Page 24 of The Butterfly
He chuckled, inclining his head toward his makeshift bed. “More comfortable than my mattress at home. Besides, the horses like the company, and so do I.”
“Should I leave you and the horses alone, then?” she teased.
Adam had promised to make excuses for her should someone discover her missing, and she needed this time away to get herself together. All the better if she did not have to do it alone. Besides, this might be one of her last chances to be alone with Niall before going to London. It might be her last time alone with Niall at all.
He laughed, motioning for her to join him. “They have me all to themselves during the day. Tonight, they can share me with you.”
Her shoulders sagged as she let out a relieved sigh, coming forward to join him near his window. He sat up straight, drawing in his long legs to make room for her in the little alcove he occupied. At his side sat a stack of worn books, tomes she had purchased for him on her trips home from school.
His gaze made her cheeks flush, his appreciation for her attire clear.
“You look beautiful, Livvie … too bonny to be sittin’ in a hayloft with me.”
She had chosen the white satin ball gown herself, pairing it with her mother’s pearls and matching white gloves with pride, had pinned white muslin flowers in her hair thinking of how they would stand out against her dark locks. The ensemble had earned her many compliments throughout the night—most more flowery than the one she’d just received. And still, she had not felt half as lovely as she did right now, with Niall setting his weighted stare upon her.
“Are ye not enjoyin’ yer comin’ out?”
Drawing her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them, she sighed. “I suppose. It is only that I’ve just realized how quickly everything is happening. When I was in school, it felt as if time moved so slowly. I could not wait for it all to be over so that I could go out into the world and … well, I don’t know what, exactly.”
“Find a husband?”
She snorted, shaking her head. “I know that is what I am supposed to do, but now that I am here, it feels as if there ought to be more. Here I stand, a year or less away from the expectation becoming some faceless man’s wife, and it has occurred to me that I have hardly lived. I have done appallingly little with my life.”
Niall frowned, studying her as if attempting to read a foreign language. “Ye’ve done plenty. And ye have the whole world ahead of ye, Livvie. London’ll be a grand adventure.”
“I suppose,” she relented. “But, it will all come to an end once I marry. Mary Watson—she shared my room at school—says her sister Elizabeth married an absolute beast of a man. She’s regretted her decision every day since the wedding. I do not want to end up like her.”
“You willnae. Ye’re far smarter than this Elizabeth chit. Ye’ll know the right man when ye meet him.”
“Will I?” she argued. “How can that be when I’ve only ever lived at Dunvar and a school filled with other girls? How am I to know what sort of man to choose, or which ones to shun? And with how heavily chaperoned I shall be, how is there any hope for me to find someone who makes me feel …”
Niall’s nostrils flared, jaw tightening when she trailed off. Their gazes met and held, the silence stretching between them growing heavier by the second.
“Makes ye feel what, Livvie?”
The words she knew not to say sat poised on the edge of her tongue. They burned as if she held a hot coal in her mouth. She could not have stopped herself from uttering them if she’d tried.
“The way you make me feel,” she whispered.
Sucking in a sharp breath, he shot to his feet, pacing away from her and bracing one hand against the rough, wooden wall. “Livvie … dinnae do this.”
Brow furrowed, she slowly stood, hands clasped before her. “Do what, Niall? Speak truthfully?”
“Hurt me this way,” he rasped, his voice low and heavy. “I cannae do it any longer.”
“Hurt you? What on Earth makes you think I’d ever want tohurtyou?”
He glared at her over his shoulder, a muscle in his cheek working as if he ground his teeth, fighting against whatever he wanted to say. It seemed he lost the battle, because he was on her in an instant, hands tight on her shoulders.
“How do ye think it feels, listenin’ to ye go on and on about leavin’ me to go off and get yerself hitched?” he snapped. “Do ye think Ilikeseein’ how bonny ye look, knowin’ ye’ve done it so those blue-blooded lairds’ll want to dance with ye, kiss ye, touch ye?”
She could only stand there, mute, her heart leaping up into her throat when he drew her even closer, his grip on her arms growing downright painful. She wouldn’t have wanted him to let go for anything—not with the hard ridges of his body pressed against her soft curves and his breath tickling her cheek as if he might kiss her.
“I always knew it had to happen,” he went on. “But that doesnae make it any easier, knowin’ ye want somethin’ I can give ye, but ye dinnae want it with me.”
She flinched as if he had struck her, hurt lodging itself deep within her, throbbing from within the vicinity of her heart.
“Is that what you think of me? That I see you as some sort of lark to indulge in until I find something better?”
