Her eyes struggled to find his, searching for a glare, a glower, something to tell him that she was not so entirely lost to him, butshe could not muster it. His thumb skimmed her most swollen part, and she gasped as he brushed his lips along her neck.
Back at the feast, she would have ached to kiss him as he had just kissed her now, relished in his passionate pursuit, but this… this was different. He had taken her away from her family, from her life, with no warning and no choice in the matter.
And yet here she was, rewarding him for it, letting him touch her and please her in ways that nobody else ever had before…
He pulled his hand away and she let out a whimper. She loathed herself as much as she craved him in that moment, hated that she could not deny how much she wanted him, despite it all, despite how much he infuriated her.
She couldn’t let him win this. She had to fight with her desire. She could see the burning lust in his eyes, so naked and so obvious it was almost enough to change her mind. To have a man look on her in such a way—not just any man, but a man like him, a man who commanded so much power and influence—it was intoxicating, and she could imagine how much better it would have felt to give herself to him entirely.
But, instead, she straightened her skirt and lowered her eyes to the ground as she dropped into a curtsy.
“Goodnight, my Laird” she mumbled to him, pulling the door open and putting some distance between the two of them. Her lips still tingling from the intensity of the kiss, her knees still trembling from the way he had touched her.
And before he could utter another word in protest, she turned on her heel and made her way back down the corridor, giving him a taste of his own medicine. Rushing towards her chambers she did her best to put out of her mind the way it had felt for him to tease her like he owned her once more.
Because if she lingered on it for too long, she knew she would have turned around and fallen into his arms and asked him to make her his in a way that she would never be able to returnfrom. No, what little power she had, she must cling to it with all her might, even if the intensity of his embrace was almost enough to convince her otherwise.
Chapter Ten
Isla toreopen the letter from Catriona eagerly as soon as she got back to her chambers, tipping out the contents onto her bed and jumping up to start flipping through them.
When the maids had arrived this morning with her breakfast, they had been quick to hand over a letter that had arrived for her that morning. Isla made sure she was kind enough to them, a little redemption for the way she had been treating the staff to get to Camron.
It seemed that Catriona had finally gotten around to writing to her, though she suspected that had been more her father’s doing than it had been anything else. She could not help but wonder how her family was getting on without her, if they thought of her often. It was all too easy for her to believe that she had slipped away with little notice and that, if they ever did think of her absence, it was with relief more than anything else.
She quickly skimmed over her sister’s neat handwriting, chewing on her lip as she searched for something that might indicate that she was missed. And, mercifully, it did not take long for her to find it. Catriona told her that their father had been talking about her nearly non-stop since the wedding, and Catriona herself had wished she could be there to see theceremony herself. She asked Isla how it had been, if it was everything she had hoped for from such an occasion, and Isla’s mind drifted to the kiss. That part, at least, had been exactly what she’d imagined, the sheer passion that existed between them in that moment…
And then, to Isla’s surprise, her sister mentioned Camron directly. To be precise, it was stated that Isla’s husband had written her a letter. She did not share what the contents of that letter had been, as though she imagined that Isla would already know about it.
Suspicion nagged at her. What had her husband been trying to find out about her that he thought only her sister would have been able to help with? She knew that paranoia was unlikely to get her far, but she could not help but feel bothered anyway.
She read the letter twice through, trying to imagine the words in Catriona’s voice, though that felt so distant to her now she could scarcely recall it. She tucked it into a drawer in the dressing table and pulled some clothes from the trunk next to the bed, slipping into a dress and reaching behind herself to try and do up the ties.
The maids had left her to take care of herself for the most part, and she supposed she could not blame them. She had hardly been the most pleasant company for them since she had arrived here, and, while that had been her intention, she could not help but feel a little guilty. She had not been raised to be a cruel woman, and it was not in her to act in such a way, no matter the reason. She was sure that she had already made enemies there, and no doubt they were gossiping about her down in the kitchen even as she tried to put on her dress.
It was a cold and drizzly day outside, so she kept to the Keep for the most part, taking tea in the library and running her fingertips over the spines of the books therein. She had never been much of a reader, but she supposed that she might becomeone now that she had all the time in the world to work her way through this collection.
Later in the day, as one of the maids stepped into the library to gather her cups, she lifted her head and smiled in thanks. The maid cast a glance at her dress, and a small smirk showed on her face as she shook her head.
“May I, my lady?” she insisted. “Ye’ve no’ done up the ribbons on the back properly, they’re all askew.”
Isla thought about protesting for a moment, but then rose to her feet, turning her back to the maid so she could help.
“I couldnae get a good look at them myself,” she explained, as the woman’s deft fingers set to work on the dress, organizing it so that it was not in so much of a mess.
“Aye, well, if ye’re to take dinner with the Laird tonight,” the woman remarked. “Ye’ll need to look yer best.”
Isla cast a look over at her in surprise.
“Dinner? With the Laird?”
“Aye,” she replied, as she smoothed out the back of the dress. “Did ye no’ hear, m’lady? I thought one of the cooks would have told ye…”
She shook her head, her heart sinking. After the way she had rushed off the night before, she could not imagine that he would have kind things to say to her, and perhaps she deserved it. The thought of being alone with him again set her teeth on edge, her body prickling as the memories of his touch flooded through her unstoppably.
“I suppose I’ll meet him in the Great Hall.”
“No, not the Great Hall,” the woman replied. “The room next to his study, the private one. Ye must ken it.”
