Laird of Ballanclaire

by Jackie Ivie

“How do you know?”

  “The same way I ken there are six men and five mounts. I observe. I listen. I watch. I’m verra good at it.”

  “You eavesdrop?”

  He made a sound of frustration. It felt as strange as his whispered words against her throat. “I have excellent hearing. I have acute eyesight. And they were na’ hiding much. So, I observed what they offered.”

  “You’re a . . . spy?”

  “Damn it, Constant! Quit wasting words! Promise you’ll turn down little Master Esterbrook.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” he repeated.

  “Yes. Why? Why must I turn down a proposal from the man I’ve waited for all my life? Just because you order it?”

  “Why? Oh, Jesu’, lass! You’ve nae idea how much I yearn to show you the extent of why! My entire being is afire with it.”

  He might be speaking the truth, for the heat emanating from him was akin to being near a fire pit. He groaned and pulled her even closer.

  “I’m na’ entirely certain I can explain . . . but I’ll try. Perhaps if I tease a bit around the edges I may be able to survive it. This is madness. Complete and total . . . oh Lord, but you’re a luscious woman, Constant Ridgely. Desirable. Passionate. Exciting. Absolutely perfect.”

  He slid his hands along her sides, down over her hips, and then back to her waist, pulling at her clothing with each movement. It was as erotic a feeling as anything he’d done, especially with the back of her dress still gaping open.

  “That was your first kiss, Constant. She nodded. She knew he felt it because his head was still settled against her collarbone.

  “It wasn’t mine.”

  Constant stiffened.

  “Doona’ let it fash you. I’m attempting a bit of explanation. I’m using words rather than actions, since I—well, I dinna’ handle that verra well. I’ve got little time, and I need to make you see. You have to see! You’re too good for Esterbrook. You’re too good for any man unless he’s headlong in love with you. I tell you I’ve experience with a kiss, so you can trust me. I’ve given them and I’ve received them. There are lots of differing types . . . but the one that just happened atween us? That was na’ usual. You ken what I’m trying to say?”

  “I don’t think I want to hear any more,” she replied.

  “Oh, Constant! Hear me out. Please? If I explain it badly, it’s because I have you in my arms and I’m fighting my own body over it. I’ve a bloodthirsty mob after my skin and I’m about to be interrupted by the fellow sent to curry and feed the horses. I only hope I have enough time for the explanation, and enough fortitude to prevent anything else. Forgive my thick tongue if I explain it poorly.”

  Constant frowned and then lowered her arms from the lantern and tentatively slid them down to his shoulders.

  “Doona’ touch me! Oh . . . Constant!”

  She lifted her hands the moment he spoke, for his hands tightened on her waist until they bit into her flesh, making her shudder match his. And the next moment his mouth slammed onto hers, sucking and caressing and tempting, and stealing every breath. Constant’s heart hammered with his, her mouth moved with the motions he’d just taught her, while the pressure from his handhold at her waist increased.

  “This is why you canna’ accept young Esterbrook’s proposal! And this! He doesn’t deserve this! Or this.”

  He was mouthing words along the nape of her neck, breathing heat everywhere he went. He reached the space below an ear, sucking lightly and sending rivulets of sensation everywhere. His hands moved, going lower, molding about her hips and thighs, bunching and pulling material up at the same time.

  “He will na’ give you his all, Constant. He canna’. The act of love . . . it can be so wondrous. It can be—oh Lord! This is beyond me. I—I . . . uh, you see . . . if a man’s forced, it’s different. It’s hell on earth. Trust me. I’ve seen it. Oh . . . no, please!”

  His voice cracked on the plea as Constant curved her body into him. She molded her breasts to his chest and her belly to the rod that began thrusting at her, sending trills of heat and oceans of thrill in its wake.

  “Stop me, Constant. Help me! Dear God, stop me.”

  His pleas didn’t match his actions. He lifted her up and then slid her back down his torso. And Constant helped, her leg locked about his hips. Kam was shoving her clothing up and out of the way, then delving along the backs of her thighs, kneading and molding the flesh with fingers that shot liquid heat. And then he was pleading again.

  “Stop me, Constant. Please stop me. We must stop! You doona’ ken! We canna’ do this. I will na’ compromise—”

  Fingers gripped her upper thighs and Constant pulsed into the support. Kam jerked onto his back. It had to hurt. He didn’t seem to care. The new position meant she could grip him with both legs, clenching her knees tightly to both sides of his hips while bucking into him, her mouth open and gasping for air.

  “Oh, sweet! Right there! Right! I mean, nae! Oh God, nae!”

  The last word was a long, drawn-out whisper. It had barely finished before they both heard the barn door open.

  Constant froze in place. So did Kam. The thunder of his heartbeat matched hers. Loud. Harsh. Strident. Below them came whistling. The jingling of harnesses. Shuffling noises. The whinny of horses. The sound of a currycomb at work. She felt the cold night air on her nakedness, contrasting with the molten heat of the man she lay atop. Constant lay unmoving, while every nerve ending on her body twitched and pinged with something so elemental and raw it was difficult to stanch. Her flesh was alert with spark-driven tension that throbbed in little sequences, especially where she still pressed against his groin. She’d never felt so alive. So moist. So needy. So tension-filled. So wanton. The combination of sensations slowly ebbed. Altered. Subtly and surely. And then they were replaced by vulnerability. Embarrassment. Awkwardness.

  Kam began moving, soundlessly and slowly, easing his grip from about her thighs until his hands rested on the backs of her parted legs. That was still too intimate. Everything was. He was blasting heat at her, too. Constant closed her eyes tightly and breathed as shallowly as possible. She had to. She supposed this was shock. And with it came a chill so severe, her tremors would’ve rustled the straw if she’d been on the floor and not atop Kam. He wrapped both arms about her, sharing his warmth, and slowly the shock transformed into something else: complete and utter self-recrimination and shame.

  Constant tried to rein in the rush of sobs, but a moment later they overwhelmed. It took an act of will to keep quiet, but somehow she managed it. She shook with the torrent of tears, gulped back what she could, and still made his chest wet.

  Kam left off his embrace, silently moving first one hand, then the other. She felt him pull down her dress, smooth it, and then refasten every hook up her back. He was perfect at it, too. His movements were perfectly timed with the noises from below so as to be undetectable. She should not have been surprised: he’d probably been trained to it.

  He had to be a spy.

  She’d been harboring and nursing and tending to a spy. No wonder he knew so much about lying. He lived one. Worse, she’d been about to fornicate with him. Willingly. And even worse yet, she couldn’t kill the emotion she felt for him. Still. Even knowing what he was.

  Constant swallowed her sobs, but more came to take their place. Kam finished the hooks and maneuvered the skirt down to her knees, covering her. Then he started stroking the hair down her back. Softly. Gently. Carefully.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Constant? May I see you for a moment?”

  Constant looked up from the tub of suds she was elbow deep in and saw Thomas Esterbrook’s face, and then her father’s right behind him. She looked back down. Thomas had waited until the sun was hovering at midmorn and the others had started twitching and moving impatiently in their chairs beside the kitchen table. She sneered at the bubbles.

  She was going to receive the proposal she’d wanted all her life and she was as unenthusias
tic about it as Thomas appeared to be.

  “Constant?” her father asked.

  “I will be right with you, Master Esterbrook,” she replied, pulling her hands out to dry them on her apron.

  “It’s a pleasant morn. I would like to take a walk with you. Would that be to your liking?”

  Constant tipped her eyes to his. Thomas had clear, bright green eyes, close to the color of a new leaf. They’d always been bright with mischief. Right at the moment, they looked glassy and dull. She looked away and embraced the surfeit of color in her cheeks. She reached for her shawl and slipped her feet into boots.

  He was going to ask for her hand in marriage . . . and he hated it. What was it Kameron had whispered to her at some point? That a man forced into a relationship he doesn’t want would turn something as beautiful and passionate as what Kameron and Constant shared into a thing of ugliness.

  The snow wasn’t going to last into midafternoon at the rate it was melting. Constant noted it in her thoughts as the door shut behind them. She looked down at the same porch she’d been standing on to churn butter only five days earlier. So much had happened! So much had changed!

  So much was still unchanged, too.

  She had no future with Kameron. According to him, he was wanted by, and had loved, many women. She would be just another conquest. In fact, she almost had been.

  Despite the chill in the air, Constant blushed. Beside her, she felt rather than saw Thomas scuffle his feet, much as he used to in Sunday school class. She knew he was nervous. She glanced at him, then away. He hadn’t lost a bit of his handsomeness, although it wasn’t affecting her as it used to. Thomas Esterbrook had four girls trying to court him . . . five, if she counted herself. It wasn’t because he was an ugly sort. He had coal-black hair with streaks of midnight blue running through it. He had a widow’s peak at the apex of his forehead. He had high cheekbones that led to a pointed chin he disguised with a bit of black whiskers, and he had those vivid green eyes. He was also a good two inches shorter than she was.

  Constant snickered, then caught herself.

  “Well, come along. This isn’t going to get easier the more I procrastinate.”

  He walked off the porch, expecting her to follow him. And Constant did. She lifted her skirt hem and followed. She was so torn! Everything she’d been dreaming of for years was going to be handed to her, but it wasn’t what she’d envisioned. The reason was quite clear. She now knew how it felt to be in love.

  A man doing something he detests turns it evil.

  The words came to her before she reached the mud. Wasn’t that what Kameron had told her to remember before she’d finally left him?

  She’d fallen asleep atop him. In fact, she’d been there most of the night. He hadn’t moved. He simply held her and whispered to her. He wanted everything to be different. He wanted her to know her worth. He was sorry, and yet he wasn’t. He’d been very close to losing control and he wasn’t the type to lose control. If that wasn’t proof of how desirable she was, Kameron didn’t know what was. Constant had stayed in the enclosure of his arms and pretended to sleep while he whispered to her. After a time, it had actually worked. She’d slept. Oh. Sweet heaven! She’d slept in a man’s arms! A man who had handled parts of her that only her mother had seen. It wasn’t conceivable, but it was true. Constant Ridgely, the girl known as a quiet, shy, mousy sort, fit more for house and farm work, had almost been loved, in the way a man loves a woman, by a man who had to be the most handsome, virile, and masculine fellow ever birthed.

  She looked down at the muck Thomas was leading her through and tried to temper her thoughts. It wasn’t possible. Her body still felt Kameron. Every bit of him! She hadn’t wanted to leave. Worse than the sin of almost fornicating with him, she’d wanted it. She lusted for him with a need and longing that didn’t seem to diminish, regardless of the hours away from him. At one point early this morn, she’d almost opened her mouth and begged Kam to make love to her—even though she knew the consequences, and what she’d lose. She’d wanted him to love her so badly her body still quaked with the memory of it.

  She was actually thankful Thomas Esterbrook was walking in front of her rather than at her side. Constant wrapped her arms about herself. She couldn’t believe this! She was about to receive an offer of marriage from the man she’d wanted for over thirteen years, and her mind and body were yearning for someone else! Would that Thomas had asked for her to walk with him a week ago! But no . . . then she’d not have understood what a man was like if he was forced into marriage. She’d never suspect that if he touched her with loathing it wasn’t her fault. She might never know what desire and passion and sensual craving really felt like, either.

  Constant looked at Thomas’s back, watched his gait, how sure-footed he was, how his breeches molded to him, the narrowness of his waist . . . the lengthy queue of black hair down his back, and couldn’t detect one ounce of interest. She wanted to be back with Kameron, just as she’d been all night.

  All night!

  It was still unbelievable.

  She blushed at the thought. Kameron had said she had a body that was hard to resist. She knew what he meant. She felt the same thing about his. But he’d kept himself well within bounds, using words to persuade. He’d begged, cajoled, entreated, threatened, and ordered her not to accept anything Thomas offered her. And then he’d started anew. He finally amended it: she could accept, if she could swear to him that Thomas’s offer was given freely. According to Kameron, a forced man gains his vengeance from his wife, and it’s a lifetime sentence.

  He’d told her his parents suffered it. They were barely civil to each other. He dreaded any function that had them in the same room. Most of the people he knew suffered the same miserable wedded life. He wasn’t married for a reason: his status at birth had taken his choice away. He wasn’t like the colonists, who had the freedom to choose their life’s partner.

  Constant had lain atop him and listened.

  Kameron had finally told her to go ahead and choose Thomas Esterbrook if he created the same sort of emotion and passion in her. Otherwise, he was going to strangle both of them. He hadn’t been remotely soft and tender when he’d said that, either.

  Constant tripped on an exposed root and took a couple of loud steps before catching herself. Thomas didn’t even turn to check.

  She frowned at his back. Thomas Esterbrook was a prize catch. He always had been. His family ran the biggest press. They owned a three-story mansion on a very exclusive street in Boston. Why, they even had bricks lining their drive, between the double rows of oak trees they’d planted. Thomas had three siblings, all younger, all female, making him the heir. He had wealth, he was attractive, and he had a fairly well-proportioned frame.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t remotely like Kameron. Constant shut her eyes, saw him as clearly as if he stood before her, and reopened them as she accepted the inevitable. She was in love. Deeply. It wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t smart. It wasn’t expected. And there wasn’t any way to ignore it. The British spy named Kameron had her heart; he’d almost had her maidenhood. Was she willing to give up a future for him, too? Was she willing to await another life partner if she turned down Thomas? What if that never happened? Was she willing to tempt fate and become a spinster?

  She was so torn!

  “It’s a cold fall, isn’t it?” Thomas asked from over his shoulder.

  “We’ve had colder,” she replied.

  “True.”

  He shrugged and kept walking. Constant sighed before following as he looped around the corral, through the stripped-down garden, and then all around the cornfield, their movements easily seen from the house. Constant kept up with him easily. Her skirts weren’t avoiding the mud, though, and her boots were ankle-deep in the muck. All things considered, this isn’t remotely romantic, she thought.

  “Constant?”

  Thomas swiveled suddenly and she almost ran into him. The difference in height was more apparent at a distance of
less than a foot. He looked up at her and frowned, looking as though he smelled something unpleasant. Constant sucked in on her cheeks to stop any untoward reaction that would make him flush worse than he already was. And then she slouched her shoulders and leaned on one hip, bringing her closer to his level.

  Even if he was being forced to offer for her, wasn’t that better than no marriage and no babies, and no one, once Kameron left?

  “We—we’ve known each other for some time, Constant.” Thomas stopped to lick his lips.

  Constant smiled. She knew what he had to do, and that wasn’t fair; he didn’t know she knew. She tried to help him. “Since we were both in dresses,” she replied.

  The color moved to the tops of his cheeks. It was a becoming reaction. Thomas Esterbrook was handsome. It would be pleasant looking at him, as well as make it easier to do other things with him. Now it was Constant’s turn to redden. She had to look away.

  “Yes . . . well. It was always expected . . . I mean, I—I always meant to . . . I believe it was expected—”

  “Kiss me, Thomas.” Constant interrupted his litany of stuttering and stammering.

  Those green eyes widened. It wasn’t a pleasant look. “K-k-kiss you?” he stammered.

  “You do know how, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Uh . . .”

  Constant reached for his shoulders, pulled him to her and matched her lips to his. Then she used exactly the same motions Kameron had taught her. She slid her lips along Thomas’s and they didn’t resemble anything except polished wood. They were as hard and cold, too.

  Constant pulled away. She took a step back, then another, until she was out of reach. Thomas looked exactly as she’d suspected he might. As hard and cold as his lips had felt. She narrowed her eyes as he moved to wipe at his mouth.

  “Whatever you have to offer, the answer is no, Thomas,” she said finally.

  “You should wait until ’tis offered, I would say,” he replied.

  She shrugged. “Offer then. The answer will still be the same.” She tossed her head and turned away from him. The barn shimmered in the distance, as did the house. She started walking toward them. She only hoped no one had seen her humiliation.