Page 109 of Duke It Out
His face – normally so guarded and controlled – is completely open, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiles at me as we make our way between the rows of chairs to meet him.
Jamie, standing beside him, nudges him with an elbow and says something that makes him laugh without ever taking his eyes off me. Knowing Jamie, I suspect it’s something wildly inappropriate.
Afterwards, as the midsummer sun shines long into the evening and the fairy lights glow through the trees, Rory leads me in our first dance. All around us the people of Loch Morven – our people – watch with smiles and raised glasses, and in the case of Mrs MacEwan from the flat opposite mine, a knowing wink.
“Happy?” Rory murmurs against my ear, his hand warm at the small of my back.
I look up at him – the bartender who wasn’t, the aristocrat with the terrifyingly cold mask. The man who now looks back at me with nothing but love in his eyes.
“Happier than I have words for,” I say laughing.
“Not ideal for a writer, darling,” he says, his tone dry.
And then the music shifts, and suddenly everyone is joining in, forming a line for the first of manyceilidhdances. Jamie grabs Kate, Gregor twirls Janey, and even Finn is laughing as he’s pulled into the dance by a determined Annabel.
“Your father would never have believed this,” I say as we catch our breath half an hour later.
Rory’s gaze sweeps over the celebration – villagers and estate staff, starchy nobility and local farmers, the children playing between the gardens and the marquee, the laughter and joy spilling out across the grounds that had once seemed so forbidding and alien to me.
“He’d have had at least one minor explosion by nowor landed some giraffes in the middle of it all.”
I giggle at the thought of it and touch the bracelet Annabel gave me.
“That was sweet of her,” Rory says, following my gaze. He catches my wrist and lifts it so his lips brush against my skin.
I slide my arms around his neck, pressing my body against the solid heat of him.
“I think,” I whisper against his lips, “it’s time we found somewhere more private to start our next chapter.”
His brow lifts, and he glances across at the revelry taking place. “And not the glasshouse?”
He bends to kiss me, gently at first. There’s an edge to it, a hunger that makes my breath catch in my throat. I think it’spossible that Janey’s carefully fastened silk buttons might not make it to the end of the night.
I shake my head, laughing. “Not the glasshouse. Never again.”
His answering smile is pure wickedness.
“There’s a boathouse with our name on it.” He takes my hand. “I’ve been thinking about the importance of tradition, and I think I’ve landed on one we can make our own.”
I turn to look at him. “You have?”
Rory nods. “Disappearing in the middle of events to fuck my beautiful wife,” he says in his impeccably upper-class growl, sending a jolt of heat straight to my core.
As we slip away from the celebration, I catch Jamie’s knowing wink, Kate’s subtle thumbs-up, and Annabel’s not-at-all-subtle toast in our direction. The whole village will be gossiping about our disappearance by breakfast, but I don’t care one bit.
The path to the boathouse is dappled by the last of the evening sunlight, the same loch waters that captivated me on my first day at the castle gleaming like a dark jewel. Rory’s hand is warm in mine, his stride so purposeful that I have to do the occasional skip to keep up.
“That night in New York,” I say as we reach the weathered wooden door of the boathouse.
“What about it?” he asks pulling me close.
“I told you I was an investigative journalist.”
He laughs, looking into my eyes. “And I let you believe I was a bartender.”
“We were both hiding something.” I reach up, tracing the curve of his jaw, my thumb brushing over the fullness of his lower lip. “And now we’re here. No ghosts. No secrets.”
“No pack drill,” he murmurs against my palm.
“Just us.”
He opens the door and pulls me inside, his lips almost on mine.
“Ruined for life,” he says, and the door closes behind us.
THE END
