Chapter 3

3

His hands in her hair, the soft touch of his breath on her skin, her body so close to his she could feel the heat rushing from it. Those eyes, as blue as a crystalline river on a spring day, gazing down at her, the corners of his lips turned up, the expression on his face…

She is dancing with him again. The music pulses around them, though she can barely pay attention to it. No, the only thing that matters to her right now is the way that he feels, the closeness between the two of them. She is sure, somewhere, at the back of her mind, Arran is telling her to stay away from this man, but she can’t imagine even trying to do such a thing now, not when this feels so right.

He leans down to her, his mouth just an inch or two from her own, and she cranes her neck like an animal trying to take a long sip of water, but, instead of meeting her lips, he lets go of her, and she stumbles forward.

All at once, as her eyes snap open, she realizes she is not in a room surrounded with other people now. No, she is somewhere else, somewhere… different. Her heart thrums in her chest as she looks around, trying to remember how she found herself here. The air is cold, the music dropping away suddenly, her skin prickling as goosebumps appear up and down her arms. She reaches out into the darkness, searching for him, trying to find him, but her fingers come up against nothing but the damp moss growing in the wall.

“Hello?” she calls out, but her voice just echoes in the small space around her. Tears prick her eyes. Where is he? Where has he gone? Why has he left her like this? It doesn’t make sense…

Then, all at once, she senses something. Something behind her, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up, as her instincts warn her there is something wrong, something terribly, terribly wrong.

When she whips around, there he is, standing behind her, but this time not with the soft eyes of a lover. No, all she can see are his teeth, gleaming in the darkness, the smile on his face like a wolf in the dark…

Mary’s head snapped up from the pillow, her chest rising and falling fast as she came back to the real world. The dream was still fresh in her mind, so much so that she could almost smell his scent clinging to her. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked around, reminding herself that she was safe, that there was nothing here for her to worry about. She was in her chambers, at the Aitken Keep, just a few rooms down from her sister and her new baby.

But she could not shake the weight of the dream as it pressed down on her mind once more. She swung her legs out of bed, planting them on the ground below and trying to focus on the coolness of the flagstone beneath her feet. Putting her head into her hands, she realized that she was still trembling slightly, and she inhaled deeply once more.

There’s nothing to be worried about. With all the stress of the day, it was no wonder that her mind had invented something so strange and so disturbing. Seeing Kiernan again, and then being met by Arran’s warnings about him, it had caused a confusion in her mind, drawing together her desire for him and her fear of him to create something she could not parse.

Straightening up, she heard a sound down outside the door. For a moment, she stiffened in worry, but then she realized it was her sister. Amelia’s voice, soft and low as she soothed the baby. Mary made her way to the door, and, as she poked her head out, sure enough, there was Amelia, cradling Robert in her arms and gazing down at him with the loving eyes of a new mother.

“Milly?” Mary whispered to her sister. She had not used that old nickname for her in a long time, but there was something about the way she felt in that moment that practically demanded it of her. She felt… vulnerable, almost, as though she might have been exposed at any second.

Amelia glanced up and smiled when she saw Mary. She must have been too exhausted to see the look on Mary’s face, the truth of her feelings in that moment.

She made her way into Mary’s room, Robert still swaddled in her arms. He let out a little grunt and a groan as he nestled against her, and Amelia beamed down at him.

“Can you believe how perfect he is?” she remarked. “I scarcely can.”

“He’s wonderful,” Mary agreed, her voice a little shaky. “Is Arran…?”

“He’s asleep,” Amelia replied. “When Robert woke, I wanted him to get some rest, so I stepped out into the corridor to rock him. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, I was already awake,” Mary assured her, as Amelia sank down onto the edge of Mary’s bed, still holding Robert close as he started to drift back off to sleep.

Mary watched her sister for a long moment, and found a smile curling up the corners of her lips. Truth be told, she had never seen her sister glowing with such life in all the time she had known her, as though having this baby had drawn out a new side of her she had never seen before. She could hardly wait for Lily to see their nephew, too. She would be amazed, she was sure of it.

In all fairness, she knew Arran had plenty to do with that. He might have been gruff with her tonight, when he had seen her speaking to Kiernan, but he had given her sister such safety, such happiness, such comfort, and such freedom, and now, a family to go with it. She would never have guessed that he would provide her with such a wonderful life.

“Amelia,” she murmured softly, not wanting to wake the baby. “Can I ask you something?”

“If it’s if you can hold him, no, you can’t,” she replied. “I don’t want to wake him again…”

“It’s not that,” Mary replied with a light chuckle. It’s… it’s about Arran.”

Her head lifted, and she looked over at Mary curiously. Mary didn’t delve too much into her sister’s marriage, and with good reason. She had always supposed that whatever went on between Arran and Amelia was none of her business. As long as her sister was happy, she had no right to go demanding how that happiness had come about. But curiosity was getting the better of her, and besides, it wasn’t as though there were many people she could talk to about such topics.

“What about him?” Amelia asked, tipping her head to the side in curiosity.

“Did you… do you trust him?”

Amelia stared at her for a second, clearly utterly confused by the question. But then, she nodded.

“Of course I do,” she replied, sounding almost offended by the suggestion. “Do you think I’d have had a child with him if I doubted that I could trust him?”

“No, it’s not that, I’m sorry,” Mary apologized, realizing how it must have sounded to ask her such a question. “I suppose… I suppose what I really want to know is whether you felt you could trust him from the moment you met him.”

Amelia fell silent for a long moment. Mary knew as well as she did that the circumstances of her meeting Arran had been anything but normal. When Mary had seen her sister led off to marry this man, who her own father’s advisor had tried to insist was too dangerous for her to so much as be left alone with, she had been terrified. But Amelia had taken it with a stoic certainty, and perhaps that was because she knew Arran would be able to provide the life he had for him. Perhaps she had always trusted him.

“I suppose I did,” she replied. “At least I trusted that he’d take care of me. I trusted that he would do everything in his power to make sure I was safe, even if I didn’t know what that might entail. It wasn’t as though I was in love with him from the moment I met him, but I… I sensed something in him, something I wanted to trust. And I’m glad I did."

She gazed down at Robert again for a moment, her face softening. Then, she peered back up at her sister.

“Why do you ask?”

Mary bit her lip. She didn’t want to worry her sister with news of what had happened that night. She supposed it was most likely that Arran had told her about it, anyway, given that they were husband and wife. However, judging by the expression on Amelia’s face, she seemed genuinely curious to know what had happened, unsure what had caused her sister to question her husband in such a way.

“I was just… I wanted to know if you thought you could trust Arran’s judgment on someone.”

Amelia nodded at once.

“Of course you can,” she replied, as though it should have been obvious. “He knows this place better than anyone. And all the people in it, for that matter. Why? Did the two of you…?”

She trailed off. Mary reached out to stroke the soft, downy hair on Robert’s head. She could hardly come out and tell her that it had been about a man, let alone the very same man that she had been dancing with all those months ago, a man who had burned himself onto her memory like a brand on cattle.

“I just wanted to be sure that you could trust the man who was going to be raising my nephew,” she replied jovially, trying to lighten the mood between them. She was not asking her sister all of this because she doubted Arran’s abilities as a husband or a father. No, she could tell from the way he treated Amelia that there was no chance he’d ever do anything to hurt her, or their new baby, for that matter.

But when it came to Mary’s attraction to this mysterious Laird Fraser, she could not decide if she was to trust her instincts or Arran’s. The dream she’d had seemed to be a warning, stirred from somewhere deep within her. When it came to this man, she might not have been entirely safe.

She should trust what her mind was telling her. Her mother had always told her to believe what her instincts warned her of, told her that many a woman had been saved by trusting what her gut had told her, and that she would have been foolish to try and ignore it. She gritted her teeth, deciding then and there to keep her distance from that man no matter what desire pulsed inside of her when he was close to her. She could tell that she would be safer keeping her distance. And, given that it had been all that time since they had last seen one another, she doubted that she would face too much in the way of trouble when it came to that.

“I should get some rest,” Amelia yawned, rising to her feet again. “Are you sure you’re alright, Mary?”

“Of course I am,” Mary replied, quickly smiling up at her sister. The very last thing she wanted was to worry Amelia when all she needed was rest. “You go to Arran, get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Amelia leaned down to drop a maternal kiss on her sister’s head, and then made for the door. Mary stayed at the edge of the bed. She knew she should have been trying to get some more sleep, but there was something in her that would not rest, no matter how much her exhausted body called out for it.

Something that burned so bright for Kiernan Fraser, she knew she’d not be able to snuff it so soon.