“I am being careful.”
“Ye are bein’ stubborn.”
“As are you,” she retorted.
A muscle moved in his jaw. He let go of her shoulders and turned away. She watched the width of his back and saw the tension held in it. For a fraction of a second, she admired the controlled effort of this man who was stalwartly keeping himself from saying something.
“I am nae postponin’ it to satisfy meself,” he said as he turned on his heel and spun back to face her. “Ye ken I daenae wish to wait a second longer before makin’ you me bride.”
She processed his words but did not fully understand them.
If he wants to marry me, then why is he insisting upon postponing?
Isobel figured she had nothing to lose and everything to gain by voicing her thoughts, so she asked, “Then why?”
The fire was behind him. Alasdair’s face was half in shadow, and his hands were at his sides.
“Because I daenae want ye to come to the weddin’ still smellin’ of smoke,” he said. “Because I want ye to have a day’s rest and a proper meal.” He paused. “The weddin’ will happen. Tomorrow…Three or five days hence. It makes nay difference to anyone.”
She held his gaze. He held hers back. He looked tired and angry, and something else underneath both of those, something she had been watching build inside him and then suppress for weeks, was very close to the surface now.
“And because,” he said, quieter. “I would like the day before it to be somethin’ other than this.”
The room was very still.
“Two days,” she said.
He looked at her for a long moment, and something shifted in his face. “Aye. Two days.”
He sat back down on the edge of the bed and picked up the cloth from the basin. She was very aware of his weight on the mattress and the small distance between them. He smelled of smoke still, the same smoke she carried, and there was some comfort to be had in knowing that they had faced this particular challenge together.
He pressed the cloth gently below her jaw, and she let him, tilting her chin and watching the side of his face. The firelight flickered across his jaw, and she observed him work, aware in the quiet that he had said the wedding would still happen.
“I came as fast as I could,” he said. He was not looking at her. “From the study. When I smelled it.” He set the cloth down beside the basin. “It wasnae fast enough.”
“It was,” she said.
“It nearly wasnae.”
She reached out and put her hand over his. She felt him go still beneath her palm. Then he turned his hand over and closed his fingers around hers, slowly, and she felt her breath go out of her in a long, quiet exhale.
He looked up. They were close. She could see the gray of his eyes in the firelight and the scar along his eyebrow. The pulse at his throat moved faster than she had ever seen before.
“Isobel,” he whispered.
“Yes,” she breathed.
He kissed her. His free hand came up to her jaw and her cupped her chin gently. His mouth was warm and certain on hers, and she felt something let go in her chest that had been held tight for weeks. She kissed him back with everything she had kept composed through corridors and arguments and moments that had never quite been only what they appeared to be. She felt the breath go out of him. She felt his grip on her hand tighten.
He pulled back and looked at her. His chest rose and fell rapidly. The pupils of his eyes were blown wide and Isobel saw the hunger in his stare.
“We daenae have to do this now…tonight,” he started.
“If you tell me again that I need to rest, I will be very cross with you.”
Something moved through his chest, and she felt it, the low rumble of it, and she realized she had made him laugh.
He kissed her again, and this time there was less caution in it.