A deep breath and she sat up and let go of his hand. “Yer here, Jack Pike.”
“Yes.”
“Ye said ye would never come to Scotland again. I thought ye meant it. I thought I could count on it.”
Those fierce blue half-moon eyes.Her wet hair, plastered to her head. A drop of water at the tip of her nose.
Jack got off his knees and sat cross-legged. He winced a little, feeling some strain in his right calf. The bone was strong now, but he had not used the muscles of the leg in a long time and he had just done the most vigorous kicking of his life.
“I didn’t know my own mind. About a lot of things.”
“Aye.”
“I was dishonest. To myself.”
“Aye.”
“And to you.”
She was suddenly very still. Jack felt like the air between them was solid, crystalline.
Minutes ago, his entire life’s happiness had hinged on getting to her before she became lifeless and sank to the bottom of the loch. And now his whole future depended on how she took what he said next.
“From the moment you met me, Helen, you knew I was less than sincere.”
“Nae, I—” He raised his eyebrows and she grimaced. “Aye.”
“You knew I was a flatterer and a flirt and a philanderer, but you didn’t know how much of a liar I was.”
He looked away. He had steeled himself for this and now he couldn’t even look her in the eyes when he told her.
“I have to tell you something.”
“Nae, ye dinnae have to—”
“I am the Duke of Dunmore. I am John MacNaughton.” A crack of thunder. “You have every right to be angry.”
He forced himself to look at her. Her chin was trembling and he did not know if it was from cold or rage or some other emotion.
“I lied. I deceived you. Innocently at first, but I kept the deception going. I was unfair to you.”
He couldn’t read her eyes. He wanted Helen to say something, give him some clue about how she was receiving his confession, but she stayed silent.
“I wanted you, Helen, so I kept lying to you. And I fell in love with you. But I didn’t know it. Or I did know, but I didn’t want to know it because I didn’t think I could love anybody and I thought you couldn’t love me—”
She must have lunged at him from her seated position because suddenly he was lying on the ground and she was on top of him.
“Ye. Fell. In. Love. With me?”
“Yes.”
She kissed his mouth, his nose, his cheeks, his eyes. She kissed him like she had gasped for air when he had found her and brought her up to the surface of the loch. Frantically.
“Jack.” She said between kisses. “Jack.”
He stroked her wet hair, trying to calm her. Finally, she stopped kissing him and just sat atop him, looking down at him, her own face now smeared with mud from his.
“Do ye still love me?” she asked.
