Chapter 5 #2
Arran McPherson cajoled his wife into joining him for a dance, leaving the space between Ciaran and Eilidh unobstructed. While Kirsty amused herself telling tales of clan gatherings past.
He’d tried again to catch Eilidh’s eye, but she ignored him. He could no longer say that she was doing anything but purposefully ignoring him.
And he, like an idiot, did not let it lie.
“Are ye having a pleasant evening?” he ventured, mentally kicking himself.
Why did he care if she ignored him? Just because she’d been kind to him while he was convalescing didn’t mean… It didn’t mean anything at all.
She gave him a polite smile that had none of the mischief he’d come to associate with her in it. She scarcely looked feylike at all.
“I am,” she said.
And then… nothing.
Frustration bloomed in Ciaran along with something that felt faintly like shame. Had he really expected that he could scold her in public and then have her forget all about it?
Well, yes. Yes, he had. He’d mistaken her kindness for something weak, had assumed that her cheerful, sometimes silly demeanor meant that she was a fool.
That hadn’t been right. He felt strangely apologetic about it, not that it would be wise to say any such thing aloud.
Even worse than regret was that this realization made him like her that much more.
He really ought to let it go, ought to let this chill between them turn to frost. That would be the wise thing. He should avoid making any connections while he was here and then get the hell away from the Donagheys as soon as possible.
But he must have taken some heretofore undiagnosed blow to the head during his injuries, because he found himself speaking again.
“That’s… good,” he said inanely. “You like dancing?”
Jesus Christ, where was an enemy when you needed one? If someone had leapt out of the shadows just then and run him through with a sword, Ciaran would have used his dying breath to thank them for putting him out of his misery.
Because now it wasn’t only Eilidh looking at him strangely—it was Kirsty, too, a sly look in her expression that spelled trouble.
“Aye,” Eilidh agreed, tone still cool. “I like dancing.”
Another guard, this one at least old enough to grow a beard, passed by just in time to hear this comment.
“If ye like dancing, I would be much obliged to take a turn with ye, Lady Eilidh,” he said grandly.
As it turned out, Ciaran did not wish to thank the man who had saved him from himself. Instead, he fantasized about running this guard through with a sword, damn the consequences.
Eilidh gave him a smile that emphasized how very inauthentically she had been smiling at Ciaran.
“I would love that, Gavin,” she told the man, who looked like he’d died and gone to heaven, the complete bastard.
The guard was too smart to miss his chance. He swept her back out onto the floor as the musicians started up a new reel, and it was only moments before Eilidh’s laughter, a finer tune than anything the fiddlers could play, echoed.
When Ciaran finally tore his eyes from Eilidh, he found Kirsty looking right at him, a feline grin on her face.
“That lass is a minx of the most dangerous kind,” she observed, nodding almost in approval.
Ciaran merely grunted. Privately, though, he didn’t disagree with his aunt a bit. And, like the damned fool he no doubt was, he didn’t have the good sense to let this make him want to stay far, far away from Eilidh Donaghey.
Eilidh, for all that she loved dancing, found that eventually her feet simply would no longer hold her. She’d accepted every offer she’d gotten that evening, even the ones she might have normally declined. She was enjoying Ciaran Gunn’s glares too much to do otherwise.
He’d told her that he wanted nothing to do with her family’s problems—and she was part of that family, so he must have wanted nothing to do with her.
But he wasn’t acting like he wanted nothing to do with her. He was watching her like he had some responsibility to her—some claim over her.
This was very annoying. So Eilidh felt it was only fair to annoy him in return.
Thus, she’d danced until it became a very real concern that she might fall flat on her bum if she took even one more step.
So, when Martin Buchanan, one of Ewan and Mairi’s distant cousins, asked her to dance, she told him she was headed to her room for the evening. When he asked her if he could escort her, however, she found that she couldn’t resist his sweet, babyish face.
“That would be verra kind of ye, Martin,” she said.
Martin, who was likely a year or so Eilidh’s junior and looked at least two years younger than that, blushed furiously.
“Thank ye, miss,” he said so quietly that Eilidh could scarcely hear him over the din in the Great Hall.
From there, it ought to have been easy enough.
Martin would walk her as far as the hallway where her room was.
He would bid her goodnight, and she’d do the same, and then she could collapse into her bed and he could go off, feeling grand and grown and manly for having escorted a helpless young woman through the danger-ridden halls of the Keep—or whatever stories young men told themselves about chivalry and honor.
They almost made it, too, except Martin’s feet froze at the foot of the stairs. As he did not release Eilidh’s arm when he did so, she was yanked to a halt.
Eilidh’s first thought was that he’d been suddenly taken ill.
“Are ye well, Martin?” she asked kindly.
Nobody liked to unexpectedly vomit. It was one of life’s most unpleasant events, and if he was at risk of such a thing, surely kindness was merited.
But instead of erupting with the contents of his stomach, Martin blurted out words.
“I love ye!”
Eilidh stared at him.
“I’m… sorry?” She couldn’t have heard him correctly.
But Martin, no matter what else she might say about him, was courageous enough to stand his ground.
“I mean to say… I admire ye greatly, Eilidh,” he said. “And I would like to court ye.”
Oh. Oh, dear. Oh, no.
Eilidh struggled for something to say that was even remotely tactful.
“That’s… terribly kind of ye,” she ventured.
Alas, Martin seemed to think this boded well for him. He puffed out his chest.
“And I ken that I’m still young, but I’ll be a full guardsman soon, and I’ll get my pay. And the Laird willnae turn ye out in the meantime, not with you being his sister by marriage. So, we will just have a long engagement and—“
“Och, Martin,” she tried to interrupt gently.
A smile lit his face. “I love hearing ye say my name,” he said dreamily.
“That’s not—” she ventured, raising a cautioning hand between them.
“She doesnae want ye.”
Out of the shadows came the voice, sharp and decisive as the crack of a whip, and behind it, the man.
Ciaran.
The words were blunt. Cruelly so. And Eilidh probably should have done something to soften them. But when Martin looked over at her, she just gave him an awkward, apologetic sort of wince.
“Sorry, Martin,” she said.
To her utter horror, his chin wobbled as though he might weep.
“Begone, lad,” Ciaran commanded, and though his tone was no less harsh than it had been, this time, Eilidh thought that he was likely doing the younger man a kindness.
Martin paled, bowed, and fled.
Eilidh watched his retreating form, then dropped her head in her hands.
“Ye were cruel to that poor lad.”
Her head jerked up and her mouth popped open in outrage. “I was cruel to him?” she echoed incredulously. “Ye were the one who—“
“Ye let him think he had a chance,” Ciaran interjected rudely. “That’s cruel.”
Eilidh sputtered. “I’ve never spoken to him before in my life!” she protested. “If I encouraged him, then I encouraged every man I spoke to this evening.”
“Aye.”
Even in the shadows, she could see something dark flicker over Ciaran’s features, and no matter that she was still irritated with him, seeing that darkness sent a shot of longing through her.
“They certainly all wanted ye.”
She reminded herself that he had no right to act as though he were jealous, not even if it did make her shiver pleasurably.
“Well, I hardly see how that is your concern,” she said, tossing her head haughtily just to show him how very unbothered she was by his theories about her desirability.
“Nor do I see how it is your place to tell me what is cruel or not. As I see it, cruelty isnae being kind to someone, it’s being thoughtless and unkind to someone who has done naught but help ye. ”
She arched a very pointed brow in his direction.
To his credit, he winced.
“Ye are right. I—forgive me, Eilidh.” The apology was stilted, and Eilidh was deeply irritated to find herself melting in response to it. “For before. I was not ready to see my aunt, is all. I shouldnae have taken it out on ye.”
She gave her hair another toss, trying to look unaffected.
“Nay, ye shouldnae,” she agreed loftily.
“And if ye think that ye are going to get an apology from me… Well, ye will be waiting for a verra long time. My family comes before all. And I wasnae the one to call for her, but I would have done so. I would call for ten allies if it meant keeping my family safe.”
He looked distinctly uncomfortable at this declaration, but Eilidh found there was no real satisfaction in gaining the upper hand this way.
She turned to move away. What was the point, arguing with someone who gave nothing in return?
She had to remember that there wasn’t anything true between them, at least not anything that she hadn’t invented in her own mind.
Hadn’t her sisters been telling her for years that her little flights of fancy would just end with her hurt?
Before she could go far, however, a hand caught around her wrist. Ciaran turned her back toward him and kept tugging until she was close enough to rest her hand on his chest. Her fingers hesitated above the hard muscle of his torso until the flicker of pain crossed his expression and her hand moved as though of its own accord to rest right above the thrumming of his heartbeat.
“My family and yours…” He paused to clear the gravel in his throat. “They are allies, aye. But I dinnae ken if that means we are allies, Eilidh.”
She had a sudden sympathy for Martin, for how pleased he’d been at hearing her say his name. A tremor went through her when she heard Ciaran growl her name that way.
But, like the young guard, she would be daft to make more of this than it was.
Still, she did not pull away, and he did not release her.
“Do ye wish to be my ally?” she asked softly.
A bittersweet smile quirked at his lips. “I dinnae wish to be your enemy.”
It was not lost on her that wishing did not always make things so, not in times of war. She half longed to snatch her hand away; her fingers practically burned where she touched him. Her pulse came fast; a breath caught in her throat.
And then, when she couldn’t take it any longer without risking bursting directly into flames, he finally, finally let her go.
Their gazes were the final thing to separate.
“Good night, Eilidh,” he said after a long, long moment in which Eilidh felt almost as hot as when they’d been standing close together.
She huffed out a breath and forced the spell to break.
“Good night, Ciaran,” she whispered.
They turned and left one another. But as Eilidh undressed back in her chamber and got herself into bed, she swore she could still feel the tingle in her fingers where she had touched him.