He gave a shout of laughter. “The only good news about your answer is that I don’t earn another kiss.”
She bit her lip and tried not to feel stupid.
“I couldn’t take another kiss like that. I’m not answering a question, so I don’t mind telling the truth. I’ve never felt like that while kissing a woman, and I never thought to. And,” he added, “I’m rather worried that when we finally get that blasted set of vows out of the way, we’ll suffer spontaneous combustion. I’ve heard it can happen.”
A smile prickled at her lips but she couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t.
“Since I’m being so honest here,” he continued, “I’m also a bit worried that you hate me now that I touched your breast. I didn’t mean to do it.” And then he wasn’t sitting on the other side of the picnic cloth, but kneeling just before her. “Forgive me, Annabel? I know I should never have touched you in such a fashion before we were married, let alone in the out-of-doors. I—I lost control and you’re likely thinking it’s because I’m an uncouth man but—”
There really was anguish in his voice. “Ewan,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Do you like kissing me?”
“In God’s truth, lass, it’s the only thing I think about from morning till night.”
“I just won a kiss,” she said achingly, finally meeting his green-flecked eyes. What she saw there made her smile tremble with the pure force of it. Then she reached out and pulled him toward her and fell backward, and his heavy body followed hers. It was as if they had never stopped kissing, that’s how fast the heat returned. In less than a second, she couldn’t catch her breath, and she couldn’t think, but she did do just one thing.
She took his hand from her cheek and she moved it.
He groaned aloud when his hand cupped her breast, shaped it as if it were made for no other purpose. But he didn’t touch her nipple again. He just kissed her, all that wild hunger sweetened with a promise, and the truth between them.
And when he pulled back his head this time, she smiled up at him.
“I think my hand is frozen in place,” he said to her.
“Mac will be very surprised, then,” she said, gurgling with laughter.
He reluctantly rolled away and sat up. “No more questions.”
“None.”
“At least not today,” he amended. “Would you like a piece of chicken?”
Perversely, the only things that came into Annabel’s mind were questions. She ate an apple, and eyed Ewan, and all the questions she had in mind had to do with whether his chest was truly as muscled as she remembered, and whether it was a golden color, or whether that was just a trick of her memory. The rest of her questions couldn’t even be put into words.
The wine tasted like clear water spiced with flowers; it was making her feel uncivilized and free.
“Of course,” he continued, “you do have one question, so to speak, left to you.”
“And that is?”
“You won the archery contest. You won a forfeit of me. Remember?” His eyes were dark and shamelessly seductive. “You could ask me anything, Annabel, and I’d have to do it for you.”
In one smooth motion, Annabel slid down so that she was in a most unladylike pose, lying on her side just as he was, her head propped up by an elbow. It was scandalous. She grinned at him with the pure pleasure of it.
“You’ll have to give me some suggestions,” she said, and her voice poured out like slightly burnt honey. “You know, Lord Ardmore, that I am not as experienced in these things as you are.”
“There you make an assumption.”
He was grinning at her. What could he mean? Annabel opened her mouth to ask him a question, but they’d said no questions.
“No questions at all?” she queried.
“Perhaps I can guess what you’d like to know,” he said, eyes dancing.
“Quite likely,” she returned.
“There aren’t many likely candidates for my affections in the wilds of Clashindarroch Forest,” he said, using his eyes shamelessly. “When I was a lad, I did practice my skills for a short while with a willing young lady from the village. But then my Uncle Pearce pulled me to the side and said some strong things about the nature of responsibility and what would happen if a woman came with child. I’m their earl, you see.”
She nodded.
“I was tutored at home, and in the normal way of things I would have found myself at a university and there would have met many a young woman who might be able to train me in the ways of women. But unfortunately, before I could do such a thing Rosy was sent to me, under the terms of my father’s agreement with her father. Rosy would have stayed with us for a few years before we consummated the marriage, while I was off at university. She was only thirteen, you see.”
“Thirteen!” Annabel gasped, forgetting her languorous pose and sitting up. “That’s awful. Poor, poor Rosy!”
His mouth was a tight, straight line. “I couldn’t leave her, especially when we discovered she was with child.”
“Did she even know what was happening?”
“Not really. And the night she gave birth…” his eyes had an anguished look. “By then she was able to tolerate my presence. She liked me, even. But when the pains came, she decided somewhere in her tangled-up little brain that they must be my fault. And even though I took myself away, she kept breaking free of the chamber where they had her and looking for me. Finally Nana—my grandmother—decided it was better for her to be able to express herself. So I came to the birthing room.”
Annabel pushed the picnic things to the side and sat down next to Ewan’s reclining body. She wound her fingers into his thick, beautiful hair, and said, “Tell me.”
“As long as she could stand up, she beat at my chest with her fists,” he said expressionlessly. “Then, when she could no longer stand up, she cried. And bit my hand.”
“Bit your hand?” Annabel repeated, stunned.
He rolled onto his back and held up his right hand. There was a deep scar below his thumb.
“Poor you! And poor girl…that’s awful. Did she have any idea what was going on?”
“Not that we could see. Clearly she thought I was inflicting that pain on her.”
Annabel swallowed. “The baby?”
“Was quite healthy. I can’t say it was a very pleasant experience being there at his birth, but Gregory was a fine bouncing boy who screamed himself purple. And that’s how I lost my chance to take university courses in the art of seducing women.”
Annabel had lost track of his reason for telling the story in the pain of its details. “Rosy was only thirteen when Gregory was born?” she asked.
“She was fourteen by his birth. She’s never been a mother to him, but she did play with him a great deal when he was younger. I’m hoping that she’ll never develop the fear of him that she has of other men.”
“Does he know that she’s his mother?”
“Well, he knows and doesn’t, if you see what I mean. He’s fond of her, I’m sure of that. He’s a good-hearted boy, and generally kind. But he doesn’t see her as a mother, no.”