“Caithren,” he murmured near her ear.
She’d thought she couldn’t feel any more wonderful, but hearing him utter her name—her real name, for the first time—made her heart constrict with an overwhelming happiness. He wanted her, Caithren…and, even more significant, he finally believed she was Caithren.
Finally.
He buried his lips in her wet hair. “Caithren, sweet Cait.” The words were muffled. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”
She felt entirely too ecstatic to respond to his distress. “I told you I was Cait—”
“Not about that.”
He tucked her under his chin, his arms secure around her shoulders. Numb from the cold, her injured arm made no protest.
“I lost my head just now,” he said. “And I’m so very sorry.”
“Don’t you dare be sorry,” Cait cried over another crack of thunder. “Be sorry you didn’t believe me, if you will—you haven’t believed a word I’ve said since the day we met. But don’t you dare be sorry you finally kissed me of your own accord.”
“I’m not sorry for the kissing. I’m sorry for what will come later.”
By all the saints, he sounded wretched enough to throw himself beneath the wheels of a carriage. “Nothing bad will come later,” she insisted. “For heaven’s sake, it’s just a bit of fun.”
But as soon as the words passed her lips, she knew they were false. Kissing Jason wasn’t just a bit of fun. It was more than that. And something bad would come later.
Because later she would have to return home, never to see or kiss him again.
He set her away, keeping hold of one of her hands. “All right. Nothing bad will happen, then,” he said, although not as though he believed it. But a sudden smile burst free as he swiped at the rain dripping down his forehead. “Good heavens, have you ever in your life been so wet?”
FIFTY-TWO
SHE WAS STILL laughing when they made it to the cottage and he shoved the door back into place.
Except for when lightning lit the sky and seeped through the shutters, the room was pitch-black, but Jason managed to find her old shift, which thankfully was nearly dry. He turned his back while she changed into it, then saw her to the bed before finding the driest of his own clothes.
After toweling off with his cloak and donning the slightly damp garments, he began to feel like himself again. Being out in the cold and the wet with Caithren had been…unreal. Though he couldn’t regret what they’d shared—he would treasure the memory of this night for the rest of his life—he berated himself for his weakness. Now he would have to work even harder to put the distance back between them—the distance that was necessary to ensure he kept his head about him until the danger passed. His first concern was delivering Cait safely into her brother’s charge.
And afterward…
Well, he didn’t begrudge her the blithe way she could speak of their attachment—a wee bit of fun, indeed—but he did envy it. He knew their parting would not be as easy for him.
When he crawled into the bed, she reached out blindly. Feeling in the darkness, she found his head and drew it down for a kiss.
A sweet, sleepy kiss.
He wrapped his arms around her, listening to the patter of rain on the roof. Distance, he thought as he felt her drifting into sleep.
He had meant to put distance between them, yet here they were, nestled as close as two people could be. But she felt too good against him to be thinking of distance now.
The morning would be soon enough.
If it wasn’t already too late.
THE NEXT morning, sunlight streamed through open shutters to where Caithren lay alone in bed.
She rubbed her aching arm. The wound felt hot beneath the bandage. She should have unwrapped it last night and allowed it some air, rather than keeping it swathed in damp cloth. But she hadn’t been thinking of anything practical then. She’d thought about nothing but getting Jason to stop running away from her.
And she had—ironically, by running away herself. Grinning, she gave a happy sigh, remembering glorious kisses in the storm and falling asleep in Jason’s arms. She could never have imagined how marvelous it would feel to be close to a man. Wanted by a man. But…
But now that she knew, how would she live the rest of her life without a man? Without this man?
Every fiber in her body reacting to that thought, she sat abruptly, pulling the quilt about her shoulders. It was time to talk sense into herself. Even should she spend the rest of her life with Jason—an idea so implausible it didn’t bear considering—she’d never again experience the depth of emotion brought on by that wild combination of attraction, frustration, and weather.
Jason had said they’d be in London by tonight. Friday—two days from now—she’d find Adam at Lord Darnley’s wedding. Then she’d go home to Scotland, where she belonged.
The door lay flat on the floor, and their garments, save for her noblewoman outfit, were all gone. Crammed unfolded into the portmanteau, no doubt.
She wrapped the quilt around herself and walked to the gaping hole where the door belonged. The sky was cloudless, and the last remnants of the rain glittered like diamonds in the sun’s rays. Songbirds chirped in the trees. A beautiful, lovely morning.
Jason was outside by the horses, already dressed in his nobleman disguise, securing their belongings. Her gaze skimmed his gleaming black hair and the masculine planes of his face. He had shaved while she slept, making her fingers itch to feel the smooth skin and compare it to the roughness she’d felt against her cheeks last night.
“Good morn,” she called.
He looked up, favoring her with one of those white grins that made her heart
