Page 69 of Sinful Scottish Laird
Around and around they went. Daisy began to smile. She laughed, the sparkle returning to her eyes. She kicked up her heels a little higher and seemed to truly enjoy the dancing.
When the music came to a close, the dancers began to set up for a reel. Cailean held out his arm to Daisy; she put her hand on it and wobbled beside him out of the dancing area. He tried to escort her in the opposite direction of Spivey, but Daisy removed her hand from his arm and sank into a curtsy. “Thank you. Your duty is done.”
Cailean sighed. “Verra well then, lass. Would you prefer if I said only the things you want to hear and then kiss you in dark corners?”
“Yes!” she said, then groaned and shook her head.“No.”She sighed. “You shouldn’t ask me what I want, Cailean. You’ll not like the answer.”
She turned from him, started to walk away, but Cailean caught her hand. “Pardon?”
She tugged her hand free of his. “You heard me.” She tried to go forward, but there were so many people, her hasty exit was thwarted.
“Aye, I heard you, but it doesna make a wee bit of sense. Why donna you tell me instead of making me guess?”
“No,”she said as she slipped between two couples. “I won’t confide in a hardened scoundrel.”
“Oh, I’m a hardened scoundrel now, am I?” he said, exasperated, and barreled past the two couples.
“So I’ve heard,” she said over her shoulder.
“I can well imagine that you have. And I can imagine you were quick to point out, to whomever might have had your ear, that we are no longer friends, aye?”
“Yes, I hinted at that to Mr. Somerled.”
Somerled!“He’s a fool,” Cailean said. “And no doubt he assured you that his friendship is superior to mine, aye?”
“Well,” she said airily. “He might have implied it.”
Cailean paused to let two loud men with their arms around each other pass before them. “Did your admirer say more?”
“Hmm,” she said, pretending to consider it. Then said, “Yes.” She walked on.
And Cailean followed the woman like a hopeless puppy, unable to stop himself. He caught her again, his hand on her arm. “You will listen to me, woman—”
She whirled around, her brows dipping into a V over eyes glittering with vexation. “Listento you?” She meant to say more, but they both heard someone call Cailean’s name.
He looked over his shoulder to see Catriona darting through the crowd toward him. “I’ve been looking for you!” she said. “I want to play whist, and Rabbie refuses. Partner with me, will you, Cailean?”
“Och, lass,” he said and glanced back to where Daisy was standing. Or where she had been standing.
But she had disappeared into the crowd.
And in her wake, the smoldering inside of Cailean turned to glowing embers. One waft of a breeze, and he would be consumed with the fire.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DAISYWASSTILLvery cross with Cailean, and not because she was slightly inebriated, which she definitely was, as whisky seemed to flow with the force of a river through Balhaire.
It wasn’t because he’d refused to kiss her and had made her feel incomparably foolish for that desire,the bastard. Yes, all right, she supposed she might perhaps consider that his actions were noble and that he had more of a care for her virtue and place in society than she did.
He was maddening. So was her desire for him, which raged beyond her control and only deepened when she watched him take his victory kiss from that beautiful young Scottish woman. And again, when he made her dance with him and she enjoyed it as much as she had.
Rake.
But she wasn’t cross with him because he was a rake. She was cross with him because he didn’t love her. If he loved her...if he loved her...he would kiss her, and he would take her and Ellis from here.He would save her if he loved her.
Oh, but she was bereft. There was a gaping wound in her. She was reminded of a chemise she’d once had, in which she’d somehow managed to put a small hole in the fabric. Without her notice, the hole had begun to stretch and grow into something much larger and quite noticeable in that inferior piece of cotton. Daisy felt a hole just like that had opened inside her. A tiny one, at first unnoticed, but now stretched and pulled by her desires and her duty into something much larger and painful.
“Daisy?”
