Page 27 of The Laird’s Wrong Wife

The study fell quiet. Ceana’s laughter faded. She stood several paces away, still flushed, her chest rising faster than the dance required. Her gaze moved over his face before settling on his mouth.

Oscar became aware of every inch between them. The rhythm of the dance remained in his body, along with the curve of her waist beneath his palm. Sudden privacy stripped away the restraint demanded by his children’s presence, and his manhood pressed hard against the front of his breeches.

Ceana must not see it.

He turned toward the desk and walked behind it, grateful for the broad panel of oak that concealed him. “Whisky?”

Her eyebrows drew together at his abrupt retreat. “Why nae?”

He reached for the decanter and poured with deliberate care. The stream struck the cup without a tremor. He braced one hand against the desktop and concentrated on the burn of his own drink, the cool rim of the cup, and the figures waiting inside the abandoned ledger.

Desire lingered beneath his skin. He refused to burden Ceana with it while she was locked in his study and dependent on someone else to open the door. Their bargain had promised separate lives. Her consent to the marriage granted him no rights beyond the terms she had accepted.

He carried her whisky around the desk once the pressure in his breeches had eased. Ceana took the cup, studying him as though the brief withdrawal had become another question in her game.

“Are ye pleased with yer first family hour?” he asked.

She sipped. “It might have ended better without imprisonment.”

“Ye demanded an hour they would remember.”

“I had hoped they might remember the conversation.”

“They will remember that ye made their faither dance.”

Her eyes brightened over the rim of her cup. “Oh well, it was nice to see ye loosen up.”

“Aye. A lapse in judgment.”

“Ye werenae that bad a dancer. I mean, yer steps were… respectable.”

Oscar narrowed his eyes at her. “Respectable?”

Ceana raised a hand. “I reserve praise until I have seen whether ye can manage a livelier tune.”

Oscar stepped closer. The challenge invited an answer he had no business giving while her lips still shone with whisky. “Tomorrow, perhaps.”

Ceana lowered her cup. The distance between them narrowed until he could see her pulse fluttering at the base of her throat.

“I am glad ye will be me bride,” he admitted.

Her fingers froze against her cup. She searched his face, and he let her. A dry qualification would have restored safer ground. He had no wish to offer one.

“Do ye mean that?”

“Aye.”

“Ye chose me because Tommy obeyed me.”

“Well, I never said it was the whole reason. It was only a part of it.”

“And what is the rest?”

Oscar could have mentioned her courage. He could have spoken of her loyalty to Daphne or the way she had entered his household and noticed needs he had trained himself to overlook. But none of those answers accounted for the urge to snatch the cup from her hand and taste the whisky from her mouth.

He lifted his hand. A loose strand of hair hung against her cheek. His fingers brushed it back, lingering on the line of her jaw.

Ceana remained where she was. Her breath caught, and her gaze dropped to his mouth. She set the whisky on the desk without looking away. When Oscar’s thumb moved once over her cheek, her hand rose and closed lightly around his wrist.