“That you are gey beautiful,” he said with absolute veracity. “And that I have taken what I should not.”
He lost sight of her face in shadows as she bent and shook her skirt down over those slender legs. Next she bundled her hair into a rough knot that would not stay where it belonged. He had lost all the pins.
“There. Do I look a respectable woman?”
She did not; she looked like one he needed to plunder all the night long.
“I must go back and face Aggie.”
“And I must collect Danny, and be away.”
She nodded, hesitated, and raised a hand toward him. Half breathless still, she asked, “When will I see you again?”
And there it was, he thought, the question that proved he had her securely gaffed. A second question lay within the first:When will I lie with you again?
In his many years away from home he had loved any number of women, if only in the physical sense. Almost without exception they had asked him that, be it in demand or longing. But Finnan MacAllister had rarely stayed anywhere long enough to spend more than one night with any of them.
Now he said, at the devil’s bidding, “It might be best if you do not.”
She went still, and he felt her denial come at him out of the dark. Before she could ask why, he spoke again. “’Tis safer for you, Jeannie, if I keep away. ’Twas kindness itself for you to house Danny for me, but I would never forgive myself if I led the hounds that chase me to your door.”
“That makes some sense.” Her hands rose, and she tried again, unsuccessfully, to bundle her hair. It took her a score of heartbeats to say, “But I could meet you away from the cottage. Here, perhaps.”
He smiled to himself under cover of the shadows. “And should the Avries’ hunting party come upon us when we are together? You would be ruined in more ways than one.”
“True.”
“Come.” He reached for her hand. The way back to the cottage was short, and the light increased slightly when they emerged from the rowan copse. He stole another look at her, just because he could not seem to help himself: that disobedient, golden hair tumbled about her shoulders, and those lips that had clung to his so wildly were swollen. He ached anew to have her again.
But, by all the gods, he must have some self-discipline.
At her door he paused and reached out to smooth her hair. The warm curls clung to his fingers; he had best not touch her at all, if he wanted any hope of controlling himself.
“I must look…” she began, before words failed her.
She looked like a woman who had just been well-tumbled and needed it over again. But he did not say so.
“Go inside and pretend naught has passed between us,” he bade.
She gave him an incredulous look and went.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Steady rain dripped off the branches of the trees, struck the plaid Finnan wore over his head, and seeped through the wool to trickle down his neck. He sat huddled in a stand of pine, safe from the hounds, or so he hoped. Danny, exhausted and once more pricked by fever, slept behind him, under cover. Even the wet would not rouse the lad now.
The moments spent at Jeannie MacWherter’s cottage had been the last rest either of them had known. All day yesterday the Avries’ men had chased them about the glen, keeping them always on the move. Two groups of hunters combed the hillsides, one led by Stuart and one by Trent Avrie. Trent’s group had almost had them this afternoon, half way up the slope above Dun Mhor. Danny had stumbled and gone down; Finnan had climbed the rest of the hillside with the lad slung over his shoulder.
And got away. But for how long? He could move like a deer, but it could not be denied Danny hampered him. And with the return of the lad’s fever, Finnan could only ask so much. Danny needed rest and had been on fire when Finnan tucked him away among the trees.
Surely they were safe for a time. On a night so filthy wet, even his pursuers must be loath to venture out. Danny would catch his breath and be stronger in the morning.
But Finnan did not like keeping still; he never had, and now, surrounded by danger, he felt as if he had a prod at his back. Inactivity gave him too much time to think, and while he could unquestionably use an opportunity to figure how he would get out of this tangle, he could concentrate on only one thing.
Jeannie MacWherter.
She had haunted him ever since he walked away from her door. The feel of her flesh seemed to linger in the tips of his fingers, and his cock had been up more than down. Even now, beset by damp and exhaustion, the very idea of her had him stirring.
If ever a woman had been made for plundering, it was she. He relived again the moment he had plunged into her: her heat and tightness, that telling moment of resistance. And then the way she had clung to him with arms, lips, and those inner muscles. She fitted him the way a finely made sheath fit a sword.
