Fire Along the Sky
Page 87

“Have you no idea how I feel about you, Lily? Are you so cruel?”
Lily felt herself flush, but she made herself hold his gaze. “I know how you feel about me.”
A look passed over his face, comprehension and disappointment. He rubbed it away with his palm. “You still love the idiot with the apple trees.” He said it matter-of-factly, as he might have told her that she had dropped a glove.
“And what does it matter if I do?” she said dully. “Most likely they hanged him already.”
Simon let out a surprised grunt. “Do you think him guilty of the murder, then?”
“No!” Lily's head came up sharply. “He wouldn't. He isn't capable of something like that.”
“Men are capable of anything,” Simon said. “But in this case I tend to think you may be right. He's a coward, is your Nicholas Wilde, love him as you may.”
Lily turned her face away, for what was there to say to that? Simon Ballentyne loved her and wanted her to love him back. It was there in his eyes and the set of his shoulders and the way his hands were fisted at his sides: he was jealous. And with cause.
“Alive or dead, Nicholas is lost to me,” she said. “I know that.”
“No,” said Simon Ballentyne. “You don't know it, not really. You want me to take you back home so you can see for yourself that he lied to you. And you hope he didn't.”
She hadn't admitted that much to herself, but once the words were said there was no way she could deny them, to herself or to Simon.
He crossed the room to her with such a furious look on his face that she drew back in fear. But he took her by the arms and raised her up to him and kissed her once, hard.
“I'll take you home,” he said. “But I've a condition of my own. Once you've seen your precious Nicholas Wilde and learned the truth about him, you'll marry me.”
Lily studied his face for a moment, the fierce purpose there and the anger he held in check. It was a dare, and one she might well lose. She could agree to this and find herself bound to Simon Ballentyne for the rest of her life. The idea felt so odd that she wasn't sure what to do with it.
“But what of your family . . . connections? What about Angus Moncrieff?”
He made a face at that, and she saw doubt flicker across his face. He was thinking of Luke, who had made his concerns known, and of her own father, whose reaction he could not predict. Nathaniel Bonner might feel as strongly, or more strongly, than Luke did about such a connection.
“Were this Scotland, then aye, that would be a problem. But your father is a fair man, is he no?”
“Yes,” Lily said. “But he has a long memory too, and the things Moncrieff did—”
“Are unforgivable,” Simon finished for her. “But I hardly knew the man, and I'm nothing like him. Your brother can attest to that. I'll do what must be done to convince your father that I'm worthy of you. Do you doubt that I'm able?”
“No,” Lily said, quite honestly. “I don't doubt that you could convince him, though it might take some time.”
“Well then, I'm waiting for your answer, Lily Bonner. And let me say this: I'll no ask again.”
“Yes,” she said, and started to hear her own voice so firm and unwavering.
He looked at her hard. “You'll marry me, then?”
“If . . . if things are as they seem at home. And if my father and my mother agree. Yes.”
In her relief to have this settled—to know that she was going home—Lily relaxed against Simon and felt him tremble, his body responding to hers in a way that was unmistakable, and anything but unpleasant. For a moment they stayed just that way, eye to eye.
“I must take you back to Iona,” he said, and set her down on the bench with a thump. Then he sat next to her, breathing as hard as a man who has run a mile uphill.
Unable to meet his eye, she examined her own hands. “But there are details to discuss.”
That earned her a sharp and suspicious look. “Details,” he echoed.
“Well, yes,” she said. “When we'll leave and the rest of it . . .” Her voice trailed away, because he was grinning at her. Defiance was the only weapon she had to hand, and so she used it. “And it's really very early, still.”
“Ah,” said Simon Ballentyne, and pulled her back into his lap as if she weighed no more than a feather pillow. “It's talk you want? Are you sure of that?”
She struggled a little, and in response he held her tighter. “Must you be so . . . so . . .”
“Honest?”
And he kissed her before she could find the words to admit he was right.
Later, when they were both so heated that they could hardly breathe, when Lily's bodice was off her shoulders and loosened to her waist and her breasts so sensitive to his touch that she thought she must scream, Simon pulled away from her.
“What?” she said, her voice rough.
We must stop, he would tell her now, and he was right.
Lily thought of Iona, waiting for her. She thought of her mother and the words she had written. I know you to be an intelligent and sensible young woman.
Simon Ballentyne said, “'Gin I dinnae take ye hame, lass, then I mun take ye tae ma bed. Tell me noo, which shall it be?”
“You're speaking Scots.” She pressed her mouth against his throat. It thrilled her to feel him shudder.
“Aye,” he said. “And ye havena answered ma question.”