Suddenly she panicked. “Alastair!” she called after him.
He turned around as she walked up to him, her face puzzled. “Why do we always do this?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I know it is not what I want, but we strike sparks off each other.” He gave a little laugh. “Angry ones.”
“Kiss me again,” she whispered. “After tonight I will not see you again. We may dislike each other, but we kiss well.”
“That we do,” he murmured, hardly able to believe what was happening. He looked down into her lovely green eyes and his will was gone. He could not have stopped himself if he wanted to. He folded his arms around her and abandoned himself to heaven.
She was cool from the evening air, but her lips were warm, and she strained herself closer and closer to him till he could feel the pressure of her breasts against his chest. Her tongue invaded his mouth, and he moaned with pleasure, then he answered by thrusting his into hers. He wanted to touch her everywhere and fulfill his desire to possess her, but he knew that that pleasure would never be his. This would be the last time they would ever touch.
However, if it was the last time it would make no difference if he did what he had wanted to do for a long, long time. He cupped one hand over her breast and strained her against him. She made no objection, even giving a little involuntary whimper of pleasure.
She felt his hand on her other breast and his arousal against her stomach, then he pulled up her dress and ran his hand underneath it to cup one of her buttocks. He moved his mouth from her lips to her neck, then she felt something wonderful. His fingers were caressing the most sensitive part of her body, arousing a feeling like the one she had in her dreams. She whispered his name as it built and built, then utter bliss swept over her, and she cried out in ecstasy.
He held her as the shaking of her body died down, then she drew away from him. “Thank you,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes filled with wonder, then she turned and ran downstairs, leaving him feeling totally bereft.
Caitlyn could hardly believe what had just happened. She composed herself before going into the dining room, then said goodnight to everyone, pleading a dreadful headache, which was true. She kissed Eileen and Ava, but Ava insisted on seeing her up to her room.
“What is wrong, Caitlyn?” she demanded as soon as the parlor door had closed behind them.
Caitlyn shook her head. “Ava, I was not making excuses when I said I had a headache. I feel terrible.”
“Is that all it is?” Ava looked into her friend’s sad eyes. “Because I think it has something to do with my brother. I think you two are scared to admit you are in love.”
Caitlyn was horrified. “I let him kiss me just to say ‘thank you’ for helping you, but that is hardly love, Ava,” she pointed out. “I will admit he is a very handsome man, but we argue all the time. We would kill each other within a year. Please do not even suggest it!”
She marched away, and Ava watched her, disappointed. If only she could make them marry each other, these two people who were blind to the passion between them. She shook her head and sighed. That power lay only in the hands of God.
Alastair managed to muster up some good cheer for his guests, and no one except Ava, who knew him better than everyone else, could see through his hearty and happy manner to the real man underneath, the one who was feeling as though his heart had been ripped out.
He had avoided Caitlyn the whole morning, and by the time they said goodbye his face was aching from sustaining his fake smile. When he kissed her hand he avoided her eyes and he gave her the briefest of farewells, and as her carriage rolled away he turned on his heel and went straight back into the castle.
“Are you all right, Alastair?” Ava asked anxiously. “You look so sad.”
“I’m fine,” he said shortly.
“I am sure they will invite us to their estate at some time,” she said soothingly. “You will see her again.”
“I do not want to see her again!” he snapped. “Now, can we please stop talking about her?”
He sprinted upstairs and came down a moment later in his work clothes, then he strode outside. He worked with his tenants the entire day, ate a hasty supper, and fell into bed so exhausted that he could not even think. He had pushed Caitlyn’s face completely out of his mind.
Caitlyn spent the journey pretending to doze so that her mother would not engage her in conversation. All she wanted to do was get home and collapse into bed. She had found that sleep was always the best medicine, but would it work for this feeling? She would NOT call it heartache. She could not stand the man after all, but she knew she would miss his sister. Yes, that was it. She would miss Ava.
She too ate a light supper, since her appetite was gone, but she spent a whole three hours trying and failing to get to sleep. Eventually she got up and went to the window, feeling wretched. She knew that in the next week or so her mother would be lining up prospective suitors for her, something she had been determined to do ever since Caitlyn turned fourteen.
Her father had managed to successfully persuade Eileen that fourteen was too young for Caitlyn to be married. Her mother had never stopped hinting that it was time she at least began to look.
For this reason Caitlyn had resigned herself to the prospect of a number of young men beating a path to her door to ask for her hand in marriage. She felt apprehensive, even slightly queasy at the thought. Still, it had to be faced, but she was determined that she would not accept the first man her parents approved of, or one that was kind but dull. Her husband would have to thrill her. He would have to be the kind of man who demanded that she should be the best person she could possibly be.
Caitlyn was quite unprepared for the number of suitors who arrived asking to court her. She had expected perhaps half a dozen, but was quite shocked when the number reached double figures. John interviewed all of them, and sent the obvious fortune seekers packing at once. He was a shrewd judge of character, and his first impressions were rarely wrong.
When he was interviewing them, Caitlyn and her mother would stand in a connecting room where only a door separated them, and they would listen to what they said as the Laird asked them questions. It was not just the words that counted, but the manner of their speech. A man’s intellect could be gauged that way, and Caitlyn could tell the humorless and dull ones at the beginning of the conversation.
However, she was not just looking for wit and good conversation. She could not marry a daft man, or a cruel one, and her father ruled those out very quickly too. Eventually there was one left: the pleasant-faced, confident son of Baron McKnight, a neighboring noble whose estate covered half the Highlands, as her father remarked.
Robert McKnight was not as tall as Alastair, nor as muscular, but he had a kind, even temperament and a good sense of humor. He could discuss politics, agriculture, and even the latest fashions with ease, and he was very well read.
