Page 74 of The Laird's Willful Lass (The Lairds Most Likely 1)

“You know I must.” She frowned in bewilderment. “We’ve escaped discovery so far, but our luck won’t last forever. And I can’t stay at Achnasheen indefinitely as your mistress. You must see that.”

He did. He’d seen it for weeks. Since they’d first come together in such a blaze of passion.

“Then don’t stay as my mistress.” He sucked in a fortifying breath and spoke with a conviction that caught him by surprise, although this was the obvious solution. It had been from the start. “Stay as my wife. Marry me, Marina.”

; Chapter Twenty-One

Marina stared into Fergus’s face, while his astounding words echoed in her mind. For one mad second, she let herself imagine what life would be like if she said yes.

Nights with Fergus in her bed with no need for sneaking around. Day after day in this beautiful glen, watching the seasons change in all their beauty.

Having Fergus’s babies.

For a fleeting instant, four small Mackinnons filled her imagination. A pair of daughters and a pair of sons. Two redheaded like their father, two dark like her. The thought made her empty womb contract in yearning. How she’d love to bear this magnificent man a brood of strong and spirited children.

Then deliberately, she tucked those alluring images away and buried them deep in her heart. So deep that with any luck, she’d never have to look at them again.

She sat up, keeping a careful distance from Fergus, and tugged her hand free.

“Marina, did you hear me?” he asked, and she’d come back to reality enough to register the vulnerability in his expression and to regret that she was going to hurt him. “I asked you to marry me.”

“You know it’s impossible, but thank you for asking,” she said, surprised at how composed she sounded.

Baffled anger darkened his features. “You speak as if I invited you for afternoon tea, not asked you to share a lifetime with me, lassie.”

With calm movements, she began to restore her clothing to decency, tugging her shift into place and doing up her shirt. Her hands weren’t even shaking. Everything seemed to happen at a great distance. It was an eerie sensation, as though her body no longer belonged to her. Doubly eerie when mere minutes ago, she’d basked in a sated daze that had felt like the sun’s embrace.

“Fergus, we both knew this couldn’t last.”

He surged to his feet and glared down at her. “So why were you blethering on about not wanting to leave me?”

That had been her soul crying out for the unattainable.

“I wasn’t being practical.” Her hands weren’t quite as steady as they had been. When the buttons on her jacket defeated her, she decided to keep it open.

A furious swipe through the air dismissed her answer. “To Hades with practicality. I dinna want ye to go.”

She scrambled up to face him, ignoring the hand he stretched out to help her. If he touched her, she feared she’d weaken. His touch held such power. It had always held power. She should have seen the dangers long ago.

What was she saying? Of course she’d seen them. She’d just been too greedy to have this glorious man in her arms to heed the warning signs.

“Marriage between us would be a disaster. We’re too different.”

“Are ye sure about that?”

She shrank away from those searching gray eyes. “You know we are.”

“I believe we’re remarkably similar, which makes it a miracle that we’ve found one another.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair with a gesture of frustration. “Be damned if I mean to let ye leave me without a fight, Marina.”

“Fergus…” she said, stepping back. Her knees felt like blancmange.

She didn’t underestimate what he was saying. This was a declaration of war.

Marina fell back on stale arguments, even as she admitted what she said wasn’t true now, had probably never been true, not really. “Stop trying to push me around. You’re such a bully.”

She expected—hoped—that he’d take offense and either stomp off and leave her alone, or act badly enough to confirm that her decision to refuse him was the right one.