Page 36 of To Love a Scottish Lord (Highland Lords #4)

M ary was retrieving her medicine case from the chamber two floors below, and would join him shortly.

Hamish propped open the door so that he’d know when she was on the staircase.

He liked to stand on the landing as she came up the steps.

He’d always engage her in conversation so that she’d forget about the height, directing her attention toward him and not the distance below her.

Yet for all her fear, she didn’t hesitate in joining him at the top of the tower.

More than three weeks had passed, and they’d existed in a timeless, shielded world of no interruptions.

The only voices they heard belonged to the two of them, the only wishes they followed were theirs.

Sometimes, he wondered if it was wise to be alone with Mary this long, to be immersed in her character.

He grew to know her with each passing day, to note the habit she had of tapping her foot on the floor as she massaged his arm, as if she were keeping time to an inaudible tune.

Sometimes, she surprised him with the wit of her response, or the knowledge she had of the world, for all that she’d never left Inverness.

He realized one morning that he’d been lured into her spell, and then smiled at himself. Witches, he suspected, were an invention of man to excuse his weakness around women.

She was bringing a sense of normalcy to his life, something that had been missing for too long.

One day, as they were walking across the courtyard, she’d turned and glanced at him over her shoulder.

He couldn’t remember what she’d said, or why she was laughing, but he’d recall the sight of her until the moment he died.

The sun was behind her, making a crown of gold light around her dark hair and bathing her face in shadow.

Her lips were curved in a smile, her eyes sparkling with happiness.

Hamish realized that he’d be proud to introduce her to his brothers, knowing that she could be assimilated into his growing family without a ripple of discord.

Her laughter would echo with those of his sisters-in-law, and he could almost envision standing with his brothers and watching the women, each of the MacRaes feeling a masculine pride.

Sometimes, when he awoke in the middle of the night, he wanted to wake her, to talk to her about his dream, or listen to her voice. Sometimes he’d be content simply to watch her sleep, feeling a warm protectiveness as he covered her in the blanket and worried about the chill.

During the day, if they chanced to be in different corners of the castle, he’d find excuses to share things with her.

He’d show her the bird’s nest that he’d seen balancing on the curtain wall or the sketch he’d made of a new hull design for a ship still in his mind.

Once, they’d even shot at the pines with the cannon, Mary so excited when she’d actually hit something that she planted both hands on either side of his face and bussed him soundly.

That response had led to other, equally effusive rewards.

He’d begun to listen to the sound of her voice.

Not only her words, but also the resonance of her speech.

When she spoke of Gordon, which was infrequently, her voice took on a sadness.

When discussing her friends, he could almost hear her laughter, and when she teased him, seducing him with words, her voice sounded low and melodious.

Why, then, did he feel the stirrings of warning around her?

Perhaps it was because she made him want to laugh.

Too often in her company he found himself wishing to confide in her, to tell her of things he’d vowed never to speak aloud.

Somehow, she’d burrowed past the barrier of his will with a gentle touch, a soft rejoinder, or the barest curve of her lips into a sweet and gentle smile.

He placed his hands on his cheeks, feeling the scars on either side of his face.

Sometimes, his face twitched in remembered agony or his jaw ached from where the nails had been driven into the bone.

Mary hadn’t flinched from touching him, but had put her hands gently on his face, her thumbs brushing over the blackened marks.

She’d smiled when doing so, not in derision but in gentle comfort, as if she’d empathized or felt the pain.

Even now, his face seemed to tingle where her fingers had rested.

His back didn’t ache as much, and even the tattoos on his body seemed oddly faded.

But that could have been no more than wishful thinking. He would go to his grave with Shiva.

Yet he was beginning to sleep without nightmares. More than a few times, he’d awakened in the morning, blinking open his eyes to see Mary sleeping beside him, and realizing that she’d featured prominently in his dreams.

Gradually, he’d begun to anticipate the mornings, where once he’d craved the darkness because it so closely mirrored his state of mind. One day, perhaps, his mood might even replicate the daylight, and he’d be jocular and sunny.

Now he heard her footsteps on the stairs and went to the landing.

“You would think,” she said, smiling up at him, “for as many times as I’ve made this journey, that I would become more comfortable with it.”

“It hardly seems fair that you must tend to a hermit in a tower,” he teased. “But this chamber is more pleasant than the others.”

“And has a window to view the loch, and a cannon,” she said, tapping the barrel of the weapon as she passed it on the landing.

“How are you?” he asked, even though it had been only an hour or so since he’d left her. He followed her into the room and closed the door behind them.

“Well. And you?” Her eyes scanned him as if to attest to his health. He’d left the window open and stood now in full sunlight.

“As well as when you saw me last.” Better than he’d ever thought himself to be, but that was a comment he kept to himself.

“It’s time to massage your arm.”

“Again?”

“You promised. It’s the only way you’ll ever regain the use of it.”

“You’re very strict, Mary.”

She smiled at him, but ignored his words. She placed both hands on either side of his arm, her fingers stroking softly up and down. “Have you felt anything here?”

“Not yet, but my healer tells me that it’s only a matter of time.”

“She might be a bit optimistic.”

“No doubt,” he agreed. “But I have a tendency to believe her, nonetheless.”

A flush suddenly appeared on her face. “Perhaps you’re the one who trusts too easily, Hamish.”

“Do you lie, Mary?”

“No, but I might hold out too much hope. As I recall, you warned me of doing that as well.”

“I never expected a cure,” he said, to ease her. “Will you think me less a man with one good arm?”

She looked surprised at the question, which was answer enough.

He reached out and drew her closer. Slowly, so that she could pull away if she wished. But she never did.

“Stay with me,” he said abruptly, bluntly. “Don’t go back to Inverness.”

She looked shocked at his words. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t mean it, of course, that he’d only been teasing. The end to this idyll must come sometime. He’d known that as well as she. But those were more words that didn’t seem to be able to make it past his lips.

“For how long?” she said, her voice sounding tremulous and too faint to be hers.

“For as long as we both wish it,” he said, an impulsive request and one that hinted at a future together.

She stepped away from him, deliberately distancing herself. “I cannot, Hamish. I’ve been foolish enough to remain here this long.”

“Is that what you call it? Foolishness?” He waited for her words, feeling a vulnerability unlike him. Even the Atavasi hadn’t been able to make him feel this defenseless.

She didn’t look at him. Instead, she closed one of the shutters, concentrating on the wood beneath her hands.

“Yes,” she finally said, and he almost wished that she hadn’t answered him at all. “What else would you call what I’ve done?” She glanced at him, the smile on her face containing little humor. “It’s foolishness to remain here solely for the sake of pleasure.”

He wanted to shake her. Or shout at her. But he shouldn’t have been surprised at her words. Mary had always given him the truth, even when it was unpalatable.

“Was it only for pleasure?” What a fool he was to ask.

“I’ve never felt such delight, Hamish, nor wanted it more than with you.”

He didn’t say anything, stripped of a rejoinder by the directness of her words.

It should have been enough, but oddly, it wasn’t.

He’d lived in silence for more than thirteen months.

He’d not understood the language of his captors.

Nor had the Atavasi bothered to attempt to communicate.

He was told what to do and when at the point of a knife.

He felt the same right now, as if he were being directed to the table with a sharp point at his spine.

She would never know it, but he’d opened his heart to her.

Suddenly, she was at his side, her hand on his arm.

“Stay with me,” he said softly, pulling her to him. He breathed the words against her temple, into her hair, against the tender skin of her throat. Never before had he realized that he might need something so beyond his own capability to acquire it.

“I cannot, Hamish.”

“Stay with me,” he whispered once again.

This time, she didn’t answer.

Alisdair MacRae circled the pedestal on which the bust rested. Without a doubt, it was a perfect likeness of him. Iseabal had worked diligently on it for months, followed by months more of polishing. Then she’d put it away, hiding it from his view until this very day.

She’d set it on a pedestal and had it placed at the very end of the newly restored corridor of their home, so that the sunlight struck it through the lacework of the curved bricks. It was the first thing that any visitor to Gilmuir would see.