He laid his own atop it. He looked into her eyes and said simply, “I love you.”
She made no reply at first but tears welled; he’d have been alarmed were not joy also suffusing her face... and had he not already been secure in the knowledge that she loved him as well. Putting it into words was a formalizing of it, maybe; they had never said it aloud to one another, but it was in every look, every touch, and it was past time to acknowledge it. To look towards a future together.
“I love you too.” She whispered it, no matter that it was only the two of them in the cottage with only gently tapping rain beyond. He drank in the quiet splendor of the words; there was no sweeter gift than this woman’s love, unless included with it was the privilege of having care of her for the remainder of their lives.
“You were married to a good man,” he began. “Your Jamie. A better man than me.”
She had laid her cheek against his chest after speaking, but at his words she lifted her head sharply.
“I know a piece of your heart will always be his,” he continued, “but if you would consider the possibility of another marriage, I will do my best to honor the memory of his love for you by loving you myself.” He’d phrased it awkwardly, trying to tread respectfully, but Isobel was smiling.
She pushed herself up onto her elbows. “Oh,” she said drily, “I’ll do better thanconsiderit. Iwillmarry you.” Her face was lit with gentle mirth. “Although you may love me of your own accord, if you please. Jamie would not begrudge it. And I demand it. As for the question of you being a good man...”
She pushed him fully onto his back, rising onto her knees to straddle his hips. It was not a sexual move despite their nudity; her face was quietly intense as she leaned forward to catch his right hand. A fingertip found the scar that ran along the underside of his smallest finger. She traced it into his palm, pressing a soft, open-mouthed kiss there, before turning his hand over, brushing next across the scar that bisected the back. Marks of his time with the Rifles.
“I’ve always loved to watch your hands,” she said abstractedly. “Nearly from the first. I’ve never before been so fascinated by another person’s hands.” She laughed. “But yours draw my eyes time and again. Such an odd thing to notice, to so strongly attract me.” Her smile faded but her eyes remained soft. “But I’ve decided why it is. They are the extension of you, of your strength.”
“Aye.” Where was she going with this? “They’ve been weapons in their turn.”
“It’s true you’ve spilled blood in war. In your other work as well, I think, although you don’t speak of it. And at least once with anger in your heart. Yet these hands haveneverhurt me. Nor will they ever,” she said fiercely. “Aghràidh,my love.”She guided his hand to her breast. “Yours are the only hands I’ll ever want on me.”
Placed so, it was instinctive to stroke her, as she’d no doubt intended. Hypnotized, he allowed himself to be drawn into tracing figures across her silken skin, caressing warm dips and mounds of breast and hip and waist. She sighed with pleasure, the soft sounds low in her throat that guided his hands and never failed to raise an answering response in him.
But when he might have shifted her weight, melding her to him once more, she gathered in his hands again, bringing each to her mouth before saying, “So easily you might have forced control in our every interaction in France, stripped away my freedom to make choices for myself. Although I suppose it must be stated that youdidpin me to a wall on one memorable occasion.”
“Aye.” His amusement was quiet, more in his chest than in his mouth. “I gave you little choice that first night.”
As ever, she caught his hidden amusement and smiled. “True enough. But from that hour on, you gave me the freedom to choose in every decision of import, whether related to our separate missions and shared interests or in matters more personal. Even against your own instincts in some cases. You may believe I know my own mind”—her voice held a shade of warm irony, and he let the smile touch his lips—“in choosing you. For you are a man infinitely worth choosing. And I will choose you again and again, always.”
Her words gutted him in the best possible way. She still had hold of his right hand; with the other, he cupped her jaw. Ran his thumb along her cheekbone.
“Your hands comforted me at a time when I was weary and without hope. They grounded me when all else felt chaotic and unreal. And they sheltered me in sleep. Waking, they demonstrated that there was life left for me to find.” She pressed his palm just below her navel where her belly, sweetly curved, slopedsmooth and inviting. “And your hands will hold new life soon. Our daughter.” Her dimple appeared. “Or our son. It is my feeling only, that we’ll have a lass.”
With understanding came wonder, burning cleanly through his chest. It ignited; he knew a sudden, vehement desire to make love to her again, to take ultimate possession of this woman of strength and beauty and boundless love, although only inasmuch as she already possessed every part of him, heart, body, and soul.
But first . . .
He stroked his thumb over her belly reverently. “When?”
Chapter 30
Wonder and joy both were naked on Nathaniel’s face. Everything was there, laid bare for her to see.
“Early March, if I’ve counted correctly.”
He smoothed his thumbs across her belly before cupping it, as though hoping already to feel beneath his palm the life within. “She’ll have your eyes,” he said decisively. “Bluets, after her mother and grandmother both.”
“Or tiger’s-eyes, like yours.” She touched the outside corner of his eyelid with her thumb. In the soft, dim light from the heavy clouds outside, the tawny streaks in his eyes were hidden today.
“Had you planned to tell me?” he asked softly. “Had I said nothing? Or said I was leaving?” His fingers still traced her belly.
A fair question given she’d been holding the news to herself well past the point of certainty. “Yes, I would have told you. Was going to tell you soon. But I suppose... We’d not spoken yet of the future and...” She shook her head at herself. “I did not want to take away your own choices.”
His brow was stern, but his eyes were not. “You cannot believe I would choose anything other than you, love.”
Oh, how she loved this man. “I suppose I left some of my courage in France to claim what I want.”
“I might argue you found your courage there. Although surely it has always been part of you. Perhaps circumstances in France merely allowed it full chance to shine.”
