Page 17 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
The more looks that she had been able to sneak at him whilst they had been walking––through her curly, unruly hair, from under her lashes and out from the edges of her hood––the more she had found that something about the young man greatly appealed to her. It was not just that he was physically strong and traditionally attractive.
No, it is the aura he exudes; the impression he gives of a chivalrous upbringing holding back a wild and commanding nature.
She smiled secretly to herself, as she picked a silent path along the remains of a long fallen dry-stone wall, at the memory of the two of them lying sprawled in the leaf litter together.
Limbs intertwined. Bodies pressed hard together.
She could not be sure, but she was fairly certain that she had been able to feel his concealedweaponpressing against her pelvis…
Just the thought of this sent hot, unaccustomed waves of sensation rippling out from the pit of her stomach down, down to––
“I s’pose this is where I must stop?” the Highlander’s gruff voice came quietly to her ear.
“Wha–– Oh, um, yes… Yes, so it is,” Charlotte stammered, thankful for the night and its concealing dark. She rather thought that her blush might be visible nonetheless. She became aware that she had halted by a cracked boulder that was not far from the entrance to her concealed track.
He cannot read minds. Thank the good Lord.
The two of them stood in the dark, facing one another. It is a curious thing that sometimes when two strangers cross paths, they fall into an easy trust. A trust in which they can talk of things with one another that, perhaps, they have not talked about with even their closest friends or kin. Conversely, these strangers, might struggle to say their farewells, as if they had known each other all their lives.
Why does it feel like that now?
Charlotte stood before the tall Scotsman and tried to find the words she was looking for. She had always thought of herself as fairly eloquent––none more so than whilst traveling in the company of common soldiers––but now she found that she had not the words for this odd parting.
Then, to her utmost astonishment, Edward stepped in close to her and spoke.
“Miss Bolton,” he said, and he did not meet her eye.
Bashful? A man like this?
“Miss Bolton, I was wonderin’, would ye fancy perhaps meetin’ me on the morrow?”
Charlotte was not sure what she had been expecting, but it had not been a proposal for––what?
Her father would have taken one look at this menacing, powerful Scotsman and warned Charlotte away from having anything more to do with him. Probably he would have had the man cut down by a handful of his best men if he had the option.
What does he want to meet me for?
It was a question that she could not possibly hope to answer. She knew little of the man, except that he was a hunter or trapper, and that he knew this country better than any of her father’ own scouts from what she had seen.
Yet something about him draws me, as surely as the moth is drawn to the flame.
As if he could read the indecision in her face, Edward glanced at her and said, “I understand yer trepidation. Me time in the wild country has nae left me lookin’ as fetchin’ nor trustworthy as the fine men that ye are doubtless use to socialisin’ with.”
If Charlotte had had to compare Edward to the gentlemen that she usually spent her time exchanging insipid pleasantries with, she thought she would have to seriously reevaluate her definition of “men.”
It was awfully distracting, and extremely inappropriate, but Charlotte was finding it dreadfully difficult to stop her mind from wandering down some very interesting avenues of thought.
I wonder, once he was bathed and combed and dressed in a set of garments that did not look quite so lived in, would he make my pulse flutter so? I am not so sure…
It was an intriguing query, and it sent her mind reeling off down a less explored but far more stimulating street of thought––that being, what might this handsome young man from the wrong side of the border look like clad in nothing but the skin God gave him?
“Miss Bolton?”
Charlotte gave a little start, coming back to the present with more than a little reluctance. “Hm?” she asked.
“I asked whether ye might consider it.” Edward said, a slightly bemused frown appearing between his brows.
“Consider it?”
