The Irresistible Mac Rae Page 25

  “Everyone in Ayleshire knows my age. It’s only those new to the village who make assumptions.”

  “Then why do they call you Old Ned?” She was unaccountably irritated at the man. Yet, at the same time, she couldn’t help but recall those nights when he’d worked on the ledgers in the library and she’d sat on the other side of the room, both of them in perfect accord.

  “To separate me from the gardener’s boy. Or didn’t you know his name was Ned, too?”

  His grin was unsettling. She hadn’t known, of course, which was why the man was so maddening.

  “When did you lose your wife?”

  “About the time you lost your husband,” he said.

  “I wish I’d known you were not as ancient as you appeared.”

  “Would it have made a difference to the way you treated me?”

  She regarded him steadily, but didn’t answer him. What would he have said to her confession? She might have flirted more if she’d known he was her age, or taken more care with her appearance?

  “Was it a happy marriage, Ned?”

  “It was,” he answered. “As yours was.”

  “How very much you know about me,” she murmured. “While I need to learn a great deal more about you.”

  “Shall we begin now?” he asked. “I’ve got one good arm, and that’ll have to do. Will you dance with me?”

  He opened up his arms, nodding at the dance floor.

  She smiled, placed her hand on his, and accompanied him.

  Chapter 27

  Moonlight streamed down on the two of them as they made their way to his land.

  Riona sat in front of him, her legs to his left. His arms extended around her, holding the reins in front. Her hand brushed against his, and he turned his palm so that their fingers meshed.

  He threw down the torch, and it sputtered, flared, then was extinguished. In the darkness, he slid from the horse, reached up and helped her dismount.

  Even in the faint light from the bonfire, he was quite the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Moonlight made him a statue, rendered him a god in shadow.

  “Tell me about Harold,” he said. “How did you choose him for a husband?”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “It doesn’t matter what he told me,” he said. “It’s what you have to say that I care about.”

  She stared it him quizzically, but he turned away, striding toward the bonfire, and dismissing the two boys who still tended it. When he returned, there was enough light to see the fixed expression on his face.

  “What did he say to you?” she repeated.

  “He said that you were to wed to spare your reputation. Is that true?”

  “Is that what you’ve been thinking? That I’ve been the wanton with more than just you? You know that’s not true, James MacRae.” He couldn’t be jealous, not James.

  “Why would you marry someone like him?”

  He took her hand in his and studied it.

  Hesitantly at first, and then with greater resolve, she told him the story of that night in Edinburgh. “It was my own foolishness, James. Harold told me that Maureen needed me, and I was silly enough to believe him. I followed him into the garden.”

  She withdrew her hand.

  “Is it that strange that I haven’t a care for my reputation with you? I wish some old biddy like Mrs. Parker would declare me ruined, and I would be so happily.”

  “Is that what happened?”

  “Something similar.” She decided that it wouldn’t be prudent to mention that Harold had been too arduous in his attentions. “Harold pointed out that my reputation would be in ruins if I didn’t marry him.”

  “The man threatened you?” he asked carefully.

  “It wasn’t for my sake that I cared,” she said, “but for Maureen’s. Samuel comes from a very strict family, and any hopes of her betrothal would have been ruined if they’d learned of any scandal.”

  “Yet he’s still not offered for her.”

  “No, but he seems devoted to her.”

  He caught her hand again, bent to press a kiss on her knuckles.

  “If he truly loved Maureen, nothing would stop him. Not family, not reputation. Nothing.”

  She pulled her hand free and walked a few feet away.

  “There is all manner of love, James.”

  “No, there isn’t.” He went to her side, and gently turned her until she faced him. “No, there isn’t,” he repeated. “Love doesn’t demand sacrifice, Riona, or that those who feel it give up their family, status, or honor. Love enriches; it doesn’t demean.”

  She smiled. How clear his words; it was a pity people did not always act in such clear-cut ways.

  “I can’t dictate the actions of others, James. I cannot control what Samuel does or how he behaves. All I know is that my family is depending on me. You should understand. I’ve heard you speak of your own brothers with fondness. You would do the same.”

  “Would I?” His smile was crooked. “I think Harold McDougal should be shot. I should have arranged it when I was in Edinburgh.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she said, horrified at his comment.

  “No,” he said, tipping his head back and staring up at the sky. “No, I wouldn’t.” But it seemed to her that his voice held a tinge of regret. “But I want to, Riona. Merciful God, I want to.”

  She didn’t want to waste these moments talking about Harold. The fact that James had gone to Edinburgh still surprised her. He’d done that for her.

  Instead of saying anything further, she came to him and placed a hand on his chest. A connection she desperately needed.

  Her breasts, pressing against his chest, seemed to know the contour of his muscles. Her body seemed to open and warm, heating as his hips moved against her.

  He was going to kiss her and she was going to lose her senses. Just as she thought, her mind went flying to a place of midnight blue. Even the moon seemed too bright behind her eyelids. Then, there was only the taste of his lips and the slow, heated invasion of his tongue.

  He ended the kiss, thinking that he’d never been so quickly enchanted as he was when kissing Riona.

  He shouldn’t have been able to feel her hand through the material of his shirt, vest, and jacket, but he did. He knew the wonder her fingers could perform on his body. He closed his eyes for moments and savored the touch, knowing it would be the last time that she would do so. Or he would let her.

  He watched as Riona sat on an overturned pediment, her gown billowing around the stone. Slowly, he leaned over, kissed her lightly once, then again as her smile faded.

  There had never been a time when he’d withheld himself from her. From the beginning, he’d spoken his mind and allowed her into previously unguarded places. But on this night, filled with moonlight and shadow, need and impatience, James felt even more vulnerable. As if loving her had made him defenseless.

  If she were ill, he would be concerned, and if she were hurt, he’d be angered. Her happiness would enliven him, her humor amuse him. He would never see the world totally through his own eyes again, but also through hers.

  Did love open a hole in his soul?

  James would never forget the sight of her sitting there in the moonlight, smiling gently at him. He kissed her again and she sighed, opening her mouth to him.

  A temptation beyond any that he’d ever been given.

  He traced the curve of shoulder to elbow to wrist. How lovely her arms were. How beautiful each separate part of her.

  She flattened her hand on his chest, splaying her fingers as if to measure him.

  “Be pagan with me, Riona.” The words might have been written with his pen, so easily did they come to his mind.

  “I am,” she said breathlessly. “Haven’t I always been?”

  Could he bind her to him with passion? Would she stay with him if he ensnared her with desire?

  “Close your eyes and tell me what you see,” he suddenly said.

  “Darkness,” she r
esponded, smiling.

  He knew that was not quite the truth. People who are quick and intelligent are always thinking, even in the moments before sleep. The mind furnished the eyes with memories or imagination.

  He placed his hand over her closed eyelids, feeling the delicate sweep of her lashes against his palm.

  “What do you see?”

  “Your face,” she said after a moment. “I can still see your face.”

  “Can you? How do I appear to you?”

  “You’re smiling. Teasing me with kisses.”

  He pulled her up, began unfastening her laces.

  “Now you’re undressing me.” She opened her eyes. “Is this wise, James?”

  “No,” he said flatly. “But, then, I’ve never been wise where you’re concerned.”

  She placed one hand on his chest, the other cupped his jaw. She was alabaster and shadow in the moonlight, her smile enigmatic. Or perhaps only sad.

  Closing her eyes again, she continued with their game. “You’re very serious now. You have a habit of frowning when you’re concentrating. You hold your mouth just so, as if you’re not quite certain whether to be irritated, angry, or amused.”

  His fingers gripped the hem of her gown, pulling it upward. The heels of his hands slid over smooth, sleek thighs to flaring hips, a curving waist, plump breasts, and rounded shoulders. He wanted to know her with such familiarity that he could curve his fingers around a wrist, an ankle, a knee and recognize her from a hundred, a thousand other women.

  The gown was finally free from her left arm and he gently extricated her hand, placing a kiss to her fingertips. Then her right hand, where the cut she’d received serving the elders her cake garnered a tender salute.

  “Do you know what I see?”

  “No.”

  There had been no fear in her voice earlier, but now there was caution.

  “I see a woman graced by moonlight. Whose skin is bathed white and whose auburn hair looks black in the darkness. She has eyes the color of stormy skies and a mouth that dances with words and smiles with amusement but rarely with anger.”

  “She sounds like a paragon, this woman. A very stiff and proper person.”

  “Not at all,” he corrected, smiling. “On more than one occasion I suspect she would have liked to fly into a temper, stamp her foot, and make a scene, but she didn’t. Instead, she simply pointed her chin in the air and stared at me with cloudy eyes.”

  “I never did.”

  “Riona,” he gently chastised.

  “Very well,” she said, smiling softly. “Perhaps once or twice.”

  “This woman has a will of iron, did I tell you that?”

  She shook her head from side to side.

  “And a very strong character,” he added, placing a gentle kiss upon her bared shoulder. “One that I admire.”

  “Do you?”

  “Oh yes,” he answered. “She has a kind heart, I’ve noticed. She treats each person the same and never seems to favor one above the other.

  “She might have known what it was like to have been poor at one time in her life, and consequently realized that character has nothing to do with wealth.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “in addition to her heart, she has a facile mind. One that questions more than it accepts.”

  “She sounds like a difficult woman.”

  “Not difficult, but beautiful.”

  She said nothing in return for that compliment. He smiled at this sign of her reticence. He’d not often caught Riona without a word to say.

  “She has lovely features and a lush figure.”

  “Do you think so?” she asked faintly, as if she weren’t standing before him naked but for moonlight. “I was told that a gentleman never comments upon a woman’s form.”

  “Perhaps gentlemen do not,” he said, delighted with her. “But this man will.”

  He bent, placing a kiss to her temple. His fingers trailed a pattern around her ear, wondering why he had never noticed that such a useful organ might also be a pretty one.

  “Tell me what you hear,” he whispered.

  A Highland summer pressed against them, the night heavy with the heat of the day. Somewhere, a bird called to its mate in a low and forlorn summons. The wind, once mischievous and playful, had matured. Now gusts echoed through the arches of the lone abbey wall, stirring the tall grasses with invisible fingers. Above them, a full moon was suddenly trapped in a filmy gauze of clouds.

  He’d never known a night as enchanted.

  “I can’t hear anything.”

  “Then listen.” A moment later he spoke again. “What do you hear?”

  “The villagers are singing,” she said, smiling.

  He lowered his head, kissed her lightly in reward.

  Her smile broadened as if she had reasoned out his game.

  “I hear the last of the bonfire. The wood is nearly gone, but it still makes a sputtering sound.”

  Another kiss.

  “The waterfall,” she said, amazed. “I can hear the falls from here.”

  He reached down and began to unwind the plait of her hair. Only when her braids were loosened, and her hair tumbling over her shoulders, did he speak again.

  “I visited the falls the other day,” he said. “A place to reflect. I know now why it’s your favorite place at Tyemorn.”

  “Did you hear the voice of God?” she asked softly.

  He shook his head. “If He spoke, I wasn’t listening. But are you? What else do you hear?”

  She tilted her head, a smile curving her lips. “Your breathing. I can hear you breathe.” She placed her hand flat on his chest. “You sound as if you’ve been running, James.”

  He smiled.

  The silence between them was complete, not awkward as much as aware.

  He bent and lowered his head, kissing her between her breasts. His thumbs gently pressed against each impudent nipple, his mouth against her warm skin. She seemed to taste of the night itself, of fertile fields and hedges, flowers blooming in secret places.

  “You are so beautiful,” he murmured, his command of the language departing him. In its place was a cavernous space filled with longing. How did he convey that to her? How did he tell her how much this moment meant to him? How much she meant to him?

  She was a goddess of the moon, a silvery-blue washed creature that he had conjured up from imagination, lust, and desperate desire.

  “You are so beautiful,” he repeated, impatient with himself. The words were not the ones he’d wished to use. They were lacking, falling short of all he felt. But nothing rushed in to take their place, and in the end, he lost the ability to speak at all.

  He wanted her breath against his lips and his name in her mouth.

  As she stood there, chin tilted up at him, James realized that she was the essence of all that he wanted in a woman. Not because of her beauty or even because she was articulate, witty, and intelligent.

  All his life he’d been surrounded by love, from his parents and his brothers. He’d explored the world, becoming used to those patches of solitary time, yet never becoming accustomed to solitude. Something had been missing from his life, and until now he hadn’t known what it was.

  A peace that he knew only she could give, answers to his curiosity, an end to the loneliness he’d felt during the past years.

  This was the woman his spirit craved, who lived in his mind when she was apart from him. Who expanded his heart when she joined him. This was the woman who completed him in ways that he had never imagined. But then, he had never thought himself lacking.

  He stroked one finger across a gently curving breast to a nipple. She closed her eyes slowly, then opened them again when he feared she would hide her reaction from him. Where once her gray eyes had been stormy, in the moonlight they were deeply mysterious and enchanting.

  Bending his head, he took a nipple into his mouth, then breathed upon it, giving her the sensation of both chill and warmth. She shivered beneath his ministrations,
encouraging him to continue.

  He touched her breasts, and they puckered and tightened as if accustomed to the sensation he offered. He placed a kiss on her stomach and the muscles there fluttered, as if anticipating more to come.

  Slowly, he lowered her to the ground, not far from where they’d lain before.

  His fingers seemed to know her, retaining memory in their callused tips of intimate touches. The underside of her breasts, the front of her ankle, the arch of her foot, the back of her neck. Soft, swollen folds that ached when he kissed her and throbbed now at the silken stroke of one delicate finger.

  His kisses were candies dropped upon her tongue, one by one. She grew to anticipate their delight and then simply became part of them, her breath and body growing heated.

  How many hours did he touch her? How many enchanting minutes did he spend tasting her skin and brushing his warm lips across her breasts? How many times did he kiss her? Too many to count and not enough.

  He moved over her, all warmth and strength. Gently, he widened her thighs.

  “Are you very experienced, James?”

  He drew back and framed her face with his hands as he stared at her wordlessly. Finally, he spoke. “Why would you ask that, Riona? Why now?”

  She closed her eyes against his gentle inspection.

  “I wish I knew more,” she said, opening her eyes. “I wish I could please you.”

  He looked at her quizzically as if he heard more than the words she spoke, discerned the near desperate love she felt for him.

  “I don’t want you to be anything more than who you are, Riona,” he said tenderly. “Just to be you. That is pleasure enough.”

  He entered her then and she was overpowered by the sensation. Wordlessly, he slid from her, then returned, the slow undulation of her hips beginning as if by magic or sorcery.

  Her hands were on his shoulders, her fingers curving to grip him with her nails. Her lips were clamped over a soft moan, but when he kissed her, she heatedly returned it. The feeling grew within her until it was more powerful than reason or reputation, graying her vision and flooding her body with light. A siren’s call to bliss that she couldn’t help but obey.

  Hours, or minutes, later, they dressed again, neither speaking amid the tasks of tucking, lacing, braiding. Yet the mood between them had changed subtly. Neither joyful nor condemnatory, rather it had become solemn, as if the darkness around them had colored their thoughts.