Her soft sigh belied her smile. “You shouldn’t chew on your quill.”
He swept it from his mouth. “I know,” he agreed shortly. Having never let anyone catch him writing, Trick felt sulky at being discovered. He told himself to stop acting childish and took a calming breath. “It’s how I chipped my tooth. What are you doing out here?”
“What are you doing out here?”
“Nothing.” Fiddling with the quill in his hands, he looked up at the sky. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Did you try to sleep?”
He was silent a few beats before dropping his gaze to meet hers. “Not really. I…I was writing.” Silly that it seemed hard to admit, but there was no point in lying, seeing as she’d found him in the act.
Her expression seemed wary, reserved; then her gaze went to his kilt. He bit back a smile as she met his eyes.
“May I read some of what you wrote?”
His hand moved protectively over the pages. “Why would you want to?”
“What you write is part of you, Trick.”
True, but not the best part. What spilled out onto paper was often the parts of himself he didn’t like.
“Is it poetry?” she asked.
“Aye. It’s just poetry. Pretty words that sound good together. Meaningless.”
“It wouldn’t be meaningless to me.”
Hurt dulled her eyes, and he looked away, wishing he had it in him to give her what she wanted. Rolling the sheets into a narrow tube, he tucked it into the pocketed front of his kilt. “Come, let’s walk. The garden is quite whimsical.”
He took her down a path where dozens of tiny model castles nestled in the shrubbery on either side. “The castle garden,” she said with a smile, brightening with a determination that didn’t fool him. “How very clever.”
“It was my mother’s doing. When I was a lad, she spent hours out here every summer. And when winter kept her inside, she designed and built the little castles. Sometimes she let me help.” Their footsteps crunched on the gravel path. “Of course, Father thought it was a waste of time.”
“What did he want her to be doing instead?”
“I don’t know.” He’d never wanted to know; not knowing had felt safer. “I never understood them or the way they were together.”
“Was he a difficult man to live with, your father?”
Difficult didn’t even begin to describe the late Duke of Amberley. “I cannot say what living with him was like for her, but for me, it was a nightmare.”
She slipped her hand into his. “He had high expectations for you, did he?”
“No. At least not in the way you’re thinking.” He felt as tired as he knew his voice sounded, drained and numb. “I was naught but a means to an end. A pawn in his game. It’s safer to send a child to do the dangerous work, you see. Nobody would expect a child to be smuggling goods in his clothing. Nor would they see a child alone on a hill with a lantern, night after long, cold night, and suspect he was there to signal in ships.”
“He had you do those things?”
“And worse.” His tone closed the subject. He hadn’t the energy—or the will—to go into more detail.
“What about when you were older?”
He stopped on the path. “Must we talk about this now?”
There was a long pause while she seemed to come to a decision. “No, of course not,” she said with a smile he suspected was forced. “Your mother’s castle garden is charming. It’s quite secluded back here, isn’t it?”
“Aye, it is that.” The trees made a leafy avenue, shielding them from prying eyes. “No one has ventured back here for an hour or more.”
“Hmm…” she said speculatively, the smile turning real.
“Hmm? What do you have in mind?”
“Only this.” And she backed him against a poplar, shooting up on her toes to crush her mouth to his.
After a stunned moment, he gathered her into his arms, letting her kiss comfort him the way words never could. She’d rejected him for so long that he found himself wallowing in her sudden acceptance. Her soft fragrance surrounded him, more potent than any whisky. Her fingers trailing over him were like a balm, soothing the jagged edges of his feelings and leaving a blissful warmth in their wake.
When her hand raked one of his draidgie bruises, he sucked in a breath. Blinking himself awake, he wound one hand into her hair and let his lips drift over her soft cheek, then her ear. “You’ve never kissed me first before, leannan. What’s got into you?”
Silent save for the uneven sound of her breathing, she pulled back and searched his eyes. The wind came up, sending the poplar’s white-bottomed leaves into a silvery dance, and she leaned back in his arms. “It’s this kilt, Trick. It drives me wild.”
He threw back his head and laughed, startling several blackbirds from their perches above. “I will have to ask Niall if I can keep it.”
She grinned. “The idea is not displeasing.”
The blissful warmth returned. And spread. No girl had ever told him he drove her wild.
“But only if you kiss me again,” he added, then did so himself before she had the chance.
He kissed her again and again, losing himself in her. She leaned into him, slipping her hands under the plaid, digging her fingers through the laces on his shirt to rest against his skin. Beneath her fingertips, the beat of his heart matched hers that he could feel through her gown. Frantic.
Breaking away, he pressed his forehead hard against hers. “Is this wrong?” he asked in a whisper. A strangled whisper, because he knew the answer.
Another gust of wind sent the brown shawl flying, but she let it go. “No, of course it’s not wrong.” A scant inch away, her eyes looked confused. “We’re married, Trick.”
“That’s not what I meant.” How on earth could he keep her at arm’s length for the sake of respect, when after all
