Page 55 of Somewhere Along The Way (Mackinnon #3)

“Oh, never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway. I knew the minute I said it, you wouldn’t do it. Especially now that you’ve seen what a helpless, hopeless nitwit I am.”

He threw back his magnificent head and laughed heartily, then drew her against him and rested his chin on her head when the humor laughed itself out.

“Little beauty, haven’t you guessed by now that it’s at times like these, when you’re so refreshingly honest and at your nitwit best, that I realize I will never be able to live without you? ”

If it was possible, her eyes grew bigger and rounder. “Does that mean you’ve decided to take my virginity?”

“Is it still up for grabs?”

She winced at his choice of words. “A simple yes or no will suffice,” she said stiffly. “There’s no need for rhetorical questions.”

He stared down at the proud, almost pathetic young woman before him.

He knew what she was asking, that she sought one of two things—perhaps both.

Either she had resigned herself to the idea that she was going to marry Huntly, and had some inkling of what it would be like to be his wife—treated like a possession instead of a woman—and that had prompted her to come to the decision to give herself to him to see, for one glorious night, what it could be like between the two of them; or she was taking a desperate gamble, hoping to lure him into deflowering her so she could break the news to Huntly and thus bring things between them to an end.

Neither reason held any appeal for him.

“No,” he said softly, his hand caressing the softest skin this side of heaven that lay at the base of her neck.

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think you meant a word of what you said.

I think you’re upset—you’re disappointed, wounded, hurt.

You’re like a drowning man who grabs at straws. ”

He was right, and the thought of humiliating herself without thinking as she had done was more than she could take. Two enormous tears welled within her eyes and trembled like dew-drops on her lashes for a moment before spilling over and splashing down her cheeks.

“You see,” he went on to say, wiping the tears away with his thumb, “I know you better than you think. You’re too fine, too honorable a woman to stoop to those tricks.

And you aren’t na?ve enough to offer yourself like that without thinking of the risks, the consequences to yourself and those you love. ”

Down the tears traveled until, one by one, they dropped in dark gray splotches upon the bodice of her gown.

She tried to wrench herself away, but he held her fast. “Easy now, there’s no need to bolt for the door.

They say the truth hurts, and I guess it does, although it seems a downright shame that a woman’s head can be turned by flattery, while all the truth gathers is pain or anger. ”

“I’m not angry,” she said, taking a swipe at her tears with her sleeve. “If you must know, I am filled with shame.”

“Why? Because of what you asked me?”

“No, because you were right. I’m not that kind of woman. I do think of consequences. I don’t want to bring shame down upon myself and my family—and now I’ve done both by humiliating myself this way.”

The way her lip quivered was adorable and he had never wanted to kiss a woman more than he wanted to kiss her right this minute. But now he was thinking of the consequences.

“I’ll never be able to look you in the face again,” she wailed and buried her face against his chest.

“Why? Am I that ugly?” he asked.

She pulled back, her face wet with tears, her voice punctuated by sobs. “Don’t…th-think…y-you…can…m-make me…laugh.”

“I would never stoop so low,” he said, fighting to hold back his laughter. “May they cut out my tongue…boil me in oil…chop up my liver and feed it to the…”

“Vultures,” she supplied, just before she socked him lightly on the arm.

“Blow,” he said, holding out his handkerchief.

She blew her nose. “Are you never serious?”

Melancholy, it seemed, had robbed her of her humor and a certain amount of her resilience, and he was reminded of the days when he had first met her, when she had seemed every inch the regal princess who had no pain, felt no shame.

Even then, he had felt this strong attraction for her, this feeling that whatever happened between himself and this woman, he would never meet another who touched him quite the way she did.

He didn’t understand it. He didn’t know why.

But someone had made the rules for her to follow, rules that would only benefit those who made them, not her.

Why did she have to suffer to please her family?

Why did she have to lose in order to win?

He thought of her life and how she had no control over the events in it, how she had been restrained, then shaped and formed like bread dough to fulfill a chosen destiny—as a calf is fattened for slaughter—to marry a man befitting her family.

Meeting that family had given him a pretty fair picture of what her life must have been like before he stumbled into it.

Her family loved her, that much was evident, but he had seen families like that before, families who lost track of themselves and allowed too many other things to crowd out the space that had been given for feelings.

His heart went out to her, for she still had enough fire left in her that she didn’t want to go down without fighting, but she was floundering now in waters that were as unknown to her as they were deep.

A haunted quality lingered about her like a great, heaving sadness that reached out to him.

He discovered her emotions, her feelings affected him even more powerfully than her beauty or her desirability.

She shuddered and he looked down into eyes that were a clear, clear green, dusted with gold.

Her face was pale with a spot of color high upon her cheeks.

Her lips were red and soft, ripe for kissing, but as she looked at him, a glimmer of distress lingered there.

“Don’t be sad, lass. You’ll forget it in time.”

She shook her head.

“It won’t seem so bad by tomorrow. You’ll see.”

“No,” she said wearily, “this time I think my thoughtlessness has gone too far.”

He looked pleasantly surprised. “Is your character so weak that it won’t bear such a small burden as this?”

“Perhaps it isn’t my character that plagues me.”

He wasn’t smiling now. “What is it? What bothers you and turns you sad?”

How could she answer him? What should she say? That his presence filled her with so much hope? That reality stole it away? That the time she was with him passed so quickly, and the times they were together were all too few? No, she could not say these things to him, so she said nothing.

They looked at each other and all consciousness of anything else seemed to slip slowly away. There were no barriers between them now, no cruel reality, no strange twists of fate. They were only a man and a woman, brought together and pulled apart, without really knowing why.

As if sensing her discomfort, her misery, he touched the side of her face. “Don’t lose hope,” he said. “We’ll find a way.”

His hand was warm and solid and she turned her face into it and kissed his palm, hearing the air rush from his lungs as she did.

“I have lost hope,” she said. “My cause was lost before it ever had a chance to get started.”

“Don’t be so quick to predict the worst. Have you no faith?”

“No,” she said “Not anymore.” A second later she said, “Why do you persist when you know as well as I that all of this is pointless? Why me and not some other?”

“Are you fishing for compliments?” he asked.

“Not that it matters, I suppose, because there is nothing here that I am trying to hide. I like the heart of you, Annabella, and I like your brand of freshness. I’ve a feeling there’s a reason for all of this and I’m determined to stay on the back of this bronc and ride it to the end.

Not much has come to me in my life, and maybe that’s because there never was much I wanted—until now.

I have an easy enough way about me, but I can be as fierce and determined as the rest of them when I have a cause.

Something has drawn us together and I won’t see it pushed away.

I wouldn’t turn back now if a hundred Huntlys stood in my way. ”

She looked into his face, her throat growing dry and tight.

Her pulse pounded like surf against her ears.

She couldn’t bear for him to look at her as he did.

His ridicule or even his anger she could have taken, and yes, even fed upon.

His indifference she could have lived with.

Or was it pity? Yes, she could have fought even the ravages of that.

But this? This understanding. This warmth. This feeling of kinship she felt with him. It was too much, and too powerful, and it reminded her of what she wanted and could never have.

Misery welled up inside her. She could not bear to look at him like this, the way he stood before her with the casual, comfortable ease that one would find in a favorite stuffed chair.

His upraised arm was braced against a support beam, his other hand with the thumb hooked in his belt loop, his fingers splayed as if pointing to that part of him that lay beneath the stressed buttons of his well-fitting pants.

And everywhere, lamplight seemed to worship him, touching him with adoration.

So lost in thought was she that the sound of his voice penetrating the silence startled her.