Diplomacy was not one of the defining forces of Nial’s nature. He was too direct to allow for dissembling, and he didn’t try that now. “What is the meaning of this?”
She wasn’t prepared for the direct challenge. The fact that she wasn’t prepared indicated to her that she had been gone from home too long. The direct challenge would never have come from an English peer, but was typical of the brutal honesty of a Highland laird.
It took her a couple of seconds to respond, and her next dance partner waited at her elbow by the time she did. “I’m just having fun. At a ball it is perfectly fine to dance and have fun.”
He raised his brows and inquired coldly, “Is it acceptable to flirt and touch as well?”
“Absolutely. Why do you ask?” Her nature would not allow her to back down from the gauntlet she had cast.
“I simply wanted to make sure the rules were defined. I will trouble you no further this evening then as your time seems to be taken with others.” Nial turned and walked away.
She followed her partner in the steps of the dance as she saw him step over to Jillian Hunter, the vibrantly beautiful widow of Lord Lillington. The pair took the dance floor as the lovely widow openly assessed her partner.
Jealousy filled her to overflowing but Heather's honesty forced her to admit she brought it on herself. Nial had no need to seek out attention because it found him. As the evening progressed, he never spent an instant alone. Either he danced with one English flower or another, or stood in a circle surrounded by woman who undressed him with their eyes and teased him with touches intending to provoke.
She suffered miserably before the third song and the evening went downhill from misery to despondence and pain. Nial kept his dance partners hands off his privates by generous use of the Maclee swipe, but allowed their touch if confined to areas above his waist. She saw red when one wench played with his hair, trailed fingers down to his earlobe, and then continued trailing them down to his hand, which she took and placed on her bosom. Nial glanced down and grinned. Heather wasn’t surprised that he was male enough to appreciate the view.
He didn’t toy with the woman’s breasts, but he didn’t remove his hand either. He simply left it where she placed it and glanced at Heather, with a question in his raised brows. As her eyes narrowed to slits, she shook her head no. Nial then glanced down to where her dance partner’s hand lurked. It spoke volumes of her preoccupation with the other man that she hadn’t noticed the hand at her bosom. The challenge from her Highland laird was again like him, direct and open. The decision to share time with other partners would be as equal as the boundaries of what touches were permissible.
She removed the hand at her bosom with a sharply spoken rebuke and glanced over to see Nial do the same. At the rejection, the other woman’s eyes filled with tears and her lower lip trembled visibly. Nial visibly offered to end the dance, but his partner shook her head no and gathered him close again.
She and Nial changed partners again as the music changed, and she realized that he would match her dance for dance, allowance for allowance. Her current partner put her hand to his lips and she saw Nial do the same to the lady in his arms who looked thrilled with the attention. A kiss to the fingers during a dance was permissible by society’s rules, but Heather found her own to be more restrictive. She didn’t want Nial’s lips on any part of another woman, so she committed a rude social breech by snatching her hand away from her partner's mouth just after his tongue connected with her fingers. She learned how closely Nial watched when she saw him give a brief lick to the fingers he held before returning the hand to his waist.
Heather barely restrained herself from dragging Nial away from the other woman by the hair on his head. She smiled brightly as she imagined dragging him away by a lower and entirely more painful grasp. With that thought, her eyes strayed to where every woman’s in the room had been at some point in the evening – Nial’s crotch. She didn’t realize how admiring her gaze was or how filled it was with her love as she surveyed the flat surface of his trousers, but Nial could hardly miss it. He tossed a warning glance at Heather, who realized that the fit of his trousers altered under the warmth of her gaze. He glanced to the woman in his arms and back at Heather who realized that credit would be claimed where it was not due.
She forced her attention back to her current dance partner, but did it a bit too late. The other woman smiled sensuously as she took two steps closer to him allowing her to cradle his arousal. It waned rather than waxed, but due to his proportions she didn’t know that. Nial sighed deeply and glanced at the fire in Heather’s gaze as he straightened his arms and backed away from the lady. He gave thanks to the faeries as the music finally ended.
Heather’s hand touched her throat, indicating to her next dance partner that she was parched. That left the bloke no choice but to hie off across the room to the refreshment table. She knew the laird saw her gesture, for he missed nothing. If Nial were an English gentleman, he would have approached her. She paused, deluding herself briefly by anticipating that he would do just that. He remained leaning against the same pillar. She dealt with a stubborn Scot rather than an English fop. Nial would do nothing to ease her apology. Her own stubborn pride slowed her steps. Then she recalled the blonde cradling her property. The thought lent renewed urgency to her errand, and by the time she got to him, she ran. Her steps sped too rapidly at the end and she hurtled into him. Based upon the way he opened his arms to receive her, she didn’t think he minded that she fetched up solidly against him.
“Nial, I’m sorry. I made a mistake,” she said, knowing he would accept no half measures.
“A mistake? How so?” He asked, letting her know that he would require full measure indeed.
“I shouldn’t have encouraged Geoff or any of the others. I should have saved all my time for you because you’re the only one I want to spend it with.”
“It made me wonder if you need an admiring throng or if my admiration isn’t enough because it isn’t me you want,” Nial returned her honesty with his own.
She had imagined that he needed the adoring attention of multiple women, a need she saw as his biggest fault. Seen through his eyes, even with Sorcha, he was the prey rather than the pursuer. How much could he enjoy that? After all, in a hunt the fox never had much fun. She blanched as she pondered his words. She had never seen herself as someone who needed such admiration. Then again, fault is easier to find outside than inside. Had she turned into one of those attention-seeking social climbers she abhored?
He saw her face change and corrected his temperamental outburst. "Heather, I didn't mean that. You hurt me and like the brute I am I felt compelled to hurt you in return. Truthfully, you're the least selfish person I've ever known.
The first part of his words caught her attention. "I hurt you?"
"Only with you does her hurt boil up inside me until it spews forth with words to hurt you in return. Your opinion of me matters. Frankly, the collective opinions of the rest of humanity affects me very little."
She smiled. "Your words mattered to me because you matter too."
He cupped her beautiful face that still bore a trace of the worried, introspective expression that his words caused. “Sweetheart,” he began, as his fingers feathered over her mouth, which parted in response. Then, a movement to the side drew his notice and he said, “Damn,” as he motioned to indicate that her next dance partner was returning in tandem with a blonde that he had promised a dance.
He ignored both and tilted her chin. “Had enough of the rest of the world yet, love?”
She nodded, and sighed as she spoke, “Oh yes. Lord, yes, I have had enough of all of them. But, I fear we are caught in a trap of my making.”
“Trust me?” He asked, with twinkling eyes.
“Of course,” she replied with satisfying rapidity.
He winked. “I don't like traps. I just don’t take to them well. By and large, traps are like etiquette, propriety rules and labels – they can only con
tain you if you allow them to.”
He placed his arm around her and pulled her where she belonged – close to his side.
“You,” he indicated the man, whose name he neither knew nor cared about, “dance with her,” he said, indicating the blonde.
Then he reached down and ripped the dance card off Heather’s wrist and tore it into small bits that he tossed in the air. To the men who objected and within hearing of anyone else who might repeat his words, he assumed his orator's voice. “Heather’s time and her dances are spoken for. They belong to me.” Then he swept her away towards the nearby terrace.
A willing party to the escape, she tossed back her head to laugh as she followed his unerring lead towards a maze of hedges. At the center, a small gazebo perched near a pretty little pond. “It is beyond irritating that your instinct for locating such places is so well developed.”
He didn’t try to deny the obvious truth. Instead, he wiggled his eyebrows at her as he said, “Don’t resent the lessons I’ve learned when from this point forward they will only be used to benefit you.”
“Just remember that from this point forward you are a one pupil teacher.”
He drew her into his arms and muttered against her lips, “So long as you remember that you are a one teacher pupil, my love. Would forever do?”
Then his lips took hers, and she didn’t think anything at all. His touch always took her to a realm where only feeling existed. She wound her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him as she took her tongue and licked the inside of his lips until he gave a low growl and tightened his grip on her waist.
He feasted like he starved for her and drew back to laugh at himself. "Love, you must think me a glutton. We were together last night and now I seize your mouth like I've fasted for weeks. I really suspect that I could love you non-stop for a week and still harden to full staff because you smile, or because I catch a whiff of your scent, or because… Well, just because you grace my world."
"I feel exactly the same," Heather murmured before adding, "well except for the full staff part. If we change that to say, pebble to full peak, then I feel exactly the same."
He tilted her chin up to catch the mischievous twinkle in those golden eyes. "So noted. But only if you save the pebbles, the peaks and especially that wicked tongue of yours for me alone." He returned to feasting heartily enough to prove his claims of endless famine.
When he finally lifted his head, this time he motioned her to sit on the bench. He joined her and took her hands into his. She stroked his palm, noting curiously that it seemed to be damp.
He dropped her hands and pulled out his handkerchief to wipe his brow. “Jesus, 'tis hotter than the kitchen hearth out here.”
Her forehead puckered curiously for it was a cool night with a lovely breeze. Then she saw that the hand wiping his brow trembled just a bit, and she shifted forward uneasily. What was this about?
He stuffed the handkerchief in his pocket and reached for her hands again.
“Heather,” he said in an uncertain tone. He squeezed her hands so hard it hurt and she grimaced. Saying, “Bloody hell,” he jumped off the bench to pace before it several times, wringing his hands. Abruptly, he halted, paused in front of her and fiddled inside his jacket for something. He withdrew an ancient pouch and sat it on the bench beside her. He stood stock still for a long time, staring at the pouch with an intent, almost resentful expression.
He squatted on his heels in front of her and took her hands. This time, his palm was drenched and as unsteady as a vine in the wind. He dropped her hand again, and rose to his feet, wiping his hands on the sides of his trousers like a wee munchkin.
The words he muttered so quietly that she had to strain to hear him were not at all childlike. “Damn it no. No. I will do this right. Only one though, not two. Two is begging. I won’t beg. I will ask firmly.”
Now she'd grown quite worried. Was he ill? Had something happened at home? One and not two what?
He started to bend but halted as he lowered himself. He grimaced and stood quickly, saying, “This is wrong. It’s all wrong.”
He walked over and repositioned her in the seat like a toddling infant. “Here, Heather, the pond is pretty. Look at the pond. There’s a butterfly. Watch the pond and the butterfly,” he pointed with a finger that trembled. “I’ll be right back,” he said as he ran off to the side where horses were tethered.
She couldn’t resist a glance, and saw him take something from his saddlebag. It seemed important to him that she keep her gaze on the water so she studied the pond and worried about Nial. Her worry consumed her, and she paid no attention to her surroundings. The butterfly could have sprouted horns and turned into the devil incarnate and she would have taken no notice.
She was so preoccupied that she didn’t hear him return, and didn’t know he was there until a pair of golden, muscular calves appeared right in her range of vision. She jerked her gaze up to his eyes. He had changed into his kilt, and stood in front of her as a Highland laird in full ceremonial regalia. He seemed more focused this time. It was as though in shedding the English garb he shed his anxiety.
He smiled and she was struck by anew at by his masculine appeal and sensual magnetism. Standing there, with his black locks framed in moonlight, wearing his sword, his sporran and his kilt, he was the image of everything her Highland home meant. Then she looked at the proud navy blue eyes and realized they watched her intently and were so full of love that she started to pinch herself. Surely, she had fallen asleep and would awaken to find this all a wondrous dream.
A moment later he reached to the bench beside her and took the pouch and placed it reverently on the ground. He opened it carefully to unfold a piece of fabric the same shade of navy as his eyes. He arranged the cloth in some precise pattern, folding it at certain angles and then checking it over and over again. “I only intend to do this once in my life, so I wanted to get it right.”
He knelt on one knee before her, and opened his right hand to reveal a lovely blue diamond ring, bearing a large center stone, surrounded by smaller golden citrines. "This ring has passed through generations of my family but its size has never been altered. Each laird changes the small stones flanking the blue diamond to suit the lady who will wear it. 'Tis given only to brides who are the fated love, and it fits the finger of each perfectly."
She gulped and chewed her lower lip. The jewel was lovely but the glow in his navy eyes outshone any bauble man could ever create. She focused on his eyes and when he glanced up from the stone to catch her at it, she could identify the glow. It was love of the sort that belonged in the faerie tales little girls were taught to set aside so they could accept a lesser reality. Heather's eyes grew moist as she realized that her faerie tale hero knelt before her in flesh and blood.
She reached out and trailed a finger down his jaw. "Not a toad frog after all."
"Heather, pay attention. We'll have to discuss your preoccupation with amphibians some other time. Let's get back to the ring, okay?"
"Okay," she said. "But it doesn't hold a candle to your eyes."
The tenderness returned to his smile with her words. "You should recall that my mother never wore this ring. My grandmother's last mortal act was to call me to her bedside. She gave it to me and demanded my promise to wait for my fate so that I might enjoy the enduring happiness she had with grandfather."
Heather inhaled a deep breath and forgot to let it out.
“I kneel before you upon my family’s treasured faerie flag. It has been the central dream of my life that one day I would be blessed enough to unfold the sacred talisman and kneel upon it before my lady. Only lairds asking the question of their fated mate are allowed this privilege. That I kneel before you on this flag and have not vanished in a puff of smoke should be proof enough even for my stubborn love that you are my fate.”
“Sweetheart, I dreamed of you before I knew you and when I knew you, I could not see that my fate stood before me. I knew what you were to m
e for the first time when your golden eyes filled with tears, shame and the pain I caused. You ran from me and I considered suicide, and nearly carried it out one day at the hidden loch.”
He saw her start at his words, and as though the shock had reminded her, she began to breathe again. “It is now my greatest ambition to see those golden eyes filled only with love and joy and the knowledge that you spend your life with the man lucky enough to be placed on earth for you. Heather, I love you. You are my first thought in the morning and my last in the evening. You hold my heart and my soul and you complete me. Will you marry me and walk forward with me into our faerie fated forever?”
She remained quiet for only seconds, but to the man who waited, they were interminably long seconds for her answer was his life. One word granted him a long one filled with love and joy or a short one, filled with agony and remorse. Then she smiled, and her golden eyes filled with love that washed over him and gave him a quiet certainty of her response. The tears trailing from her eyes and the emotion clogging her throat made speech difficult. She nodded yes, and opened her mouth on a happy sob to say the word. His navy happiness lit the dark gazebo like the noonday sun.
He remained on his knee to take her hand and place the ring that sealed their bond on her finger. "I knew 'twould fit your finger perfectly, my love, just as you fit me."
He leapt up to pull her off the bench. She threw herself into his arms and she took his mouth in a flurry of love that turned hard and urgent almost instantly. "Can you feel how hard I am for you, love?" He growled against her lips. "I hardened in a torrential rush with your acceptance." He moaned and swiveled against her caressing hand, even as he protested. “My love, I would not share your passion with anyone, and this place is not private.”
Heather disagreed. “I would seal our pledge this moment with our bodies.” She placed a hand on his chest and pushed him to the bench. "You want to do the same or you wouldn't be sitting right now."
A Faerie Fated Forever Page 21