The Laird's Willful Lass (The Lairds Most Likely 1) - Page 56
To his surprise, she laughed. “Have courage
, Mackinnon. Faint heart never won fair lady.”
Taken aback, he straightened and gave her a direct look. “What in Hades…”
“It’s a lovely evening.” Her smile broadened. “A thoughtful host might invite a guest for a walk.”
“Marina?” he asked wonderingly, then to his utter astonishment, she stepped forward to curl her fingers around his arm. His heart performed a triple somersault, then crashed hard against his ribs.
“I’d like to see the loch by moonlight.”
It was absurd, but Fergus had difficulty breathing. Some vestige of honor made him dredge up a warning. “If I get you alone in the moonlight, lassie, you willnae be wasting time admiring the view.”
“That’s a pity,” she said with patent insincerity. “If the view doesn’t hold my attention, how else can I pass the time?”
“You wee…” He bit off the rest of what he meant to say because Kirsty came in to clear the table.
Marina pulled away from him, leaving his skin tingling with the memory of her touch. “I have it on good authority that the fine weather won’t last much longer,” she said airily.
“Aye, winter can be cruel,” he responded, paying little attention to what he said.
Kirsty’s surreptitious glance toward them held a hint of smug approval. The unwelcome insight hit Fergus, that he hadn’t hidden his hankering after his lovely guest as well as he’d intended.
“Then a short stroll will be perfect.” Marina paused. “One must seize happiness when one can.”
Fergus hardly dared to hope that this meant what he thought it did. After all, Marina could just be talking about a walk in the night air. His heart thumping with anticipation—even as he told himself to calm down, he could be reading too much into this—he gestured toward the door. “Signorina?”
“With pleasure.” When he extended his arm, she slipped her fingers into the crook of his elbow. Was he a fool to find cause for optimism in this sudden willingness to touch him? She had him in such a spin, he hardly knew where to look. Was she merely thankful because he’d saved her life? Hell, he couldn’t bear it if gratitude was the reason behind this thaw in her manner.
As they left the dining room and entered the hall, cavernous in the flickering candlelight, he could swear he heard muffled giggling behind him. The women in Achnasheen were getting above themselves. It was time he restored order. Marina Lucchetti was providing a bad example.
“You’re smiling,” Marina said curiously.
“Aye.” Despite his confusion and turmoil, he was. “I’m thinking that the lassies here are losing all proper respect for masculine authority.”
As they approached the castle doors, she cast him a taunting glance. “Well, one lassie is anyway.”
Before he could contest that intriguing remark, Jock appeared out of the shadows to open the doors for them. Was a man never to find a minute’s bloody privacy in this great barn of a house?
“Thank you, Jock,” Marina said, as she and Fergus passed through into the courtyard.
Fergus placed his hand over hers, where it curved around his arm. “Are you cold?”
“No,” she murmured.
They went under the portcullis to emerge into a landscape touched with silvery magic. Or perhaps the magic stemmed from the woman beside him. A gasp of wonder escaped her. Her artist’s soul would respond to this beauty.
In silence, Fergus and Marina strolled down to the loch, where the moon laid a shining path toward the black mountains rising in the distance. Apart from the soft lap of water on the bank and the hoot of an owl as it flew high above them, the night was quiet.
He wanted to badger Marina with questions and entreaties and demands, but something about the view’s grandeur stopped him speaking.
They paused on the grassy bank and looked up at the moon. Then Marina turned and smiled. The moonlight played games with his perception. He couldn’t be sure he read surrender in her eyes, or whether it was just more bloody wishful thinking.
“You saved my life today,” she said, to his regret releasing his arm.
Fergus shuddered to think what might have happened on that hillside. His belly still shrank into a painful knot when he remembered seeing her teetering on that cliff face, inches from death.
Characteristically he sought refuge from turbulent emotion in humor. “You may drive me to distraction, lassie, but I’d rather have ye with me than lying at the bottom of a mountain.”
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