Free Kilgannon by Kathleen Givens

sofa. "Mary," he said, his tone quiet. "Rowena isna a tenth as beautiful as ye. Ye looked verra beautiful last night. Ye looked like a goddess. Ye look like one today." I stared at him. He leaned back against the cushions and then smiled broadly. "But a woman must have more than beauty to recommend her. What are yer talents?"
    "Talents?" I looked at him blankly.
    He nodded. "Aye. Can ye cook?"
    "No."
    "Can ye fish?"
    "No." I laughed when he shook his head as though that were a serious deficiency.
    "Can ye tend cattle?"
    "No," I said, laughing harder.
    "Can ye sew?"
    "Yes. And embroider. And all the needlecrafts." "Aye, well, I canna picture Rowena with a needle in her hand. So ye see, yer ahead of her there too."
    "And what are your talents?" I said, feeling much better. "Besides reading French and having duchesses and cats adore you?"
    "I can skip a stone on the loch seven times." "That's very important."
    "It is when yer ten and yer cousin's fifteen and he canna." "Angus?"
    "Aye. It bothers him still, no doubt. Dinna shame him by asking." He shook his head as though it were a sad thing, but his eyes were laughing. "I canna think of any other talents."
    "Can you cook?"
    "Aye." He was watching my lips.
    "You can? What can you cook?"
    "Whatever I can catch. If I'm hungry I find a way to cook it."
    "Don't they feed you at home?"
    "I'm not talking about when I'm home."
    "Oh. Well, can you sew?" "No, but with a plaid ye don't need to. Ye just need to know how to fold cloth. I can do that."
    "Can you fish?"
    "Aye. Ye dinna grow up on the water and not know how to fish."
    "Can you tend cattle?"
    He laughed ruefully. "I have done it, but I'm not good at it. I get bored."
    "Then you do have some talents to recommend you as a woman."
    "Oh, those were womanly virtues?"
    "They were when you were asking me."
    "No, actually," he said, his voice growing husky, "I was wondering if I might hire ye for Kilgannon. Ye have the look of a fisherman about ye." He put the cat on the floor.
    "I'm not for hire," I said primly, smoothing my skirts.
    "Aye." He leaned toward me again, his eyes dark. "I think I'd have to marry ye." His face had almost reached mine when the door flew open and Ellen entered with a tray. Alex sprang up, standing a foot from the sofa.
    "I brought you some tea. Madam said to interrupt you," Ellen said cheerfully, her eyes missing nothing. She set the tray on the table before the sofa while Alex withdrew to the window.
    "It's stopped raining," he said.
    "Oh, yes, sir, ages ago," answered Ellen, and giggled as she crossed the room. "You were probably not looking out the window." She closed the door behind her. Alex turned from the window with a smile, and I returned it as I watched him approach. If he'd asked me to fly away with him at that moment I would have said yes.
    "There are three cups," he said, pointing to the tray. "That means Louisa will be here soon. We'd best be well behaved." He sat in a chair at the end of the sofa, but a moment later sprang up and came back to me, sitting where he had been before. He put one hand behind my back, wrapped the other in my hair, and pulled me to him. "Before we're interrupted again, lass," he said, and kissed me, gently, and then again, more insistently. I had been kissed before, but not like this. His lips were soft and I yielded to him as I had never done with another. What was it about this man that affected me so? My head was spinning, but somewhere in the back of my mind a little voice was shouting a victory song. He paused and smiled, and I looked into his eyes and willed him to kiss me again.
    "I've wanted to do that since the first time I saw ye," he said quietly as he pulled a strand of my hair over my shoulder and rubbed it between his fingers. "Yer hair is like silk. I knew it would be." He kissed me again. I put my arms around his shoulders to hold him to me, but he was already drawing away, and I watched him go to stand again at the window while I wondered what had gone