He came to sit beside her. “Are ye happy, love?”
“Blissfully so,” she replied, cuddling into him as he put his arm around her shoulders. “You said the Highlands were beautiful, but I had no idea they could be this majestic.”
“We wouldnae have this if it was nae for ye.” He kissed the top of her head and sighed contentedly.
She peered up at him. “That is not true, and you know it. We would not have this if you had not been courageous enough to stand in the town square of Inverness and pledge your fealty to the King. Nor would we have this if you had not saved my life, and taken the pistol shot that was intended for me.”
“Who’d have thought the King would be so yieldin’ when it comes to ladies in peril, eh? When that pardon came, and he gave ye all yer Countess things back, I thought he was goin’ to ask ye to marry him, himself.” Camdyn chuckled. “I’ve never heard a letter so poetic.”
She gave him a nudge in the ribs. “He was merely being regal. Although… Queen Victoria does have a rather nice cadence to it.”
“Oi!” he chided. “Ye’re married to Camdyn McLean, Laird of the Clan McLean now, and I am nae lettin’ ye go for any king. Do I have to start another uprisin’, ‘cause I will if ye’re goin’ to get all doe-eyed over that Hanover imposter.”
She chuckled. “Shh, someone might hear you and suspect you did not mean a word of what you said about peace!”
“Aye, well they’d nae be entirely wrong.” He took her cup of mead and had a long sip, before handing it back. “I really am lucky I met ye, lass. Every scar on me body is worth it, ‘cause it brought me to ye.” He tilted her chin up. “I love ye, lass. Truly, I love ye. So dinnae be runnin’ off with nay kings, or ye’ll break me wee heart.”
“I promise I will not.” She craned her neck up to kiss him. “I am more than happy with my Laird, and I love him more than I can say.”
It had been a long, hard, and twisting road for the two of them to reach this moment of secure contentment, but Victoria would not have exchanged it for anything. It made their union all the more satisfying, knowing they had fought so fiercely to stay together, and that Genevieve had survived to see them married, at last. Genevieve had even admitted that she rather liked the castle and the surrounding landscape, albeit reluctantly, which was nothing short of a miracle to Victoria.
In the end, Camdyn had been right about the King’s pardon. After he had spoken to Henry Hawley, it was not long before the general pardon was declared to the nation, and the English troops were mostly removed from Scotland. An additional letter had come with it, that restored all of Victoria’s riches, properties, and title back to her.
With some of the money, she had purchased this parcel of land in the Highlands, beside the lakeshore that she had dreamed of. Alongside it, she had bought a Lairdship, and Camdyn had gone from a jaded Jacobite soldier to the Laird of Clan McLean, in a matter of months. And now, she was legally his wife.
“Should we go back inside?” Victoria asked. “I do not want Laird Young and Lady Bernadine to think that I am being impolite. Indeed, I hope that Bernadine and I shall become firm friends.”
Camdyn stroked his thumb over the apple of her cheek. “Aye, I think she’s already decided she’s goin’ to be your friend, an’ all. She cannae stop tellin’ everyone how wonderful ye are, and how happy she is that I settled down with a Sassenach.” He licked his lips seductively. “But I reckon we’ve a while yet afore anyone comes lookin’ for us.”
“I will soon start shivering, Camdyn!” she protested playfully, understanding the sultry look in his eyes. “And Genevieve shall come out here and box my ears if she were to find us in a compromising position. Though she would do far worse to you.”
He stood up and scooped her into his arms. “Aye, which is why I had some of the lads build us a place on the shore. Somewhere for us to be alone, where Genevieve cannae find us.”
“What?” She shrieked as he carried her down onto the shore and began to walk along the shingle.
He grinned down at her. “Ye told me about that dream ye kept havin’, so I thought I’d make somethin’ like it, as a weddin’ gift.”
She found out what he meant a few minutes later, when he veered away from the shingle and into a small patch of woodland. There, freshly built in the center of a glade, and smelling of the pine and spruce that had been used to create it, stood a cabin. Just like the one she had dreamed of.
He kicked open the door, and her heart leapt. A fire roared in the grate, and candles had been lit throughout, emitting a romantic ambience that perfectly complemented the hazy warmth that enveloped them. Clearly, Camdyn had planned to bring her here tonight, for there was even a silver platter of food and some jars of spiced mead.
“Do ye like it?” he said, as he carried her toward a pile of furs that had been laid out in front of the fireplace.
She nodded, dumbstruck. “I adore it.”
Carefully, he lay her down on the furs. Just as in her dream, the fluffy texture tickled her back as he kissed her, hard and passionate on the lips. Her arms looped around his neck as his mouth explored well-known territory, his lips grazing her throat, and down to her chest.
“Do not rip my wedding gown!” she warned, for though she did not usually mind his exuberance, she wanted to remember the gown as it had been worn. In one piece. Especially as it had been designed with the McLean tartan, as a symbol of their new beginnings.
He lifted his head and flashed a pretend scowl. “Then I’ll have to slowly unwrap ye.”
“I do not mind that,” she murmured, as he pulled her up into a sitting position.
Moving around behind her, his lips kissed the nape of her neck, and followed the line of exposed skin as he unbuttoned each pearl fastening that ran all the way down to the bottom of her spine, and the ribbon of her stays. She trembled with anticipation at each touch of his lips to her flesh, her abdomen already tightening as she thought of what was to come.
“Och, ye’re a rare beauty, lass.” He slid his tongue all the way up her spine, making her shake, while his hands deftly slipped the gown from her shoulders.
Once he had pulled it down to her hips, he maneuvered back around and pressed her into the furs. With renewed vigor, he plundered her mouth, his hips moving with every kiss as though he were already deep inside her.
Her thighs parted for him, though her skirts and her drawers were still a hindrance between them. Nevertheless, she could feel the hard, ready length of him pushing against her slick sex, creating a delicious friction that brought panting gasps to her throat.
“Take me, my love. I want you inside me,” she rasped, her nails clawing at his back.
“I thought ye wanted to be unwrapped slowly?” He flashed her a grin, before dipping his head to take one of her taut nipples into his mouth. She bucked against him as he sucked, toeing the line between pleasure and pain.
Unable to wait any longer, she tore at his shirt and pulled it over his head, flinging it to one side. Next, her hands reached for the fastenings of his kilt, and made quick work of undressing him.
His firm, sculpted body glistened in the firelight, and as her eyes admired his physique, they came to rest lustily on the tantalizing protrusion between his legs.
“I changed my mind,” she said, her voice thick with want.
He smiled and grasped the rumpled bodice of her gown. With one strong tug, he brought the garment over her hips, and down her legs, where he dropped it to the floor. His fingertips moved to unfasten the ties of her drawers, and they followed the same swift dismissal as her gown, until they were both naked in front of one another.
Like stars colliding, they lunged for each other at once, in a frenzy of mouths and hands and tangled limbs, his masculine weight pushing her back down onto the furs.
She moaned as the tip of his member teased the entrance to her sex, and her hands roamed the length of his back, where they settled on the taut rise of his backside. She grasped the satisfying muscles in e
ach hand, and pushed down while she lifted her hips upward, urging him inside her.
He did not protest. “Och, lass… what ye do to me.”
A gasp hissed through his lips as he sank into her to the hilt, filling her entirely with his formidable size. He paused there for a moment, to let her adjust, or perhaps to calm himself so it would not be over too quickly. Either way, she was eager to feel his thrust again, his length sliding in and out of her as though they were one body, not two.
Her legs wrapped around his waist as he pulled back to the tip, his mouth never once allowing the rest of her to go untouched. His kisses covered every part of her body, his hands tending to the skin that might have felt neglected. And, as his fingertips gently pinched at her nipple, he plunged back into her, doubling the pleasure until she cried out in ecstasy.
“Oh, Camdyn!” she panted, as he thrust again, rolling his hips to add delicious friction to her sensitive bud.
She clung onto him as though her life depended on it, as he settled into a sensual rhythm, thrusting slow and measured, so she could feel the length and breadth of him each time.
As their snatched breaths and blissful gasps filled the hazy cabin, both of them utterly lost in each other, Camdyn’s grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into his lap. With his arm encircling her, she arched back and moaned with euphoria as his wet, warm mouth sucked upon her nipples. Meanwhile, his hand slid down her abdomen and over the rise of downy hair, where his fingertips finally found the nub of bliss concealed there.
“Oh… Oh, Camdyn, that feels good. Oh, that feels good,” she gasped, as she rocked her hips back and forth. Now, she had the power, her slick, hot sex sliding down over his member and back up, making him grip her tighter to him as his mouth sucked harder upon her nipples.
She quickened the pace, just as he had done, rolling her hips backward and forward to match the rhythm of his fingertips against her bud. Soon enough, she felt the familiar build of pleasure within her, tightening her muscles, and making her sex clench around his length. It seemed to spur him on, his fingers rubbing with expert pressure and swiftness, until the imminent surge of her climax exploded.
Grasping the back of his neck, she arched as the euphoria pulsed through her. An almighty cry ricocheted through the air, likely frightening any creatures that happened to be near the cabin, as her whole body ignited with a fiery satisfaction.
As her sex pulsated and tightened around him, milking his member, she felt him thrust into her to the point of no return. His cry of ecstasy joined hers, the two of them wrapping their arms around each other and holding on tight as they rode the wave of their mutual pleasure, until it ebbed on the shore of their love.
“I love ye, lass,” Camdyn murmured into her neck, his breath still shallow with exertion.
She pulled back slightly and kissed him with a happy laziness. “I love you, my Laird.”
“I dinnae ken if I’ll ever get used to that.” He chuckled and met her gaze. “But ye were me Lady from the moment I met ye. It wouldnae matter if we had nothin’ at all. Ye’d still be me Lady.”
“And you have always been my Camdyn, and my Laird, from the moment you fell at my gates,” she replied, her heart so full of love and joy that she worried it might overflow.
Finally, in his arms, she understood what marriage was supposed to be. It was this. Just this. Him and her, her and him, enveloped in a bubble of love, and romance, and affection, and humor.
And maybe, just maybe, if God smiled favorably upon them one more time, He would grant her the one thing she was still missing. A child. Their child. But, if not, she knew that a life with Camdyn was more than enough to fulfil her.
You are my gift, Camdyn. Every day, for as long as we both shall live, I will look at you and know just how lucky I am.
Thanks to him, her dreams really had come true.
The End?
Extended Epilogue
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More sexy historical romance
Turn on to the next page to read the first chapters of To Highlander’s Indecent Wager, one of my best stories so far!
Preview: Highlander’s Indecent Wager
Chapter 1
A Fateful Ball
“This is it,” Lady Iris Stephenson said to herself under her breath. “The moment you have waited for all these long, lonely years.”
The sights and sounds that enveloped her in the Hearthing Manor ballroom were the same as they were every year. The room was a grand one, Iris would grudgingly admit, with a handsome tiled floor perfect for dancing, illuminated by a hundred candles suspended from a chandelier that dangled from the vaulted stone ceiling. Fires roared in four great hearths on opposite walls, bringing as much cheer to the ancient hall as was possible for a brisk autumn evening in the northernmost reaches of England.
Just like always, Iris had thought with a sigh on entering the ball that afternoon. How terrifically dull.
The same hundred or so revelers were in attendance as always: interchangeably tiresome minor knights, lordlings, and grasping younger sons of Southern lords, accompanied by their equally tiresome wives and daughters. Even worse, most of these men were well past the age of dancing, let alone more handsome pastimes.
The same antediluvian musicians played the same stodgy old tunes, making dancing rather a moot point in any case. The same chill autumn rain pattered on the windows outside, heralding the oncoming of yet another unbearable Northern winter. Even the food was the same bland, uninspired dishes as ever.
“Good evening to you, Lady Iris,” mumbled some forgettable old skeleton in a threadbare coat. Iris returned his greeting with admirable cordiality, she was sure, though she hardly paid enough attention to bother noticing. Her mind was too firmly set on its objective to give her father’s ancient acquaintances even a passing care.
Of course, the deathly tedium of the ball did not persist for want of trying. Even if Harry Stephenson, the Earl of Hearthing, was content to repeat the same ball every year of his life in their drab little manor, his daughter was far too canny to allow such monotony to go unchallenged.
Iris had begged him to employ a French chef, as her distant friends had written her were tremendously fashionable in London.
She had imposed on her cousins to donate printings of the latest music, and had given them to her father to pass along to their musicians.
She had spent a full year of her precious social life reaching out to more obscure or eccentric nobles in their area, including those rugged individuals across the border, in Scotland.
She had even wheedled her father into considering inviting some of the newcomers who had arrived in the wake of the Articles of Union, that promised to bring increased trade with the much-feared Scots.
All for naught. Every one of her suggestions was rebuffed with a pat on the cheek and a patronizing compliment from her father. The music was left untouched on the Earl’s writing desk. The invitations went unsent. By all appearances, this year’s Hearthing autumnal ball would be identical to all the dreary ones that preceded it.
But then, it was never wise to underestimate Iris Stephenson.
“Not this time,” she muttered to herself again, draining the last dregs of wine in her glass. “This year is going to be different. You are going to have your heart’s desire if it takes your every effort.” Across the ballroom, cutting through a forest of bows and wigs and other fripperies, her eye was fixed like a hunter on its prey.
Just as I vowed. Tonight I make him mine, or I swear myself to a nunnery. Either way, I will be out of the doldrums I seem unable to escape.
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br /> Father had left entertaining the guests to her, having business to conduct in his salon. She had cheerily assured him she would take care of everything, then promptly passed the responsibility onto their steward, Mister Corning. As usual, Mister Corning had been positively frantic at this addition to his duties, and as always, he performed his charge admirably, leaving Iris to wholly devote her attention to the much more important task at hand.
Dozens of men and women gave their best attempt at a country dance, but as far as Iris was concerned, there may have only been two people in the ballroom. That enchanting patch of red-and-gold checked fabric floated at waist level, dipping to and fro among the flock of English nobles.
Iris bit her lip to prevent it from pouting at the sight. To her it was a pattern as familiar as it was extraordinary—no mere mortal red, but a burning, aching red, as fearsome and primal as the very fire stolen from Olympus. It stood out from amid the crowd of creams and beiges as a fire on a mountaintop, or a fox among sheep.
Highlander's Fallen Angel : A Steamy Scottish Historical Romance Novel Page 27
