When Conall stripped out of his kilt, Innes tried to look up along the shoreline of the loch, at the sky, at the stretch of trees curving up and over the crest of the low hill on the far side of the valley. She tried to look at anything but the man striding to the edge and then diving into the crystal clear waters. She tried, at any rate.
Loch Watten was a two-hour ride from Wick. As they followed the river, the sun became warmer with each passing mile. As soon as Conall helped her down from the horse, he pulled a blanket from his steed and a satchel packed with food. Placing them on ground, he headed for the loch, saying he was going for a swim.
The invitation was implied, if not stated. The view of him shedding his clothes and moving toward the water was magnificent.
Innes spread the blanket on a grassy rise by the shore and emptied the satchel. Cook had packed a delicious assortment of food.
She hazarded a quick glance in Conall’s direction. She would have gone swimming too, if not for her concerns about her slipping sense of caution. The day was the warmest so far this year, and her nervousness on the mare only added to her rising heat.
Where she set out their meal, she could see the water was shallow and stony along the shore. Pulling off her gloves and boots, she peeled off her stockings and unfastened the neckline of her arisaid. The breeze was warm but refreshing against her skin.
She walked barefoot along the shoreline until she reached a stretch of high weeds. Innes hitched up her skirts and sighed with pleasure at the cold water on her feet and her ankles. She splashed her face, scooping handfuls and wetting her neck. She untied the top of her shift and splashed her chest above her breasts. She lifted her skirts higher, tucking them more securely into her belt, and stepped in deeper until she was up to her knees.
She moved through to the edge of the high weeds. Suddenly, a flock of birds took flight from a grassy patch on the shore. She watched them climb and wheel and sail off on the wind. One of them didn’t go with the others, but hung suspended in the air, watching her. An ivory gull, she thought, admiring the circles of silver this one sported.
“Do you see, away there, standing still in the shallows? A purple heron.”
Startled, she looked around. Conall stood on the beach watching her, pointing at the majestic bird.
His hair was wet. Drops of water still sparkled on his skin. He’d wrapped his kilt around his waist and belted it, but he wore nothing else. Her gaze lingered over his broad chest, marked with the scars of countless battles. She forced herself to breathe and turn her eyes toward the heron.
“They say this loch has magic, and after all these years, I finally understand what they mean,” he said.
“Magic?” she asked, her eyes returning to his body.
“Aye. The folk say that fishing here requires great patience, that nothing may happen for a very long time. But then suddenly, the magic happens and the fish simply rise, ready to be caught.”
“Is the magic happening now?”
“I believe it is.”
He waded into the water, and Innes watched him come. When he’d taken hold of her hand in the wool bin back at Wick, she’d seen into his mind and read what he was thinking. Even as their fingers intertwined, she had known she needed no special gift to understand him. She knew how much he wanted her. She’d thought about it every moment of their ride here.
He continued to come toward her, and Innes’s heart soared, knowing his desires were her dreams. His gaze caressed her skin. His eyes lingered on her throat, and she wondered if he could see the wild beat of her pulse.
As he moved still closer, his gaze focused on her mouth. When his body met hers, her lips parted involuntarily and she gasped. He looked into her eyes, and she was suddenly lost in a storm of passion.
Innes saw his eyes darken. Her breath hung suspended in her chest. She hid her hands in the folds of her skirts. She now understood what longing meant. She now knew what it was like to ache with desire. She wanted this. She wanted him. She welcomed the press of his hard, wet body against hers.
His mouth descended upon hers, and her eyes closed. His lips possessed her, and the molten heat uncoiling in her middle jolted her.
Stunned at first, she stood still, trying to understand the sensations racing through her. She loved the feel of his fingers on her skin as he held her face. She hesitantly opened the eyes that she had shut so tightly and watched him as he drew back briefly before lowering his head again to suckle her lower lip.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, but she thought her heart would explode in her chest at any instant. And still, the undulating mass of molten sensations threatened to set her insides on fire.
“I’ve been waiting for this. For you,” he murmured against her lips. “Kiss me, Innes.”
She had no experience in this. She didn’t know how to react, how to please him. But she refused to touch his hand. She refused to use her gift to learn. Not until he knew.
His fingers dug into her hair. The braid loosened, the thick waves sliding down onto her shoulders and back. His lips again lowered to hers and heat rushed through her body.
Innes’s startled hands jerked away from their hiding place, clutching at his back as the pressure of his mouth increased and his tongue started teasing the seam of her tightly closed lips.
“Kiss me, Innes.”
She opened her mouth to tell him of her ignorance in such matters, but no words came out. It wouldn’t have mattered. His lips descended again, and he thrust into the opening, exploring her mouth with his tongue.
Bolts of lightning shot through her. The images from his mind mingled with hers. She saw the extent of his desire. His tongue rubbed against hers, and Innes vaguely felt his hand move down her back and encircle her waist. He pulled her even tighter against his solid torso. She felt nothing but the incredible heat that possessed them both.
In that moment, a life of solitude transformed into an eternity of desire.
Innes became frantic to satisfy this sudden hunger for him. Her hands traveled down his back. She touched the powerful muscles. It was miraculous, the way her body softened and molded itself to the hard contours of his.
As if from a distance, she heard his low growl of pleasure. And as he pressed his hip against hers, she felt something else. The kilt did nothing to conceal the evidence of his arousal. And in his mind, she saw him wanting to lay her down in the shallows, lift her skirts, and bury himself deep inside of her.
Clarity returned instantly and with it, sanity.
They had to stop. But who was going to stop them if she didn’t?
And what was worse, if their positions were reversed and he was the one with the ability to delve into her mind and read her past, how would she feel not knowing?
She pulled back, wedging her hands between their bodies. He grew still, and then released her, stepping back. Her face burned with embarrassment.
“I am so sorry.” She brought her hands to her cheeks. They were wet with sudden tears. Her body trembled. She was still affected by what they’d done, by how she continued to feel, by what he wanted to do next.
He took another step back, taking a deep breath. “Why should you be sorry? I thought . . . I felt . . .” Embers of passion glowed deep in his eyes. A muscle in his jaw clenched and he looked away. A battle still raged inside.
She wanted to reach out and touch him, but she couldn’t. “I . . . it’s just . . . it’s all moving so fast.”
“I know. You have nothing to fear from me; I promise you that. But for the moment, perhaps you should go back to the horses.” He paused and looked around at the lake and the sky like a man just awakening and getting his bearings. “In a wee bit, we can eat something and go back to Girnigoe.”
She hesitated to move, hating herself. Hating the curse that was hers for the rest of her life.
“I won’t touch you,” he assured her, misunderstanding. “I won’t pressure you. You can trust me, Innes.”
She had read his mind. When her mouth joined with his in that kiss, her mind joined his, as well. She closed her eyes. She knew how much he wanted to make love to her. But he had stopped. In the midst of his rising passions, he’d stopped.
She did trust him.
A moment later, she reached the stony beach and hurried along the shore. Coming to the blanket, she looked back, searching for Conall. He was far out in the loch, swimming hard through the cooling waters.
Conall dove beneath the surface, trying to clear his mind. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman. His desire for her was deep and explosive. He hadn’t thought himself capable of such a passion. If she hadn’t stopped him, he would have taken her right there in the water, or on the beach.
But he didn’t just want to make love to her.
There was so much more to Innes. He admired her intelligence, her wit, her stubbornness, her independence, even her temper. Bryce claimed that these qualities alienated men from her, and yet they were the very things that drew Conall to her.
She’d erected a façade in the way she dressed and acted. She consciously created that protective distance, and he wondered what had so wounded her that she needed it. He knew about wounds and the need for distance. She saw the stump that remained of his hand. She saw the scars on his body. But he was blessed that she would never see the blackness, the guilt, and the shame that filled his soul.
He waded out of the water and donned his kilt. His shirt and boots lay in the grass not far away.
The manner in which she first responded to him and the way she put an end to it, all pointed to her inexperience with men. He frightened her, and the last thing he wanted was for Innes to run away. He needed to go slow. He needed to give her time to adjust to him and to the passion he knew she felt.
Give her time.
Marriage? Was he thinking about marriage? The realization was sudden and startling. He’d never thought a day would come when he’d again plan for a future. He’d buried that probability the day he was captured and dragged away from the battlefield. What could make him think, or even dare to hope, that he deserved a chance at happiness?
He found her sitting on the edge of the blanket, dressed and cool-looking in the warm sun. She had her boots and gloves back on. Her hair was still loose, cascading in silky waves around her shoulders.
He couldn’t look at her and not remember the taste of her lips, the softness of her skin, and how much he still wanted her.
“We have a very nice selection of food.” She avoided meeting his gaze and spread out what had been packed for them.
He sat down on the blanket, making certain to give her enough room to be comfortable.
“Wynda, Lachlan, Bryce, Cook—the whole lot of them were beside themselves when they heard I was bringing you here.” He unwrapped a cloth from a piece of pastry and took a bite. “My brother went so far as to suggest that I give you a lame horse to ride so we could spend more time in each other’s company. If we had a three-legged beast in the stables, you could have been riding that one.”
“Matchmakers.” She groaned and shook her head. “I worry about Ailein and Bryce. They continue this pretense that they’re at odds with each other.”
“He slips into her bedroom when they think no one notices.”
She laughed. “They had a great surprise last night. I arrived unexpectedly at Ailein’s door.”
He stretched out on the blanket, leaning on an elbow. It gave him such pleasure to see her at ease. “What happened?”
“I believe they were busy at . . . well, they were busy when I started banging away, insisting that she let me in.” A blush bloomed on her cheeks. “I heard some noises, but I wasn’t certain.”
“And?”
“Bryce hid under the bed and Ailein pretended that nothing was amiss.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I took my riding boots and left.”
“You saw more.”
She shook her head. “I’m already embarrassed that I even brought this up. Please don’t make me say more.”
He laughed, wondering if she knew that he couldn’t refuse her anything.
A breeze lifted strands of her hair and made them dance around Innes’s face. Sitting there, sharing stories, she looked so young and carefree, so much at ease with herself and the world. He wanted to know more about her. About her childhood. He was curious about what, if anything, happened to make her the person she was now.
“Tell me, what you were like at, say, six or seven,” he said. “Were you as prim and proper and hard on yourself then?”
“I lost my mother when I was seven,” she told him. “You might say that was a year of rather large changes for me.”
“Losing a mother is difficult.”
“It is.” She stared at the gloved hands in her lap. “I needed to grow up. I needed to take on some rather large responsibilities.”
“If you mean a father, a younger sister, and a household that needed to function, that’s a great deal of responsibility for any woman. But for young lass who’s mourning her mother . . .” He shook his head.
“Perhaps I’m too loose with the word responsibility. Maybe it was knowledge. I was told some things, and there were other things I needed to learn in order to carry out a bequest my mother passed on to me.”
He waited for her to say more, but she stopped. Her gaze never lifted. She tugged at the fingertips of the gloves, pulling them off very slowly, and putting them back on again. Conall sensed that she was withdrawing into her shell. He had to change the topic, distract her.
“I was a hellion at seven,” he said. “I caused trouble, got in even more of it, and made life miserable for Bryce. He was forever following me around, happy to be part of whatever mischief I arranged.”
She looked up from under her lashes, a smile starting at the corner of her lip.
“Only two years older but I was definitely the gang leader.” He picked up another pastry and took a bite. “And I know what you’re about to say—I look old enough to be his father now.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything of the kind. When anyone meets me and Ailein, they never even guess we’re sisters.” She stretched out her legs, leaning back on her hands. “I’m six years older, and I do behave more like a parent than a sister to her. I have for years.”
Conall remembered the day on the rocks when she warned him never to question her loyalty to Ailein.
“I am fascinated.” She smiled. “Thinking of you as a child running wild through Castle Girnigoe, with Bryce in your wake. Did you carry a sword?”
“Aye. When we were lads, they’d only trust us with wooden swords. We were great ones for stabbing each other and anyone who wandered into our path. We were brave and bloody Sinclairs, saving king and country.”
“No damsels in distress?”
“Nay! We had dragons and Tudors to kill. We had no time for damsels.”
“I’m glad.”
He thought back on those years and how simple their lives were. “Our mother died when we were just lads. That was when Wynda came back to Girnigoe. She was our father’s sister. We raised more hell than ever, then. She looks like a stern one, but we could do no wrong in her eyes. After that, we only needed to mind our father, but he was mostly away at the wars and at court. Whenever he was home and we got into trouble, we knew to keep our distance.”
“So you two ran wild for your entire youth.”
“Well, not entirely,” he admitted. “Everything changed, of course, when Shona arrived.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Shona came to Girnigoe as a child?”
He met her gaze. He thought she knew this. “Aye. She was a Sinclair, but from another sept. The daughter of the laird. She was about nine, I think, when she arrived at Girnigoe. She’d just lost her whole family to the sweating sickness. Her father fought in the Borders that summer and came home sick with it. So many died of that foul pestilence that year.”
“I was only eleven then, but I remember hearing about the deaths,” Innes said. “What happened to the rest of her people?”
“Their losses so weakened them that they made the decision that my father would combine their lands with his own. The two septs would become one through marriage, and Castle Girnigoe would be the clan seat.”
“So your family arranged the marriage between Bryce and Shona when they were very young.”
“Not Bryce and Shona,” he told her. Conall was glad Innes was hearing this information from him. He didn’t want any misunderstandings to drive her away. “Shona was to be my wife. The countess of Caithness. We never had a legal contract, her people all being dead. But it was understood. Then, after the news reached Girnigoe that I’d been killed at Solway Moss, she married Bryce.”