Their foreheads nearly touched, with the loch glimmering behind them. But a sudden splash rippled across the peacefulsurface of the loch, breaking the hush between them. Baird’s head jerked toward the sound just in time to see a silver-backed trout leap clean out of the water, flashing once in the sun before vanishing again beneath the surface.
Davina was startled, but then laughed. The moment grounded them both, pulling them gently back from the edge of something unbearably raw. Baird found himself staring at her, unable to look away from the brightness in her eyes, a brightness he had nearly forgotten existed.
There was mischief there, clear as day.
“What are ye thinking about?” he asked, with suspicion and curiosity mingling.
She tilted her head. “Freedom.”
He raised a brow. “Aye?”
“And choosing things fer meself,” she smirked.
Before he could make sense of that, she stepped back, bent gracefully and slipped off her shoes.
Baird blinked. “What are ye daeing?”
“Choosing,” she said simply.
She set the shoes neatly on the grass. Then she untied the ribbon at her sleeves and shrugged off her outer gown, leaving her in her lighter shift beneath. She folded the gown carefully and placed it beside the shoes.
Baird’s jaw might have slackened several inches. “Davina…”
But she only smiled, and that mischievous spark in her eyes only grew brighter.
“Every time I answer,” she said lightly, “I make a choice.”
“And what choice is this?” he asked curiously, drawn to her more than ever before.
She stepped toward the water’s edge, with the hem of her shift brushing her calves. “The choice tae feel the sun, tae feel the water, tae dae something simply because it pleases me.”
His breath caught. “Davina…”
She made another choice: she unpinned her hair, letting it spill down her back in a golden tumble that glowed in the daylight.
Baird swore under his breath, but only because his heart was thundering. “Lass… ye cannae just…”
But she could. She had said so herself.
And then she laughed and ran straight into the loch, with water splashing around her legs before she dove deeper and her shift billowing like pale silk beneath the surface. Baird stood rooted to the spot, stunned and with a helpless smile tugging at his mouth despite every instinct screaming that it was improper and reckless and wild…
… andfree.
She surfaced with a gasp and a radiant grin. “Come in if ye dare, me laird!”
Baird stared at her, laughing and alive, as sunlight turned droplets on her skin into diamonds. For the first time in years, he felt the weight of duty slip, just a little. That made him huff a breath which was half-laugh and half-surrender.
“What in God’s name have I married?” he muttered.
Davina only splashed water toward him in answer, daring him with her eyes.
For a moment he stood frozen at the water’s edge, watching her laugh as the loch embraced her like an old friend. She looked so alive, so unbound, that something inside him simply let go.
“Ah, saints help me,” he muttered, and began stripping off his coat, then his boots, then every heavy layer that marked him as laird.
Davina’s smile widened as he waded in, the cold water rushing up his calves and his thighs, stealing the breath from his lungs. She splashed him before he’d even found his footing.
“Is that how it’s going tae be?” he asked, with his teeth clenched against the shock of the loch.
