“With an English champion?” Caterine amazed herself with how little that mattered now.
“I do not believe you are still bothered by his Englishry,” Rhona pressed her.
“I am not,” Caterine didn’t deny. “It is the English blood of other men that plagues me, as well you know.”
Their ghosts and the stains they left behind.
Tamping down a sigh, she stared out at the thick sea mist drifting past her windows.
A barrier as impenetrable as the gateway to her heart.
With surprisingly little effort, she concentrated on the physical yearnings her champion had stirred in her, and tried to banish the cold other English knights had put in her soul.
That proved a more difficult task.
Far from chasing her cares, her eyes burned and a tear spilled down her cheek.
“Botheration,” she snapped, both furious and sad.
“Have you told him?” Rhona tightened her grip on Caterine’s hands, massaged her cold fingers. “Does he know how they used you before your first husband’s eyes, then slew him before yours?”
“Not in so many words.” Caterine kept her gaze on the swirling mist. “But he is wise enough to have guessed. I told him I have not known much physical pleasure and would enjoy exploring such intimacies.”
At her companion’s silence, she straightened her spine. “I am older now,” she said, suddenly weary, the sleepless night bearing down on her. “The prospect of mating no longer terrifies me as it once did. Other women seem to enjoy coupling. Perhaps I might as well.
“Now, after all these years.” She turned back to her friend. “I am willing to try.”
Rhona’s brow pleated. “That won’t be enough. He will want more.”
“He agreed, so you needn’t worry.”
“Agreed to what? Bedding you?”
“Aye, and why shouldn’t he?” Caterine frowned. She’d thought Rhona would understand. “He is lusty. Even I can tell, by his kisses. He’d dally with any woman willing to air her skirts.”
“Nae, nae, nae,” Rhona said, standing. “Not any woman. Have you not seen the way he looks at you?”
“At times.”
“Nae, more than that.” Rhona pressed both hands to her heart. “He is always watching you. He’s besotted.”
Caterine shook her head. “You are a good friend, and do not want to hurt me,” she said. “Just because he expects, even wishes for nuptial pursuits, doesn’t mean he desires me.”
“Oh, but he does,” Rhona said, as if she’d read Caterine’s doubt. “That is why he will be pleased you fancy him in such a way. He is sore smitten with you. Only you.”
“Nae, I do not believe so.”
“Why?”
“He agreed to more than the pleasure part,” Caterine said, and the deepest reaches of her heart quickened in objection to the other half of their understanding.
“What agreements?”
Caterine drew a breath. “That any intimacies we share shall be pure physical acts, nothing else.”
“And you believed him?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
