Page 22 of Highland Spy

Ariana nodded. “Is there anything I can do?”

He put a large hand on her shoulder. The heat of his thumb brushed at her collarbone where the neckline of her gown did not cover.

Her pulse flitted faster.

“Sylvi told me how ye cared for her while ye traveled here, how ye encouraged her and kept her spirits up.” His eyes met hers, a dazzling array of colors within the deep hazel. “The lass may be alive even now because of what ye did.”

Ariana shook her head. “Liv is tougher than she looks, she—”

“Dinna underestimate yerself, Ariana. There’s a courage in ye I dinna think ye can see.” His free hand touched the underside of her chin. Soft and gentle.

Oh God.

He tipped her face toward his and her lungs stopped accepting air.

“I see yer strength and I believe in ye.”

Her heart staggered erratically to find some clear rhythm and failed.

He gave her a firm pat on the shoulder and nodded once before walking off.

She spun away and grazed her cheek, where his touch still scalded, with shaking fingers.

And though she had promised herself she would not, her thoughts slipped back into the beautiful fog of that glorious imagined kiss.

• • •

Connor settled back in the chair that wasn’t his and stared into the flames burning in the hearth of a solar that didn’t belong to him.

The crumbling heap of a castle had been in the king’s negligent hands for decades, if not centuries.

No one would want Kindrochit. Certainly not Connor.

As the promising heir of a laird so long ago, he never thought he’d grow up to have nothing.

Less than nothing.

Obligations he couldn’t meet, a legacy he was so far from reclaiming it might as well be a legend. His people were dead. The only one still alive was Murdoch.

Connor’s pact with the king only added weight to his mind, a scale forever tipping him further from the balance of morality. Then there was Cora, the sister he could barely protect, who resented him and whom he did not visit lest he face the fire of her disappointment. And now he had a sick woman with a babe to consider.

Not to mention those names.

Those damning names.

Angus MacAlister and Kenneth Gordon.

The muscles of his neck bunched, a knot drawn impossibly tight.

The betrayal tangled in the thorned web of what had once been a brotherhood.

Something thunked downstairs.

Most likely Sylvi going through her nightly routine.

Still, his shoulders rose with irritation.

He pulled in a deep breath and dropped his head back onto the velvet-covered chair.