Page 194 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
He crossed to the bench, set it straight, and closed the fallboard, gathering control in those small motions. His marriage was supposed to have shape, distance, and rules that kept him safe from himself. He had just destroyed all three with his own hands.
Ava watched him.
He felt her gaze on his back and hated that he was already withdrawing from her while her body still carried the proof of how close he had been. He hated it because it was cowardly. He hated it even more because he could not stop.
When he turned back, she was standing where he had left her, one hand at her throat, her nightgown pulled closed. He knew that look in her eyes. She had learned him too well in so little time.
He forced his voice into order. “I should see ye back to yer chamber.”
Her gaze did not leave his. “If ye like.”
He led her down from the tower in silence.
The castle was deep in sleep, and their steps on the stairs sounded too loud. Even the light had dimmed, as most of the candles had been snuffed out. Only a few remained at the end of the passageway, enough to light the path and do no more.
His shoulder brushed the stone wall once when the bend narrowed, and the brief pain there almost helped. It gave him something to feel, even if not for long.
At her door, he stopped. Ava turned to face him, and the candlelight from within spilled across the threshold and caught the color still high in her cheeks.
He should have kissed her again. He should have stayed. He should have done anything that matched what had just happened between them. Instead, he cleared his throat and looked down at the floor. “Good night.”
“Is that it?” she asked, her voice as soft as his.
He looked up from the floor. “I daenae ken what else to say.”
Ava held the door, but did not move to close it. “Well, ye could tell me after what happened tonight that ye arenae going to disappear tomorrow morning.”
The question struck cleanly because it carried no surprise in it.
She knew what he was. She knew what he was about to do. She asked anyway and gave him one last chance to be better.
He looked at her and answered with the only truth he had. “I probably will.”
The words hung in the air.
Her face tightened, though she kept her back straight and her voice level. “Then goodnight, me Laird.”
He left before he could say anything worse.
Training should have helped him the next morning. It had always helped before. Steel, motion, men who expected clear orders and gave them back in discipline. He had built himself inside such things for years. A sword in hand, a target before him, and the body usually remembered what to do.
Today, however, his body obeyed poorly.
Hector came at him fast from the left. Ciaran should have blocked the blow at once. He was late by half a beat and paid for it with a crack of wood against his forearm. Pain splintered up to his elbow. He cursed and turned too hard into the next pass.
Hector lowered his practice sword. “What in God’s name was that?”
“Again,” Ciaran grunted.
Hector gave him a long look, then lunged at him once more.
Ciaran met the first blow, missed the second opening, and overcommitted to the third badly enough that Hector had to step back to keep from taking the point in the ribs.
“Enough,” he said.
Ciaran’s jaw locked. “I said, again.”
“And I said, enough.” Hector drove his practice sword into the dirt and folded his arms. “Ye are fighting like a man who has left half of his wits in his bed this morning.”
