Quest of the Highlander (Crowns & Kilts #5) - Cynthia Wright Page 0,55

said ye might use it while we are here, but I confess I did not tell him this is your true passion. I feared he might try to convince ye to stay here with him and spend your days weaving tapestries for Duart Castle.”

She saw that he was only half in jest. “I do not believe Hector Mór has designs on me, but even if he did, it’s not possible for him to beguile me.”

“It’s only that…” He looked away, and she saw a muscle move in his jaw. “I know ye are meant for better things.”

“I am,” she agreed.

Their eyes met for a long, charged moment before Lennox swallowed. “Tell me, then: What do ye think of the loom? Will it do?”

Nora walked around it, lightly running her hands over the wooden frame, the rollers, the ratchet wheel, the half-filled bobbins, every part that she knew as well as her own body. It was much smaller than the magnificent looms she’d grown used to, but it would certainly do. She ached to create something new, right away.

“I could weave here,” she said, “but I do not have a cartoon to use as a pattern.”

“Do ye remember me saying I have been awake since the middle of the night?”

“I do.” Their eyes met, and Nora remembered the interlude when he’d curved his hand over her hip and she had longed for him to lift her smock and continue touching her. Perhaps he had wanted it too—so much that he’d had to leave the bed.

Lennox went to a small chest that stood against one wall, opened it, and withdrew a large, loosely-rolled paper, probably twice the width of her childhood rabbit tapestry. “After Hector showed me the loom, I spent the next hours making this. I am not certain I did it right, but I remembered the few things your da taught me when I questioned him at Stirling.”

Nora hurried to his side, bursting with excitement. Was it really possible he had made a cartoon for her? “Oh, please, show me!”

“I had only my charcoals,” Lennox cautioned.

She put her hands on his, urging him to open the scroll. There was a sort of heat in the air between them and she thought she could hear the beating of his heart. “Please,” she whispered. “I promise you I will love it.”

Slowly, he unfurled the paper on the lid of the chest. “I didn’t have the proper time to ponder a subject.”

Nora gazed at his careful sketch, delighted. The bottom half of Lennox’s cartoon was a multi-layered choppy sea. In the center was a Highland galley, like the one she and Lennox had sailed from Oban to the Isle of Mull. Both bow and stern curved up to slice through the wind, in the manner of a Viking ship, and a small sail rose up in the sky. There were two figures in the galley, and in the distance a great stone castle waited on a cliff.

Nora’s heart swelled. “Oh, Lennox! It’s wonderful. This is us, isn’t it? And that castle is Duart!”

“Us?” Surprise crossed his handsome face for a moment, and his blond brows lifted. Lennox looked down at the galley he’d drawn, drew a thoughtful breath, and then gave her a smile that made her heart turn over. “Aye, lass. Of course it’s us.”

Nora felt consumed by emotions she couldn’t name. How splendid he was! How thoughtful and caring and gifted, to have risen in the middle of the night and set to work on such an amazing gift. A gift to answer one of the deepest needs of her soul.

Was it also his way of communicating to her the deeper, wordless connection between them?

Before she could think or stop herself, Nora rose up on her toes and fairly threw her arms around his wide shoulders, pressing herself against him, urging his head down for her kiss. Lennox groaned as he took her mouth, and she felt as if she couldn’t get close enough. He held her against him with one arm, while his other hand rose to cup the side of her jaw, angling her mouth so that he might taste even more of her. She pressed closer, kissing him back, aching with hunger.

“Christ, Nora,” he rasped, lifting his head for an instant. “I—”

She waited, watching him, panting softly, dizzy.

Lennox squeezed his eyes closed and held her against his chest. She could hear his heart racing, feel him slowly shake his head. “Sometimes, when we are together, I feel a