“Good night, Jane.”
As soon as the door shut, Amelia-Rose slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the entrance. She listened to Jane’s fading footfalls for a moment, then turned the key in the latch. Just in case.
Then she padded to the window, pushed aside the curtains—and yelped when a face looked directly back at her. “For heaven’s sake,” she gasped, taking a step backward and nearly tripping over her night rail.
A half grin on his face, Niall pointed through the window at the latch. One hand over her heart, she reached up and unlocked it. Accompanied by a breath of chill air the window lifted, and with a swift duck he stepped into the room. “Thank ye, lass,” he whispered, turning to close the window and the curtains again. “That was a wee ledge.”
“How long have you been crouched out there?” she asked, noting that he’d managed to climb the house in a kilt and boots. She almost wished she’d been outside to see that.
“Long enough to curse Jane Bansil to the devil about a dozen times,” he returned. Releasing the curtains, he faced her. “I wasnae certain ye’d open the window at all.”
Swallowing, she took him in, six feet three inches of lean, handsome Highlander. He made her generous bedchamber look small and delicate, as if he might take a wrong step and crush a chair. But he wasn’t that graceless, or that careless. And what she wanted from him … How did one even go about saying it? “Hello,” she ventured.
“Hello,” he returned. “Ye dunnae have any food in here, do ye?”
Amelia-Rose snorted. This was Niall, after all. “Food again? No, I do not. Are you here for me, or to raid my cupboard?”
“Och, I’m here for ye, lass. I’m nae a fool, though. I ken how important propriety is for ye. Ye’re breaking the rules here.” Moving deeper into the room, he bent his head to examine the painting on her mantel, dim in the dying firelight.
“Did you do this?” he asked, glancing back at her.
She flushed. “I did. I was only sixteen, and very unskilled, I’m afraid.” It had been meant as a present to her mother, who’d immediately decided it would best be displayed in her daughter’s bedchamber.
“Why did ye choose a mountainside?”
“Everyone who paints pastorals chooses mountainsides.”
Straightening again, he shook his shaggy head. “Nae. It’s usually streams and coos—cows—and meadows. Have ye ever seen a mountain?”
“I’ve seen other paintings, and sketches. Don’t make it mean more than it does, Niall.”
“I want to show ye my mountains. The way after a snow the rising sun turns the whole face golden. The smell of pine trees in the wet. The steam rising off the pastured sheep on a cold morning. The scent of fresh bread from the village bakery. The sound of the bagpipes in the evening.”
He took two steps forward, closing the distance between them. “The lasses in the village will hound ye, asking ye to show them the fancy way ye put up yer hair. All the lairds and ladies, all the clan Ross chieftains and their families, will accidentally find themselves on the Aldriss doorstep to be introduced to ye. I reckon Lady Marmont will insist on a grand party to welcome ye, and she’ll only be the first.”
“You don’t have to try to convince me that I’ll find the same Society in the Highlands that I have here. I know it’s vast and empty. I’m—”
Niall took both her hands in his. “The Highlands is vast. My mother found it empty, but then my da nae met a soiree he cared to attend.”
She narrowed one eye. “So you, being more sociable, would magically arrange for more people to appear?” This conversation wasn’t remotely what she’d expected for tonight, but she appreciated that he took her concerns seriously enough to want to address them. What she didn’t want to hear, though, was a basketful of wishful thinking. “I don’t want pretty lies, Niall.”
He blew out his breath. For a bare, dreadful second she thought he’d given up. “I’ve nae had a day where there wasnae someaught to do,” he said finally, “someone who needed a hand with a leaking roof or cutting peat for a fire, or a mama trying to find a way to send her lad to school to train as a solicitor, or a da who received a letter from his daughter in America and needed someone to read it for him.”
“That’s nice.”
“I’m nae finished. If ye want to spend yer days at coffeehouses and shopping, then nae, ye’ll nae find that outside of Inverness. If ye want to call on old Mungo Wilkie and help him feed his chickens in exchange for a gander at the finest library in Scotland, he’ll thank ye for it. If ye want to teach some wee bairns to read or to dance, ye’ll find people willing to give ye their last bit of bread. Do ye want to be entertained, or do ye want to see what it’s like to be a Highlander?”
The bluntness of his last statement surprised her. Up until now he’d been encouraging, supportive, and good-humored. But this was important to him. After all, if they married, people would judge him based on her, and vice versa. She wasn’t the only one proceeding on faith and hope.
He released her hands. “I’ve nae wish to force ye into someaught, lass. And I know yer ma doesnae like me and willnae approve. That willnae stop me. Only ye can do that.”
“Are you … leaving?” she blurted as he turned around.
“I’m going to sit in this chair until ye realize that I already ken the answer ye want to give. I’d nae fall for a lass who only cared for what the world could give her. I’d nae fall for a lass who valued herself so little that she needed to fill her empty soul with pretty things.”
A tear, unbidden, ran down her cheek. Was that her? A woman who needed a place, who needed constant affirmation, before she could claim to be happy? Was she turning into her mother? The thought, just the idea of it, made her feel ill. She’d been told for her entire life that her value lay in making her family proud; in being the perfect, sophisticated, cultured young lady; in marrying a title to improve the family’s standing. But was that all she was? “That’s not me,” she said aloud.
“I know that,” he returned. “I know it because I’m a rough-edged man. I’ve nae made a secret of who and what I am, or of how I want to spend my life. It’s nae very fancy, though I dunnae mind a party now and then. And I’m here in yer bedchamber, because ye wanted me in here.” Green eyes, darker in the gloom, studied her face. “I’ve fallen for ye, Amelia-Rose. Hard. I want ye to have nae a bigger life than the one ye imagined for yerself, but a more satisfying one. I love ye, adae.”
Amelia-Rose put a hand over her heart, feeling it tremble beneath her fingers. He truly believed in her. He loved her, not despite her missteps and hesitations, but because they were part of who she was. It was utterly remarkable. Niall MacTaggert, the literal opposite of the polished, staid, dull gentleman she’d set out to catch, loved her.
“Ye neednae say anything,” he commented into the silence. “I know ye dunnae see a future for us. Ye’d be foolish to risk yer h—”
She threw herself on him, kissing him everywhere she could reach. The chair rocked, nearly going over backward. She grabbed onto his shoulders, gasping against his mouth as the overstuffed thing settled back onto all fours, then resumed with her kisses. Perhaps she didn’t own enough hope and faith to say the words, but she could show him how she felt.
“I like the way ye declare yerself, Amelia-Rose,” he murmured, settling her across his lap.