Her face changed, but her expression was difficult to read in the candlelight.
“In that case, I had best leave you to rest.”
Isabella walked hurriedly away, her light footsteps sounding up the stairs. Hamish gripped the table and silently cursed himself.
He should not have let her leave. Not without some declaration of—something on his part. God’s blood, he had bedded the woman and breathed not a word on the subject.
For certain, she would think him a heathen. A villain. Uneducated and unthinking. She had cooked for him, and he had scarcely even thanked him.
Not yer finest hour, Hamish McIvor.
He closed his mind to thoughts of how his mother and sisters would scold his behavior.
Perchance ’twas all for the best. There was no future for himself and Isabella de Neville. Hadn’t all that transpired this eve confirmed as much?
Hamish pushed his chair away from the table and returned to his place by the fire, fixing his gaze upon the orange flames and not allowing himself to dwell on the answer to his question.
For in truth, naught Isabella had said or done this eve made it hard for him to picture her as the Lady of Greenock.
Far from having a clear head, Hamish was more muddled than ever.
Chapter Thirteen
Isabella banked upthe fire in her chamber that Siegfried had lit earlier in the evening. If she’d learned anything during her time at Ember Hall, it was the importance of keeping a good fire blazing.
But the bright flickering flames could not dispel the darkness and doubt in her heart. Nor could the warmth lull her into a state of relaxation.
She had never been less relaxed in her life.
Instead of laying on the bed, she paced across the floorboards, kicking the rugs out of the way so they could not trip her nor slow her thinking.
What am I to do?
From the first, she’d recognized her bone-deep attraction to the highlander. Ye Gods, the man was beautiful—if someone so undeniably masculine could be described in that way. But hewasbeautiful; from the sharp curve of his cheekbones to the fiery hues in his untamable hair. She felt no shame in appreciating his good looks.
Forsooth, enough men had openly appraised her looks over the years. She had sensed the lust in their gaze when they looked at her, and she thought it was high time she experienced the same.
But now she had the terrifying notion that what she felt for Hamish was more than lust.
Ever since she came across him singing in the stables, something had shifted inside her. Mayhap it was the simple words of the song on his lips that had unleashed some yearning she’d kept long under wraps.
“How well do I love thee, how well do I love thee.”
She wanted to hear him say as much to her. To see love in his gaze and feel it in the touch of his hands.
Just yesterday, she had suggested to Hamish that they might be friends.
She clutched her arms about her chest and let her weight rest against the fastened door of the closet.
What lunacy is this?
How could so much have changed with one circle of the sun?
She didn’t want to be his friend. She wanted to be his lover.His wife.
But she’d seen the expression of distaste that passed over his face when she spoke of being the Lady of Greenock. Heard the conviction in his tone when he said she was not raised for a life of productivity and purpose.
Hamish had turned out to be another man who thought Isabella de Neville was purely decorative, like her prized emerald necklace.
