“Ally?” his whisper wasn’t very quiet.
“Aye, Ewan. I’m here.” She stepped around the chest, but realized she wore only her chemise and robe. The previous times they’d been in the attic, she’d been fully clothed, not that it had mattered once her skirts were around her waist. Despite Ewan seeing her completely naked earlier that day, somehow Ewan spying her in her bedclothes seemed intimate in a way the other times didn’t. She clutched her robe at the throat and waited for Ewan to cross the distance between them. “What’re you doing here?”
“I went to yer chamber, but when I discovered ye werenae there, I figured ye’d be here.”
“You went to my chamber. What if someone saw you?”
“Eoin and I were careful nae to be seen.” Ewan didn’t notice that his brogue continued, even though he spoke to Allyson instead of his brother.
“Eoin? You were both wandering about! Are you trying to rip my reputation to tatters? Angus told people about you, Eoin, and Lady Bevan. They’ll assume you were up to your old tricks if they find you at my door in the middle of the night. Riding off with you for the afternoon did little to improve matters after everything Mother accused me of. People overheard. Good God, Alice or Mary could claim you were visiting them.” Allyson made to step around Ewan, but his hands gripped her upper arms.
“Dinna panic, mo ghaol.” Ewan leaned down to gaze into her eyes.
“What did you call me?” Allyson croaked.
“Ma love.” Ewan watched as Allyson’s eyes shuttered, and he suspected she believed it was a trite cliché, not the beginning of his promise of devotion. He swept her into his arms and carried her to the place they’d slept the previous nights. “Ally, I’m nae tossing that phrase aboot lightly. I’ve never called a woman that. I said it because I mean it. I’m in love with ye, Allyson.”
“You are?” she breathed.
“Aye, mo ghaol, I am.” He brushed hair from her temple and pressed a soft kiss. “I didna imagine I would be. I didna plan to be, but I realized how strong ma feelings are when yer mother spoke to ye this afternoon. Ma need to get ye away from her, from here, nearly overwhelmed any sense of reason. All I focused on was protecting ye.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re in love with me. You feel obligated because you intend to marry me. You may even be fond of me, or you’ve seemed to be of late.”
“This has naught to do with obligation, Allyson. It has everything to do with a feeling that’s in every inch of me. I’ve had Eoin at ma side every day of our lives, and I never imagined I’d need another person. But I need ye. I need to see yer smile. I need to hear yer voice. I need to have ye at ma side. I trust ye just as I do ma brother, and that’s because I’ve gotten to ken ye. The woman I kenned at court wasna the whole woman I now ken ye to be. There is so much more than anyone else sees, and I’m the only person ye allow to glimpse these parts of yer character, yer soul. Ye wouldnae do that if ye didna return ma feelings.”
Allyson looked down at her hands that rested in his much larger palm. His fingers were curled around the back of hers while he wrapped his other arm around her with his hand resting on her hip. Her back leaned against his shoulder, and she laid her head against his chest. She absorbed the comfort he offered and realized she’d never been as content as she was when she was in Ewan’s company. Sitting against him in the shelter of his arms seemed right. She couldn’t imagine ever being this at ease with another man. She twisted so she could gaze into his emerald depths.
“I return your feelings, mo chridhe.”
“I’m yer heart?”
“Aye. As unlikely as it is, I won’t lie and deny I’m in love with you, too. You’re not the man I assumed from what I saw at court. I jumped to conclusions based on my own fears and past. I didn’t give you a chance. This afternoon, all that you said, it confirmed what I’ve discovered since we’ve been here.”
“I dinna think we would have gotten to ken one another past our preconceived impressions had we remained at court. Neither of us would have been so unguarded, and I’m certain I wouldnae have curbed ma excesses. Chillingham excepted, running away from court was the best that could have happened for us. It’s given us an opportunity to see who we are away from court.”
“What you say is true. If we’d spent this time at court, I would have despised you and never forgiven you for what I assumed were your flaws. Even if we married and retired to the Highlands, I doubt I would have opened my mind to appreciate what you’re like away from court. Or it would’ve taken me much, much longer. By then it might’ve been too late. I would have driven you into any open arms.”
“The only open arms I want are yers, and I hope they close around me.”
“As much as I can reach,” Allyson giggled before bringing her lips to his. She ran her hand up his chest to his neck and tunneled her fingers into the hair at his nape, her thumb running over the bristle. He used both hands to cup her jaw as they poured their feelings into the kiss. It wasn’t like any of the ones they shared before.
Ewan knew it was time to show Allyson the contracts and his father’s missive. He gave her one last lingering kiss. When they broke apart, Ewan shifted and pulled the parchments from his sporran. Allyson saw Ewan’s unease and guessed what he would show her. “The contracts?”
“Aye, but that’s nae all that arrived. My father sent Eoin and me a missive.” Allyson canted her head and furrowed her brow as she attempted to read Ewan’s troubled expression. “It pains me to share this with ye, but I fear what ma father might say to ye before I can convince him he and I nay longer see marriage through the same eyes.”
Allyson glanced down when Ewan unrolled the vellum. She watched his expression as he handed her the smaller of the parchments. She saw his nervousness, and she perceived his tension as it pulsed through him. She scanned the contents of the missive and nodded once, slowly.
“Does your father believe it’s possible to love one woman and to be faithful to her?”
“I dinna ken. Perhaps once he did, but I dinna ken if his experiences have jaded him too much for him to see nae every marriage has to be like his.”
“But most marriages he knows of are like his was. The king has a slew of bastards. I’m my father’s bastard.”
“Dinna say that, Allyson. You are nae.”
“You heard my siblings. You’ve seen how my parents treat me.”
Ewan inhaled until air filled his lungs to bursting before setting Allyson aside. He stood and helped her to her feet, then led her to the paintings. He uncovered the ones he’d discovered that that first morning. When Allyson gasped, he let go of them and reached for her as she stumbled backward, her fingers covering her mouth and her eyes wide as saucers. She shook her head as tears poured forth as Ewan pulled her into his embrace. She pointed past him before clenching her hand into a fist that laid against his chest. She trembled as she buried her face in the swath of plaid that crossed his chest and shoulder. She clung to him as she sobbed. Ewan knew she’d recognized the resemblance as quickly as he had. It only took Allyson seconds to realize all the hateful things said to her over the years had been entirely false, and to make matters worse, neither of her parents did anything but perpetuate the suspicions.
