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Her skin grew ashen, making his concern rage. “Tell me,” he urged.
“She says”—her voice dropped to a wobbly whisper—“there is a claim upon my body that will supersede the one upon my heart. I fear she refers to King David’s plans for me.”
“Nay.” The word lashed out of him, and she jerked as if he had struck her. There had to be a way to keep Sorcha and not betray the king. He quickly took her hands to reassure her. “I will nae let ye be taken from me as long as ye wish to be by my side. We will find a way to bend the king’s mind.”
“And if we kinnae?” Sorcha asked, her voice a threadbare tremor. “Eolande said ye would forgo yer honor to free me. That seems to indicate that changing the king’s designs for me will be impossible. Vow to me,” she implored, the words savage, “vow ye will nae sacrifice yer honor for me.”
He wanted to lie. He feared the truth would put a wall between them once again, before they had even had a chance, but he had pledged to tell her only the truth. “I kinnae make such a vow.”
She pushed his hand away from her chin and went to rise, but he caught her around the waist and pulled her back down on his lap. “Look at me,” he demanded as she had turned her back to him.
“Nay,” she choked out.
He twisted her around easily, and when she faced him, the tears streaming down her cheeks made him ache. “I vow to ye that I will find a way to keep ye with me without forsaking my honor.”
“Ye vow it?”
“I do,” he replied.
She pressed her hands to his cheeks. “Then let us try to change Eolande’s foretelling right here in this moment.”
“How?” he asked, fascinated by the determination that had swept over her and lit her eyes with a fire.
“Take my body, Cameron.”
Unbridled yearning raced through him almost before his mind could respond and keep from tossing her on the bed and taking what she’d offered. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to. God above, he wanted it so much that his teeth ached. But she was not like any other woman he had ever joined with. She was a woman he wished to wake beside. “Sorcha, ye dunnae mean what ye say,” he choked out, fighting the need that whipped at him.
“I do,” she insisted. “I ken what I’d be giving ye, but I give it freely. If ye claim my body, then that part of Eolande’s foretelling will be forever changed.”
“Sorcha—” Disbelief that he was actually trying to dissuade her from this had him at a loss for words. To join with her like that, he imagined they should be married, and the thought made him break out in a cold sweat.
“Shh,” she said softly, leaning into him and brushing her breasts—purposely, he was sure—against his chest. He was going to go mad with desire. She was learning to be a true temptress at an astonishing speed. “Listen. Please,” she cajoled. Damned if he could not get his lips to form the word no.
He nodded, desire overcoming reason.
She did not bother to hide her triumphant smile. “Eolande said our choices could change her foretelling, and she said I should trust my heart. My heart tells me to give ye my body. I dunnae care that I’ve nae kenned ye long. I met ye years ago, and in that moment, I am sure we became tethered to each other.”
He nodded again.
“Change the future Eolande saw for me,” Sorcha pleaded. “In doing so, ye change yer own. Yer honor will remain yers.”
Everything she had said sounded perfect, except that he would nae feel honorable if he took her innocence but did not make her his wife.
“Marry me,” he said, shocked at his own words and aware, in that moment, that it would be a betrayal of what the king wanted. But he would fix the betrayal later. He would make it right. Because marrying her was more than right. He could feel it deep within in every beat of his heart: this choice was fate.
Thirteen
“Nay!” she cried out, struck by fear at what he had offered. If he married her, he would go directly against his king’s wishes, and that would not have been a choice he would have made if it weren’t for her. If he only took her body, she could still be married to another at the king’s demand, since her innocence apparently did not matter to him.
Cameron jerked back, a wounded look passing swiftly over his face before a veil dropped in place like a thick fog, leaving his emotions unreadable. Her heart burst with joy that he would ask for her hand, though she realized it was his honor provoking his offer and not love for her. They had not had time to fall in love. He desired her, she knew, with the same all-consuming intensity that she desired him. She would do almost anything to feel his touch—exceptput him in a position of going against his king’s wishes.
“Ye find the prospect of marriage to me unpleasant?” he asked, giving her a bland half smile.
“I dunnae ken how I find the prospect until we have spent more time together,” she said matter-of-factly. “We have desire, but I dunnae believe a marriage could sustain on desire alone. And beyond those two things, I will nae lead ye to a choice that will cause ye to forsake yer king. The king dunnae care if I’m innocent,” she said, her cheeks burning at the blunt conversation. “But ye would directly betray him if ye married me. We could nae even consider such a thing, unless there was a way to convince David that our union benefited him.”
Cameron arched his eyebrows at her. “I’ll nae take yer innocence without ye becoming my wife. It would be dishonorable.”
The man was too stubborn, but she was moved by his honor. Still, she firmly believed that her way had the power to change their future. She would simply have to persuade him to see things her way.
