“Me name is Duncan Grant,” he added, as though mentioning the weather.
The name struck her with the force of a blow.
Grant. Laird Duncan Grant.
Her steps faltered.
He noticed at once. “Ye recognize it.”
“Aye,” she said quietly.
How could she not? The Grants and the MacKenzies had been enemies for years, their clashes spoken of in hushed tones andsharp warnings. Men were raised on those stories, while women learned to fear them.
That was the moment when hope stirred. It was small and dangerous, yet irresistibly present. If she were withhim, if she disappeared into Grant lands, her fiancé Lachlan MacKenzie would never think to look there. Pride alone would blind him. Besides, he would never assume that she had gone with the enemy… not in a million years.
She lifted her gaze to Duncan, studying him anew. That ease with which he had fought, that confidence, that control… and then, she noticed everything else.
He was infuriatingly handsome. There was a roughness to him that only made his features more striking now. His coat hung open, revealing the breadth of his shoulders and the solid strength of his muscular frame. She noticed a small scar by his left temple, hidden by a handful of dark curls.
Elaina felt a traitorous warmth stir in her chest. She scowled at herself. She had nearly been dragged back to a life she would rather die than endure, and yet here she was, cataloguing the breadth of a stranger’s shoulders and the steadiness of his hands.
It was absurd. Reckless.Dangerous.
Worse still, it unsettled her how safe she felt walking beside him.
Realizing then that he was still holding her, she shifted slightly, reaching up to adjust her cloak, which a thin pretext but enough to satisfy her pride. As she pulled away, his hand loosened and Duncan made a low sound, which was sharp and involuntary.
He faltered half a step.
Elaina froze. “Ye’re hurt.”
“It’s naething,” he said at once, waving it off and straightening.
She turned on him so quickly he stopped short. “Ye dinnae ken that.”
His brow lifted, faintly amused despite the pallor she now noticed beneath the lantern light. “I beg yer pardon?”
“Ye groaned,” she pointed out. “Men who are unharmed dinnae dae that.”
She reached for him without thinking, as her fingers closed around his sleeve. The contact sent a jolt through her in an amalgamation of awareness, heat and something dangerously close to familiarity.
Duncan looked down at her hand, then back to her face, his mouth curving. “And here I thought I was the one rescuingye.”
“Ye are bleeding,” she said, pretending to unimpressed by him and what he had done.
“Only a little.”
“Enough,” she replied, “tae warrant attention.”
She stepped closer, her focus narrowing as it always did when someone was injured. The world fell away as her eyes tracked the dark stain spreading beneath his coat.
“Let me see,” she insisted.
He studied her for a moment, as though weighing resistance purely out of principle. Then he sighed. “Very well. But if ye intend tae scold me, be brief.”
She ignored the remark and tugged his coat aside just enough to confirm what she had suspected. The wound was not deep, but it was still a bad cut, likely earned when the second man fell.
Duncan watched her with open curiosity now. “Ye handle injuries like someone accustomed tae them,” he murmured. “Should I assume ye are also a healer, in addition tae being a woman who picks dangerous alleys?”
