Page 33 of The Devil of Clan Sinclair
“You’re bonnie in the morning, Countess,” he said. “Most women aren’t.”
She opened her eyes and frowned at him. “Do you have much experience with women in the morning?”
He wasn’t foolish enough to answer that question fully. He grinned at her. “My sisters. My cousin.”
She held up her hand as if to forestall a recitation of other women.
“I must get back to my room,” she said softly. “Otherwise, I’m bound to shock your servants.”
“Every single one of them is loyal to me,” he said. “You’ve nothing to fear from them.”
“I can’t say the same about my own maid. If I’m not back in my chamber before she arrives, Hannah’s tongue might begin to wag.”
For a moment he was content to simply study her, note her pink cheeks and sparkling eyes. Passion became her. So did sleeping in his arms.
“The look of sadness is gone,” he said.
She reached up and cupped his face.
“I thought it was because of your husband,” he said, turning his head and kissing her palm. “But it’s gone.”
“Is it?” she asked, smiling.
“Do you like being a countess?”
“Why would you ask that?”
He needed to know. How fond was she of a title? Enough to remain in London? Or would she be willing to give it up?
“If I never knew you before, I wouldn’t have approached you now,” he said, offering her a strange truth.
Her smile was gentle.
“You can’t tell me, Macrath, that you would’ve been put off by a title.”
“No,” he said. “You wouldn’t have interested me because you belong to a certain class of people I normally ignore.”
“Why? Because you think them arrogant? Aren’t you guilty of the same?”
He had the feeling he was walking close to the edge of a cliff, and took a cautious step back.
“It’s been my experience that a great many people with titles feel they are better than others because of their birth. They’re singled out as being special, when they’re not, in truth. They’re simply the sons or grandsons of men who did something.”
“Since I don’t know many people with titles, I can’t argue with you.”
“You didn’t associate with people of your rank?”
“I didn’t associate with people at all,” she said, surprising him again. “I spent my time at home, with Lawrence’s sisters or with my mother-in-law.”
He kissed her again, simply because he wanted to. No, he had to.
“What did you write me?” she asked. “Those dozen letters you wrote, what did you say?”
“The ramblings of a man in love,” he softly said. “Foolish, unwise comments, no doubt. How much I loved you. How much I longed for you. How much I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“Oh, Macrath.”
She always skewered him when she said his name in that tone, with that look of wonder in her eyes. He wanted to be the man she thought him, powerful and without sin or blemish.
