laughing once more. Her laugh. It could take the breath out of him in an instant, make him fall to his knees with want to hear it again.
It could destroy him. “Could ye be happy here, lass?” he asked once they were pulled back together, mere inches from each other.
She searched his eyes. “Why do ye ask?”
“Humor mah,” he told her, giving her a fake grin. Inside, he was miserable to hear what she would say and knew it would affect him.
Gretna looked over his shoulder, her lips pressed together. “I donna know. Tis everything I want.”
An honest answer. Remy gritted his teeth together and swung her around for a final time, knowing that their dance was drawing to a close. “Wot keeps ye from saying yes, lass?”
She snapped her eyes back to his and he saw something he hadn’t anticipated; warring emotion in their depths. If she told him, what could he do? What would he say?
