Page 28 of Hold Fast

“Verra well,” he said. “But I have three conditions of my own as long as you stay here.”

Una tensed, fear tingling once again at the base of her skull. Of course there was a catch. Wasn’t there always?

“Let’s hear them,” she said, mustering her courage to hear it.

He coughed into his hand. “First, you are to eat and rest when you can. You strike me as the type to forget herself when caring for others, and I willnae have you falling ill because of your devotion to your work.”

She wanted to protest on principle alone, but she couldn’t. Because he wasn’t wrong.

“I agree to that,” she said easily. But surely the rest of his conditions could not be so straightforward as the first.

“Second, as we have ruined your frock, you will allow my sister to find you a new one.”

There was nothing wrong with her dress. It was perfectly serviceable, albeit stained. But it would be stained again and again in her line of work. She could wash it, and it would be as good as new. Or as good as it had been anyway.

“I dinnae want—”

“Una,” he interrupted, his voice low. “It is a gown, not a fortune. Please.”

It was thepleasethat did it, gentle and sincere, and she found herself nodding.

“Fine,” she spat. “But it must be a sturdy gown. Nothing that can be ruined easily. And something dark that willnae stain. Wool. Nothing fine. I’ll work in my shift before I ruin a fine gown,” she said, clutching for the upper hand.

There was a spark in his eye, the briefest flash and that little tic in his jaw. Did he like the challenge? Or was it the suggestion of working in her shift? Either way, the look was gone as quickly as it had come.

“We cannae have that now, can we?” he muttered.

She felt goosebumps prickle across her skin. What was this feeling? Not desire. It couldn’t be that. Not with this man. Not withanyman, for that matter. Not after she’d just freed herself from one. Not when she was standing eight feet away from a boy fighting for his life. Not when she was so close to her new start.

And yet, her body felt almost liquid as he reached up with a hesitant hand and swept a wet lock of hair away from her forehead, brushing it behind her ear, as if the soft animal of her bodywantedhim to touch her. Which was impossible.

He looked as confused as she did, the two of them staring at each other, like creatures across a clearing, sizing up the relative danger.

“And the third condition, m’laird?”

He shook himself and took a half step back. “You must make me a promise.”

He spoke barely above a whisper, and Una felt her blood go cold again. This was where he would make demands. Of her body. Of her time. Any number of promises he could exact from her, things she did not want to offer, in exchange for her safety.

The bread roiled in her stomach as she lifted her chin. “And what promise might that be?” she asked through her teeth.

He cocked his head to the side, a confused look on his face. “’Tis an easy promise, Una.”

“Then spit it out, m’laird,” she said, the wordlairdsounding like a knife in her mouth.

He sighed, his shoulders rising with the air, his huge hands hanging by his sides. “You must promise to never call me that again.”

CHAPTER11

Ewan didn’t know what had possessed him to make such a request. It was his title. It was his due. And yet the word always sounded like a sneer when she said it, as if she could barely stand the taste of it in her mouth. For some reason that he had not yet had time to dissect, he didn’t like that. He didn’t like it at all.

Una was clearly as confused as he was. “But youarethe laird.”

“Aye, but I am naeyourlaird,” he said, cursing the flimsy logic.

What could he say?I dinnae want you to call me laird because I want us to be friends? I want you tolikeme?What the hell was that? And yet it was true. He found that hedidwant her to like him. Almost as much as he wanted to brush another errant lock of hair away from her cheek. Perhaps his knuckles would graze against her soft skin.

It was all a lie. Or, if not a lie, anuntruth. He wasn’t her laird, that much was true, but he would be. Hang the Stewarts. He needed a gifted healer who could care for his clan and his family, and she was already here. Why couldn’t she just… stay?