Harry stood mute and Mary Elizabeth saw clearly that he knew not what to say. She tugged his hand until he sat down again, and the voices of her family resumed as the ladies began to rise to go to their crumpets in the great hall. Ian reached across the table and plucked up the expensive marriage license. Her eldest brother did not hesitate or even read it, but cast it whole and entire into the fire. Mary Elizabeth was not certain, but she thought she heard her man grind his teeth.
She took pity on Harry, leaning close to whisper in his ear.
“Bide awhile, lad,” she said as she rose to go into the hall for a cup of tea and a cake. “I have all in hand.”
Harry looked bemused, as if he did not believe her, but he also looked at her with love, and that was enough for her. He would learn, if he had not already, that when she said a thing, she did it, and did not hesitate. If he did not know it yet, he soon would. God help him.
* * *
Harry did not even get to kiss his girl good night, as she was whisked off in one direction by Alex and Robbie and their wives, and he was marched off in another by her brother Ian, back into the guest wing, to the very foot of the tower staircase itself. So he found himself trapped in his tower room, with Ian ensconced at the foot of the stairs. The huge Highlander had all but locked him in.
“You have a good night, now,” Ian said with a wink.
Harry found himself pacing the round room above the stairs, feeling very much like the bear in the Prince Regent’s menagerie. He hoped that the priest arrived on the morrow, for if he did not have his girl with him soon, and every night for the rest of his life, he feared for his sanity.
He made himself look around this tower room and saw that it was a room that could only comfortably be used in summer, as there was no fireplace. Old-fashioned braziers were scattered here and there along the walls, and some were even lit, giving off a cheerful but feeble glow. Harry found himself staring out of the room’s only window, an arrow slit that had been enlarged to hold double panes of glass. He could not open it, for it was not made to be opened, but he could see the last of the summer sunlight fading beyond the mountains and the sky turning a shade of indigo.
He wondered at himself that he had followed a woman to the back of beyond only to be trapped in a tower. He wondered how one might escape if there were a fire, and assumed that, in such an occurrence, Ian would let him pass down the only staircase. He was thinking of these things, with his back to the door, when he heard an odd scratching along the wainscoting a few feet from the window. He thought perhaps a mouse had come to inspect him, but then the wall moved, and he leaped backward, reaching for a weapon that was not there.
“Dinna fash yourself, Harry. ’Tis only me.”
Mary Elizabeth stepped out from the hidden door in the thick wall and closed it again behind her.
“Ian will hear you,” Harry said inanely, trying to rally his mind into some semblance of order and failing.
She looked lovely in the failing light. Still dressed in the too-tight pink gown, her golden hair had come loose from its pins and now fell around her shoulders and down her back, where she paid it little heed. She kissed him once on the cheek, and he thought to take her in his arms then, but she slipped away, sitting on a low footstool close to one of the braziers, using its light as she unfastened the hooks of her ankle boots.
Mary Elizabeth kicked first one boot off, and then the other, and then began to reach for the hooks of her bodice beneath one arm. Harry crossed the room and stopped her then, his hand on hers.
“What are you doing?” he asked, again inanely. His mind still had not rallied.
“I’m tired,” Mary Elizabeth said. “I’m going to bed, and you’re coming with me.”
Harry’s body caught fire then, as he watched the line of her calf move beneath the thin wool of her gown. Her petticoat dropped from beneath the skirt, and she stepped out of it, leaving it where it lay.
He did not ask another foolish question, but went to help her unfasten the skirt of her gown. Mary Elizabeth was not yet in a canoodling mood, it seemed, for she batted his hands away.
“Harry, see to your own clothes, for the love of God. That cravat alone will take ten minutes to untie. It looks fit to strangle you where you stand.”
He would have laughed, but her bodice fell away then, leaving the creamy expanse of her breasts revealed, tucked high by the lace and linen of her stays. He almost swallowed his tongue, and found that his fingers had forgotten what they were about in the midst of unknotting his neck cloth.
“Mary Elizabeth,” he said, striving hard for reason and failing, as she bent down and began to untie her garters. Her beautiful, well-rounded derriere presented itself for his inspection, and he knew that he needed to ask his question now, or it would soon be too late.
“What was that door you came through?” he asked. “Can I expect anyone else to come through it while I sleep, and throttle me where I lay?”
She laughed at that good-naturedly. “You’re a guest, Harry, and family. No one will throttle you. Ian makes a good deal of noise, and some of the cousins might test you now and again, but the boys like you, Da likes you, and most importantly, Ma likes you, so all is right with the world.”
“And you?” Harry asked, shrugging out of his coat and tossing it over a convenient chair. “You like me.”
Mary Elizabeth stopped what she was doing and stood in only her shift and stays, one stocking on her leg while the other hung from her hand, its pink garter tight in her fingertips. She smiled at him, looking a little bemused, as if he were daft to state the obvious. “You are the man of my heart, Harry. I like you fine indeed.”
Harry crossed the room to her, stalking slowly, taking in the color of her eyes as they shifted from maple to hazel, the green flecks clear in the candlelight. “And the door?” he asked again.
“This is an old keep, Harry. We’ve got a few secrets here. Ian doesn’t know about that door, nor any of the boys. It’s likely why Da let them put you here in the first place.”
Harry stopped, his hand inches away from her cheek. “You mean to say your father knows you’re here?”
“I mean to say that Da knows we are engaged, which makes this, and anything else we do, none of his business.”
“Your brothers would not agree.”
“Bugger my brothers. Now kiss me, Harry.”
He did not chastise her for her vulgar reference, but drew her against him at last and kissed her, his hands drifting down her sides and around to cup her buttocks. The swell of her behind filled his hands and he drew her close against him. She gasped a little when she felt the hard heat of him, and he laughed a little, trailing his lips along her throat.
“Harry,” she said, sounding more than a bit bemused by now, her voice softening as her body was with her desire for him. “You’re still dressed.”
“So I am,” Harry answered. His lips found her earlobe and bit down gently. She shook in his arms when he did that, so he did it again, and she moaned.
“Perhaps you’ll help me undress,” Harry said, his fingers caressing her breasts, his thumbs running over her nipples so that they stood up proud against his palm. She shuddered then, and whimpered a little.
Only a moment passed, and then he heard her soft voice say, “All right.”
He pulled back enough that she might get her hands on him, not in his hair, where they had been, but on his person. The heat of her small palms burned like suns on his chest as she ran her hands down his waistcoat and started to unfasten the buttons.
“I think I might retire Philips,” Harry said. “I think I might have you dress and undress me each morning and night.”
“And noon,” Mary Elizabeth said, the last button coming free so that she could run her hands over the starched linen of his shirt. “I’ll want you most noons, too.”
He had bathed and dressed for
dinner, so the shirt was clean and white, only a little wrinkled from his saddlebag. Mary Elizabeth did not seem to care about his shirt at all, but drew it from his trousers in one surprisingly deft motion. Harry took it off then and tossed it toward the chair where his coat already lay. His waistcoat ended up on the floor at his feet, and he kicked it aside.
“Don’t muss it too badly, Harry,” Mary Elizabeth said. “You won’t really put him out to pasture, and Mr. Philips will be cross with me.”
He kissed her then, and pulled her with him toward the great tester bed. The four posters were carved with mythical dragons and thistle, and held aloft a canopy of dark-green velvet. “This is a lovely room,” he said to her. “But I would have been lonely if you had not joined me in it.”
Mary Elizabeth smiled at him as she knelt to tug at his boots. “You will never be lonely again,” she said.
He stooped down and picked her up, kissing her before he tossed her onto the bed. She landed in the center of the mattress and laughed out loud, bouncing a little more while she watched him strip off his boots and pants. She seemed to remember that she had a few clothes left herself, for she was out of her stays in a trice.
She reached for her last garter and hose, but Harry stopped her. “No,” he said. “Let me.”
He pushed her back on the bed so that she was staring up at him as he lifted her leg, setting one tiny foot on his shoulder. Her reached down to just above her knee and untied the pink garter very slowly, laying it gently on the bedclothes.
“I am keeping this,” he said, “as a prize of war.”
“You can’t,” Mary Elizabeth said, trying to sound bossy but clearly having trouble, as they were both breathless with desire. “I need that garter.”
“I’ll buy you a dozen more,” Harry said, beginning slowly to roll her stocking down her leg one tantalizing inch at a time. “But this one is mine.”
He kissed her instep then, tossing her stocking aside. She lay back, staring up at him in only her chemise. He leaned down and gripped it at the neck, where the little pink ribbon was woven through some eyelet lacing. “I’ll buy you a dozen more of these as well,” he said. He ripped her chemise down the middle, and pushed both halves back so that he might feast his eyes on her naked flesh.
Mary Elizabeth blinked at him, and he thought for a moment he had gone too far with his marauding ways. Then she said, “Get down here to me, Harry, or I shall surely die.”
He smiled, pressing his naked body against hers in one long stroke, his manhood seeking her for all the strokes that were to come. “I cannot have you die. You are my wife, and I love you. I want you to live a long and healthy life in my bed.”
Mary Elizabeth wriggled against him. She knew more than when he had first met her, but she had only made love once, and clearly she was not sure how to go about getting what she wanted. So she simply asked. “Harry, I need you. Now.”
Henry Charles Percy, Duke of Northumberland, obliged.
Thirty-five
Harry was on top of her, his body hot over hers, his lips over hers in a maddening kiss. But still, she could not find what she sought. Until he lifted her hips and slid inside her, as he had the week before, on the night she had snuck into his room alone and changed both their lives.
She had snuck into his room again tonight, but found that here, nothing had changed. They were simply sealing a bargain between them, as if the marriage they both wanted was not happening on the morrow, but now.
“I love you, Harry,” she said, her breath almost completely gone.
He stopped in midmotion, only to look down into her face and to kiss her again, this time more gently. “And I love you, Mary Elizabeth Waters. Now and for the rest of my life.”
“And beyond,” she said, as if reminding him.
“And beyond.”
When Harry moved again, the lust still rose between them like a flash fire, but it seemed only to grow by what it fed on. Mary Elizabeth for once in her blessed life stopped being the one to act, and allowed herself to be acted upon, as Harry’s body moved against her and inside her, lighting a fire that would never go out.
When the pleasure took her, it was like standing in the midst of a star or a sun that did not burn. It was not as overwhelming as the other pleasure he had given her had been, but it seemed to bring something out of her heart, some measure of love that she had not felt before, for anyone, not even for herself.
She found that she was crying when it was over, and Harry was laid out on top of her as still as one dead. He did not stay still long, but turned so that she was cradled in his arms, his arms warm around her, a haven within the cocoon of her family home, the haven that she knew now would eclipse every place of safety she had ever known. When she felt his cheek press against her shoulder, she found that he was weeping, too.
“The love is overwhelming,” she said, clutching him harder.
“I would not change it, not for anything in this world,” Harry said.
Mary Elizabeth turned to him and kissed him gently, so as not to bruise him. Over the last six months of her exile, Mary Elizabeth had come to know herself and her emotions a little better, but she was almost certain that when she had come into his life, Harry had walled himself off from his own heart as he had from everything else. A heart made the world a better place to live in, but also a more painful one. She was grateful that she would stand by his side and give him solace, both in joy and in sorrow, for the rest of their lives.
“You are mine, and I am yours, forever, Harry.”
He smiled and kissed her. He did not speak until she finished her thought.
“God help you,” she said.
And then the man of her life did not speak. He pulled her closer, and laughed.
* * *
Harry fell asleep soon after he kissed her last, and so he didn’t realize that midnight had passed, and now it was their wedding day. The sun had finished sinking behind the far mountains, and the last of the light had fled the night sky, leaving only the braziers and a few candles to light the room they lay in.
Mary blew the candles out when she was up for the necessary, then slipped back into bed with her husband, who was a warm furnace. Harry clutched her like a child’s toy he had lost long ago and only now just found. She did not object, but lay happy in his arms until dawn began to creep in at the window, turning the indigo of the sky to pink.
It was then she kissed him and woke him.
“Harry, love.” He snuffled against her, clutching her harder, his hair a halo of red-gold beauty around his head. She kissed his ear and he rolled over on top of her.
She found herself trapped in earnest then, with a large, aroused man pressed close. Mary Elizabeth found she did not object.
He woke completely and began to slide his hands along her naked body. He did not woo her as he had the night before, but played at the small button that was the fountain of so much bliss. He did not linger long, but slid inside her, moving without pause until she was gasping against him, holding on for dear life, Harry a rock in a stormy sea of desire. Mary Elizabeth had learned by now to simply follow him over the edge, and let the pleasure find her and carry her where it would.
Mary Elizabeth shuddered beneath him, the pleasure far keener than it had been the night before. He groaned as he fell against her, his own pleasure spent, and she pressed a kiss to his temple, the only part of him she could reach. She forgot how large a man her husband was until he lay on top of her.
“Harry,” she whispered, trying not to break his spell. “You must scooch over, for I must be gone.”
He did not answer her at all, and she wriggled a little beneath him. He had her trapped but good.
“I must be in my room before the sun begins to rise, Harry,” she said, knowing even as she said so that she had missed that deadline.
He heard her then, and looked down at her, s
quinting at her with one eye. “Good morning, Wife.”
“Good morning, Husband.”
“I will see you at breakfast, then,” he said. It was not a question.
Mary Elizabeth repressed a smile, for she could tell that his caveman instincts had come to the fore. Perhaps because it was early. Or perhaps because of their lovemaking. Nothing made him as interested in dominance as lovemaking. Thank God.
“I will see you there,” she said.
She gathered her clothes and he watched her dress. She blew him a kiss from the secret door that led back to the corridor downstairs, for she knew that if she got too close, he would only drag her beneath him again, and scandalize her relations. She did not mind, but the thought of her mother’s displeasure made her get a move on.
“I love you, Harry Percy,” she said from the door.
“I know,” he answered. “And I love you. I’ll see you at breakfast,” he repeated. “No running off.”
“Who? Me? Run off?”
Mary Elizabeth winked at him and listened to the bedclothes rustle as he lunged for her, but she slipped away down the dark, hidden stairs, and he did not follow.
Mary Elizabeth washed herself and combed out her curls in her own room, humming to herself. She wandered downstairs feeling as fit as if she had slept the night through like a babe in arms, but her stomach rumbled more than usual, and she found that lack of sleep and joy and love combined made for a hearty appetite. When she arrived in her mother’s breakfast room, which looked just like the duchess’s breakfast room at Claremont, there was a great deal of hot bacon on offer. And finally, some decent porridge.
Mary Elizabeth had seated herself at table with a heaping of both, and two bannocks besides, when the duchess came downstairs and sat beside her.
“Slept well, did you?” the duchess asked, looking at her from beneath slanted eyes.
“I did, Your Worship. I thank you.”
How to Train Your Highlander Page 25
