Page 32 of The Laird's Masked Desire
“Very well,” he acquiesced. “Taenight.”
Several heads lifted.
“A welcoming dinner,” he continued. “Small. Council, senior household, nay outsiders. She will be presented openly.”
“And security?” the elder captain asked.
“Doubled,” Domhnall replied. “Inside and out. Nay one enters without me permission.”
Cameron nodded once. “I’ll see it done.”
Domhnall rose, feeling the decision settled on his shoulders. “I want tae clear that she is under me protection.”
That, at least, needed no further explanation.
As the Council dispersed to carry out his orders, Domhnall remained for a moment longer, alone with the map and the memories it stirred.
Kenneth MacGregor would move. He always did. But this time, Domhnall would be ready.
Domhnall did not knock.
Habit carried him forward before polite thought intervened, his hand pushing the chamber door open as it always did when business pressed and time mattered. The latch clicked softly behind him and then he stopped.
Steam filled the room, thick and luminous in the firelight. But it was the scent that struck him first: warm water, crushed herbs, clean soap. It softened the edges of the stone chamber, blurredthe banners and beams until the space felt suspended, private, and almost unreal.
And then he saw her.
Margaret sat in a copper tub drawn close to the hearth, water lapping quietly against its rim. Her hair was unbound, darkened by damp, coiling down her back in loose, heavy waves. A few strands clung to her neck, to the delicate hollow beneath her ear. Her skin glowed in the heat, flushed and luminous, as though the firelight had chosen her alone to warm.
One foot rested just beyond the tub’s edge, her toes peeking out pale and unguarded, as water was sliding down her ankle in slow, glistening trails.
She was humming to herself. The melody was unfamiliar, but it was soft, something that did not belong to court or chapel. It sounded older than either, intimate, as though it had been meant only for herself.
Domhnall stood frozen where he was. He should have turned away. He should have announced himself at once. Every rule he lived by demanded it.
Instead, he watched. He did not do it with hunger at first, but with a startled, aching awareness that lodged low in his chest and spread outward. This was Margaret unarmored. She wore no mask, no careful composure, and there were no watchful eyes measuring consequence. She was just a woman alone in warmth and quiet, unknowing of him.
The pull was as immediate as it was dangerous. His gaze traced without permission, following the curve of her shoulder as she shifted slightly and the line of her collarbone just visible above the water. The sounds she made were soft and absentminded, and they tightened something deep in him that had been locked away for years.
The steam shifted. She moved again, fingers trailing idly through the water, and the sight struck him harder than any blade ever had. Domhnall drew in a slow, controlled breath, the way he did before battle, before blood. He stepped back a single pace, and the boards creaked faintly beneath his boot.
The sound was enough. Margaret’s humming broke off mid-note, the melody snapping into silence as she turned her head. For a heartbeat, she simply stared, just like he had a moment ago. Only, her eyes were wide and her breath caught, while water was sloshing faintly as the realization struck.
“Me laird!”
She lunged for the robe draped over the chair beside the tub, sending a small wave over the copper rim. Her foot slipped on the wet stone, and she windmilled gracelessly for balance, clutching fabric to herself with fierce determination.
“Ye brute! Dinnae look!” she snapped.
“I am nae,” he said at once.
That was a lie, and they both knew it.
She managed to haul the robe around herself, knotting it with more force than necessary. “May I remind ye that ye are inmechamber,” she said, color high in her cheeks now, an amalgamation of anger, embarrassment and something more complicated. “Unannounced. What are ye daein’ here? Dae ye have nae manners at all, me laird, or it’s only around me that ye forget ye’re a gentleman?”
He remained exactly where he was, just inside the door, arms folded across his chest as though he had been rooted there. “I entered tae speak with ye.”
He could still feel the traitorous awareness of how easily she would fit against him again, how her body had felt pressed to his in the saddle, how he had not yet shaken the memory of it.
