She was here for a reason, as much as she wanted just to sit and gaze into his expressive brown eyes. She'd always dreamed of finding a man with expressive brown eyes.
“So?” he asked gently.
“So… Marjorie wanted that I tell you. She's going away for a time.”
“Where?” Archie sat up, immediately concerned.
She knew a flare of jealousy, and fought to tamp it down. It'd do no good to envy her mistress. God had given Fiona her lot in life —
maids who yearned for more only ended up heartbroken. “She says it's to visit the MacAlpins, but… “
“Aye?” he asked, anxiety pinching his brow.
It was a rare treat to have news to report, and she prolonged the telling of it. “But I don't believe her.” Something shifted in his tone, from apprehension to intrigue. “Do you think something else is afoot?” She shrugged, giving the gesture as much meaning as she could without seeming a gossip.
“Do you think she's going with that MacAlpin devil?” He leaned closer. “Does this have to do with Davie?”
“I don't know,” she whispered. His conspiratorial posture excited her. It was impossible to think that a man like him could ever be interested in a mere maid like her, but huddled close, his eyes alight with shared secrets, suddenly a maid and the physician surgeon seemed the tightest thing in the world. “But there's one thing I do know,” she said breathlessly.
He squeezed her hand. “What is it?”
“He's no gentleman like you, Arch.”
Chapter 14
Marjorie leaned against the counter of the Cross Keys Inn, trying to appear more self-possessed than she actually felt. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about that kiss.
She cut her eyes to Cormac, negotiating with the innkeeper in his typically curt manner. Her eyes went to his hands, braced on the table before him. She remembered the feel of them, so rough from fishing and weathered from the sun, and yet they'd been so tender on her cheek, possessive at her back. She wanted those hands, wanted to feel them in other places. On her bottom, her breasts…
Blushing, she looked away.
Cormac had kissed her, and it had set her body on fire in ways she'd never before imagined. She knew what happened between a man and a woman, had even tried to picture it. But the reality was so much more. She felt agitated, unsatisfied, like there was an itch inside her body that only he could reach.
And here they were, in a rough, dockside area far from any Aberdeen she'd ever known. He'd given the innkeeper false names. He'd asked for a room for himself and his wife.
Her heart kicked in her chest.
They were about to share a room. Would that mean they were to share a bed? Would he hold her close, kiss her as he had on the beach? They hadn't spoken about it since — in fact, Cormac hadn't spoken about much of anything — but the tension between them was palpable.
Had it been a one-time weakness? Could it mean something more? Was his silence regret? Anticipation? Or was it just his way? She couldn't imagine.
She hoped it meant he was as eager as she to try one more kiss. Only this time, she'd be braver with her hands.
On the beach, she'd touched his arms, his back, but now she wished she'd had nerve enough to explore his chest. It had felt so firm and strong against her breasts. How would it feel without his shirt? She inadvertently gasped at the thought.
Cormac gave her a peculiar look and took her arm. “We'll take dinner in our room,” he told the innkeeper as they headed up the stairs.
Our room. She clung to the banister to catch herself from stumbling. Dinner in our room.
Davie, she reminded herself. This was about Davie, not the devastating man looming on the stairs above her.
He unlocked their door, revealing a small but tidy room. With one lone, small, but tidy bed. An entire flock of birds fluttered to life in her belly.
About Davie, not Cormac.
“Will we be going to investigate straightaway?” she asked, affecting a studied bravado.
“So ready to storm the docks, are you?” Tossing his small satchel on the floor, he sat on the bed to pull off his boots.
The bed frame creaked with his weight. Would it creak when they lay on it together? When he turned over in the night?
Marjorie strode purposefully to the window, suddenly feeling very warm. She struggled to unlatch the narrow shutters, trying to picture Davie. She focused on a memory of the boy — his freckled nose. Unfortunately, she could only picture Cormac, and the masculine look of his once-broken one.
“It seems to me that we could get many questions answered whilst the sailors” — she pinched her thumb in the latch and, hissing, sucked it quickly into her mouth — “whilst they go to drink at the taverns.” Cormac rose and, reaching around her, easily unhitched the rusted hook. She felt the heat of his body along her back.
He was as cavalier and as impervious as ever, and it was maddening. Didn't he feel this, too, this itch that consumed her?
“We'd be welcoming trouble if we did,” he said matter-of-factly. “I'd rather let the blackguards drink and carouse their fill, then investigate in the early hours while they're sleeping it off. So no, Lady Brodie, we shall stay inside until the morrow.”
“That's another thing,” she said, grateful for a new topic to gnaw upon. Specifically, the ridiculous name he'd come up with for her. She spun to face him. “Gormelia? Really, Cormac. Did you have to christen me Gormelia?
Gormelia Brodie,” she mused, shaking her head.
He shrugged. “From the Gaelic, lass. For those blue eyes of yours.” That silenced her. She couldn't figure out if there was a compliment in there or merely a statement of fact, and it made her peevish. “How is it you get to be a nice, steadfast Hugh, and I get saddled with Gormelia?”
“We needed fake identities, Lady Gormelia.” A smirk flickered across his face. “If we're to pose as a wealthy lord and lady in search of servants, we should have appropriately grand names.”
“If this is what constitutes your sense of humor, Cormac MacAlpin, I don't much care for it.” He merely shrugged, the barest ghost of a smile on his face, and it unnerved her. She glanced to his bare feet and decided if he was going to make himself so casually at home, then she could, too.
“Next time, I'll choose the names, and we'll see how you enjoy being called Lord Boniface Humperdinck.” She bent to pull the leather slippers from her feet, though her fingers were trembling as she did so. She and Cormac would both have bare feet. Would they touch under the sheets? Would his warm hers? Finally, she managed to unknot her laces and stood. “I can think of a dozen—”
Marjorie's tongue froze in shock to see Cormac undoing the leather thong that tied his plaid at his shoulder.
“A dozen… ?” he prompted as the wool slid from his chest.
What had they been discussing? She cleared her throat. “A dozen other names. But what… Cormac, what, pray tell—” He unbuckled his belt, rolled it, and tossed it into the corner.
Her mouth went dry. She wanted to look away, should look away, but she couldn't bring herself to. Too vivid was the memory of him, emerging naked from the sea.
“Aye?” He slowly unraveled the breacan feile from his waist. All that wool fell heavily to the floor. Stepping from it, he gathered the handful of dark green, blue, and black plaid. “Pray tell what?” He shook the wool out, surely unaware of the slight tensing of his muscular calves as he did so. Unaware that the flex of his thigh was visible under the linen of his shirt.
Her skin felt stretched unbearably tight over her body. Was this what it felt like to want a man?
Because she wanted Cormac. She wanted to pull that shirt up and once again see the naked flesh of those thighs.
To run her hands over them. To feel them braced around her legs, his body heavy over hers.
But she felt a little frightened, too. What would she do faced with a naked stretch of man? What would Cormac want her to do?
He bent to unfurl the plaid on the ground, unaware that she could see straight up into the dark shadows between his…
“What are you doing?” she blurted.
He looked up at her, seemingly oblivious.
And why wouldn't he be? His tunic reached almost to his knees. He was nearly as clothed as he'd been before he'd removed his breacan feile. No, she was the shameless one, with all these unseemly imaginings.
“Making a pallet.” He pointed to the enormous swath of his plaid, laid in thirds at his feet.
“A… “ She looked down, and the fluttering in her chest thudded to a halt. “You're sleeping there?”
“Don't worry yourself,” he said with a laugh. “You get the bed, lass. But, aye, I'm setting a place for myself on the floor.”
“Well… “ She put her hands on her hips, disgruntled. She'd imagined their kiss had been a preview of things to come. She'd been fantasizing about feeling his body next to hers for the whole night. “Don't be foolish, Cormac.
You can sleep on the bed.”
“Och, and have you on the floor? What do you take me for?”
“No, not that. I mean… “ You could sleep by my side. She looked from the pallet to the bed, refusing to meet his eyes. She'd been disgruntled and was quickly becoming annoyed that she'd be forced to set aside her pride to put a fine point on the matter. “That is to say… “
Finally, she met his gaze, and her nerve failed her.
He stood stiffly, staring at her, waiting. His eyes were slate and indigo in the growing dark. The look on his face was hooded, and as unreadable as ever.
Even so, she tried to read him, desperate to understand. She saw the same shadow that always loomed there: his loss, his pain. She knew a part of it was the same anguished memory she carried with her always.
Was it resentment she saw there, too? She'd spent years blaming herself, and it had sown doubt deep in her soul.
And so, though they'd kissed, she couldn't help but wonder what was keeping him from being with her. Was she a reminder of bad times?