My Heart's in the Highlands by Angeline Fortin (ebook reader screen TXT) 📕

“I thought we agreed you would call me Ian,”he reminded her in a brogue still heavy with desire. Again he triedto cast it away, only to remain entrapped.

Hero’s lips parted with a swift intake ofbreath before she released it shakily. “I’m sure that would be mostinappropriate, Lord Ayr,” she countered softly as Ian led her downthe length of the picture room.

“Nonsense. We are family, are we not?” heasked lightly.

Chapter Eight

Hero didn’t answer immediately. Instead, sheremained silent as Ian led her down to the main floor, through thelibrary, and into the armory. From there a series of heavy doorsseparated the two parallel stone walls that surrounded thecourtyard, a tall inner wall and a shorter outer wall that frontedthe cliffs of the firth. The shallow passage between the two wallshad been the first line of defense in ancient days, when attacksmight be made on the castle from the sea.

Facing the Firth of Clyde, the narrow outerwall of the ramparts stood no more than three feet in height and afoot in thickness. Periodically the wall was notched out into lowersections where the business end of a cannon might be aimed towardthe firth to fight off invasion. Should that fail, the inner wallswere ten feet in height and more than two feet thick.

Ian motioned for Hero to precede him into thenarrow walk of the embattlements and she walked ahead of himholding her hooped skirts up on one side, creating an angle totheir bell shape that allowed her to fit down the narrow passage.She trailed her fingers along the top of the firth-side ramparts,lifting them over the gaps as she went.

One … two … three.

Ian counted the spaces as she skipped acrossthem, watching her delicate fingers drift through the air beforeonce again skimming the stone walls. The wind was even greater herethan it had been on the upper balcony, but then Ian had noticedthat the ramparts always seemed to be the windiest area of thecastle. The breezes from the firth collided with the higher wallsand, as if they knew not which way to go, would swirl about theramparts, pushing and pulling against anyone who walked thewalls.

That wind was pulling at Hero now, andtendrils of her golden hair were escaping her once-neat coiffureand licking across her face and neck. The long streamers of hergown that had once lain tamely against the silk were dancingmerrily about her skirts.

At the sixth break in the wall, Hero stoppedand turned, seating herself within the notch. After adjusting herskirts daintily, she propped an elbow against the higher portion ofthe wall and, brushing a piece of hair away from her face,considered him thoughtfully with her vivid azure eyes gleaming inthe moonlight. “You see me as a sister then?”

Ian stared blankly at her for a moment. Hehad been so taken by the picture she presented that his earlierwords were the farthest thing from his mind. She was so lovely, sodesirable. Angelic yet seductive. Brotherly affection was nearlythe last thing he felt for her, but he’d be damned if he were goingto admit it. This strange magnetism between them had already costhim a slap or two to his male pride. Leaning back against the innerwall, Ian crossed his arms over his chest. “You should be carefulthere. This wind has the force to push you over the edge, and it’sa long fall to the firth below.”

“Almost 150 feet,” she responded, notbothering to look down. “I spent many an evening sitting just so;you needn’t worry for me.”

“I find myself quite concerned.”

“As for a sister?” she persisted.

Ian met her gaze. Her words were bold ones,prodding even, seeking something that Ian hadn’t yet trulyaccepted. Hero was the Marchioness of Ayr, a woman worth morerespect than his ogling and lustful thoughts had yet delivered. Hewanted her. Still, it was more than that. There was an undeniableconnection between them, something more than attraction or meredesire. He wanted her body beneath his, true enough, but it waswhat else he wanted that was eluding him.

An indefinable longing for something …more.

The sentimentality of the thought grated atIan’s nerves, and his answer, when it finally came, was evasive. “Idoubt I would want to waltz with a sister if I had one.”

Her airy rebuttal was immediate. “A cousin,then?”

“I haven’t many of those either,” Ian quippedlightly, but Hero didn’t respond. Instead, she merely watched himintently, as if she were waiting for something greater to emergefrom his lips. What was she waiting for? A confession? Admissionthat he found her intoxicating, bewitching?

He’d be a fool to admit such a thing. Theiropportunity for comfortable cohabitation was hanging in thebalance. If he said the wrong thing, Hero might feel the need toleave Cuilean, and he didn’t want that. Yet if she continued toprod him so with her steady gaze, Ian felt that he might findhimself saying those very things.

“Lord Ayr?”

Ian needed to stop her questions before hesaid something he’d regret. He needed to break away from herprobing gaze.

“Won’t you say something?”

Ian shook his head. He could either walk awayor …

Pushing himself off the wall, Ian crossed theshort space between them in a single stride. Bending, he caught heraround the waist, pulling her up and against him even as his lipsdescended. He took her lips in a fiery kiss full of the desire he’dbeen feeling all day and the frustration of these last fewmoments.

A squeal of surprise escaped Hero beforeIan’s lips covered hers. For a moment the force of his body meetinghers startled her, so that she reached back to steady herselfagainst the ramparts, lest they both tumble to their deaths, beforerealizing that Ian was as solid and supportive as the wall. Bendingher over his arm, he allowed his mouth to slant across hers,parting her lips before his tongue swept in. Hero clung to hisshoulders, astounded by his passion. Then her body recovered fromthe surprise and responded in kind. Fire unlike any she’d everimagined burned in her chest and sizzled down her belly andthighs.

Overwhelmed, she dropped her head back,breaking the kiss, but