Page 42 of The Cruel Highlander's Healer
Ye should have said yes when she asked ye to dance.
But as much as Conall wanted to say yes, as much as he’d been tempted by it, he knew that he couldn’t.
He could never give Eliza, or any woman for that matter, anything more than just the physical. He had seen what love had done to his father, how it had killed him.
Because his father had loved his mother. And she had killed him for it. He would never be able to give his heart away, not if that was all that love would get him.
But still, would it be so terrible to pretend? For just one night.
“Ye should dance with yer woman, me laird.”
A voice sounded from close beside him, and Conall whirled. There was a man standing a few feet away from him, his eyes not on Conall but on Eliza.
There was a hunger to his gaze that had fury pooling low in his belly. But still, he knew what he had to say.
“She is nae me woman,” he grunted, and even he could hear the bitter tone in his words.
“Ye sure look at her like she is,” the man answered. “But if she’s nae, perhaps I’ll try me hand at askin’ her to dance.”
Conall couldn’t stop the growl of protest that rose in his throat. He snarled at the man, glaring at him with a fury he hadn’t felt in quite some time.
The man’s eyes went wide with fear, and he held his hands out in front of him, palms forward. A sign of supplication and surrender. There was a mumbled apology, one that Conall barely heard before the man turned on his heels and scurried away.
Regret began to fill him.
He shouldn’t have done that. He had no claim to her. He knew that all the way down in his bones.
Conall desired her, yes. But she was not his. She was nothing to him other than an employee. Someone he had hired to do a job. He had no right to chase off potential suitors for her.
Maybe that man would have been good for her? Maybe that man would have given her all the things that ye cannae.
His stomach soured.
“Are ye sure ye daenae want to dance with me?”
A lilting, familiar voice came from mere feet in front of him. Conall blinked, the haze of jealousy falling to the wayside as he looked up at Eliza.
She was beaming at him, her hand half extended to him in an offer.
By God, he wanted to reach out and take it. Instead, Conall shook his head.
Eliza’s bottom lip jutted out as she pouted, and almost immediately she wobbled on her feet. He jumped to standing, holding a hand out to steady her.
“That last dram of whisky might have been a mistake,” Eliza admitted, her cheeks flushed with drink and dance.
“Mayhaps it’s time to get ye up to our rooms.”
The words fell from his lips before he had time to consider them. Had he asked them because she was a little drunk? Or had he asked them because he was jealous of everyone that she’d danced with that evening – women, men, and children alike?
Conall wasn’t sure he wanted to try to answer that question.
For a moment, Eliza looked like she might protest. She threw a longing, considering glance over her shoulder to the few people still dancing.
It was well into the wee hours of the morning; she had been dancing for hours. Many of the revelers had long since left, gone upstairs to their rooms or to their homes within the village.
Only a handful remained.
That seemed to be the deciding factor, that there were not many people left. Because Eliza turned her attention back to him and nodded.
