Perfect Strangers (The Scots)

"Quiet! Please, do not insult me further by lying and saying you think me comely. I know better. No man with eyes has ever mistaken me for that. 'Tis a fact I learned to accept long ago. However, no man with a grain of compassion has dared say as much, and in so crass a manner, to my face. Methinks there's a reason they call you Scots barbarians, and 'tis for more than your tactics on a battlefield. The ballads say The Black Douglas is a cruel man, but I'd no idea how cruel."

"Gabby—"

"Be quiet, I tell you! I—"

"Lass, are ye crying?"

"—don't wish to discuss the matter further. And I most certainly am not crying. As for what you've said... your opinion of anything—least of all your opinion of me!—means less than nothing." Gabrielle bit down on her lower lip until it stung and she tasted the sharp tang of blood on her tongue. The lie tasted sour in her mouth, but pride forbade her to take it back. She dashed a hot, traitorous tear from her cheek with her fist and, gathering up her skirt with her free hand, turned to leave the room.

Connor was on his feet in a heartbeat, and across the room in two. He caught up to her just as she was about to disappear into the shadowy corridor outside the arched stone doorway. Curling his fingers around her upper arm, he tugged, stopping her short.

He heard her try, and fail, to suppress a choked gasp of surprise. Beneath the brocade sleeve, he felt a tremor ripple through her.

"If I've said aught to offend ye, lass..." Connor's words trailed away when he noticed the way Gabrielle strained her neck to keep her face turned away from him. The jerky lift and fall of her shoulders told him that indeed she was crying.

The muscles in Connor's stomach fisted. God, how the sight tore at him! He longed to enfold her in his arms, press her cheek to his shoulder, stroke her soft, inky hair and croon soothing words in her ear. He'd no practice comforting teary-eyed women, but for this one, heaven help him, he would make the attempt.

If Gabby allowed it.

The rigid set of her spine and shoulders suggested that she would not. The stiffness of her posture also suggested that, if Connor so much as thought about trying to soothe her, she would slap out at him again. Blindly, wildly. His cheek still stung from her first blow; fierce Douglas pride forbade him from giving her another opportunity.

Gabrielle muffled a sniffle with the back of her hand and cleared her throat. She would have wiped the tears from her cheeks, but there were too many and they refused to stop falling. Her voice shook only a bit as she said, "Unhand me, please. You're hurting my arm."

Connor's fingers loosened, but he did not let her go. "Why? So that ye can run away? I dinny think so, Gabby."

"I am not running away."

"Then what would ye call it?"

"I'm"—sniffle, sniffle—"simply retiring for the night, is all."

"Do ye always run to yer chambers when ye retire for the night, lass?"

"Only when I've been gravely insulted and wish to be alone with my thoughts, m'lord."

Connor sucked in a choppy breath as the pad of his thumb traced small circles against her sleeve and the warm, soft skin beneath. "How many times do I have to say it? No insult was intended."

"Mayhap a part of me believes you, but a larger part most certainly did take insult."

"Is it yer habit to take insult whenever a mon offers to wed ye?"

"I wouldn't know, the offer has never been made before." Gabrielle dashed the tears from her cheek and, finally managing to gain control over her emotions, craned her neck to glare hotly up at him. "Heathen Scot though you are, surely even you cannot be so ignorant as to think that your offer is what I find so insulting. Tis not, 'tis the reason for it. Obviously you think of me as nothing more than a brood mare. That, I find insulting in the extreme. What woman with even a tattered scrap of pride would not?"

"Ye aren't making any sense." Connor shook his head, confused. "Arranged marriages are an age-old custom in yer country as well as mine. A marriage based solely on begetting heirs is not unusual. Och! but 'tis a maun honorable reason to wed. I ken few couples on either side of the Border whose marriage is based on—"

He gulped, his throat closing tightly around the word.

Gabrielle's gaze sharpened on him when Connor stopped speaking abruptly.

"On what, m'lord?" she prodded coldly. When he still refused to finish the sentence, she determinedly finished it for him. "You know of few couples on either side of the Border whose marriage is based on... love? Is that the word you're having so much trouble saying?"

"Aye," he growled, his gray eyes narrowing angrily. He hated the way his tongue tripped awkwardly over the word, hated, too, the way his mind tripped even more awkwardly over the prospect of voicing it.

"Have you ever been in love, Connor?"

He gritted his teeth, making the muscles in his jaw bunch hard, and shook his head. "I've no time to waste on such silly emotions."

"You think love silly?"