The Highlander's Christmas Countess (The Lairds Most Likely 8)

Was she dreaming indeed? “Not that bit,” she stammered.

He frowned. “The part about loving you?”

“Aye. That part.”

He glanced down the empty corridor and finally pushed the door open. “I think we need privacy for this discussion.”

Speechless with rising hope – when for so many years hope had been a stranger – she let Quentin lead her inside. He released her hand to close the door as she stopped in the center of the room.

She watched him bend his head as if gathering his thoughts – or saying a silent prayer. Her heart raced like the Derby winner she dreamed of breeding and every muscle in her body was taut, while she waited to hear again the words she longed for. Surely she couldn’t have mistaken him, but she’d been afraid so long, she needed to be sure.

Slowly he turned to face her. There was no trace of charming, humorous Quentin MacNab in his face. He looked somber, and older than she’d ever seen him. “The first time I saw you, I reacted in a way I’ve never before reacted to a stableboy. I realized almost immediately that you were a girl – and a bonny one at that. So I watched you. I watched you a lot. I learned a great deal about you from close observation, despite your best efforts to stay out of my way.”

She made a helpless gesture. “I feared that you might guess I wasn’t what I pretended to be. I feared that you might notice that I was…watching you, too.”

“I did notice. I hoped one day that you’d trust me enough to tell me your story and let me help you.”

“A snowy night granted your wish.”

He didn’t exactly smile, but his austere expression eased a fraction. “Aye. A snowy night, where interest and admiration and the itch of physical attraction tumbled over into something much more momentous. Tumbled over into…love.”

The word shuddered through her like a blow, although she’d been preparing to hear it again since he’d launched his explanation. She stayed quiet as he went on. “Then I faced a dilemma. In your short life, you’d already been compelled to so much. I’d already decided to court you, once you were free of Neil and able to make a choice of your own volition. But because we’d been alone together overnight, you were compelled yet again, this time to marry me. I hated that, even if it meant my dearest wishes coming true.”

She swallowed to shift the jagged lump of emotion blocking her throat. Then swallowed again. “I wanted to marry you, too.”

It was as if he didn’t hear her. He went on in that low, grave, very un-Quentin-like voice. “Yet instead of offering me a grudging acceptance, you welcomed me as your husband with such generosity and passion last night that I fell in love with you all over again. Now I’m so deep in love with you, I’m never going to surface again.”

His voice turned husky with emotion. “Kit, tell me I have a chance. Tell me that one day you might love me as I love you. Tell me that I can live with hope. Because I die of love for you, my beautiful wife.”

She blinked back tears, and her legs trembled beneath her. Her heart expanded until it felt ready to burst out of her chest. “Quentin…”

“Can you love me, Kit?”

She raised shaking hands to dash the tears from her eyes, and a tremulous smile lifted her lips. “I can. I will.” She stepped toward him. It seemed obscene that she wasn’t in his arms right now. “I do. Always.”

He studied her, as if he needed to winnow her words before he could trust them. “You…love me?”

A choked giggle escaped, and she spread her hands. “I love you, Quentin. I loved you even before you coaxed me into that hut and ruined my reputation.”

Relief filled her, as a smile set appealing creases around his eyes. “Well, that’s all right, then.”

She stepped closer, until she was only a foot away from him. “I think…I think this is the moment you should kiss me.”

An arrested expression passed across his face. That dear, quirky, beautiful face that had filled her dreams for so many weeks. Since she’d first seen him. The face that would watch over her for the rest of their lives together.

“You know, you may have that right, my lovely countess.”

With breathtaking power, he drew her into his arms and pressed his lips to hers in a declaration of love victorious. Kit kissed him back with all the adoration in her heart and a silent promise for a golden future stretching ahead of them.

She’d come through. She’d won. Now the world offered her an unrivaled gift of love and hope.

It was her birthday. It was Christmas. It was a happy ending for her personal fairy tale.

She was the luckiest girl in Scotland.

Epilogue

Glen Lyon House, Christmas Eve, 1835