Her heart gave a hot, shamed pounding in her chest as she realized her skirts were surely up around her knees. She held her breath, and sure enough, felt a cool breeze dancing above the cuff of her half boots.

“It appears I find you stuck again.” Restrained laughter vibrated in his voice. “I must know: how did you manage before we met?”

“I am not stuck. I am merely … retrieving Achilles.” But she found she couldn’t continue to worm her way back out while keeping hold of the dog.

“You appear to have stopped moving.” His voice was closer now; probably he was squatting down next to her. “Might I be of assistance?”

“I …” She blinked her eyes tight. Yet another instance of dashed dignity. “Yes, please,” she said, deflating.

He grasped her calves, and a bolt of lightning shot straight from his palms, crackling up through her body. His hands seemed to linger overlong on the skin just above her boots, and she wondered distantly if he might not have accomplished the same thing by simply grabbing her booted feet.

He tugged as gently as the situation permitted, but her knee scraped along the slate floor, and she flinched. “Damn,” he whispered. “A moment.”

She sensed him move closer. He loomed there, hesitating, and then a hand slid beneath her knees.

A foreign sensation exploded to life, buzzing through her body, settling to a hot pulse between her legs. A cry escaped her, and she lost hold of Achilles. “I … the …” Elspeth cleared her throat. “I’ve let go the dog.”

“Relax.” He gave her knee a squeeze, and her stomach flip-flopped. “He’ll get hungry and come out. Let’s attend to you first,” Aidan said, freeing her the rest of the way.

She cringed at how she must look—surely she was covered in dirt and crumbled mortar—and dismay alternated with this new yearning she felt in her breast. She tried to blow the dust and hair from her face.

He rolled her carefully onto her back and brushed the hair from her brow. “Hush,” he murmured, even though she hadn’t said anything.

Their gazes met, and her mind went blank, silly concerns like dust falling away. His eyes were a crisp blue— not a pale, washed-out shade, but blue like a summer sky.

Faint lines were etched around them, from where he’d squinted in the sun. Her eyes traced a path down to the matching lines bracketing his mouth. He’d labored in the sun, but her roguish hero had smiled too.

He licked his lips, and she couldn’t help but stare at that mouth. Would his kiss be firm or soft? A gentle peck, or deeper? Because she guessed kisses could go deeper.

She desperately wanted him to kiss her, wanted to find out for herself what he’d feel like, breathing in the very breath from his lungs. But she hadn’t the slightest idea how to go about making a man kiss her. Surely one didn’t just ask. Great heroines communicated their desires with a glance or a gesture.

Elspeth looked back up at Aidan with widened eyes, imagining illicit things like kisses and touches, but his expression remained an unreadable mask.

He wasn’t getting her message.

And so she blinked, then opened her eyes even wider.

He tilted his head, studying her. “Did you hurt yourself?”

She cut her eyes down, shaking her head mutely. Only my pride.

“What’s the matter, then?” Touching her chin with his finger, he tilted her face so that she couldn’t help but look at him. His hands and fingers handled her so deftly. He was nothing short of a pirate king—of course he wouldn’t be swayed by a farm girl’s clumsy attempts at seduction.

But the expression that met hers was so somber, so gentle, Elspeth found herself confessing, “I feel such a fool sometimes.”

“A fool?” He smoothed hair from her brow. “Silly Beth. Not a fool. Never a fool.”

Beth. He’d called her Beth.

Nobody had ever called her by that name, or by any other name aside from Elspeth, for that matter. But with Aidan, she’d been “luvvie,” and now she was “Beth.” Such a simple little syllable, and yet, in that instant, it’d become the most precious she’d ever known.

“Aye, you’re a fool for books.” He added with a chuckle, “I daresay, you already seem a fool for that ridiculous scrap of a mutt.” He leaned gradually closer as he spoke, voice slowing, eyes growing hooded. “A fool for that flock of idiot sheep, mayhap.”

She held her breath, wondering what was happening. Her body was in chaos, her every sense attuned to this man, so close she could smell the scent of his person, near enough to see the texture of his skin.

He paused for a moment, and when he spoke again, there was a hard edge to his voice. “A fool, certainly, to put up with a father who doesn’t appear to recognize your worth.”

But then, with a sharp inhale, he softened just as quickly. “But a fool, plain and simple? Not that. Not you.”

His movements slowed—time slowed—as he leaned even closer. She felt his breath warm on her face. Her lips parted on a gasp. Could this be what she thought it might be? Would he finally kiss her? She’d sacrifice everything just for one kiss from Aidan.

She shut her eyes, ready, hoping, desperate to be swept away.

But instead of his touch, there came a loud scrabbling sound, followed quickly by the rollick of paws of an eager and dusty puppy. Aidan rolled away with an amused curse.

Elspeth fended off the dog’s enthusiastic licks. “Achilles, you beast,” she scolded, thinking ruefully that it was far from the kiss she’d been hoping for.

Chapter 12

“Are you certain?” Aidan asked, standing at the threshold of her cottage. When Elspeth proposed that they meet so late in the afternoon, the idea had seemed a fine one. But something had happened the day he gave her that damned puppy, and suddenly this meeting felt entirely improper. He looked back over his shoulder. “Dusk will be here soon.”

“I’m certain.” Stepping aside from the door, she invited him in. When Achilles galloped to fill her place, Elspeth laughed, and it speared him. It was the same bright, feminine giggle that’d erupted from her when he’d given her the dog, and he realized he’d been longing to hear it again. It was an open and joyful sound, especially sweet since she was so often such a still and quiet creature.

His eyes went to her lips, still curved in a careless, artless smile. She was staring at Achilles, and Aidan had the absurd thought that someday she might stare at him with just such a smile.

Her eyes met his, and they shone with happiness. An impulse seized him, to pull her close into his arms and kiss those gentle lips until her laughter made him forget himself. Until he found himself laughing with her.

“You see, I’ve my new dog to protect me.”

The moment ended as he thought of another of her selfappointed protectors. “What of your father?” He stepped inside, looking to the right and left. Aidan had only met him a handful of times, and the man had eyed him with varying degrees of distrust and distaste. Not that it mattered—he’d been predisposed to dislike the old cadger once he got wind of how the man handled his farm, his business, and his daughter.

“He’s not here tonight,” she said.

It seemed Farquharson spent more time enjoying the taverns of Aberdeenshire than he did the company of his only daughter.

Elspeth was watching him carefully, and he realized he must’ve been scowling. Not wanting to offend, he smoothed his face. Her father was away—again—but he supposed it was just as well. From now on, they’d do their tutoring when Aidan’s workday was through, and it’d be best not to have the old man lurking about all the time anyway. “There’s no other time,” he said, thinking out loud.

Her face fell, looking puzzled. “You don’t have the time?”

“No … I mean, yes … I do have the time.” He raked a hand through his hair, starting over. She seemed so nervous all of a sudden, it was making him agitated, too. “What I mean to say is, there aren’t enough hours in the day, so doing our lessons after work is a good plan.”

“Oh, good, yes.” Her shoulders seemed to slacken in relief. “We’ll be done long before the sun sets.”

She said nothing after that, and instead bustled about, fetching him a cup of milk, and so he pulled a stool to their usual spot by the fire. “Tell me, teacher,” he said, trying to put her at ease, “what’s on the docket?”

It was a simple question, but the woman seemed to have been struck dumb. For a moment, she stared at him, and his world hung suspended, with only the incessant bleating of the sheep filling the still air. “The docket?” she asked uncertainly.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve decided I’m beyond hope, and you’re of a mind to send me away.” He’d tossed off his words playfully, but deep down he feared perhaps she might consider him a hopeless case. It was a strangely disquieting thought.

“No, no,” she said quickly. “You’ve gotten quite good, actually. I was thinking to have you do the reading tonight.” For some reason, this pronouncement had pink blooming in her cheeks.

“If you think I have it in me,” he said.

“Oh, you do have it in you.” The pink in her cheeks turned to red. “To read. You have it in you to read.”

He studied her, feeling his lips part in a smile. He’d give anything to know the thoughts that danced through her mind to make the woman blush so. “What am I to read, then?”

“Poetry.”

“Poetry?” He wondered if their somewhat indecorous interlude on the floor of the Dunnottar dining hall might not just have her feeling a bit daring. “How … audacious.”

Elspeth dropped her jaw, looking short of breath, and a realization floored him. He’d been on the mark: the woman was feeling bold. Why else would she look like a cat caught in the cream?

Usually, such a revelation would have an easy laugh rolling from him. This time, though, he found himself mute, feeling as uncertain as a lad in leading strings.