Page 12

Still, his bare chested image bedeviled her mind.

Though she tried to be rid of it, she was stiff with tension, and she no longer felt sleepy.

She'd go to the burn for a while and listen to the waves against the shore.

True, it didn't have the spellbinding appeal of the sea, but the soughing sound had a way of easing her mind, of freeing her soul.

And just now she desperately needed to be free.

Where the devil was she going tonight? Gilmour wondered as he stepped into the darkness.

Luckily, none suspected that he'd exited the inn to follow her, for though she had left through the back door, he had his ways of keeping track of her whereabouts.

It had been simple enough to make his excuses and leave shortly after.

But now he wondered about her destination.

Did she go to meet another lover? Or hadn't the man from the night before been her lover atall?

Rhone, she'd called him. A strange name.

Might he have been an informant of some kind?

And if so, what kind of information did he carry?

Thoughts milled like wild ewes through Gilmour's mind.

The moon was hidden just now, but even so, he thought he saw Isobel glance back and held his breath as he froze in the darkness beside the path.

For a moment it seemed as if the whole world held its breath, but finally she turned and continued on, over the rickety bridge by the mill and on to the wooden palisade that contained the village.

There she stopped and glanced about once again.

No sound interrupted the silence, and with one furtive glance behind her, she turned and disappeared from sight.

Gilmour waited where he was, watching the black space where she had disappeared and realizing in a moment that she had slipped through the wooden enclosure to the rustling burn beyond.

Gilmour left his hiding place to creep silently forward, careful not to disturb the quiet. It took him a moment to shimmy over the wooden wall, and once on the opposite side, he paused to search for her. But he could see little.

A gnarled rowan leaned its deep shadow over the burbling stream that ran beside the village.

The moon had escaped from the bondage of the clouds and shone with cool brilliance on the face of the water, but beneath die rowan branches, it was as dark as sin.

Gilmour stopped there, letting his eyes adjust, but there was nothing that could have prepared him, for suddenly, in the blink of an eye, Isobel appeared on the bank of the stream.

Gilmour's breath caught hard in his throat, for she was naked.

Moonlight, saindy in its timing, skimmed past scattered branches and flooded like a beacon from the sky.

It glimmered off her hair, casting it in a hundred silver hues as it flowed to her shoulders and caressed the tops of her ivory breasts.

Shadows lay below, parted only by the magical movement of her thighs as she stepped into the water.

It lapped in hungry, glistening waves about her delicate calves, reaching ever higher.

She bent, scattering light across the lawn of her back and spilling it in kindly glory over the splendid twin curves of her buttocks.

Though she remained on the bank for only a matter of moments, every detail was chiseled indelibly in Gilmour's mind, freezing his limbs and hardening him with instant, aching appreciation.

She slipped into the water, and her hair, bright as candlelight, spread across the waves like lily petals. His heart hammered heavily in his chest, and lower, where he was stiffened and aching, it beat again, like the rhythm of a slow drum, building tension, promising action.

But there would be no action.

Loosening his fists at his sides, Mour exhaled carefully then searched madly for reasons why there should be no action.

She was, after all, of age. They were comparable in station and.

.. but nay. He shook his head in a sad attempt to clear it.

He didn't like her. She was cool and aloof to him. And yet...

She glided through the waves like a water sprite bent on enchanting him. And he was enthralled, unmoving, unspeaking, barely daring to breathe, lest he break this spell and find that she was naught but a dream.

Mist rose in ghostly fingers along the edges of the pond and curled sleepily toward the dark, reaching branches above. It was into this mist that she finally arose, her ivory shoulders seeming to lift the rest of her spectacular body from the loving embrace of the waves.

Gilmour exhaled quietly. He had never seen her equal. Every line of her was as fluid and graceful as a swan. Every inch was as beautiful and refined as a work of art.

She lifted her hand to grasp a branch as she stepped into the shadows, and as she did so light glimmered down the length of her wet arm. Moonlight glistened in silver splendor across her lovely breasts, then fanned over her belly and fell in softened waves upon her thighs.

Gilmour stared at her unearthly beauty, and then she was gone, her perfection hidden by darkness and distance.

Something ached in his soul. He moved to follow her, but with his very first step, reality seized him.

What the devil was he thinking? She wasn't perfection. She was snooty and aloof to him while being blatantly flirtatious with others. But her face was as perfect as...

Nay. 'Twas not so different than a thousand other faces. And as for her form... for a moment his mind froze, seeming absolutely unable to compare her with others. But he forced himself.

Her form, he told himself silently, was neither so buxom as Fleta's nor so youthful as Elga's. In fact, there were a host of other maids just as appealing, and yet she seemed magi—

And yet nothing. There were no "and yets," he thought, and madly reined in his skittering thoughts.

She was no water sprite. No fairy folk. No enchanted being of any sort.

She was simply a woman of flesh and bone, imperfect in a hundred ways.

And once his erection eased enough to allow him to move, he would remember those imperfections and put her forever from his mind.