Page 81 of The Highlander's Princess Bride
“I can whisper,” Angus loudly protested. “I can be silent as the bloody grave, ye ken.”
Nick opened his eyes to glare at them. “Would you both shut it? My head’s going to explode.”
He couldn’t remember ever having felt this disgusting. He had any number of character flaws, but getting piss drunk wasn’t one of them.
“Aye, yer stale drunk this morning, laddie,” Angus said in a sympathetic voice.
The old man was sitting in one of the chairs in front of the fireplace. Royal stood behind him, leaning a casual elbow on the back of the club chair.
“Thank you for stating the obvious.” Nick tried to rub out the ache at the base of his neck. “And could one of you explain what I’m doing down here?”
“You drank almost an entire decanter of whisky and passed out,” Royal said. “And since you’re too bloody heavy to move, we left you to sleep it off.”
Nick tossed aside the blanket that someone had thoughtfully placed over his legs. “I do remember getting jug-bitten, which I will never do again, by the way. But how did I end up on the blasted floor?”
Angus shrugged. “We dinna ken. Ye’ll have to ask the lassie.”
A vague image started to coalesce in the back of Nick’s mind. “The lassie?”
Royal nodded. “Miss Knight. She was the only person in the room when you, er, ended up on the floor.”
“When ye both ended up on the floor,” Angus corrected.
Nick braced his elbows on his bent knees and rested his throbbing head in his palms. Fractured memories of the previous evening started punching their way up through the fog, flooding his brain with vivid images—Victoria sitting on the footstool before him, Victoria sitting on his lap, and, finally, Victoria lying beneath him on the floor, with his cheek cushioned on the gentle swell of her breasts.
Bloody. Damn. Hell.
Most vivid of all, he remembered the glorious taste of her mouth as he took everything she’d sweetly and innocently offered. Even as wretched as he felt now, with wet wool for brains and a mouth like the inside of a cave, his body stirred at the memory.
“Och, ye were like an old married couple snug in yer bed,” Angus said with an expansive wave. “It fair brought a tear to mine eye to see ye so content, lad. Like wrapt up in warm flannel, ye were.”
Royal tried to smother a laugh at the stupid joke.Wrapt up in flannelwas cant for blind drunk.
“Christ,” Nick sighed. He flopped back to the floor and rubbed his aching temples. “Please tell me I didn’t hurt or frighten the poor girl.”
“Oh, not a bit,” Royal said. “She seemed more than happy to offer you comfort in your time of need.”
And he’d clearly been more than happy to receive it. It had all come back to him now. His wretchedly foul mood and how he’d tried to drown it in whisky, and then Victoria climbing through the damn window, doing her best to talk sense into him. Her gentle warmth had chased away the grim memories haunting him last night.
He sat up and tossed aside the plaid blanket, hauling himself to his feet. His head swam for a few moments, but he refused to give in to the urge to find the nearest bucket and empty his stomach. He wanted to know exactly what happened last night, and he needed to think about Victoria and how to do right by her.
Nick made his way over to the bellpull and yanked it. He desperately needed coffee. “You shouldn’t have let her come in here,” he growled as he stalked back to his desk.
“Couldn’t stop her,” Royal said, taking the chair in front of Nick’s desk.
“You couldn’t stop that wee slip of a girl from climbing in the bloody window?” Nick asked in disbelief.
“We tried,” Angus said in a soulful tone. “But that lass was fair insistent.”
“Cowards.”
“Can you blame us?” Royal said.
Nick snorted. “Yes.”
The door opened and Andrew cautiously peeked in. “Ye rang, Laird?”
“Tell Taffy to bring up a pot of coffee.”
