Page 82 of A Sinful Night with a Scot
Still reeling from his words, Elsie could barely speak, and besides, her mind was now running wild as the thoughts whirled around her head.
I am free. I would be free tae dae as I pleased. I could be with another and produce a child tae love and tae care fer.
Ye could dae all of those things. Yet, in the eyes of God that wouldnae be right. And tae dae them, ye would lose the man sitting beside ye. The man who loves ye with all his heart. The man who has protected ye from any and all harm, including yer own faither. Besides, are ye nae in love with him?
Aye. I am. I love him with every fiber of me being. In fact, I now couldnae imagine me life without him. Tae dae so actually causes me pain, fer even now, I am aching at the very thought o’ leaving him.
Elsie then turned to Keane and took his hand in hers.
“Look at me, Keane.”
But he did not move from staring into the fire.
“Please,” she said gently.
Eventually, Keane turned his head to look at her, his eyes glassy and saddened.
“I need ye tae hear me words, all right?” Elsie encouraged.
Keane nodded just once.
“I want tae thank ye fer sacrificing everything ye feel fer me, just so I can be happy. Just so I can fulfill me desire tae be a maither. Ye truly are the best man I have ever met in me life.”
Keane’s sadness remained, and not able to look at her a moment longer, he dropped his gaze.
“However,” she continued. Keane then lifted his eyes again, his eyebrows hitching in surprise. “When a woman loves a man with the depth o’ feeling that I love ye, she cannae give that love or that man up so very easily. There is naething that can replace that. Nae even the want o’ a child. I would prefer tae spend me life by yer side than have a child with another, for I could never love that other with the intensity that I love ye. Nor would I want tae.”
In her life, Elsie had never seen a man cry, but at that very second, tears trickled down Keane’s face. He seemed unable to speak, but Elsie could see they were tears of relief, tears of happiness, tears of joy.
Swiping his hand across his face, he expressed both disbelief and delight, and still struggling to form words, he opened his mouth to speak.
“Ye would stay?”
“Aye,” Elsie gushed, throwing her arms around him and kissing his tears. Moving from one side of his face to the other, she kissed and talked at the same time.
“I never want tae leave ye. Nae ever. I love ye. I am yers and ye are mine, remember?”
Suddenly, Elsie found herself swept up in his arms, and as though she weighed nothing at all, Keane lifted her and sat her upon his lap. His lips came crashing down onto hers, his pain, fear, and sorrow pouring out of him into a kiss that showed his possession of her.
“I dinnae want tae live me life without ye,” he panted, before kissing her again.
“Ye willnae,” she breathed, the second she could break from his kiss. “I’m nae going anywhere. I swear.”
Wrapped in the safety of Keane’s arms, Elsie’s eyes slowly closed. She had not been able to sleep earlier, but after all they had emptied from their souls, and knowing that she would choose him over any other, Elsie finally felt at peace.
In complete contrast to the beginning of their journey together, she no longer wanted to escape. No more did she want to run away. Her heart was lost to the man who held her so tenderly, so lovingly, so protectively. While he had been willing to make a sacrifice that would have destroyed them both, Elsie would learn to live with the fact that she would never be a mother. Rather that, than she not having Keane by her side. With that knowledge, she had dropped into peaceful slumber.
Elsie suddenly gasped as a loud sound jerked them awake, for he too, had fallen asleep. Elsie jumped off his lap and stood, pressing her hands against her ears at the loud ringing bell. She did not need to ask Keane what the sound meant. Her own father had a similar alarm system. Besides, the bellowing voices in the corridor made it perfectly clear.
“We’re under attack.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Och, me God,” Elsie cried. “We must go and help them.”
“Nay, Elsie,” Keane barked. “Go tae me bedchamber and hide, dae ye hear me?”
But even in her shocked state, Elsie stood her ground and stared up at him, refusing to be told what to do again.
