He turned his head.
“Ah, my lady!” he said, his voice quiet and deep. Almost a whisper in the darkness.
“My god!” she breathed, still stunned. “You can’t be here!”
“I’m well aware you intended me to surprise my brother and his bride in their bed.”
Shawna hesitated uneasily.
“And did you?”
“We’ve had a discussion.”
She lowered her eyes quickly, biting her lip. Perhaps it had been a foolish move on her part. She had managed to surprise him.
And anger him.
“I assumed you wanted to see your brother as quickly as possible.”
“Y’er heart was in the right place, eh, lass?”
The edge to his voice kept her from imagining he might have meant the words. “Perhaps you should cease accosting people in the middle of the night.”
“I don’t accost people in the night.”
“Only me,” she whispered.
His green gaze seared her. “Only you,” he promised.
“But…”
“But what?”
“How did you manage to get into this room? It’s simply impossible?—”
“Ah, I beg to differ. Ghosts and selkies and beasts will go wherever they choose.”
Beasts…
Shawna leaped out of the bed, coming around to stand in front of the fire, staring at him.
“Beasts…beasties!” she repeated. “Aye, at least as a creature of lore, Laird Douglas, you are doing some good. You got Danny out of the mine somehow. For that, I am eternally grateful.”
He stared at her, then shrugged, his eyes piercing hers once again. “Aye, indeed, I got the lad out. And he’ll have a long and far healthier life, I imagine, since you took it upon your shoulders to decree that he will no longer work in the mine.”
Shawna had the truly uneasy feeling that he was managing to hear every word she uttered. “I was right in what I said and did. Fergus would work his children to the bone and sit upon his…”
She broke off, weary. Andrew Douglas was here now, and David was alive. Her serving as the lady of the manor with the right to make decisions was all a charade.
“You were right in what you did,” he told her surprisingly. And to her amazement, his voice gentled. “The lad is a charmer. Handsome little thing and bright as can be. He only lived because he listened to me and did as I told him. He might have drowned, but he held his breath and swam exactly as I told him.”
“I couldn’t reach him,” Skylar said.
David was suddenly on his feet, angry as he approached her. “What in God’s name were you doing in the mine?”
She set her hands on her hips but found herself backing away as he neared her. “I—I had to go in. I knew that there was a child stuck?—”
“You seem too easily misdirected and misguided by the needs of wee ones, Shawna. You should wed, bear a few of your own, and have done with the madness of trying to care for all those in the world.”