Page 23 of A Time & Place for Every Laird (A Laird for All Time #2)

“Tell me, lass, what’s got yer feathers in a bunch now?”

Hugh asked as they descended the final flight of stairs.

“Are you hungry? I know I am, and if I am, I know you must be,”

Sorcha responded pertly, ignoring the question as if it had never been spoken.

She was good at evasion, even if she was not terribly subtle about it. Hugh had noticed before that if a conversation wasn’t to her liking or heading in her preferred direction, Sorcha simply plucked a new topic from the air and carried on as if nothing were amiss. She had done so that evening while standing at the sink, the previous morning when she had overridden his attempts to apologize, and again last night after their walk on the beach, drawing close to him only to pull quickly away with an announcement that she was off to bed.

It was perhaps her most irritating quality.

Hugh ground his teeth with frustration, resisting the urge to take her by the shoulders and shake an answer from her. It wasn’t in his nature to cater so to another’s whims. He was a duke, after all. He had been raised to command and lead with the expectation of being followed. He wasn’t one to bow down to another, and he had done so with Sorcha only out of appreciation for her aid and because he had yet to find his footing in this world, but at some point she would need to know that he wasn’t going to be ridden roughshod over forever.

And now the point had been reached.

When they were once again ensconced in her small car, Sorcha started it with the key and reached for the gearshift between them but Hugh laid his hand over hers to stop her. “Hold, lass,”

he commanded. “I hae something tae say.”

She looked from their hands to his face, but this time Hugh refused to comply with the implied request. “I try verra hard, lass, tae be an accommodating guest tae ye,”

he told her. “I stayed wi’ ye when I know I should hae left, and now I cannae leave, knowing that ye would be left unprotected and at our foe’s mercy. I hae given my own will over tae yer wishes because I ken that ye know best in this world, but I am nae fool, Sorcha. Nae lapdog to sit and stay on yer command. Nae flea to be brushed away like a minor annoyance. When I ask ye a question, I expect an answer as a matter of common courtesy and if I’ve done something ye hae issue wi’ I expect ye tae tell me so. I dinnae like this evasion, and it has tae stop.”

Sorcha looked away and drew in a deep breath, her lips parted …

“Nae,”

Hugh said firmly, foreseeing what was to come. “Dinnae even try tae change the subject. There will be nae more of that.”

Sorcha’s shoulders dropped and she bowed her head. “I know. I do that, and it drives people nuts. It’s like a nervous habit or something. When things get uncomfortable …”

“Ye maun be uncomfortable often then,”

Hugh grumbled.

“Pretty much since the moment I met you,”

she said honestly, slanting him a sidelong look.

“Tell me, then, what hae I done now?”

With a sigh, Sorcha shook her head. “You haven’t done anything. It’s just this damned muddled up brain of mine!”

Her hand slid out from beneath his, but before he could say anything, Sorcha took his hand between her own, squeezing gently. “Hugh, you have to know that you have almost literally turned my world upside down in the past few days. I might have looked calm, cool, and collected but I was a mess inside. You have no idea how many times I wavered in my decision to help you.”

“’Tis a good defense for yer actions,”

he allowed but added, “in the beginning.”

“I’m still a mess inside,”

Sorcha confessed, her eyes begging for something High couldn’t define. “It’s like I’m riding an awful roller coaster and the carny just won’t let me off.”

Silence.

“Like I’m on a ship at sea during a storm.”

“I see.”

Of course, he had known that she was struggling with her emotions. They both were. “Then why did ye nae let me gae my own way?”

She sighed, shaking her head as if asking herself that same question—one he had asked many times but had never received a satisfying answer to. “I guess it’s because the ride can be just as thrilling as it is terrifying. These last three days have been more exciting for me than the last three years put together. Ups and downs until your head spins, but you know, sometimes all that commotion makes you want to … hang your head over the leeward side of the ship, so to speak.”

Hugh almost had to laugh at her analogy, the anger slipping away… but then his anger with her never lingered for long. “So yer saying I make ye want tae cast up yer accounts?”

“Sometimes,”

she nodded with a playful grimace, releasing his hand and shifting to look out the windshield rather than at him. “But sometimes you make me want to … oh, find a bigger storm. Like it could be even more thrilling but at the same time the thought is even more terrifying. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He did. For all the doubt and chaos his appearance had brought, Sorcha was enjoying their time together and their burgeoning friendship. He, too, enjoyed their unusual camaraderie, their lively exchanges, and even their more vexing ones. Despite the brevity of their acquaintance, their relationship was already familiar beyond what might be expected. The days ahead were filled with uncertainty but borne by the knowledge that Sorcha would be there with him. And he welcomed them because of that.

But that wasn’t all that Sorcha was saying.

There was another storm brewing. One that could be far more thrilling than any other. Her own reservations notwithstanding, Sorcha was alluding to something far more enticing than their evasion of the federal agents.

She was saying that she was tempted.

By him.

The realization sent a shaft of sudden lust through Hugh’s veins, a primal urge to plunder, knowing the ravishment was mutually desired, but Hugh tamped back the arousal. He was coming to know Sorcha well enough to realize that an admission was not an invitation.

Forcing a calm he didn’t feel into his voice, Hugh asked gruffly, “So what do ye want from me, lass?”

“And that’s where I’m still a mess,”

she said with a sigh, tracing a finger around the steering wheel. “I want … I want … And then I want something else.”

Cryptic words to say the least, but somehow he understood her implication. What Sorcha was struggling with wasn’t Hugh himself but her loneliness. After three years, it was more likely that she missed a man in her bed than that she carried any particular attraction to Hugh himself. Sorcha didn’t want him. She wanted her husband back, a husband she loved still.

“Dinnae fash yerself, lass,”

Hugh said, hiding his regret behind an exaggerated blustering brogue. “I told ye already that I wouldnae touch ye again wi’out yer permission. I might hae slipped yester morn but it willnae happen again.”

She stared at him with some surprise. “Oh, is that why you didn’t …? Oh, God, what a mess.”

“I will keep my distance and respect yer wishes,”

he clarified, unsure of what the mess she was referring to was.

“That’s not what I’m saying, Hugh.”

Hugh just shook his head. “I ken what ye mean, Sorcha. It all goes back tae our argument, aye? Ye mourn yer husband still, but I can see yer lonely.”

“I did … I mean, I do, but you were right. Everyone was right.”

Sorcha was so flustered that Hugh couldn’t help but tease. “Are ye saying ye want me in yer bed, lass? Nae, even if ye said so, I wouldna believe ye. If the time comes, I’d be pleased to accommodate ye, for ye are a bonny, desirable woman, but I’ll nae hae another man’s ghost in my bed. If ye ever come tae me, ye had best make sure ye come alone.”

It might not have bothered Hugh before, but if he were to make love to this bewitching woman, Hugh suddenly knew that he needed to be assured that it was he she saw, his name that was on her lips. He wanted to know that she was with him not only in body but in heart and mind. He would not have her any other way, and she was not likely to have him any other.

But even that knowledge could not stop his blood from boiling at the sight of her.

Claire twisted her hands around the steering wheel, fighting back the incongruously girlish embarrassment that had been building throughout Hugh’s speech. It was humiliating to know that she had been so obvious in her attraction to him, but in a way, it was nice to know that the feeling was mutual, that he thought that she was beautiful—at least she thought that was what bonny meant.

That he intended to never act on that attraction, not only because of the promise she had wrenched out of him in a moment of self-flagellation but also because of her continued mourning for her husband, was disappointing. But given his reasoning, how could she be disappointed? She wouldn’t want to sleep with a man who was in love with another woman, so why would a man want a woman who was in love with another man?

The problem was that she would always love Matt. He would forever hold a piece of her heart. Surely even with their temporal differences Hugh could understand that? That didn’t necessarily mean that she would picture Matt when she kissed another man or be wishing that he was Matt instead. That certainly hadn’t been the case when Hugh had kissed her on the beach. She had drawn away for only the reasons Hugh had listed afterward.

Fear. Claire’s introspective time on the beach had provided a long list of things she was afraid of. Maybe the biggest of them all was that she would someday be content to put Matt in her past.

Which led to the reason Hugh hadn’t listed. Guilt.

Indecision had set her nerves jangling. Take the leap. Cower back. Tease. Retreat. No wonder she was driving Hugh crazy. She was a jumble of mixed signals! Like a teen with her first crush rather than a woman approaching thirty years. Perhaps it was a matter of experience in flirtation… she’d never had much of it. Had never needed or wanted it.

So she wasn’t ready for a running leap into his bed—Hugh was right about that—but she didn’t want to take the option completely off the table, either. How was she to tell him that now, after what he had said?

“I guess I’ve been put in my place for the second time today,”

Claire said at length, uncertain how to approach the true subject once more. “Or is it the third?”

“I am nae counting.”

Hugh’s brogue had gentled again, the sting of his rebuke left behind.

“A very gentlemanly thing to do.”

Claire angled at look at him from the corner of her eye to find him waiting patiently, though she had gotten the impression before that he wasn’t a particularly patient man. Of course, what else could he do after delivering such a set down? “I’m not normally like this. You must think I’m some sort of tease.”

“Nae, I believe nothing more than that ye are plagued by yer past and by yer indecision,”

he told her with remarkable insight. “Now, the courts of Europe are filled wi’ women who lure and tease, who seduce wi’ nae intention of giving a man relief. ’Tis a game to be played and enjoyed on both sides, one at which I hae much practice.”

Claire couldn’t help but smile at that. It seemed for a man of his years, Hugh had all he experience she lacked. “Are you saying that you are an experienced flirt?”

“I hae learned from the best. If ye are looking to wet yer feet in the pool of light romance, I would be pleased to be the object of yer flirtation.”

“You’re telling me that you’re willing to be teased without expectation?”

“Aye, I willnae take it seriously.”

Ahh, but she might. Hence the guilt. Yet, the temptation Hugh presented was still there, and he was neatly providing what she had been afraid to ask for. Flirtation was a nice start. After all, how was she ever to know if she could move forward with her life if she never tried? “Verbal flirtation?”

“I am highly skilled.”

Claire shook her head in amazement at his ego but carried on. “Touching?”

“Has been strictly forbidden,”

he said quickly.

“What if it wasn’t?”

she dared to ask and was rewarded by the heat that darkened his eyes and the flaring of his nostrils.

“Then it could play a valuable part in said flirtation.”

Drawing in a shaky breath, Claire tried to calm her racing heart, which had been startled into a gallop by the banked desire in his gaze. Words and touching aside, he played a pretty good game with a single look.

Definitely a jumble.

“Kissing?”

she whispered almost inaudibly.

His gaze shifted to her lips, and Claire could practically feel the pressure as they warmed and tingled beneath that scorching look until she couldn’t help but catch her lower lip between her teeth to stop it. Hugh almost groaned as she did so, showing as no words could that flirtation was truly a two-way street.

“At yer discretion and instigation only,”

he said gruffly, finally looking away.

“Okay,”

Claire whispered, more to herself than to Hugh, wondering what she was getting herself into. Right now it seemed more perilous than taking on the whole of the U.S. government.

Claire held a hand out, and ever so slowly Hugh engulfed it with his large one. His rough palm slid across hers, inciting the same riot of feeling that had surprised them both when they had first shaken hands just four days past.

God! Was that all it had been? Already it seemed like a lifetime.

“Ye mentioned being hungry,”

he began, leaving Claire to consider all sorts of hunger. But obviously Hugh would never cease to surprise her. “It’s long past luncheon and I find myself hungry as well. Can we return tae the house for some food ere I wither away?”

The tension between them—of a more pleasurable sort, this time—faded, and Claire marveled at how handy Hugh was at driving a person’s moods. That he could censure, humiliate, and soothe in a matter of minutes was astounding, but somehow he had set them back to rights again.

“You’re right," she replied, "we should get something to eat, and I know just the place.”