“Eight and twenty when she died, so four and twenty when she married David. She was six years older than me. David had just turned thirty. Too young to die. They were both far too young to die and definitely did not deserve being murdered.”
Iain was doing some quick subtraction in his head. “Ye are only two and twenty?”
“Yes.” She frowned up at him, wondering why he interrupted her serious thoughts on her loss with questions about her age. “What does that matter? Actually, I will not be two and twenty for a few months yet. I am only one and twenty until the end of November.”
“I thought ye were older.” He grimaced for he suspected that was not what a woman wanted to hear.
She laughed a little. “And how does that matter?”
“It doesnae. It was just a surprise.”
“How old are you then?”
“Eight and twenty. My birth date is the first of November.” He told himself to shut up because he sounded like an idiot worrying over things that did not matter.
Emily kissed the hollow at the bottom of his throat. “So old. I might need to rethink this liaison.” She nearly screeched with laughter when he suddenly pushed her down onto the blanket and tickled her mercilessly.
Iain’s intentions quickly shifted from playful to amorous and he kissed her. He turned them onto their sides so he could more easily undo her gown. When he tugged it down, he had to pull her arms out of the sleeves and he sensed a growing tension in her body.
Kissing the swells of her breasts over the top of her shift, he murmured, “It is all right, Emily. No one will see us.”
“They only have to look down,” she protested.
“The only ones who use this trail are my kin and the Powell brothers and they all know the horses tied up there means do not look down.”
“You have brought another woman here.”
The hint of an accusation in her tone made him grin. “Not me. But there are few places around here to be private.”
Emily was not sure whether to believe that or not. Then he pulled her shift down and began to kiss her breast, stealing away all thought of a need for privacy and a possibility of other women in his life. Nothing else mattered but how he could make her feel.
He sat up to take off his shirt and she waited tense with anticipation. She loved how it felt when their skin touched. Nakedness was vital to lovemaking, she decided. All that skin touching was almost as stirring as one of his kisses. She welcomed him back into her arms when he returned and met his kiss with an equal ferocity.
When he had to reach beneath her skirts to shed her drawers she had the passing thought that at least they would not be fully naked in the broad daylight. Then his hand slipped between her thighs to torment her and she arched into his touch. Surprise peeked from beneath her passion when he used his clever fingers to bring her to release.
The force of that release was just easing when he joined their bodies. Emily clung to him and he moved lazily almost to bring her passion back to a peak. Muttering his name she tightened her grip to urge him on to a greater ferocity when she hit and then went over another peak. She was still gasping from the strength of it when he joined her, groaning her name into her hair as he held her close.
Iain finally rolled over onto his back to fix his pants and glanced over at Emily. She lay on her back, her clothes in disarray and her arms flung out to the sides. She looked well pleasured, he thought, but suspected she would not appreciate him telling her so. He would love to compliment her on how beautifully responsive she was but also thought that might not be a thing a lady would consider a compliment. She did look tempting lying there with her breasts bared to the sun, but he smothered his growing interest, bent closer, and brushed a kiss over each breast.
“Ye do look fine basking in the sun like that,” he said quietly, and almost laughed at the speed with which she opened her eyes, glanced down at herself, and then began to yank her clothing back up.
“Rather like a fresh-caught fish . . .” he began, then laughed out loud at the outraged look she gave him and held her back when she would have clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Such a funny man,” she muttered even though his laugh urged her strongly to join in.
“Back to real life.”
“I know. Not that real life around here is such a travail.” Using her fingers as a comb she put her hair back in order.
“There are days it can seem so.”
“Even on those days, it is not so bad. Of course, I have nothing to do with the raising of the pigs. I gladly leave all that to Mrs. O’Neal and her children. I am not fond of pigs.”
“Ye dinnae see any of us mucking about with them, either, though they do provide us with a fine meal now and then.”
She grinned. “I know. I just wish Mrs. O’Neal would not tell us the name of the pig the meal came from.”
“Aye,” he agreed, and chuckled. “I just cannae figure out if she does it because she is pleased about what the poor pig produced for us or if she is trying to put us off eating any because she doesnae like to kill them.”
