Chapter Nine
After supper and after the hall had quieted into stories and low conversation, Claire escaped to the wall walk.
The dark inkiness of night drenched the sky. Stars spilled against the black in reckless numbers. The loch below caught moonlight in broken silver, and beyond the keep the dark ridges lay layered one behind another like sleeping giants.
She heard the door behind her before she turned.
“You have a habit of appearing when I prefer solitude,” she said.
Lachlan came to stand beside her on the parapet, though not too near, but close enough the aroma of ale and apple reached her. “And yet ye continue to find the best views.”
She rested her hands on the cold stone, needing the strength of something tangible. “Did you come to guard me from the moon?”
He gave a careless shrug. “Nay. It seemed harmless enough.”
No matter how she tried to bank it, a grin pulled at her mouth. “Bold assessment from a man who sees danger in roads, walls, and weather.”
“I also see it in English ladies with curious minds.”
Claire looked out over the moonlit water. “Then your life is very difficult.”
“It has its moments,” he said with the edge of humor.
The wind lifted, carrying the scent of water and distant bracken. Somewhere below, a deer hound barked then settled.
Claire shivered as a chill settled over her.
Lachlan removed his gloves and pressed the leather into her hands.
"I do not need rescuing." Regardless, she slipped her hands into the soft material.
Lachlan chuckled and shook his head. "Good thing I'm merely lending them."
When she reached for the stone parapet once again, his hand settled over hers.
Not restraining.
Simply warming.
The touch lasted only seconds before he stepped away.
Quiet spread between them, but it was not empty. It was laden with the unknown and the unsaid.
“Why do you look at me as you do?” she asked at last, frustrated at his coveted glances.
His answer did not come immediately, she saw the calculation as he thought before he spoke.
When he spoke, it was a low rumble against the sound of the water crashing against the shale cliffs. “How do I look at ye?”
Claire swallowed, tempted to shift the direction of their conversation, but unable to do so. “As though I am both trouble and something breakable.”
He turned fully toward her then. Even in the dark of night, moonlight glinted off his intense gaze. Lachlan crossed his arms before his chest. “Ye are trouble.”
She lifted a brow. “And breakable?”
His gaze dropped briefly to the scar just visible near her glove where bramble had once caught skin. “Everyone is breakable.”
The honesty in it stole her wit for a moment.
Did the statement include him?
The moonlight gentled nothing in him. It sharpened the planes of his face, glinted against the copper in his hair, deepened the gravity in his eyes.
She should step away. Yes, she should. Instead, she said, very softly, “You speak as though you know too much about breaking.”
He shifted his back toward the dark hills. Tension tight in the line of his shoulders and in the way he gripped the stone wall. “Aye.”
No riddle.
No evasion.
Just one hard truth set quietly between them.
Claire felt her chest tighten. And because tenderness frightened her more than the steel of his spine. She reached out to touch him, perhaps to bring comfort. Before her gloved hand brushed against his sleeve, Claire thought better of it. Instead, she said, “You are still a maddening man.”
A smile ghosted his mouth. “There ye are.”
She should not like he knew how to find her beneath all her defenses.
She liked it anyway and found herself wishing he would remain after the conversation ended.
# # #
All he had to do was reach out and touch her, pull her to him and sink into her delectable mouth with a kiss.
The knowledge struck him with the force of a blow.
On the wall walk under stars, with the loch below and the whole keep sleeping around them, he had stood one breath away from lowering his head and finding out whether Lady Claire Ashford tasted of anger or moonlight.
God, he wanted to know.
Instead, he gripped the parapet until the stone bit into his palms.
Not yet.
Not while danger still moved unseen.
Not while she still did not know enough to choose freely.
Lachlan had taken her choice from her once already. He would not do so twice.
He stood beside her in the night, turning restraint into its own torment.