Page 87 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

The following day was Christmas Eve, and Will was locked in combat.

“Ye need to swing it higher than that,” Catriona called. “Aim for the head.”

Will set down the battle axe with a clang. “Can’t,” he panted. “It’s as bad as the broadsword.”

Catriona gestured to a bench lining one of the walls of the armory. “Let’s take a break.”

Grateful, Will sat with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Catriona poured him the last of the tea they’d made for breakfast. It had gone cold, but Will drank it thirstily.

Once he’d recovered, he gave her a rueful smile. “It’s too bad you’re stuck with a skinny academic. I knew in theory that broadswords were heavy, but I didn’t realize just how heavy until I tried wielding one.”

Catriona dismissed this with a wave. “I couldnae wield it, either. Ye’d really think that in a castle of this size, we’d have a rapier or some such lying around. But it’s nothing but pikes and broadswords, as far as the eye can see.”

“I could always wield my shovel.” He laughed. “I suppose unconventional soldiers require unconventional weapons.”

Catriona seized his forearm in an iron grip. “Say that again.”

He glanced down and found her staring across the room in a daze. “Um… Unconventional soldiers require—”

“Come on!” She surged to her feet, hauling him with her. “I know exactly what we need to do!”

Eight hours later, every muscle in Catriona’s body was sore.

But that didn’t matter. The important thing was that the castle was booby-trapped within an inch of its life.

Now, there was nothing to do but wait and see if the thieves would return.

Catriona had selected a corner watchtower for their vigil. This particular tower had a sweeping view of the surrounding moors, which glowed white under the soft light of the full moon.

She yawned as she leaned against the cold stone of the battlements.

She’d been scurrying around the castle all day, and she couldn’t decide which was sorer—her feet, or her legs.

What she wouldn’t give to sit for a blessed minute, but then she wouldn’t be able to see past the stone walls ringing the tower, and that would defeat the purpose of keeping a lookout, now wouldn’t it?

She was starting to wonder what was taking Will so long when she heard him lumbering up the stairs.

She frowned. What was that thumping sound? It sounded almost as if he had a peg leg.

He emerged from the spiral staircase, answering her question—he had carried up a pair of tall stools from the kitchen, along with some sort of cloth bundle.

“What’ve ye got there?” she asked.

“Stools,” he answered between breaths. “I’m so tired, I’m afraid I’ll keel over if I try to stand.”

Most men, in Catriona’s experience, were stubborn about admitting the slightest weakness. Paradoxically, Will’s confession made her like him better. “Me, too. I’m just about fagged to death.”

“Here.” Will set a stool out for her, and she gratefully sat. He placed the second stool next to hers and then sat, facing the opposite way, so they were back-to-back. “This way we’ll see them no matter which way they approach.”

“Good thinking.”

Catriona watched Will unfold the cloth bundle. It proved to be a thick woolen blanket.

He shook it open, then paused. “I’m sorry. I suppose I should’ve brought two blankets. But I was having enough trouble carrying the stools, and—”

“’Tis all right.” Catriona found that she meant it. She would’ve felt uncomfortable sharing a blanket with just about every man of her acquaintance.

But she trusted Will. Which sounded daft, as she’d known him for only two days, and he’d told her that he’d killed someone!

She peered at him in the moonlight. It might be daft, but trust him, she did.

“I can go back downstairs and fetch another blanket if it would make you feel more—”

“Will.” She laid her gloved hand over his, and he fell silent. “’Tis all right. It’ll be warmer this way. We can sit back-to-back and share our heat.” She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Now that I’m not scampering about, the cold is starting to seep in.”

He was still frowning. “If you’re sure—”

“Completely sure.” She grabbed one of the blanket’s corners and pulled it around her. “Now hurry, before we freeze to death.”

She couldn’t help but note that he wrapped the blanket around her first, so that the gap letting in cold air was facing him.

Catriona’s heart squeezed. It was a small gesture, but a gallant one. She wasn’t used to gallantry from anyone. Her own family wouldn’t even let her ride with them in the same carriage. They regarded her as less important than their hat boxes.

But Will… He treated her well. He listened to her daft ideas and even went along with most of them. He never acted as if she were flawed or embarrassing.

She sniffed and scrubbed at her eyes, which had turned damp. It was a sad state of affairs when a lass compared her own flesh and blood with the Sussex Shovel Slayer, and her family were the ones who came up lacking!

Speaking of which, she supposed she should ask him about that. They’d probably be out here for hours, after all, and it wasn’t as if they had anything else to occupy them.

“So,” she began, “tell me about the bloke ye murdered.”

She felt him stiffen behind her. “I never said I murdered anyone.”

“So it was more of a manslaughter, was it?”

“I… not exactly.” Will paused, and Catriona wondered if she had been overly cavalier. Whatever he was about to say, it seemed to be hard for him.

After a moment, he murmured, “My mother died shortly after I was born.”

It was Catriona’s turn to stiffen. “Wait. By I killed someone, ye meant that yer mother died in childbirth?”

“That’s correct,” he said softly.

She spun on her stool, annoyed. Why hadn’t he said so in the first place? She’d been genuinely worried all this time! “That doesnae count!” she snapped. She was about to say more, but she stopped short when she saw Will’s downcast expression.

Och, what was wrong with her? She’d been worried for all of two days… mildly worried, if she was being honest.

Oh, all right—she’d been so busy fortifying the castle, she’d scarcely given it a second thought.

Meanwhile, Will had been without his mother for his entire life. She was not the one deserving of sympathy.

Scooting closer to him, she slid her arm around so she could rub his back. “What I meant to say was, that wasnae yer fault.” There. That sounded better.

He shot her a grateful look. “I do know that. Now. But my father took it hard. He tried to put on a brave face, but didn’t always succeed.

” Will swallowed. “It was most obvious every year on my birthday. He tried to make things merry. I know he did. But it was also the anniversary of his wife’s death, and I could always see through the cracks, if that makes sense. ”

“It does,” she said, rubbing his shoulder. “Did yer father never remarry?”

“No.” Will gave a moist sort of laugh. “My father, well… He was like me, you see. A quiz.”

She squinted at him. “What’s a quiz?”

He waved a hand. “A bit of cant we use at the universities. It refers to a queer-looking, bookish sort of fellow. In any case, it’s not easy to find a woman who wants anything to do with you when you’re a quiz.”

Catriona suppressed a snort. What sort of numpty wouldn’t want to marry Will, who was kind and funny and clever?

Who didn’t yell at you when you made him cook you lunch, and didn’t call you daft for putting on a pretend ball with two people and a raven?

And honestly, for all his talk of being a quiz, she thought he was rather gallant.

He’d tried to wield a broadsword for her!

And to be sure, he’d done it about as well as a hairy coo could dance the pas de deux. But the point was, he had tried!

Besides, bookish men were the sort she liked.

She knew most lasses preferred a sporting fellow like her brother Duff.

What was that term the English used again?

Ah, yes—a Corinthian. Not Catriona. She preferred a man who had some idea what she was talking about when she started blethering about Viking runes or whingeing about the fact that not even one medieval monk had seen fit to make a copy of Ephorus of Cyme’s Universal History, causing the great work to be lost to the sands of time.

She chanced a glance at him. He was handsome, too.

Maybe not classically so, but he had an open, good-natured countenance she found appealing.

Or maybe it was the way he looked at her, as if she were delightful and amusing.

Which she was not. Meaghan was the delightful one.

Were he to meet Meaghan, he would forget about Catriona in a second.

Except… he had met Meaghan. She had been the one to show him the artifacts. And she had complained that he had not reciprocated her efforts at flirtation…

In any case, Catriona wasn’t used to cheerful smiles and amusing conversation from anyone, much less from an eligible man!

That was why she was having so much trouble offering him a reassuring word, that some lass would be lucky to have him.

Will was a little bit too eligible. He was a viscount, for pity’s sake!

No doubt he’d had to flee to Skye to escape the hordes of women throwing themselves at him.

He could marry anybody he wanted! He would probably choose some woman named Arabella Anstruther-Daubney who owned forty-seven bonnets and refused to wash her hair in anything but champagne.

Wasn’t that the sort of lass that men liked?

He would never consider the likes of her, even if, for the first time in her life, the notion of marrying a man sounded… surprisingly appealing.

Her thoughts trailed off as something occurred to her. “Wait. Ye were the one who inherited the title. Does that mean that yer father is also, er…”

She hadn’t been sure how to finish the question, but Will caught her meaning. “He died when I was in my first year at Oxford.”