He felt her awaken in his embrace and smiled when she clung to him more tightly.
“There were so many times I thought I lost ye.”
“Ye will never lose me,” she reassured him, the strength in her eyes proof of her bold claim.
They kissed a little more. Constantine wanted more. His body felt feverish with his need.
Not here. “Let us go home.”
She sprang up smiling and putting the sun to shame. “Home?”
“Aye,” he said with a quiet, knowing smile. “That is where ye were headin’ was it no’?”
“I didna know it until I was halfway here,” she admitted with a slight laugh. “I think in my heart I hoped ye would know where to look fer me.”
He sat up with her and shook his head. Confusion knit his brow remembering his steward’s missive. “We have Hugh to thank fer that.”
“He carried me off the road after I jumped from a slaver’s carriage.”
Constantine let the rage that boiled beneath thesurface cool. He rose to his feet and took her hand to help her up.
“Ye jumped from amovin’carriage?”
Her eyes searched his, and finding the furious beast crouching in the shadows, she smiled as if her action was of no importance. She was incorrect.
“What else could I do, Constantine? I couldna stay with them, aye?”
He gazed into her eyes, as sunshine and stars restored his heart to life. He was in love with her. He almost sighed, thinking what a challenge she was going to be. He smiled instead.
When she took a step away from him. He took her hand and pulled her back.
“Ismay, take me as yer husband.”
She grew serious, staring at him in disbelief. “Why?”
“Why?” he echoed. He was hoping for anaye, not expecting awhy.
“Why have ye changed yer mind? A sennight ago ye couldna let go of yer past. Now ye’re eager to race into another?”
He could have been offended at her criticism, but she was correct to question him. The change in him surprised him, as well.
He told her the truth. “’Tis as if I were in the darkness and I didna know it until ye shined yer light. Now, I never want to go back.”
Her bonnie eyes opened wide and her smile grew. “In that case, my answer is aye.”
He surprised her—and himself by the elation he felt. Swooping down, he lifted her off her feet and carried her laughing and cradled in his arms to his horse.
They shared his mount for a short way. The horse wasn’t built for two and Constantine would not push the beast.
With the reins in one hand and her hand in the other, he led her to the home he’d built.
He looked around at the hills darkened in the shadow of the high mountain range of Ben Nevis in the distance.
“I had to position my house where the shadows didna reach. It took two months to get it precisely correct, but being washed in the radiance of sunlight is worth any struggle to find it.”
She blushed and smiled knowing he was referring to her.
When the house finally came into view, Constantine remembered how much he loved it here, in his little sunlit glade beneath the great Nevis. He could do nothing but smile when Ismay broke away from him and ran forward.
