Page 23 of Lyon’s Gift (The Highland Brides #2)

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

R olling white clouds feathered the heavens above, swirling across the blue sky like furls of spun silk.

Meghan had never imagined she could feel so free. She could scarcely believe she was lying in the middle of a meadow, fully revealed beneath God’s eyes, and relishing every moment.

For the first time in her life, she felt no shame in herself. She lay enfolded within his embrace, feeling his heart beat against her cheek, and felt only exhilaration at the sensation of lying so uninhibited within his arms.

He made her feel this way.

And she couldn’t help but smile.

She stirred, lifting her face from his chest, thinking that she should dress, but he pressed a hand to her head, drawing her back to cradle her head against him.

“Stay with me,” he urged her.

Meghan wished in that instant that she could lay there forever, listening to the quickened beat of his heart. She wondered if her own still beat so fast.

“How is the arm?” He sounded concerned. “Did I hurt you, Meghan?”

“Nay,” Meghan assured him. He had done anything but that. In truth, he had been cautious to a fault. It was difficult, having been privy to his written words, because she couldn’t help but yearn for the unrestrained passion he had written about in his manuscript. He hadn’t been that way with her at all... He had been gentle and solicitous instead.

“Good.” He lifted her head gently from his chest. “I almost forgot,” he told her, “the reason I brought you out here, Meghan.”

Meghan had forgotten as well.

“Sit up,” he commanded her, and helped her to rise.

Meghan blushed as his gaze slid appreciatively over her body, lingering at her breasts. He curved his lips roguishly.

“What is it?” she asked, returning a demure smile of her own.

“Look about,” he commanded her, turning his head from her abruptly. “Do you see naught at all?”

Meghan did as he bade her, and saw nothing more than she had before: a meadow wide and green, resplendent with posies and heather. Colorful and bursting with life... except for a small plot of soil that had been freshly turned...

She peered up at him, her brows drawing together in bewilderment.

“I hope you do not mind,” he said. “It was not my wish to make you sad, Meghan.”

“I dinna understand.”

“I buried Fia here for you.”

Meghan blinked in surprise. “You did?” She was staggered by the gesture. She hadn’t asked about the lamb, only because she hadn’t wished to know its fate, had assumed they would use the animal for its meat. Tears sprang to her eyes, though she knew it was foolish. It was naught but a lamb, she told herself. And his gesture... She didn’t know what to make of it.

He stared at her, seeming to be searching her face for answers. “I... I know how much she meant to you,” he said. “So I buried her. I hope you do not mind,” he said again, more than a little hesitantly.

Meghan shook her head, discomposed by his confession. She wasn’t certain what to think of a man who would bury a lamb, simply because she had claimed it was her grandmother, despite that he didn’t believe her.

Or had he?

Was he so willing to accept the body without the soul? As with Gavin, did her thoughts not matter to him? Her mind not at all?

Well, it didn’t matter at this instant, as she was overwhelmed by his kind gesture. It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her.

Gulping down the knot that rose in her throat, she turned to gaze at the tiny plot of soil, not more than three yards from where they stood. “When?” she asked him, turning to look into his eyes. “When did you do this?”

“Yesterday… when I left you. I came here. I am sorry if it was not the right thing to do, Meghan. I simply thought—”

“Shhh.” Meghan lifted her finger to his lips. “Hush, Lyon Montgomerie... and kiss me again.”

She didn’t have to ask twice.

Lyon trembled as he drew her into his arms, and lapped the tears from her eyes with the tip of his tongue.

“Be mine,” he begged her, and gently covered her mouth with his own.

Meghan’s lips parted in helpless surrender, though she refused him an answer.

How could she reply nay when it was already so?

And neither could she yield her heart so completely.

They spent the entire afternoon upon the meadow.

It wasn’t until late that Lyon returned Meghan to the hall, bidding her go upstairs and rest before it was time to sup.

Meghan could scarcely protest as she was weary in a way she’d never been in her life. And her arm hurt terribly, besides.

She didn’t wish to, because she didn’t like the drowsy way it made her feel, but Lyon had left the vial of medicine upon the desk for her, and she was in too much discomfort to care if she supped at all. She was going to go take some of the elixir and lie down upon the bed, for it seemed that every step she climbed toward his chamber left her all the more fatigued.

He had asked to carry her up, but Meghan refused to be coddled in such a way. Her will was as yet her own, and she was perfectly capable of climbing stairs on her own.

In her weariness, however, she was blind to the figure standing in the shadows of the corridor leading to Lyon’s bedchamber.

“Meghan,” came an anxious whisper as she reached for the door.

Startled, Meghan whirled to find the old man Cameron stepping from the shadows toward her.

He peered anxiously about. “Is he comin’ after you?”

“Lyon?” she asked him, startled.

“Aye!”

Meghan frowned at his strange behavior. “Nay, but he did not say where he was off to,” she informed him warily. “If you’re needin’ to speak—”

“Nay,” he replied. “ ‘Tis you I wished to see.” He held out a small cloth sack and pressed it into her hands. “This comes to you from Alison, lass.”

“Alison,” Meghan said, suddenly feeling more alert. “Is Alison here?”

“Nay, lass, but I met her in the woods. She bade me give you this, and to tell you that it was she who came to tend you after the fall.”

Confused, Meghan took the sack from his hands. “It was Alison? But they didna say so.”

He gave her a look of reproach, lifting heavy red brows. “Neither did he say your brothers came to see you… while he was out there wooing you? I’m sorry but I spied you together lass.”

Meghan’s face warmed. “Leith and Colin and Gavin came here?”

“Do you have other brothers?” he retorted. “Aye, lass, they came yesterday, but he would not let them see you. In any case, they didna realize it was Alison who came to tend you, as she came disguised as an auld hag.”

“But how—”

“When they asked me if I knew of a physician, I answered that I knew of a midwife. They sent me out after her, and I brought Alison.”

Meghan could scarcely believe that Lyon would fail to mention to her that her brothers had come to see her. He had to realize she would be concerned for them, and they for her. It didn’t make sense to her that he could be so generous about the lamb, and then so ruthlessly deny her brothers and herself.

“Alison has a good plan,” Cameron revealed. “Dinna fash yourself, lass, we’ll get you home to your brothers soon enough.”

Meghan was confused. How could he make love to her so sweetly, say such warmhearted things... and then keep something so important from her?

She shook herself free of her thoughts, of the memory of his touch, forcing herself to consider her brothers. “What sort of plan?”

“The sort that will work, I think,” he said, and bent to whisper it quickly into her ear.