Emma slept late the next morning because she hadn’t fallen asleep until dawn. She’d laid in bed, reliving every detail of their lovemaking. She now sat in a steaming tub and let parts of her body that pleasantly ached be soothed.

Her body tingled with storming emotions. She didn’t know what she had expected from her request to become Dougray’s lover but pleasure seemed such a tame word for what they had shared. Tumultuous, incredulous, awe-inspiring, exquisite lovemaking, and it was singularly life-changing.

She knew it was stupid, but she finally felt like a woman. Confidence surged through her and it was strange. She thought it would be awkward having to face Dougray but she felt no shame or embarrassment considering what he’d done to her, with her, last night. Where his mouth, hands and . . . had been.

She should be deflated at learning Dougray was still so deeply in love with his dead wife, but she couldn’t be. She admired his devotion. Her love for Dougray made it almost impossible to consider any other man, so she had an idea of what he must feel.

The fact of the matter was, she’d achieved her goal. She’d had her magical moment in his bed and she would hug the memories to her heart and let them warm her over the years to come.

She smiled as she soaped her breasts. No wonder Serena and her brother barely left their room.

It was after lunch by the time she almost danced her way downstairs. It was raining again so she headed straight for the kitchen, as she was suddenly famished.

When she entered she was surprised to see four wee boys creating havoc in the kitchen. They looked to range in age from twelve down to five or younger.

Mrs. Wilson the cook explained. “They’re my daughter’s boys. She’s expecting a fifth babe, hoping for a girl this time, and she needs some peace and quiet. The weather has them under her feet, so I thought I’d bring them here. However, they are a handful and I’ve meals to cook.”

Emma looked at the four boys who had stopped play fighting to look at her. Their mouths hung open.

“Gosh, yea tall for a lassie,” the oldest one said.

“Duncan,” Mrs. Wilson exclaimed.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Wilson. I am tall.” She looked at the flustered cook. “What are your names?”

“Well, I’m Duncan. I’m the eldest. The youngest is Paul.” He said pointing to a little red-haired boy with freckles. “Then there is Scott, and finally James.”

They all looked alike and had Mrs. Wilson’s lovely sparkling hazel eyes.

“I’m Lady Emma.” She turned to the harassed cook. “Shall I take them off your hands for a while?”

Mrs. Wilson’s face said it all.

Emma clapped his hands. “Why don’t you make us all some tea and toast, Mrs. Wilson, and I’ll take the boys to the library and if they are good I’ll read them Robinson Crusoe, a story of a young lad seeking adventure on the high seas.”

“Oh, does he meet pirates?”

“That he does.”

Soon they were sitting at her feet in the library like little lambs, eagerly hanging onto her every word. It was one of her favorite stories too.

Her throat was getting dry and it was only then that she realized how long she’d been reading. She must have been reading for a good two hours—the winter light had started to dim outside.

She snapped the book closed.

“Please keep reading, he’s about to be kidnapped . . .”

The boys had crept closer to her feet and she gave them a warm smile. She rubbed Duncan’s head.

“How about whenever it’s raining over the next few days, you come find me and I’ll keep reading the book to you?”

“Can we? We’ll be ever so good.”

“You have to promise to do all your chores for your mother though.”

They all nodded eagerly and began talking at once until they all felt another presence in the room. Dougray.

He walked toward the fire where they sat and the boys became open-mouthed statues, admiration and awe shining in their eyes.

“I hope you boys have been behaving yourself for Lady Emma.”

“Yes, my lord,” young Duncan managed to say.

“They were just going to report back to Mrs. Wilson. We got so caught up in the story I did not notice the time.”

“Lady Emma is going to read to us tomorrow too,” little Paul announced, standing and looking way up at Dougray with his little hands on his hips as if daring his lordship to disagree.

“Then you need to be on your best behavior.”

Duncan gathered his brothers and they raced back to the kitchen. Emma wished she could follow because suddenly she was tongue-tied. Dougray lowered himself into the vacant chair next to hers and warmed himself by the fire.

“I’ve been out for a ride. Zeus needs to be exercised every day or he can become unmanageable. I’m sorry that you have been stuck inside by yourself. Your brother and Serena have not appeared?”

He looked good enough to eat. His long legs stretched out, his hair tussled by the wind and his cheeks flushed with color from his ride in the cold.

“I am happy with my own company. I’m used to it, and the boys were a lovely distraction.”

“They were totally engrossed in your storytelling.” He shook his head.

“What?”

“It’s such a pity you’ll not consider marrying. You deserve to have a brood of children at your feet.”

A sudden thought entered her head as she starred at him, barely registering his compliment. “You’ll need children. You only have sisters.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that out loud. “Oh that was rude of me, sorry.”

“Rude but true.” He sighed. “There is always Angus.”

Of course. Dougray’s cousin or his children could inherit. She watched him shift uncomfortably in his chair.

“Speaking of Angus, I haven’t seen much of him. He is probably busy with the young lady I saw him with.”

Dougray’s head swung to face her. “A woman?”

“I saw him with her the day after I arrived at the summerhouse.”

* * *

Dougray couldn’t understand who the woman would be. The type of women that Angus would be interested in and who lived around the lodge were all married. God, he hoped his cousin wasn’t dallying with one of his tenants’ wives.

He had problems enough without adding angry tenant husbands out for Angus’s blood to his list. What lay on his conscience was Emma and what they had shared. His solution of marrying Fiona was weighing heavily on his mind, given what had occurred.

Everything had changed overnight. In the blink of an eye his world was shaking at its foundations and he didn’t want to face why.

Emma asked, “Do you know who Angus is . . . courting?”

He shook his head at her question. “I have no idea.” And he didn’t. Why didn’t he? He prayed Angus was not in some kind of trouble.

However, his biggest problem was sitting across from him looking like a vision of perfection. When he’d walked in and saw the boys sitting at her feet, pain ripped him in two. He wanted a family—with her. She could end the loneliness he felt every day. She was a woman who he could easily fall in love with. They were already friends, and now lovers. She had broken open the walls encasing his heart, and now he had to face his fears.

His fear of love and the disaster he had caused were not forgotten. It was all imprinted on his memory. But a woman like Emma deserved love. She deserved all of him, if he was brave enough to give her his heart.

A cold sweat broke over his body at the idea of opening himself to the hurt and pain that were part of love. What if he failed again?

And then he had to consider his vow to his late father to help Ian Mackenzie. Why wouldn’t the man simply take Dougray’s money? He’d even offered it as a loan.

Perhaps Ian hoped Dougray would understand that marriage to his daughter was the only option.

Until he found a way to deal with Ian Mackenzie, he could not allow himself to do what his honor and his heart were begging him to do. Love her. Marry her.

The pain he was used to deflecting stayed with him. He needed time to think of a way to help Ian Mackenzie and be brave enough to do what was right where Emma Duckworth was concerned.

But first, he needed to find Angus and sort out whatever mess his cousin was causing.

He rose. “I need to find Angus.”

Just then Thornton and Serena entered. “Are you looking for Angus?” Thornton asked. Dougray nodded. “He’s gone to the Foxtail Inn.”

He looked out the window at the gathering dark that promised more rain. “I need to talk with him, so if you’ll excuse me I shall go in search of my cousin. Don’t hold dinner for me.”

* * *

Two hours later he was back and soaking wet for his troubles. Angus hadn’t been at the inn. He went straight to his rooms and changed, not bothering with a bath, and headed to his study, asking Mrs. Jones to fetch him a plate of food.

He could hear Thornton and the two women at dinner but was in no mood to join them. What was bloody Angus playing at? Where the hell was he and what on earth was he up to?

Just then the door opened and Angus stood in the doorway, also soaking wet.

“Where the hell have you been?” Dougray all but roared, his temper raging with all the emotions storming through him.

“What’s got you riled up? I’ve been out, and the last time I checked I’m a grown man and not required to tell you where I am.”

“Emma says you have a woman?”

Angus stood straighter and his eyes narrowed. “A woman?”

He nodded. “Aye, a woman. She saw you with her at the summerhouse. Who is she?”

Angus moved further into the room, dripping water all over the beautiful Persian rug.

“Nobody of note.”

“Does this nobody of note have a name?”

“Why are you so interested?”

“Just promise me it is not someone’s wife and that you are not leading a young local lass astray. I hope you are acting with honor. I thought you’d at least be able to wait until the lovely ladies you invited to this gathering could arrive.”

He watched as Angus’s fists curled at his side, and he knew he’d gone too far. Angus was a man who took honor very seriously.

Angus leaned his two hands on Dougray’s desk. “And what of your honor? I know everything that goes on in this house, I wonder if Thornton does?”

He couldn’t bring himself to look at Angus.

“Tell me, are you still going to offer for Fiona?”

Angus had him trapped with his own dishonorable behavior.

“Whom I do or do not marry is none of your concern.”

Angus took a step back. “I wonder what your best friend would have to think about this situation. What if you got her with child?”

“Obviously I have to wait before I can offer for Fiona. If Emma is with child then of course I will marry her.”

“Are you listening to yourself? This is not who you are.”

Angus was right. He sank to his chair with his head in his hands. “I made a vow to my father, and marrying Fiona is the way—”

“It’s one way. There must be another.”

He looked at his cousin with anguish on his face. “If there is another way please let me know because I . . .”

“You what?”

“I don’t want to marry Fiona, I want to marry Emma,” he said in one rush of breath.

Angus sank into a chair on the other side of the table. “Thank the Lord. Pour us some of my fine whisky and let’s think of a way to help stubborn Ian Mackenzie see sense.”

* * *

Emma felt like an intruder at the dinner table. Serena was doing her best to include her in the conversation, but Thornton had eyes only for his love. As soon as dessert was served, she pleaded tiredness and excused herself.

Serena tried to get her to stay. “Don’t leave. Once the men return from the inn, Thornton will likely play billiards and we can have a nice catch up.”

That was the problem. She didn’t want to chat. She knew Serena would ask what had happened, and she wanted to cradle the wonder of her memories to her chest without revealing the pain of rejection.

She made her way upstairs and heard raised voices coming from Dougray’s study. She hoped she hadn’t got Angus in trouble with her observation of the lady he was meeting.

She hurried forward to try and calm any maelstrom she’d unleashed, but as she neared the door she caught part of a conversation that almost stopped her heart.

“I wonder what your best friend would have to think about this situation. What if you got her with child?”

“Obviously I have to wait before I can offer for Fiona. If Emma is with child then of course I will marry her.”

Fiona? Offer? He was thinking of remarrying? He was thinking of remarrying. She had to grip the bannister to stop from sliding to the floor. He’d led her to believe he didn’t want to marry.

Idiot. He just doesn’t want to marry you!

Pain sent her fleeing to her room. She flung herself onto her bed and let the tears come. What was it about her that made her so unmarriageable—so unlovable?

She cried until she could cry no more and as she lay in the dark, still dressed, the anger came. How could he sleep with her when he knew he would marry another? It was one thing to sleep with her when he was still pining for his dead wife and had no room in his heart for another. She felt sorry for this Fiona.

That’s when it hit her. She bolted into a sitting position. He didn’t love Fiona. Dougray wasn’t the type of man to sleep with a woman if he was in love again and about to marry, even out of pity.

She didn’t call for her maid but undressed herself and got ready for bed with a new purpose. Tomorrow she would confront Dougray and learn why he was marrying this Fiona. Was Angus right? Was Dougray too scared to love again? She hated to think of him living the rest of his life in a marriage of convenience. She’d rather be alone, remaining a spinster, than face a life of convenient loneliness. But then, Dougray needed a son. Everything was making sense.

She’d been brave enough to come here and ask for what she desired most—a night in his arms. Only it wasn’t what she desired most. She’d lied to herself. She desired Dougray’s heart. Was she brave enough to fight for that? Was she brave enough to at least see what could be?

Yes. Absolutely yes.

She had nothing else to lose and everything to gain.