Page 27 of A Forbidden Night with a Scot
Once again, Samuel didn’t speak. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, the mere thought of admission choking him into silence. He couldn’t discuss that night with Alicia, or anyone else, really. If he could have scrubbed it entirely from his mind, he would have done so without an ounce of hesitation.
“Dae ye have naething tae say?”
The despair in Alicia’s tone speared through him, filling his chest with an ache he could not ignore. Even so, he couldn’t entertain the thought of allowing things to be like that once again. It was far too tempting and far too dangerous.
“Forgive me,” he said, lowering his head, his own behavior embarrassing him even now, after all these days. “But this is fer the best, lass.”
“How can it be fer the best?” Alicia demanded. “How can ye stand there an’ tell me this? Dae ye nae care at all?”
“O’ course I care,” Samuel said, and this time, he forced himself to meet her gaze. “O’ course I dae. An’ this is why I must stay away from ye, Alicia. This is why I must never allow that tae happen again. Ye understand, dinnae ye? Ye must. Ye’re a clever lass. Ye ken why I’m doin’ this.”
“I dinnae ken, actually,” Alicia said petulantly. Her childish pout only served to reinforce Samuel’s belief that he was doing the right thing. “Ye’ve never felt the need tae stay away from me afore.”
“Things were different afore.”
“How?”
Once again, Samuel fell silent. Admitting his true feelings would only complicate things further. Alicia wasn’t a fool, nor was she so innocent, after all, as to not know what had happened that night in the library or that he desired her, and yet Samuel still believed some things were better left unspoken. Even as Alicia stared at him, impatiently waiting for a reply, he gave none.
In the end, she threw her hands up in frustration and turned away from him, fishing the key from her pocket to unlock the door. She fiddled with it, the key rattling in the keyhole as she pushed it in and pulled it out repeatedly, trying to turn it only to find that the door would not unlock.
“What are ye doin’?” he asked with a sigh as he walked over to her. “Ye dinnae have tae be so forceful.”
“Ye dae it then, since ye ken so well,” Alicia said, stepping back with a sweeping gesture that was meant to be mocking.
Samuel resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he grabbed the key and turned it—or at least tried to. He tried the other side and again, there was no movement. Next to him, Alicia bore a smug smile, one that did nothing to help with their situation and which only widened and widened as Samuel struggled with the lock.
“What did ye dae?” he asked her.
“I didnae dae anythin’!” Alicia said indignantly, stepping away from him and sitting on one of the larger sacks. “It willnae open!”
“I can see that!”
“How is it me fault?”
“Ye were the one who locked it.”
Alicia scoffed but didn’t grace him with a response. Instead, she only watched Samuel as he desperately tried to open the door, but naturally, it still refused to open. It was just his luck, he thought, the door breaking right as he was desperate to escape Alicia’s presence.
It took him several minutes of wasted effort before he finally gave up and sat on a sack, too, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. The air was too stale and hot in that little room and Alicia’s presence only seemed to make it even more oppressive as the two of them sat there in silence; a silence Alicia broke by asking yet another question Samuel didn’t want to answer.
“Is it truly so terrible, what happened in the library?”
O’ course it is. How can she ask this?
“What was so terrible about it?” Alicia asked when Samuel didn’t respond.
It would be far more immature, Samuel realized, to remain silent than to explain it to Alicia. As much as he didn’t want to have this conversation with her, she needed to understand just how wrong this was, just how far they had already gone without thinking.
“Ye ken I care fer ye very much, Alicia,” he said. “An’ this is precisely why I am stayin’ away from ye. Even considerin’ this is wrong. It’s… it’s…”
He couldn’t find the right word for it.Wrongdidn’t quite begin to cover what it was.
In the end, he settled for the word revolting.
Instantly, Alicia’s face crumpled, her lips quivering as she tried to keep herself composed. In the dim light of the room, her eyes shone with unshed tears and Samuel couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt when he saw just how hard it was for her to hear this.
“Ye think I’m revoltin’?”
