What the Hart Wants - Fiona Davenport Page 0,47

I read it?”

He picked up the top page, and she cried out.

“No!”

Chapter Seventeen

Fraser watched her on the bed. Moments before she’d been mewling with desire, yet now, she’d withdrawn from him, hurt in her eyes.

She wanted more.

Had he respected her less, he’d have spread her legs and buried himself inside her. But he valued her too much to take her as his mistress. Though she may deny it, she needed to avoid a scandal. She had a bright future ahead of her, and her desire to help the disadvantaged women of London, as well as her talent for writing, were better served with a spotless reputation.

But the need to claim her as his warred with his resolve. What might it be like to have her warm his bed every night? To see her belly round with his child?

He picked up a piece of paper on the desk, and she cried out.

“No!”

“Forgive me,” he said, dropping the paper. “I’ve no right to intrude on your privacy or betray your trust.”

She didn’t reply, but the stricken expression on her face tore at his conscience.

“I didn’t mean to cause you pain, lass,” he said, taking her hands.

“You’ve not pained me.”

“I forget how little experience you have of men,” he said. “I should listen to Ma’s counsel more.”

“Your mother?” Her eyes widened. “Does she not like me?”

“On the contrary, she likes you a great deal. But Ma has always told me that a woman’s heart is like porcelain, where a man’s is made of granite. She said that a man might indulge in as much pleasure as he wishes and be forgiven for it. But she warned me that if a man’s indulgence brings hurt to a woman, then he cannot call himself a real man.”

She wiped her eyes and gave him a smile. “I think tonight’s lesson has shown that you’re a real man,” she said. “I would like to continue my education. Three more lessons remain.”

“And do you have a proposal for your next lesson?”

She nodded toward the window. “The mountain.”

He lifted her hands to his lips. “Then, lass, I shall bid you good night so you can be sufficiently well-rested to conquer our mountain.”

He released her hands, then retreated from the room. After he closed the door behind him, he could swear he heard a cry.

*

“It’s magnificent!”

Miss Hart’s joy swept aside any concerns Fraser might have had for her disposition. She seemed to have shaken off her melancholy from last night.

She’d taken to the mountain track with gusto. The drover’s road to the pass was relatively easy-going, and she’d refused his help. But when they veered toward the summit, the terrain grew rougher. After some hesitation, she let him take her hand during the steeper parts, and his heart lifted each time she tightened her grip on him.

“I envy you,” she said. “If I lived here, I’d climb the mountain every day.”

If I lived here…

As if she understood the implication, she blushed. “Does the mountain have a name?” she asked.

“It’s called Benn mo Chridhe—mountain of my heart.”

“Mountain of my heart,” she repeated. “I like that.”

“My great-grandfather named it,” he said. “He fell in love with the land here, almost as much as he fell in love with my great-grandmother.”

“He was the one you inherited the title from?”

“Aye, one of that blackguard Jeremiah Smith’s cursed Molineuxs.”

Her smile disappeared.

“Forgive me, lass,” he said. “Today is not the day to speak of enemies, for I’m with a friend, am I not?”

She picked up a stone and held it up. Something glittered in the rock, winking in the sunlight.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Its tiny crystals embedded in the granite.”

“It’s beautiful. Almost as if the rock were alive.”

“It is,” he said. “A living, breathing part of the land.”

He handed her a flask. “Here, drink.”

She wrinkled her nose. “It’s not whisky, is it?”

He laughed. “No, it’s water.”

She took it, then picked her way over the rocks until she reached a large, flat slab that jutted up at an angle, pointing toward the sky. She looked overhead, exposing her throat, and his manhood twitched with the need to taste her skin.

She lowered her head, and their gazes met. Love of life glittered in her expression, and her face glowed with health and happiness.

“Ye look well, lass,” he said, “far better than the pasty skin of London. Our land is doing you good.”

“Would you prescribe a trip to the Highlands to solve the world’s problems?”

“I would. It’s the land I belong to, the land I love. Money, titles, it’s all