Coming to the archway, she paused and looked out at the parapet wall, which was cloaked in the muted golden rays of sunset. The music played on, drawing tears to her eyes.
She stepped outside and looked in the direction of the sound. There he stood, leaning against the castle wall, the hide bag under his arm, pins and drones casually tossed over his shoulder, the chanter held tenderly in his hands while he filled the air with beautiful music.
Janet stood quietly watching him, disbelief still making her doubt the good of her ears, her eyes. Lord help her, she’d thought he looked handsome before, laughing over supper, getting ready to kiss her within the shadows of the tunnel. But that was nothing compared to the poignant emotion now radiating from his softened expression. He wasn’t playing the music. He was feeling it with every fiber of his being. He opened his eyes and beneath the sooty sweep of his dark lashes, the light from the setting sun made his eyes shimmer in shades of green that rivaled the emerald isle.
She could have watched him, listened to him for ten lifetimes, but he caught sight of her and lowered the mouthpiece from his lips.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded.
He smiled, not the confident grin she was accustomed to seeing him wear, but something more humble, more vulnerable. “I didna’ hear ye there.”
“Ye play verra’ well,” she told him softly, liking this different side of him she hadn’t seen before.
He shrugged his shoulders and the drones slipped to his arm. “’Tis just something I learned as a lad. I dinna’ play often.”
“Pity.” She moved toward him, as if pulled by an unseen tether. “Ye seem to love it.”
His penetrating gaze took her in, seemed to search her through and through until she shifted in her spot, feeling naked before him.
“I love many things,” he told her, setting the pipes down at his boots and ignoring her look of disappointment. “I love m’ sword, m’ pistols, m’ country, m’—”
“Did ye not tell me last spring that yer father is a poet?”
His mouth snapped shut and he nodded… reluctantly.
She smiled when he looked away from her toward the distant hills. What was it he didn’t want her to see? Like some of the Grants before him, he had a reputation in the bedchamber and on the battlefield. But there was more to him than lust for fighting and women. She’d seen it in his eyes a few moments ago.
“D’ye love yer quill, too, Darach Grant, son of a poet?”
He slid his gaze to hers. He looked rather stunned for a good moment or two, and then one corner of his mouth hooked into a tender smile. “What d’ye know of me, Janet Buchanan? Did ye miss me so much while I was away that ye found oot whatever ye could?”
Oh, for goodness sakes, the man was insufferable! She forgot how much she wanted to hit him with something. “The only time I ever spared ye a thought was to hope I never had to see ye again.” His widening grin proved that he didn’t believe her. “Roddie Menzie would be a better husband than ye!” He pouted, indulging her tirade, and it took every ounce of strength she possessed not to pinch him, or laugh at her own insane rant and then fall into his arms. “How foolish of me to think ye anything but a rooster too in love with his own feathers to—”
“I do love m’ quill.”
“What?” She blinked at him. Did she hear him right? “Ye jest.”
“Nae.” His green eyes sparkled in the light. “’Tis more powerful than the sword, is it no’?” He moved off the castle wall and took a step toward her. She didn’t back up but tried to still her thumping heart. “With it, deeds are remembered, laws are decreed, love is defined, and…”—he lifted his fingers to a tight curl falling over her cheek and swept it away with the tenderest of care—“hearts are revealed.”
She smiled as he bent his head close to hers, waiting for his kiss. She was correct about him then. There was, in fact, more to him than—Hearts are revealed? No! Oh no, he couldn’t have… She would rather die than think it true. She never wanted him to know how she felt. He didn’t feel the same way else he would have returned to her… for her sooner. The humiliation of it would be too much.
“Ye read my letters then,” she whispered against his succulent, irresistible mouth. She wanted to bite him and draw blood.
“Only one,” he whispered back, ready to kiss her senseless.
He didn’t get the chance.
No! He knew! He knew how she felt! The rogue! The bastard! He’d read her letter! Which one? Oh, it didn’t matter which one. They were all the same—all about him! She shoved him away, ignoring the hard strength of him beneath his shirt. “Ye’re just like the rest of yer kin, Darach Grant! A heartless, vain knave who will do and say anything to have his way.”
“Janet.” He reached out to grab her but she escaped him.
“Say nothing, please. I’ve listened to ye enough. Think me a fool because I fell under yer spell and gave ye my heart! I hope I amused ye!” She swiped a tear from her eye and ran from the battlements before he could stop her, before she heard him call softly after her. “I fear, fair Janet, the fool is I.”
Chapter Ten
Darach heard Janet’s words over and over in his mind as he left Ravenglade later that night. She’d given him her heart! What the hell would he do with it? What if he broke it? Had he done that already? But how? He hadn’t even been here. Lasses had lost their hearts to him in the past, but the difference was that Darach never cared enough to do anything about it. He never returned, doing them both the favor of not letting attachments form. But the thought of attaching himself to Janet wasn’t abhorrent. In fact, it pleased him.
He’d try to figure it all out later, he thought, reaching the end of the tunnel. He turned back to look over his shoulder. No one followed him from the castle. He’d refused when Will offered to come with him to lessen the number of their opponents the quiet way. He could move faster alone. He left the tunnel and ran into the shadows fed by the night sky. When he reached the wall of fire he stood before the flames and said a silent prayer that he hadn’t gone completely out of his mind and didn’t know it. Was he truly going to run through the fire and risk life and limb to save Ravenglade for Malcolm, and Janet Buchanan from Roddie Menzie?
