“This is my carriage,” she said, frowning.
“Of course. I have been travelling in it for weeks, chasing you hither and thither, but not for much longer, I am happy to say.”
“Where are you taking me — not back to Lochmaben, I take it? And presumably not to Strathinver Castle. Where, then?”
“To a small island,” he said, pulling at her bonnet and eventually wrenching it off altogether, so that half her hair tumbled down.
“Ian, what on earth are you doing?”
“Kissing you,” he mumbled, for his lips were pressed against her exposed neck, and moving down to her throat.
“Stop it!” she said, trying to swat him away, but he was too large a man to be swatted, and besides she was tightly held in his embrace. “Ian, for heaven's sake! Where is this island?”
“Well, I am not quite sure,” he said, surfacing for a moment. “It is Kiltarlity’s island — he seems to have bits of land scattered like salt grains over the entire kingdom. Apparently, it is somewhere off the west coast. The coachman knows. You see, I am thoroughly sick of you running away from me, so— Oh! Can you swim, Izzy?”
“No.”
“Good. No running away, then.”
“Are you planning on holding me captive, Ian?” He was kissing her cheeks now, and it was hard to sustain her anger when he was so eager for her… so ardent, and so very unlike himself. “Because I do not consent to this journey at all.”
“Oh, I knew you would not consent if I asked you, so I have abducted you. It makes it easier. Have you any idea how wonderful you smell, Izzy? Mmm…” His lips found her throat again.
Laughter bubbled up inside her. “Ian, have you run mad?”
He turned his face up to her, and grinned. “Yes. Indubitably. That is what losing a wife will do to a man… it drives him mad, utterly, absolutely, completely. But now that I have found you atlast, I intend to keep a tight hold of you, so there is hope that perhaps in time I shall be sane again.” He sighed. “Oh, Izzy, my dear wife, how I have missed you.”
“I am not your wife,” she said, but he was kissing her again, and she found the very last vestiges of her anger seeping away in the touch of his lips. He was so strange! She had thought she knew him well, this husband of hers, and had long since decided that he was irrevocably dull, but this was so different and oddly exciting… the abduction and his kisses and his unexpected exertion of husbandly will… but especially his kisses.
Eventually, he found her mouth and oh, this was not at all the Ian she knew! Her husband was a mild-mannered, restrained and gentle man, nothing at all like this hot-blooded, passionate stranger, and however much she wanted to dislike being abducted, there was something deliciously thrilling about it. She could not fight him… did not want to fight him, so she melted into his embrace and let him have his way.
For a long, long time they remained entwined, until the carriage dropped into an especially deep rut and flung them apart, laughing, trying to catch their breath.
“Oh, Izzy,” he murmured, one hand reaching out to stroke her cheek. “My sweet wife…”
“But I amnotyour wife,” she said in a small voice.
“Yes, you are. We stood in front of your family and mine, and made a solemn vow to each other, remember? Asacredvow, before God. Nicholson may have been a fraud, but God is not, and the words we spoke then bind us just as surely as if we had spoken them in the middle of a field with no other witness. I promised to love you and cherish you, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance, and I meant every single word of it. Whatever the law says, I am irrevocably bound to you for all eternity. You aremine, Izzy, as I am yours. We belong together. So I am going to take you to this small island which hasonly one tiny cottage on it, because it is the only place I can think of where you cannot run away from me, and I am going to keep you there and ravish you senseless until you agree to marry me again in the eyes of the law. I might even ravish you right here and now, since you are so irresistible.”
“In the carriage?” she squeaked.
“Why not? I plan to ravish you a great deal on our island, so we might as well start at once, to get into practice for when we are legally married again.”
“And if I never agree to marry you?”
“Then we shall grow very tired of our little island, I dare say, although with such a quantity of ravishment, we might not care. I certainly shall not, so long as you are with me. Izzy, my sweet Izzy, if you had chosen one of your other suitors five years ago…” He paused, and took a deep breath, and she could see the raw pain etched on his face. “I could have coped with it, I dare say. Perhaps. I should have put a brave face on it and pretended not to mind too badly. But to be married to you for five years… and then to have the shining light of my existence snatched away from me, and be plunged into the darkness of utter despair… I cannot bear it, Izzy. I cannot face the rest of my life without you.”
She had no words for him. All her bravado was stripped away in the face of his desperate need of her. No one had ever needed her before. Wanted her, yes, but this… this was different.‘The shining light of my existence…’Oh, Ian, foolish man, to keep such feelings hidden all this time!
“Why did you never tell me this before?”
“I knew you never loved me, so… Oh, Izzy!”
He curled himself up to lay his head on her shoulder, one arm still round her waist, squeezing her tight. With a sigh, she rested her head on his, her fingers running through his soft hair. He had lovely hair, with just enough of a curl to be fashionable without waywardness, and so silky soft. Had she ever touched itbefore? She could not even remember. What a strange, distant marriage theirs had been.
Another jolt shook them apart again.
“A carriage is no place for ravishment,” she said firmly, “and your island does not sound very comfortable. Shall we find an inn, and stop for a while so that we can talk properly?”
