“How many?” she said faintly, her eyes searching his face. She stopped breathing to hear his answer.

“Till the gates of hell close,” he said flatly.

“Oh, Ewan,” she whispered, taking his face in her hands. “I can’t—” There were tears welling up in her eyes.

“What’s that to cry about?” he said. But there was something in her face that made his heart lighten. “Until I met you, I was never in the way of sin. But now I’m losing my temper right and left, changing myself—and on the verge of killing one of my neighbors.”

She started to laugh, but the tears were still there too. And she was kissing him all over his face, loving him, loving the smell of him and the taste of him, until his arms came around her and he stopped all those butterfly kisses and just devoured her mouth…as if there were no one in the world but the two of them, and the quiet woods around them.

“Annabel?” Ewan whispered after a while. His voice was rough and husky. “Have you forgiven me for desiring you too much yet?”

She blinked at him and started to laugh.

“I love you,” he said hoarsely. “But damn, Annabel, even if I try not to desire you, it’s not going to work.”

She laughed again. “You never understood, did you?”

“Likely I never shall. I don’t know what’s made you so happy about the fact I nearly slaughtered a neighbor.”

She put her hands on his heart, loving his confusion…loving him. “You said you would damn yourself for me,” she said.

“That’s no badge of honor.”

“For me it is,” she said achingly. “No one’s ever valued me so much before, Ewan.”

“I’m not sure that I’ve ever cared much for anyone before you. Oh, I love Gregory and Annabel and Nana, but—” He stopped.

“Since your parents died,” she finished for him. She smiled through her tears. “Do you remember how you told me that you didn’t care about your money, so you kept collecting it?”

“But I care about losing you,” he said, his voice suddenly raw. “I would die before I would let you go.”

“If you—” She swallowed and then looked up at him. “I don’t know how to say it.”

There was something close to tears in his eyes as well. “Will you guard my soul for me, then, Annabel Essex?” he asked, and his Scottish burr was as strong as she’d ever heard it.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “Yes, yes, I will, Ewan Poley. And will you guard mine for me?”

“ ’Twould be my honor,” he whispered. “My love.”

Thirty-five

When the future Countess Ardmore appeared in the door of the great north ballroom that evening, everyone gasped. Miss Annabel Essex was utterly exquisite, like a French lady in La Belle Assemblée, from the tips of her jeweled slippers to the perfection of her glowing curls. Lady MacGuire turned away with a scowl, but her daughter Mary’s mouth fell open.

“Just look at that gown, Ma,” she said, clutching her parent’s arm. “No wonder Ardmore didn’t want me.”“It’s French,” her mother said with a snort. And then, reversing her opinion of the last three years: “Ardmore’s no great catch, after all. Not with all those monks and that crazed young woman in the house.” She nodded toward a plump, rather short young lord, bobbing around on his tiptoes trying to get a glimpse of the future countess. “The young Buckston would be a good match for you.”

Miss Mary pouted. “Buckston doesn’t have a castle and he’s fat. Besides…” She watched Lord Ardmore walk across the room to greet his betrothed. He looked at Miss Essex as if he’d never seen a woman before. “Buckston will never look at me like that. Maybe he’d greet a roast turkey with such enthusiasm, but never a wife.”

So Lady MacGuire looked across the room too. After a moment she nodded slowly, as if she were remembering something from a far distant past. “The cream of Scottish nobility is here tonight, Mary. You look about this room and find someone who will look at you in just that way. You’re a beautiful young lady, and don’t you forget it!”

But Mary was watching the way Ardmore and Miss Essex were dancing together and the way she was laughing up at him. “Ma!” she squealed. “Look at that!”

Her mother looked. “Such manners!” she snorted. “I’ve never seen the like!”

“He kissed her right in front of all of us,” Mary said, awed.

On the other side of the ballroom, Imogen pulled her little sister close and gave her a hug. “Did you see that?” she whispered. “Did you see that?”

“Of course I did,” Josie said. “I suppose this means that your plan worked and mine didn’t.” She sounded a little grumpy.

“I didn’t have a plan,” Imogen said happily. Ewan was turning Annabel in circle after circle while everyone watched. He was the picture of a man in love. “Lady Ardmore did.”

“Really? It must have been an excellent stratagem. I must ask her for the details,” Josie said. “For my study of men in love.”

It was hours before Ewan managed to get Annabel alone. It seemed she had to dance with every drunken Scotsman in the whole of the country. He kept losing sight of her, and then having to find her to make sure that she wasn’t being pawed by an overenthusiastic clansman. At some point Father Armailhac found him leaning against the wall and watching Annabel dance.

“You seem to be counting your blessings,” he said, with his gentle smile.

“There are many to count,” Ewan said. “Has Rosy said much more?”

“No. I doubt she will ever be talkative. But she is content to use her few words, and I think, unfortunate though it was for the younger Crogan, that encounter in the woods was a wonderful thing for her. She defended herself (or so she thinks of it), and in the process she found her voice again. A blessing indeed.”

Ewan was watching Annabel again.

Father Armailhac smiled. “ ’Tis a fearsome thing to love someone, after losing as much as you lost,” he said.

Ewan turned his head and blinked at him. “That’s—that’s what Annabel said.”

Armailhac’s smile became a grin. “Am I not the wisest man in Scotland, to have sent you to London, then?”

Ewan suddenly pulled the little monk into a rough hug. “You are,” he said. “You certainly are.”

Finally…finally, Ewan managed to whisk Annabel away to his private study and get her snug on a couch before the fire.

Of course, he kissed her first. And she closed her eyes, and fell into his arms with that boneless enthusiasm that he loved. Now it was obvious to him. He’d fallen in love the moment that he saw Annabel surveying those great statues of an Egyptian god, looking puzzled, intelligent and altogether delectable.

So he tipped up her chin and skimmed her mouth with his. “Open your eyes, Annabel.”

She opened them, drowsy with exhaustion and desire and the love for him that he could read so clearly now.

“I love you,” he said, his voice coming out rough with the emotion of it.

She smiled at him, and all of a sudden her eyes were brilliant with tears. “Oh, Ewan, I never understood, all the time I was worrying about money and planning to find a husband who desired me—”