by Jackie Ivie
His hand dropped. “It is also easy to read. Transparent. Every thought in that beautiful little head, I can see. That means others can, too.”
“You are starting to be insulting,” she replied.
His eyebrows rose. “Oh. And why is that?”
“I can keep a secret.”
“You, my dear, exude honesty. There isn’t a secret safe with you in the entire world.”
“I have never given away a secret!” she complained.
“I dinna’ mean that. I have already said I can trust you. I ken how honest you are. That is the trouble. This honesty thing. Such a thing is of little use in negotiations and politics and chess.”
“Chess?” Lisle asked, without hiding the confusion.
“Life is a chess game. With a really large, convoluted, constantly changing game board. We’re all players. Everyone you come across. Some are pawns. Easily erased. Rarely missed. Easily replaced. Some are kings. Some are knights.”
“You are a very strange man, Langston Monteith,” she commented, since he seemed to be waiting for a reply.
“True,” he stated.
“And you have very strange views of things. Nae one is easily erased and na’ missed.”
“Spend half your life in Persia and we’ll see if you think the same. Forget I offered that. I would na’ wish you to see anything so dark. I doona’ want anything to change you. I doona’ dare change perfection.”
There was that floating sensation again, and Lisle’s eyes were huge with it, while her mouth was trying to hold in the smile.
“I am na’ perfect,” she challenged him.
“True. But you are perfect…for me.”
The floating feeling burst, sending her back to the floor, kneeling at his feet, and talking senseless things. “You are a very strange man, Monteith.”
“You already said that, and I agreed.”
“And I can keep a secret. I can keep it well.”
“I know your mouth can. ’Tis the rest of you I am in doubt of.”
“What? Why?”
“A moment ago, you were afire with happiness at hearing I found you perfect. And the next you were upset at me, for changing my definition of the word perfection to encompass only me. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Her mouth was open. She couldn’t speak it.
“You see? Everything on you is so open, so honest, so trusting. So opposite of everything I am. I’m ensnared.”
“Ensnared?” Lisle asked.
“Tightly.”
“By me?”
He nodded, moving his head on the backrest of the chair. “’Tis worse than an opiate. I have never tried the stuff, myself. I doona’ dare. I watched it erase too many pawns in this chess game you say doesn’t exist.”
“But…you would use such a thing on me?” she asked in a very small voice.
His lips twitched. His eyes were so amber-dark there wasn’t a hint of black. “I only told Mary MacGreggor what it was and how it acted on the senses. She did the rest.”
“What?”
“You’ve been bathing in incense and jasmine oil, and naught else. I only allowed you to think otherwise.”
“Why?”
“Because the mind is a powerful weapon, and if one thinks certain things are…then they are. ’Tis difficult to convince them otherwise.”
“You played with me?”
“There you go, getting all upset with me again. And here you just said I could trust you.”
“Langston Monteith! You are a devil.”
“And you’re going to have to change your definition…either of me, or what a devil is.”
“Now, why would I do such a thing?” Lisle was moving to her knees so she could stand and finish this nonsensical conversation from a safe distance from him.
“Because the devil canna’ feel love,” he said softly, stopping everything in the world with the power of those words.
“Wh-what did you just say?” she asked, halfway between a crouch and standing upright.
“I love you,” he replied.
Her legs decided it was easier to fall to the floor than try to stand and hold her up. Lisle slid back to her knees. “You do?” she asked.
He licked his lips. “More than I can say. Definitely more than I can show.”
“Nae,” she breathed.
He chuckled. “You are hard to convince, my love.”
“You canna’ love me, Monteith.”
“Why na?”
“Because—I doona’ know.”
“You ken something else, sweet?” he asked.
She shook her head. Her voice wasn’t working.
“You love me, too.”
“I doona’!”
“And you will need to work on your lying skills to say something so false and make me believe it.”
Lisle was on her feet now. So was he, and it looked easy. Then he was stalking…and there wasn’t much left of his attire from what she was looking at.
“I doona’!”
She was backing from him; stumbling. There was a table in the way. It fell with a crashing noise, sending breads rolling all along his floor. She glanced down for the best path through the rolls, and thanking her luck it hadn’t contained gravies to coat the floor and make it slick.
She shouldn’t have looked down.
Langston had her with his right arm, lifting her easily above the floor, and then he was laughing and hauling her under his arm, while her kicking and pummeling didn’t make a hint of difference.
Then she was tossed into the tub, on her back, and lunging herself into an arch, since he’d hooked her legs on the edge. That was sending water all about the floor with the sound of a waterfall. Then, he was there, lifting her against him and holding her to where the shirt wasn’t any good as a covering since it was plastered to him now. Then he was lowering his head and kissing her, and Lisle forgot everything.
Hands flew about his back, along the curve of his buttocks, around to the front, and Langston was groaning into the depths of the mouth she’d opened in order to taste him more fully.
She felt her skirts lifting, water making the material much heavier than before, and then he was lifting her above him, sliding her along his chest and belly, before bringing her down to embrace where he was ready for her. Lisle felt the size of him as she enwrapped him, and there was nothing resembling the remembered pain, only the ecstasy and light and everything he’d told her she was.
Lisle looped her ankles together behind him, wrapped her arms about his neck, and leaned back, glorying in everything the tall, godlike man was. He had his hands about the mass of material he’d shoved to her waist, using his left merely to guide, and his right to maintain the rhythm of a silent drumbeat, as he took her to heights no beam could reach, and then even higher than that.
Water sloshed about with his every move, sounding like it was splashing more than the floor, and Lisle watched traces of the same ecstatic feeling flit across his face with every twinge he made, every heave, every move…every inhaled breath that he hung onto.
Then, he was taking them from the tub, balancing them for a moment on the rim, before settling down onto his haunches, keeping her with him, sealing his lips to hers, his body to hers, and pounding every bit of what he considered love into her until there wasn’t any excuse for not screaming. So she did, with abandon, until her throat hoarsened and his laughter was making everything more vivid and life-stirring and wonderful. He drew her toward him, holding her so closely to his chest that every breath was pushed into her. She did the same, although there wasn’t much air she could suck in and hold before having to do it again. He was moving them again, this time laying her on her back, on what could be a rug, but could just as easily be stone, or wood, or any number of things. The position caused the wad of skirts and underthings that were still about her waist to lift her more fully for him, and against him, and everywhere to him, and added even more to the throes of abandonment she didn’t have a voice left to scream
with.
And so this time he screamed, yanking his mouth from hers, lifting his upper body in a complete arc, and doing the sound for her, only he made it lower and deeper, resembling a groan that gained in volume to her own ears. Lisle moved her hands to his throat, held to the thick cords there, as he sent the cry to the rafters and waited for it to come back down.
The drumbeat was still there; harder, thicker, and stronger. It was in his heartbeat against hers. It was in the trembling of his frame to hers. It was in the sound of lungs sucking in air and releasing it. It was in the sound of everything about them. He was probably right about this love thing, too, but she wasn’t going to let him know of it that easily.
He rolled to his side, the movement separating them, and then he was on his back and staring without blinking up at the beams intersecting the ceiling.
“Langston?” she whispered.
“I’m afraid you’re a bruadair—a dream,” he replied.
She lifted onto an elbow to look over at him. “I am nae dream. You ken?” Her voice came out in a whisper of sound that hurt her throat. She frowned a bit at that.
“You must be. For a man to experience this, he would have to be in heaven. I’m na’ in heaven, therefore you are na’ real.”
Lisle giggled. That didn’t hurt her throat. Then, she reached over and traced along his ribcage until she got to the wound that was starting to seep a little.
“You’ve opened your wound,” she whispered.
“What wound?” he asked, and put the little frown line in his forehead into existence with the question.
“The one you have here.” She touched along his shoulder.
“Oh. That one.”
“Does it pain?”
“There isn’t a portion of my body that feels pain, love,” he replied.
“Must you lie all the time?” Lisle went to a sitting position, and shoved all the wet, cold garments all about her legs as she did so, where they started warming.
“I doona’ lie at the moment. I swear it.”
“Then…explain.”
“I have naught but happiness and joy and life and love flowing all over me at present, Lisle love. That is what is so unreal about you…about this. I canna’ feel pain. Anywhere. I swear it. I vow it.”
“Oh. That’s better, then.”
He snorted, and turned his head. Their eyes locked. Lisle’s heart fell in a swoop of movement, to land in the lowest echelons of her belly where it started pounding everything that was real through every part of her.
“You swear you’re real?” he asked in such a low tone she had to move forward to hear it.
She nodded.
“And this is real?”
“What…this?” she asked.
His eyebrows went up and down several times. Then, he was running his right hand over his chest, his belly, under the shirt ends that had miraculously stayed fastened, and growling before he brought it back out. “This. Life. You…me. This.”
“Oh. That.” She shrugged. “’Tis real enough, I suppose.”
He reached out to flick her nose. “You are a horrendous liar, Mistress Monteith,” he announced.
“I am not!”
“Tell me you doona’ love me.”
Lisle looked at him as evenly as possible, and made her face as expressionless as possible. “I doona’ love you,” she said, although her voice warbled.
“Then I shall try harder.”
“This is trying?” she asked.
“Nae. This.” He pointed to her, then back at himself, and did it several times. “This…between us…is love. Real. Love. And it’s ours. I’ll just have to try harder to get you to see it.”
“How do you propose to do that?” she asked.
“By taking you on a honeymoon, of course.”
Lisle’s ears heard it, but nothing else did. She was gazing into those beautiful eyes, watching the little crinkles about them that came into being when he teased or grinned, or all-out laughed, and not much else occurred to her.
“A—a…honey…moon?” she queried.
“Aye. To Paris. You need a wardrobe.”
Lisle stared. “I am gaining a wardrobe.”
“You need seamstresses with more use of wire.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your clothing rips too easily. It’s in disgraceful condition. We need more sturdy fabrics, and we’ll need to start using wire for thread.”
Lisle reached out and smacked him on that beautiful, rippled abdomen, and nothing even bounced. Then, her fingers opened from the fist they were in and started running over the lumps and bumps and sinews of him that all appeared to be rippling just for her.
“Are you trying to start something again, Mistress?” he asked.
She looked up at him, and kept her face as emotionless as possible. “I am checking for further injury. I need to do this before I assist you with your bath. That is what I’m here for, you ken?”
“This is what you call assisting me?”
“Oh. Aye. I do it rather well, doona’ I?”
“You’re wicked.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “I do try to please.”
“And you’ll do the same again?”
In answer, she moved her hand from him and started unbuttoning her own dress. Then, she flicked her tongue out over her upper lip. He pulsed along the floor with the movement.
“But, of course, monsieur,” she replied in French. “I shall need to be dressed more appropriately the next time. I dinna’ know you required a personal assist in your water, but I am learning.”
That got her a growl, and his complete attention.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Langston had invited Captain Barton to a dinner soiree. There were going to be Inverness women invited. There were probably going to be two certain MacHugh lasses invited. Lisle was the only one without an invitation. She was under orders to appear and be the proper hostess to English trash she’d rather spit on than watch served. And if all of that wasn’t bad enough, Monteith wasn’t listening to one word of argument about this honeymoon trip he was planning, either.
Lisle sat with the seamstresses, listening to the ebb and flow of words, twitters of amusement, and not a whole lot else, and wondered what she could use to sway Langston this time.
He was immune to further negotiation. He seemed to know what she was doing the moment she started, and it didn’t take much effort to get that man interested enough that he joined in with her seduction, and then there was no telling the winner. He had too great a weapon to use. He called it passion. He’d told her she had the same, and once she learned how to wield it, they were in for a whole lot of trouble.
She was also going through sheer underthings faster than the castle seamstresses could sew them. Lisle looked across the sewing room that felt like a prison, and thought she’d much rather be a male, outside in the open air, instead of with a roomful of women whose mouths moved as fast as their needles did. Then again, no male got to design and wear chemises like the one Maggie had designed for tonight’s use.
Despite the bevy of women all about her, Lisle blushed, and had to fan herself with the parchment listing of foods he wanted her to peruse and give her opinion over. She looked down at listings of dishes that were next to impossible to imagine in these austere times, and wondered why he’d given it to her to approve. There wasn’t time to change the menu.
She sighed and fanned more. She didn’t bother looking over the menu further. There wasn’t time to change anything. He was rushing them toward the clan’s demise, and he couldn’t even see it. It was as if the entire castle was holding its breath, waiting. And it wasn’t waiting for Captain Barton.
Lisle descended the staircase, after tiring of waiting for Langston to appear to escort her. The castle was alive with music and laughter and flowing wine and ales, and all kinds of appetizing smells. The only thing missing was its owner.
Lisle looked down at the translucent upper layer that
belonged to one of her first ballgowns. This one had been made with a large bodice band of shimmering blue-green fabric that looked molded to her and gave her a moment of shyness when she’d first seen it. The seamstresses had then attached long strips of filmy sea-blue netting that overlaid such a pristine, white satin skirt, it looked like she was a mermaid rising from the depths of the deepest loch.
Lisle’s body was changing. It had to be. Her bosom had never been this large, and she was tired of constantly having to be measured to capture her increasing proportions. She smiled slyly. Perhaps Laird Monteith should have waited until she completely finished growing before he ordered and paid for entire wardrobes, if someone decided when that would be. Lisle pulled on the low-cut neckline, managing to do nothing more than put a thumb and fingerprint on the fabric, and then she sighed.
“There you are, my dear. Right in time for—”
Langston’s voice stopped as he looked fully at her. What was worse was Captain Barton’s expression right next to him.
“I’m speechless, Monteith. A tad jealous, too, I might add.”
The captain broke the silence. Lisle felt her skin crawl from where the man was looking. She raised her eyes to Langston’s. They were black, expressionless…hard. She gulped.
“You…look lovely, Lisle,” Langston said, and pulled her to his right side, away from the captain.
“You might want to keep her under wraps next month, Monteith. Cumberland has an eye for the wenches, and one so well served up as this one will definitely whet his appetite, and make your life misery. Unless, of course, that’s your object.”
“My wife forgot her shawl. Lisle? Your shawl?”
Captain Barton chuckled from the far side of him. “In that event, I’d keep her locked well away from him. He’s got a reputation for that, you know.”
“He steals men’s wives?”
“He doesn’t need to steal. He can make any woman a mistress. If she’s available. And even if she’s not. I don’t think he quibbles over marital status. Wait until you meet the man. You’ll see.”
