“Yes.”
“And he loves you.”
“Yes,” she said, all of a sudden feeling much more cheerful.
“Isn’t that worth trying for, then?”
Her hands settled loosely in her lap and she frowned into the distance. Was her father right? “I need to think.”
“Yes, you do, my darling daughter.” Her father’s smile was approving. “Now give your old papa a kiss goodnight. It’s tiring work, advising young lovers.”
This time, her laugh held a note of conviction. “Thank you, Papa. You’re a wise man.”
Again he shrugged, but she could see her compliment pleased him. “I don’t know why this surprises you, cara.”
She put her handkerchief in her pocket and stepped forward to give him a fervent hug. “I don’t know either.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wearing only his kilt and shirt, Fergus slumped in front of the blazing fire in his tower room. A half-full glass of whisky dangled from his hand. Liquor wasn’t helping to alleviate his suffering. He had a bleak suspicion the only thing that would help was the woman he loved turning up at his door and saying she’d marry him.
Which wasn’t likely to happen any time soon.
He cringed to recall his disastrous proposal. He’d hoped Marina loved him, too, and that she’d agree to marry him with joyful alacrity. They could work out the complications later.
Instead, she’d turned him down flat. That had felt like a punch in the guts, and made him realize quite how much she’d come to mean to him over these weeks.
Even hearing she loved him hadn’t provided balm to his wound, because her love paled in comparison to her dedication to her bloody art.
He wasn’t being fair, he knew it. She’d worked hard for her reputation as a painter, and it was a tribute to her talent and determination that she’d carved out a successful career.
But God damn it, he loved her. He wanted her in his arms, not back in blasted Italy, impressing the connoisseurs. He wanted her beside him as they grew old together. He wanted her to bear him a brood of children, who would no doubt take after their headstrong mother and prove to be a string of wee hellions.
These weeks of having her as his mistress had been glorious, but more and more frustrating. They’d shown him that he wanted a wife. And not any wife, but Marina.
He didn’t want to skulk around and hide what he felt, when he had a woman he was proud to show off. He didn’t want to sleep alone in the big bed looming out of the shadows behind him, the bed where every laird of Achnasheen had been conceived and born for the last two hundred years. He didn’t want to listen to the wind howling like a banshee around his tower eyrie, without having Marina cuddled close in his arms. Spectacular as the sex between them was, he wanted more. Want. Want. Want.
It all boiled down to wanting a life with Marina.
And that life remained as out of reach as the moon.
He tightened his grip on the glass and hurled it into the fire. It shattered and the whisky caught fire. The sudden roar of the flames meant he almost missed the tentative knock on his door.
Who the devil was it? Everyone in the castle should be in bed. It was well after midnight. He’d been up here brooding for hours.
He almost told his visitor to go to hell. But duty, rusty but persistent, kicked in. Somebody might need help.
Stiffly, like an old man, he staggered up onto his bare feet and crossed to fling the heavy oak door wide. “To Hades with ye, what do…”
The rest of his rough greeting died unspoken. He swallowed to ease his constricted throat, and continued in a different tone altogether, one that combined surprise with endless longing. “Marina?”
Under her spectacular crimson cape, she wore a long white nightdress. Her black hair hung loose and shining around her shoulders. With a shock, he realized he’d often seen her naked, but he’d never seen her ready for bed. The everyday intimacy of this meeting struck him like a blow. They’d shared so much, but there were many things, mundane yet important, that remained a mystery.
The elegant hands twisting at her waist betrayed apprehension, and her voice was husky with uncertainty when she spoke. “Fergus, can I talk to you for a moment?”
He burned to drag her into his arms, but after today he wasn’t sure he still had that right. Odd that now they’d both declared their love, he felt more awkward with her than he ever had before.
“Come in, mo chridhe.” He stepped back to let her enter, then wondered if he’d lost the right to call her his heart, too. Although she was and always would be his heart.