Page 78 of Laird of Steel
Scraping the quill across the parchment, he asked himself if he’d grow restless when he was no longer able to match wits with the maidservant each day.
“Our…time…apart,” he echoed.
“Bereft o’ hope to ease my achin’ heart.”
The more she recited, the more the emotions resonated in him. But it wasn’t the way he felt about Lady Carenza. After all, he’d met the woman only briefly. He hardly knew her.
Nay, the sweet smile, the restlessness, the aching heart described how he felt about Merraid, knowing he was leaving her behind.
She continued. “A glance, a word, a smile would ease my pain.”
He formed the letters on the missive meant for Carenza. But it was Merraid’s face he imagined. Her grin of mischief. Her arched brow. Her gentle smile. Her twinkle-eyed laughter.
“Aye?” he croaked, dipping the quill.
“But since the Fates command us to abstain…”
The Fates. He cursed the Fates that steered him away from Merraid. That forced him to wed a lass repulsed by him.
“To…abstain…” he repeated.
He looked up. Merraid tapped at her lower lip. She gazed sightlessly at the flagstone floor, deep in thought.
Finally she murmured, “I’m forced to…woo? Court?” Her brow creased. “Court,” she decided. Then she intoned, “Alas! I’m forced to court with awkward prose…”
“Awkward prose?” he protested. “Your prose is anything but awkward.”
She gave him an indulgent smile. “’Tis kind o’ ye to say so.”
“’Tisn’t kindness.”
“Humility is best, I think,” she explained. “No one likes a braggart.”
That was true enough. He copied down the line. “Awkward,” he read back, shaking his head, “prose.”
She turned away from him then, facing the wall. She mumbled something he didn’t catch.
“What’s that?” he asked.
She turned her head slightly over her shoulder and murmured again. Her voice was too soft to discern her words.
“I didn’t catch that. Could you speak a bit—”
“The one I long to hold in passion’s throes,” she blurted out. Then, aghast at her own daring, she whipped her head back toward the wall.
Startled, he dropped the quill. It made a blotch on the parchment. He gasped, picking it up before it could do too much damage.
Did he hear a second gasp in the darkness? Or was it just the echo of his own?
He wasn’t sure. He was still reeling from the image her words had conjured.Holding her in passion’s throes.
Merraid misunderstood his gasp for disapproval.
She bristled. “’Twas the only thing I could think of,” she hissed in her defense. “’Tisn’t easy, writin’ verse. What would ye have me say? ‘That I should like to grab and tweak her nose’?”
For an instant, he was stunned silent.
Then a bark of laughter erupted out of him. “Tweak her nose?” God’s bones. What had made her think of that?
