The Dark Highlander
Page 51

“Sort of.”
“I could get tired of that answer in a hurry,” she said, eyes narrowing. “I’m not exactly hard to talk to. You should try it.” Since he’d told her that he and his brother had had some kind of falling out, she was better able to understand his withdrawn attitude. But if he thought it would keep her from asking questions, he was wrong.
“Ever the curious lass, aren’t you?”
“If I waited for you to offer information, I’d never find out anything. Speaking of which, we need to talk about this curse-thing soon too. I can’t help you if I don’t know exactly what we’re looking for.”
Wariness flickered through his eyes. “Aye, I know. Anon, lass. For the now, let’s see if I survive the wrath of my bro—”
He broke off abruptly, his gaze flying to the stairs.
Chloe’s gaze followed, and she sucked in a sharp breath. A man who looked exactly like Dageus was standing there, halfway down the stairs, looking down at Dageus. She looked between them rapidly, disbelievingly.
“Oh, God, you’re twins,” she said faintly. Faintly, because the man at the top of the stairs wore only a towel around his waist.
“Stay right there!” the man on the stairs thundered. “I’ll but get my trews. My apologies, lass. I had to see him with my own eyes.” He turned around and loped up the stairs, three at a time.
Dageus mumbled something that sounded almost like, if he drops his towel I’ll kill him, but Chloe decided she was imagining things.
The man skidded to a halt at the top and cast a sharp glance directly at Chloe. “Doona let him leave, lass,” he roared at her.
“Wow,” was all she could manage.
Beside her, she felt Dageus stiffen. For a moment, it seemed the hall grew markedly cooler.
“The lasses have oft said I am more handsome,” he said icily. “And a better lover.”
Chloe blinked up at him.
“So doona be ogling him. He’s married, lass.”
“I wasn’t ogling,” she protested, knowing full well she’d been ogling. “And if I was, it’s only because you didn’t warn me that you were twins.”
He gave her a dark look.
“Besides, he only had a towel on,” she justified.
“I doona care if he had naught but his skin on. ’Tisn’t polite to ogle another woman’s husband.”
Chloe caught her breath. His expression was furious and he looked … jealous. About her? For looking at his brother? She peered at him, hardly daring to credit it.
Abruptly, his gaze was gone again, fixed at the top of the stairs, and hers followed. She glanced from Drustan to Dageus and back again.
And she wondered how Dageus might have worried for even a moment that Drustan wouldn’t welcome him home. The expression on his brother’s face took her breath away. Love blazed in his eyes and, though she couldn’t tell from this distance, it looked as if they glistened with tears.
“Drustan,” Dageus said with a cool nod.
Drustan’s eyes dimmed and his mouth tightened.
“Drustan?” Drustan snapped. “That’s it? A mere Drustan? No ‘Good morrow, brother, ’tis sorry I am that I’ve been such an ass and no’ come home’?” His voice was rising with each word and he began stalking down the stairs.
God, they even moved the same way, Chloe marveled, like great sinuous cats, all sleek strength and smoothly sculpted muscles. Though Drustan had pulled on “trews,” he’d not bothered with a shirt and his hair was wet, dripping down his chest. The muscles in his glistening torso rippled with every movement. He must have been in the shower, she realized.
“. . . is that how you’ll greet me?” Drustan was still talking, but she’d missed part of his verbal barrage, apparently temporarily deafened by visual overload. “Get over here and greet me properly,” he thundered.
Chloe tore her gaze away from Drustan and looked at Dageus. And stared. Though he looked as remote and impassive as ever, his eyes positively burned with emotion. He was as still as one of the many standing stones they’d passed, seeming every bit as ancient and obdurate. If one didn’t notice the hands fisted at his sides. And those eyes.
Oh, there was more to Dageus MacKeltar than he let on! And her hypothesis was right. When he felt most deeply was when he exhibited the greatest reserve.
So that was how such a man wore love, she realized. Quietly. Not an expressive man. Not a man to laugh or cry or dance. A man who had hair to his waist, but never wore it down. Did he ever let himself go?