breath mingling with is, his heart beating against hers.
She had not planned it, but the connection, having him deep inside her as he came, had been momentous.
A true joining.
A true mistake.
Her body had betrayed her. Ainsley felt as if her world was shattering. She loved him. And even as she felt the truth of it settle itself inside her, she saw his face. Innes looked appalled.
‘I’m sorry. Ainsley, I’m sorry. I don’t know what— I didn’t mean— I’m sorry.’
She shook her head, not quite meeting his eyes as she lifted herself free of him. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Though it did. It had changed everything.
Innes could not have made his feelings any clearer, but he seemed to want to try. ‘It does matter,’ he said, hurriedly adjusting his clothing. ‘You asked me— I promised I would always be careful. I don’t know why I...’
‘It wasn’t your fault. It was mine.’ She would not cry in front of him, but she needed him gone. She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘I told you, there is almost certainly nothing to worry about.’ He was staring at her, horrified. ‘It was simply— We were incautious because we had grown accustomed to more regular release,’ Ainsley said, cringing at the words even as she spoke them.
She rolled off the bed. She couldn’t look at him now. ‘There are a hundred letters waiting for you, and Robert will be wishing to talk to you. Go on downstairs, I will rejoin you shortly.’
* * *
Ainsley held open the door, giving him no option but to leave her. Dazed, Innes did as she bade him and made his way downstairs to the sitting room. He sat at the desk, staring at the neat piles of correspondence, feeling as if he’d been punched in the gut.
He cursed long and hard, then poured himself a glass of malt. What had happened? He swallowed the dram in one. It burned fire down his throat and hit his belly too fast. He coughed, then poured himself another. I’m sorry, he’d said, but he had not been. That was the worst thing. It had felt so good, spilling himself inside her. He hadn’t thought of the consequences. He hadn’t been thinking of anything at all, save for his need to be with her. In all honesty, he couldn’t have cared less about the consequences. But Ainsley had. Her face. Stricken, that was the word. She’d tried to cover it up, but he was not fooled.
Innes finished his second glass of whisky, feeling as if he’d just been given a death sentence. All he’d been able to think about these past few days was coming home to Strone Bridge and to Ainsley.
Home. Ainsley. The two words had somehow become connected, and as if determined to make sure his mind made the connection, too, his body had made it impossible for him to ignore. Which left him where, exactly?
He swore again, bitterly. Terrified and confused as hell, was where it left him. He could no longer trust himself, and Ainsley would no longer trust him. Things had changed fundamentally, yet some things would never change. He still carried the burden of the past with him. Whatever he felt for Ainsley, he had no right to let it flourish.
This was a warning, a very timely one. The truth would see to the outcome. He felt sick at the thought of it, but he didn’t doubt it was the right thing to do. The only thing. He cared enough to want her to understand, which was a lot more than he’d ever cared for any woman since that first one. He cared too much. Far too much.
Checking the clock on the mantel, Innes saw that half an hour had elapsed. With a heavy heart but with his mind resolute, he set out to find her.
* * *
Ainsley was seated in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection as if it was another person entirely. She loved him. Did she really love him? How could she be so foolish as to have allowed herself to fall in love with him? Had she forgotten how miserable she’d been, married to John?
No. She had not loved John. Innes was not John. This marriage was not at all like her first. ‘Because it is not real,’ she hissed at her reflection. ‘Not real, Ainsley, and you have to remember that. This is not your life, it’s a part you’re playing, and that is all, so there is no point in hoping or wishing or dreaming that it will continue.’
Yet for a blissful few moments, that was exactly what she allowed herself to do. She was in love, and for those few moments, that was all that mattered. For those few moments, she allowed herself to believe that love would conquer all the barriers she had so painstakingly examined and deemed immovable. She was so overwhelmed with love, surely anything was possible. She loved Innes so much, he could not fail to love her back. They could not fail to have a future together, because the idea of a future without him was incomprehensible.
The knock on the door made her jump. Innes looked as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. ‘We need to talk,’ he said, and not even her newly discovered love could persuade Ainsley that the words were anything other than ominous.
Fleetingly, she considered pretending that nothing momentous had happened, but looking at the expression on Innes’s face, she just as quickly dismissed the notion. Feeling quite as sick now as he looked, Ainsley got to her feet and followed him out of the door.
To her surprise, he led them outside, along the path towards the castle. At the terrace they paused automatically to drink in the view. ‘I went through to Edinburgh when I was away,’ Innes told her. ‘There were matters to tie up with the lawyers. I was going to call on Miss Blair. I know you’d have wanted me to let her know that you were well, but—you’ll never believe this.’
‘What?’
‘Eoin,’ Innes said, shaking his head. ‘I wondered why he insisted on coming through to Edinburgh with me when the man never wants to leave Strone Bridge. It turns out that he and your Miss Blair have been corresponding, if you please. He went off to take tea with her and made it very clear I was not wanted. He was away most of the day, what’s more, and not a word could I get out of him after, save that he was to pass her love on to you. What do you make of that?’
‘I don’t know what to make of it at all. I had no idea—she certainly has not mentioned this correspondence to me.’
‘Do you think they’ll make a match of it?’
‘Oh, no.’ Ainsley shook her head adamantly. ‘That will never happen.’
‘You seem very sure. I thought you’d be pleased. You would have been neighbours.’
‘Innes, I will not be...’
‘No, don’t say it,’ he said hurriedly.
‘You don’t know what I was about to say.’
‘I do. I do, Ainsley.’ His smile was tinged with sadness. ‘Poor Eoin. But I didn’t bring you here to talk about Eoin. I can see you’re bursting to talk, but let me speak first. Then perhaps I will have spared you the need.’
Ainsley had assumed they were going to the chapel, but when they got there Innes left the well-trodden path to push through a gap in the high rhododendron bushes in the nook
