Secrets of A Highlander's Heart (Return of the Highlanders Book 1) by Julie Johnstone

Author:Julie Johnstone [Johnstone, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Darbyshire Publishing LLC
Published: 2024-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The Present ~ 1475

Rough Bounds, Scotland

“Grace, dunnae do this.”

The pain in Errol’s voice was like a dagger in her heart, but she had to be truthful with him. It was worse for them both to allow this to linger. She squeezed his hand, which she’d been holding since he’d awoken from his sleep. Bright sunshine streamed through the window of the healing room and filtered over his sickbed. The poultice Arabeth had put on Errol’s head wound reeked terribly. Grace wanted to pull away from him, just to have distance from the smell, but she would not do that to him. She loved him . . . just not in the way he wanted her to.

“I kinnae wed ye,” she said again and tried to instill greater firmness in her words. “I love ye, as I said, but nae as a wife loves a husband. I dunnae—” She bit her lip, embarrassment heating her cheeks, but she forced herself to press on. “I dunnae desire ye.”

“Desire could grow,” he said, his voice becoming desperate and his grip so tight her fingers throbbed.

She tugged her hand out of his, as he was now holding hers instead of the other way around. She held his gaze, though she wanted to look away from the pain she was causing him. “I dunnae mean just need of the body,” she whispered. “I dunnae feel incomplete without ye. My heart does nae expand to near bursting when ye are near.” His forlorn look nearly killed her, but she forced herself to go on. “I dunnae think upon what waking up beside ye every day would feel like nor going to sleep with yer arms wrapped about me every night.” But she had spent last night thinking about exactly those things with Brus. Her heart wanted him. Her heart recognized something in him for her, that she had never recognized in another before. That was the beginnings of the love needed between a man and a wife. She didn’t seem to have any control over what her heart wanted, and currently, her heart wanted a man whom she would likely never see again. Why was life so unfair? She wished her mother were here to give her advice, but she suspected her mother would tell her not to wed a man she knew, deep in her gut, she did not love as she ought to. Her mother had wed for love, and she had wanted that for Grace and Arya as well.

“Grace, I have loved ye all my life.”

“I ken,” she said, wanting to cry at the torment in his voice. “And I am grateful, and I wish—” She swallowed, her throat feeling as if it were closing. “I wish I could love ye back in the way ye deserve, but I kinnae.”

“How do ye ken how ye should feel? Ye have nae ever been in love.”

“Nay, I have nae.” That was true. “But I ken it here,” she said, touching her heart. She could touch other places that had told her what desire felt like, but she wouldn’t do such a thing.

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