At last, while still he warred with himself, the panel swung open. Saerla stood there looking at him, her hair a nimbus of red gold.
“Please, mistress,” he said hoarsely. “Please let me in.”
Wordless, she seized him by the hand and towed him into the chamber.
Chapter Forty-Four
All afternoon, Saerlahad waited for Rory to arrive. Just as if he’d announced it, promised it, she’d known he must come despite her having refused his request for another night together. No words had declared it, only the look in his eyes.
The longing.
She told herself over and over that if he did arrive, she must send him away again. Because anything more between them was impossible. What had already occurred should never have happened. A woman of intelligence did not surrender to desire.
Not even when the day grew old and the sun went down, and the longing became unbearable. She knew then she never should have touched him. Because once touched…
The intimacy and the desire for it became a thing of its own.
How she knew he stood there outside the door of the chamber, she could not say. Mayhap she heard him. Mayhap she sensed him.
She’d lifted the bar from the door—for och aye, she’d kept it barred for her own safety—and swung the panel wide. Admitted the monster. And then—most significant of all—she replaced the bar behind him.
He’d come to her once more without weapons. He’d come this time without his leather jerkin and wore a soft woolen sark, a kilt, and leggings. That the kilt bore the MacLeod tartan did not escape her.
Had he come to speak with her, or for something more?
She turned from the door to look at him and beheld a storm of emotions in his eyes. A man who felt deeply, was Rory MacLeod. A man who could not always control his emotions, or express them.
A man often misunderstood.
“Saerla,” he said, and something flared inside her at the sound of his voice. She saw all at once the young lad with his black hair shining in the sun, running wild in the glen he loved. The glen she loved.
He seized her hands and sank to one knee before her, pressed her hand to his lips. “I ken fine ye ha’ refused me already, but ask I may stay wi’ ye the night.”
She knew what he meant. He did not mean to stay and sleep beside her in the bed. Nay, he wanted it all again. The fire. And the wild flight.
She should, aye, deny him. Once again, he gave her that opportunity. She could hold fast to the decision she’d made and send him away.
She should.
Instead, she knelt down also in a billow of gray wool, trapped his face between her hands, and gazed into his eyes. “We should no’.”
“I ken.”
“There is no answer in it. No solution for the tangle in which we find ourselves.”
“Nay. But there is salvation. For just this one night, Saerla. Let me love ye.”
Sorrowfully, she shook her head. “’Tis wha’ ye said before. For but one night.”
“I find I need another.”
As did she. Saerla closed her eyes for a moment, fighting the knowledge that she needed, even more than wanted, him inside her.
Opening her eyes once more, she looked at him with severity. “And wha’ about tomorrow? Wha’ when this night, in turn, is no’ enough?”
“Then I will come to ye again. And beg, if I must.”
“Rory—”
