Highlanders Collection. Ann Lethbridge

how was your talk?’ her mother asked, winking at her. ‘Elizabeth said she came upon you in the forest on her way here and you were talking.’

      She laughed, knowing it would be expected. Glancing at Elizabeth and thinking of the lie she’d told, she said, ‘It was a nice talk.’

      ‘Nice is good,’ Elizabeth said, reaching for another pin for Dolina.

      Elizabeth liked nice. She did not like overwhelming and passionate kisses and did not seek a marriage where she would be more than content. She met her friend’s gaze, then Elizabeth turned away after a moment.

      ‘Yes, it is.’

      They worked quietly then, gathering here, letting out there, until Dolina and her mother were pleased. Dolina would finish the dress and have it back here on the morn of her wedding.

      The rest of the day went quickly, as the hours before her wedding seemed to go by. Ciara spent some of the time with James’s mother while James worked with the men in the training yard. Unwilling to see Tavis just then, she avoided it while turning another plan over in her mind. Certain it would not work, certain he would refuse, she knew she had to try it.

      Passion would not be enough. When men feared something, something they could not admit or face, sometimes it was up to a woman to show it to them. And Tavis had carried fear in his heart every day since Saraid’s death. The fear had such a tight grip on him that he needed someone to help rid it from him.

      She sought out the midwife who Saraid had seen during her carrying and asked questions that had plagued her since her death. If Gunna thought her questions strange or out of place, she did not say. Most likely she thought them natural ones for a young woman about to marry and her last words, trying to ease her fears of the marriage bed and bearing bairns, confirmed it.

      Just as her explanation had confirmed the one thing that still held terror over Tavis—that he or something he did or did not do caused Saraid’s death.

      If she did nothing else before she left Lairig Dubh as James Murray’s wife, she would free her first and dearest friend from the tyranny that held his heart prisoner.

      If she did nothing else before she said the words that would make her James Murray’s wife, she would have the passion that she was forfeiting on the day of her marriage.

      If she did nothing else before ending her time as Marian and Duncan’s daughter, she would be the bold, confident woman they had raised her to be.

      With a plan in mind to fulfill those needs and desires, Ciara waited for her parents and siblings to seek their rest. Once the house had settled and only the sound of night birds broke the stillness of the silence around them, she considered her plans one last time.

      What she planned to do was scandalous. She had told James she would come to him a virgin, but now would offer that to Tavis. If he accepted it. And now, in the quiet of the night, she did not know if he would reject her once more.

      Shaking her head, she crept from her bed and gathered what she needed. She would not let doubt or fear or guilt rule her as it did Tavis. If she would live by duty for the rest of her life, this night would be about love.

      And if this was the only night she would have with him, so be it.

      But she had waited almost her whole life for him and she, they, would have this night.

       Chapter Seventeen

      Tavis worked as hard and as long and as late as he could, trying to avoid returning to his empty cottage. He took on all opponents in the training yard and faced off with an equal number of MacLeries as well as several more of the Murrays before having enough. Aching from working out the frustration that would not be tamed, he accepted an invitation to share the evening meal with Rurik and Margriet and stayed longer than he should, speaking about another assignment from Connor.

      When, with another not-subtle pointed glance at both his bedchamber’s door and the door of the cottage, Rurik told him to leave, Tavis did so, walking slowly along the path back to his cottage. He was in no rush to face the empty cottage that mocked him, reminding him of promises broken and lives lost.

      Strange. When he looked at the door of it, he could still see Ciara as she stood there that night, asking him to marry her. Not Saraid, whose ghost still haunted the rooms within it.

      Tavis noticed that the shutters were closed. That was not how he’d left them. As he approached, he saw the flickering light of flames in the hearth through the crack between the door and the frame.

      Someone had been here while he was not. Someone might yet be inside. His hand grasped the hilt of his dagger before he thought it and he positioned his body to the side of the doorway as he lifted the latch and entered carefully.

      Ciara sat before the hearth, reading by the light of several candles. Her hair, loose and lovely, flowed over her shoulders. Dressed in a simple gown with a plaid shawl, she was the essence of Highland lass. His mouth watered, his hands itched and his heart ached just looking at her and knowing she could not be his.

      ‘Ciara?’ he asked, stepping further inside and sliding the dagger back in its scabbard. ‘What are you doing here?’

      ‘Waiting for you,’ she said, closing the book and placing it on the wooden mantel above the hearth. ‘I needed to see you in private to speak to you.’ He did not reply immediately. He waited for what seemed an eternity of time before speaking. So many wrong things to say and very few right ones crossed his mind.

      ‘Ciara, ’tis best if we do not. The last time …’ He thought about their last encounter alone in the night and how it ended up with her in his arms devouring her mouth with a kiss he could still remember and taste.

      ‘I have a last request for my closest friend before I set off to my marriage.’

      Did she have to remind him that she would leave him forever? For a brief moment when he entered the cottage, he’d allowed himself to imagine that this was how he would find her on his return each night. Waiting for him. Waiting for his touch, his kiss, his body … his love.

      The words brought him back to the reality that would be—she was not his. He swallowed several times, trying to clear his throat from the sudden emotion clogging it.

      ‘What is your request?’

      ‘James and I spoke about our marriage and it is clear he wants a calm, sensible relationship, built on polite conversations and companionable peace.’

      Tavis could believe both that she could have spoken to the man about that and that young James would be a calm, dispassionate, courteous husband to Ciara. Not that that was the way he would have her to wife, but …

      A sudden vision of them in bed, with him buried deep in her flesh, urging her with hands and body to explode in passion with him. Her hair spread around them as his hands pleasured her lovely, rose-tipped breasts. He was hard before he finished the thought.

      ‘If I must face a life of calm and sensible affection,’ she said, now walking towards him, ‘then I wish to know the passion and pleasure I will be missing with you.’

      Bloody hell! Did she not know the temptation she was to him? How much of a struggle it had been to keep his hands to himself and to seek his own release when the need for her tempted him in the deep of the night, every night, since he’d given in and tasted her mouth?

      ‘Ciara, I beg you to leave now,’ he forced out from behind clenched teeth. ‘Before it is too late.’

      ‘It has been too late for some time, Tavis.’ She reached up and touched his cheek. ‘But I will leave if you can kiss me once and let me go.’ Her smile filled with wicked temptation.

      Sweet Christ, but the lass knew how to challenge his resolve!

      ‘One