She widened her eyes in mock innocence, though she would be devastated if she truly believed he thought her guilty of such. “I do no such thing.”
“You think not?”
“It’s a ridiculous instruction.”
“You are a stubborn woman.”
“I thought I was your angel.”
“A willful one.”
“It runs in the family.”
“It is a more charming trait in you than your sister.”
“How can you say so?” she asked even as her heart swelled with the implied compliment. “Emily is everything that is wonderful in a sister.”
Talorc grimaced. “And the Balmoral would say she is everything that is wonderful in a wife.”
“But you do not say so?”
“She called me a goat.” He gave Abigail one of his rare smiles. “She is not you.”
Her hand flew to her mouth and she shook her head. She would not cry like a ninny, but no one had ever said anything so lovely to her. Not even Emily. That it was her usually taciturn husband made it all the more special. “Thank you.”
He shrugged and she grinned, knowing he had done so on purpose to tease her with what she still considered a non-answer.
Then his eyes grew serious as they usually did only at night in their bedchamber. “You are mine.”
Abigail could not hold it in any longer. She jumped to her feet and leapt into her husband’s arms. “Is it any wonder I am in love with you?” And without a thought to propriety, she kissed him exuberantly, first on his lips and then all over his face.
She could feel his laughter rumbling in his chest. Leaning back, she looked him in the eye, her expression as earnest as she could make it. “You are the best husband any woman could ever wish for.”
She rejoiced daily that he and Emily had not found each other as pleasing.
Talorc looked down at her with mock severity. “Such a display is most unseemly, my angel. Clearly this is behavior you learned in England.”
“Yes, because Sybil was always so open with her affection.” Abigail could not hold back the laughter bubbling up and made no effort to do so.
The idea of her mother kissing her father, much less anyone else, in the courtyard of their keep was so ludicrous it was impossible to even imagine.
Talorc did not laugh, but his half smile might as well have been a belly rolling mirth as far as Abigail was concerned. “I see I will have to teach you the proper way to treat your laird in a public setting.”
“By all means, teach me,” she offered saucily and without the least worry. After all, her feet were no longer on the ground because his hold on her was so secure.
“You should not kiss your husband thus,” he said quite severely.
She cocked her head to one side. “I shouldn’t?”
“Nay.” His blue eyes darkened with heat. “You should do it like this.” He took her mouth with possessive passion, his lips moving against hers in ways guaranteed to scramble her mind.
Forgetting where they were, she returned his kiss with enthusiasm, burying her hands in the hair at his nape.
When he pulled his lips away, she was breathing heavily. So was he.
She brushed at his neck. “I seem to have gotten dirt from your mother’s garden on you.”
“’Tis your garden now.”
“I will share it with her, and keep her memory alive there for our children.”
Just like that, the emotion grew thick between them.
Talorc traced the line of Abigail’s lips with the hand not clasping her to him. “Thank you.”
Unused to being the recipient of such gratitude, she rubbed at the soil clinging to the sweat on Talorc’s neck. “What shall we do about this dirt?”
“Lucky for me, I was planning a swim in the loch.”
“You were?”
“I thought you would like to join me. I remember how much pleasure you found in the water at the hot springs.”
A blush of equal parts embarrassment and pleasure heated her cheeks. “I should like that very much.”
“Good.” Rather than release her as she had expected, he put his free arm under her knees and swept her up against his chest.
“I can walk.” But she didn’t say it with any heat. After all, she enjoyed being held this way.
“I like carrying you.”
She giggled in pure joy.
He nodded at someone else and only then did Abigail realize they had an audience. Men and women of the clan were smiling at them and calling out teasing comments. For once, Abigail did not allow the fact she had been unaware of them bother her. Nothing could diminish the pleasure she felt in this moment.
She loved her husband and had had the courage to tell him so. While he might never repeat the words back to her, he clearly cared about and liked her. That was miracle enough for Abigail.
She rode to the lake on Talorc’s horse with him, feeling a sense of belonging unlike anything she had ever known. They played in the water, not even pretending their primary purpose was bathing. Afterward, they made love in the sweet green grass, surrounded by the scent of heather.
As she climaxed she heard his voice saying something in what she recognized as Chrechte. She pretended it was “I love you.”
If she was going to hear a voice that existed only in her imagination, it might as well say something she would never see spoken on her husband’s lips.
Later Talorc sat on a rock and smiled at Abigail’s efforts to do her own pleats. Determined to prove that she could dress her pleats every bit as efficiently as her laird husband, she was concentrating on getting each fold precisely the same when she heard Talorc’s voice inside her head for the first time outside of making love.
“Abigail, run!” The urgency was so strong, she obeyed without thought, only to trip on her unpleated plaid and go crashing to the ground.
Air rushed over her and she looked up in time to see a huge gray wolf. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, but the wolf did not attack. He sailed right over her.
She scrambled to her feet, yanking her plaid off as she went. She looked for Talorc, but he was nowhere to be seen. She turned her head and saw a wild boar and the wolf in a fight. Abigail ran to Talorc’s horse, screaming her husband’s name.
She scrambled onto the big black stallion’s back and kneed him into movement. She had to find her husband. Something must have happened to him.
Terrified but unwilling to leave the man she loved behind, she turned the horse toward the forest from which the wild boar had come.
“Abigail! Go back to the keep,” Talorc’s voice demanded in her head.
“I won’t leave you,” she said in her own head, feeling more than a little crazy for replying to the imaginary voice.
“Obey me.” The voice had never sounded so harsh.
But it wasn’t real and no matter how insistent it sounded, she did not have to listen. She wasn’t leaving Talorc behind. She skirted the fighting wild animals, but kept her attention on them in case they lost interest in each other and came after her.
With a spray of blood, the wolf tore out the boar’s throat. The big gray beast put his head back and howled. Heavens above, she really was going mad. She felt an insane and almost irresistible urge to stop the horse and approach the wolf, to commend it for fighting so bravely and effectively.
The beast turned his head to look at her. Showing she truly had lost all sense, she halted the horse and stared back at the blood-covered wolf. If she didn’t know it was impossible, she would have thought the look the wild animal gave her was one of possession. That made no sense.
Without warning, the wolf spun and ran into the forest. Filled with trepidation and undeniable curiosity, she kneed the stallion to follow.
They had only gone a couple of yards when Talorc came striding out of the forest. He was covered in blood, explaining where her husband had been. He must have been fighting another boar. Guaire had told her the wild pigs with deadly tusks sometimes traveled in groups.