A Very Highland Holiday - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,170
her lip and started to move away, but he held her close. “I’m no’ sure. I just…It felt right.”
She wasn’t wrong. Kissing her had felt very right.
Before the battle at Culloden, he’d been thinking that he needed to take a wife; had flirted with many women, kissed a few. But after the battle, he’d kept everyone at arm’s length or longer. No more was his priority to wed, but to keep his clan alive and out of the clutches of the men who would see them all executed for treason.
It had been nearly a year since he’d kissed a lass, and he was certain that any kisses before now had meant little. Why was this one so different? In his gut, he felt that there was something special about this woman. Something to be discovered, once her layers peeled away. And not just her garments, but her, the very essence of her.
“I’m…I’m sorry.” Sarah shook her head and again tried to pull away. “Ye told me from the beginning that we should be enemies, that I should remember just why we’re here together. And I…” She sucked in a breath, pressed her hands to her cheeks, clearly mortified when she needn’t have been. “I think the emotion of this room, it—I just could no’—” She broke off then, shaking her head even more.
“Lass, I didna mind the kiss,” he soothed, stroking his hand over hers and gently tugging it from her pinkened cheeks. “I would kiss ye again, but no’ here. No’ in this place of sorrow.”
“Horror.”
“Both.” He took her hand and led her out of the chamber, closing the door behind them as they’d been instructed. Then he guided her back through the common room, nodding to fellow patrons.
Balthazar accosted them along the way, much to Thane’s irritation, which he couldn’t’ show. “Carrie says ye were in her Chamber of Sorrow, and I see it has greatly affected your lass.” The man frowned. “Take extra scones with ye back to your room. ’Twill make ye feel better.”
That was a ridiculous notion. How were food and drink going to make them feel better when they’d both lost family to a massacre that should never have taken place?
But Thane didn’t say that. Instead, he nodded, lifted a tray from a table with at least half a dozen scones on it and a jug of cider. Their host looked ready to balk, but Sarah took that moment to give an all-body shudder, and the old man clamped his lips closed over his rotting teeth.
In their chamber, he poured them each a glass of cider, and they ate the scones sitting on the edge of the bed, each of them trying to absorb all that had happened.
“Balthazar’s Tavern may be akin to a type of Hell for me,” Sarah said, following a long gulp of cider. So many dreadful and wretched memories flooded her.
“Only parts of it,” Thane said. “It would seem our chamber is no’ haunted or filled with mad people.”
“’Tis true. Unless one of us is mad,” she offered with a lift of her shoulders and popped the last of her scone into her mouth.
Thane eyed the tray with four more scones on it. They had been delicious. He could eat the entire tray. But he didn’t want to get up, not when it felt so good to be sitting beside her.
“This Christmas is so much different than last.” Sarah’s shoulders slumped with that admission.
“Oh?” he urged.
“Aye. Last Christmas, Thea decorated the entire great hall with holly and pinecones and sweet-smelling herbs. We had a massive feast, dancing, and games and singing. Thea had a spectacular singing voice. She went to great lengths to make it wonderful for us all.” She flashed him a smile.
“That is surprising.” Thane pursed his lips in thought. “We didna do all that at Tordarroch Castle. My clan much prefers celebrating the holidays of old. Yule and the winter solstice.”
She smiled up at him. “Perhaps that is why she went all out then, because it was so new and magical to her.”
“There is something to be said about new traditions.” Thane grinned. “Thank ye for sharing your memories of Thea with me.”
“’Tis nice to relive them.” Her little finger danced over his, where their hands were braced on the edge of the bed. “I’m glad we can share them together.”
“Me too.” And then, before he could change his mind, Thane bent to kiss her once more.