MAD, BAD & DANGEROUS TO MARRY (The Highland Brides Book 4)

by Elizabeth Essex

  Instead she watched with breathless interest as he dove forward into the water, leaving her an absolutely spectacular view of his bare round buttocks as they slipped under the water after him.

  Oh. Gracious. Lord.

  He was naked.

  Entirely, gloriously naked.

  There were his clothes on the bank, draped across the heather, warming in the sun. As if she needed to see them to confirm that he was not wearing them. That his body was as unclothed and finely made as the marble statues of the ancient gods and pagan heroes she had seen in Rome and Florence and Turin.

  But those statues had not moved, had not had warmly tinted nipples or a golden trail of fine hair running down the flat of their taut abdomens. Those statues had not been so gloriously alive.

  Before she could come to a prudent or even rational decision as to what was best to do—retreat up the hillside, or simply stay where she was and hope he did not see her—he rose from the waist-deep water, and made for the bank in all his naked glory, pausing on the mossy verge to sluice water from his skin and shake the droplets from his hair.

  And then he saw her.

  For the longest moment neither of them moved. Or so much as blinked.

  Everything within her was aflame with heat and confusion and hopeless arousal.

  And then the wee dog, Gent, barked and bounded for her, and Ewan calmly turned and reached for his clothing, while her legs and her courage gave way—she simply dissolved into a puddle at Nicnevin’s feet, hiding amongst the gorse and heather.

  Oh, the ignominy of being caught ogling his body like a chambermaid. Oh, the absolute, enlightening glory.

  “Greer.” His voice rolled up the brae side on the breeze.

  There was nothing to do but brazen it out. She stood. “Oh, hallo!” she called back, putting her hand to her hat, as if perhaps it had fallen into her eyes and she hadn’t seen anything at all—anything more than everything.

  He had recovered his breeks, but his chest was still just as gorgeously naked and bare and intriguing as it had been in the water. He seemed not to notice his dishabille, but stood with his shirt in hand, and waited patiently for her to venture near enough to speak. “Good morning, Greer.”

  There was something about the way he said her name that made it an endearment. Something that made her feel…different. Different from the expectations and responsibilities that went with being Lady Greer, and the Earl of Shee’s daughter, or the once-future Duchess of Crieff. It was a willful, almost defiant, daydream, that she was simply his dear friend.

  “Are you hot from your ride? Your face has gone red,” he observed when she walked nearer. “You could have a go at the pool, but I’ll warn you, it’s damn cold.”

  “No. I thank you.” She tied to cover her embarrassment with a smile. “I’m only— The wind was just—” She was too unaccustomed to lying to have an excuse readily to hand. “Oh, I brought you something.” She retrieved the well-worn book of poetry from her saddle bag with more triumph that was strictly warranted. “I thought I might read to you, and see, if…well, if you liked it.” She took a breath and brought her wayward thoughts under firm control. “Or perhaps if it helped remind you of anything.”

  He looked at her as if he could not fathom her intent. “What would poetry remind me of?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. But she had not forgotten the line from Burns that he had recited—thou bonnie gem. Surely it meant that he was educated—it only remained to discover how well. How much more similar to Ewan he might be. “But I like the poems, so I thought you might, too.”

  “If you like,” he agreed. “But don’t be disappointed if I can make no sense of it.”

  He took Nicnevin’s lead and walked the horse beside her on the path, totally unconscious of his naked torso, stark and pale in the blaze of morning sun. And then he did the most unusual thing—he took her hand.

  As if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if he had no idea his touch made her skin hot and tingly. Or made her heart tumble head over heels within her chest. Or made awareness of her own breathless body slide deep into every bone and sinew.

  He just scooped her hand up in his left, palm to warm, strong palm, while he led the horse with his right. His long fingers meshed with hers, his knuckles snugging comfortably between hers. Easy and natural.

  And after the delicious shock of the moment subsided, it was the most natural thing in the world. It felt comfortable and right. Secure. Her hand fit within his larger one just so. His thumb brushed over hers, back and forth, in unconscious reassurance. Warm and casual and intimate all at the same time.

  Heavenly.

  This was what she had always dreamed being with a man—with her husband—would be. What being with Ewan would be.

  The feeling of ease—of rightness—urged her on.

  She offered him the book. “I brought you an old favorite of mine.” And Ewan’s. “It is a volume of poetry by Robert Burns.”

  “Burns?” He said the poet’s name the way he said all things he was trying to remember—trying it out like a taste on his tongue. He shrugged. “Nothing comes to mind, so I don’t know the use.”

  The use was that they really didn’t know what sort of man he was—ghillie or educated gentleman. And she wanted to find out. “He was Scots, Robert Burns was, from Ayrshire, and he farmed in Dumfriesshire, and he wrote his poetry about farming and the countryside for the most part. It’s not at all high blown fineness. And you seemed to know some of it before, that first day I met you here.”

  “Did I?” He shook his head as if it might loosen a recollection. “I don’t recall.”

  But he tethered the horse and subsided onto the stone bench beside her with a smile that told her he was willing to gang along with her flight of fancy if it pleased her. “Gie it laldy, lass.”

  She opened the slim volume, and firmed her grip, lest her excitement be revealed by shaking pages. “To a Mountain Daisy: On turning one down with the plough,” she read. “Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow’r, Thou's met me in an evil hour; For I maun crush amang the stoure. Thy slender stem: To spare thee now is past my pow’r—”

  “Thou bonnie gem,” he finished.

  An eerie tingling seeped under her skin—hope, trying to catch hold within her. “Aye!” Greer tried to keep her excitement in check, but her heart was starting and stopping and clamoring inside her chest like mad. She had to swallow to find her voice. “You remember it. That was the line you recited before, when we first met. That’s why I brought the poems, in the hopes they would help you remember who you are. And who you were.”

  “Aye,” he answered. “But I’ve no idea how. It just came.” He rubbed his hand through his cropped hair as if he could shake loose more such thoughts from his disorganized brain. He moved closer, looking over her shoulder at the open page of the book. “Read it again.”

  “Thou bonnie gem.” Greer put her finger upon the next line, so he might follow along as she read. “Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet, The bonie lark, companion meet, Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet—”

  “Wi’ spreck'd breast,” he read. “When upward-springing, blythe, to greet The purpling east.”

  Indeed he looked as astonished as she felt. “Just so,” she whispered.

  He closed his eyes to recite the next line. “Cauld blew the bitter-biting north, Upon thy early, humble birth; Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth, Amid the storm, Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth, Thy tender form.”

  Joy, pride, gratitude and hope—ridiculous, inappropriate hope—made a hot brew behind her eyes. She put her hands to her cover her hopeful gasp and to keep her hands from shaking.

  And then, he opened his eyes and looked at her. “Thy tender form,” he repeated, his breath warm against her cheek.

  His gaze dropped to her lips.

  Her breath, her whole body felt tight with anticipation—with wanting. Wanting to give in to the sweetness of the moment. Wanting to know, after all these years
of imagining, what it would be like to be kissed. Wanting with all her heart and mind and body for him to be Ewan.

  If she kissed him, she might find out. She would know him somehow, would she not?

  She gave in to the dangerous impulse, leaning toward him. Toward his lips, where she settled as light and careful and sure as a lark upon a flower.

  He kissed her back, moving his lips slightly, in an unhurried, easy buss. Letting her explore slowly, as if there were no rush. As if she could stop whenever she pleased. As if she could make haste slowly.

  He closed his eyes and tipped his head so she could taste his lips from a different angle. So she could get closer still.

  He cupped her cheek and drew her mouth to his. “There, in thy scanty mantle clad,” he murmured against her lips. “Thy snawie-bosom sun-ward spread, Thou lifts thy unassuming head, In humble guise.”

  His words pierced her soul with such gentle ardor. He was wooing her with poetry—this man, who was nearly everything she had wanted Ewan to be. He was seducing her with the same words she had hoped would awaken him. But it was she who was awakened to the exquisite feel of his lips upon hers. Enchanted by the power of his hands spanning her back to hold her to that lean, braw chest.

  She wrapped her own arms around his neck, feeling the heat of his naked skin, hot and alive against the flesh of her palm, pressing herself to his lips, his chest, his being.

  There were no words to describe the pleasure, no thought for what came next— nothing between them but want and curiosity. And delight, flowing through her veins like French champagne, all bubbling, effervescent pleasure. It was like a dream, the elation, the suspension of every other concern. It was like every daydream she had ever had of kissing her Ewan under the wide blue sky.

  But she wanted it to be more than just a daydream. More than just a kiss.

  More that just a kiss with a remarkably nice, poetry reciting man, who might, despite his reading and his poetry and his manners, be only a ghillie. Everything within her, every ounce of her breath and every hope of her soul, needed him to be Ewan, who loved Burns. And who loved her.

  But the chance was so slim it was as thin as gossamer.

  And she, Lady Greer Douglas, heiress of Dalshee, with all the education and erudition and responsibility that went with an estate so great, ought not take chances. Ought not be kissing a man who didn’t even know his own name.

  To do so was neither smart, nor responsible. It was foolish.

  Foolish to allow herself to forget who she was under the guise of helping him to remember. Foolish to set herself up for heartbreak.

  Yet, somehow, she didn’t care. If this kiss, this hope, would break her heart, she would somehow learn to bear the pain. But she also ought to take Ewan’s own best advice and make haste slowly.

  “Perhaps it were best if we stuck to the poetry,” she suggested, though her voice sounded as thin as a whisper.

  “Nay,” he whispered back, his breath brushing across her ear, and along the sensitive side of her neck. “I’d rather stick to the kissing.” His clever lips found the edge of her ear before he kissed his way back to her lips.

  And oh, it was so much nicer to be kissed and kiss, kiss, kiss him back than to think about remembering and responsibilities. So much nicer to simply feel.

  And feel such delight.

  Greer closed her eyes and shut her mind to everything but him—his strength and his passion. His tender insistence. His need for her, and her need for him.

  His lips were rough beneath hers, chapped by wind and weather, but careful, taking only so much and no more. Oh, but she wanted more. More of the feel of him smooth and warm beneath her palms. More of the taste of him wild and heady as Highland whisky. More of the fresh scent of wind and wood smoke that seemed as much a part of him as his green eyes and wheaten hair.

  She gave in to the sweet rush of sensation and pushed her hands into his cropped hair, doing now what she had kept herself from doing the day before—letting her own wants take the lead, glorying in the feel of his hair beneath her palms.

  She held his big, beautiful, fragile skull and kissed him again and gain. She opened her mouth to him, sliding her tongue against his, filling her senses with the heady taste and feel of him, the warm press of his chest against hers.

  Behind the confines of her stays and chemise, her breasts went tight with need.

  She wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself against the smooth warmth of him, trying to assuage the aching need that held her tight.

  His clever, capable hands spanned the small of her back, urging her close, and closer still, until there was nothing between them but want and need and the last vestiges of her modesty.

  His hands thrust into her hair, tipping off her hat, scattering pins that slid silently into the carpet of heather. His fingers speared through the ginger strands, fisting up the lengths to tug her head back to deepen the kiss until they were both gasping for air and grasping for composure.

  Because she wanted nothing more than to forget who she was, and be nothing more than a lass, sunward spread upon a carpet of moss on a hillside of heather. Kissing and being kissed. Loving and being loved.

  But she didn’t love him—she couldn’t. She didn’t even know who he was, and he didn’t know who she was, really.

  Yet that was the beauty of his kiss—he wooed her for herself, and nothing more.

  “Greer lass.” He said her name as if it were an incantation—a prayer from his lips to God, the breath against her cheek a plea for divine assistance. “I feel as if I’m going to go mad. Mad for you. Mad to have you.”

  “I know.” She must be mad as well, to think such thoughts. To want what she wanted. To forget herself so completely to do so. “We ought to stop.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Neither did she, but the honest fact of the matter was that if they didn’t stop, they wouldn’t. They would do more than kiss. Much, much more.

  The thought was enough to bring her back to the solid earth of the glen beneath her feet—she made herself move away. “I think it’s safe to say that you liked the poetry.”

  He laughed. “I did at that, lass. I’d like to read it every day, if that’s the result.” His smile curved up one side of his mouth and carved a dimple deep into his cheek.

  She couldn’t help but reach for him. Couldn’t help but delve her thumb into the impression, and then along bristly line of his jaw, and then the taut curve of his lower lip.

  “Aye, lass.” He pulled her to him, kissing her again and again. “I ken how you feel.”

  She felt happy and stupid and determined. “I feel I ought to get you more books, if this is the result.”

  “As many as you like, lass. As many as you can carry.”

  Her heart leap like a highland dancer at his words—for surely they were her words, that she had written him? “I will do so. In fact, there is a bookshop and lending library in the village of Crieff.” If he was Ewan, he surely would have gone to Blanchard’s shop. “You’re remembering more—perhaps it’s time to see if anyone remembers you?”

  Everything that had been relaxed and happy in him stilled into wariness. “Dewar said I ought to stay put, and simply give it time.”

  “Oh, did he? I suppose.” It was prudent enough advice, she supposed. But she wasn’t particularly prudent—she wanted to be sure, to end the dreadful, hopeful suspense. To know for once and all. “It’s only that I’ve to go there myself—to the village,” she coaxed. “And I thought perhaps you might want to journey there with me.”

  He was so quiet and wary—as still and alert as a stag in a mountain glen—that she was instantly sorry she had asked. “Nay, never mind. I was wrong to suggest it.” Wrong to even inadvertently put him in any danger.

  “Nay.” He shook his head, and took a deep breath, as if he had come to a decision. “If I’m a fighter, then it’s past time to fight my way back. Lay on, lass, and lead me the way.”

  Lord Ewan Cameron
>
  St. Salvador’s College

  St. Andrew’s, Fife

  2 November, 1789

  Dearest Ewan,

  How I envy you your sex and your freedom! You may have to do the bidding of your tutors in matters academic, but you may live your life, and spend your time otherwise as you please, with no one to tell you how you must gang on in the world. Or the drawing room!

  And yes, I am out of charity with my Mama, who carps and harps upon my hoydenish behavior. Today she rebuked me in front of company for having mud on my hems when we took refreshment at Lady P’s on an afternoon visit. And yet if I had held my skirts up free of the mud and slush, she would have upbraided me for indelicacy. I cannot win, and so I have given up trying. I have decided to please only myself, and no one else ~ except you when we are married, for you are logical and will never upbraid me for things which cannot be helped, will you? I hope not, for that would ruin a great many of my plans for our domestic happiness. But if I err, I pledge myself to make it up to you with kisses.

  Now, enough of my spleen. Tell me all of your life in St. Andrews. When I ask my papa about the place, he only laughs and talks about the golf games there, with no knowledge of your academic life. What are you studying this term? What must I read to keep pace with you? Please give me direction, or I shall go mad with the illogic of my hems.

  Yours, Greer

  Lady Greer Douglas

  Dalshee House

  Perthshire, Scotland

  6 February, 1790

  Dear Lady Greer,

  The chief focus of my studies at the moment is in the rather less classical science of Agronomy, specifically the propagation and use of Cocksfoot, or Orchard Grass, for grazing, and Lucerne as feed in enclosed fields at Crieff. Such seeds have been seen to good use at Holkham in Norfolk, and I think will do very well for Crieff. I am attempting to convince my grandfather to make a gradual change to Cocksfoot, using own seed, so the layout of investment is not so great, and seeing how the grass takes in our pastures before proceeding. Pray, what grasses have you got at Dalshee? Do ask your father for me, as I should be curious to know, and most obliged by your answer.