My Heart's in the Highlands by Angeline Fortin (best english novels for beginners .TXT) 📗

“Aye, Harry, that’s right.”

Beaumont’s face folded into a broad smile. “Ilike you very much.”

“I like you as well, your grace,” Ian assuredhim, tucking his arms behind his head and looking up at theceiling.

Hero began to play at the piano, acomplicated piece that after a few moments Ian recognized asMendelssohn’s Opus 30. Turning his head, he watched her face as sheplayed. She played with passion, her eyes closed as if she feltevery note in her heart. He wanted to see her face looking thatsame way every day but he wanted to be the one to rouse the passionin her. He wanted to take her to heights he suspected she had neverachieved.

“Spectacular, is it not?” Beaumont asked,recalling Ian’s attention to the ceiling.

It was a spectacular thing, as all ofthe friezes in the castle were. Here in the Blue Drawing Room, atrio of matching designs marched the length of the room. Circleswithin squares punctuated with delicate carvings of urns and vines,the corners of the square anchored with larger friezes of griffins.The white outlines of the connecting circles looked like a stringof pearls against the pale blue ceiling. Ian appreciated the crispclean lines of this particular room and, as did Harry, tookpleasure in the rondels, circular frescos of about two feet indiameter that marked the center of every section. Each of themportrayed three of the nine muses at play in the forest. In thecenter, Euterpe, the muse of music, played a small harp andTerpsichore danced sensuously while Erato, the muse of love poetry,lounged against a tree with pen in hand. It was a surprisinglyerotic piece even for a private drawing room.

Worth sharing.

He lay there contemplating the piece untilHero finished the opus with one softly played note. “Won’t you cometake a look, my lady? I doubt you’ll be disappointed.”

“I can see it just as well from here,” sheresponded.

Hero met Ian’s steady gaze across the room,seeing the challenge in his eyes, as if he dared her to dosomething she would never have dreamed. There was more than thatthough. There was a dark light in his eyes that told her the dareextended to so much more than merely lying on the floor.

“Please,” he asked softly. The husky pleasent butterflies through her stomach and Hero knew that she hadlittle hope of denying him anything.

“Oh, very well.” Hero crossed the room andlowered herself down a few feet away from Ian, taming her hoopskirts into lying flat against the floor until finally she wassettled in a pool of green and ivory silk. It was ridiculous, shethought, to be in such a position. “Thank goodness papa hasn’t yetdiscovered the armory. I should hate to think what positions Imight be forced into there.”

Ian chuckled at her grumbling and reached outto envelop her hand in his own. The warmth of his rough fingersagainst hers set Hero’s heart racing, just as it had before. Injust a pair of days, there had been so many small moments such asthis already. Brief moments of intimacy, the brush of a hand, thetender looks, and those short-lived kisses. She wanted so muchmore, which should have seemed ridiculous given the length of theiracquaintance, but again Hero couldn’t shake the feeling that she’dknown him much longer. That he’d been with her always. He hauntedher dreams, lingering just outside the boundaries of realitybefore, but was now by her side. She could feel the very real heatof his body and wondered what it would be like to feel thatpresence next to her every night.

“Well?” Ian asked, prompting Hero to give herconcentration to the plasterwork above. She did have to admit thatthe symmetry of the frieze from that angle truly did display thedelicate plasterwork to its best advantage without being skewed byperspective.

“They are lovely,” Hero conceded. In truth,over the years that she’d lived at Cuilean, Hero had never giventhe ceilings themselves a great deal of consideration, taking themas a part of the whole but never dissecting them into an individualelement. That was Adam’s legacy. The whole of the space was sounified; there wasn’t just one factor that stood out.

Ian was that same way. Hero turned her headto look at him. She took him as a whole, every quality packagedtogether to create an extraordinary, alluring man. What were theparts of him, though? What was it about him that was soirresistible? Granted, he was an astonishingly handsome man.Rugged, dark. That was appealing, but Hero thought his humor evenmore engaging. She liked the dry wit that went along with thoselaugh lines. And he was caring, but modest. Each part added to theappeal of the whole until the whole was undeniably attractive.

Just like the rooms at Cuilean, and Hero toldhim so … though she left out how she inwardly related the idea tohim.

“That it is part of the whole is a finepoint,” Ian told her, “but look at the rondels. I would wager younever have before. What do you think of the muses?”

Ian’s eyes gleamed but not with humor. Herocouldn’t identify the emotion. Looking up at the painting, the nearnudity of the muses, their postures, Hero saw for the first timetheir true nature. Romantic and sensual without being salacious.She finally understood what the look in Ian’s eyes meant. With ablush, she thought she must seem naïve not to have recognized theallusion in them before. “They’re very … spirited.”

A knowing grin lifted the corner of Ian’smouth. “I was thinking that very thing.”

“I’m sure you were.” Hero rolled her eyes andinwardly grimaced when Ian’s smile widened. Surely, Ian was used towomen with a bit more worldly polish than she had displayed thatday, and she wished that she were capable of executing the samesort of subtle innuendo.

“They are quite spirited,” Beaumont agreedfrom Ian’s other side. “Excellent choice of words, my girl. Theyseem a most merry trio. I wonder who the artist is.”

“Antonio Zucchi,” Ian said.

Hero shot him a surprised glance because hewas right. “You recognize his style?”

“No,” Ian grinned once more. “After our talklast night, I spent some time earlier reading up on the ninthearl’s notes on the renovations.”

““You’re a very clever lad,” Beaumontcommented, levering himself up