Page 21 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

"I've had worse."

"I dinnae doubt it." He pressed the cloth to the cut, and it did sting, sharp and sudden, and she hissed through her teeth and glared at the top of his bent head as if the pain were a decision he'd made on purpose. "Ye're meant tae tell me these things before I find them myself, ye know."

"I didnae ken it was there."

"That's worse." He glanced up at her, blue eyes catching the firelight, entirely too close for a conversation about her own carelessness. "A woman who kens every guard on a wall and cannae feel her own hand bleeding."

"I was somewhat occupied."

"Aye. I noticed."

She looked away from him, at the fire, at anything but him. The careful way he held her hand was doing things to her composure she had neither the energy nor the good sense to manage tonight.

"I shouldnae have gone out the window," she said, low. Not to him, exactly. To the fire.

"Nae."

"Ye needn't agree so readily."

"Ye asked me nae tae lie tae ye." He reached for the strip of linen Grubb's wife had left with the basin and began winding it gently around her palm, his fingers steady despite the low current she could feel running under his skin matching her own. "Ye went out a window in a strange village at midnight with nae plan beyond away, and a man twice yer size had ye by the arm inside a few minutes. I'll nae pretend it was wise just tae make ye feel better about it."

"Thank ye," she said, "for that ringing vote of confidence."

"I've considerable confidence in ye." He tied off the linen and did not release her hand. "I've very little confidence in Struan at midnight, which isnae the same complaint."

She was furious. She was fairly certain she was furious, the heat climbing her throat had all the markings of it. Except when she searched for the anger underneath, she found something else instead. Something that had been sitting there since the street, since his hand had closed carefully over the bruise rising on her arm, since he'd said I said the bolt was yers tae use, I didnae say I'd stopped watching in a voice that had gone rough in a way that had nothing to do with the fight he'd just finished.

"Ye're angry with me," she said.

"I'm angry that a man had his hand on ye in the dark and I wasnae fast enough tae stop it before he did." His thumb moved once over the linen at her palm, absent, and she felt it everywhere it had no business being felt. "I'm nae angry with ye. I'd have done the same, in yer place. I've done the same meself, more times than my mother would've liked."

"That isnae comforting."

"It wasnae meant tae be comfort. It was meant tae be true." He looked up at her, still crouched at her knee, still holding her bandaged hand like he'd forgotten to let it go, or hadn't wanted to. "I'll settle for true tonight."

She should have pulled her hand back. She knew that fact clearly, the way she’d catalogued guards and gates and every other useful piece of information that day, and did nothing whatsoever about it.

"I'm going tae sleep," she said instead, which was true and an obvious invitation for him to leave.

He didn't take the hint.

"Aye," he said. "Ye should."

He rose, and for one absurd moment she thought he'd actually go, and felt something in her chest do a complicated thing she refused to name, disappointment dressed up badly as relief. He crossed instead to the shutter and checked its latch, then to the door and checked the bolt was sound, then pulled the room's one chair around to face the bed and sat in it like a man settling in for a watch.

She stared at him.

"What are ye doing?"

"Sitting."

"I can see that ye're sitting. I'm asking why ye're sitting in my room after I've told ye I'm going tae sleep."

"Because if ye expect me tae leave ye alone after what just happened," he said, entirely reasonable, entirely infuriating, "then ye're delusional."

"I'm nae a child tae be watched over."

"Nae," he agreed. "Ye're a grown woman who's tried tae climb out two separate windows in a single day, one of which put a stranger's hand on ye in the dark. I'd have tae be considerably more of a fool than my enemies credit me tae leave ye alone tonight tae try for a third."