Page 10 of The Merciless Laird
She did not freeze. She did not feel the walls closing.
She wasn't sure what to do with that.
"Ye dinnae have tae make carryin' me a habit," she said, because she needed to say something, and that was what came out. "I can walk."
"Another word from ye about walkin' and I'm carryin' ye everywhere fer a week."
She looked at the side of his face. He wasn't smiling, exactly. But there was something there, in the set of his jaw, the slight ease around his eyes, that told her he meant it precisely as much as he didn't.
She didn't bother a second time.
The stables smelled of smoke and horses and controlled urgency. Her father was there, his men moving around him, and he gripped her hands once more before stepping back to let the grooms work.
"Ye'll write," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes, Faither. I'll write."
"And if ye need anything, anything at all, ye let me ken."
"Aye." She squeezed his hands once. "I ken."
She turned before she could see his face do what she suspected it was about to do.
Ivar was beside her at the gate, her satchel over his shoulder, the blue cloak now around her shoulders, she wasn't entirely sure when that had happened.
He wasn't touching her. He wasn't speaking. He was simply there, steady and watchful, facing the dark beyond the gate.
The groom brought one horse.
Matilda looked at it. Then at her father's men, already mounted and moving into position. Then back at the horse, at the single saddle, at the very obvious and unavoidable arithmetic of the situation.
She moved toward it anyway. Her knee had stiffened during the time upstairs and the first attempt to reach the stirrup made that immediately, humiliatingly clear. She tried again, jaw set, weight shifting, and got nowhere.
"Here."
Ivar was beside her before she'd registered him moving.
He didn't make a production of it, no pointed look at her knee, no comment about walking. He simply positioned himself at her left side and offered his cupped hands as a step, his eyes already on the gate ahead, as though helping her mount was simply the next thing that needed doing and he saw no reason to draw attention to it.
She looked at his hands. Then at the horse. Then, briefly, at him.
"I can manage," she said.
"Aye." He didn't move. "And yet."
She wanted to argue.
The part of her that had spent eight years learning how to need nothing from anyone wanted very badly to argue. But her knee had its own opinion and the gate needed to open and Callum MacDougall was somewhere in the dark beyond these walls, so she put her foot in his hands and let him lift her.
He was in the saddle behind her before she'd finished settling.
And then she understood the full problem.
His chest against her back. His arms coming around her on either side, loose on the reins, close but not confining.
The warmth of him was immediate and unreasonable for a cold night, and she was very acutely aware of every point where they were touching and every point where they nearly were.
Her body waited for the familiar tightening.
