Page 36 of Fire in his Highland Heart

Arguen raised an eyebrow. The audacity this child had…

“Nay? Why did ye not care for it?”

Mirellain shrugged. “Animals dinnae talk,” she said, as if it were the plainest thing in the world. Which, actually, it was.

Arguen was still taken aback. Here she was treating the child for a life threatening illness, and she’d just been told her stories were, for lack of a better word, shite.

“Well, what stories do ye like then?”

“I wike it when Papa reads tae me,” she said.

“I think yer Papa is busy right now. He cannae read tae ye right this moment, lass.”

“But ye can,” she said with childlike optimism. She wasn’t wrong, of course.

“Right, aye, I can. Have ye any books in yer chamber?” she asked, looking around and seeing nothing of the sort.

Mirellain shook her head. “Nay, ye have tae go tae the wibrary,” she said, struggling to pronounce the last word.

“The...the library?” Arguen stammered.

“Aye. ‘Tis next tae Papa’s study. He reads tae me at night sometimes.”

Damn it, this child was causing her to develop some sort of attraction to Blake. Who could resist a coldhearted but secretly tender young laird who doted on his daughter and read stories to her at night? She shook her head as if to shake out the image of a half-dressed Blake with messy hair reading to his daughter by the fire.

“So... would ye like me tae find ye a book?”

The child nodded and listed her preferences. Even with the illness, she still knew what she wanted, and that was admirable. Her mother must have been made of strong stuff. Patsy was not back yet, however, and Arguen did not know her way around this part of the castle well enough yet. Every time she’d come to treat someone, it was in the kitchens, servants’ quarters, or great hall, not up here in the residential areas. And she hesitated to leave the child alone in such a state. But...she had promised to do everything in her power to make her better. If that meant reading her a book, so be it. And she was thinking...if she were Blake, she would want to be close to Mirellain no matter what. She figured the study and library were close by, perhaps on this floor.

She left the room, leaving the door just the slightest bit cracked in case she needed to come back quickly, and tiptoed down the corridor. Mostly it looked like extra bedchambers. Arguen could only peek through the cracks there, as everyone had been advised to stick to their quarters with such sickness about. Finally, she stumbled upon what she assumed was the library. That was the only thing it could be. It was a room perhaps the size of the bottom floor of her cottage, but with much higher ceilings. Books of all colors, sizes, and grandeur lined tall, dark shelves reaching up all the way to a ceiling that was painted with an elaborate biblical scene. Which one, she could not tell, but it took her breath away. It added a lightness to an otherwise dark room, as it only had two small windows at the very end. On the wall to the right of the door, there was a fireplace with a mantelpiece, atop which stood various figurines, an hourglass, a small globe, and a few other trinkets she couldn’t make out. Plush oriental rugs covered the floor, and there was a small round table at the back with two upholstered seats. Two armchairs with the same upholstery sat in front of the fireplace. And—much to Arguen’s surprise—there was an upper level, reachable by a small, winding staircase. There was also a ladder leaning against one of the shelves for those hard-to-reach books that were not quite on the upper level, but not low enough for one to grab.

It was a place in which the very air was alive with knowledge, and Arguen felt a little smarter just standing amongst the books. She had a job to finish, however, and she needed to get back to Mirellain as quickly as possible. The child had given her preferences; Arguen had to just find them now. It didn’t look like the books were sorted alphabetically by title or author, so she was confused for a moment. She walked around the room to take it all in, and to scan the shelves to see if she could find what she was looking for with a quick glance. Finally, she saw one of the titles, but it was on a higher shelf, not quite on the upper level, and just a bit away from the ladder. She climbed up the ladder, immediately cursing herself for not moving it closer to the books before she tried to grab one. She was so focused on the task at hand that she didn’t hear the door creak behind her, or the footfalls on the carpets. Arguen made a mad swipe for the book, but lost her balance. She yelped as she began to fall, but a pair of strong arms caught her before she hit the ground.

Laird Blake had caught her once again. Those dark eyes regarded her with curiosity and even amusement. Neither of them spoke for a moment, caught up in the drama and awkwardness.

“I think...this may be the second time ye’ve rescued me,” Arguen said, trying to break the awkwardness.

Blake gave a wry smile. “Happy to do it,” he quipped, and stood her upright. “What’re ye doin’ here in my library?”

Arguen stuttered. “I... Sir, I...so sorry, I didnae mean...”

Blake raised his eyebrows and let her stutter for a moment more. “Yer not in trouble, lass. I simply want tae ken what led ye here.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment, she thought perhaps she had entered some forbidden wing of the castle, and he was going to throw her in the dungeons. “Mirellain asked me tae tell her a story, but she didnae like mine.”

Blake chuckled. “A stubborn bairn, she is. She ken what she likes. What sort o’ story did ye tell her?”

Arguen explained how she’d had a dream and embellished it to make it a warrior queen who led an army of talking animals.

A laugh tugged at the corners of Blake’s mouth. “’Tis not yer fault. Mirellain isnae like other children. She wants tae learn about the real world.”

“She asked me tae tell her a story. I thought...I thought that meant somethin’ fanciful.”

Blake grinned. It was the first genuine smile she’d ever seen from him, and it stunned her for a moment. “She thinks me readin’ from any book is a story. I dinnae ken where she got that.”

Blake reached up—he was nearly a foot taller than she was—and grabbed the book she’d been reaching for with ease. His eyes widened in surprise when he read the title. “The Tempest, eh? She must be wantin’ something dramatic.”

“A Shakespeare?” Arguen asked, feeling a little silly as she said it. She was not particularly well-read, but she’d always longed to be a more learned person. All she knew of plays and books and things were from scraps of newspapers from Glasgow and Edinburgh that she’d found in the kitchens or nicked from drawing rooms when no one was looking.