Sometime during their coupling, she pulled his shirt off over his head and he unhooked her bodice at the back. Piece by piece, their clothing was tossed to the floor while the lovemaking never ceased.
Catherine rolled onto her back again, and he pushed inside with a meticulous skill that began a flood of tingling sensations from her toes up to her shoulders. She clutched at his back and thrust her hips forward in a wild, shuddering release of passion, crying out at the last moment, while her body exploded with hot sparks of ecstasy.
He quickened his pace, grunting with exertion, for they had been making love fast and hard for quite some time. She could feel the heat of his pleasure, ready for release, poised for an orgasm of significant proportions. He leaned up on an elbow and looked down at her face.
“Come inside me,” she said. “I want you to. I don’t care if you put a child in my womb. Iwantyou to.”
He shook his head. “No. I cannot. I won’t lose you.”
“But there is no curse.”
His body convulsed and he squeezed his eyes shut, shuddering feverishly and withdrawing at the last to ejaculate his seed onto her stomach.
She waited a moment for him to recover his senses; then he rolled to the side. They both lay exhausted and spent, gazing up at the canopy in the near darkness. Catherine struggled to gather her thoughts and regain her composure. It had been an exquisite sexual experience. He had made love to her, and he had told her, with tenderness, that helovedher. She hadn’t imagined it was possible to feel so close to another person, and when he spoke those words her heart had ached with joy.
But at the last moment he had withdrawn and refused to take his pleasure inside her. She needed to understand why.
“Do you no longer wish to marry me?” she asked.
He turned his head on the pillow to gaze at her in the flickering light. “I care for you, lass. Do not think otherwise. That is why I cannot put a child in your womb. It’s not something I can take lightly.”
“But what if Iwanta child with you? What if I don’t want to ever live without you?”
He tossed an arm up over his face. “I’ve done that before. It did not end well. I told you I don’t want to lose you.”
“But what does that mean?” Her anger was aroused, and she sat up. “Are you saying that you don’t want children? Or now that you arenotcursed by black magic, you don’t want to risk the possibility of cursing me the old-fashioned, natural way?”
“No, lass. It’s not that.” He sat up, too. “Just please understand that I cannot be cavalier about such a thing. I must be careful. I just learned, only yesterday, that you were not going to die. Let me enjoy you for a while. Let me believe that we can have some time.”
“But no one can live like that,” she replied, “always expecting the worst to occur. I told you before, there are no guarantees.Youcould die tomorrow from a knife wound in a tavern, and then where would we be?”
“It’s not that simple, Catherine.”
“Yes, it is.” She slid off the bed and pulled on her petticoats. “If you truly love me, then offer me a real life. Propose to me again, and promise to give me babies. Lots of them. That’s what I want. I want to build a family with the man I love—and you are that man, Lachlan. There, I have said it. I have changed my mind. I would marry you in a heartbeat if you were willing to live fearlessly with me. Butthis…” She pulled on her skirt and gestured toward the bed. “This cannot be enough.”
She picked up her bodice and slipped it on and hurried to the door.
He leaped off the bed. “Catherine!”
“We will talk again tomorrow,” she said, holding him back with a hand, “after Raonaid and I come back from the stone circle. We are going there at sunrise, and everything may seem very different after I return. Thank you for this,” she added as she turned to unlock the door. “It was lovely, and I do care for you, Lachlan. But I must get my life back. And you need to think about what you want from yours.”
It took every ounce of mettle she possessed to leave the chamber and shut the door behind her, when all she wanted to do was go back inside and lie with him all night.
Chapter Thirty-five
The Drumloch Circle dominated the summit of the grassy ridge, one mile north of the manor house and half a mile east of the dense hemlock forest. Catherine and Raonaid reached it just as the sun appeared over the horizon and cast long black shadows across the grass. The ground was crusty and hard beneath their feet, cloaked with a layer of frost, and the air was crisp with a wintry chill that Catherine could feel inside her lungs as she breathed.
Cheeks flushed with exertion, they reached the top of the steep hill and walked into the center of the circle. Neither spoke a word, for there was a melancholy silence about the place that demanded a moment’s reflection.
Catherine looked down at the grass and thought of their mother, who had begun her labor here. What emotions had she experienced when the pain began and she collapsed? Had she felt joyful anticipation? Or had she known that something was wrong, and she would not live to see her children grow?
Raonaid turned slowly around, her blue-eyed gaze sweeping over each individual standing stone. Catherine watched her sister curiously, not sure what to expect.
“How will it happen?” Catherine quietly asked. “And when?”
Raonaid lifted a finger. “Hush. I have no control over it. All I can do is wait for one of the stones to speak to me.”
“How will it speak?”
