So, the lass had caught him bathing...
He smiled even wider as his body reacted instantly to the thought of her staring at him. She had a bold, unflinching gaze. One that hadn’t caused her to blush or giggle.
She had stared at him like a woman who knew her mind and her desires.
The thought warmed him.
Imagine taking a woman such as she to his bed...
That thought was quickly followed by another. He would never know her. Not like that. Even without his promise to Kieran, there was the small matter that she was promised to another.
He’d taken a woman from a man once before. He would never make that mistake again.
Isobail had assured Kieran that her betrothed, Robby MacDouglas, didn’t care for her just as she had convinced Ewan that his brother didn’t love her. In the end both Robby and Kieran had been willing to sacrifice their lives for the viperous bitch. While Kieran had chosen to die, Robby had fought a feud that had almost destroyed both the MacAllister and MacDouglas clans.
No woman was worth that.
Nora belonged to Ryan.
No matter what he felt for her, he would honor her as if she were already the man’s wife, his own desires be damned.
Nora spent the rest of the morning avoiding Ewan. Something that proved extremely difficult once they left the brewer’s house and were once again on their way toward Lochlan’s castle.
“You are so strangely quiet, lass, that you’ve got me fearing for your health. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Quite well,” she hastened to assure him. He’d asked that question entirely too many times.
The last thing she intended to tell him was the matter that bothered her was him. Who knew that the absence of his beard would make such a significant change to his face?
He no longer looked quite so off-putting or beastly. There was an elegant grace now to his features. An air of powerful predator.
Why would any man with a face so breathtaking seek to bury it under hair? Surely there should be a law to prohibit such a crime.
All day long she’d been trying to banish the images of him that she had in her head.
The sight of him naked and sprawled in his bed. The sound of his deep laugh.
The way he’d tasted last night when they kissed.
And most of all, the sight of him this morning in the stream.
Aye, but it was hard to focus on anything else while she was plagued by such decadent things.
At least he hadn’t drank any ale this morning nor had he accepted Aenos’s offer to take it with him when they left. It appeared he did intend to remain sober while they were together.
That was most definitely a good thing.
They passed the morning quietly until they happened upon a peddler who was coming down the road toward them. The man’s wagon was heaped with cloth, boxes and kegs. A small, muscled brown horse pulled the loaded wagon while the man walked before it, holding onto the horse’s reins.
He was a short, pudgy man with kind brown eyes who smiled and tipped his cap at them.
Nora’s heart quickened at the sight of his wares.
“May we stop?” she asked Ewan.
“Why?”
“I wish to look. Please?”
