“Well,” she smirked and went back to moving the plane, “Iammore capable than I had supposed. I imagine that along with learning to create fireworks, I could also learn to control the fire itself.”
Kieran felt color climb his own cheeks.
Bloody hell.
He was in so much trouble.
13
Eilidh ran along the clifftop path, lungs near to bursting, feet pounding in time with her pulse.
If only she could run faster and farther . . . so far away thatThe Minervaand the events aboard would never find her.
Her thoughts beat a frantic tempo with her heart—wife, wife, wife.
It couldn’t be true.
She had beenmarried?
She wasn’t sure if the thought comforted her—she hadn’t been a woman of loose morals! her child had been conceived in wedlock!—or terrified her even more.
Of all the men on Earth, how could she have takenKieran MacTavishas her husband? Yes, the man was alluring and handsome—that was a biological fact—but surely she was intelligent enough to marry for more than basic animal attraction.
In all the pain of her memory loss and the shame of finding herself with child, she had never once considered that she might have taken a husband.
Why would she have thought as much? She was not wearing a wedding ring when she was dragged, half-drowned, from the ocean. Had Master MacTavish not provided her with one, then? Did he not esteem her enough as his wife to give her a wedding ring?
Wife, wife, wife.
How could she have forgotten about a husband? That seemed like something a woman would remember.
Could Master MacTavish be misleading her in some way?
She finally slowed when her body screamed in protest, air leaving her lungs in great, gusting gasps. Clouds raced across the sky, the sun winking in and out, turning the ocean into a mottled patchwork of light and dark.
She pressed a shaking hand to her forehead.
Oh, merciful heaven!
If she truly were married . . . what about Simon? What about the simple, peaceful life she planned with him? What would become of them now?
The thought rendered her nauseous.
How could she unravel this tangled knot her impetuous younger self had snarled half a world and a lifetime away?
She wiped the tears gathered in her eyes. The white numb threatened to utterly collapse. Panic thrummed in her blood and a jittery ache hammered in her chest.
What was her future to be now? The unwilling wife of Kieran MacTavish?
She pressed a hand to her stomach, as bile rose in her throat.
Turning in a circle, she spotted the chimneys of Kilmeny Hall peeking above the grassy headland. Beside the elegant, honey-stone of the hall, something winked in the intermittent sunlight.
Eilidh frowned and squinted.
It was . . . a glasshouse. A large glasshouse.
Ah. Was this Mr. Campbell’s studio? The one the gentlemen had discussed?
