“Long enough to curse Jane Bansil to the devil about a dozen times,” he returned. Releasing the curtains, he faced her. “I wasnae certain ye’d open the window at all.”
Swallowing, she took him in, six feet three inches of lean, handsome Highlander. He made her generous bedchamber look small and delicate, as if he might take a wrong step and crush a chair. But he wasn’t that graceless, or that careless. And what she wanted from him … How did one even go about saying it? “Hello,” she ventured.
“Hello,” he returned. “Ye dunnae have any food in here, do ye?”
Amelia-Rose snorted. This was Niall, after all. “Food again? No, I do not. Are you here for me, or to raid my cupboard?”
“Och, I’m here for ye, lass. I’m nae a fool, though. I ken how important propriety is for ye. Ye’re breaking the rules here.” Moving deeper into the room, he bent his head to examine the painting on her mantel, dim in the dying firelight.
“Did ye do this?” he asked, glancing back at her.
She flushed. “I did. I was only sixteen, and very unskilled, I’m afraid.” It had been meant as a present to her mother, who’d immediately decided it would best be displayed in her daughter’s bedchamber.
“Why did ye choose a mountainside?”
“Everyone who paints pastorals chooses mountainsides.”
Straightening again, he shook his shaggy head. “Nae. It’s usually streams and coos—cows—and meadows. Have ye ever seen a mountain?”
“I’ve seen other paintings, and sketches. Don’t make it mean more than it does, Niall.”
“I want to show ye my mountains. The way after a snow the rising sun turns the whole face golden. The smell of pine trees in the wet. The steam rising off the pastured sheep on a cold morning. The scent of fresh bread from the village bakery. The sound of the bagpipes in the evening.”
He took two steps forward, closing the distance between them. “The lasses in the village will hound ye, asking ye to show them the fancy way ye put up yer hair. All the lairds and ladies, all the clan Ross chieftains and their families, will accidentally find themselves on the Aldriss doorstep to be introduced to ye. I reckon Lady Marmont will insist on a grand party to welcome ye, and she’ll only be the first.”
“You don’t have to try to convince me that I’ll find the same Society in the Highlands that I have here. I know it’s vast and empty. I’m—”
Niall took both her hands in his. “The Highlands is vast. My mother found it empty, but then my da nae met a soiree he cared to attend.”
She narrowed one eye. “So you, being more sociable, would magically arrange for more people to appear?” This conversation wasn’t remotely what she’d expected for tonight, but she appreciated that he took her concerns seriously enough to want to address them. What she didn’t want to hear, though, was a basketful of wishful thinking. “I don’t want pretty lies, Niall.”
He blew out his breath. For a bare, dreadful second she thought he’d given up. “I’ve nae had a day where there wasnae someaught to do,” he said finally, “someone who needed a hand with a leaking roof or cutting peat for a fire, or a mama trying to find a way to send her lad to school to train as a solicitor, or a da who received a letter from his daughter in America and needed someone to read it for him.”
“That’s nice.”
“I’m nae finished. If ye want to spend yer days at coffeehouses and shopping, then nae, ye’ll nae find that outside of Inverness. If ye want to call on old Mungo Wilkie and help him feed his chickens in exchange for a gander at the finest library in Scotland, he’ll thank ye for it. If ye want to teach some wee bairns to read or to dance, ye’ll find people willing to give ye their last bit of bread. Do ye want to be entertained, or do ye want to see what it’s like to be a Highlander?”
The bluntness of his last statement surprised her. Up until now he’d been encouraging, supportive, and good-humored. But this was important to him. After all, if they married, people would judge him based on her, and vice versa. She wasn’t the only one proceeding on faith and hope.
He released her hands. “I’ve nae wish to force ye into someaught, lass. And I know yer ma doesnae like me and willnae approve. That willnae stop me. Only ye can do that.”
“Are you … leaving?” she blurted as he turned around.
“I’m going to sit in this chair until ye realize that I already ken the answer ye want to give. I’d nae fall for a lass who only cared for what the world could give her. I’d nae fall for a lass who valued herself so little that she needed to fill her empty soul with pretty things.”
A tear, unbidden, ran down her cheek. Was that her? A woman who needed a palace, who needed constant affirmation, before she could claim to be happy? Was she turning into her mother? The thought, just the idea of it, made her feel ill. She’d been told for her entire life that her value lay in making her family proud; in being the perfect, sophisticated, cultured young lady; in marrying a title to improve the family’s standing. But was that all she was? “That’s not me,” she said aloud.
“I know that,” he returned. “I know it because I’m a rough-edged man. I’ve nae made a secret of who and what I am, or of how I want to spend my life. It’s nae very fancy, though I dunnae mind a party now and then. And I’m here in yer bedchamber, because ye wanted me in here.” Green eyes, darker in the gloom, studied her face. “I’ve fallen for ye, Amelia-Rose. Hard. I want ye to have nae a bigger life than the one ye imagined for yerself, but a more satisfying one. I love ye, adae.”
Amelia-Rose put a hand over her heart, feeling it tremble beneath her fingers. He truly believed in her. He loved her, not despite her missteps and hesitations, but because they were part of who she was. It was utterly remarkable. Niall MacTaggert, the literal opposite of the polished, staid, dull gentleman she’d set out to catch, loved her.
“Ye neednae say anything,” he commented into the silence. “I know ye dunnae see a future for us. Ye’d be foolish to risk yer h—”
She threw herself on him, kissing him everywhere she could reach. The chair rocked, nearly going over backward. She grabbed onto his shoulders, gasping against his mouth as the overstuffed thing settled back onto all fours, then resumed with her kisses. Perhaps she didn’t own enough hope and faith to say the words, but she could show him how she felt.
“I like the way ye declare yerself, Amelia-Rose,” he murmured, settling her across his lap.
Her hair was up in its long night braid, but he tugged the ribbon at the end loose and began stroking his fingers through the mass to free it. Her sunshine hair, he’d called it. Somehow from him that sounded far more sincere and poetical than “spun gold” or “flaxen locks,” as she’d heard from other men who thought they might be able to tolerate her in exchange for her parents’ money.
“Ye’re certain ye wouldnae prefer one of those fancy lads with the high collars?” he asked, brushing his fingers from her wrist and up to her shoulder. “Someone who knows which spoon is for soup and which one’s for gruel?”
She chuckled, pushing against him with one elbow so she could reach the trio of buttons closing his gray waistcoat. “They may be the same spoon.”
He caught her mouth again. “I want ye, adae. If ye mean to send me away, for God’s sake do it now.”
“I’m not sending you away. I want you, skellum. I’m just … not quite … I don’t want to do something wrong.” Especially with someone who obviously knew what he was doing.
Niall put a hand beneath her knees and the other behind her shoulders, and stood. “I’ve nae been with an English lass before,” he commented, carrying her with ridiculous ease over to the bed, “so I’m a bit scared. I reckon if ye dunnae pull off any of my important bits, we’ll manage.”
“You are not scared,” she countered, scooting backward on the bed to make room for him after he set her down.
Light-green eyes caught hers. “I may be yer first man, lass, but I mean for ye to be the last woman I ever have. I want to wake beside ye
every morning and fall asleep with ye in my arms every night. That doesnae scare me. Nae pleasing ye does.”
“I’m already fairly pleased,” she said as he sat on the bed and took off his boots, carefully setting one and then the other on the floor. Sitting up behind him, she slid her fingers beneath the lapels of his coat to tug it off his arms.
“We’ve nae gotten to the best bits yet,” he returned, grinning as he twisted to kiss her again.
Going onto all fours, he grasped her ankles and pulled her toward him, setting her on her back. Once he’d shed his waistcoat and cravat he knelt with her legs between his and reached down to open the trio of buttons beneath her chin. She’d never thought of a plain white night rail as exotic, but as he opened each button he ran his forefinger along her exposed skin with such delicacy it made her shiver.
When he had them all open he bent down and kissed the base of her throat, moving down along her breastbone with his caresses. Inside her every nerve jangled, every inch of her aware of him. The front of his kilt tented in a rather grand fashion. It fascinated her, made her feel powerful that she could affect this man as much as he affected her. If she’d needed evidence that she aroused him, she certainly had it.
Lifting his gaze to meet hers again, he drew the sleeveless shoulders of her night rail down her arms. When he looked down at her exposed breasts, she had to stifle the abrupt urge to cover them. Modesty, purity, propriety—all the things she supposedly lacked and had been trying so hard to master, she clearly possessed because she now needed and wanted to cast them aside.
“Ye’re glorious, lass,” Niall whispered, his voice rough at the edges.
As his fingers lightly circled her breasts, brushing her nipples in a way that made her gasp, he seemed almost worshipful, as though he was memorizing her lines and curves. Intoxicating. But she wasn’t the only one who should be nearly naked. “Take off your shirt, Niall.”
His mouth lifting at the corners, he untucked his plain linen shirt from his kilt and pulled it off over his head. Amelia-Rose’s breath stilled. He looked like some of the statues in the museum, taut and muscular and lean-waisted. Unlike the marble Greek gods and heroes, though, his skin showed the marks of a life lived. The sword graze down one forearm, what looked like an old, well-healed gash across his left ribs, and a small circular scar in the meat of his left upper arm. She imagined every one of those scars had a story to go along with it, and she wanted to hear all of them.
“Touch me, lass,” he urged. “I’ll nae break. I want to feel yer hands on me.”
Oh, goodness. Except that goodness didn’t seem to have anything to do with it, because she felt very, very naughty. His skin beneath her fingers was warm and smooth, covering iron beneath. A muscle jumped at her touch, and she pulled him down over her for more kissing.
His kisses traveled their leisurely way down her again, until he took one of her breasts in his very capable mouth. Gasping, then putting a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, Amelia-Rose arched her back, a shiver of delight thudding through her.
When he continued nibbling and sucking, her eyes rolled back in her head. This—she could never have done this with some man she’d married for his title. But she trusted Niall MacTaggert, trusted him with her body and her reputation and her heart.
Moving sideways, he continued teasing at her as he pulled her night rail down past her waist, her hips, her knees, and then over her feet. Then his hands trailed down her body, curious, caressing, and unhurried. Breathless, warm, and yearning, she parted her legs as he slid a palm down her stomach, over her mound, and up along the inside of her thigh. As his fingers opened her there, she bucked again, nearly sending a knee into his ear.
“I’m sorry,” she panted.
“Do ye like this?” he responded.
She wasn’t certain she could even get the words out. “Yes,” she rasped, her hips wriggling beneath his ministrations. “Very much.”
“Then dunnae apologize. I’m mad for ye, lass. Cannae ye see how I want ye?”
She lowered her gaze to the jutting front of his kilt. “I want to see you.”
Niall lifted his hands over his head, wrapping his fingers around the canopy beams at the top of the bed. “It’s but a tartan, Amelia-Rose. Take it off me.”
She sat up a little, figuring out the belt and clasp and the small wolf’s-head kilt pin that kept the material from flying open in a breeze. He wasn’t a flawed statue, she decided, as she finally got everything unfastened and pulled it from around his hips. He was a strong, wild Highlands warrior, descended from men who’d beaten back the greatest army in the world on numerous occasions. And he was magnificent.
Glancing up at his face to find him watching her, she reached out to grasp his manhood. In response he made a low sound deep in his chest that sent heat and damp between her thighs again.
Gathering up her courage, she stroked the length of him. With another half-articulate moan he settled his knees between hers and lowered himself along her body for a deep, openmouthed kiss. Skin to skin, warmth to warmth, with an unmistakable hardness pressed against her thigh. Good heavens, she wanted him. Even without knowing exactly what to do, she wanted to be part of him.
He moved again, dragging his discarded shirt beneath her hips. Then, parting her knees further, he slipped a hand between them to fit his cock between her folds. Blood, she realized, even as her brain refused to think. She was, for another few seconds, a virgin. There would be blood. And he was sacrificing his shirt to keep it off her sheets. To protect her.
“Now,” she breathed.
“Ye ken—”
“I know,” she interrupted. “Some of my friends have talked. I won’t scream.”
Raising up on his hands, he lowered his head to kiss her again. “Hold on, my lass.”
Her heart beating so hard she thought it might burst from her chest, Amelia-Rose slid her arms over his shoulders. He pushed forward, the sensation of him sliding deeper and deeper inside her utterly indescribable. Pressure grew, then a sharp, biting pain, and then he buried himself in her fully.
For a long moment he didn’t move, and she dug the pads of her fingers into his shoulders while pain faded and other tighter, deeper sensations made her want to press herself against him, wrap her legs around his thighs, keep him there with her.
“Better?” he grunted.
She nodded.
With that he began to move, slowly and carefully at first, in and out, as if he worried he might break her. The slide, the weight of him across her hips drove her half mad. More, more, more. When she lowered her hands to his clenching backside, arching toward him, he sped his pace, stroking harder and faster inside her.
Moaning in time with his thrusts, her body tightened, stretched, and, with an exquisite shudder, released. Everything vanished but him and their joined bodies, the deep, jolting rhythm of him claiming her. She shattered harder, a mewling sound she’d never heard before coming from her own chest.
Her mind slowly settled into sight and sound again, just as he pushed in to the hilt, shuddering against her and inside her. Breathing as hard as she was, he settled himself along her body and lowered his head between her neck and shoulder. Amelia-Rose tangled her fingers into the damp, lanky hair at the nape of his neck. Hers. He belonged to her now, as much as she belonged to him.
He lifted his head against to kiss her, then went up on his elbows. She tightened her arms around him. If he left, everything might go back to the way it had been. She would be alone, unwanted except for her ability to wear a marriage band.
“I dunnae want to crush ye,” he said, looking down at her.
He was getting quite heavy. But he was still inside her, and she didn’t want that to stop yet, either. “Stay.”
“I mean to, until the dawn.” Niall studied her face for another moment, then wrapped his arms around her back and rolled them over.
Abruptly he lay beneath her, and she tucked her head against his chest. “I can feel your heartbeat,�
� she said, the hard, fast tattoo just beneath her cheek.
“Aye. And I can feel yers.” He drew his fingers through her wavy, disheveled yellow hair, the gentle tug and pull lifting goose bumps along her scalp. “Ye trusted me, lass. I’ll see that ye dunnae ever regret it. I’ll figure a way to make this work, as long as ye still want me.”
She lifted her head, resting her chin on his sternum to look at his face. This could be them, every night. The thought was nearly enough to make her giddy. But even now, with her body deciding on the next course of action in complete disregard for logical thought, she wasn’t a complete fool. “I still want you. I want everything you spoke of. I also know my mother.”
“I made it in here despite yer mother. But ye make a good point. It isnae just the two of us in this.”
“Exactly. And you don’t have a title. And you’re Coll’s brother, and she hates him almost as much as she hates you.” She wasn’t entirely certain how she felt about Coll, either, but she didn’t want to waste what little time they likely had thinking about Lord Glendarril.
“I want to see ye tomorrow. I can call at the front door and ask for—”
“No, do not call at the door,” she broke in. “I’m still free for the afternoon. Will you still meet me on the corner at Wigmore Street at half two?”
“I will be there, lass. And we will find a way for ye and me to be together that doesnae involve climbing through windows, though I’m nae adverse to that.”
The climbing-through-windows bit had worked out rather splendidly. It couldn’t last, though. They needed a solution. She couldn’t contemplate the alternative.
* * *
Francesca started awake as the front door clicked and opened. Immediately she sank lower onto the morning room couch where she’d settled at just past midnight, and slowly turned her head toward the foyer.
Niall padded past, barefoot with his boots in one hand, wearing only a waistcoat and his kilt with his coat and what looked like a wadded shirt in the other hand. Nearly silently he ascended the staircase, and a moment later another door clicked shut.
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