Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Logan saw her the moment she entered the hall.
He had been speaking to Conn, one shoulder angled toward the fire and his hand curled loosely around a cup he had not sipped from in some time. The hall was alive around him, louder than it had been in days, dressed in greenery and warm candlelight.
Then Rose stepped through the doorway, and everything else loosened its hold on him.
She looked ravishing in that dress.
The blue wool moved softly around her as she paused near the threshold, one hand resting with careful grace at her waist while Christina leaned close to say something in her ear. Rose’s hair had been pinned back, a few pale strands brushing the side of her throat.
There was a small hesitation in her step before she entered properly. Her eyes moved over the crowded hall, bracing.
“She looks well in it,” Conn said beside him.
Logan did not look away from her. “Aye.”
Conn was silent for half a breath. Then Logan heard the faint scrape of amusement in his voice. “That all ye have tae say?”
Logan’s jaw tightened. “What else would ye have me say?”
“That ye’ve been staring like a starving man at a feast.”
Logan finally cut him a glance. The firelight caught the scar along his cheek and deepened the green of his eyes, but there was nothing sharp in his look now. Only that quiet, irritating knowledge of a man who had watched Logan too closely for too many years.
“Mind yer tongue,” Logan muttered.
Conn’s mouth twitched. “I am. That’s why I didnae say what I was thinking.”
“Then continue nae saying it.”
“As ye command, me laird.”
Logan looked back toward Rose before he could stop himself.
She was speaking now to one of the older women, her head inclined with that gentle English politeness. She smiled softly, and the sight of it hit him low in the ribs, where no blade had ever reached.
Conn shifted beside him.
Logan felt the movement more than saw it. “Where are ye going?”
“Tae dance,” Conn said lightly.
Logan’s eyes narrowed, but before he could answer, Conn was already moving through the crowd with that uneven, steady gait of his. Logan watched him go, irritation rising with every step.
Conn went toward Rose.
Logan’s hand tightened around his cup.
Rose turned as Conn approached, her smile polite and a little surprised. Conn bowed his head, one hand resting over his heart with exaggerated courtesy that made Christina hide a laugh behind her fingers.
“Me lady,” Conn said, voice warm enough to carry. “Would ye honor a poor crippled soldier wi’ a dance before the night grows too young fer me bones?”
Rose’s expression softened at once. That was the worst of it. She did not laugh at him. She did not look uncomfortable. She placed one hand lightly over the other and dipped her chin with a grace that made Logan’s throat go dry.
“You are very kind to ask,” she said, and even from across the hall Logan could hear the careful sweetness in her tone. “But I fear I would do you no honor at all. I do not know the steps.”
“I’d guide ye,” Conn said.
Something hot and ugly struck through Logan so sharply that he nearly moved.
Rose’s smile flickered, still gentle, still proper, but firmer now. “Then I would only injure your pride, and I could not bear such guilt.”
Conn laughed, accepting the refusal with a bow, but Logan barely heard it.
His blood was thudding too hard.
It was foolish. Conn was his closest friend. Conn had done it to provoke him, and Logan knew it, yet the sight of another man standing before Rose, asking for her hand beneath the firelit beams of his hall, made Logan want to punch him.
Mine.
The word came without permission and Logan’s breath caught around it.
He set the cup down. By the time reason tried to catch him, his feet were already carrying him toward her.
Rose had only just managed to refuse Conn politely when the laughter around her seemed to soften. Christina’s smile turned far too knowing, and Conn stepped aside with a faintly satisfied look.
Rose’s fingers tightened in the blue fabric of her skirt as a familiar heat signaled his arrival before she even looked up.
Logan stood before her.
He looked at her with that steady, unreadable expression that always made her feel as if he saw every hidden thought she possessed.
In the dancing glow of the hearth, the firelight traced the strong line of his cheek and caught across the breadth of his shoulders, casting him in gold and shadow.
His dark hair was pushed back from his face, though one stubborn strand had fallen near his temple, giving him a look of uncharacteristic disorder that made her heart jolt against her ribs.
For a long heartbeat, the music and the roar of the clan faded into a dull hum. He simply watched her, his gaze heavy and dark. The air between them suddenly felt thin and charged, humming with the memory of his hands at her waist.
“Rose,” he said finally, his voice low enough that it seemed to belong to her alone despite the noise around them.
“Logan,” she replied, pleased beyond reason that her voice did not betray the way her heart had begun to beat.
His gaze flicked down once, and Rose felt the path of that glance as though he had touched her, from the neckline of the blue gown to the narrow place where her hands rested together, then back to her face.
Heat rose beneath her skin so quickly she was forced to lower her lashes for a heartbeat.
“Will ye dance wi’ me?” he asked.
Rose’s lips parted. She became painfully aware of Christina beside her, of Conn lingering with undisguised satisfaction, of the clan watching from every corner of the hall.
She could hear the musicians sawing their way through a lively reel, the quick beat of feet on stone, the scrape and thud and bright laughter of people who knew what to do with their bodies in this place.
She did not.
“I should warn you,” Rose said, her mouth curving, “I may prove a very poor partner.”
Something faint but warm moved in his eyes. “I’ve seen ye face worse than a dance.”
“That is hardly comforting.”
“Nay?” His mouth twitched now, just enough to make her stomach flutter. “I thought it very reassuring.”
She wanted to refuse. Or rather, the part of her trained for safety wanted to refuse. She knew how easily a hall could make a spectacle of a woman, how quickly one wrong step could turn into whispered amusement. But Logan’s large hand lifted between them, palm open, waiting for her.
Rose placed her hand in his.
His fingers closed around hers with careful firmness.
The warmth of him rushed through her so swiftly that for one brief, foolish moment she forgot the hall entirely.
Rose felt only the roughness of Logan’s palm, the steady strength in his grip, and the strange, terrifying relief of him choosing her so openly in front of everyone.
He led her onto the cleared space where the others were dancing.
The floor seemed to widen beneath her feet.
Rose tried to remember how to breathe as the couples shifted around them in practiced turns, hands joining and parting with a rhythm that made no sense to her.
Logan turned to face her, and she realized that this was not like the restrained English dances she knew, where distance itself had been part of the etiquette.
Here, bodies moved closer. Hands held longer.
The rhythm had a wildness to it, alive in a way that made her blood heat before she had taken a single step.
“Look at me,” Logan murmured.
Rose had been staring at the movement of the other dancers with growing alarm. Her gaze snapped back to his.
“I am looking.”
“Ye’re studying the floor as if ye’re goin’ intae battle.”
“It certainly feels like it.”
His expression softened so quickly she nearly lost whatever balance she had left. “Ye willnae embarrass yerself.”
“You cannot know that.”
“Aye,” he said, and his hand settled at her waist. “I can.”
The contact was firm and grounding through the wool of the gown. Rose’s breath caught, the sound small enough to be swallowed by the music. Logan’s fingers flexed once on her waist, while his other hand guided hers upward, making her body obey him.
“Step back wi’ yer right,” he said, bending his head slightly, his voice a low rasp near her ear. “Then tae me. Nae too far. I’ll lead ye.”
Rose nodded, though she was not sure she understood.
The music shifted and Logan moved, but Rose stepped too late.
Her foot landed wrong and she stiffened at once, as a flush climbed her neck. She felt the small break in rhythm, felt the awareness of the dancers nearest them, felt her old instinct rise like a wall.
Smile. Recover. Do not let anyone see that you are lost.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, too softly.
Logan’s hand at her waist steadied her. “Nay pardon needed.”
“I missed the step.”
“Aye.”
She looked up, mortified. “You need not agree so quickly.”
His eyes warmed. “Would ye prefer I lie?”
“I would prefer the floor to open beneath me, but failing that, a lie might do.”
His mouth curved, and it made the humiliation loosen its cruel grip. “Then ye danced it perfectly.”
Rose huffed despite herself, and the breath nearly became a laugh. “You are terrible at lying.”
“And ye’re terrible at Scottish dancing,” he replied, voice low, grave, almost solemn.
For a second, she stared at him, startled. Then soft laughter broke from her and his eyes dropped briefly to her mouth. Rose’s breath vanished.
The next steps came no easier, but Logan moved with such certainty that she began to follow the pressure of his body rather than the pattern of the dance.
His hand guided her waist subtly. When he wanted her to turn, his fingers shifted, his thumb tracing a slow, agonizing arc against her ribs.
When she moved too far, his palm drew her back, the heat of him seeping through her gown.
She nearly turned the wrong way. Her skirt tangled around her ankle, and her hand flew to his shoulder in a panic.