Page 43 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke
“Is that so?” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping. “And did you like what you saw, Isobel?”
And yet—and yet she could not bring herself to deny him this liberty when she had dreamed about him taking so many more liberties with her. So, she gathered her courage and met his gaze boldly.
“I did,” she said.
“Mm.” He drew the sound out, and it felt as though it rumbled from his chest. “I like it when you’re direct with me.”
She exhaled through her nose in amusement. “I don’t know how to be anything else.”
“No. Perhaps that’s why I can’t stop thinking about you.” He reached out a hand and caressed down her jaw. “I keep thinking about that kiss,” he said, leaning closer, his eyes intent on hers. “Do you?”
“I…”Yes. Of course. “Would ye have kissed me if yer maither hadn’t returned home?” she asked instead.
A pause where she could practically see the way he weighed up his answer. “Yes,” he said eventually. “Does that alarm you?”
It should. And yet she couldn’t lie.
“No.”
He smiled. Another uncharacteristic point of softness. “I thought you didn’t like me.”
“I don’t,” she said, but she didn’t think that was the truth anymore. And maybe it never had been. “I thought ye didn’t like me.”
“Mm.” His breath danced across her face. “I thought so too.”
She didn’t want him to move away, didn’t want this oddly tender air of intimacy to end.
In this room, by the firelight’s gentle glow, they were not a duke and a Scottish lady; they were a man and a woman. When he looked at her like this, the intensity in his gaze, she felt as though he saw her, the essence of her.
And she… she thought she saw him, too. A man ruled by duty, who believed that was his higher purpose, even more his own happiness. Perhaps he’d never sought his own happiness—perhaps he had never known what it was like to ride across the hills and by the lochs, the wind in his hair, and a song in his heart.
All the power, none of the freedom.
Abruptly, her heart ached for him.
“What’s that look for?” he murmured.
“Ye think it is sad that I must marry an English lord against my will… but I think it is sad that you prize duty beyond all other things.”
“Why?”
“Because duty can bring satisfaction, but can it bring happiness?”
His breath expelled heavily, and she was certain that this would be the moment he would retreat from her. She had pushed too hard, and he would not forgive her.
She prepared herself for it. The inevitability, and the sense of emptiness that would follow his departure from the room. The rejection.
“If anyone else had asked me that, I would have told them it was none of their business.” He caught a lock of her hair between his fingers. “But you and I are something different from the usual.”
“What are we?”
“Outside of convention,” he murmured. “At least for today.”
“At least for now,” she agreed.
She met his eyes, near black in the darkness, even if she felt as though she could read him. Then she said something she had not dreamed of saying to a man in this way.
“Kiss me.”
