The sound echoed the thundering of Kieran’s own heart. Love scoured his soul.
It all expanded upward to his mouth, words swelling and multiplying until he had to loose them.
He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Jamie’s ear.
“I love ye,mo chridhe,” he whispered. “Now and forever.”
She gave a hiccupping gasp and pivoted, staring up at him.
Kieran could see the fireworks reflected in her eyes.
And then . . . she smiled as bright and incandescent as the fireworks at her back.
“I love you, too,” she mouthed to him. “Always.”
18
Eilidh feared she had been hoodwinked.
Honestly.
She stared at the trousers, shirt, and waistcoat laid out on her bed.
I willnae ask ye to do anything untoward, he had said.
Why had she believed Kieran MacTavish?
The man truly was the Devil incarnate. A snake in the grass.
She picked up the note lying atop the shirt.
Put these on and meet me in the great hall.
Trust me.
K
She snorted.
The man was dogged beyond tolerance and reason.
Clearly, he thought that donning trousers—which she had surely worn aboard ship while, no doubt, losing her foolish heart to him— would help jar her memory.
Eilidh eyed the innocent-looking shirt and waistcoat apprehensively.
She didn’t have to do it. She could simply refuse.
But the oranges . . .
They conjured a brightness, a lift in her soul. A luminous sweetness that hung just beyond the reach of memory.
In short . . . she adored oranges.
Curse the wretched man for knowing her so well.
The fruit was a blinding weakness for her, but one that she very rarely indulged. Oranges, after all, were ghastly expensive and far outside her meager finances.
Still, as deeply as she craved those oranges, she hated how Master MacTavish’s constant pestering rattled her peace of mind. The man was as relentless as the ocean waves below Kilmeny Castle, slowly eroding her ability to remain numb.
