He refused and dismounted. “Your safety is my first priority. If anything happened to you, Alex would never forgive me, and I surely would not be able to live with myself.”
His caring touched her heart.
“Climb down,” he directed. “I will build a fire and we can eat.”
She did as he asked, and followed him inside a copse where they’d take cover from the storm. She tied her horse to one of the trees and waited for Petro to build a fire. Keely liked to travel. The raw beauty of the Highlands had always called to her. Could any place be more blessed by the Almighty?
“Ye said the Highlands remind ye of home?”
“Aye,” Petro said. “Not Rome, but my family’s estate in the countryside. There’s fields of grapes and figs. Vegetable gardens and fragrant flowers. The women go barefoot and bathe in the golden sunshine. The men wear sandals in the field at harvest time, their baskets overflowing with the bounty of the earth.”
Keely tried to picture the place in her mind. “It sounds like paradise.”
“Perhaps for another man.”
“The memory of yer wife and son keeps ye from going back?”
“Aye,” he said. “I buried them on our property behind the cottage and erected a monument stone with their names on it. I planted her favorite blooms… jasmine, crocuses, and violets, so she would always remember the happiness we shared. I spent months sitting by their graves, wondering what to do with my life. If I should remarry and start a new family. But my heart wasn’t ready. And I refuse to wed a woman I do not love.”
The man should be a poet, not a secretary.She swiped the tears from her eyes. “What I would give for that kind of love.”
Petro finished building the fire, wiped his hands on his breeches, and settled beside her on the ground. “You are closer to it than you think.”
“Are all Italians so optimistic?”
He grinned. “We are a passionate people.”
“After years of war with England and constant clashes between the clans, the Scots have grown cynical and disappointingly practical when it comes to love.”
“You are mistaken, Lady Keely.”
“How so?”
“I do not know of another place that allows handfasting.”
Keely shrugged. “There is nothing special about it. In the absence of a priest, a man and woman can declare themselves as married. It is an old tradition that many clans rely upon to secure treaties and preserve their bloodlines. There are those that take advantage and seduce maidens on the promise of holy wedlock.”
“Nay,” he disagreed. “In the heat of passion when a man desires a woman so fiercely and knows he cannot have her without making her his wife first– this is the sole purpose of handfasting, to preserve honor, to make the marriage bed holy.”
Once again, his words astounded her. “I doona think ye’re Italian, Petro.”
“Nay?”
“I believe ye came from a faerie mound.”
He chuckled. “I am too dark and ugly to be a magical creature.”
“Ugly?” Toads were ugly. Insects were ugly. “Ye are a striking man.”
Petro snorted. “And you are blind.”
“Glenna likes ye.”
“Aye,” he confirmed. “I said I was ugly, not a bad lover.”
He handed her a wineskin and she gladly took a drink—it warmed her insides. Then she ate a handful of venison and a piece of bread. As Petro had predicted, it started to rain harder and the winds picked up. She shivered and pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders.
“You are cold and tired.” Petro unhooked his own cloak and offered it to her. “Sleep. I will keep watch.”
