Chapter Twelve #3
And yet now he found himself standing in the small house she kept together with her own hands, arguing with her as though her decision held enough weight to trouble him personally.
It was a foolish thing. He had men to command, duties that extended far beyond the boundaries of this quiet patch of forest. The business of war did not permit a man to concern himself overly with the choices of a solitary woman who, by all rights, should have been nothing more than a brief and curious encounter upon his road.
It irked him, this awareness that he had become invested despite himself. More irksome still was the uncomfortable suspicion that the concern he claimed as duty had begun to take on another shape entirely.
And if that were not vexing enough, she seemed altogether untouched by whatever spell had apparently taken hold of him.
As always, she regarded him with a steady composure that suggested she had not spent the last several days becoming strangely aware of him in the same way he had become aware of her—that realization pricked his pride more than only a wee bit.
Truth was, he couldn’t recall the last time—if ever—he was so...
beguiled. To his consternation, he had more than only a little suspicion that he might be the only one in the room so afflicted.
With a low breath that was nearly a sigh, he stepped forward and went to his haunches in front of her. Before she could adjust to his closeness, he lifted his hands and laid them over hers as they sat on her thighs.
She stiffened immediately beneath his touch. Morggán felt the tension in her fingers, the quick tightening of muscle beneath his palm, but he ignored it, keeping his hands where they were.
“Are ye nae weary, Avery?” he asked quietly.
At that, she finally looked up at him.
For the first time since he had begun speaking, her composure wavered.
Her lips parted slightly, the faintest breath escaping her as if the question had struck very near to some nerve.
The small expression of surprise on her face—so fleeting he might have imagined it—gave him a quiet satisfaction he could not quite explain.
“Are ye nae weary,” he continued more softly now, “of being alone, having nae one to depend on, nae one to support or cheer ye? Nae one to abide with?”
The wonder left her eyes almost as quickly as it had appeared. She closed her mouth, the delicate line of it firming as she looked down again.
“I’m not leaving here,” she said after a moment, her voice steadier than her expression was. “I have nowhere to go.”
“Ye’ll go where I do, lass, with me and mine,” he replied, a trace of impatience threading through his tone despite his efforts to keep it measured. “I’ll take ye to—or see ye brought to—Ard Cael.”
Her gaze settled on their hands, where his still rested over hers, and she swallowed visibly though said nothing.
“Ard Cael is home to the mac Ruaidhrís,” he went on. “?Tis my home.”
Even before he finished the words she began to shake her head.
“Avery, be sensible,” he repeated.
Her refusal strengthened, the movement of her head more emphatic now, light strands of hair shifting against her cheek.
The stubbornness of it stirred his temper again—or perhaps it stirred something else entirely. Before he might have thought better of it, Morggán lifted his hand from hers and reached for her face, his rough fingers settling along the curve of her cheek.
Avery froze.
Her skin was warm beneath his hand, so bloody soft. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to meet his, the deep blue of them shadowed by uncertainty now rather than defiance.
He had meant only to compel her attention, to force her to listen properly to his arguments for her safety.
Yet the instant her gaze locked with his, the intention faltered.
Suddenly, the space seemed smaller than it had been a moment before.
He became aware—uncomfortably and spectacularly aware—of the closeness between them, of the way the firelight traced the shape of her mouth, of the faint rise and fall of her chest, and even how subtly he had leaned nearer.
Without warning, the thought came to him—he would kiss her. He should kiss her—Jesu, he wanted to know her kiss.
Morggán let out a sharp, frustrated breath through his nose.
What madness was this? Eight days—naught but eight days!
—in her company, and already his mind wandered into such foolish territory.
Worse still, he had come here intending to persuade her to safety, and if she suspected even for a moment that his urgency had anything to do with his fascination with the shape of her mouth or the tantalizing possibility of her sweet kiss, she would surely harden herself against him entirely.
He forced himself to remove his fingers from her cheek slowly, resisting the urge to jerk them away as though burned. Jaw tight, he rose to his full height and glared down at her, as if she were somehow responsible for the disorder of his thoughts.
“Stubbornness will nae be a shield when the wrong men find ye,” he said, his voice rough with an irritation meant more for himself. He turned to the door, pausing with his hand on the crude handle, but he did not look back. “Secure the latch,” he instructed, his voice flat, and then he left.