A smile played at his lips, the small, fond smile that she loved and missed. Her heart surged. She wanted to weep. “Dougal—”
“I must go. Madam,” he said in farewell, and turned away.
She stood, picking up her skirt to follow him. “Wait, please.”
He paused on the garden path, the illumination through the glass doors falling golden over him. Beyond, she heard the chink and clatter as servants gathered dishes and glasses inside.
“Lady.” His tone was cool, flat.
“Please.” She reached out, touched his arm. “Do not go.” The air was heavy with the scent of roses, of green and earth and stone. Rich with promise, heavy with the need for forgiveness.
He looked down at her. “What would you have me do?”
“Stay,” she said breathlessly. “Stay with me. I miss you so.”
Chapter Twenty
“God, Meg,” hegrowled low, taking her arm, pulling her away from the glow of the doors, into the darkness of the garden. He tugged her with him behind the crowding ferns in pots lining the path toward shadows and moonlight and the drowsy, drunken scent of roses.
“Can we talk—please, Dougal.”
He spun her into his arms, her gown floating like clouds around her, and he kissed her, his mouth hungry and tender on hers, his hands strong yet gentle on her bare shoulders.
With a soft cry, she looped her arms around his neck, and gave herself to the power of kisses that were impulsive, desperate, insistent. She opened her lips for more, her heart beating fast, and she let his tongue dance over hers, gave him hers, slipped away to seek again. Leaning her head back, she felt his mouth trail hot along her jaw, her throat, his fingertips caressing her bare shoulders, then the upper swell of her breasts. His breath heated the space between her breasts, above the snug edge of her corset.
With one hand, he snugged her tightly against him so that her skirt floated outward, its cage tipping like a ringing bell, silken tulle crushed between them. She pressed into his arms, feeling his hard torso, his heartbeat against her, even through layers of silk and fragile netting and the smooth wool of his coat. His solid, safe nearness was blessedly familiar. She needed him,had always needed him from the moment they met in a long-ago storm.
She sighed, moaned breathily as his hand rounded over her confined breasts, teasing over the soft swell above her bodice edge. Her body pulsed for him. For a moment she wanted to tear away each exquisite layer of the gown just to feel him like steel and fire against her.
As his lips found hers again, her knees went weak beneath crinoline and petticoats, so that she clung to him, arms circling his neck, fingers threading deep into his thick brown-gilt hair. He smelled of spice and wine, of vanilla and strength and caring, and she loved him.
God, how she loved him. His hands were divine upon her, caressing, teasing her so that she shivered and craved. He framed her face in his palms to kiss her again, and she felt the change in it, the withdrawal of spirit. He tore himself away, breath rough.
“Lady Strathlin,” he rasped, “This is wrong for both of us. I must leave.”
She grabbed his coat lapels. “Stay,” she whispered.
“If I stay, I cannot keep from kissing you—loving you. So I must go.” He was stonelike.
“Stay. I must—you need to stay—” She stumbled through it, knowing the hardest part was yet to come, yet to be said, and she did not know how to tell him.
“For a night—or forever?”
“Forever,” she whispered. “Surely you know that.”
“Forever requires trust. Honesty. Commitment. It hardly involves you marrying another.”
“I have not accepted his proposal.”
“Not yet. It is advantageous and therefore inevitable. Surely your lawyers agree.”
“You are so bitter. I should have told you. I know that.”
“Aye so. I do not like playing the fool while you withheld from me what so many knew. I did not plan to come here to say that—but perhaps it must be said,” he finished with a sigh.
“I went to your cousin’s house to tell you before the soiree, but you were gone.” Her voice broke, and her heart felt about to break.
“I discovered it through the card you dropped that the doctor found. But I suspected it after I met with Matheson. He did not tell me outright, but made it pretty clear.”
