Then there was Ruark. His leg was healing with almost magical rapidity, and though Shanna struggled to cool the affair, more and more she found herself comparing all other men with him, no longer using her imagined knight for the contrast. And beside Ruark everyone else seemed lacking. She was afraid to even question the significance of this, fearful she might then have to admit things she refused to let herself think about.
With a slow, thoughtful stride Shanna wandered out onto her balcony. There was just the slightest chill in the cool breeze, and she was glad she had chosen a heavier dressing gown after her bath. Half sitting upon the balustrade, she tugged its soft folds tighter around her naked body and gazed up wistfully at the moonless sky. The stars were brilliant and clear, twinkling against the velvet black of the night. The hazy glow of the Milky Way arched in magnificent display from horizon to horizon.
Shanna began pacing again and found herself standing before the French doors of Ruark’s dark chamber. Did he sleep? Was he awake? He had said he often heard her walking about. She felt a driving need to satisfy her curiosity and her slender feet carried her forward against her will. He was there. She could see the shape of him beneath the sheet and the darker expanse of his bare chest. Then she realized his eyes were open and that he watched her in return.
Her hands tugged at her belt, and the robe slid to the floor. Her soft, pale skin glowed briefly in the blackness before she lifted the cover and slipped in beside him. His arms were about her, and his mouth was upon hers, hard, insistent, moving, seeking, finding—stirring fires that had smoldered to an unbearable intensity and were now leaping flames of ecstasy. It was the bliss of homecoming, the thunder of renewed passion, the sweetness of a spring awakening, and the ache of surrender all merged into one and mingled with the mutual rhythmic movements of their bodies as she eagerly took him into her. The blend was explosive, fusing them into oneness, then flinging them aloft on a plunging, soaring flight until it left them breathless and exhausted in its afterglow.
“Ruark?” she whispered against the furry chest.
“Aye, my love?” The answer was soft as his lips touched her brow.
There was a long silence.
“Oh—nothing.” She snuggled closer and smiled through the drowsiness that engulfed her before she slept.
And so it was. The last dregs of Shanna’s dreams began to break apart under the determined onslaught of Ruark’s love. She found her chambers lonely when he was not there with her. When he rode with her father to the mill site, she would watch eagerly for his return like she had in her youth for her father. On a few occasions the overseers came after dinner to air problems of the mill which only Ruark could set right, and on those occasions, to avoid Gaylord’s persistent company, Shanna sought the privacy of her chambers. There, waiting for Ruark, the clock’s pendulum seemed to stand suspended. More than once, the book of poetry sagged in her hands as sleep overtook her. Then she would awake and smile drowsily as strong arms came around her and a warm, hard body pressed close to hers. A hoarse voice would whisper against her ear, “I love you,” and then the moments would speed by, and the sound of the clock would become a chattering she wished she could stop.
The pond so essential to the mill site was above the town but close to where logs could be lifted from the bay below or floated down the small stream from above. The dam had been completed and the flow of the creek dwindled to a trickle; water filled the rock-strewn gully. The mill itself was placed to make it easily accessible for the wagons which would bear the sawn lumber away. A high flume would carry the water and the logs to the mill from the pond wherein they were to be collected. The whole of it was sketched on the design, but many of the details had not been committed to paper. Ruark’s hours were well taken between the squire’s demand of his attention and the insistent queries of the overseers. The mornings were hectic times, with repeated visits by the taskmasters bringing problems for Ruark to solve. More often than not, the overseers arrived for breakfast and began an immediate discussion of the plans.
On this morning, having ushered the last of the overseers out, Ruark found himself alone in the huge mansion except for the servants. When he sat, Milan or Berta hovered nearby, wishing to please him with some service, however small. When he paced, Jason stayed near the front portal to open it in case the guest of the house should leave also. Ruark began to sense that he intruded upon their routine, which did nothing to ease his agitation. He chafed that Shanna had gone riding with Sir Gaylord. It was a bitter draught to swallow—having to watch others pay homage to his wife while he could not declare his most insignificant rights as her husband. The house became a torture chamber for him, and slipping into the leather jerkin, he left the manor to the servants.