Page 112 of Highland Spy

A snide comment sharpened on Ariana’s tongue, but she clamped her teeth against it. There was no need to subject others to the foulness of her mood.

A helping of pottage sat mostly eaten in Liv’s bowl and little Fianna rested at her feet. Despite Ariana’s foul mood, she could not help but feel warm at the sight of her friend’s recovery.

Footsteps sounded in the doorway behind Ariana and the skin along her back tingled with the eager desire to turn around.

“We already have a teacher for such things,” Connor’s voice sounded from where the footsteps had come. Rich with a familiar timbre she could not ignore.

And it only served to scrape at her nerves all the more.

She tightened her fist under the table with resolve. She would not turn around.

Isabel gave a little grin. “Then perhaps I can assist with such lessons.”

Connor’s footsteps sounded, coming closer to Ariana until he appeared beside her and plucked a bit of bread from the trencher with his large, graceful hand.

He shrugged. “Ye’ll have to speak with Delilah when she returns. For now, we’ve got training to do, aye?”

His hand came down on Ariana’s shoulder, warm and firm, and he gave her a gentle squeeze. The scent of him teased a spiral of languid desire through her like smooth honey.

It was unwanted.

Ariana rose with the other two women, but the hold Connor had on her shoulder prevented her from leaving along with them.

She shifted her gaze from the table in front of her to his chest, where his léine lay open just wide enough to show the top of his muscular chest. The memory of how warm and strong that very spot had been against her lips whispered over her mouth like a kiss.

He stepped closer with his hand still on her shoulder, his grip soft but still holding her in place. “Ye dinna need to come downstairs. Feel free to rest more.”

The show of concern rankled all the more. “I don’t need the rest, and they’re all waiting for us.”

He was too close. His scent too familiar, too intimate.

She shifted her weight, putting the scantest of space between them. But it was enough to allow her to breathe once more.

He watched her with a steady gaze, one altogether heavy and intense. As if he were studying her.

And she didn’t like it.

She arched an eyebrow. “Was there something more?”

His stare did not abate, and she tried to pretend she didn’t notice the flecks of green and black in his hazel eyes she’d once found so fascinating.

“There’s no’ anything more.”

She needed no further encouragement. She turned her back on the suffocating weight of his observation and left the room.

The other two women were opening the trunk of practice gear by the time she arrived downstairs. The cold morning air nipped at the heat of her cheeks and laced their breath into wisps of white.

Connor had not followed her.

“First we run,” Ariana said, indicating the path between the castle walls and the curtain shielding it from view. The grass there was still fuzzy with the morning’s frost.

She jogged toward the narrow alley, taking the same path as so many times before.

Isabel and Liv followed at a slow, cautious jog, as if they didn’t know what to do.

Ariana remembered too well her own trepidation when she’d first come to Scotland. Being exhausted and hungry and confused as to what would happen in her world.

What would happen to her.