He released her face, taking a step back. Melody swallowed, resisting the urge to touch her own cheek again.
“Why not? Why don’t you want children?”
He sighed, glancing away. “I have nay need of an heir. See, this is why I daenae want to wed ye. It is nae because I daenae likeye; it’s because if ye marry me, ye will miss out on many things that women want. Ye want an ordinary husband who cares for ye, a man who’ll give ye children. That is nae me. Ye ought to go home and find yerself a nice, respectable Englishman who wants a strappin’ heir and a few spares.”
“Oh,” Melody managed weakly.
He picked up the wooden horse and pushed it into her hands.
“Go on, lass. Get yerself back to yer room. Go to bed, and think on what I’ve said, aye?”
There seemed to be no choice but to let him usher her toward the doorway. Melody paused, the steep stairway opening up before her, and twisted around to look back at him. Callum had already moved back into the room and stood in front of the fire, staring down at it.
“For what it’s worth,” she said at last, causing him to glance up at her. “I don’t believe that a respectable Englishman could have made a ‘mistake’ feel quite as good as that. You have been very clear on what you want, but I am not sure you’ve considered what I might want.”
He made no response. Cheeks burning, Melody half-scrambled, half-fell down the staircase.
He didn’t come after her.
Melody’s hands were shaking when she pushed the door closed behind her. With a shuddering exhale, she placed the wooden horse he’d made for her down on the table and her paper beside it. She must have dropped her pencil somewhere, as it was gone. She had no intention of rifling through the dark halls to find it again. At some point, she must have tightened her fist with the paper still in it, and now the blank sheets were crumpled and creased.
She smoothed them out, one by one. She’d left a single candle burning for herself when she left her room before, and now it was nearly burned out. Only the stub was left, guttering pathetically and filling the room with a dancing, irregular light that threatened to go out at any moment. There was no fire, as before, and the air was cold and still.
How could he do that to me? How could he kiss me and touch me as if I mattered, and then turn around and tell me that it was a mistake, and that I ought to find a respectable Englishman? What am I to him?
The answer came at once, and Melody closed her eyes tight against it.
I am a diversion. A temporary solution to a problem.
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps if they married, Melody’s life would be nothing but misery. He would never be cruel, of course, and being the lady of a keep such as this was a fine prospect.
But could I manage being so close to him, day in, day out, and not touch him? Not call him mine, not truly? Would it not be like a sort of torture?
Now, that was a heavy word.Torture. Would it really feel that way to not have Callum as her own? Listlessly, she drew up a stool and sat hunched over, staring into the empty hearth. There was more to romance, she knew, than fluffy words of love, just as there was more to romance than plain lust and tangled bedsheets.
Victoria had been the one to explain the ways of men and women to her. It was an awkward, halting talk, and one that Melody had not truly understood. As she grew a little older, she’d heard snippets of conversation and learned enough to know the mechanics of such a thing.
She’d never given it much thought before. None of the respectable ladies she knew did. The act had once described in her hearing as ‘a troublesome but necessary thing, rather dull at best’. The woman in question, a middle-aged dowager offering advice to her younger niece, had claimed that such a thing was necessary for children and therefore security, and that her niece could expect it not to be troubled with such nonsense as she grew older.
There had never been any suggestion, not even the tiniest inkling, that it could be likethat. The way Callum had touched her, kissed her, made her feel so… so…
Weightless.
That was the word. As though she were flying, as though she were not touching the ground at all. As though it were only her, Callum, and the air around them.
Well, there would be no repeat of it. He’d made that clear.
On impulse, Melody bounced to her feet, hurrying over to the drawer where she kept her sketching things. She took out a fresh pencil, not caring that it was blunt, and rushed back to her crumpled paper.
The nib of the pencil skittered over the page.
What was it that Callum said about wood-carving and sculpting? That one simply sees the shape within the material and sets to work carving it out.
I wonder if drawing is the same. If one simply adjusts lines on a piece of paper to make the picture draw breath.
A figure appeared in her drawing. A man, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, with hair tangled around his face. He knelt, peering up at the viewer. The lines around him were somewhathasty and vague, but that did not matter. The focus was on his face.
There was an odd expression on his face, in fact. While shadows played disconcertingly over his face, hiding his true expression, there was something hopeful, almost wistful, in his eyes. His lips were parted, and there was… yes, there was longing in his expression.
