He stopped her. “Nay. God knows I probably should, but I don’t.”
It was too late for regret. Too late for self-recrimination. Too late to say he’d made a mistake. Too late to tell himself that he never should have brought her here.
Even if he wanted to be angry with himself for doing something so incredibly stupid (not to mention dishonorable), something guaranteed to cause them both a shite-heap of trouble, and something that could jeopardize his place in his kinsman’s secret guard, he knew it wouldn’t change anything. What was done was done. Whether she was right or wrong for him no longer mattered: she was his. And damned if that didn’t make him happy.
Reaching down, he cupped her face in his hand, gently stroking the soft curve of her cheek with his thumb. She was so damned beautiful she took his breath away, and never more than now when she bore the stamp of their passion on her swollen lips and stubble-scraped skin.
Eoin was discovering that he hadn’t left those Viking marauder roots as far behind as he thought.
“All I meant,” he explained, “is that you deserved far more than a wall in a fisherman’s cottage for your first time, and had I any semblance of honor and control, I would have given it to you—along with far more pleasure.”
Relief spread over her delicate features in a bright smile. “But you did bring me pleasure.”
He had, he realized, as surprising as that was for a maid. From everything he’d heard, the first time for a lass was always horrible. But Margaret had liked it. Just thinking about the way her body had responded to him, how she’d pressed her breasts against his chest and tightened her leg around his hip, drawing him closer, did what he would have thought impossible. Defying every law of nature, he felt himself stir.
He looked into her eyes and continued to run his thumb over her bottom lip. “There’s more,a leanbh,” he said huskily. “Much more.”
“Really?”
The spark of anticipation in her eyes went straight to his bollocks. She was still standing in front of the wall, and he was remembering too well how she’d looked pressed up against it. How her eyes had slitted, her breath had quickened, and her cheeks had flushed.
He had every intention of seeing that again, but this time, he was going to do it right. “Aye, really. But before I show you exactly what I mean, you must agree to one thing.”
A small frown drew between her brows. “What’s that?”
“To be my wife.”
The look of shock on her face would have been amusing had it not been at the expense of what honor he had left.
“W-w-what?”
He frowned. Surely she knew as well as he what this meant. She was his, damn it. She’d given herself to him, and he had no intention of letting her go.
“I want you to marry me, Maggie. Right here, right now.”
Margaret’s head was spinning.
Barely had she recovered from the fear that she might have killed him—the look on his face before he’d collapsed against her had been as close to a man glimpsing paradise as she’d ever seen—then she was reeling from the blow of thinking he regretted what had happened. Now he was proposing? And unless she was mistaken, what he was proposing was just as shocking.
“A clandestine marriage?” she asked.
He nodded grimly. “It’s not ideal. And if there was another way, I wouldn’t suggest it. But you know as well as I do that our families will not want an alliance between us. The church might not like informal ceremonies done without the banns, but it will be valid—and binding.”
Their eyes met, and she knew exactly what he meant. Even if their families wanted to try to undo it, they would not be able to. If they agreed to wed right now, spoke their vows, and consummated them, in the eyes of the church they would be just as married as if they’d posted the banns for the next three Sundays and then exchanged vows before the church door with a priest.
“But once we explain to them what has happened...”
“Do you really want to take that chance? What do you think your father will say?”
Her father would be furious. She didn’t want to think about what he would say, but it was what he woulddothat worried her. She wouldn’t put much past her father when his pride was involved. He wanted her to marry the Lord of Badenoch’s son—no matter how improbable that was now—he would not settle for a kinsman of Bruce’s, and a third son at that. Her father loved her, but he would do whatever it took to keep them apart, virginity or not.
Eoin was right, if they didn’t marry now, they might not have another chance.
But something was holding her back from saying yes. She tilted her head, studying this serious, handsome warrior who’d wound his way around her heart. “Why do you want to marry me, Eoin?”
He stiffened. “I would think that is obvious.”
That was exactly the problem. Margaret wasn’t a romantic. She hadn’t thought her husband’s feelings for her would matter to her when she wed. It was discomfiting to realize that they did. Honor should be enough, but in this case it wasn’t.
