Page 27 of My Highland Rogue
He looked at her. She’d never been studied in quite that way before. What did he see? Someone desperately in love and hurting with it? Until he’d left, she’d never realized that love could be a sword, or that it could wound so deeply.
“There’s never been a time in my life that I didn’t love you and want you,” he said.
A spear of light traveled through her, illuminating all the dark and shadowed spots.
He reached out and wrapped his arms around her. She bent her head, resting her forehead against his chest as he tightened his arms around her. She sat with him in the dawn light, the seconds perfect in their simplicity. He was here, with her, and the world was suddenly friendly again.
The years slid away. The air was chilly just as it had been that last day she’d seen him, five years ago. It was like time had stopped.
Now he pulled back, just far enough to look into her face. She raised her head and returned his look. Let him see how much she loved him, how difficult these past five years had been. She didn’t want to hide anything.
The truth—the inescapable truth—was that she loved him. There’d never been anyone else for her but Gordon McDonnell, and there would never be.
“What did you do in those five years, Gordon?”
She felt as though they were tiptoeing through the words, bridging the divide that five years had created. She wanted to know everything about those missing years, but didn’t know if he would tell her.
“I built my empire,” he said. “I have two music halls with another being planned, plus a gentlemen’s club in Pall Mall.”
She’d been to a music hall in Edinburgh and been startled at the size of it, not to mention all the entertainments offered there.
“Why music halls?”
He nodded. “I went to the Alhambra when I first went to London. I wanted to create the same experience, but with a Scottish theme. I’ve the Midlothian and the Dundee.”
“And a gentlemen’s club.”
“The Mayfair Club.”
“So the gardener’s boy is now a successful businessman. I’m not surprised.”
He turned and looked at her.
He’d made himself worthy, not understanding that she’d never felt that he was unworthy. He’d always been Gordon to her, her equal in all ways.
“Oh, Gordon, we’ve wasted so much time.”
He bent his head and kissed her. Passion bloomed between them instantly, making her breathless, intensifying the need she’d always felt for him.
Kissing Gordon was like being given a treasure after years of searching for it.
Gordon pulled back, finally, although he wanted to continue kissing Jennifer.
Her hand came up and pressed against his face, her fingers tracing the curve of his ear.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered. “I cried for weeks and months and years.”
There’d been an emptiness inside him that had lingered for years. For the longest time he’d felt as if the world around him was gray, that he didn’t belong to it or wasn’t part of it. The revelation had come only months ago, when he’d questioned himself why he was so adamant about purchasing a certain house or why he wanted to acquire land in Scotland on which there was a romantic ruined castle.
Jennifer.
When he’d left the Hall, it had been with the taste of shame in his throat. His own father had repudiated him, as well as McBain and Harrison. He’d been called names that he didn’t like to think about, even now. All because he’d loved Jennifer. All because he wasn’t a peer or a relative of one.
He’d wanted to come back to the Hall triumphant and wealthy, landed and successful, showing that he’d multiplied the countess’s bequest to him a hundred times over.
In the past five years he’d met a sizable number of women, from the landlady’s daughter when he first arrived in London to the sister of one of the inveterate gamblers frequenting the Mayfair Club. Each one of them had, by their actions and words, indicated that they would not be insulted if he called upon them. He hadn’t taken them up on their unspoken offer, holding out for a dream.
A vision, a wish, fervently felt all these years.
