Read Online Clandara by Evelyn Anthony - Free Book Online

muscular figure and there was a large diamond pin in his lace cravat. They matched each other, and they knew it and were proud.
    â€œI hoped your brothers would enjoy themselves,” Katharine said. “Look, isn’t that Hugh partnering the little Glendar child?”
    â€œIt is,” James said, “and I rather wish it wasn’t. I hope her uncle chases him off. You don’t know my brother Hugh, sweetheart, or you wouldn’t wish him on any innocent of seventeen. Not even for a reel.”
    â€œAre you all really so bad, then?” she teased him. “And are they worse than you were?”
    â€œLittle different,” he answered gently. “Except Hugh, perhaps. Hugh has what his old nurse described as the devil’s grin. It’s seldom off his face. Do you know, my darling, we were in a fight once outside some tavern in Edinburgh when we were all very young, and I heard someone laughing. It was Hugh, fighting like Lucifer and laughing like a madman.”
    â€œYour brother David is difficult,” she said. “Hugh has spoken to me once or twice and been quite charming, but David …”
    â€œDavid belongs to the past,” James told her. “David should have been born two or three centuries back when we were all little better than pirates, preying off the Lowlanders and one another. He would have been perfectly happy then.”
    â€œRobert is fond of you,” Katharine said suddenly. “I hope you like him a little, James, just for my sake.”
    â€œI have a great respect for him,” he said, “and gratitude too. Without him we’d never have won your father over. Come, my love, let’s walk a little in the air. It’s hot in here and I have a mind to be alone with you.”
    â€œFour more weeks,” she said to him. “We’ll have so little time for meeting between now and our wedding. Come with me, James; I know a turret walk with the most beautiful view in the world.”
    They climbed the narrow stone steps that wound up the inside of the castle wall and came to a little door. It opened out to a parapet walk which ran half-way round the wall and ended at the entrance to a smaller turret.
    â€œThis is called the Ladies’ Walk,” Katharine said. “When my ancestors were away at the Crusades, their wives used to stand here and watch for them.”
    James drew her back against the shelter of a buttress and took her in his arms.
    â€œYou’ll have no need to watch for me,” he said. “I’ll never leave you for a day!”
    Eagerly she met his lips and hers opened under the urgent pressure of his kiss. Desire blazed up between them; even the least contact ignited their senses and brought them trembling and breathless into each other’s arms, seeking each other in a frenzy of passion. Katharine had been inexperienced and shy at first; now, after long months of waiting, her instincts clamoured for the ultimate release, the final leap into the precipice which opened out beneath her every time they touched. His hands and his mouth and the muscles in his magnificent body were all things she knew and loved and which affected her like a drug. And she had seen him struggle with his own desire, winning each time and yet losing a little, until he was as helpless in his way before her as she was before him. And then again the temptation swept over them both as it had done that day so long ago on the moorland by Loch Ness, and again it was James who drew back, begging her forgiveness, tenderly caressing the soft face which he held close to his heart, and, as he held her, she felt him trembling with the crisis through which they had both passed.
    â€œDarling heart … such a madness possessed me … I feel ashamed before you.”
    â€œThere is no shame in love,” she whispered. “I am your wanton, James. I have no shame at all.”
    â€œYou’re not to say that,” he said