L
ooking like they just stepped off the pages of warriors gone wild, Duncan, Jamie, and Fergus strode into the Great Hall. White tunics and clan kilts showcased the movement of their sculpted bodies. Despite the award-winning smiles they projected into the room, there was something reckless — desperate and almost dangerous about them, as if they’d been to hell and back and couldn’t quite regain their bearings.
Fresh from the shower, Duncan surveyed the room. His dark, wet hair was slicked back from his tanned face and his cheeks retained the slight pink flush caused by hot, hot water. With feral grace, he circled his way through the crowd and out of my line of sight.
Jamie made it halfway through the room when Lachlan intercepted him. The little boy’s eyes danced with excitement as he handed the butt end of a sword to the prince. Jamie reached for it and then seemed to change his mind. Using the sword to pull the child closer, Jamie scooped him up into a tight hug. The boy immediately started to squirm.
Murmuring “Be right back,” Vee headed in their direction. When she reached them, Jamie released Lachlan, who scampered just out of reach, and wrapped his arms around my bestie. She sighed, her body relaxing against him as if her world were finally right again.
Averting my gaze from their intimate moment, I caught Analisa waving Duncan over. As he approached, her hand fell away from the Rosetti boy. She reached for Duncan and pulled him into an embrace so she could whisper against his ear, the way a confidante or lover would.
Duncan’s severe expression lifted into a crooked smile over whatever Analisa was saying. Was he just being kind, or was there more to them? Did she secretly burn bright in his thoughts the way he did in mine? I would lose my mind wondering about it, so I forced myself to look away.
This time I settled on Fergus. The big guy stood in the doorway of the battlement. His large pale blue eyes glistened like a chastised puppy’s. “Fee,” he implored. “Canna we talk this out?”
With a huff, Fiona turned her back on him and marched through the nearest open door. Fergus emitted a ragged sigh as he watched her go. With a nod to me, he swiped at his eyes before chasing after the girl he loved more than life.
I tracked his movements through the crowd until a different scene caught my attention. Jamie had moved a banquet table and was now battling Lachlan with toy swords. Nearby, Vee lounged on a bench, her eyes glued to his every move. Judging by the adoration on her face, their squabbles had been put on hold for the moment.
From a distance that might as well have been a million miles away, I watched as my friends fought and made up. Sure, their
love lives weren’t perfect, but they were living. Risking. And I was doing the one thing I was truly good at . . . pretending.
Pretending I wasn’t in love with a prince who might have feelings for a thief. Pretending I didn’t have a real Calling so that I could fake one. Pretending I didn’t want to stay, even if it were possible.
Little goose bumps prickled over my skin from the breeze as I walked away from the party. But I welcomed the emotionnumbing cold. At the corner of the battlement I tipped my face toward the starry sky.
Help me
, I prayed just in case anyone or anything out there was listening.
Help me get through this.
“Meditating on the inconstant moon; that monthly changes in her circled orb?”
Holy Hammerstein! Duncan’s soft voice tumbled from thin air. Deep in shadow, he blended into the night.
Narrowing my eyes, I stared into the darkness at the approximation of Duncan’s shadow self. “Are you spying on me?”
“Nay.” I heard him push off the wall before his ridiculously gorgeous face emerged from the gloom. “Come. We’ve parts to perform.”
“Not until you tell me what you were doing out here.”
“Seeing you.”
The statement wasn’t flirty or coy. No smile quirked his lips into a lopsided grin. There was just Duncan with his luminous eyes staring gravely through me. His scrutiny made my skin feel uncomfortably tight.
Refusing to let him
see
how he was affecting me, I replied, “We haven’t had a whole lot of time to prepare. How do you want to do this?”
“I figured you could follow my lead.” He offered me his hand, palm up so that I could see the calluses on the pads.
Instead of complying, I demanded, “Meaning?”
His trademark grin broke forth in the face of my skepticism. “You’ll just have to trust me. Isna that what your director boyfriend would say? Ye’ve got to trust your scene partner.”
The mention of Wes was like throwing down a gauntlet. He was goading me. Looking pointedly at his outstretched hand, I countered, “Wes would also say you promised not to lay a hand on me, but you seem to be making a lot of exceptions.”
“Right. Sorry about that.” He bent his arm, offering it to me like an escort at Winter Formal. “See, no hands involved.”
Arranging my game face, I slipped my hand into the crook of his elbow and said, “Lead the way, actor boy.”
A slow waltz underscored our steps as we wove our way through dancing couples. Since he was determined to keep his hands to himself, I assumed we were headed toward the food, when all of a sudden he paused in the middle of the Great Hall. “I reckon I’ll need to ask for another exception.”
“No.” I let go of his arm, resting my hands on my hips. “No more exceptions. If we’re going to do this, we’ve got to be natural around each other. You can’t be asking for exceptions all the time. So I’m now giving you permission — touch me as much and as often as you like.”
Just as that last part flowed from my mouth, the music stopped so that my overly loud voice ricocheted through the cavernous space. The couples on the dance floor turned to stare. After a moment of silence, the room became an inescapable symphony of whispers as hundreds of curious eyes dissected us and our first public outing as a Called couple.
And still the music didn’t start.
Duncan’s expression faltered as if he was suddenly at a loss as to what came next. For an eternity, he just stared at me. The more he gawked, the more the gossip seemed to spread. The
curse of the ginger heated my cheeks. If I didn’t do something quick, I would soon be blushing lobster red.
“Touch me already!” I hissed.
He continued to stare as if he were deaf. His noncompliant arms hung awkwardly at his sides with no acknowledgement that I’d begged for his touch.
Our cover story would never work if we didn’t do something quick. Impulsively, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down as I rose up. It was just supposed to be a hug, but my lips decided to ad lib.
Before I could stop myself, I pressed my lips to his. At first his mouth didn’t move. Then after a tiny twitch, it opened. As quick as a lightning strike, his massive arms clasped my body tightly against him. A split second later we were a tangle of tongues and limbs. His touch — the one I’d just demanded — was everywhere at once, scorching my skin as my insides threatened to go nuclear.
A voice in the back of my brain mumbled that it was all an act — that he was just playing along because I hadn’t been able to keep my hormones in check, but I ignored it. I’d waited forever to kiss him again — and make-believe or not, I was going to seize the moment.
As suddenly as the music stopped, it started up again. And just as abruptly, the kiss was over. Duncan wrenched his mouth away, tilting his face so that his forehead rested against mine. In the aftermath of our kiss, I shook. Or maybe that was him . . . trembling?
Wait, he was trembling? Did that mean he felt something too? After a lot of resistance, he seemed to have warmed up to our fake Calling. My heart fluttered, but the tiny wings of hope were too fragile to risk more crushing rejection. Instead, I whispered, “Way to sell it, actor boy.”
Duncan pulled back. His eyes shone like stars as he captured my gaze. The confident, charming boy I’d loved my whole life had returned. “If what you were really after all this time was a thorough kissing, you might’ve just asked. I seek to serve.”
I raised my arm to backhand his bicep, but the warrior in him preempted my strike by capturing my hand in his. He raised it to his lips for a perfect, chaste kiss that sent shockwaves all the way to my core. “Let’s give the good people o’ Doon a show they’ll remember through the ages. Dance with me.”
Oh h-e-double hockey sticks no!
Not after that little show of PDA. I would not be able to pull off this charade if I had to spend the evening in this boy’s arms. He might look all puppy-dog sweet but his kisses were as deadly as a viper. It seemed, however, I was already infected because when he flashed me his irresistible grin and said, “And dinna give me any line about having two left feet. I know you to be a right fine dancer,” I totally caved.
“Okay.”
“All right then.” He raked his fingers through his hair to form those darned chaotic peaks. Grabbing my hand, Duncan pulled me into the melee of Scotsmen, and women, as they twirled with abandon. It was a jig with wailing bagpipes and pounding, animalistic drums — like a primitive Celtic rave.
This was Vee’s forte, not mine. My bestie could
Riverdance
with the best of ’em. But I was too self-conscious to lose myself in the rhythm. I needed to break down the steps, analyze each one, and practice before I could execute them.
As if sensing my hesitance, Duncan whispered, “Relax. Jus’ let go.” Before I could argue, he grabbed my hips and pulled me in close. Much to my astonishment, he started to slow dance. Right in the middle of the whirling crowd.
Convinced people would start staring again, I whispered, “You’re not fast enough.”
Duncan’s left hand slid up to the small of my back, pressing me even closer, urging me to sway like it was the last dance on prom night. “I think we should take it slow. Just relax. We’re supposed to have a Calling, remember. It doesna matter how we move, only that we move as one.”
Right. I could do this. I could slow dance with him — it’s not like it was the first time.
I tucked my chin into the crook of his neck. He smelled clean, like fresh soap and new leather, and I could feel his pulse thrumming against my cheek. The frenetic music faded away as I let go, falling into his rhythm. Somehow this discordant-yet-harmonious act felt more intimate than being lip-locked. Desperate to maintain my grip on reality, I asked, “Are you sure Analisa doesn’t mind?”
“Ana’s fine. She knows we have a story to keep up.” Sure enough, when I took a quick glance about the room, I spied her watching us with a Mona Lisa smile.
I wrenched myself out of his embrace and took a step back. “She knows? You told her?”
“Aye.” Duncan nodded innocently.
“When?”
“Before I headed back to Muir Lea.”
So she was the last girl he’d seen before he left as well as the first one he sought out when he got back? Part of me was desperate to know if it was serious, but another part wanted to close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and go “La la la.” While yet another part berated the other fragments for their childishness
. “You left him — not the other way around,”
the grown-up part chided.
“He has every right to move on
,
so make your peace and snap out of it!”
“Mackenna, are ye all right?”
“Yes.” I blinked up at him, doing my best to mean it. “It’s
just . . . I’m surprised. I thought she was into the oldest Rosetti brother.”
Duncan chucked. “Are you jealous, woman?”
“Me?”
Heck yeah!
“No. I’m just concerned — as a
friend
. Be careful. She seems like the kind of girl who breaks hearts.”
If Vee had been within hearing range, she totally would’ve called me out saying something about pots and kettles. I braced, expecting Duncan to fling my statement back in my face. Instead, he became pensive. “Maybe I don’t have a heart to break.”
I placed my palm against the thin fabric of his shirt. My fingers registered a steady beat, which began to accelerate under my touch.
“You do. Trust me.” And any girl who dared break it didn’t deserve him.
“So say you.”
His hand covered mine so that it was trapped over his heart. His other hand reclaimed possession of my hip, and we took up slow dancing where we’d left off. The next several songs passed in a delicious blur.
When we finally came up for air, I did a quick check for my friends. At the other end of the hall, Fiona was ripping her fiancé a new one. Head downcast and slump-shouldered, Fergus appeared even more miserable than earlier, if such a thing were possible. Fiona had the big guy practically cowering in the corner as she punctuated her heated words with her small, shaking fist. But hey, at least they were talking.
In the opposite corner, Vee and Jamie were arguing around staged smiles. From my vantage point Vee appeared to be almost pleading. As I watched, an elderly couple approached their queen, and as she turned to greet them, Jamie’s smile froze. His eyes darted away as he angled himself ever so slightly
toward the wall. For the next several seconds the smile dissolved from his face as he stared at nothing.
When the couple showed signs of moving on, he rolled his shoulders, fixed his grin, and swiveled back toward the conversation. By the time they left, Jamie was beaming down at Vee as if he’d never disconnected. He opened his mouth, but whatever he’d been about to say was lost to the spectacle of Fiona pulling Fergus toward the small dais with the musicians.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Fiona stepped onto the platform and demanded that the musicians stop. Gripping Fergus’s hand like she was the hulk and he barely bigger than a child, Fiona squared her shoulders and faced the curious crowd.
“I just wanted to tell ye all that Fergus and I have news.” She glanced at the boy by her side, who nodded, his puppy-dog eyes shimmering with adoration. “We’ve decided we canna wait any longer to be husband and wife. So we’ll be getting married a week from tomorrow. Everyone who seeks to wish us well is welcome to join us.”