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Too tired to argue with his brother, Robbie pulled off his breeches and shirt and crawled into bed. “Perhaps a night’s sleep will clear your mind.”

Nash lifted his coat from the peg. “I’m going for a walk. As tomorrow is Christmas Eve and Christmas Day follows, Kinloch will have to wait. We owe it to our friends and family to be here.”

The door closed and Robbie turned over, stuffing his pillow under his head. Nash would see reason. He always did.

Ailie was too wound up to sleep. The avalanche and the memory of Nash pulling her from its path had left her unsettled. Did a man act like that toward a woman he considered only a holiday fling? Pacing in her room brought her no respite. Perhaps a walk would do her good. She often walked to the shipyard at night to look at the stars.

Taking up her blue tartan scarf and dark blue cloak, she decided to stop at the kennel to get Goodness and Mercy.

When she arrived, they whimpered, wagging their tails, eager to go with her, despite their excursion over the moors.

With the dogs trotting beside her, she took the path down to the shipyard, burying her hands in the wool of her tartan scarf as she’d forgotten her gloves. At the dock, she stopped to inhale the salty air blowing onshore from the North Sea. Closing her eyes, she listened to the familiar sounds of the night, the water slapping against the ships moored at the dock, an owl hooting from a tree in the distance and the hisses and yowls of the shipyard cats fighting over some rat.

She opened her eyes as the dogs wandered off, sniffing for something of interest.

Gazing up at the night sky. Absent a moon, the stars were on brilliant display. She recognized Orion the hunter from his belt, marked by three stars in an angled row, and the Milky Way that swept across the sky in a great swath of stars as if God had cast them from his great hand.

She stared upward for a long moment, letting her soul grow peaceful in the chilled night air. The sounds around her were soon absorbed by silence.

“She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies…”

Her heart leaped at the familiar voice. Before she could turn, Nash pulled her into his warmth and crossed his arms over her chest. She leaned against him, content in the nest of his arms. “You would quote Lord Byron to me?”

“Oh, so you are familiar with our poet?”

“As I am of Rabbie Burns, the Bard of Ayrshire. Byron’s mother was a Scot, you know, a Gordon, in fact. He was raised in Aberdeenshire. My governess favored both poets.”

Nash pressed a kiss to her temple, his breath warm on her face. “I was not aware of Byron’s Scottish origins, but I thought his poem particularly apt for this night… and a fitting description of you. Are you out here admiring the stars all alone?”

His lips ticked her skin, causing her to shiver. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“My brave lass for whom the night holds no terrors, you rest uneasily?”

He called her his lass. How she loved that. For a passing moment, she wondered if she should tell him about her dreams, but she allowed the moment to pass. “Aye, sometimes.”

He nuzzled the side of her head. “As do I.”

Turning her to face him, he said, “I am gratified you recognized me from only my voice.”

She couldn’t see his eyes in the darkness but she felt the intensity of his gaze. “I know you, Nash. Not just your voice, but your touch. Only you speak to me in verse and tender words. And, if that weren’t enough, I have kissed no other man as I have kissed you.”

He pressed his forehead to hers. “As I would have it, sweet Ailie.”

Inclining his head, he pressed his lips once, twice and yet a third time to hers, each time pulling away before she could fully enter into the kiss. His teasing lips were more enticing than if he’d kissed her full on the mouth. The soft touch of his lips, their warmth so quickly withdrawn, enticed her. His scent of sandalwood and wool, blended with his own smell, enveloped her.

When his lips lifted from hers, she opened her eyes. “You would tease me?”

“Nay, I would but tempt you to more.”

Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light, allowing her to see more of his features beneath his dark brows. A lock of his hair had fallen onto his forehead. She brushed it aside. “I would gladly succumb.”

This time he did not tempt, but claimed her mouth in a stirring kiss, full of passionate intent. This kiss was different than their first kisses in the woods and the others in the library. It was deeper, more demanding. When his tongue slipped inside her mouth, she yielded, threading her fingers in his hair, holding him to her.

Ripples of pleasure radiated from her lips to her breasts, even to her woman’s center, shocking her with the force of it. She had never felt the like of it before. The night around her faded away. Her feet were no longer anchored to the dock, but sailing with him high above it.

There was only Nash and his kiss.

When he lifted his lips from hers, she experienced the same quiet she had on the moors when the avalanche stopped, as if the entire world held its breath. She was glad for the darkness that hid the flush in her cheeks, the burning heat she could feel despite the cold air all around them. But her ragged breathing could not be hidden. Neither could his.