Page 42 of Romancing the Scot
Her legs threatened to give out beneath her. Everything around her was a blur of colors. Her lips tingled with pleasure.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” she finally managed to whisper.
“No, it was I,” he said, his gaze still setting her body aflame even from two steps away. “But I don’t regret it, and I don’t think you do, either.”
Grace turned and faced the loch and pressed her hands to her fevered cheeks. She’d never imagined such a burning, explosive desire for someone. She’d never initiated a moment like this, and when she was in his arms, she would have given him far more than that kiss. Closing her eyes as a wave of mortification took hold of her, she searched her mind for a way to justify this sudden error in judgment.
Hugh moved away, leading the horses to a low shrub where they could graze on the meadow grass. She watched him secure the mounts and then stand gazing at the sparkling waters of the loch. He’d lost control for a moment, and she was surprised that she’d done that to him. Torn by conflicting desires, she forced herself to stand still and not go back to him and throw herself again into his arms.
When he finally turned and came back to her, he was the controlled and serious host she’d known.
“People find the path along the edge of the loch to be quite picturesque. If you’re not overtired, perhaps you’d like to stretch your legs.”
Grace resented the loss of the man who’d kissed her with such passion, but she was grateful for the gentleman who had retained a semblance of reason. She was a whirling dervish of contradictions, spinning crazily, unable to fathom whom she’d suddenly become.
The answers she searched for were not easy to find, at least not right now with the object of her longing standing beside her.
Hugh pointed out the way, and as they walked down through the trees toward the water, Grace forced herself to focus on her surroundings. If she talked, she wouldn’t dwell on what she’d done. She wanted to find something to steer any conversation away from her brazen behavior.
As they came out to a wide fringe of grass along the fore shore of the loch, her eyes took in the green forest rising from the opposite bank. The place was quiet, protected, peaceful.
“This is beautiful. I didn’t expect the woodlands to be so full of flowers.” She pointed to a blanket of bluebells that spread around them.
He looked at them as if seeing them for the first time.
“It’s a good time of year for that, I should think.” He indicated the path that ran along the water’s edge. “We can walk this way, if you like.”
Their voices sounded strained to her, both of them contriving to appear unaffected by the encounter.
“Viscount Greysteil. Is that a Scottish name?”
“It is. We are. My paternal grandmother’s title.”
“Did you grow up here?” she asked.
“Yes, we spent a great deal of time at Baronsford. Of course, I went away to school, but we still came back for the summer holidays. My father had his duties in Parliament, but the pleasures of the Season have never appealed to my parents.”
She recalled him giving them credit for his qualities of fairness and tolerance. How wonderful that a man of his age would think of his parents with such admiration. She wondered if the day would ever come that she could praise her father openly for what he’d given her.
“I should think this would have been a lovely place as a child.”
“As a matter of fact, this particular spot was a favorite place for us. All of my siblings and cousins swam right here as children.”
Grace imagined children playing in the grass that ran down to the fine pebbled beach. A nearby grove of trees hung out over the clear water, and in her mind’s eye they sunned themselves on the large flat rock a few yards off shore.
“Do you still have family nearby?” she asked.
He turned and pointed up through some trees. “In that direction, we’re an easy walk from the stables of Greenbrae Hall. That’s where my youngest uncle, David, and his wife, Gwyneth, live with their family for part of the year.” He pointed off in another direction. “As we walk a bit farther, you should be able to glimpse a stone tower house over the tops of those oaks. When he was a young man, Walter Truscott began to restore the place for himself.”
“Walter Truscott?” she asked.
“He’s my father’s first cousin, and he’s been Baronsford’s estate manager since before I was born. I’d be lost without him. The tower house now houses a charity project that my sister and Violet Truscott are involved with, but you can ask Jo about it.”
For Grace, to be rooted in one place and to use part of where you live for helping others was a dream. She would definitely ask Jo about it. Of all the women of wealth and position Grace had met in her life, she recalled no one who embodied the qualities of Hugh’s sister.
They reached a branch in the path, and he pointed to where it turned into the woods. “This path leads back to where we left the horses.”
They walked in silence as she struggled to find more questions. Her mind kept harking back to their kiss, and it was growing more difficult to ignore his presence with every passing moment.
