“She would no be the first to make mistakes while her heart was full of grief. The talk is that the girl only took to riding when her father died. That is a powerful blow that many buckle beneath.” Ula lowered herself before turning to face the hallway. The housekeeper walked down the length of it and entered the room that Jemma was in. A moment later she emerged without the pitcher.
Gordon had to force the ale in his mouth down his throat or risk choking on it.
Grief... aye. There was something that sent more than one person off to doing things they normally never would have. Things that they regretted when the pain had dulled enough for them to resume thinking clearly.
Of course, the more strength the person had, the more insane the recklessness. His fellow laird, Deverell Lachlan, was grieving hard for his lost bride and riding the night like a highlander. The man’s face was covered in a beard that grew longer every time Gordon saw him, and there seemed to be no easing of the pain etched into his friend’s eyes.
Aye, grief was a powerful thing.
He turned around to look back down the hallway from where he’d left Jemma. He was suddenly not so disgusted with her, part of him longing to go back into the room where Ula had placed her.
It was a bedchamber, even if the bed was all the way across the room from where they had been talking. Still, there would be plenty of people who condemned him for being alone with a maiden in there.
Jemma was a maiden. He’d stake his stallion on that fact. She’d shivered against his back, her heart racing while she tried to keep that knowledge from being noticed. A woman with experience wouldn’t have been so flustered. A knowing gleam would have entered her eyes. Maybe she would have lowered her lashes to conceal such, but only maidens looked back with such wide-eyed surprise when they met a man who drew their interest.
Jemma had cast those looks at him when he walked into her home to meet with her brother. She was drawn to him as surely as he was to her despite the fact that she was virgin still. He should call Ula back to stand as witness to what transpired between them, but he was finished with watching while surrounded by others. He’d done the chivalrous thing and visited her brother, and all that had done was allow Jemma to hide from him.
That knowledge did not stop him from moving back down the hallway. With his firm belief that she was nothing but a spoilt nuisance removed, there was nothing to keep him from seeking her out.
Jemma sniffed at the ale and wrinkled her nose. She had never cared for it, which was almost considered a sin because ale was a staple of English food. She liked all grains well enough, but once they were fermented with yeast, she found them sour. Hot porridge was her preferred way of taking in her barley and wheat.
“We’ve cider if ale does not please ye.”
Jemma jumped and then muttered a word that her brother didn’t think she knew. Of course she’d learned it from his men, but like all males, Curan liked to think that the women of the house were deaf anytime the men were cursing.
“I do not need anything save for the sun to rise.”
“Which will nae happen for many hours.”
Gordon Dwyre strode back into the room, his hand wrapped around a mug. She suddenly noticed the bed in the room, which sat some twenty paces across the floor. The Barras tower was built in the older fashion, without walls to divide the floor. Newer construction afforded a receiving chamber separated by a wall from the actual bedchamber. She was strangely aware of that bed and the way her body had responded to Gordon’s while they were pressed together.
“I thought you were gone from me. Disgusted by my lack of forethought.” She walked away from the ale and the bed, moving off into the semidarkness just beyond the candles’ glow.
“Why do ye ride as ye do?”
Jemma felt her eyes widen and took another step into the darkness to cover her expression. Gordon placed his mug on the table and watched her from beneath lowered eyebrows. He had dark hair. Like midnight, but his eyes were blue.
“It doesn’t matter what sent me out, only that I realize now that it was foolish.”
One of those dark eyebrows rose. “I hear ye started riding when yer father died. Do ye think that I can nae understand what grief does to a person?”
“I can’t fathom why you would think I might share such a personal thing with you. We are strangers, sir.”
He chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest. The motion made his arms bulge, the muscles pressing against the fitted sleeve of his doublet. “Strangers, aye we are but that does nae mean that I have never done something I regretted while in the midst of grief.”
“Fine. As you will, sir. If that pleases you and softens your judgment of me then so be it.” She discovered that her hands had planted themselves on her hips like an angry wife, and she jerked them off only to fumble with them while she attempted to compose herself. “Somehow I doubt that riding is an escape for you since you do it so often.”
His face transformed into something that was wickedly handsome. His lips curved, and his eyes held a gleam that was full of male satisfaction.
“Well now, there’s riding and then there is riding that pleases a man. I admit to enjoying a good, hard ride. Often.”
He was talking about bed sport. His eyes shimmered with mischief, and his lips curved in mocking display.
Her cheeks heated and her jaw dropped open. She snapped it shut with a click of her teeth. But she had to fight the urge to look at the bed. Her mind was suddenly full of just what the Scot might look like in it.
“You have no place judging my actions, sir.”
“You mean, I should nae be handing out my opinion when I’m nae perfect myself?” He crossed the room, closing the distance between them with a stride that held her fascinated. He grew larger and more imposing with each step, but she was frozen in place, too hypnotized to move. He had to angle his head down to keep their eyes
