Chapter 10
Dinner had lasted longer than it should, but when it ended, Emma set her napkin beside her plate and stood up before the next subject could trap her with the older women once again.
“If ye’ll excuse me,” she said, her voice steady. “I would like to retire now. ‘Tis been a long day.”
Catriona looked up with an easy smile. “Of course, lass. Sleep well.”
Jack looked up from his cup. “Do ye need me to walk ye to yer room?”
She gave him a polite smile. “Nay, I ken the way.”
“Jack,” Catriona laughed softly, “ye act like the lass is helpless. Let her breathe, son.”
Jack exhaled through his nose. Not quite a laugh, but he said nothing anyway. Emma noticed but decided not to comment. The less time she spent here, the better for all of them.
She bobbed a quick curtsy and left the table, her shoes clicking lightly against the stone. She didn’t look over her shoulder, though she felt his attention on her until she stepped outside and the voices faded behind her.
The castle had fallen into its nightly hush. Most of the candles were snuffed out, but a few still burned low, casting a faint light on the walls. Emma studied them as the cool air calmed the heat that still clung to her face.
Lara waited by the stairwell, fingers curled around a candlestick. “Me Lady, shall I draw ye a bath now?”
“Aye, go ahead,” Emma said. “I’ll join ye in a moment.”
The maid curtsied and moved off, the flame flickering once as she turned the corner. Emma stepped after her, then stopped. A bolt of light spilled across the floor from a door left slightly open farther down.
She knew which room that was without even thinking twice about it. It was the first room she visited when she arrived at the castle.
The nursery.
She hesitated only long enough to listen, then she slipped inside. The room was warmer than the corridor; that much was clear. The blanket draped over the chair had been left to warm, and the cradle sat near the fireplace, with the veil hooked back.
Stella lay half awake, her tiny fists rubbing at her eyes, and her mouth moving around something Emma was certain wasn’t a cry. Or at least the baby wasn’t frustrated enough to call it one.
Emma crossed to the cradle and set her palm lightly on the baby’s belly. “Hush now,” she murmured, the words barely louder than the flickering fire. “Ye need to sleep well, dear.”
She drew the blanket an inch higher and stayed with the baby for a few more minutes, waiting for her to stop fussing.
She debated singing a lullaby, one of the dull notes her mother used to sing for her and Ava, but then she thought better of it.
It would probably keep the baby up longer.
Right now, she would trust the silence to do its job faster than she would.
Suddenly, the door creaked open, and she looked up.
Jack leaned a shoulder against the frame, standing on the threshold. Firelight caught one side of his jaw and left the rest in the shadow. His arms were folded, bulging beneath his sleeves, and his attention was fixed on both her and the baby in the cradle.
“She’s asleep, then?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
“Aye,” Emma replied. “I wouldnae wake her if I were ye.”
“I daenae intend to.”
She smoothed the edge of the blanket once more, then stepped past him into the corridor. He followed and closed the door gently. The candles around them gave just enough light to see his face and nothing more.
A tense silence fell between them, punctuated only by the sound of distant footsteps.
“Thank ye,” she said eventually, her voice lowering with each word.
He glanced down at her. “For what?”
“For handling our maithers earlier,” she said. “They meant well, but… I daenae like it when people expect things of me.”
His eyebrow rose a fraction. “Everyone except me, apparently.”
She held his gaze. “Oh, please. Ye have expectations, too.”
He shook his head once. “Nay. The only thing I want is for ye to be a good little wife.”
She glared at him. “I havenae even agreed to be yer wife yet.”
He let a small smile touch his lips. “‘Tis only a matter of time.”
She tilted her chin and closed half the space between them. “Even if I do, the last thing I’ll ever be is good.”
“Is that a threat?” he drawled.
“‘Tis a promise.”
“A promise, lass, is something ye’re capable of keeping.”
“And what makes ye think I can keep this one?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed, but he didn’t look away. “Because ye have nay choice. Ye have to be an obedient wife, or the alternative—”
“The alternative?” she repeated. “There is an alternative?”
The air around them had shifted. She could sense it. It shifted just like it had at the cèilidh and in the woods when he pinned her to the ground. It grew hotter, and the fact that he took a step closer solidified that fact.
“There is always an alternative.”
She should stop talking. She should just turn around and make her way to her room. She could call it a night now, and he wouldn’t stop her. But there was something about him, something about the green in his eyes that seemed to push her to see where it would all go.
To see where he would go.
“So tell me, Laird MacLeod,” she continued despite her better judgment. “What is the alternative?”
“Punishment.” His voice was clipped, but she could see it in his eyes, too. The determination to see how far she would go.
“Is that so?”
“Aye. Ye get punished for being a bad wife.”
Her eyes flashed. “Do ye get off on ordering folks around just because ye’re a big, strong man?”
He chuckled under his breath. “Aye, and I’ll show ye in more ways than one.”
“Ye are too cocky for me liking,” she said, a hint of a smile getting in before she could stop it.
“And ye talk too much,” he shot back.
The space between them had vanished, and she realized it a little too late. Or perhaps she chose to realize it late. His hand slid to her waist, warm through the fabric and sure. She swallowed as his grip tightened on her and gasped when he drew her close to him.
Then, he leaned in and kissed her.
She didn’t step back, and he answered that action, or lack of it, with more. As the kiss grew more frantic, she felt his shirt under her fingers and found herself clutching it because the floor seemed to tilt beneath her feet.
She broke the kiss and sucked in a sharp breath. Her palm stayed on his chest a beat longer than it should, registering the steady thud beneath. That startled her more than the heat between them, and she dropped her hand immediately.
Without another word, she turned away from him and hurried down the corridor, with nothing but her room on her mind.
“Emma,” he called behind her.
She paused with her fingers on a doorknob that wasn’t hers. “Aye?”
He held up four fingers, his eyes steadier than anything. “Four more nights to go.”
Her pulse quickened, but she didn’t give him an answer.
She let the smallest, tightest smile settle on her face and then left him there, the corridor growing quiet behind her.
Her feet carried her to the stairs, and she found the hallway to her room empty.
She stepped inside immediately and headed straight to the bath.
With her body submerged in the warm water, the tension in her limbs dissipated slowly.
She had let things get too far, and that wasn’t her intention.
Grateful that Lara had gone to bed, and that she was the only one left to her despair, she gripped both sides of the bathtub, exhaling as slowly as she could.
There was no way that had happened. There was simply no way.
She could still feel his lips where he had kissed her and his hand on her back. No amount of warm water could wash away that feeling, and she hated herself for it.
Unable to settle her thoughts, she sank fully into the tub, feeling the water cover her head.
No, she hadn’t done that.
For the love of God, she hadn’t kissed Jack Barkley.