Page 39 of Highland Spy

Connor had been right. It was indeed busy.

A woman with two pints in hand aggressively pushed her way between two men and threw a comment over her shoulder. They laughed and one swatted her on the bottom.

Ariana followed suit and forced a path through the crowd.

A hand caught at her arm. “I’ve always liked a fair-haired lass.”

She looked down to find an impossibly large man with black hair holding her. He gave her a friendly smile. “I havena seen ye here.”

“I’m just passing through,” Ariana said in Gaelic.

“Why dinna ye sit beside me?”

She looked at the crowded bench. “There isn’t room.”

He grasped the back of the man’s léine beside him and jerked him upright. Beer sprayed from the hapless man’s mouth and he staggered backward into the bench behind them.

Laughter rose up from the nearby tables.

“And now there is,” said the large man.

“Aye, but only for a moment.” Ariana sank into the newly available spot.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched for the man who had been vacated from his seat. The men on the other bench made room for him and he slunk down into the narrow gap.

A hand landed on her thigh.

Her upper thigh.

She jerked her attention to the large man and found him staring intently at her. “Ye’re a bonny lass.” He grinned beneath his full beard. “And I’d like ye for more than a moment.”

A little warning tapped at the back of her mind and suddenly she found herself grateful for all the training she’d done with Delilah. No matter how powerful this man before her was, her skills at manipulation were stronger.

The door opened and in walked a beggar with shaggy hair and one missing tooth.

No one noticed his arrival.

No one but Ariana.

Yes, it was good she knew how to pry herself from this man.

Something told her she’d need to do it soon.

• • •

It was almost impossible not to stare at Ariana.

Connor navigated the narrow aisle between the benches, the backs on either side so close they brushed his body as he passed.

Despite how often he tried to force his gaze to those he passed, he found it repeatedly returning to Ariana.

Not that it mattered.

He was hardly the only one.

True, she’d worn the same low-cut gown as any other tavern wench did, and Delilah had covered Ariana’s natural beauty with smears of carmine and rice powder as they did, but she was not one of them.

Her beauty shone like a candle in a dark room and her confidence burned even brighter.