He’d felt the rapid beats.
She couldn’t have pretended such passion.
So he stood straighter and wished she’d turn aside for a moment so he could comb quick fingers through his hair, smooth the front of his mail shirt so it shone properly. But she didn’t take her gaze from his, her lovely emerald eyes peering so deeply into his that he was sure she could see clear to the bottom of his soul.
It made him damned uncomfortable.
And it gave him a tiny flicker of hope.
So he took a deep breath and spoke true. “Lady Breena, there was more than duty in our kiss. More than persuading Archie the spirit of the season and naught else was why he found us kissing beneath the mistletoe.
“Truth is”—he hoped he wouldn’t regret his honesty—“the kiss was right pleasurable.”
“I see.” She glanced aside, clearly not understanding.
It also wasn’t what he’d meant to say.
He’d thought to tell her he’d kissed her because he couldn’t resist doing so. That no maid had ever before affected him so strongly. She made him feel as if she’d turned him inside out and upside down, scattering his wits to the winds, and leaving him more excited, even giddier, than he would’ve ever believed a man could feel.
He was a warrior, more used to battle fury than the heady rush that swept him in her presence.
For sure he wasn’t a man of silvered words. Telling her the kiss was pleasurable was the highest compliment that came to his clumsy tongue.
Regrettably, the disappointment on her face warned he shouldn’t have said anything.
“I know well that men enjoy kissing, and more.” She turned back to him, her gaze locking with his. “It is the way of all men.”
“Nae, lass…” Grim started toward her, then stopped when she lifted a hand, creating an unseen but impassable barrier between them.
Something inside him shifted, breaking open to release a hot tide of rage like he’d never known. How could he have forgotten how she’d come to be at Duncreag? That she’d been kidnapped by Ralla and his band, their harsh treatment of her surely making her wary of a man’s intentions.
Though she didn’t speak of it, he suspected she’d suffered more than rope burns and cruel words.
Seeing her now, having held and kissed her, Grim knew he’d lay down his own life if only for a heartbeat he could make her forget.
If only for a moment, she would look at him with all the love in the world in her eyes.
A fool notion if ever there was one, as well he knew.
“You’re thinking.” She was suddenly right before him, her hand resting lightly on his arm. “Can it be you have a better idea?”
“What?” Grim blinked, nearly jumping out of his skin. He hadn’t heard her approach. For truth, she not only looked like an angel, she moved with the silent grace of a winged and sparkling faery queen.
Frowning, he looked down at her, feeling more like an overgrown ox than ever before. “I didnae hear you o’er the wind, lass. What did you mean?”
“Archie, of course.” She stepped back and glanced about the hall, her gaze drifting over the empty trestle tables and then lifting to the handful of mistletoe balls hanging here and there. When she looked again at Grim, her expression was bleak. “Repeatedly replenishing the decorations will serve naught. He’ll never relent about Yule. I fear there’s nothing we can do.”
“Dinnae be so sure.” Grim now knew he was destined for Niflheim, the cold and dark hell of Norse legend. He barged on all the same. “There might indeed be a Yuletide celebration at Duncreag, and one Archie cannae refuse.”
“He’s against any festivities.”
“That doesnae matter.”
“I don’t understand.” Breena’s brow pleated.
Grim smiled. “If all works out as I hope, Duncreag will have a Yule feast that the bards will sing of for all time coming.”
Breena’s eyes rounded. “Oh, that would be such a blessing. But how?”
Grim flicked a glance over his shoulder to be sure they were alone. “I have a plan.”
“You do?”
“Aye.” Grim nodded, silently wondering how the denizens of Niflheim would like the clacking of his beard rings. He was going there for sure if he spoke his next words. “There’s only one hitch,” he took the risk.
He was prepared to challenge the devil.
So he set his hands on Breena’s shoulders and sealed his fate. “If I am to succeed, you must accompany me on a journey.”
Chapter Three
“Wait, please.” Breena dug in her heels when Grim turned an unexpected corner in the passageway leading from the great hall. She’d been at Duncreag long enough to know he was taking her to the stronghold’s dankest, most crumbling tower. Known as the Winter Tower, it was the oldest part of the castle and stayed cold even in summer. No one dared to tread there and many believed it was haunted. If not by ghosts, then she was sure mice and cobwebs waited in the darkness of the tower’s winding turnpike stair.