Mystic Mountains

or her fingers trembling so? Or both. A quivering deep inside that began the moment he'd claimed her mouth refused to stop. It pooled in the centermost part of her, the core of her womanhood. The place that ached with an unfamiliar yearning. She teetered on the edge of a precipice.
    Ye gods! Why had he kissed her? And why had she let him?
    Not for one moment had she felt threatened or felt as if he would take her against her will. Never before had she felt the desire to plead with a man to quench the fires he'd aroused in her.
    So that was what shared passion was all about.
    In a daze Isabella bent to collect the scattered apples. She felt different somehow, as if he'd taken her apart and put her back together again, mixing all the parts up until she had become a stranger to herself.
    With jerky movements she went back to the house, the apples clutched against a heart that still beat in double time.

 
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
    "So the doc couldn't do anything to help you?" Thelma asked, her eyes soft with sympathy.
    Isabella looked down at her deformed foot. "No, Thelma."
    She'd put great store by this visit, building her hopes until she'd been sick with thinking about the possibility of walking without the limp.
    Tiger Carstairs, as promised, had taken her to see Doctor Neale, driving her there and back almost silently. Why he 'd bothered, Isabella didn't know. He'd barely spoken to her in the past week since the incident beneath the apple tree. Her indignation reached fever pitch. Let him ignore her. What did she care? She was happy to be ignored by the arrogant swine.
    "He did say he could perhaps break the bones and reset them," she said wistfully. "But it would be such a task and so painful he can 't see the point. May not do much good anyway." She shrugged. "I've grown used to the limp. No decent man's likely to be looking twice at me anyway." Vainly she tried to conceal her low spirits.
    "Is that what you really think, Bella? Goodness me, take a good look at yourself next time you 're near a mirror. You're a pretty woman."
    Isabella made a rude sound. "You don 't have to spin me tales, Thelma. I'm never likely to have men chasing after me. Leastwise, not for any other reason than to make me their whore."
    "Don 't talk daft, girl. What about Dougal? He thinks the sun shines out of your ears." Thelma gave Isabella a soft nudge.
    "Ah yes, Dougal." Isabella laughed, staring at her hands. "But he's as daft as me. I could never see him as any more than a dear friend."
    Thelma shook her head. "And one day you 'll break his heart for sure."
    "Oh Thelma, why can 't you order yourself to have feelings for someone when you know they love you," Isabella asked, sighing.
    "Don 't ask me such things." Thelma resumed the podding of the peas. "I know nothing about affairs of the heart, my dear."
    "Oh no? You and Gillie certainly are a pair well matched. He worships the ground you walk on. When did you first realize you loved Gillie?" Isabella sat down opposite Thelma, leaning her elbows on the table.
    Thelma stopped her podding and gazed out the window. "The first time he stuck his neck on the line for me. We were transported out here on the same ship. In them days men and women used to come over together, and believe me the goings on on that ship are best not spoken about." She paused, then went on, " Gillie was caught poaching in Kent an' they put him on a hulk in the Thames. He reckons it was the best day of his life when they sentenced him to ten years over here."
    "But he 's free now, and so are you. Why do you stay with Tiger Carstairs when you could be off working your own property?" Isabella knew she would be off like a shot if she had her ticket of leave.
    "Bless my soul, we wouldn 't leave Tiger. We're family. Gillie's in his element looking after the sheep and he can come and go as he pleases. Soon we'll have a house of our own, instead of the one room out back, if all goes well and Tiger gets a land grant over the mountains. But we'll always look after Tiger, wherever he goes. And when he gets wed we'll take care of his missus too."
    "Is he likely to marry soon?" Isabella felt a pang of dismay at the idea. Obviously because she couldn 't see any English wife of Tiger Carstairs wanting a skinny Irish biddy working in her kitchen, she told herself.
    "Bless me, no. He 's only thirty, an' in his prime. As far as I know he hasn't set his cap at any one in particular. Mind you there are a few females in the colony,