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“My mother stubbornly refuses to come to the keep, and I fear for her safety. We’ll not talk of the other day. How many times have we ridden companionably before? Come with me.”

Many, many times. But those other rides had been innocent. They’d happened before she had so foolishly told him what had been hidden in her heart for years. She had been right to keep her secret hidden for so long.

“I cannot. I . . .”

She had no excuse, and they both knew it.

“Please?”

God help her, she wasn’t strong enough to withstand him. Not when he stood so close. Not when his scent—the one that was so uniquely Rory—flooded her. But his eyes pleaded with her for something she could not give.

Best he knew as much right now.

“I will never become your mistress, Rory.”

She said his proper name intentionally, and it took him back just enough, she hoped, for him to understand her words were sincere.

“And I would never ask it of you again, having given an unintended insult the first time.”

The way he looked at her, his gaze beseeching, assured her that he meant what he said. She supposed for now that was enough. Surely it was for the best that both of them accepted there was no way they could be together.

“I would still ask that you ride with me, however.”

She smiled, perhaps for the first time in days. “If you can protect me from abduction,” she said, “then I will indeed ride with you.”

“I can guarantee you safe passage devoid of abductions.” He nodded for her to come back into the stables. “At least by the McKinnons.”

He said those words so softly, Cristane nearly missed them. So he still felt it too, this connection between them, but they’d agreed to stay away from each other. She shouldn’t accompany him, should she? Every part of her screamed to turn back, that no good would come from spending time with him.

Every part, it seemed, except her feet, which persisted in moving toward him.