Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
“Ye spend too much time in here alone.”
She startled. One moment, she was alone in the library with the folklore volume open across her knees.
The next moment, she was not, and the quality of the air in the room had changed entirely.
The book slid half off her knee, and she caught it badly, fingers fumbling, and she hated that, hated that Laird MacRaeh had managed to catch her off guard.
A full week had passed since she had twisted her ankle and she was fully recovered. Isobel stretched her legs in front of her and turned her toes from side to side, just because she could. He snorted and she deliberately turned the page first, then looked up.
He was closer than he should have been. He stood just beyond the arm of her chair, with his coat still on and his grey eyes on her face.
The afternoon light caught the hard line of his jaw and the scar along it.
He looked, as he almost always did, like something carved out of the landscape of this place that would outlast everything around it.
Her pulse jumped at the base of her throat.
“I do it,” she said, and her voice came out almost entirely even, almost, “to stay out of trouble.”
He looked at her, his grey eyes shifting from her face to the book and back, saying nothing. The candlelight caught the line of his jaw and the breadth of his shoulders, making the room feel smaller than it had a moment ago.
She turned another page. She had no idea what was on it.
“Ye’re nae readin’,” he said.
“I am reading.”
“Ye havenae looked at the page.”
She had not. She had been staring at his hands—the width of them, the way they hung loosely and confidently at his sides. She had been thinking about the way he had handled her ankle, laid a kiss on her injury, then carried her back home to safety.
She had been staring at the same paragraph for the last thirty seconds, and the fact that he had noticed this was its own particular problem.
“Lunar customs,” she said, holding up the spine briefly.
“Old ceremonies. The full moon rituals.” She set it back down.
“Jane told me about them. I wanted to know more.”
He closed the distance between them entirely and leaned forward, implying that he was reading over her shoulder.
She did not lean back. She tipped her chin up and held his gaze and felt her pulse in the base of her throat and her collarbone and somewhere considerably lower than that, and she was not going to think about that.
“There is a restricted section,” he said. “At the back of the room. Behind the locked door.”
She knew about the door. She had pressed her palm flat against it on her second day and wanted very badly to know what was on the other side. “What is in it?”
“Books on alchemy,” he said. “Old Highland legends. The kind of knowledge the church spent two centuries tryin’ to burn.” His eyes did not move from hers. “The kind of thing ye’d like.”
The fire ticked. Outside, the rain had begun, slow and steady at the high windows.
“And you have the key,” she said.
“Aye.”
She looked at him. The room was warm and very quiet, and he was extremely close. She suddenly became painfully aware of his mouth and the firm set of it. She looked away first, something she almost never did, and hoped he had not noticed.
He reached into his coat pocket and held the key up between two fingers. Old iron, heavy, the kind that belonged to a door that had been locked for a long time. He looked at it for a moment and then back at her.
“A game,” he said. “I ask ye a question.” His voice was low and even and gave nothing away, and she felt it at the back of her neck. “Ye answer correctly, I give ye the key. Access to everythin’ behind that door.” He paused. “Ye answer wrong…”
He let it sit there. Let her wait for it.
“Ye surrender a layer of clothin’.”
The words landed in the quiet room and stayed there.
Isobel stared at him. Her mind went completely blank. Not for long. A second, maybe two, but long enough to feel the emptiness, to sense the heat flooding in immediately after, climbing from her chest to her throat and then to her face with a speed she could not control.
She was aware of several things at once: the fire behind her, the rain on the window, and the key turning slowly between his fingers. She knew exactly where he was, how still he was, and that her heart was pounding so loudly she was nearly sure he could hear it.
“I… I beg your pardon?” she said.
“Ye heard me.”
“I heard you. I want to be sure I understood you. You are proposing to ask me questions, and if I answer incorrectly, I am to remove… clothing.”
“Aye.”
She waited for the qualifier, for the smile that would turn it into a jest she could dismiss and set aside.
It did not come. He stood in her space, the key between his fingers, his eyes on her face, and the patience of a man who had already decided how this was going to go, simply waiting for her to catch up.
Heat pooled low in her belly and refused to move, along with the thought that she wanted to know what to feel his hands on her again, removing her stockings, and cradling her like a bubble that might burst.
She pushed that thought down as far as it would go.
“If I agree to this, what do I get in return?” She lifted her chin and stared at him superciliously. “If I ask you questions, and you answer incorrectly, will you peel off a layer of your own clothing?”
His eyes flashed with impish delight. “Is that what ye want, me Lady?”
“Yes,” she answered simply. A sly smile stole over his face. “Good. Then, let us begin.”
“What are the questions?” she said.
He looked surprised. “Highland history,” he said. “Clan law. The old ways. Things a well-read woman would ken, if she paid attention.”
“I pay attention.”
“Then ye have nothin’ to fear.” He reached past her and pulled the chair from the desk, set it across from hers, and sat in it, his elbows on his knees, the key held loosely in one hand, his eyes on her face. “First question. What clan held Glencoe before the massacre, and what year did it occur?”
She looked at him steadily. “MacDonald,” she said. “1692.”
The silence that followed lasted exactly long enough to be satisfying.
“Correct,” he said.
“You sound surprised.”
“I daenae sound anythin’.”
“You do,” she countered, giving him a rueful smile. “You expected me to answer incorrectly.”
His eyes narrowed a fraction. “Next question.”
“No,” she interjected. Isobel held up a hand, indicating he should silence his tongue. “It is my turn.”
He nodded. “Go on then.”
She mused for a moment then asked, “Which Jacobite commander led the charge at Sheriffmuir in 1715?”
“Argyll commanded the government forces. Mar led the Jacobites.” He paused. “Though led is generous. He managed a draw and called it a victory.”
“Correct.”
She watched the slight tension move through his jaw and thought… good. Let him recalculate.
He asked for a specific date—the signing of a minor treaty she had read about only once in a book she did not think she was retaining—and she opened her mouth, and the wrong year came out, and she knew it before it finished leaving her lips.
She closed her mouth.
“Yer scarf,” he said.
Her stomach dropped.
She reached up, met his gaze, and located the end of the scarf resting across her throat.
Her fingers were slightly unsteady, but she hoped he wouldn’t notice.
Slowly, she unwound it—one deliberate turn, then another—until the fabric whispered softly against her skin as it was freed.
The cool library air immediately touched her neck, brushing the hollow above her collarbone, the line of her throat, all the spots the scarf had covered.
She placed it on the arm of the chair, looked back at him, and refused to look away.
He looked at her throat, at the hollow above her collarbone, at the line of her neck where the scarf had been. His jaw was clenched, and his hands on his knees were still, a muscle twitching once high in his cheek before settling. The firelight flickered across his face, failing to soften it.
The way he looked at her made heat pool low in her belly, thick and insistent, and she pressed her knees together, kept her face completely neutral, and told herself it meant nothing.
“Next question,” she said. “What is the name of the old man who makes the bannocks fresh in the kitchen every day?”
“Ye expect me to ken his name?” His right eyebrow ticked up marginally, making the small white scar stand out prominently.
“He is a member of your clan and works in your household.” Isobel smiled in a feline way. “Now, give me his name.”
Laird MacRaeh shook his head, then granted her a wry smile. “I dinnae ken. His name has slipped my mind.”
“Oh…” Isobel produced a faux pout. “That is too bad.” She nodded at his waistcoat. “Lose it.”
His smirk spread as he peeled away the layer, revealing the white shirt underneath that was made of fine, flimsy material which did little to cover his muscled chest and abdomen.
“Will ye at least tell me the man’s name, so I may remember it in the future?”
“Colm,” she whispered. “Old Colm makes the best bannocks in the land.”
“Yes…” he mused. “I’ll be sure to thank him for his service the next time I cross his path.”
“Be sure you do.” She nodded at the Laird then, giving him a bit of encouragement. “What question do you have for me next?”
“Would ye take off yer waistcoat for me?”
Isobel was momentarily stunned by the bluntness of his question. She lifted trembling fingers to the buttons and let them sit there for a long moment. “You have no further questions pertaining to Scottish history and clan laws?”
“I cannae think of anything other than the flush of yer skin.” He leaned forward, placing both elbows on his knees. His eyes were trained on her hands which were still positioned over the buttons on her spencer.
“Yer waistcoat,” he rasped in a gravelly voice. “Will ye remove it or will ye torture me further?”