Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

that man who sits facing you

  and hears you nearby sweetly speaking

  and softly laughing.

  This sets my heart to fluttering in my breast

  for when I look on you a moment,

  then I can speak no more,

  but my tongue falls silent,

  and at once a delicate flame

  courses beneath my skin,

  and with my eyes I see nothing,

  and my ears hum,

  and a cold sweat bathes me,

  and a trembling seizes me all over,

  and I am paler than grass,

  and I feel that I am near death.

  - Sappho

  “Shakespeare?”

  “Drysden,” she corrected, her eyes wary as she took in his casual posture.

  “Of course,” he drawled nonchalantly, though his eyes continued to feast upon her, taking in every detail of her appearance from the elaborate twist of her hair to the paleness of her cheeks to the fact that she was wearing an elegant blue tea gown instead of black mourning. “What are you doing here, Kitty?”

  “Eve wanted to invite you over for dinner this evening. I told her I would bring the invitation,” she shrugged just as coolly, though her heart was pounding so frantically she was certain he could see it. “I needed a bit of exercise.”

  “No, I mean what are you doing here in Scotland?” he amended, even though he knew she was aware of the true question from the first.

  “Oh, well Mother decided she simply must be with Evie for this pregnancy since she missed the whole of her first one,” Kitty explained.

  “And you just decided to come along?”

  “Yes.”

  “…to keep her company?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “Why do you think?”

  Hope flared brightly in Jack’s heart but he tamped it down, not wanting to make any assumptions, asking instead, “How long have you been here?”

  “Just a few moments,” she started, biting back a grin when he raised a brow. “Four days.”

  “That long?” he murmured, wondering how it was even possible she had been so close and he didn’t know it. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “Eve told me,” Kitty replied. “As I said, she wants you to come to dinner. She said you’ve become a veritable hermit these past several weeks.”

  “Of course she did.”

  “She also told me the two of you have become rather good friends in the past few months,” Kitty added.

  “We have,” he nodded. “She’s been helping me make some upgrades and improvements to Glen Sannox House as well as locating the original furnishings and paintings, or finding similar ones.”

  Kitty stared at Jack, waiting, hoping for something more from him. Anything that might indicate that he missed her, wanted her, or felt anything for her like what her mother assured her he felt. She had been in Edinburgh for four days, after travelling for weeks to get here, and all she had gotten for her efforts was this insanely mild conversation. And even for that, she’d had to come to him since he had failed to show himself at Glenrothes’ townhouse! Her chest tightened and she had to blink back the stinging in her eyes.

  It was all for nothing. Her mother and Eve were completely wrong.

  “Well, as I said, Eve wanted to make sure that you came for dinner tonight, so now that I’ve delivered her message, I’ll go.” Kitty turned on her heel and strode back into the hall and quickly down the stairs into the foyer. There was no lighting here either, but the sun beamed brightly through the large window over the door, casting its rays down upon her. The cheerful sunlight was so at odds with the gloom that descended over her that Kitty felt God was mocking her in that moment.

  She moved quickly across the space, reaching the door. But just as her hand touched the knob, a bleak voice broke the silence. “Please don’t go.”

  She turned to see Jack at the top of the stairs staring down at her, though he was so cast in shadows that she could barely make him out. “Why not, Jack?”

  “I haven’t seen you for months.”

  “By your own choice.”

  Jack was strangled by the cacophony of emotions raging through him. So confusing were they, all jumbled together, he had been trying to sort them out since he turned and saw her standing before him. Obviously, he hadn’t said the right thing, but for a man who had never truly spoken of tenderness, he didn’t really know what the right thing was. He might have acknowledged that he needed to find her again but hadn’t developed that conclusion into the words he needed as yet. “This is my new home,” he offered inanely as he came slowly down the stairs toward her. As he came into the light, his gold eyes blazed down at her intensely. “Do you like it?”

  Kitty gave a cursory glance around the hall, noting the sparseness, the hollow emptiness. “Very nice. The details are delightful. It’s a bit lacking in furniture…and staff.”

  “I had thought to let my wife decorate it to her liking. To hire her own staff.” Only now, in this moment, did Jack realize the truth of those words and know that she was the reason he purchased this place and let it sit empty. What his unconscious plan had been since the moment their ship had docked.

  “You’re getting married?” Kitty’s heart seized painfully. She had waited too long.

  “I hope to soon. I’ve been thinking of proposing for some time now. So I bought this house because every woman likes a home of her own and Glen Sannox isn’t ready yet.” Kitty turned away and put a trembling hand on the knob, eager to run away, but almost immediately she felt his hands on her arms stopping her, as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “I also thought my bride might like to live close to her sister.”

  Kitty stilled as anticipation burst within her. She closed her eyes, savoring the feel of his body pressed against her once more, she waited for him to say something more. To say the words she longed to hear, but instead he said only, “Do you know what MacKintosh told me when we sailed out of New York?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “He told me I was a fool.”

  Kitty snorted softly as Jack turned her in his arms and tilted her chin back so that he might meet her eyes as he confessed, “I am a fool, Kitty.” His throat worked for several moments as if he were struggling with himself.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you really want from me?” she asked suddenly. When Jack frowned in confusion, Kitty hastened to clarify. “When I came in you were talking to yourself. You said you realized what you wanted from me.”

  “The note you wrote me,” he paused to lift her chin tenderly when she blushed and ducked her head, “No, don’t turn away. This note you wrote me,” he surprised her by opening his hand and revealing it to her, “it was like a blow to the head, so powerfully did it affect me, because, Kitty, it was as if my own heart spoke through your words. My own dreams – the ones I did not even realize I had – were revealed to me.”

  “What are you saying, Jack?”

  “I’m saying I was a fool.”

  “No, you already said that. What are you saying now?”

  “I want to live your dream with you, my love.” Her eyes flashed, making his heart soar, but doubts crept in. “You said you love me before. You said it in this note. Do you still?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Bugger it, Kitty! Tell me you love me!”

  “Are you trying to tell me what to do again, Jack?”

  “To be sure, I absolutely am. You must love me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” Seeing his pain, his hesitation, Kitty placed a gentle hand on his cheek and looked up into his golden gaze. Seeing her gentle nod, Jack read the warmth in her eyes, the understanding that she knew it was hard to admit things one never imagined to feel, to say words one never expected to say. Suddenly the dreaded hesitation lifted and Jack knew it was no longer a burden to say what he felt, because for her he would do anything. “Because I can never apologize enough for leaving you
in New York. My only excuse is I could not recognize the feelings I held for you even then. It wasn’t until you were gone that I suspected, but even then I didn’t recognize it for what it was, because I had never known it before. I haven’t even any pride left and I can even finally understand why MacKintosh and Richard act as they do. Because they are fools in love. As I am a fool because I love you, Kitty.”

  “Oh, Jack!” She stroked his cheek tenderly before drawing his lips down to hers. His hands slid along her jaw and tilted her head back as he drew her closer. Their lips met in the softest of kisses gently brushing, an outpouring of feeling as parted lips tasted.

  “Say it, I beg of you. Put me out of my misery,” he whispered against her lips.

  “I love you, Jack,” she barely had a moment to form the words before he crushed her to him with a groan of satisfaction and took her lips fiercely with his own.

  “Good God, Kitty, just hearing those words from your lips makes me want to ravish you right here,” he murmured harshly in her ear as he caught her earlobe between his teeth.

  Kitty pulled back in surprise before her green eyes blazed, full of daring. She crooned seductively, “I love you, Jack.”

  “Be careful what you ask for, madam,” he warned with a gleam in his eye.

  “I…lo-o-ve you, Jack,” she drawled, goading him to do more. “I lo…”

  Jack covered her mouth again with a growl of pleasure, drawing her body up tightly against his. Kitty slid her arms up and over his shoulders, plunging her fingers into his mahogany locks as she pressed her body against him. Leaving her to maintain their bodily contact, he snaked one hand between them to cup a breast. The other skimmed down to her hip where his fingers began to gather her skirts up. “God help me, Kitty, but I want you. It’s been too long,” he growled as his mouth traveled down her neck, nipping and sucking. He kissed his way down her chest, pushing aside her bodice until he was able to catch a nipple between his teeth.

  Kitty gasped, clutching his head to her breast as he slid both hands up under her skirts and pulled her up so she might wrap her long legs about his hips. Turning, he pressed her up against the foyer wall, pinning her there with his massive body. His hands roamed her bottom and thighs before dipping between them and through the slit of her drawers to find the inferno of heat hidden there. Jack teased her with his fingers, drawing a shaky moan of excitement from Kitty before she drew his mouth back to hers and proceeded to devour his lips with her own.

  Kitty pushed her own hands between them, shoving them into his jacket to push it off his shoulders before returning to massage his chest and slide around him. “Oh, Jack!” she cried into his mouth as he loosened his trousers and pressed his steely arousal against her core. “I’ve missed you!”

  “You couldn’t have missed me more than I missed you, my love,” he pulled back to meet her bright green gaze with his hot molten eyes. “I am such an idiot to have left you! Never again!” he swore as he thrust into her, taking her gasp of delight into his mouth. “Never…bloody…well…again!” He drove up into her again and again as she cried out with delight with each stroke, pulling his hair and nipping at his neck and shoulders. Never had their lovemaking been so frantic, so consuming. Jack wanted nothing more than to melt into Kitty and become one with her. “My God, Kitty!” he moaned into her shoulder, his voice and body trembling with emotion as he felt her release burst with a desperate cry while her body clenched and throbbed about his manhood. With a shout of satisfaction, he drove up into her violently once more, shoving her back against the wall as his own release incinerated him, leaving him completely spent.

  He leaned against her, panting, his breaths matching hers as they recovered from their bout of lovemaking. Lovemaking, Jack thought, as he allowed her to drop her feet to the ground, her skirts falling in place while he straightened his trousers and clothes and took a handkerchief to his forehead, wiping at his sweaty brow. He had never understood the difference of terminology before. Shagging, bedding…fucking. None applied to Kitty, and perhaps they never had, for he realized he had loved her for weeks without mindfully acknowledging the true nature of his feelings or realizing he liked her out of bed as much as he adored her in it. She roused emotions in him he had never felt before. She loved him as much as he loved her. “Say it again.”

  “I said it first and many more times than you,” she teased softly as he wrapped his arms about her, pulling her comfortably against his chest. “Why don’t you say it again?”

  “‘I like not only to be loved but to be told I’m loved’,” he whispered huskily in her ear, quoting Elliot, instead earning a tender chuckle from Kitty.

  “I know, I do as well!” she told him. “So how about you try again?”

  “‘Without warning as a whirlwind swoops on an oak, Love shakes my heart’,” he offered, earning simply a gentle hug from her.

  “Better, though not exactly what I was hoping for,” she said with a smile he felt against him. “Still, it pleases me to no end that you’ve been practicing. I must confess you have quite stumped me.”

  “I was hoping I might,” Jack grunted with pleasure as he leaned back so he might see her face. “Sappho, you know. I thought the reference obscure enough to baffle. I thought when faced with a lifetime of potential defeat,” he admitted, “I must be able to present a challenge for you.”

  “A lifetime?” she echoed.

  “I would sit with you on that bench in Newport just holding your hand in my old age someday, Kitty.”

  “But you left me, Jack.” She tried to pull away but Jack refused to allow her withdrawal.

  “But I bought this house for you, and I was about to come after you, my love,” he countered. “You simply beat me to it.”

  “I’m glad I could save you the trouble,” was her acerbic response.

  He just chuckled, hugging her to him again while brushing a kiss to the top of her head. “No trouble, just time exhausted against a lifetime together. I don’t want to wait to make you my wife. Will you marry me, my love?”

  “You haven’t said it again yet,” Kitty reminded.

  “Is this how you plan to go on? Tit for tat?”

  “It does seem smart, if I am to enter into such an estate again, to begin as I mean to go on,” she told him in all seriousness. “I would give as well as I get, for once.”

  Jack turned her face up so he might study her expression, reading accurately the fears and uncertainty in her eyes and realizing perhaps for the first time he wasn’t the only one with reservations. While he faced the unknown in taking this leap into intimacy and faith in another person, Kitty had qualms of her own, having already been disappointed by marriage and all it entailed. He traced the back of his fingers tenderly down her cheek, meeting her eyes and letting all his adoration show in his gaze. “I love you, Kitty. You are my future, all I can hope for in life. I would cherish you for the next fifty years if you’ll allow me. I will never give you a moment of regret, I promise you. Trust me.”

  Kitty’s heart burst with love for her earl. Though she had hoped and dreamed of this moment as she had written to him, it had always been with doubt, so sure was she that Jack would never return her love. That he just wasn’t a man to bare his soul to a woman. And here he had done it, without even the lure of her fortune to prompt him. How surprised he would be when he discovered he would gain so much more from their marriage!

  He leaned over and kissed her lingeringly when she hesitated. “Fear not, my love, you will never have cause to worry. Marry me. The sooner, the better.”

  “Yes, Jack. I would love to be your wife.” He kissed her once more, savoring the soft brush of her lips against his. “And sooner would be better. Um, does this house have a nursery, Jack?”

  “Ahh! Miss Hannah!” he recalled with a broad smile. “Shall we go to her and tell her she shall have a new papa very soon?”

  “You sound pleased by the prospect of being a father, Jack.”

  “I am,” he admitted, surprising hi
mself even as he said the words. But he loved that wee lass as well for she had quite captured his heart. “Has she allowed another to plait her hair since I left?”

  “No,” Kitty confessed. “She misses you dreadfully, Jack.”

  “Then we should wait no longer.” He clasped her hands to pull her along, heading for the door. “Let’s go and get her, for I missed her as well.”

  “Do you not need a coat, Jack?”

  “No, not at all!” Jack pulled Kitty along, hastening down the front steps, nearly running the short distance to the Glenrothes townhouse before Kitty pulled him to a stop, breathlessly laughing as they reached the front stoop. “Wait, Jack!” she panted. “Before we go in, I just wanted you to know Hannah isn’t the only reason I was asking if you had a nursery.”

  “She isn’t?” he questioned, bemused by her words. “Then why…No!”

  “Yes, Jack! We’re going to need it,” she teased.

  “Kitty!”

  She threw her head back and laughed aloud, throwing her arms around Jack’s neck as he lifted her in his arms and swung her around joyfully, right there on the sidewalk of Carlton Terrace.

  Neither noticed Maggie, Eve and Francis were at the window of the MacKintosh townhouse laughing right along with them, rejoicing for them, until little Hannah pushed through the trio and pounded on the glass to get the couple’s attention. “Uncle Jack!” came her muffled cry of delight.

  With a whoop of joy, Jack dashed up the stairs, not stopping until Kitty saw him through the window, snatching the child up in his arms and swinging her around, much as he had done her mother.

  Epilogue

  Glenrothes Townhouse

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  December 24, 1892

  “I’m so glad you’re finally back from London, Evie,” Kitty told her sister, though her eyes were glued to her husband who was currently trotting about the room with Hannah on his shoulders. They were battling the cavalry of Francis and Laurie who were in the same formation, as Hannah and Laurie waved their wooden swords at one another. The foursome was loud and raucous, but that was how things normally were when they were together.