Beyond the Highland Myst(86)
"Milady." His gentle gaze chided her. "I'm a man of talented hands, remember? Of course I can make coffee."
Talented hands. The words lingered in her mind a moment longer than she would have liked, and she stole a surreptitious peek at those hands. Good hands, they were, indeed. Broad and strong, with long, clever fingers. Able. They tanned soft hides and tenderly pruned young roses. They brushed her hair gently, and made tea. What other pleasures might those hands be capable of lavishing upon a woman? she wondered. Och, Lydia, you've been wasting many fine years, haven't you, lass? the true voice of her heart, silent all these years, finally found its tongue.
Lydia subtly shifted closer to Tavis so that their arms rested lightly side by side. It was a soft touch, but it was meant to tell him many things. And it did.
Deeper in the night, when Tavis MacTarvitt laid one aging yet still strong and capable hand atop hers, Lydia of Dalkeith pretended not to notice.
But she curled her fingers tightly around his, just the same.
* * * * *
It was early in the morning, the time when the cool moon briefly rides in tandem with the sun, that Adrienne felt the Hawk slip from the hand-hewn bed in the Peacock Room. She shivered in the fleeting coolness before the covers draped snugly to her body again. The spicy scent of him clung to the blankets and she buried her nose in it.
When they'd ridden in last night, the Hawk had swept her into his arms and vaulted the stairs three at a time, carrying his blushing wife past gaping servants. He'd called for a steaming bath to be delivered to the laird's bedroom and they had bathed in scented, sensuous oil that clung to their bodies. He'd made fierce and possessive love to her on a mound of tangled throws before the fire, and oiled by the fragrant blend, their bodies had slipped and slid with exquisite friction.
Adrienne had been claimed and branded by the man's hand. Conquered and ravished and utterly devoured. She had willingly dismissed all conscious thought, become an animal to mate her wild black charger. When he carried her to the bed, she'd run her hands over his body, over his face in the sweet afterglow, memorizing every plane and angle and secreting that memory away in her hands.
But somehow between the magnificent lovemaking and the sleeping, a silence had fallen between the lovers. It lay there, a stranger's gauntlet downflung in their bed. She had felt it grow into a fist of silence as she'd gotten lost in fears over which she had no control.
Desperately, she'd threaded her fingers through the Hawk's. Perhaps if she held on to him tightly enough, if she was tossed back to the future, she might take him with her.__
She had spent many stiff hours pretending to sleep. Afraid to sleep.
And just now, as he slipped from the bed, she felt the fear returning.
But she couldn't hold his hand every minute of every day!
She rolled silently onto her side, peeped out from the pile of covers, and marveled.
He stood at the arched window, his head cocked as if listening to the breaking morn and hearing secrets in the cries of the wakening gulls. His hands were splayed on the stone ledge of the opening, the last rays of moonbeam caressing his body with molten silver. His eyes were dark pools of shadow as he gazed into the dawn. His stern profile might have been chiseled of the same stone used to build Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea.
She closed her eyes when he reached for his kilt.
The silence unfisted and wrapped its fingers around her heart as he left the Peacock Room.
* * * * *
Hawk stood in the doorway on the second floor, his eyes dark with rage.
Rage at his own helplessness.
Bringing her back to Dalkeith had been a mistake. A big mistake. He knew it. The very air inside Dalkeith seemed charged, as if someone had sloshed lamp oil all over the castle and now lay in wait, ready to drop a lit candle and step back to watch their lives be devoured by the ensuing inferno. No question remained in his mind—Dalkeith was not safe for her.
But she'd disappeared in Uster too.
Then they'd just have to go farther away. China, perhaps. Or Africa. At least get the hell out of Scotland.
Damn it all! Dalkeith was his place. Their place.
Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea had been his entire life. He'd endured so much to have this time. To come home. To watch their sons play at the cliff's edge. To watch their daughters race through the gardens, little feet pattering across mosses and cobbled walkways. On a warm day, to bathe their children in a clear blue loch. On a balmy summer night, to seduce his wife in the fountain beneath shimmering stars.
He deserved to spend the remainder of his years walking with Adrienne over these hills and vales, watching the sea and the seasons' eternal march across the land, building a home rich with love and memories and adventures. Every bit of it—damn it—he was a selfish man! He wanted the whole dream. Should have stayed away, Hawk, and you know it. What made you think you could fight something you can't even name? He closed his eyes tightly and swayed in the dark. Give up Dalkeith for her? His head fell forward, bowed beneath the weight of crushing decisions. A sigh to extinguish bonfires shuddered through his body. Aye. He would wed her at the Samhain. Then he would take her as far away from here as they had to go. He'd already started to say his goodbyes in a strained silence. Goodbyes took some time, and there was much he needed to bid farewell at Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea.