He paced his study, unable to think about the words he should write to Moira. His problem was, he needed to spend himself on a woman. A woman who was not Saerla MacBeith. Ithad been too long. Sheer deprivation had worked its way upon him.
Usually when the need became dire, he resorted to his own fist. To be sure, that would not do now. He wanted the softness of a woman. The warmth. He wanted the smell of a woman.
He wanted her to smell like Saerla.
He could not just walk out and start a dalliance with one of the clanswomen. Not when he had important matters needing his attention.
He did not need a quick tumble, by any road. He needed a wife. One with whom he could get an heir.
He thought of Ratha with her two wee sons. She was not ill to look upon, and had a lush body where he could ease himself. But doing so would set expectations. He would have to court her, God help him, if he decided to wed her.
He could not even imagine it.
A fine-looking woman, Ratha, aye. But she had not a cloud of red-gold hair. Nor a small whipcord body, slim and strong.
He wondered how Saerla MacBeith’s breasts would taste.
With a grunt, he went to his desk and forced himself to sit down. He stared at Moira’s missive spread out there. Covered in Farlan’s neat, careful script.
Suddenly, it all came crashing down upon him. The overwhelming loss. HemissedFarlan, everything about him, from his slow smile to his steady gaze. He missed his calm, wise counsel. The ease of his company.
He missed his da, without question the finest man he had ever known. Slow to anger. Quick with reason. Everything he, Rory, was not.
Indeed, Farlan was more like Da than he was. Not too surprising, as Da had half raised him, the son of his perished comrade-at-arms. The boy with the mop of brown hair. Da had made Farlan his own.
Rory could never call his da, Camraith, soft. He’d been a strong sword in battle, and strong also in his belief in what was right. But aye, there had been a soft thread running through him.
The same Rory had often sensed in Farlan. The same he felt when he kissed Saerla.
By heaven, he had to put that away from him. He had to lay aside the maddening thoughts and decide what was best to do. For he would not, under any circumstances, give up on his intentions.
If Moira MacBeith had refused his offer, he must act accordingly. Return a letter, aye. The damn woman liked letters. But saying what? That she could keep his man? The very idea made him prick all over with heat.
He could threaten to kill her sister if she did not surrender her lands to him. He’d already implied that before. He would come right out and say it now.
Your sister’s life will be forfeit.
The lines on the page blurred before his eyes. Not that he would ever harm one curl on Saerla’s head. One brown eyelash. One freckle sprinkled across her nose.
She had tiny brown freckles on her face.
She was, without question, the most exquisite thing he’d ever seen.
Grimly he pulled a sheet of foolscap toward him, dipped his pen in the ink, and began to write.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“No one daresguess what Rory will do. ’Tis a matter o’ wide speculation. Leith says ’tis all anyone will talk about.”
Saerla gazed up into Rhian’s face. Her sister stood over her, treating the wound at the back of her head.
A day and a night had passed since Rory MacLeod had kissed her. She had to state it that way in her mind. He had kissed her.
She had most definitely not kissed him back. At least, she did not think she had. Her lips, captured, had merely, well,responded. Because there had been something in his kiss, in his touch, that snared her. Made far too many moments tick by before she pushed him away.
Before he let her go.
It was the memory of her Vision that had affected her so. The terror of being in his power. Him, of all men.
