Page 24 of The Story of his Highland Bride
“Not if you’re going to stand over me like a teacher keeping an eye on the naughty kid,” she told him, gesturing absently to the small stool, tucked against the wall beside the writing desk.
It would make a man as large as him look foolish to sit on such a tiny chair, but he genuinely wanted to hear what she had been writing. In a way, he hoped it might offer him some clarity about the truth of her origins.
So, he perched on the stool, his knees bent almost to his chest. “Begin when ye please.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to concentrate, with you looking like you’re about to fold in half at any moment.” She laughed, and the sound of it stirred something greater than his loins. It stirred his heart. And as she gazed down at him, he found himself drawn into the excited gleam that had not been there before. She seemed… at ease, like he had not truly met her until that moment.
He smiled. “Ye told me nae to stand over ye, and if I sit on the bed, I’ll be too far away.”
And I’ll want ye to join me, and I willnae get to hear a word of what ye’ve written, as yer mouth will be pressed to mine,he added in secret, forcing himself to behave in case making a suggestion like that caused her to lose that glimmer in her eyes.
“This was me only choice, as if I sat up on the desk itself, me arse would cover most of what ye’ve been writin’,” he concluded, hoping to make her laugh again.
She did, a rich chuckle pealing from her full, teasing lips. “I wouldn’t want anything to smudge. Now, bear in mind that this is only a first draft, and I don’t really have everything plotted out yet, so it’s going to be a bit like a bomb went off in an idea factory.”
“Ye’re stallin’,” he said, with a raised eyebrow. “Ye have me full attention, Miss Eloise, and I’ll hold me judgment ‘til ye’re done. Ye willnae see anythin’ good nor bad on me face until then.”
Eloise took a short, sharp breath, as if she was scared. Then, she began: “Among twilight hills, like ogres sleeping, a woman picked her way through the slumbering souls, envious of their peace. Alone, but crowded with thoughts, there was nowhere she could run to escape their jeers. Not that it stopped her from trying, seeking quiet in a far-off place, where magic still whispered in the stones.”
She weaved a tale of wonder and woe, of a young woman so desperate to shuffle off the chains of her life that she had gone to the Highlands to pursue a legend: a legend that spoke of a gateway to another world, that could only be entered by those who had lost enough to be worthy.
“With no mother, no father, no brothers, no sisters, no friends, no husband, not even a distant cousin to call her family, Elizabeth knelt before the stones, her arms outstretched to embrace the only hope she had left of finding a life worth living,” Eloise went on quietly. “It was this or nothing, and if the stones forced her to trudge back through the sleeping ogres, alone on the night roads, she knew it would be the end of her story.”
Jackson closed his eyes, picturing the scene as she spoke of voices chanting through the air, and starlings watching her like feathered guardians, while “Elizabeth” begged and pleaded for salvation from the “Old Ones,” as she called them. If anyone else had heard her reciting from her pages, Eloise would have been marched to the nearest stake and burned for being a witch, for her words were all the things that godly, Christian men feared. The images were so visceral, so vivid, so… primeval that even he felt a little uneasy.
“She stirred to hoofbeats,” Eloise whispered, “like war drums, pounding the earth. Or like the drumroll of an executioner, seconds before the axe fell. Her eyes opened at the moment the hoofbeats halted, the whinny of a horse masking the stifled scream in the back of her throat as she looked upon two men, staring down at her with beetle black eyes, shrouded by shadow. Saviors or foes, she had no way of knowing.” She cleared her throat. “And… uh… that’s about it, for now.”
Jackson’s eyes opened to find Eloise shuffling the pages she had read from, hurriedly placing them on top of a similarly sized pile. But the pages below were not empty; there were words etched across them, which she seemed eager to hide.
“What about those?” He gestured to them.
She shook her head, shyly dipping her chin to her chest. “They’re not ready for reading out yet, and where I ended is my best cliffhanger so far. Always leave them wanting more, you know?”
“Will ye read them to me when ye’re happier with them?” He did not know what a “cliffhanger” was, but he could wager a guess in context. It was presumably a way to keep the reader hooked and, as she had said, wanting more. To his pleasant surprise, he did.
Her brow creased into a frown. “You liked it?”
“Ye…movedme, Eloise,” he admitted, his voice thick. “I cannae remember ever readin’ or hearin’ anythin’ that made me feel… so much before. Nae since I was a bairn, anyway, listenin’ to the stories me maither and grandmaither used to tell, but even theywere naught in comparison. I could see everythin’ ye were sayin’, so clearly in me head that I thought I was livin’ it, for a moment. Indeed, if I daenae hear how the story ends, ye might drive me to madness. At the very least, I’d ken if those lads were friend or foe to the lass.”
Eloise swallowed, her gaze unsettled as her eyes met his, and she whispered, “That’s what I’m still trying to figure out.”
14
Eloise could’ve leaped across the short distance between her and Jackson, throwing her arms him in gratitude. The best critics were those who had no reason to sugarcoat their review, and Jackson certainly didn’t have any reason to sugarcoat his. So, they’d kissed, but that didn’t mean he’d lie to spare her feelings. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who ever lied to spare anyone’s feelings.
He liked it! He actually liked it!Her heart somersaulted in her chest, as she beamed down at her handiwork, overcome with a pride she hadn’t felt since—if she was being honest—the very first book she’d had published.
“Would you change anything?” She wanted to test her theory.
Jackson rested his cheek on his hand, thinking for a moment. “I’d change some of the words ye use, but that’s only because I daenae understand them. Ye spoke of Elizabeth tryin’ to find a…ticket booth. I can guess at such a thing, thanks to the explainin’ around it, but I have nay picture of it in me mind.”
“I wish you could glimpse into my world,” Eloise murmured with a sigh. “I can’t tell if you’d want to swish your sword at everything in sight, or if you’d be too shocked to even move. Your eyes would bug out of your head if you saw a car… and maybe a ticket booth.”
He smiled oddly. “I wouldn’ae be so surprised, now that I have somethin’ of yer world’s knowledge in me head. A car seems to be a horseless carriage, is it nae?”
“Very good.” She clapped her hands together and sketched a frankly embarrassing interpretation of her own car on one of the sheets of paper. “It looks a little like this. Actually, it looks nothing like this, but I’m an author not an artist, so I draw like a five-year-old.”
Jackson frowned at the image. “Aye… that’s nae far from what I imagined.”
