But nay, that was just the wind blowing, making her feel she’d been knocked off her feet. Or mayhap an effect of her emotions run rampant.
“What—” She wanted to ask him what that was for, the beautiful gesture of seven kisses, like a blessing. She did not want to spoil it with a question. And anyway, she knew. A part of herknew.
She wanted to throw herself into his arms. Cling to him. Kiss him until neither of them could remember aught else besides kissing one another.
She took a careful step away. “I must go back.”
“Must ye?”
“Aye, och aye. I have duties to which I should attend, tasks that wait for me.” She was babbling.
“As ye say. Ye be a busy woman.” Was that amusement in his eyes? Amusement and something more, far more.
“Thank ye—thank ye for saying ye will stay on. And for the blessing.”
“Blessing?”
“The—the kisses.”
“Mine to give.”
Hers to receive.
She fled then. Fled what she saw in his eyes and the words she wanted to say, and how badly she wanted to hold him. How she ached for his lips on hers.
She tripped over her own feet on her way down the slope. The wind blew her hair into her eyes so she could not see, but she pausedto look back.
Looked back at him.
He stood where she’d left him with the red hair streaming out on the wind and his gaze upon her.
He made her ache.
Why? He was but a wandering harper, one who had chanced to stop at their keep, at this place and time. A talented man whose music attracted her.
Aye, surely it was the music. Nothing more.
Chapter Fifteen
Finlay must indeedbe going mad, for he’d begun speaking to the presence in his chamber. Baring his soul to it as if it were an old friend.
“She came to me this morning, up on the height overlooking the sea. ’Twas as if my longing summoned her, almost. And shesawme. I think she truly saw me for the first time.”
The presence in the room stirred but did not answer. To be sure, it did not. Finlay glanced at the bed. It was as if he could almost see the form of a young man stretched out there.
“She maun remember in time, must she no’? How can she fail to remember, when I recall everything?” Each detail, nearly. Every time she’d looked at him. Each kiss.
Throughout time. They had both traveled in time, apart and together.
He’d spent this lifetime searching for her. Because he did remember, had done so almost from the beginning of his life. It had come to him in bits and pieces, in memories, in random longings. He’d put them together into stories, into songs. He had found names for them in the world.
He had realized who she must be.
After all that, after so many miles traveled and so many wishes made, how could it end badly?
“The wheel turns,” he told his silent companion. “No’always to our benefit.”
And what would he do if, ultimately, she failed to remember? For he could not help but feel in some way it was up to Katrin. Their shared past was all there inside her.
