“Aye.” He had to push the single word through a suddenly stiff throat, and his heart fluttered in his chest like an oystercatcher’s wings as it took flight. He understood only too well her need to push away the pain and try to replace it with something that, for once, didn’t hurt.
Rose’s mouth tilted upward, and Sinclair’s moved down. The position wasn’t the most comfortable, but it didn’t matter. He’d contort his body in any manner if it meant holding Rose. Her lips were warm and pliant under his, welcoming.
Despite his having the advantage of a superior angle, Rose drove the kiss. Her mouth rubbed slowly against his, drawing out the sensation pumping through him. Pinpricks of delight filled him, like starlight dotting the firmament. The small flashes turned into a million small explosions, driving him nearly mad with want.
Yet Rose did not increase the sweet, torturous tempo. Sinclair gasped against the glorious pressure building inside him. Taking advantage, Rose deepened the kiss, and the light inside him threatened to blind him. Yet still she measured their pace, intensifying the craving.
Then without warning, she broke away and stared skyward. In Rose’s pupils, Sinclair could see flashes of green, blue, and pink. Glancing up as well, he beheld the shimmering, ever-changing glow that held her in a trance. Warm surprise shot through him at the sight and mixed with the heat already radiating inside him.
“It seems the merry dancers have returned just for us,” Sinclair said softly. “It is very late in the year to spy them.”
“I’d only heard about the northern lights being green.” Rose’s swollen lips parted as she placed the back of her head against his chest, clearly angling for a better view. Gathering her in his arms, Sinclair laid them both down on the sand. The sky stretched above them, the bright, silvery moon an intriguing contrast to the kaleidoscope of undulating colors.
“’Tis the most common hue, but on occasion the fae lights decide to put on an even grander show for us mortals. On extremely rare occasions, they glow red.”
They’d been that color the first anniversary of his mother’s death, and Sinclair had always thought they’d been a message from her. When they’d resided in the servants’ quarters at Muckle Skaill, she used to sneak him onto the roof to watch the merry dancers. It had been one of the few pleasures of living there—just the two of them on top of the world, free from the confines of the ghastly mansion. She’d cuddle him tight and tell him stories of a world where evil didn’t prevail and where kings were good and kind. Under the magical sky, Sinclair could pretend that he wasn’t tired from mucking out the stables or cleaning the chamber pots ... or, if the earl was in residence, that he wasn’t still smarting from the latest blow he’d received for some perceived insolence.
Sigurd had never understood his wife’s fascination with the aurora borealis, but he’d never stopped her from racing out of their home with Sinclair and then the other children whenever the lights had appeared. Sinclair had carried on the tradition after his mother’s death, and he’d tell his siblings his mother’s old wonderful tales—so they could know her as he had. And during those nights, he swore she smiled down on all of them.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful—even the stained glass windows in Sainte-Chapelle cannot compare, and I’ve always thought the Parisian church one of the most magnificent places in the world.”
The awe in Rose’s voice transfixed Sinclair. Fierce pleasure swept through him that she’d found so much joy in one ofhisfavorite marvels. Rose had traveled to places he’d only read about, and some he had never heard of, yet his little corner of the earth could still astound this woman.
“There’s a beauty here that runs so deep it sometimes hurts your soul,” Sinclair admitted.
“Thank you for sharing it with me, Thorf ... I mean Sinclair.”
“Call me Thorfinn.” The words burst from him, and he realized howrightit felt.
“Thorfinn.”She said his name with a smile he could hear, even though both their gazes were pointed skyward.
Unable to stop himself, he reached out and gently grabbed Rose’s hand. She threaded her fingers with his as they watched the living rainbow of light arc and shrink, then grow again. The glow seemed to reach down and swirl around them, making them part of the splendor.
But even as they lay together, the crofter and the heiress lost in a fairy-tale world, Sinclair knew that just like his mum’s stories, the fantasy would come to an end, and reality with all its brutal harshness would return.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone!” Myrtle scolded as she flew from the Flett cottage and stomped her way over the sandy beach.
Rose jumped at her friend’s cry. Turning away from where she’d been watching two otters frolic along the shoreline, Rose greeted Myrtle with a scowl. “Heavens to Betsy, I don’t need to be watched like a baby. I’m perfectly fine now.”
Myrtle stopped, her wide blue eyes looking almost purple in the pink dawn light. “You don’t know. Do you?”
“Know what?” Rose asked, reaching for her reticule before remembering that she’d left it and her hat at Fornhowe. Without acigarette to play with, she bent down and plucked a cockle from the sand.
Myrtle thoroughly scanned the empty beach and moved closer to Rose. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “The cave-in wasn’t accidental.”
Rose, who was in the process of walking the shell between her fingers, bobbled it as a spike of fear stabbed her. “What do you mean?”
“I saw two figures running from Fornhowe last night,” Myrtle hissed.
The horror that Rose had managed to push away reared back into her soul. “Spies?”
“I believe so,” Myrtle said. “When I was crossing the strand, the sound seemed more like an explosion than a simple collapse of the entrance. Didn’t you think so? You were inside the chambered tomb. I thought yourealized. No wonder you were so unconcerned about being alone on the beach. I thought it was just your habitual bravado.”
Rose rubbed the cockle between both her hands. Its ridges scraped against her palms, helping ground her in the present even as the darkness seemed to cluster around her and her limbs grew shaky. “I heard something detonate, but I dismissed it as part of my hallucinations. I should have considered that it was real, given what happened in Daytona. But it’s been so long. Nothing happened when I was in London.”
“Somehow the spy ring must have learned you were here, and it spooked them,” Myrtle said.
Rose’s stomach flopped over, and she dropped one hand to rub it. But it didn’t help the queasiness or the pain. “I hoped I could be done with suspecting the islanders when I found the still, but I can’t, can I?”
