Page 109 of Sighs of the Highland Wind
“Eventually someone claimed to have seen you and told your family you were still alive,” she told him, her voice grating with fury. “I don’t know if they had seen you or not, but I think the news came just in time. It pulled your poor mother from the brink of death, although she spent a couple of weeks in bed after that. When I left she was better, although I don’t think she will ever fully recover. I hope you are pleased with yourself!”
She was standing with her hands on her hips glaring at him accusingly, and this made his anger rise to meet hers. He leapt to his feet, heedless of the state of his body, and took two strides across the small space between them.
“You wee madam!” His voice was almost a snarl. “How dare ye judge me? I did what I did because I believe in Scotland, and because I dinnae think English soldiers should be settin’ their filthy feet on our good Scottish soil! I am young an’ strong, an’ while I am in good health an’ sound mind I will keep on daein’ what I can to keep Scotland for us Scots! I was doin’ it for them! For all of us! Do ye understand, Norah? Do ye?” Then he flapped his hand at her and turned away, disgusted. “Of course ye don’t. How could a woman possibly understan’ what a man has to dae for his nation?”
Norah moved around to confront him again. “We understand that real men do not abandon their mothers, fathers, wives and children then go off to war without telling anyone!” Norah was so full of rage that she could feel it thrumming through her veins. Her whole body was vibrating. “It takes no courage and very little effort to tell your family - or even write a note!”
She bent to pick up her needles again, and Tearlach took a step backwards, because Norah was holding them with the points facing him and looking more and more as if she was about to stab him. Later, she would wonder the same thing herself!
“You are a self-serving, stubborn oaf who will never admit when he makes a mistake!” Norah stepped up close to him again and raised her hand to strike him, but he caught her wrist and stopped her hand before it made contact. “Just like all men, always assuming you are right, even when you are completely wrong!” She wrenched her wrist out of his grasp.
“I am a man who wants to fight for his country and I willnae say sorry for it!” His voice was as harsh as stones grating together, and his brows overshadowed his eyes as he glowered at her fiercely.
For a moment, there was a stalemate, then, in the space of a second, all the fight went out of Norah, and he watched as her shoulders slumped and she turned away again. He reached out to pull her back but she shrugged him off and sat down, and after a moment he realized that she was weeping.
Damn! Why did women always do this? He told himself it was a ploy to make him do exactly what they wanted, but deep inside he knew he was lying to himself. Norah was not the kind of person who could or would feign deep emotions; she had never been anything but honest.
Then Norah turned around again, her silver-grey eyes streaming with tears. “When you went I thought it was something I had done. I thought that after you kissed me you thought it was so awful you had to get away from me. I thought you might have thought me repulsive.
Yes, I know it sounds very stupid and no doubt it is, but I was young and immature, and that really is how I felt. When I saw your family suffering I felt guilty and ashamed, and I hoped that they would never find out it was my fault for driving you away. I know now that these were the thoughts of a young girl who had been wrapped in lambswool for too long, and had no experience of the world, but it was all too real at the time.”
They stood in silence for a long time, then Norah went to pour more ale, mostly because she needed something to do than because she wanted any. She handed a cup to Tearlach, making sure their fingers did not touch.
Looking at her face, the one he had thought about, dreamed about and longed for, he tried to put himself in her shoes, to imagine her bewilderment and pain, and a wave of shame engulfed him. He had hurt so many people; people he cared about deeply, whose lives he had spoiled or shattered. There might even be those he would never see again, family and friends who had died during his absence, to whom he would never be able to say a proper goodbye.
‘Tearlach McLachlan, ye are a poor excuse for a man,’he thought bitterly.‘How could ye ever have done such a thing?’
He put his hands on Norah’s waist to turn her around to face him, and once more she tried to move away, but he was not deterred. She glared at him mutinously, and suddenly he had to fight the urge to drag her into his arms and kiss her until she melted under the onslaught of his lips. However he held back, merely holding on to her arms, then he took a deep breath.
“Norah, I am so sorry,” he said softly. “You are right. I have been selfish an’ stupid. I thought that my reasons for goin’ were the best, an’ some of them were, but I realize now that it wasnae justthat. I wanted to be a hero. The reason I didnae tell anybody was because I knew they would try to stop me. I wanted to come back like a conqueror that everybody would admire. I never thought that goin’ away like that would cause everybody such distress, an’ the thought that I might die -” He shrugged. “It didnae even occur to me.” He looked down at the floor, shaking his head. “I am an eejit an’ I should have some sense knocked into me.”
“Yes, you should,” Norah agreed. She was not quite ready to let go of her anger and hurt, but she recognised that Tearlach was making an effort to be contrite, even if it was too little and much too late. “But there is nothing you can do about that now. What’s done is done and we cannot turn back the clock.”
He nodded slowly, his gaze never leaving hers. At least her frown had gone, he thought, and she was no longer looking at him as though he was something that had crawled from under a stone.
Norah was now acutely aware of how close she was standing to Tearlach - close enough to feel the warmth of his body and smell the scent of it. She could count every hair in his red beard and see the flecks of gold in the apple-green of his irises. A deep longing sprang up inside her again, but she almost despised herself for it. How could she love a man like this? It defied all logic, yet she did.
Yet she had read many books, and she knew that love did not listen to reason, and the heart was a wayward creature that had a will of its own. Good people loved bad people, despite their character, and despite the fact that they knew it could only end in heartache. Was she doing the same? Was Tearlach a bad man?
By now, Tearlach’s heart and his body had completely overrun his reason, and as he looked down at the woman he loved, her lips parted slightly and she looked into his eyes. A man couldonly stand so much, he thought, and he had reached his limit. He gave a soft growl, then, unable to help himself, he bent his head and pressed his lips to hers.
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Shocked,Norah stood immobile in Tearlach’s arms for a moment before she stepped fully into his embrace and surrendered herself to him. Memories of their first kiss came flitting back to her, but that had been the first fumbling attempt of an inexperienced boy and an innocent girl. Now Tearlach was a man who had become, over the years, an expert in the art of kissing. Norah had a brief flash of jealousy as she wondered who he had practiced with, because he had definitely practiced with someone, or many someones.
But none of that mattered now. Now his lips were caressing hers, and they felt surprisingly soft and gentle. Surely most men did not have lips as tender as these ones? Norah started a little as Tearlach’s tongue parted her lips and invaded her mouth, stroking her own tongue until she began to imitate him, making him growl with pleasure. The beard he had grown was rasping gently against her face, adding to the myriad of new and wonderful sensations she was experiencing.
Tearlach gathered her further into his embrace, holding her so that they were pressed tightly together from chest to thigh.Norah had often wondered how it would feel to be in Tearlach’s arms, but her imaginings had not done justice to the sublime experience.
His chest was unexpectedly firm, as were the arms wrapped around her, and the thighs pressed against hers. The pressure of the hard ridge against her belly was unexpected, although she knew what it was, but she had not expected the reaction of her own body to be so swift or so intense.
No one had ever told her that she would feel this warm, molten sensation between her thighs, or that she would experience a pleasant, fluttering ache that was becoming sweeter and stronger by the second. No one had ever told her that her nipples would throb and tingle, or that she would feel the urge to rub herself Tearlach’s erection like a wanton, lustful woman.
Tearlach could not have stopped himself from kissing Norah if his life had depended upon it. She was angry with him, yes, and he had disgraced himself, yes, but she was a tender, giving woman and he loved her with every part of himself. As soon as his mouth met hers he was lost in her sweetness. He felt as if he had come home, as if this was the place he was meant to be, and this was the only person he was destined to be with.
She smelled of the wood of the fire, a little fresh sweat, ale, and an indefinable musk that was all her own. Her body was as soft and pliant as he had expected it to be, as were the lips that he was tasting for only the second time in his life. He could feel her hesitation at first, no doubt because of her innocence and inexperience, but he would soon put that right. He would make her want to kiss him again and again until she was dizzy with desire.
Tearlach never wanted to move away from her, but when he felt Norah’s body begin to move rhythmically from side to side against him, he pushed her away, breathing hard. He was afraid of what he might do if she stayed in his arms.
