One other person stood on the quay to watch him set off. He’d struggled not to look at Kirsty, just as he’d struggled not to look at her when he joined the Macbains for breakfast and told Gus that he meant to leave within the hour. He kept reliving that dreadful scene between them in the middle of the night. When they both said things they shouldn’t.
When she’d told him she loved him.
He wanted to dismiss that declaration as just a passing female fancy. But her gallant misery as she spoke the words smacked of something deeper than a silly whim.
She’d cried when he caught her in the midst of her duplicity. Her betrayal bit deep, made every dealing they’d had together false.
Except he couldn’t dismiss every word she said as a lie, just as he couldn’t dismiss their kiss as anything but an explosion of the lust that had gnawed at him since he first saw her.
She’d told him it was her first kiss. Last night, he wanted to believe he’d fallen foul of feminine machinations. But much as he’d like to paint himself as blameless in that conflagration of delight, he knew he couldn’t. As Kirsty had pointed out, he’d kissed her, not the other way around. And he’d tasted innocence on her lips.
She’d lied about so much else, but she hadn’t lied about him being the first man to kiss those lush, red lips.
Dougal steered his boat out of the harbor and struggled not to remember the sweetness of her kiss, the broken sounds of pleasure she’d made as his lips explored hers, the way her surprise had melted into sizzling surrender.
No, by God, he wouldn’t think of that.
Which meant he went back to stewing about what happened on the Kestrel last night. How Kirsty had cried when she realized the game was up. His sisters used tears as a bargaining tool, and over the years, he’d become inured to fits of girlish hysterics.
Until last night. The sheer extravagant sorrow in Kirsty’s crying had tied his gut into tangled knots. She’d made him feel sick with guilt, when the good Lord knew, he was the injured party, not her.
She hadn’t cried this morning. She’d been subdued and heartbreakingly dignified at breakfast when he told Gus he was leaving for Innish, no matter that it was Christmas Eve. On the quay when he left, she’d been worse than subdued. She’d stood apart and stayed utterly silent, but even across the distance, Dougal had sensed her proud suffering and hated that he caused it.
Last night, he’d decided that any unhappiness she endured was her own fault, until his sleepless vigil on the Kestrel after she left gave him time to regret her wretchedness. While he should let the hellcat stew in her own deceit, ruthlessness was impossible to maintain. Especially when he saw her this morning. The crackling energy was absent, the silvery eyes were dull as unpolished pewter, and that full, kissable mouth was tight with unspoken grief.
When he left the shelter of the harbor, the wind caught his sails and the wee boat flew across the choppy waves. With luck, he’d make Islay this afternoon, then on to Innish and his appointment with a great destiny. If he managed to keep the boat going, this wind would blow him all the way to Fair Ellen.
Tomorrow was Christmas. What a perfect day to claim his fate.
Once he did, he’d never have to think about Kirsty Macbain again.
***
Kirsty woke to a thunderous pounding on the front door of Tigh na Mara. When she opened eyes scratchy with crying and too little sleep, light edged the curtains of her bedroom windows. The clock on her mantelpiece told her it was past nine. Grief and a wild storm had kept her awake until after five, when she’d tumbled into a restless doze, tormented with dreams of Dougal glaring at her as if he hated her before he turned his back and walked away. Those dreams weren’t fantasy. They just played out his actions in the real world.
She was up flinging a shawl over her flannel nightdress and sliding her feet into slippers before she was fully alert. Most mornings, especially after a storm, she was out well before this, checking her island. Foreboding formed an uneasy mixture with misery in her belly. Blast Dougal. He turned everything in her life upside down. Now this could be an islander reporting some injury or serious damage that required the laird’s attention.
&n
bsp; It was only as she darted down the oak staircase to the hall that she realized that an islander was unlikely to knock at the front door. Everyone who lived on Askaval came in through Tigh na Mara’s kitchens, as she’d blithely told Dougal that first day when she’d still harbored hopes of winning his heart.
She rounded the landing just as Betsy, Ruth’s daughter, scrambled up from the kitchens and crossed the black and white tiled floor to open the door. She looked exasperated, and she was wiping floury hands on her apron. Kirsty might have slept in, but the servants had been up before dawn, preparing Christmas dinner and refreshments for tonight’s ceilidh.
The banging on the door ceased as Betsy pulled back the bolt. "All right, all right, I’m coming. Nae need to wake the dead."
Kirsty was halfway down the last flight of steps before she realized who stood in the open doorway with a windswept Scottish sky behind him. "Dougal…"
"Mr. Drummond, have ye had trouble with your boat again, sir?" Betsy asked after an awkward curtsy.
Because the light was behind him, Kirsty couldn’t see his face, but his voice was kind as he answered the maid. "No, Betsy. The Kestrel came through the storm like a champion."
The maid stepped back to allow him into the hall. "We thought you’d gone."
"Aye, so did I." He strode forward to stand at the bottom of the steps, staring up at Kirsty. "But I realized I’d left something behind, and I had to come back for it."
Perhaps she was still dreaming. He didn’t look angry. Instead, the ardent emotion glowing in those deep blue eyes made her battered heart stir to life.
Her hand curled hard around the banister as she forced out the question that would determine the rest of her life. "What did ye leave behind, Dougal?"