Page 19 of The Dragon Laird’s Obsession

Ailis wore a gown of soft blue wool, the color bright against the gray morning. Her light brown hair was braided loosely though several curls escaped to frame her face. The wind caught them, tugging one across her cheek. She pushed it back, still smiling, her mouth warm with mirth, her eyes alive in a way that made the dull sky seem poorer for standing behind her.

His chest gave a strange, hard tug of desire. It stirred first beneath his ribs then lower, a fierce heat rousing through him like embers kicked awake beneath ash. His fingers curled at his sides. His body remembered how close she had stood in the little chamber. It remembered the catch in her breath and the slight tremble of her lower lip.

His mind, fool that it was, wondered what that mouth would taste like if she smiled against his.

Gordon looked away sharply.

Malcolm followed his gaze and made a low sound. “Ah.”

Gordon turned on him, his voice sharper than he intended. “We ride to the village.”

“Now?”

“Aye.”

Malcolm glanced at Gordon’s bleeding arm. “And the cut?”

“It willnae kill me.”

Malcolm only lifted both hands and went to fetch the horses.

Gordon did not look toward the fields again.

By evening, the day had settled into his bones. The village had needed him longer than he expected. A quarrel over grazing rights. A roof beam split by rot. Two families arguing over a goat that seemed determined to belong to both and to obey neither. Gordon had listened, judged, ordered repairs, and sent Malcolm to fetch extra timber from the keep’s stores.

He had done his duty, and it had kept his mind from Ailis for nearly an hour at a time. That, he decided grimly, was victory enough.

When he returned to the keep, dusk had fallen. Torches burned in the bailey. Rain threatened again, darkening the sky beyond the wall. Gordon handed his horse to a groom, refused supper, and climbed the stairs to his chamber with the weary relief of a man seeking silence.

He opened his door and stopped dead in his tracks.

Candles burned everywhere. On the mantel. On the table. In iron holders near the bed. Upon the chest. Their flames filled the chamber with warm gold, turning the walls soft and treacherous.

Flowers stood in every corner. Blue, white, and pink blooms filled clay jugs, wooden bowls, and even one old helmet Gordon had not seen in years. Hortensias, of all things.

Great round clusters of them, bright as summer and utterly foolish in a room meant for sleep, study, and nothing more.

But the flowers were not the worst of it. Fabric had been draped over his curtains. Pale cloth embroidered with tiny, ridiculous sheep. More sheep marched across the coverlet. Another length hung over the chair.

A woolen blanket lay folded at the foot of his bed, white and soft and covered in plump little lambs with black stitched faces. Gordon stared hard, his eyes burning with the first onset of his fury.

Ailis stood near the bed with a candle in her hand, looking pleased enough for him to know she was up to no good.

He shut the door slowly behind him.

“What,” he said, each word cut from stone, “in the heavens has happened to me chamber?”

Ailis’ smile was sweetness itself. “Me chamber,” she said. “Or rather ours.” She tilted her head. “It will be our chamber soon, will it nae? Daenae ye agree?”

Nay.

Nay, nay, nay. All of this was wrong. The candles. The flowers. Her scent, tangled with the air in his chamber. Her body standing beside his bed as though it had any right to be there. As though one day soon she might sleep beneath those sheep-covered blankets, loosen her hair before his fire, look up at him in candlelight and⁠—

“These,” he said, voice hard, “will go.”

Her smile faltered only for a breath.

It should have pleased him, but it did not.