“No, I don’t believe that, either,” she admitted with a sigh.
A flash of lightning brightened the window. “Listen,” he whispered. His gaze captured hers, and the backs of his fingers brushed over her jaw as the answering thunder rumbled. “It’s naught but the storm. And another storm, brewing between us now.” He held her steady with a gentle hand on each of her cheeks.
His tenderness should have calmed her, but instead it had the opposite effect. Her pulse doubled, her breathing ceased, and her body felt on fire, a fire that seemed to melt everything inside her all at once.
She was swept up into the storm.
The mysterious footsteps forgotten, she threw herself at her affectionate, golden, mysterious husband, sprawling with him on the bed, and kissed him with everything she had.
FORTY-SIX
THE STORM HAD diminished to naught but a light patter of rain.
“I cannot believe it,” Kendra said.
“What?” Trick asked, his voice husky against her neck where he was kissing her.
“I just—” Shaking her dazed head, Kendra struggled to catch her breath. “Od’s fish.”
“What is it, leannan?”
She sighed, a sound of regret from the deepest place in her heart. “I cannot believe I deprived myself of five weeks of that.”
His reply was a strangled laugh, but he held her close and found her lips once again.
She felt languid and tired and happy, and it was a long time before her heart slowed and her breathing quieted. Before the joyous reality sank in that she was now, finally, truly a wife.
Trick’s wife.
There had been some pain—more than she’d expected, in truth. But it had passed, and what had come after…
She stifled a giggle.
What had come after had been nothing like she’d imagined. But good. Very, very good.
And if she didn’t miss her guess, Trick had enjoyed himself to an equal degree. Though they still had a ways to go, tonight they had shared something special. She reached for him, pulling him down to her, enjoying his warm weight. It seemed they were the only two people in all the world for that moment.
Until she heard the phantom footsteps again.
“It’s the rain,” Trick reminded her. His voice sounded low and lazy. Perfectly content. She felt a little thrill knowing she had made him that way. “We’re alone here at the top of the tower. It cannot be anything else.”
“Annag and Duncan…”
Taking her with him, he turned over and nestled her against his chest. “Do you honestly think they’ve climbed up on the roof to come down these stairs and spy on us? On a stormy night like this?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t put anything past those two. It’s obvious enough they don’t like you…or me.”
“They’re bitter. Odds are Niall has always been favored as the duke’s son—Lord Niall while they were plain Duncan and Annag. Then their father left their childhood home to live here—although they were grown, that had to hurt.”
“And now you’ve returned to claim that father—”
“A bit of his attention, maybe, but I’ve no claim on Hamish.”
Rain thrummed on the roof above them, little needles of it striking the small window. She met Trick’s eyes, remembering other eyes that had looked familiar. Beneath his shining hair, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. Suddenly she pictured Hamish, that same expression on his face.
And it all fell into place.
She reached a hand to graze his cheek, the faint stubble scratchy against her fingers. “Do you not see, Trick, how much you’re like him?”
“Niall? Aye, I’ve said how uncanny—”
“Not Niall. Well, yes, Niall, but you must know there’s a reason for that, for why you’re so very alike.” She hesitated, but much as she wished to linger together in a state of pure contentment, she couldn’t hide this knowledge from him, not even for a few hours. “It’s because you share not only the same mother, but the same father as well.”
“Do you think so?” Some of the puzzlement cleared, his amber eyes filling with a hesitant hope instead. “I suppose the timing makes it possible. Father was last here when I was nearly six, and Niall was born the next year….Maybe Niall is my full brother.” He managed to sound bitter and elated at the same time. “Wouldn’t that be something?” he added before he suddenly frowned. “But why, then, would he say he’s Hamish’s son?”
“Because he is,” she said gently. “And so are you.”
FORTY-SEVEN
THE BREATH LEFT Trick’s body in a rush. “That cannot be.”
“It is.” Kendra’s eyes searched his before she scooted up to sit against the headboard beside him, taking the coverlet with her. “No, I haven’t asked Hamish about it, nor did he come to me. But I’ve eyes in my head, Trick, and I’m not as close to the situation as you are. You share his features and his manner, and then there’s the way he looks at you.”
“The way he looks at me? How is that?”
“With longing and pride. Were you the duke’s son—his love’s child fathered by another—wouldn’t he view you with resentment, instead? He’s your father, I’m sure of it.”
He couldn’t find the words to disagree, mostly because he wasn’t sure whether he disagreed or not.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Kendra pressed. “I know you don’t hold him in much affection, but that will come, don’t you think? Deep down, I believe he’s a good man.”
“It’s much to absorb,” he admitted. “Finding a new brother, and now maybe a father.”
It was too much to absorb with his mind still reeling over what he and Kendra had just experienced together. Tonight, everything had changed between them. He couldn’t say what was different, exactly. Aye, they’d finally made love, and aye, it had been glorious—even better than he’d anticipated, after all those weeks of waiting and wanting. He would never forget this night.
But that wasn’t all. He felt…
He knew not what he felt.
Except confused. About Kendra, about Hamish. About all of
