Marguerite Kaye - The Highlander's Return

Ailsa hesitated. She felt as she did sometimes, wrestling with the boat in a storm or rushing her horse at a high dyke. Exhilarated and afraid in equal measure. Her skin tugged at her, as if it had needs of its own of a sudden, needs it had never expressed. Save once.

Alasdhair felt so solid against her and so warm, the heat from him seeping into her like a dram of whisky. His lips touched hers. She sighed and the warmth spread, like fingers of sunshine on a rock. His hands on the curve of her spine nestled her closer. He angled his head and his lips seemed to mould themselves to hers.

It was breathtakingly intimate. Her heart hammered in her breast. A capricious mixture of wanting and uncertainty swept over her, a yearning for something lost. Her mouth softened under his caress. His tongue licked along the length of her bottom lip. An adult’s kiss. Her first. With a soft sigh she nestled closer, touched the tip of her tongue to his. A shock sparked between them and Alasdhair brought the embrace to an abrupt end.

Taking a hasty step back, he felt a flush striping the sharp planes of his cheekbones. What the devil had he been thinking! ‘Forgive me. I should not have—I don’t know what came over me.’

Colour flooded Ailsa’s face. She stared up at him, wide-eyed with shock.

What did he think he was doing! He had come here to tie up loose ends, not entangle himself further, and especially not with another man’s property—a fact that he had managed to forget all about in the shock of seeing Ailsa again.

‘Where is McNair anyway?’ Alasdhair asked roughly, furious with the man for his absence. If he had been here to take better care of his wife, this would not have occurred. ‘I did not see him at the grave.’

Confused as much by the repressed anger in Alasdhair’s voice, which seemed to have come from nowhere, as by the abrupt change of topic, Ailsa struggled to assemble her thoughts. ‘He’s been ill. A fever of the blood. He has been confined to bed.’

A fever of the blood! Perhaps that is what he had himself. Alasdhair shook his head, as if doing so would clear the mist that had clouded his judgement, that was distracted by the completely irrelevant puzzle of Ailsa’s response to him. If he had not known better, he would have thought she had no more experience of kisses than the last time their lips had met. ‘I should not have kissed you. It is no excuse, but I forgot that you were married, just for the moment.’

Ailsa flushed a deeper red. ‘But I’m not married. Despite what my father told you I was not betrothed to Donald McNair six years ago—or if my father made any promises on my behalf then, it was without my knowledge. I admit, I am betrothed to Donald now, but it is of much more recent standing.’

‘Not married!’ It had not occurred to him that she would still be single. It was a disturbing notion and not one he wanted to think about. ‘Wed or betrothed, long-standing or recent, it makes no difference,’ he said, more to himself than Ailsa. ‘You are spoken for and I should not have taken such a liberty.’

‘Nor I granted it to you,’ Ailsa said unhappily. She had never had any difficulty in refusing such liberties to others. Not even Donald had been permitted such intimacy, but kissing Alasdhair had seemed the most natural thing in the world. And the most delightful. She had forgotten it could be delightful, a kiss. Like a promise. Except this one, like the last one Alasdhair made, would remain for ever unfulfilled. ‘What about you, Alasdhair?’

‘What about me?’

‘Are you married?’

‘Of course not,’ he snapped. ‘Do you think me the sort of man to go about kissing women if I were?

Anyway, I have no need of a wife. I have no need of anyone.’

He wasn’t married. He didn’t want to be married and it was probably her fault that he was set against it. She couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t married. This thought above all buzzed around in her head, as impossible to ignore and as useless as an angry blue bottle, and it was all too much. Far too much. She didn’t want to think any more. She wanted nothing so much as to be safe under the covers of her bed. Weariness assaulted her.

Noticing her pallor, Alasdhair felt a twinge of regret. He, too, felt as if he had been pummelled relentlessly, reeling from the onslaught the day had made on his emotions. ‘Come,’ he said, picking up her gloves from the ground and handing them to her, ‘I should get you back to the castle. You look exhausted.’

Ailsa tried valiantly for a smile. ‘It’s all been a bit—overwhelming.’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’ Alasdhair took her hand. ‘We belonged to each other once, before you were pledged to Donald McNair. We did not get to say our farewells six years ago. We were long overdue that kiss. I won’t feel guilty about it, and nor should you.’

Through the starkly handsome face of the man, the boy peered out. She answered him with the sweet smile of the girl she had been.

He would have kissed her again, seeing that smile he remembered so well. She would not refuse him. It was with immense difficulty that he chose honour over desire. Even as he tucked her hand into his arm, he was regretting it. Ailsa stumbled against him as the path grew rocky. Alasdhair tightened his grip on her arm. He could help her home. That much at least he could do with a clear conscience.

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