Duncan loved to see her full of life like this. By the saints, she was gorgeous when she was angry, though he was not foolish enough to say it.
“I know ye are as strong and brave as ye are beautiful,” he said, pulling her hard against him. “And believe me, I don’t think of ye as a child.”
Duncan clamped his mouth over hers and kissed her with all the passion welling up in his heart. After a moment, she twined her arms around his neck and kissed him back with such fire that he wanted to drop to the floor and take her right there.
When she pulled away, he was breathless. Duncan had not believed he could love Moira more than he had when she was an enchanting lass of seventeen, but he loved this passionate woman in his arms even more.
“If ye leave me again,” she said. “I swear, I’ll murder ye.”
Given what she’d done to her last husband, Duncan believed she meant it.
* * *
As they made love, Moira finally let go of her heart.
She was aware that Duncan, being a man, assumed she had given it to him when they made love for the first time since finding each other again. But trusting him with her heart was a much bigger leap for her than trusting him with her body.
After all she had been through, it was not easy to stifle her fears that marriage would suffocate her. But Duncan recognized that the scars on her soul had made her strong, and he did not need her to be weak. He would not try to make her be something less, a shadow of herself, as Sean had tried to do.
She let all the layers of protection slowly melt away in his arms.
“I love ye,” Duncan said over and over as he moved inside her, quelling her last shred of doubt. “I love ye forever. No matter what comes.”
No matter what comes.
“I love ye, too,” she said, holding his face between her hands. “Always and forever.”
For the first time since Moira was seventeen, she gave herself to Duncan without holding back any part of herself.
* * *
“The captain of Connor’s guard disappeared again, and no one knows where,” Hugh said. “I’m certain his coming and going in secret is leading up to an attack.”
“Sounds to me as if he’s sneaking off to fook another man’s wife,” Erik said.
“Not Duncan MacDonald,” Hugh said with a laugh. “He’s straight as an arrow, the sort who would choose death over dishonor.”
“Hmmph,” Erik snorted.
“This Duncan is a fearsome fighter—I’ve seen him,” Hugh said, shaking his head. “And there’s no one Connor trusts more.”
Erik shrugged. What could a lone man do?
“I suspect Connor has sent Duncan to your clan’s other enemies to seek their help in an attack on Trotternish.”
“Your suspicions are useless,” Erik said. “I’ve told ye before, I need information.”
“I have my spies watching,” Hugh said, “but Connor is keeping this very close.”
* * *
Moira stood outside the cottage with the wind whipping her hair around her face as she watched for Duncan. Since his return from Trotternish yesterday, her emotions had been as wild as the weather, constantly fluctuating from anxiety over her son, to fear for Duncan and the other men who would soon be going into battle, to a daze of happiness over the love between her and Duncan.
Aye, she did love him.
Even so, putting her trust in Duncan felt like closing her eyes and jumping off a cliff. But she was making that leap of faith.
“Duncan!” she called, waving her arms when she finally saw him coming up the path. When she ran to meet him, he lifted her off her feet.