“I thought ’twas my dimples.”
“I didn’t see your dimples until the very end of our first meeting. Your dimples made me decide that I must marry you. But I fell in lust with your hands. I remember that you were not wearing gloves and you took my hand and—oh, your fingers, so long and strong and gentle, and that very little bit of copper hair on the back of your wrists here.” And she rubbed her cheek on the back of his hand as if she were a cat.
Alasdair grunted, making a show of still not believing, she thought, so that she might continue to play with his hands.
“There were many nights that year that I touched myself in my bed, imagining my hands were your hands, Dr. Andrews.”
He shook his head. “I cannae believe that.”
“You must tell me if you hate that I wanted you because of the wanting or because it’s you, Alasdair.”
“I hate neither. I love both of those things. I hate that it could have been my hands all along but for my cowardice.”
She smiled. He was learning not to say he was sorry.
“And now it will always and only be your hands.”
“Ye are a remarkable woman.”
“And you are a brave man to have me.”
He kissed her. And as always, under the pressure of his mouth, she melted. All the hunger, the care, the tenderness, and the unyielding tenacity of her Alasdair were present in his kiss. And she surrendered to it completely. And then after minutes of heat and softness and tongues and lips and the mingling of breath and wetness, she suddenly had a terrible thought. She stopped kissing him and pulled away. He opened his eyes.
“Alasdair.” There was a clutching at her chest.
“Aye, Arabella?”
She gulped. “Alasdair, I cannot believe I have been so foolish. I am not yet one and twenty. My birthday is still a month away. We will have to go to Middlewich or London and get my mother’s consent to be married.”
“Do ye think she will oppose us?”
“I ... don’t know,” Arabella faltered. “I have treated her very badly by not writing to her. I am sure she likes you because of what you did for Harry. I am not so sure she likes me. Or trusts me.”
“Of course she does, ye are her daughter.”
“You must promise me.” She clutched the lapel of his coat. She felt she might suffocate.
“What, Arabella?”
“You must promise still to marry me even if we have to wait.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “Aye, not a one can stop me.”
“You mustn’t leave me. We mustn’t be separated.”
“I will ne’er leave ye.”
“When we get to Middlewich or London, whichever place she is, you will go to her to ask her and I will stay away, hidden somewhere. If she gives her permission, we must be wed first so she cannot take me away from you before we are married.”
“She widnae do that, Arabella. Ye have turned her into a witch in yer head. But I willnae have ye anxious on the matter.”
Alasdair released her and rapped on the roof of the carriage and the coach stopped. He buttoned his coat and got out.
Arabella buttoned up her own coat. She could not hear what Alasdair said to Paterson. After a few minutes, Alasdair got back in the carriage and stooped down and picked her up and turned around and sat back down again, so she was lying across his lap, her shoulders supported by one arm as he leaned over her and kissed her mouth while his other hand unbuttoned the coat she had just buttoned and then began touching her breasts through her dress.
“What did you say to Paterson? Did you tell him to go to Middlewich instead of Sommerleigh?” she asked when he paused for a breath.
“Do ye like what I am doing with my hand now, Arabella?” He was very delicately shifting the material over her nipple with the lightest of rubs.
