“I was so afraid for you,” she told him between the kisses. “Are you all right? Are you whole?”
Finnan’s heart thudded perilously. This, he reminded himself, was the woman he lived to punish. He could not let himself care for her; he would not.
“You signaled me?” he asked.
“Come inside out of the light.” In defiance of her own words, she held him there and kissed him, keeping him in the radiance that spilled from the cottage. Her mouth, hot and hungry, pulled at him, very nearly irresistible.
If he died now, he thought as his tongue swept the inside of her mouth, if a troop of the Avries’ men should come up behind and strike him dead, it might very well be worth it.
She broke the kiss and tugged at his hand. “Come.”
As soon as she had him inside, she shut the door and turned to her maid, who stared. “Cover the windows, Aggie—quick.”
Aggie did not move. “What has become of those men out there?” Her gaze dropped to Finnan’s hands. “That is blood!”
“They ha’ been removed,” Finnan said baldly, and the lass’s eyes widened with alarm.
“Where is Danny? Is he all right?”
“Up on the hillside.”
Jeannie had hurried to cover the windows when Aggie did not comply. She turned back, and Finnan felt her gaze all over him, full of distress.
“Your arm—”
“Sore, that is all. I am fine.” Better now—well enough, certainly, to ravish her on the spot, if only her maid were out of the way.
“Did you signal for me?” he asked again.
She nodded, a grave expression filling her eyes. “I needed to tell you: your sister is here in the glen—at Avrie House.”
Chapter Thirty
“Deirdre? Here?” Finnan spoke the words and swayed where he stood. Jeannie wanted to reach for him again, for she saw the color drain from his face. She nodded and wondered why he took the news so hard.
“How do you know?”
“I saw her today at Avrie House. Here, come and sit down.”
She drew him in beside the hearth even as Aggie seized a shawl and pushed past them out the door. In truth, Jeannie barely saw her maid go, focused as she was on the great well of pain that had opened in Finnan’s eyes.
She shoved him down onto the bench. He leaned forward and forced his hands through his hair, looking like a man who had received a blow.
“I believed her dead. Truly, I did not know, but I told myself she must be. Perhaps I even prayed so.” He looked up, and his gaze scoured Jeannie’s. “Are you certain? How did you know ’twas she?”
Jeannie crouched beside him and laid her hand on his knee. “She has the look of you. And the Dowager Avrie referred to her as her grandson’s wife.”
Finnan shuddered. “Did she say which of those vile blackguards wed her?”
“She is wife to Stuart, so the Dowager said.”
“I will kill him. So I swear upon all that is sacred to me.”
Dismay flooded over Jeannie. “Finnan, I did not tell you this to intensify your hatred or so you would spill more blood. I thought it would do you good to learn what happened to her. All these years of wondering…”
He gave her a wild stare.
Jeannie went on, desperate to soothe him. “She did not look unwell or particularly ill-used.” Grave and unhappy, perhaps, but strong for all that.
