Magdalene raised her fingers to her lips, their touch nothing like his mouth upon hers.
Nothing like his warm breath melding with hers, but so briefly! What was she to do now?
If Gabriel knew the truth, then what was the use of pretending she was mad any longer? She could laugh like a lunatic and douse herself with ale and that would bring her no closer to returning to the convent.
He knew!
Magdalene stared blindly at the purple canopy, her heart pounding.
A strange tingling at her shoulder where Gabriel’s tears had fallen, though he had wiped them away.
Whether the sensation was real or imagined, she couldn’t say, but one thing she did know for certain.
She didn’t want to return to the convent, aye, she would be a liar through and through if she claimed anything different.
Like a faded dream, her burning desire to leave Gabriel and MacLachlan Castle was gone…and replaced by a growing understanding that filled her with wonder.
Men didn’t cry, no, not at all unless they deeply cared about something—or someone. Mayhap even loved…
Magdalene gasped, her fingers flying again to her lips as a longing unlike anything she’d known made her wish desperately to feel Gabriel’s stirring kiss once more.
If she had opened her eyes and met his gaze at that moment, would she have seen anger like at the lough? With such gentleness in his kiss, no, it wasn’t possible!
She still felt confused by what had happened, but she sensed as surely as she breathed that his actions had been spurred by pain. Och, had he thought her fainting had been feigned? Why wouldn’t he believe as much after all she had done to frustrate him?
Here his clansmen and their wives and children had surrounded her in the village, showing her such gratitude, and then she had collapsed in their midst…
“He must have thought me so callous,” Magdalene murmured, for surely Gabriel knew by then that she was no lunatic, else he wouldn’t have reacted as he did. Hurt and anger had fueled him, aye, which meant she had wounded his heart…
“Oh, Gabriel.”
She’d breathed his name even as she realized that she had never said it before, Magdalene feeling her own heart aching with fresh remorse.
Tenfold more cutting and deep than the emotion that had felled her in the village—dear God, he must believe she hated him.
“No, no, no!” Magdalene flung aside the covers as her outcry echoed around the room, and she sprang naked from the bed.
Her flesh puckering with goose bumps though the fire Gabriel had stoked still burned so brightly.
Another sign of how much he cared for her to have once again seen to her comfort.
Covering her with the blankets.
Climbing into the bed with her last night to try and still her shivering with his body.
Allowing her to continue with her ruse even when he knew the truth—but why?
Magdalene felt breathless as she raced to the armoire and threw open the doors to find a gown—the perfect gown.
She wanted to look lovely for him, she must! Mayhap that might tell him that she didn’t hate him at all—
“Lady MacLachlan?”
Euna’s shocked voice made Magdalene groan in front of the armoire, and she whirled to face the maidservant who came rushing toward her.
“Och, dearie, shouldna you be abed? Laird MacLachlan sent me tae sit with you and make sure you had whatever you needed as soon as you awoke—”
“I want tae find him, Euna! Please dinna try tae stop me!”
