The Bard (Highland Heroes #5) - Maeve Greyson Page 0,28
Is this merely an alliance of clans at the request of Chieftain MacCoinnich? Is that all this is, and ye plan to resume yer dalliances as soon as the deed is done? Because if that is so, I shall have no part in it. I seek a marriage like my parents shared. Loving. Passionate. Faithful.” Her piercing scowl dared him to attempt to lie. “I told ye once, but I wish to be fully certain that ye understand, I willna be played for a fool. Not by ye. Not by anyone.”
He had always found dancing with words easy when it came to the ladies, but this time was different. The wrong response could cost him a price he wasn’t prepared to pay. He did set aside several choice words for Lady Culane at a later time. How dare that calculating whore trouble his Sorcha with such lies. Then the truth of the sordid mess hit him and hit him hard. If not for his womanizing reputation, Lady Culane’s lies would not have been so easy for Sorcha to believe. The fault here was his and his alone.
Head bowed, he looked inward and pulled the words from his heart. “I canna explain why a love—real love, not just the wants of the flesh—happens with one person and not another.” He slowly shook his head without looking up, not yet ready to look her in the eyes. “I dinna ken if it’s fate, sorcery, blessings, or curses.” Stubbornness set and ready to face his accuser, he took her hand once more and held it tight as he lifted his head and met the intensity of her stare. “All I know is when we met last summer, and ye refused me, when ye seemed immune to all my foolery, ye bewitched me with the inescapable need to claim ye for my own—for all time.”
Sorcha opened her mouth to speak, but he pressed a finger across those soft lips before she uttered a word. “Nay. Before ye even say it, the answer is nay. It was nay just the need to claim yer innocence—it was the need to never be without ye. Ever.” He shook his head again. “I canna explain it, my fine one. I think I have loved ye fierce ever since ye threatened to shoot me.” Brushing a kiss across her fingers, he held her hands tighter, searching the emotions flashing in her eyes, praying forgiveness and trust danced among them. “Do ye love me, my fair sweetling? And if ye do, can ye explain this fickle thing called love and tell me why I feel it so deeply for ye alone?”
With what he hoped was a sigh of relief, the intriguing woman bowed her head and pressed her cheek to his hand. He eased out a relieved sigh of his own.
“I canna explain it,” she whispered. “I just know that it seems to be inescapable.” She stared at him, trapping him in her storm of emotions. “I dinna forgive easily, Sutherland. It is not within me to do so. If ye ever hurt me…”
“Never,” he swore, pulling her into his arms. He cradled her close, searching for the wisdom to convince her that he was a changed man and wash all hesitancy from her mind. The words finally came. “All I can do is prove my love to ye one day at a time by living the truth of it at yer side. Will ye grant me the opportunity to overcome my past?”
She looked up at him then, easing his worries with a genuine smile. “Aye, and I promise ye willna regret choosing me as yer wife.” A flush of red stained her cheeks, and she looked askance with a shy turning of her head. “Well…ye may regret it a wee bit now and then when I happen to cross ye with what I might say or do, but other than that, ye willna regret choosing me.”
He laughed, deciding then and there that he’d have another taste of those wondrous lips of hers before they left the coziness of their confessional. “Ye intend to cross me at times, do ye?”
“I cross everyone at some point or other,” she admitted.
“As long as ye promise to always mend yer ways with a kiss,” he said softly, leaning back and taking her with him until every glorious bit of her stretched across the length of him. “All can be forgiven with a kiss.” Lacing his fingers through her hair, he held fast and