Ian felt Gordan’s eyes on him in the darkness.
“Be good to her,” Gordan called out.
“I will.”
Ian held Sileas’s hand as they walked home along the dark path. He didn’t ask about her conversation with Gordan; if she wanted to speak of it, she would.
Before they reached the house, he stopped in the path and turned to her. He brushed back the hair whipping about her face, but it was too dark to see her expression.
“I never meant to shame ye by not coming home,” he said.
“I know ye didn’t,” she said.
But the truth was that he had given her feelings little thought at all, and they both knew it.
“If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t be such an arse.”
“Are ye sure?” she said with a smile in her voice.
It was like her to try to ease his conscience by making light of it. He pulled her into his arms and rested his chin on her head. “I’m sorry I hurt ye. I wish we hadn’t been forced to wed back then before we were ready, so we could do it now, and do it right.”
“ ’Tis true I wasn’t ready,” Sileas said. “But I always wanted you to be my husband in the end.”
“That’s because ye are wiser than me,” Ian said, rubbing his chin against her hair. “I hate knowing that my wife will always remember the start of our marriage as the worst day of her life. I’d do anything to change that.”
Sileas leaned away from him, and he felt the soft touch of her fingertips graze his cheek. “Then let’s count our marriage as starting now, and not five years ago.”
Ian realized she was right for wanting to tell Gordan tonight, to have all that done and behind them. They were embarking on their new life together, now that they were home.
Ian held her tight against him. “I’ll try to make it up to ye every day from now on.”
CHAPTER 30
Sileas understood why Ian was saying these things to her. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him when he said he wanted to make her happy—he did. But Ian had a hole inside him. Until he redeemed himself for being gone when they needed him, he could not forgive himself. That only made her love him more.
Watching him tonight, laughing and talking with his friends and family, Sileas knew she could sit across the breakfast table from him for fifty years and never tire of it. But love was not always equal. If Ian cared for her and did his best to be a good husband, that was better than what most women got from the men they devoted their lives to—and far better than Sileas’s poor mother ever had.
The feelings between them when they made love were so powerful that she believed Ian could come to love her in the way she loved him. When he was inside her, he called her “love” and the beautiful endearment,
She’d heard many a young woman tell of a man who spoke of love in the throes of passion and was gone before the babe came. Someday, Ian might say these words to her at other times—perhaps across the table or while he held a child of theirs on his knee—and she would know he meant them.
In the meantime, she would take the warm affection he gave her—and, aye, the passion in the night as well— and be glad for it.
But she would wait for that day when he gave his heart to her wholly.
Ian was glad to find the house quiet when they returned. When he opened their bedchamber door for Sileas, the room was filled with the warm glow of a dozen lit candles. He smiled at his mother’s thoughtfulness.
He took Sileas’s face in his hands as they stood beside the bed. When he made love to her for the first time in Stirling, his pent-up lust for her had made their coupling frantic, intense. If he were honest with himself, there was an edge of anger to his need to possess her that first time—until the wonder of it took hold of him and shook him to his soul.
On their way home to Skye, they had made love every night in the dark, under his plaid on the cold, damp ground. Each time, there was still the frantic need, the sense that there could never be time enough.
But tonight they were home, in their own bed for the first time as man and wife. Looking into her eyes, he felt an overwhelming tenderness for her.
“I want to make love to you slowly tonight.” He rubbed his thumb across her cheek.
When he leaned down to kiss her, she tilted her head back to meet him. Her lips were soft and warm. Desire stirred in him, but he could take his time to savor her. She would be here always. She was his.
He ran his hands down the slope of her back to the dip of her waist and the flare of her hips. When she put her arms around his neck, he deepened the kiss. For long minutes, they stood by the bed, lost in deep, lingering kisses.
She pulled away to rest her head against his chest and gave a long, contented sigh that made him smile.
“Ye have such lovely hair.” He ran his hand through the long strands, watching the colors slide over his fingers in the candlelight. It had every color of red in it, from gold to ginger to copper and wine.
“Will ye unhook my gown for me?” she asked.
As he reached around her and unfastened the hooks running down her back, it pleased him to think he would be doing this every night. He pushed the gown off her shoulder and kissed her warm, milky skin. When she leaned back to look at him, he could see tiny flecks of gold in the green of her eyes.
The desire he saw in them sent a jolt of lust through him.
“Let’s go to bed, Ian.”
