Page 46 of A Promise of Love

"Perhaps." He nuzzled her hair with his chin. "You are too compassionate, sometimes, Judith. I don’t think Louise a worthy object of it ."

"She is your mother, Alisdair," she said softly. "And therefore extremely worthy." He smiled, and kissed her quickly .

"What were you like as a little boy ?"

"Oh, so now it is my turn ?"

"Of course, did you think yourself spared?

I can picture you as a scamp," she said, turning and smiling at him.

At this moment, Alisdair thought, she looked as young as a child herself, her eyes aglow with happiness.

He wished he could freeze this moment, so that she would always look this way, her lips curved, her glorious eyes sparkling, her face softened into joy .

"Did you get into trouble and refuse to obey? Did you kiss all of the little girls and make them dream of you ?"

"Every single one. I was the only boy to go off to school and have my own entourage of playmates following me, weeping into their bonnets and crying at their nurses' knees ."

"I can believe it ."

"Of course," he said, looking offended. "And I was the best of children. I obeyed everyone, listened to my elders, ate my porridge and everything else put before me, I must admit ."

"You have grown into a lovely man ."

"Lovely? Woman, you make me sound like a flower. I would have you call me handsome, brave, stalwart, dashing, debonair, but not lovely, I beg of you ."

"No, lovely," she said in the tones of one who has decreed it and it will be so, "I've decided. From now on, it's Alisdair, the lovely !"

This time, he tickled her until she admitted that she might have been wrong about calling him lovely, and yes, yes, yes, he was all of those things he'd said .

He showed her his favorite hiding place when he was a little boy, the cave which was overgrown by brush and only reached through low tide. She shook her head emphatically when he asked her, with a wiggle of his eyebrows, if she wanted to explore it .

They walked on a beach strewn with boulders the size of the massive blocks of Tynan. They played, like children, in the surf only to stop and race to the top of the hill, breathless .

He showed her the tree he had marked as a little boy and the spot where he had killed his first deer, although, even now, he looked a bit shamefaced about the action .

"I did not like it much," he admitted, "especially the blooding, when they touched me on both cheeks with the deer's blood.

I tried to be manly, although I never acquired a taste for hunting.

I have, however, acquired a taste for something else," he leered, abruptly changing the tenor of the conversation .

He reached for her, as she giggled and then flushed as his hands stroked across her bodice and he whispered provocative suggestions into her ear .

"Shall we return to our room, our bed?" he asked softly .

"Is that all you can think about?" she protested, backing away from him .

“No, but it occupies a fair share of my mind,” he admitted with a smile. “But it is your fault, after all .”

“How do you see that ?"

“If you weren’t so responsive, Judith, and so hot in my arms, I could a wait a few hours." There it was, that flush he’d teased into life .

He scooped her up in his arms as if she weighed no more than a lamb and followed the track away from the village .

He suspected he would like this woman when she emerged from her self-imposed restraint, but he had not expected to be captivated by her.

He’d felt compassion and pity for her, a curious understanding and an aching desire.

How odd that he reveled in simply being with her.

He knew when she entered a room, because the very air seemed to shimmer with her presence.

He felt her pain when others spoke of children and he remembered the look in her eyes when Douglas was passed around to be cuddled.

He knew by her scowl when she was in a fierce temper, or when she was hurt and hiding it.

He’d seen the laughter in her eyes and wanted to replicate it every day of his life.

And the blush which started at her toes and tipped her nose pink, he wanted to summon it forth , also .

He set her down inside an abandoned crofter's hut, one of those built into the side of the craggy hill, half its structure shale and stone.

It was pitch dark and smelled of animals; the only light was from the chimney hole and from the open sky peering in between the gaps in the thatch.

The only furniture was one sagging cot, wedged into a corner .

Alisdair closed the warped door as much as it could be shut, but anyone walking by could easily see the interior.

As a trysting place, it was barely adequate.

Still, when he spun her around and pulled her into his arms, suddenly neither the damp, dark smell, the sounds of mice, nor the lack of privacy disturbed either of them .

He gently placed both large hands on either side of her head, raised her face with his thumbs beneath her chin.

Even in this dim light, her face looked luminous.

Her eyes sparkled with remembered laughter, her lips curved sweetly.

He bent his head and with his tongue traced the outline of her smile.

She leaned closer to him, her hands on his arms. He deepened the kiss suddenly, mated his tongue with hers, coaxing a bemused response, a slight, hesitant moan emerging from her lips .

She extended her arms around his neck, as if suddenly needing a support. His hands slid up from her waist, pressed tightly, possessively against the sides of her breasts until they were pushed up against the wool of her bodice .

Judith heard the rumble of thunder and discounted it.

There was always rain in the Highlands. Alisdair kissed her closed eyelids, swept down the fine line of her nose.

His fingers slid through her hair, his fingertips pressed into her scalp, and although the touch was domineering, fierce, it was yet curiously gentle.

She leaned into him, her hands braced against his chest, feeling the hardness of his muscles, the radiant warmth of his skin.

It was quiet joy she felt now, not fear .

The first drops of rain didn’t disturb her.

Nothing mattered at this moment, but the taste of Alisdair’s lips and the sweet, heady wonder of the hard strength of his body pressed against her.

How odd that the fear she had felt for so long at the thought of a man’s touch had mellowed to a sweet, piercing anticipation .

The rain continued, not in a soft, gentle patter like English rain, but sheets of gray, transforming the path outside the hut into a muddy trench.

It saturated the thatch roof, cascaded down one side of rock, a waterfall created from man’s interference and nature’s complicity.

The hut, abandoned for its habit of flooding, became a wet cave redolent with the odor of dung and fur .

Alisdair pressed his thigh against the softness between Judith’s thighs, rotating, sliding, until she moved against him, willing to go where he led .

The chimney hole served as a funnel for the sheets of water that instantly flooded the hard packed earthen floor of the cottage .

Alisdair was aware of the penetrating rain but was too bemused by eager lips, by the warm, wet cavern of Judith’s mouth and the budding passion of her response to him.

Although cloth denied him passage, his memory recalled the feel of her, hot, wet, willing.

Still, the insistence of the irritation managed to penetrate the fog of desire.

Judith stirred, the annoying sensation of being drenched by the downpour slowly penetrating the ardor of his embrace .

They separated, finally, and looked at each other .

She took a step backwards, and nearly fell in the ankle high water. He reached out an arm to steady her, pulling her back into his arms. She leaned her forehead against his sodden shirt and began to laugh weakly. His rumbling laughter echoed hers .

"Perhaps, I have not chosen a suitable spot for trysting," he admitted wryly, the uncomfortable fit of wet trousers gloving his arousal reminding him of his loss of control .

She only giggled .

"Although, it could be worse, I suppose ."

That set her off again .

"How?" she asked finally, leaning against him, not bothering to brush the tears of mirth from her eyes. She was so wet, it did not matter .

"Well," he said, considering, "it could be winter ."

She howled .

"Or," he whispered, "we could be naked ."

She looked at him suspiciously, the laughter in her eyes softening her glance. She took one step back, stumbling on the wet length of her skirts. She fell backwards, barely missing the wooden frame of the sagging cot .

She did not, however, avoid the mud .

His laughter shook the walls of the cottage with as much ferocity as the storm itself. He knelt beside her, oblivious to his own state, and raised her up. She was coated with mud, a slippery, oozing mass of clinging odor. He sniffed her and began laughing again .

The coarse wool of her dress itched and the weight of her skirts, along with the sucking mud beneath her feet conspired to make every movement difficult. She brushed his hands away and attempted to stand, but he only pulled her down beside him .

On her next attempt to rise, he merely held onto the collar of her dress, and the old wool separated easily. So did the chemise. The sight of her, coated with mud, and spitting mad did not encourage his laughter, it diffused it .

He rose and clasped her wetly against him. His mouth searched hers, felt its mutinous contours, softened them, gentled them, until she forget her anger and allowed them to fall open under his onslaught .