by Karen Ranney
She nuzzled close to him, and he moved, pulling her next to him so that their faces lay only an inch apart. They shared each other’s breaths, an act as intimate as their joining a few moments earlier.
“I should leave,” she murmured softly.
“No.” He was indescribably weary, the weeks of fitful nights having taken their toll. Now he wanted to rest, to sleep the sleep of the sated, and know that when he woke, she would be there, guardian of his rest.
“If you’re here, I won’t dream,” he said.
Her hand rested on the side of his face, a gentle benediction, a cool touch. How could she be so cool when he was still so heated?
“Did I please you?” A question he’d not asked since his first time with a woman.
She nodded, but he wanted her assent in a word, something that he could hear and acknowledge.
“Did I please you?” he asked again.
“Yes.” She kissed the corner of his mouth, whispering softly. “Oh, yes.”
Just that, no embellishment or ardor, only the simple assent he’d requested. He found himself wanting to ask her for more, but discovered that even that thought was abruptly buried beneath a sudden and overwhelming fatigue.
“Stay with me,” he said. He would explain to the others, Hamish thought, as sleep drifted over him.
Chapter 10
M ary watched as Hamish fell asleep, lying beside him and feeling strangely exhilarated. She’d never felt this way before, as if he’d filled her with his seed and his energy at the same time.
What had she done? Something wicked, wanton, and altogether wonderful. Who was to forbid her, after all? Not her long dead parents or her recently deceased husband. Her friends were far from here. She was in a strange place with a stranger who had just brought her delight and joy.
She pulled away from him a little, and moved to the edge of the bed. The light from the brazier cast flickering shadows around the room, but they suddenly didn’t look so fearful. She left the bed and blew out the candles, returning to Hamish’s side a moment later.
He was so large that he took up most of the bed. He looked like some sort of creature of the darkness, someone from the shadowy world of nightmares. A man turned into a beast by the cruelties of other men.
Her hand hovered over his chest as she traced a path in the air of the monster they’d created on his skin. Not a monster, but a god. Shiva. Creator and destroyer. In a way, Hamish had been that, both creating and destroying something within her. Destroying the loneliness and creating a need.
It’s not love I want from you.
Still, she’d stood there, waiting, afraid that he might withdraw his offer, scandalous as it was, leaving her with only regret. She hadn’t given him time to reconsider. She’d never been loved so sweetly, but it wasn’t love, was it? Something sensual, passionate, forbidden, perhaps.
She would wait a few minutes and then return to her room. She was under no illusions that Brendan would remain ignorant of what had happened there. She shouldn’t have agreed to meet Hamish in his room, but then, she’d been hoping for something like this.
There, the truth finally.
She would have to meet Brendan’s eyes in the morning, but not, thankfully, Hester’s or Micah’s, since they’d chosen to sleep in the Great Hall. As for Brendan, she owed nothing to him, not even an explanation. However, having to account for her actions was a hard habit to break. Mary found herself conjuring up a dozen different excuses to explain why she would have lingered in Hamish’s room so long. In the end, it probably didn’t matter.
Would anyone be able to see her secret delight? If so, would they think the worst of her? Or simply understand that the need for touch was a hunger as sharp and painful as that for food?
“Stay with me,” Hamish murmured, and she answered by whispering an assent.
Straightening out his left arm, she noted that the muscle felt tight. She thought that was a good sign but couldn’t be sure. There might be so much damage that he would never regain the use of that limb.
Closing her eyes, she felt her face warm at the realization that she, Mary Gilly, was lying here naked beside Hamish. Her body was still reverberating with tiny little shocks in memory of their loving. Her lips curved in a smile.
Sitting up, she drew the blanket from the bottom of the bed to cover them, and lay beside Hamish. Just a few moments, she told herself.
When Mary awoke, the sun was streaming in through the window, and the air promised a temperate day.
Hamish was standing, fully dressed, in front of her, a smile on his face as he surveyed her.
Sitting up on one elbow, she pushed the hair out of her face and smiled ruefully at him. “I meant to be gone before dawn came.” A glance at the sky told her that she was hours too late.
“There’s no harm done, Mary,” he said. “There’s no one here who’d think the less of you for being with me.”
“Do you lay claim to the thoughts of others so easily, Hamish? Or do you simply command the inhabitants of Castle Gloom to think as you do?”
His smile deepened. “Castle Gloom? Is that what you call it? I’ve named it Aonaranach.”
“The Gaelic for lonely? It is that.” She sat up on the edge of the bed, gathering the sheet around her.
“Do you speak it?” he asked, looking surprised.
“My parents did when they wanted to keep things from me. They never realized that their secrecy was a great inducement to learning the language.” She stood, wrapping the sheet around her and tucking the ends beneath her arm.
His smile disappeared, and he looked at her intently. If he kissed her, she might tell him all the secrets in her life. If he whispered in her ear, she would probably acquiesce to any suggestion he might make. If he tossed her back on the bed, she doubted she’d protest all that much.
“I should dress,” she said, when the silence between them had stretched to an uncomfortable length. “I need to get our breakfast.”
“Brendan’s already been here,” he said, gesturing to a tray on the table. “He brought a breakfast tray.”
She glanced at it, chagrined to discover that there were two cups and plates arranged there. A surge of warmth flooded her cheeks, but the embarrassment was not as deep as it should have been. Overlaying it was the memory of the night before, recollections that were powerful enough to banish any thought of propriety.
“The exact reason I should have left last night,” she said. “I suppose Micah and Hester know where I slept last night as well?”
“I’m not entirely certain that Brendan will tell them.”
“But you’re not entirely certain he’ll remain mute, either,” she said.
“My brother is not the most reticent of men,” he admitted.
“Are you certain you’re brothers?” she asked. There was a faint resemblance between them, but Brendan had a slighter build and wasn’t as tall as Hamish. The younger man’s eyes were a hazel hue, while Hamish’s were deeply brown. But it was in their natures that they were so dissimilar. Life seemed to have marked Hamish, while Brendan seemed so much younger in comparison.
“I remember asking my mother that question when I was small,” he said, smiling. “She was very put out, as I recall.”
She matched his smile, and once again silence stretched between them.
“I should dress,” she said again. He nodded, but didn’t move. She gathered up the clothing he’d folded into neat stacks and placed on the chair. The idea of him handling her intimate garments brought another rush of warmth to her face.
“Are you going to watch me?”
“May I?” His smile was teasing. “It seems a good way to start my morning.”
“No,” she said, smiling back at him.
He turned and faced in the direction of the open window, and she realized it was as much privacy as she was going to get.
She dropped the sheet and donned her shift. Her body felt sensitized, and the sheer linen slid over her skin like a lover
’s breath.
“Stay with me, Mary.”
She stared at him, but he didn’t turn.
“Stay with me,” he said again. “Not for forever, but for a little while.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she rolled one stocking up her leg and fastened her garter around it before repeating the action on the other leg. Standing, she fastened her stays, taking more time with the laces than the task required.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. She bent and retrieved her skirt, clutching the fabric in front of her.
“I cannot,” she finally said when words returned to her once more. “There are those in Inverness who need my assistance.”
He turned and faced toward the sea again, and she donned her skirt and then her bodice. Finally, she bent to find her shoes. On discovering them neatly arranged against the wall, she sat on the edge of the bed and began to put them on.
“I need you as well.”
Her thumbs stilled, caught between her stockings and the heels of her shoe as she stared at his back. She’d never heard a man say those words before, not even her husband.
Hamish’s pose was rigid, his back straight. She could imagine him standing on the deck of his ship staring at the horizon. He was a man with great strength of purpose, even now.
“Stay with me a few weeks, Mary.”
For an instant, she allowed herself to pretend that it might be possible. She’d come to know him, to learn about the man who fascinated her. She knew his body; would his mind prove to be as captivating?
A foolish thought, and an even more foolish woman to be thinking it.
“I cannot even do that,” she said with a reluctance that was all too genuine. “Charles would worry about me, and I have friends who would miss me.”
“Send word to them. Tell them that you’ll return in a matter of weeks. Stay with me.”
Stay with me. It shouldn’t have been such a temptation, that simple sentence. Three words, that was all, and she yearned to tell him yes. No one would know that she’d taken an interlude in her life, that she’d simply disappeared from all her responsibilities and roles and become someone new and different for a short time.
Her absence could, after all, be easily explained. She was treating a patient out of town, someone important enough to justify her travel and time. No one would think any worse of her. Even in Inverness, she’d often spent the night at a patient’s bedside if his condition warranted it. There was plenty of money in the household strongbox to take care of expenses for a while. Charles was no stranger to managing the accounts. He’d done the task before she and Gordon were wed.
There were only two people who might suspect the truth. Charles because he was too intrusive in her affairs, and Elspeth because she was a romantic at heart.
“I can’t,” she repeated, but this time the refusal was not as forceful as before. Almost as if she begged him silently to convince her otherwise.
He turned and went to his trunk, withdrew a small writing chest, and handed it to her. She took it with both hands and laid it on the bed beside her. Inside was a stack of thick vellum and a place for quills, a pot of ink, and stick of sealing wax.
“Write them, Mary. Tell them you’ll return in a matter of weeks. Tell them that your patient requires your attention and your care.”
“Do you?”
Instead of answering, he only reiterated that simple sentence. “Stay with me.”
Dear heavens, she was tempted to. More than was wise.
“What do you have waiting for you in Inverness?”
“Mr. Marshall,” she said, remembering the appointment that was so important to her. At least it had been before Hamish MacRae. “He’s agreed to meet with me.”
“Is he more of an inducement to tempt you from here than I am to entice you to stay?”
What a very difficult question to answer. “He can only add to my reputation, while I’m afraid you’ll do nothing but take from it.”
He nodded. “You’re right, of course.”
“He’s an elderly man. He may never return to Inverness.”
“I can only take your word for that.”
“Meeting with him is a great honor.”
“I’m certain that it is.”
He walked to the window and faced outward again.
“If I remain,” she said, the words startling her, “do you promise to do whatever I choose as a treatment?”
“Have I not already?”
He turned. His half smile was back in place as he studied her. His gaze was intent, as if he were trying to read her soul.
“What kind of treatments do you have in mind, Mary?”
“I want you to exercise your arm,” she said. “And get some sun.”
She shouldn’t stay, of course. Patients called on her not only because of her reputation for healing successes but because she was generally well thought of throughout Inverness. Mothers considered her a suitable chaperone for younger girls, while the poor she treated considered her a kind and generous benefactor. Above all she was considered a proper matron.
There was never an untoward word spoken about her by the older women of Inverness. Even in her grief for Gordon, she’d done nothing but gather accolades from those whose sole duty seemed to be to approve or disapprove of her behavior. Sometimes Mary felt as if she were practicing for a role beside them. One day, she, too, might walk along the streets of Inverness with an eye on anyone who might be acting improperly. She would frown on laughter and signs of flirting and only nod her head in approval at a woman’s demure, downcast looks.
She was being groomed for propriety when she didn’t feel the least bit proper.
What would the citizens of Inverness do if they knew that her demure appearance hid a rebellious soul? Her actions of the night before were shocking, but they were only a shadow of her true self. She wanted something she’d never had. Adventure, not sameness. Delight and joy, perhaps. And passion, too. She wanted to be shocked and startled, delighted and dazed by life. Not saddened and depressed by the suffering she saw.
“Write them, Mary,” he said. A moment later, he was at the door, his hand on the edge. He looked as if he would like to say something else, but he was gone in the next instant, leaving her alone with her conscience.
Staring at the writing desk, she wished he hadn’t left. If he’d remained in the room, she would have found it easier to write her friends. Yet the decision must be hers alone, and he’d been wise to leave it to her.
How foolish she was. How unwise to jeopardize her standing in the community, to sully her good name. For what? A few days of pleasure. Mindless, delicious pleasure that made her limbs feel as if they were swimming in warmth. Pleasure that dulled her mind, and banished sadness or fear.
Hamish MacRae was a drug, as dangerous as the morphine she occasionally dispensed. Who would have ever thought that the Widow Gilly would be overcome with lust? Yet she didn’t feel the least bit of shame or consternation, only a fevered anticipation of lying with him again.
Stay with me.
She would be a fool to do so, to risk even a chance that news of her behavior would reach Inverness. Still, she knew she was going to stay.
No one need know. Hamish certainly would not divulge the information, and Brendan would not be in Inverness. If she stayed a week or two, no one could accuse her of hedonism or sport.
It’s not love I want from you. From the beginning, he’d been direct. Nor did she know him well enough to give her heart. Her body, however, might be loaned to him for this time, for the sole purpose of pleasure. Just as she would have the use of his.
She stared down at her hands, remembering the touch of his skin. Her palms tingled as if she could feel him now.
Pulling out a piece of vellum from the writing desk, she began to write, wondering if God would look askance at a prayer for guidance in this situation. However, she needed the proper words to write to Charles, something that would allay his suspicions while reassuring him a
s to her safety and well-being. He took too much upon himself, and it was beginning to grate on her nerves. Because Gordon had felt a fondness for him, however, she’d hidden her irritation all these many months.
Charles,
Circumstances are keeping me longer than I had originally planned. Rest assured that I am well. I will be remaining with my patient to ensure his well-being. If you need any assistance in the meantime, please contact my solicitor.
Mary
To Elspeth, she was a little more forthcoming.
My dear Elspeth,
I am staying at the most interesting place, a lonely looking castle perched at the edge of the loch and overlooking a desolate countryside. At night, I can almost envision shadows in the courtyard and think of them as the ghosts of the people who once lived here.
She hesitated, biting at the end of the quill, wondering how she could describe Hamish while keeping his privacy.
My patient is an unusual man who has selected to live here alone, shunning everyone. I have found myself curiously attuned to him, however. I will stay here, until I am certain he is well.
Her conscience pricked at her, but not enough to set down the quill or rework the letter.
Please be advised that I am well and shall return to Inverness as soon as possible and call upon you then.
Elspeth’s family had agreed to host Mr. Marshall on his most recent trip to Inverness, and she had an inkling that Elspeth’s father had been instrumental in encouraging the minister to meet with her. She should return to Inverness and keep her appointment if for no other reason than politeness.
Standing, Mary went to the window, wondering where Hamish had gone. As if her wishes sought him out, she saw him standing on the rocky shore outside the curtain wall, only an arm’s length from the loch. He wore no jacket, and the wind came from the north, ruffling his shirt, and hair. He stood there motionless, as if he were fighting the forces of nature, a solitary man. A lonely one.