She spun around and spotted Lachlan. He was a shadowy figure leaning against the outside wall of the cave. His tartan was pulled up over his head and wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak.
“Where is Alexander?” she asked, feeling some concern for the young clansman, who had been very kind to her and was only trying to help pass the time by striking up conversations.
“I’m up here, my lady,” he keenly replied from an overhanging rock above.
Catherine lifted her gaze. The lad’s legs were swinging back and forth over the edge.
“Oh, there you are.” She felt rather foolish all of a sudden.
Lachlan lowered his hood. “Do you need something, Lady Catherine?”
Even through the darkness, she could feel the heat of their shared awareness of each other. The silky cadence of his voice sent a tremor of longing through her veins. It also revealed the desire he could not hide. At least not from her.
He wanted to keep her at bay, of course. He had made that abundantly clear. He wanted to behave properly in front of the others, but she could sense, deep in the workings of her body, that he was not pleased about it.
“Yes, I do need something,” she replied. “I wish to speak with you privately, Lachlan. Alex, would you excuse us?”
It was a bold request. Lachlan was probably gritting his teeth at her blatant disregard for his earlier command—to hide what existed between them—but she didn’t care if the others knew. She felt no need to hide the truth. Why should she?
She realized suddenly that her memory loss had erased any inhibitions she might have felt if she’d had a real life and a reputation worth caring about. But she did not. As far as she was concerned, anything before six months ago simply did not exist; therefore, her persona had no genuine value to her. In that way, she was perhaps a bit reckless.
Alex hopped down from the ledge. “I’ll join the others by the fire.”
As soon as he was gone, Catherine spoke in an angry whisper. “You didn’t have to treat him like that.”
“Like what? I didn’t say a word just now.”
“He’s intimidated by you.”
Lachlan merely shrugged. “He’s just young, that’s all.”
“And how old are you? You’ve never told me.”
His eyes lifted briefly, as if he was surprised by the question. “Three-and-thirty.”
In her mind, she worked out the details of his life. If he had been cursed for three years and the curse had begun on the tenth anniversary of his wife’s death, he would have been less than twenty when he married.
“Will you walk with me?” she asked. “I want to speak with you, and I don’t want the others to hear.”
“It’s dark,” he replied. “The moor is rocky. You’ll fall and hurt yourself.”
“Oryouwill.”
Lachlan let out a breath of annoyance and pushed away from the wall. “You don’t give up, do you, lass? Pick up your skirts. We’ll stay close to the hillside, and we’ll just go far enough away that we won’t be heard. Will that suffice?”
“I suppose it will have to.”
He took her by the hand and led her away from the cave entrance, past the horses. He sat down on a big boulder and raked his fingers through his hair.
“Is it that much of a chore just to talk to me?” she asked, wishing she did not feel so hurt by his frosty demeanor, but there it was.
He looked up. “Aye. It’s the worst chore imaginable. You know how I feel, Catherine. You know all the things I want to do to you, but this curse prevents me from doing anything, so I just wish you would let me be and let me get through this trip to Edinburgh without making things harder than they already are.”
Oh.
Her breath sailed out of her lungs. She had been so absorbed in her own need to be close to him—to feel the way she had felt the night before, when he kissed her up against the stable wall—that she had ignored the fact that he was not actually rejecting her. It was quite the opposite, in fact. She understood it logically, she supposed, but her heart only felt one thing: the agony of being apart.
She sat down. “This is difficult,” she said. “To be honest, I wish the others hadn’t come. We would have been fine on our own, just as we were before, and I would have been happier, not having to hide how I truly feel.”
