“My sister-in-law,” he added.
“Pardon?”
His grin widened. “The watch. It was a gift from my sister-in-law. You do know what a sister-in-law is? The woman who married my brother.”
“I know what a sister-in-law is, Jase.” She rose and snatched up the backgammon set. “I simply cannot imagine you having one, let alone her being fond enough of you to gift you with a watch like that.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, heading for the stairs. “You’re too ornery by half.”
His laughter followed her up all the way up.
THIRTY-FOUR
AN HOUR LATER, Jason knocked on the door and entered to find Emerald sitting by the fire, swishing her new comb through her silky, bath-damp hair.
He’d never seen anything quite like Emerald’s hair. The women in Cainewood’s village always bound up their hair or hid it beneath a cap. And the court ladies of his acquaintance were always fussing with theirs, cutting it and curling it and crimping it and twisting it into all sorts of unnatural creations.
But Emerald’s hair was straight and thick and shining. Swish. The ivory comb he’d bought her ran along its gleaming length. Swish. Swish.
Her eyes were downcast, but he remembered them lighting up at each of the small things he’d bought her. He pictured them sparkling with delight when she tasted the syllabub, crinkling when she laughed at the ropedancers, and flashing when she tsked at the mountebank.
Swish.
Jason didn’t think he could stand it a moment longer. His hands itched to bury themselves in that silky hair.
He’d never experienced such strong, strange impulses in his life. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from flirting with Emerald, and he could barely keep his hands off her. It was as if the normal, polite fellow he used to be had suddenly vanished, replaced by a feral animal wearing his skin—and its gentleman disguise was wearing thin.
More than anything else, he wanted to kiss her.
He’d dreamt of kissing her last night and hadn’t wanted to wake. The real experience couldn’t possibly be as good as the dream, but hang it if he didn’t want to find out.
Stiffly he crossed the chamber and began loosening his cuffs. It didn’t help that, thanks to the crush of fairgoers, the only room he could get had naught but one bed. Neither did it help that Emerald wore nothing but Mrs. Twentyman’s night rail. Her own clothes and the red gown were wet, draped over the backs of two chairs to dry.
At last she stood and set the comb on a bedside table, beside the violets he’d given her, which she’d stuck into a pewter cup filled with water. The sight of them, bedraggled but saved, made his heart lurch.
He turned away and sat on the bed to pull off his boots, chucking them across the floor.
Her hair waterfalled when she bent to retrieve them and set them side by side against the wall. “You really should try to be tidier.”
He loosened his shirt collar and lay back, crossing his hands behind his head and staring up at the beamed ceiling.
Her head swam into view. “May I have one of the ribbons?”
“Of course. Bring me my pouch.”
She disappeared, only to return holding the brown leather pouch. He couldn’t help noticing how beautiful she was, standing over him with her thick hair bunched in one hand, the firelight revealing hints of her slender form beneath the white night rail. He could barely tear his gaze away long enough to fish in the pouch and pull out the blue ribbon.
It was much too long to simply tie back her hair, but she used it anyway, leaving the long ends to dangle down her back. He’d been right: the blue suited her perfectly.
He smoothed his missing mustache and closed his eyes, listening to her little sounds as she readied herself for sleep.
When Emerald crawled into bed next to him, he made no move to get under the covers. Even thinking the words Emerald and bed in the same sentence made his whole body feel hot. Hardly daring to breathe, he held himself still as death.
It was the dream. The dream had done this to him.
Well, he wouldn’t let the dream win.
He couldn’t let it win. Emerald MacCallum was not the sort of woman he was looking for—not that he was looking at all.
Emerald was deceitful and reckless. And Scottish, of all things! It didn’t matter that she felt soft and smelled sweet. That was only part of the deception.
His eyes flew open when she turned to him and levered up on an elbow. A true hazel now, her gaze was riveted to where his unlaced collar gaped open, revealing the angry puckered scar. “Does it still hurt?” she asked quietly.
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But it’s healing. It’s been more than three weeks.”
“I should make a poultice for you.” She reached out, and he stopped breathing, but then her hand dropped away. “How did it happen?”
He couldn’t tear his gaze from her concerned face. And her wide mouth, with its plump lower lip. He was sure her mouth was soft. It had been soft in his dream.
“Geoffrey Gothard shot me,” he said.
“He shot you?” She sat up in bed and shook her head violently. The dark blond tail of her hair shimmered as it swayed back and forth. “You said he hurt, perhaps killed a wee lass. And attacked her mother—”
“That he did—all of that. And when I went after him to bring him in to the authorities, he shot me.”
Twisting to face him, she moved his shirt aside with gentle fingers and touched the pink, ridged tissue lightly.
Something inside him softened.
“It was dangerously close to your heart,” she said.
A choked laugh escaped his lips. “No, it’s only my shoulder. But I was already covered in another man’s blood, so Gothard figured he’d hit his mark.”
“It’s no wonder you’re after killing him, then.”
