Chapter 9 #2
“All done,” Mistress Kinnaird declared. “Ye may dress.”
Ariella hurried back into her gown, fingers clumsy at the laces. She emerged, hair slightly mussed, cheeks too warm, laughing with Mistress Kinnaird about lace.
“I do not need frills at every edge,” she said. “If ye put lace on the sleeves and the hem and the neckline, I will trip over myself trying to be dainty.”
“Ye would wear it well,” the modiste teased.
“I would spill stew on it in an hour,” Ariella replied.
Her laughter felt like it filled the shop. To her horror and secret delight, Maxwell’s lips curved.
He was smiling.
In public.
She gasped theatrically. “He smiles after all.”
His gaze snapped to hers, heat flashing there. “Careful,” he said in a low, warning tone that did very little to stop her heart from racing.
Her own grin only widened. “Should I be afraid?”
“Probably,” he said.
The way he said it made her toes curl in her boots.
They chose fabrics. Green wool. Soft brown. A pale cream for a lighter gown. Discussions of sleeves and hems and how many ribbons a grown woman could reasonably wear without looking like a maypole.
Through it all, Maxwell gave few words, but when Mistress Kinnaird pressed him, he gave quiet nods that somehow felt heavier than lavish praise.
Before they left, the modiste excused herself to fetch a book from the back room.
Ariella turned, fingertips trailing over the stack of chosen fabrics, heart light.
Then she heard Maxwell’s voice.
“Use the blue silk as well,” he said.
She froze.
Mistress Kinnaird paused in the doorway to the back. “The blue, me Laird?”
“Aye,” he said. “The one she touched first. Ye have her measurements. Make a gown from that. The cost is nay matter.”
Ariella’s heart lurched up into her throat.
He had noticed.
Heat flooded her chest, shimmering and fragile. No one had ever done that. Seen something she liked, watched her give it up without complaint, and quietly decided to give it to her anyway.
When Mistress Kinnaird disappeared, Ariella turned.
“Maxwell,” she said.
He looked at her, unreadable. “Aye?”
“There is nay need to do that,” she said. “Truly. The others are more than enough.”
He shrugged, as if it cost nothing. “I said appearances matter. That silk will serve well for formal occasions. It suits ye.”
Her knees went a little weak at that simple, gruff compliment.
“It is too dear,” she said, still protesting for form’s sake.
“I did nae ask yer opinion on the price,” he said quietly.
Her lips parted. “Ye are impossible.”
“Ye’ve said as much, me lady.”
Mistress Kinnaird vanished fully into the back, leaving them alone in the bright front of the shop, the bell above the door silent, the world outside feeling very far away.
The gratitude swelled in her chest until it had nowhere to go.
“Thank ye,” she said softly. “Truly, Maxwell.”
He shifted, as if the words made him uncomfortable. “It is nothin’.”
“It is nae,” she insisted.
He lowered his gaze slightly, looking not at her face but at the space between them. For once, he seemed just as unsure where to put his hands as she often felt.
That did something to her.
Before she could think it through, before she could ruin it with overthinking, she stepped closer, rose on her toes, and pressed a quick, light kiss to the corner of his mouth.
A soft brush. Barely there.
He went still.
Absolutely still.
Her heart stopped. Oh saints. What have I done.
“I… I am sorry,” she began in a rush. “I should nae have done that, I just meant to thank ye, and I did nae think, and I ken ye wanted distance, and I keep ruining it, and I am sor—”
He moved.
In one smooth motion he caught her around the waist and pulled her in, his hand firm at the small of her back. Her breath caught as her body collided with his, the solid warmth of his chest against hers.
Then he kissed her back.
Not a brush this time. Not a question.
His mouth settled over hers with deliberate care and restrained hunger. The world dropped away. The fabrics, the light, the shelves, all blurred into nothing.
She made a small sound, half surprise and half relief, and he swallowed it.
His other hand rose, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck, tipping her head just so. She clutched at his shirt, and her knuckles pressed to hard muscle.
He tasted faintly of mint and something darker. His lips were warm and sure, coaxing a response she did not know she was capable of giving. Her toes curled in her boots. The edge of the cutting table pressed into her hip, anchoring her in the midst of the dizzy heat.
When his tongue teased lightly on her bottom lip, she forgot entirely that they stood in a shop where anyone might walk in. Forgotten were O’Douglas and alliances and rules. There was only the way every nerve in her body seemed to wake at once.
She parted her lips on a faint sigh.
He deepened the kiss, slow and devastating. His thumb stroked the hollow just below her ear and she thought she might melt straight into the floor.
A faint sound in the back room snapped back into her awareness.
Footsteps.
She tore her mouth from his on a gasp. He drew back at once, chest rising and falling heavily, eyes dark and hazy.
They stared at each other.
The sound of Mistress Kinnaird humming drifted closer.
Without speaking, they stepped apart. Ariella’s hands flew to her hair, fingers smoothing and patting as if that could tame what they had just done. Maxwell turned a fraction away, jaw hard, his hands curling into loose fists at his sides.
By the time the modiste reappeared, arms full of ledgers, Ariella stood with what she hoped was a decorous distance between them and what she suspected was far too much color in her cheeks.
“All in order,” Mistress Kinnaird said happily. “We will have the first two gowns ready in a fortnight. The silk will take longer, but it shall be worth the wait.”
“I am sure it will,” Ariella managed.
Maxwell’s voice came rougher and more firm than usual. “We need at least two by tomorrow, Lilas.”
“T — tomorrow, me laird?”
Maxwell dropped a larger bag of coin on the counter, and repeated himself. “Delivered to the keep, the green and brown. And the silk, by the end of the week.”
“Me Laird, it is only me.”
“Consider that half, Lilas, and I will ensure ye receive the other half tomorrow upon delivery.”
Mistress Kinnaird bowed nervously. “It will be delivered by luncheon, me laird. Me lady.”
Maxwell grabbed Ariella’s hand and led her out of the shop like two people who had just survived a lightning strike.
The ride home was a study in silence.
No surface questions. No teasing. No anything.
The clop of hooves on the road, the whisper of wind through heather, the creak of leather beneath them. Every so often, Ariella risked a glance sideways.
Once, she caught him looking back.
Their eyes met for a fraction of a heartbeat.
Both of them looked away at once.
She spent the entire journey replaying the moment. Her impulsive kiss. His arm around her waist. The way he had answered, the way he had touched her with such careful hunger.
A kiss that should not have happened.
Scratch that. Another kiss that should not have happened. But it did happen.
By the time the towers of McNeill came into view, her heart was a confused tangle of longing and dread.
Ariella had wanted distance once, she realized.
But now? Now, she did not know what she wanted at all.