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Fraser took another deep breath, and Elspeth watched as the colour returned to his face and the expression of terror faded. And then, the drama done with, unease began to creep in as she remembered that she still hadn’t quite worked out what she was going to say to Fraser when she got up here. Her somewhat melodramatic entrance onto the scene hadn’t made things any less awkward.
‘How did you know I was up here?’ Fraser asked, and Elspeth was grateful for a question she at least knew the answer to.
‘Your dad,’ she said simply.
The word ‘Malcolm’ had been on the tip of her tongue, but at the last minute she’d changed her mind. He was Fraser’s father, whether Fraser liked to think or speak of him that way or not. There was no point in them coming all this way if they weren’t going to get to the bottom of what had happened. But if she had learnt anything from working with her patients, it was that sometimes approaching a problem sideways was more effective than hitting it head-on with a hammer. Maybe if she gave him time and opportunity Fraser would open up to her without the need for her to interrogate him.
‘He said that you liked to come up here when you were a boy. He thought you might be here.’
‘I love this place,’ Fraser said simply, sidestepping the issue of his father. ‘I always have. It was a fun playground when I was a kid.’
‘I can imagine,’ Elspeth said, trying to.
She looked around, looked up at the empty spaces where windows must once have kept out the wind and the rain. At dark doorways and tiny chambers that had long ago lost their walls. At nooks and crevices that had once hidden secrets and long-finished lives. She brushed a hand against a stone wall, wondering who had touched it before her. Whose lives had played out in this room. How many babies had been born and children raised here.
It was starting to hit her, she realised, why it was so important for Fraser to bring her here, for him to think of his child here. He and his family had been a part of this place for so long that it was impossible to think of them as separate. They belonged together. And understanding that made her understand how pained Fraser must be to have been so long away from this place. How much his father must have hurt him for him to stay away from so long. She had not given herself an easy task.
‘Will you show me round?’ she asked, hoping that her plan of giving him space and time to talk would take effect.
She’d charged up here after him because she’d been so worried about that look on his face when he’d walked out. It had been disgust and disappointment and fear, all roiling together and fighting for supremacy. But he wasn’t ready to talk now. He was jumpy and sensitive and he needed to do whatever it was he did to take himself off high alert.
Fraser nodded. ‘Sure.’
He climbed up to the bank where he had been standing when she had first seen him and held out a hand to help her up. He kept hold of her hand as they walked to a long stretch of great archways.
‘This was the great hall. See there? That’s the space where the fireplace would have been.’ Stones marked out a space the size of a decent-sized kitchen on the floor. ‘That would have kept the whole hall warm. And in the early days it would have been where food was cooked, ale was warmed. It was the most important place in the whole castle. Everyone lived in this room. There was no such thing as privacy as we understand it. Eating together, sleeping together...’
She could imagine what else they had all been doing in the same room, and she didn’t need him to say it. In fact, she needed him not to say it. To be able to keep her mind as far away from sex as possible.
Elspeth spun around, her eyes tracing a sweeping arc from the flat stones on the ground in front of her up to the jagged stones at the top of the tallest tower, and back to Fraser beside her. He was looking directly at her and her gaze met his, locked with it, and she found she couldn’t break it.
But she had to.
She moved her feet first, turning away from him, hoping that she’d have the strength to look away. But he caught her hand, wouldn’t let her break that connection. She knew that she must be imagining the heat she could feel in her palm. The temperature was still barely above freezing, and she was wearing mittens so padded that her hands barely felt as if they belonged to her.
‘I wanted you to see,’ Fraser said. ‘I needed you to know why this place is important.’
‘It’s okay,’ Elspeth said soothingly, sensing something frantic, urgent, below the surface. ‘I understand.’
This wasn’t what she had meant. When she’d wanted him to relax she hadn’t meant for him to relax into this. She’d come up here to talk to him about his father, and now here he was looking at her with an intensity that she knew was dangerous.
He reached for her other hand and pulled her closer. She could see the hurt in his eyes. Could see the toll that confronting things with his father was taking on him. She was sure that under the surface of this confident, sexy, close to irresistible man of thirty was a fifteen-year-old boy who was still reeling from his father leaving him.
But when his hand brushed her cheek she knew it was the man touching her, not the boy. And when he leaned in close, so that his breath was warm on her icy lips, she didn’t—couldn’t—care what was motivating this. Her heart was pounding with anticipation and her hands were already reaching for him when, with a sigh, his lips finally found hers.
He moved slowly at first, and she wondered—with what small part of her brain was actually functioning—whether he thought she was going to
startle and bolt. God, she wished she had the strength to do that. She might think—know, even—that this was a bad idea, but his mouth was hot and sure and so incredibly sexy that there was no way she was ever going to want him to stop.
She wished she was wearing fewer clothes. She felt a pull deep down in her belly as Fraser’s arms wrapped around her waist, lifting her up to him, and she was desperate for the feel of his skin. To get closer. To climb inside him. She pulled off a glove and grabbed a handful of his hair, crushing her body against his, desperately pushing away every reason why this was a bad idea.
Fraser’s breath was coming shorter now, and her heart was pounding almost painfully in her chest. Oh, this was intoxicating. He was intoxicating. She remembered the first time, at the wedding, up against that tree that had pulled at her dress and grazed her skin, and how she had been so tempted to just take him right there. How did he do this to her?
Just as she thought that this might be it—she might never be able to stop and would die kissing this man—Fraser broke away, dragging in air as if he had just climbed a mountain.
‘God, Elspeth, I don’t know—’
‘Don’t you dare,’ Elspeth said quickly, trying to catch her breath, trying to stop real life from invading the moment and making her regret it. ‘Whatever you were about to say, don’t. Say it later, if you have to, but don’t...not just now.’
