By reflex, he gave her one of his smiles, though his mind was racing. “Go on. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Elspeth lowered her face back to the page, looking rattled. It was almost as though she didn’t realize how fine she was. Not that she was pretty. Not exactly.

He stared hard, taking the opportunity to graze every inch. She was, on the face of it, quite plain. Especially when compared to a rosy-cheeked spitfire like Bridget, or the walking grace that was their eldest sister, Anya.

But Elspeth was unassuming and gentle, and those were qualities he hadn’t encountered in… perhaps ever.

He watched her mouth form each letter. When she concentrated on the page, she looked relaxed. Books appeared her element, putting her at her ease, and oddly that pleased him.

He studied her lips. They were neither thin nor thick. In fact, there was nothing about her that stood out. Nothing too grossly large, nothing too unusually small.

She wasn’t unappealing, he decided, which made it surprising that she hadn’t yet married, for she wasn’t a young maid. Rather, she was Anya’s age, and his widowed sister already had a half-grown son.

He wondered why Elspeth might not be considered pretty. What alchemy made one girl stand out from the rest?

Not that he cared for pretty. He knew the saying handsome is that handsome does, and he’d found it borne true in his own experience, time and again. How many plantation women had he seen, with skin like cream and eyes like jewels, wielding their whips so very prettily? It’d been up to the men to discipline the adults, but children had been the women’s domain, and after a beating, a plantation wife’s pretend remorse was very pretty indeed.

He knew because he’d been one of those children. He had the jagged scars on his back to prove it.

“And zed,” Elspeth said, writing out a perfect Z. She’d finished the alphabet and now held the quill out to him. “Now it’s your turn.”

He swallowed hard. Scythe, plow, shears, hoe, shovel,

rake, sword, dagger… These were all tools he’d held in his life. But a quill? Last time he’d held a quill, he’d been a ten-year-old studying at the kirk schoolhouse with the other children.

But he had no choice. If he was going to present himself as a wealthy lord, he needed to know how to read. How to sign his cursed name. And so, like a child, he had to learn the basics.

But it didn’t mean he didn’t hate it, and hate himself for his ignorance.

“Fine,” he said, grabbing the quill from her. It felt so tiny in his hand, his fingers so awkward and thick. It was his hand that trembled now, and he pressed it onto the table to anchor himself. He slammed his other hand onto a blank page and slid it under the tip of the pen.

She nudged the inkpot toward him. “Don’t forget, you must dip it first.”

Of course. He’d known that. With a tight nod, he dipped his quill then brought it to the paper. He pressed too hard, and ink bled from the tip, forming a sloppy puddle.

“Hang it,” he muttered. His life was black luck, a black soul, and now worthless black blots of ink. He moved to crumple the ruined page.

“Don’t.” She touched his hand, and they both grew still.

He tilted his head to catch her eye. She looked nervous. He wanted her to stop looking so damnably nervous. He wasn’t that terrifying. She hadn’t even seen his scars yet. He raised his brows impatiently, waiting for instruction.

“You mustn’t stab it. Hold it sideways.”

Her voice was gentle, and it calmed him. Not a wee spy, he thought, perhaps a trainer of wild creatures. He did as she’d told him, and tilted his hand.

“Yes. That’s the way.” He heard the smile in her voice, and a foreign feeling of warmth flickered deep in his icy heart. “Now write your first letter. A, for ‘Aidan.’ ”

He began the letter, but pressed too hard, and the quill squeaked along the parchment. His muscles flinched, ready to crumple the sheet and quit this nonsense. He couldn’t form a simple, childish letter, and it shamed him. But then he felt the barest touch on his forearm.

“Lightly,” she urged. “You’re too strong.”

Too strong. Like a brute was too strong, or an ox. He looked up, a quip ready on his lips, but saw she’d turned nearly purple with embarrassment. Something about her words had made her self-conscious. Such a fascinating, peculiar bird of a girl.

His own shame vanished, and he brought his attention back to the paper. “Like this?” he asked, wanting to put her at her ease.

“Yes, but don’t press down. Just touch it lightly. A gentle touch for each stroke is what you need.”

His mind went to a place decidedly more sexual than this bit of book learning warranted, and he suppressed a smile, keeping himself intent on the paper before him.

Elspeth mistook his silence for confusion. “Perhaps if you held it thusly.” She brought her hand to his to adjust his fingers on the quill, her movements as tentative as a frightened cat.

He’d have thought her hands would be clammy, but they were warm, their touch soft and light. He felt a bolt of lightning shoot up his spine. A gentle touch from an innocent was something far outside the realm of his experience. He relaxed his hand, letting her mold his grip, savoring the feel of those delicate fingers on his.

As she positioned his hand, he attuned himself to her utterly. Her breaths came evenly, and he imagined he felt each brush against his skin. The barest scent wafted up to him. Nothing like his mother’s rose water, nor the cloying ambergris of elegant plantation wives. Elspeth smelled sweet and fresh, like freshly turned earth and grass.

Her long, thin fingers mesmerized him, so pale against his tanned and callused skin. He dared not look higher than her wrist, a peek of it visible at the cuff of her sleeve. She was so fragile, with bones like a graceful seabird.

He imagined she’d never touched a man so. Perhaps it meant she was no longer nervous. Perhaps he had put her at her ease.

He needed to say something to fill the quiet, but he found he was speechless. He, whose blithe words had seduced some of the most exotic women in the world, found himself at a loss.

She sat so close to him, and yet he couldn’t picture her eyes. What color were they? He thought they were blue, but what else would he see there? Flecks of green? Of violet? He needed to find out. He risked a glance, caught her gaze.

And saw terror there.

Anger swamped him, sudden and blinding. This Elspeth was as skittish as a calf surrounded by a pack of wolves.

He knew he was different from other men. He knew he didn’t belong. But was he so coarse? Was he such a threat?

Aidan snatched his hand away. “We’re done here.”

He stormed from the room and didn’t look back.

Chapter 6

Wrenching her body upright, Elspeth arched back to ease the knot at the base of her spine. She’d hauled bucket after bucket of Angus’s raw oats to feed the sheep, and the labor was beginning to take its toll.

She let herself take a moment. Despite the frustration over her father’s lack of business sense, despite the dirt that seemed forever to cling at her skirts and beneath her nails, she found tending the sheep to be a more pleasant chore than she’d have believed. At least as pleasant as minding their few cattle had been, and some bit easier too. They were serene creatures, and more social than the cows, butting their heads against her legs for attention, vying for handfuls of grain.

She dusted off then grew thoughtful, contemplating her hands, rubbing them, wiping the dirt from her palms. And remembering.

She’d touched him with those fingers.

Never had she touched a man’s hand before. Never had she touched a man, period. At least one who wasn’t her father.

It had only taken a moment to adjust Aidan’s fingers on the quill, but still she’d lingered, lost to thoughts of what those hands might have seen. They’d likely harvested sugarcane, and climbed ship’s rigging. But had they also punched men? Touched women? Touched himself?

A sultry warmth bloomed in her belly, and she glanced side to side, to ensure that nobody was there to witness such wicked musings.

Sure enough, Anya was at the top of the hill, walking down to the glen where they kept the sheep penned.

Elspeth shook out her skirts, gathering herself. With one last rub of her hands, she cleared her mind of these stolen dreams as surely as the dust from her fingers. Then she smiled, happy with any interruption if it meant seeing her friend. Especially now. Even though Anya bore no resemblance to Aidan, Elspeth felt somehow closer to him for sight of his sister.

“What brings you—oh!” Elspeth chirped at the sight of the young boy who raced from behind Anya. She’d brought Duncan. “It’s your boy!”

“Aye,” Anya said, returning her smile. “If he’d be still for but a moment, I’d introduce you.”

But apparently nine-year-olds didn’t stand on ceremony, because Duncan simply raced up to Elspeth and, skidding to a halt, asked, “What are you doing?”

Elspeth couldn’t help but laugh at his intensity. With freckled cheeks panting for breath and bangs that’d turned reddish brown with sweat, the boy looked nothing like Anya.

“Why, I’m feeding the sheep, naturally.”

“What are their names?”

“Their names.” She put her hands on her hips, con sidering. “Let’s see. Why there’s Juliet, and Imogen, and Miranda is just there …”

Elspeth conjured a name for every last one, Duncan hanging on her every word. He frowned when she’d finished. “Don’t you have no boy sheeps?”

“Don’t we have any male sheep?” she repeated, gently correcting his grammar. She sighed. Didn’t they indeed. Her father hadn’t thought so far as to purchase them a godforsaken ram, so set he’d been on the prospect of milk, cheese, and wool. “Why no. They’re spinsters, every last one.”

“Like you?”

“Duncan, a bhobain!” Anya cried in a breathless gasp.

But Elspeth only laughed. Nobody knew better than she about her marital status. “Oh, it’s fine, Anya, really.”