Chapter Fourteen #2
His jaw locks, then suddenly he lifts me, and I find myself clinging to his neck while he trudges toward the bank.
It seems to take a century, him slogging through chilly dark water and me shivering in his arms. Of course he has to be as strong as an ox.
Of course he has to hold me against a chest like an iron slab.
Fates damn him. I am intensely conscious of his hand, carefully positioned an inch below my breast. Of course he has to be bloody respectful, as if his honor meant anything to me after tonight.
“Do not expect an ounce of gratitude for this,” I stammer through chattering teeth. “This was your fault. And that pond appeared out of nowhere!”
He lets me down at the bank, and I take a few steps, my wet skirts twisting around my legs. I am shaking with mortification more than the cold. My cheeks could light a match. At least the darkness hides most of it. Captain noses my leg, as if to be sure I’m unharmed.
Mr. North growls under his breath as he twists his shirt, water pouring from the fabric. It sounds suspiciously like “Troublesome, meddling woman.”
“Don’t think this erases our discussion!” I assure him.
“Discussion?” He looks up, his wet hair swinging around his temples. “Is that what that was? Because it felt like an ambush.”
“Oh, no. You are not the victim here.” I spread my hands wide, as if addressing an entire classroom of bloody-minded, boulder-chested Scotsmen. “And I am not finished with this conversation, sir.”
“I can see that,” he says in a strangely coarse tone of voice, as if a rock has lodged in his throat.
“And I would be delighted to continue our argument indoors. We can shout till dawn if it would please you. But please . . . cover yourself first. Otherwise, it makes it very difficult for a man to stay angry.”
He grabs his coat and thrusts it toward me.
I look down and realize then that the soaked linen of my nightgown is clinging in . . . deeply inappropriate ways. I wrap myself in his coat, feeling my face turn several degrees hotter. “Right. I’m going inside.”
He picks up the extinguished lantern. “Shall I go ahead, in case any more ponds decide to appear out of nowhere? Savage things, ponds. Quite unpredictable.”
I push past him and storm toward the house, fighting against the heather. He was right about one thing. It is difficult to stay angry when one is soaked to the bone, freezing, and stumbling through the dark.
“There’s a path here, you stubborn thing!” he calls.
Ignoring him, I forge ahead, but he reaches the house first and opens the door for me. I go past him without a word and go straight to the kitchen, where the fire is low, but still warm. Captain flops onto the floor and pants, watching us with his eyes masked behind his long hair.
Standing in front of the fire, I let out a sigh and hold my hands to the coals, water dripping from my skirt and pooling on the floor.
Mr. North stands behind me, dripping and disheveled and looming like a great bear. I toss him a black look over my shoulder. “What?”
“Would you mind scooting aside a wee bit?” he growls. “Perhaps share a man’s own hearth with him after he’s just saved your bloody life?”
“I was hardly at death’s door,” I grumble.
But begrudgingly, I edge to the left, and he fills the empty space beside me, his eyes closing as the heat from the low flames rolls over him.
I eye him sidelong, my skin still prickling with fury.
Water trickles down the thick locks of his hair and runs down his jawline.
The soaked fabric of his shirt leaves little to the imagination, hugging the planes of his chest and outlining the rolling muscles of his back.
The front of it is snagged on the waistband of his trousers, revealing a small triangle of bare skin and the dark, fine hairs on his stomach.
Fates.
The nerve of the man, honestly. How dare he be such a beast, and then stand there looking like . . . like that? And he had the audacity to ask me to cover up?
“Shall we strike a truce?” he asks softly, his eyes parting open.
I snap my gaze away, glaring instead at the fire. “A truce?”
“Until morning, at the least. Otherwise I feel I shall be forced to sleep with one eye open, lest you hex me in the night.”
“Not an unwarranted fear,” I mutter beneath my breath.
“Tea?” Mr. North asks. “To seal our truce and warm us up.”
I harden my jaw, not wanting to give in. But the fire’s heat can only reach so deep, and my bones feel limned in ice. “Let’s call it a pause.”
“As you like. And another thing . . .”
He leans toward me, and I catch my breath as his hand moves to my face.
For a moment, I’m filled with the wild notion that he’s about to kiss me.
My eyes drop to his lips, and heat roars through me like wildfire.
My body reacts before my mind can form a coherent thought, my toes curling on the stone floor, my breath suspending somewhere between my lungs and my lips . . .
“Just this,” he says, and he gently peels some sort of pond weed from my neck and tosses it into the fire, where it hisses on the warm coals.
Oh. Rose, you fool. Of course he wasn’t about to . . .
If he had, I would have slapped him.
Wouldn’t I?
Yes, yes. I’d have definitely slapped him. I definitely would not have kissed him back. I am a respectable schoolteacher, and respectable schoolteachers simply do not go about kissing abominable Scotsmen with wool for brains and logs for biceps.
“Thank you, Mr. North.”
“I wish you’d call me Conrad,” he says. “Surely I’ve earned at least that, having saved you from a horrid drowning?”
I give an unmannerly snort.
Ignoring the stove, he hangs the kettle over the coals instead.
Then he towels his hair before removing his shoes and stockings.
His damp hair is already beginning to dry and curl.
He pulls his shirt out of his trousers and wrings it, wincing at the puddle it makes on the hearth.
His bare feet are pale on the stone, and for some reason, the sight of them makes me flush. I step closer to the fire.
“I’ll take care of the water,” he says, nodding at the puddles we’ve made. “I shudder to think of the questions Mrs. MacDougal might lob at me otherwise.”
I let out a laugh, and he looks up.
“I think she dislikes me,” I say. “Nearly as much as you do.”
He glances at me, his storm-cloud eyes widening a fraction. For a moment, he seems at a loss for words.
“I don’t dislike you,” he says at last.
“Really?” I give a very unrespectable snort. “The day we met, I knocked you off your horse and gave you what seems to be a permanent limp.”
He frowns, then thumps his leg. “What, this? This is an old injury. Not your doing.”
“Oh. Well . . . what about later that night? You caught me red handed, snooping through your house.”
“True, but I wasn’t exactly gracious about it. You may be surprised to learn we don’t get many visitors here, particularly of the female nature. My manners were—are—a bit rough at the edges. I am in fact aware of my shortcomings, whatever you may think of me. I know you consider me a monster.”
“I . . . never used that word,” I say carefully. “I have known monsters, Mr. . . . Conrad. And I do not think you quite fit the bill. But you are making a terrible mistake with Sylvie.”
He doesn’t reply, but gives me a sharp sidelong look, no doubt afraid I’ll revive our argument. But what’s the point? He isn’t going to change his mind. He thinks he is doing what is best by his sister. How can I make him understand that magic isn’t a curse, but a gift?
But I’m not here to get involved with these people. I keep forgetting that. No matter how much they need it, I cannot help them if I cannot even help myself. And pushing him further will only incite him to retract his hospitality to me, and what help would I be to Sylvie then?
So I keep my mouth shut, my teeth grinding together.
The kettle whistles, and Conrad removes it to pour our teas.
I hold my cup close with both hands, soaking in its warmth.
He finds a wool blanket somewhere and holds it up inquiringly, and with a nod, I let him drape it over my shoulders, replacing his now-damp coat.
He wraps himself in another and sits on the hearth, back to the fire, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.
The dog gives a little soft whine and lays his head on his master’s foot.
I briefly consider telling him the truth: that I am bound to a faerie, losing my magic, trying desperately to complete a nearly impossible task in too short a time.
But how would that induce him to trust me more? If he knew the truth, he would only sink deeper into his conviction that Sylvie shouldn’t learn to Weave. Even knowing she endangered herself trying to channel, he will not change his mind.
For her sake, I cannot come clean. At least, not until I’ve concluded Lachlan’s favor and freed myself from him for good.
After a long moment, Conrad looks up.
“I love her more than anything in the world,” he says quietly. “I just want to keep her safe.”
I meet his eyes, seeing that every word is true, even if I can’t agree with his methods of showing it. “Loving someone isn’t only about knowing what’s best for them. It’s about letting them choose their own fate.”
“Choice is a luxury.” He grimaces. “Believe me, if I had another choice . . . but I am not unbound and free as the wind as you are. Some of us are bound by duties we cannot escape, our lives lived in debts we can never fully pay.”
I swallow a bitter laugh. “I think I know more of your duties and debts than you may believe.”
He gives me a curious look, which I return. He is hiding something. I am sure of it now. Neither of us is telling the whole truth. For a moment, his lips part and I think he will pry deeper into my words.
But then he looks away, his jaw clenching, and says nothing.
I stare at the dregs slowly circling the bottom of my cup. “I suppose I should go pack.”
“I invited you to stay and I’ll not go back on my word.” He considers me with a studying eye. “I’ll be away for a few days. More business on the estate, and ’tis too far to ride back and forth. Just swear you will not teach her so much as a wart hex.”
“Well,” I say. “That is a useful hex.”
“Please. Rose.”
It’s the first time he’s used my first name like that. The sound of it in his rough, low Scotsman’s brogue unexpectedly startles me, like a cool wind over simmering coals.
“I swear it,” I say softly. “By the soul of my dear aunt, who was like a mother to me, I swear it . . . Conrad.”
He nods, satisfied, thinking all is settled between us. Thinking he has got his way.
Fault number five: Dishonesty.
I am a very good liar.