Page 43 of Highland Spy

He knew he’d find her, of course. He just wasn’t sure what predicament she might be in.

What the hell had she been thinking, disappearing up here?

And who the hell had been in the room with her?

Connor waved for her to follow him and led her toward the narrow stairs the staff used. The floorboards squeaked under her footsteps.

He’d need to teach her how to walk without sound.

For next time.

His chest tightened uncomfortably and he realized he didn’t want there to be another time when she might be at risk.

He wrestled the thought away. This was what she had been brought in to do.

The aging stairs swayed slightly beneath them, but in a quick moment, they were in a darkened alleyway. Outside, the air was thick with the threat of rain and left the odor of rotting food heavy around them.

A surreptitious glance confirmed they were alone. Connor pulled Ariana’s cloak from his shirt and handed it to her.

“What the hell were ye thinking?” he whispered harshly.

He should have waited until they were in the woods, but the thought had been singed into his mind the whole damn time she’d been gone.

She took her cloak from him and pulled it over her shoulders. “How did you get this?”

He’d stolen it, like any other beggar would have considering where she left it, but that wasn’t what he wanted to discuss.

And here was not the place to discuss any of it.

The deep baritone of several male voices sounded on the street outside the alley, their only exit.

“Lean on me and act drunk,” Connor said.

A lazy smile lilted over Ariana’s lips and her lids slid a little lower over the wild blackness of her eyes, where her pupils covered the beautiful blue-green—an effect from the tincture to further mask her identity.

She sagged against his proffered arm and her delicate, fresh scent teased at his senses despite the putrid stench of the alley. Though he was not a tall man, her head rested just below his shoulder, and he had to put his other arm around her waist to keep her secure against him.

Together they walked onto the street. Try though he might, he could not ignore how the curve of her hip moved in a graceful swaying motion under his hand.

What he could at least ignore was the way he wanted to trace her shape with his fingers, with the sensitive flat of his palm—down her slender back to the dip of her waist and the rounded swell of—

He swallowed hard and focused on the street in front of them.

Seventeen.

There were seventeen men and one woman in view. Most in front of the Lamb’s Tail Inn.

Connor steered Ariana from the inn, toward the edge of town. Urgency pressed at his back. While it was a sensation he never ignored, he wondered how much it had to do with a possible threat and how much it had to do with Ariana.

The crunch of coarse sand sounded under someone’s boot nearby.

Behind them.

Connor didn’t turn to look, instead he nudged Ariana toward the nearest wall and pushed her back toward it with his own body.

She moved with him, allowing him to shift her as if she were drunk, even letting her feet stumble slightly.

He pressed himself against her as lovers might do, holding her upright and shielding her all at once. They faced one another, chest to very exposed, very tempting breast.