In Praise of Younger Men Read Online Free PDF Page B

more. She felt him moan softly against her, his kiss becoming one of urgency, hunger, awakening her senses and sapping her strength until she felt sure her knees would buckle beneath her. It was the most incredible thing she had ever known.
    When his mouth left hers to drag across the taut column of her throat and he lifted his hand to gently cup her breast, her knees did buckle and she clung to him, never wanting to let go. The kiss was more than she could have ever imagined, and Harriet knew from that moment on, her life would never be the same again.
    But then, just as quickly as the gift of his kiss had come, like a bolt out of the blue, a voice sounded in Harriet’s head, shattering the magic of that fleeting moment.
    Yon Maid of Macquair, and any after, with fiery hair and eyes as green as ice, shall watch her chosen husband
    perish, and any man after him, unless she should take to husband a man of honor, a man of cunning, and of an age that is younger than she . . . else the ancient clan of Macquair shall vanish forever.
    Shall vanish forever . . .
    Forever.
    With a gasp, Harriet pushed away from Tristan. She covered her mouth with her hand and backed several feet away, staring at him in sudden speechless terror.
    He looked stunned. “What is it, Harriet? What is the matter?”
    “Did you . . . hear that?”
    “Hear what?”
    Harriet didn’t respond. Instead she looked up out of the cleft in the rock above her head. Sunlight no longer shone inside, glistening the walls with its amber and amethyst light. Somehow, in the space of that one moment, in the measure of that one brief kiss, the skies outside had darkened with a brewing storm, the wind whipping in off the firth and whistling through each tiny crevice around them like the keening of a thousand distant voices.
    Forever . . .
    “We should not have done that.” She looked at him, her expression grave. “It wasn’t wise.”
    “Wise? What the hell do you mean, Harriet? I kissed you, and it was . . . wonderful, and then suddenly it was gone.” Tristan took a step closer. “What happened just now? Why do you look so—frightened?”
    Harriet shook her head, holding out her hands as she skirted to where the rest of her clothing lay. Tristan took a step toward her.
    “No, Tristan! Don’t come any closer to me.” She took up her stockings, hurriedly pulling them on. “I should not have done that. You should not have done that.” As she tied off her garters, she looked up at the sky, seeing something there that he did not, and pleaded, “It was a moment of weakness, nothing more!”
    “A moment of weakness?” Tristan looked at her. “Harriet, who are you talking to?”
    She jerked on her skirt. “No one.”
    She was hurriedly fastening the waist of her skirt, hastening to jam her arms into the narrow sleeves of her redingcote. Finally, when she had twisted her hair into a wet knot beneath the cover of her hat and was making to leave, Tristan reached out and took her by the arms, shaking her. Her hat fell and the wet weight of her hair tumbled down her back anew.
    “Stop it, damn it! Don’t you see this is craziness? You love me. I love you. Did you hear me, Harriet? I said I love you.”
    Harriet’s eyes dulled more gray than green as she shook her head in dismal defeat. “No, Tristan, you cannot love me. Don’t you see? It can never be.
We
can never be. I thought you realized that last night.”
    “The only thing I realized is that you’ve been listening too long to old wives’ tales. It is time you started living in this century, Harriet, not in those centuries already past.”
    “No . . . Tristan, I cannot involve myself with you! It is foolish . . ., dangerous . . .”
    “Why? We are two people who want nothing more than to spend the rest of our lives together. Whatever could be wrong with that?”
    Harriet didn’t respond, just pulled away and made great work of fastening the buttons on her boots. When she straightened, Tristan took her