Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
B laine’s touch lingered on Kathleen’s body, like an echo that refused to die down. Even as she excused herself from the dance floor after enduring the sixth dance of the night, she could feel the ghost of his hand on her waist. Even his gaze, intense as it had been, had felt like a physical touch, and for the first time she was convinced Blaine felt the same thing for her as she did for him.
She had the sneaking suspicion that even if she tried to get him to admit it, he never would. But no matter how much he denied it, she had seen the desire etched clearly in his features. She had seen that look on men before and even sheltered as she was, she knew what it meant to be the object of someone’s desire.
However much she wanted Blaine to give her just what she wanted, the night demanded bigger things from her. At some point, while Kathleen danced with the young men who fancied themselves her suitors, Fenella had disappeared from the room and now Kathleen was in search of her, roaming the halls of Castle Stalker.
It didn’t take her long to find her friend. As she passed by the balcony that overlooked the swelling tide, she saw a figure stir in the dark and immediately recognized it as belonging to Fenella. Kathleen would know her anywhere, even in the dark, as if a tether tied them together.
With soft footsteps, she stepped outside. It was chilly there, the wind whipping that side of the castle, weathering the stones and making the single torch that hung in the corner flicker, its trembling flames casting looming shadows over the balcony. Fenella stood by the rail, her arms folded on top of the ledge as she gazed into the moonlit waves underneath. Even as Kathleen came to stand next to her, she didn’t stir.
This time, she didn’t bother putting on a jovial mask. There was no one around but the two of them, and with the feast still raging inside, everyone was too busy to look for either of them. Even Blaine had been gone for longer than Kathleen would have thought, and the last time she had gotten a glimpse of him had been when that young man had asked her to give him the next dance.
“Are ye alright?” Kathleen asked Fenella once again. She didn’t know if she would receive an honest answer this time, but Fenella didn’t need to say a single thing for Kathleen to know the truth .
She was far from alright. Though her future husband had seemed inoffensive during the feast, the reality was that he was a stranger. Neither she nor Fenella could possibly know if he was a decent man, if he would treat her with the respect she deserved, even if they never loved each other.
So far, Fenella had said nothing directly on the matter of her marriage, and she avoided the topic now, too. Instead, what she said was, “I kent this day would come. Fer lasses like us, marriage is never about love, only about duty, alliances. But kennin’ this daesnae make it any easier.”
Kathleen shared the sentiment. She lived her days in fear, dreading the time when she would have to wed for an alliance. “I’m sorry Fenella, ‘tis true. But I hope at least me bein’ here gives ye some comfort. Come tae me any time, day or night if ye need tae speak… and, if it helps any, yer betrothed seems like a kind and decent man and he looks at ye with admiration. I hope everything works out much better than ye think.”
Fenella just kept staring down into the water pensively. Then, out of the blue, she turned to Kathleen.
“What about ye?” Fenella asked, her lilting soprano taking on a conspiratorial tone as she finally turned to look at Kathleen. Even in the dark, her eyes seemed to pierce right through her. “Have ye fallen fer Blaine? ”
Kathleen hesitated a moment too long, prompting a knowing look from her friend. She had told Fenella everything about Blaine while they were preparing for the feast, from the moment they met when he saved her from the Campbell men to the moment they had stepped foot in Castle Stalker. There was no one else to whom she could confess everything that had happened between her and Blaine, and Fenella knew her just as well as she knew Fenella.
There was no hiding her feelings from her.
“It seems that I have,” Kathleen finally admitted. In the dark, with no one but Fenella for company, it felt easy to admit it. Not only that, but speaking it aloud was a relief—like the truth was a dark cloud over her head, ever-present, and only now did it dissipate.
Fenella smiled, but Kathleen couldn’t call the gesture happy; not quite. There was something about that smile that saddened even her, a melancholy that was palpable in the air between them.
“Ye should try tae be with him, then,” Fenella said after a few moments of silence, slamming her hand down on the rail with an air of finality, as if the decision had already been made on Kathleen’s behalf. “Ye should take what ye want afore it is too late. Life’s too short tae be so reasonable all the time, Kathleen. An’ if ye’re reasonable, ye’ll end up just like me. ”
With a sigh, Fenella turned her gaze back to the tide, resting her chin on her palm as she stared straight ahead. Kathleen wished there was something she could say, something she could do to save her from this fate. But what could either of them do when someone else had the power to dictate their lives?
This could be her last chance, Kathleen knew. If she returned to Moy Hall without ever attempting to be with Blaine, she would not only regret it, but she was certain she would never see him again.
Whatever it took, she had to try.
The knock on his door had Blaine reaching for his dagger, though for what purpose, he didn’t know. Surely, if there was someone out there who wished to harm him, they wouldn’t be knocking on his door to announce their presence.
Must be a servant.
But what could a servant possibly want at that time of the night? Blaine was just about to head to bed after the feast and he didn’t think many people would be awake at that time of the night. He padded over to the door and opened it—only to reveal Kathleen at the other side, her auburn hair loose over her shoulders, her dress thrown haphazardly over her nightshift as if she had removed it to go to sleep and then had changed her mind, coming to Blaine’s chambers instead.
Blaine’s breath caught in his throat the moment he saw her. The way she looked at him, her burning gaze traveling down from his face to his body, then back up to rest on his eyes, filled his veins with such heat that he feared he would burn up from the inside. She looked like a nymph, like a sprite come to torture him with his forbidden desire, but Blaine couldn’t find it in him to turn her away.
He should have. He should have told her to go back to her room, to go to sleep. Instead, he stepped aside silently and let her inside, closing the door softly behind her.
“I couldnae sleep,” Kathleen said as she walked over to the fire and lowered herself to the plush carpet that lay before it, pulling her knees to her chest. “I thought I’d come see if ye were still awake.”
“Well, I am,” Blaine said, instead of informing her that he was just about to go to sleep. Wisdom seemed to evade him that night. “Are ye nae tired from the travels?”
“Nae as much as I’d have thought,” Kathleen said. Then, silence fell between them as she sat by the fire and Blaine stood near the door, the two of them watching each other .
He didn’t know what to say to her. It was rare for him, knowing what to say, and everything that had happened between them only made it harder for him to find the right words. He wanted Kathleen desperately; he wanted to never see Kathleen again just as desperately. Either way, he was bound to suffer.
I dinnae want her tae suffer.
“Let us play a game,” Kathleen said, breaking the silence. Blaine couldn’t help but roll his eyes in response. They shouldn’t be playing games in the middle of the night; they should be sleeping, in separate beds, in separate rooms. But then, before he could protest, Kathleen’s lips stretched into a teasing grin that reminded him of the last time she had suggested such a game, and he couldn’t find it in him to refuse.
Shaking his head, he chuckled softly and opened his arms in invitation. “What kind o’ game?”
“A card game,” Kathleen said “I used tae play it with Fenella when we were younger but she’s asleep already, so I thought ye might wish tae play it with me.”
Blaine couldn’t help but wonder if that was true; if Kathleen had already tried Fenella’s chambers first, knocking on her door to see if she would spend a few hours with her and keep her company, or if she was only using it as an excuse and had come straight to his chambers instead. The latter was wishful thinking, he decided. Of course Kathleen would have gone to see her friend first rather than come to him.
As Blaine approached her, sitting down across from her on the rug, Kathleen pulled a deck of cards out of her pocket, shuffled them, and then began to deal them out to the two of them.
“An’ how dae ye play it?” Blaine asked.
“Well, we take turns playin’ our hands an’ whoever wins dares the other tae dae somethin’ silly,” she said. “Ye must dae it or ye must drink.”
Blaine raised a disapproving eyebrow. “That sounds hardly proper fer two lasses.”
“Ach, dinnae start with that,” Kathleen said, waving the hand that held the rest of the deck dismissively. “Why can ye dae it but we cannae?”
“Because ye’re lasses,” Blaine pointed out.
“That means naethin’ tae me,” said Kathleen and Blaine couldn’t help but laugh despite himself. Of course it didn’t; Kathleen had left Moy Hall all on her own, never once considering the consequences or the danger that awaited her. A simple card game and a few cups of wine were hardly a concern to her compared to that.
“Fine. We dinnae have any wine, though,” Blaine pointed out.
“Then we must dae the dares without skippin’ any,” Kathleen said, her grin only widening.
Blaine didn’t like the sound of that at all.
As Kathleen explained the rest of the rules of the game to him, Blaine watched and listened attentively to her—as much as he could, at least, when the sight of her in the light of the fire was so captivating. His mind kept wandering to other things, things he shouldn’t be considering at all. The more he tried to stay focused, though, the more resistance his mind put up, as if the thought of having intimate moments with her was all it could conjure in that moment.
And that was precisely how he lost the first round.
“I dare ye tae remove yer boots with one foot,” Kathleen said, laughing and rubbing her hands together, entirely too delighted by Blaine’s first defeat .
At the dare, Blaine could only stare at her, unimpressed. “How will I dae that?”
“Dinnae ken,” said Kathleen, shrugging a shoulder. “Figure it out.”
For a few moments, Blaine didn’t move. He truly had no idea how to even begin. But as Kathleen looked at him expectantly, he let out a long-suffering sigh and stood, slapping his hand on the mantel to keep his balance.
He began by trying to toe them off, and that worked like a charm for the first one, as he braced his heel against the toe of the other boot and slipped his foot right out. When he tried to do the same for the other foot, though, Kathleen shook her head and pointed an accusatory finger at him.
“Dinnae cheat!” she explained. “I said one foot!”
That was precisely what Blaine had feared. He had hoped Kathleen wouldn’t get caught up in the semantics of it, but he supposed that was the difficulty of the dare.
Another sigh, followed by another attempt to get rid of his boot. His first idea was to shake his leg violently, trying to dislodge the boot and throw it right off—which only culminated in him hopping wildly on the rug as Kathleen collapsed on the floor in hysterics, tears of mirth gathering at the corners of her eyes. When that proved unsuccessful, he glared at her for a moment and then proceeded to kneel, hoping that if he bent his foot just right, he could take off the boot.
That didn’t work either, and Kathleen showed him no mercy. She only laughed harder as she watched, and not long after, Blaine couldn’t help but join her, laughing softly at his attempts.
“Alright, alright,” he said, scratching the back of his head as he considered his predicament. In the end, he stood and walked over to the wall, wedging his heel between two stones and pressing hard as he raised his leg.
That did the trick. It took him some effort, but he managed to remove his boot, and the rush of contentment he felt at his victory was comparable to the aftermath of a victorious fight.
Holding up his boot in the air, Blaine couldn’t help but cheer. “Who’s laughin’ now, lass?”
“Still me!” said Kathleen, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
“Ach, quiet,” said Blaine, sitting once again across from her. At least the game had taken his mind off the things that were worrying, even for a short while .
The next round was Kathleen’s as well. Blaine levelled her with a strict stare, wondering what other challenge awaited him.
“This one is good,” said Kathleen, much to Blaine’s chagrin. “I used tae say this tae Fenella all the time. Ye have tae go out o’ the room an’ when ye come back, ye must find what it is I have changed in here.”
Blaine smirked to himself. For Fenella, this might have been a challenge, but if there was one thing he did every time he walked into a room, it was to observe everything. Confident he would easily win this, he stood without complaint and left the room, waving at Kathleen before he closed the door behind him.
He didn’t wait long. Soon, Kathleen opened the door again and invited him inside, and Blaine took a moment to scan the entire room with his gaze once.
“The candelabra,” he said, pointing at the one on the nightstand. “It was over there, on the dresser.”
Kathleen stared at him in disbelief, her mouth hanging wide open. “How could ye tell so fast? ”
Blaine shrugged. “That’s what I’m trained tae dae.”
Throwing up her hands in frustration, Kathleen picked the cards back up and started dealing again. Satisfied with his victory, Blaine began the next round, and this time was surprised to actually win it.
With a chuckle, he pulled out his smallest blade, handing it to Kathleen. “I dare ye tae balance it on yer finger.”
“I bet even ye cannae dae that,” Kathleen said.
Just to prove her wrong, Blaine proceeded to do just that—balancing the tip of the knife on his finger for several seconds. Anyone else who had witnessed the trick had been stunned by the skill, but now Kathleen was glaring at him as he handed her the knife again.
To her credit, she did her best. She frowned as she watched the knife, concentrating so much on it that she went crosseyed for a few moments, much to Blaine’s amusement. Three times she failed, the knife falling right off her finger, before she finally managed to balance it, even if it was only for a couple of seconds.
Exclaiming in excitement, Kathleen clapped her hands and Blaine laughed softly, a warm feeling spreading over his chest. She was radiant in that moment, glowing with joy from such a simple thing, and Blaine couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“See?” he asked. “Ye could dae it after all. Good lass.”
At his words, Kathleen flushed a pretty pink, her gaze falling down to the cards laid out on the rug between them. When she dealt their new hands, she looked straight at him once more and Blaine’s heart skipped a beat, faltering in his chest.
Never before had a woman made him feel like this. Never before had someone put him under a spell like that. He couldn’t escape Kathleen’s allure.
When she won the next round, Blaine expected another silly dare, but what she said instead was, “I dare ye tae let me trace that scar on yer arm.”
She nodded with her head to his forearm, where a long scar was visible where he had rolled up his sleeve. Suddenly, something seemed to shift between them. The atmosphere in the room changed into something charged, their desire for each other flowing in the air between them. A pang of need shot through Blaine’s chest, his fingers twitching as they almost reached for Kathleen before he managed to stop himself just in time.
It’ s only a silly dare.
It wouldn’t matter, he told himself. It would only take a few seconds and then he could come up with an excuse to end the game and call it a night.
Silently, he held his arm out for her and Kathleen leaned closer. His gaze followed the movement of her fingers as she traced the silvery scar, her touch feather-light and hesitant at first, sending a shiver through his limbs.
Her blue eyes bore into his own as she mapped out the length of it, using only touch to navigate it. Blaine’s breath was cut short, his chest stuttering as he tried to draw in more air, and he cursed himself quietly forever allowing that to happen when he could have sent her away in the first place.
He was meant to be strong; he was meant to have the willpower to do the right thing, but whenever Kathleen was around, he succumbed to weakness.
Then, as if it had never happened, Kathleen pulled back from him and though that charged atmosphere remained between them, the air didn’t feel as oppressive, as heavy with all the things that remained unspoken between them.
“I think we should go tae sleep,” Blaine said then, desperate to put some distance between them before he made a foolish decision he could never change .
“Just one more round,” Kathleen said, and before Blaine could insist, she began to deal the cards.
Just one more an’ then she’ll go.
The final round took longer than the others and Blaine’s impatience threatened to get the better of him. He tapped his fingers against his knee, a nervous habit he thought he had given up, and played his hand without much thinking, without much caution.
It was no surprise when he lost. He had known from the beginning of the round that victory would belong to Kathleen. What was a surprise was what she said next.
“I dare ye tae kiss me.”