“Ugh! Unhand me.” She yanked against his hold, doing more to brush against him than desired. “I wasnae trying to escape ye lummocks. I was fetching another cover since ye’ve seen fit to lie atop the only once present, and I’m likely to catch me death if I stayed put all night.”
He smirked down at her, an unfortunately attractive brow cocked over his right eye.
“Need I remind ye,Keegan,” she bit out his name, “me guards' safety is at stake. I wouldnae be doing anythin' to cause them harm.”
The moment hung—an odd predicament of wishing to move but knowing that if she did, it would bring about the opposite results. Her captor stared down at her, seeming to enjoy her rather indelicate position beneath him. Fear mingled with something she could not name, and Willow swallowed hard as she had little else to do but wait for Keegan to free her.
Ducking his head with a sly smile, which she was only partly sure she saw, Keegan got up. She flew up into a seat as he crossed the room toward a cupboard that stood at the other end near the door. As he reached inside, the Brahanne pulled out another thick wool blanket and returned to the bed.
Tossing it at her with enough force to send the loose strands of her hair flying backward, Keegan took up his spot next to her, climbing beneath the covers this time and rolling onto his side.
He said nothing during the exchange, continuing to remain silent as he appeared to drift right back into slumber. Shaking her head as she bit her tongue so hard she tasted copper, Willow rolled in the opposite direction. She used the new blanket to cover her and squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to count as high as she could until she fell asleep.
5
The area around him came into sharp focus as Keegan woke. It took a moment to recall that he was staying in an inn, and just as his mind came more into focus, Laird Brahanne realized that a pleasant warmth seeped into his side where a body was plastered to him.
A slight chuckle escaped him as he remembered that Magnus’s sister lay with him in the bed. She had to have been quite cold for her to seek out his body for warmth, and it was impossible to keep the smile from his face at that. Adjusting slowly so as not to wake her, Keegan turned onto his back, lifting his arm up over her head and setting it on the pillow beneath them.
Ye shouldnae be so close, lass. In bed with yer enemy laird. What would yer brother think?
Too many thoughts of too many different things swirled in his mind, and as he grew more and more awake, Keegan noted that he still could not see in the room. It was entirely dark, which meant that it was not yet morning. He needed to get back tosleep. The two of them did have quite a bit of riding ahead of them—he hadn’t misled her about that, at least, remaining vague about his true name and title as he was—and Keegan knew slumber was the only way to be at his best for the morrow.
And if the laird were going to use this mistaken identity to his advantage, Keegan would need his wits about him at all times. It was still a bit of a shock that Willow hadn’t realized that he was Keegan Aragain. Though, he could imagine that her brother never spoke about him as anything but “Laird Brahanne.”
Closing his eyes, Keegan set himself to sleeping again, but still, he lay there utterly awake.
Ahh!
A noise outside the room cut through the quiet, and Keegan’s eyes flashed open. A shout? What that perhaps what had awoken him in the first place? What was going on outside their chamber?
“Willow!”
The repeated call made Keegan’s stomach tighten, his guts filling with lead. Someone was shouting for his prisoner, and that would not do. He was getting his sister Melissa back home safely, and this woman was the linchpin in that plan.
Nay. I cannae let me sister remain in that bastard’s cruel custody any longer.
“Was that…” Willow’s voice assured Keegan that she had woken up, and he grumbled under his breath, getting out of the bed and reaching for the sword he had kept just beside him on the floor.
“Willow!”
Her eyes flared wide as Keegan looked at her, and he could see the recognition in her eyes. The laird, too, remembered the tone of that particular voice. One of her guards had woken and followed after them. He’d be impressed if he weren’t so irritated. They did not have time for this.
The most important thing to him was to free Melissa. Magnus had already taken enough from his family, and he wasn’t about to let the man take more because his sister was a much of a problem as he was.
“Ye will get yerself ready to leave, lass. I’ll deal with our little visitor.”
Willow’s skin paled, and after a moment of frozen shock—her mouth dropping into a small O—she scrambled out of the bed toward Keegan. Yanking on his arm, she stopped him from opening the door, and he turned back toward her with a glare.
“Please,” she pleaded, her brows knitted together as she shook her head, “ye cannae harm him. Please. Ye promised me ye wouldnae hurt me men. He is only doing his duty.Please.”
Keegan paused, and he did not understand why. There was a true threat to his plan and to Melissa’s safety just outside that door. He should be surging into action, regardless of the pleas his prisoner might offer up. After all, he put his family ahead of everything else in his life. There was nothing that mattered to him more, and Keegan was more than happy to sacrifice his own chance at connections if it meant keeping a watchful eye on them.
And still, he could not move.
“Keegan,” her voice was daggers to his spine, the entreating tone knifing through his heart, “we can leave. I will go with ye. Please, just let us escape out the back.”
He recoiled backward, his hand still on his sword. Keegan had never run from or in any way avoided a fight in his life—not since that fateful day when he was a child. This went against everything he believed, and Keegan’s mouth dropped open before he quickly shut it again, grinding his teeth.