SCOTTISH PROVERB
Hugh laughed, enjoying the soft graze of her body against his. “ ’Tis not very likely, Bridget, since the thing is a figment of the very active Scottish imagination.”
Bridget was quiet for a moment, then changed the subject again. “Your housekeeper will wonder where you are. And me, too, I suppose.”
“She might.”
“What will you tell her?”
“Naught. Where I go and what I do is none of her concern.”
“She has known you a long time.”
“Aye. Since I was born,” said Hugh.
“She and the other servants truly do not go into the castle after dark?”
He nodded. “They’re fearful.”
“But you stay there, and I did…Doesn’t it occur to them that naught has happened to you over the years?”
“They might have come to that conclusion, but then Amelia threw herself from the roof.”
She propped herself up on her forearm and looked at him, her eyes full of sympathy and compassion. “I am so sorry. I…I’d heard.”
“No doubt all Kincardineshire knew of her suicide.”
“Aye. Such tales seem to have legs.”
“The servants are not convinced that the Glenloch Ghost had naught to do with it.”
“They think the ghost pushed her?”
“It’s a thought that’s crossed their minds.”
“But—”
“But what, Miss MacLaren?” he asked, wondering if she would repeat the usual cant about Amelia having been a happy woman with every advantage and absolutely no reason to kill herself.
“The ghost I saw would never have done such a thing,” she said, surprising him.
She seemed so adamant, he could almost believe she’d seen the specter. “How would you know?”
“I’m not quite sure,” she said as she slid down and touched her lips to his chest. “It just didn’t seem…It’s much too ethereal.”
“Ethereal,” he rasped when her tongue circled his nipple.
“Aye. Without substance. How would such a being ever manage to push her?”
Hugh closed his eyes and swallowed. “How, indeed, Miss MacLaren.”
“The servants should try not to be so terrified of it.” Her hands found his erection and she traveled farther down his body, her tight nipples burning a path down to his waist, and below.
“And you are not?” he croaked.
“I’m a great deal more terrified of you, Laird,” she said.
And Hugh could not find his voice to answer her.
They slept again, and when Brianna awoke, Hugh was partially dressed, leaning up against a wall for balance. He pulled on his boots while she observed him surreptitiously, admiring the breadth of his shoulders and the long, lean lines of his body.
She renewed her vow never to give in to Stamford’s wishes that she marry Roddington. The man was a repulsive toad, and she could not imagine sharing even the slightest intimacy with him. Hugh was the only…
The fleeting thought that had escaped her the night before returned. Roddington wouldn’t want her, now that she’d shared the bed of another man. She was no longer an innocent virgin, the respectable bride her aunt had raised. Her reputation was shredded. If Stamford found her now, she would not be required to marry the marquess, not when he knew she’d spent hours, days, alone in Hugh’s company. She would not be required to marry Roddington.
It was a relief, but at the same time, worrisome.
“Ah, you’re awake,” said Hugh.
Bree sat up, holding the blanket in front of her, though it was much too late for modesty. “Good morning again.”
He came and sat down beside her. “ ’Tis more like noon, or even later. And it’s stopped raining.”
“ ’Tis good news.”
“Depending on how you look at it.” He leaned close and took hold of an edge of the blanket, tugging it down, baring her body as he feathered light kisses against her mouth.
He cupped her breasts in his hands, and a familiar pleasurable pressure mounted between her legs. A soft moan emanated from the back of her throat, and she lay back, pulling Hugh down with her. She reached for the placket of his trews and started on the buttons, gratified to feel his arousal, hard and hot, ready for her.
“Hurry, Hugh,” she said, breathlessly. She wanted him now. She wanted to feel the hard completion of his body inside hers.
He clearly felt the same, for he shoved his trews out of the way and moved quickly between her legs, entering her with a groan of intense pleasure. He moved out again quickly, then began a sharp rhythm that took Brianna to the edge in only a few strokes. She shattered, her spasms squeezing him, her pleasure engulfing her at the same moment that he reached his own climax. Hovering over her, he quaked and trembled, then lowered his forehead to hers, breathing heavily.
“Are you always so insatiable?” he asked.
“I…I’m not…I don’t know. I-I’ve only…” she spluttered before she could collect her thoughts. His lovemaking turned her brain to pap, her only coherent idea that she wanted to stay with him in the primitive little croft.
Their simple existence there eliminated all her worries, but only temporarily. Once they left, Bree would have to carry out her plan to go away and stay out of her guardian’s control until she reached her majority. Only then would she be able to return to Killiedown Manor.
Yet the thought of leaving Hugh caused her chest to burn. The thought of going away, perhaps never to see him again, was crushing. “I did not know…” she whispered, hardly able to find her voice. “This is all so…”
“New,” he said. “Aye. You are perfect, lass.”
He kissed her once lightly, then drew away and refastened his trews while Brianna rose from the bed, feeling as though the ground had been pulled out from under her. All she wanted in the world was to live at Killiedown and raise her horses.
There was absolutely no future with Hugh, so her path was clear.
She watched as he finished dressing and wondered if he truly thought she was perfect. Likely it was something he said to every woman who shared his bed, although their night together came close to that description for her.
“I’ll wait for you outside.” He stepped out, giving her a moment’s privacy to wash as well as she could with the water he’d collected in the cup. She dressed quickly, then put on her coat and started for the door, but stopped suddenly. As she turned back to look at the intimate space she’d shared with him, an ache of longing washed over her.
She squelched her foolishness, but just before she made her exit, grabbed the plaid blanket from their pallet, folded it, and wrapped it around her shoulders. She tied it against her chest like a shawl, the only reminder she would have of their one night together.
The sky was heavy with clouds, but at least it was not raining. Or snowing. Brianna shuddered, aware that the break in the weather would also allow Stamford to resume his travel. She knew she should go south now. Every instinct screamed for her to go away and lose herself someplace where Lord Stamford could never find her.
And yet she could not face leaving Hugh. She did not know how she was going to bid farewell to his dark gaze and the intimate touch of his hands and mouth, or his body inside hers.
He looked large and forbidding in his greatcoat, his visage made dangerous by the crescent scar on his cheekbone. But Brianna had known the tenderness of his touch. He’d risked his life to save her from the roiling sea, even though she had not deserved it, not when she’d acted so stupidly.
She put her hand on his forearm and looked up at him. “Thank you for coming for me. In the boat.”
He dragged her up against him. “Promise me you’ll never do anything so foolish again.”
Her only desire at that moment was to please him. She nodded. “Never.”
“We’ve a distance to go before it gets dark,” he said, releasing her. “And I don’t like the look of those clouds.”
“
Might we walk on the beach?” she asked, hoping to avoid the route Stamford would surely take. No doubt he’d already been up to Killiedown and Aberdeen. Perhaps he was in Stonehaven now, and would soon be on this very same road.
“ ’Twill be much easier—and faster—this way.” He took her hand and placed it in the crook of his arm, and started walking on the road that lay directly west of their croft.
Brianna quickly glanced south, but did not possess the resolve to take her leave of him now. Nor did she think he would let her go. She felt his hunger and the promise of pleasures to come once they reached the castle.
She could do naught but give them one more night.
A wicked wind blew in from the north and bruised their faces as they walked, but at least they met no one on their way to Glenloch.
“You know it will be difficult to secure employment in Dundee,” he said after they’d covered some distance in silence.
“Perhaps,” Bree replied, her heart dropping as he spoke of such practical matters. While she’d been thinking he must be recalling every intimate move they’d made together, he’d brought up her departure to Dundee as though naught had occurred between them. As though anticipating her departure.
“We’ll talk about it when we get back,” he said in an offhand way, and Brianna’s breath caught somewhere deep in her chest. She should have realized he was well-practiced at dealing with lovers taken and eventually cast off.
It was not going to happen that way for him this time. She would be at no man’s mercy. Yet her decent clothes and all her money were resting at the bottom of the sea. She could not survive in Dundee now, without money—as Hugh had just reminded her—and little chance of employment. Killiedown was out of the question, for there was too good a chance that Lord Stamford would return there when he failed to find her anywhere else.
And he would be furious. She’d felt the back of his hand a number of times in the early years before Claire had come and taken her from his house, and Brianna did not doubt that she would feel it again if he caught her before she had the authority to evict him from her life. She could only imagine how angry he must have been when she did not arrive for her wedding at St. George’s. He’d have felt humiliated and foolish, too—a man who had no control over his ward.
Bree had known her defiance would have consequences. Yet she’d been certain that if she arrived at Killiedown and informed Claire of Stamford’s intentions, her aunt would have stepped in and dealt with the man herself. Now she’d put Hugh between Roddington and his promised, innocent bride.
If Hugh ever discovered her real identity and that she’d betrayed a marquess with him, he would not simply be angry—he would want nothing more to do with her.
Brianna shook off her sense of foreboding. She clutched the shawl to her breast and kept moving, her future uncertain. She’d let down her defenses temporarily, but she knew how to rebuild them. She’d managed to do it many times before.
Chapter 7
A woman is at the best when she’s openly bad.
SCOTTISH PROVERB.
Hugh was loath to end their little adventure. As perilous as it had been, it had been equally enjoyable. Even more so.
“I owe you an apology.”
She looked up at him, her beautiful eyes cloudy with puzzlement.
“Not for taking your maidenhead, I assure you,” he said, enjoying the expression of pure embarrassment that crossed her face. “But for being the cause of your flight from Glenloch. You must not have understood you had a choice.”
“I’m afraid I behaved like a silly society miss,” she replied.
He laughed. “What do you know of society misses?”
“Oh! Hardly anything at all. Just that they can be…er…”
“Missish?”
“Exactly!”
“Which is something you are clearly not,” he said, feeling very glad of it. He stepped in front of her and walked backward as she continued forward. “And I hope it means you will share my bed again tonight.”
“Laird, I’m not sure I—”
“Laird? What happened to Hugh?”
“I-I should not…”
“Aye, you should,” he said, stopping in front of her, catching her hands in his. He pressed a light kiss to her mouth, sorry they had to lose the close intimacy of their comfortable, isolated nest in the kelper’s croft.
They resumed walking, and Hugh took her hand again, feeling much different than he had a few days ago when he’d ridden from London to get away from the oppressive females there. Bridget MacLaren was nothing like those lying, conniving chits. She was a breath of fresh air, spirited and full of heart.
He supposed he should apologize for taking her virginity. But he could not regret it. He could so easily envision a continued liaison with this fiery, passionate woman. He gave a quick squeeze of her hand and glanced ahead. Glenloch’s towers were visible in the distance, but they would be lucky to arrive at the castle before dark, which came early in winter this far north.
He wondered if MacTavish’s men had gotten the brandy out of the buttery to make room for the new shipment. If the weather held, one of Captain Benoit’s cutters would be just outside the cove at midnight. Plenty of time to make love to Bridget MacLaren before he hit the beach with the Falkburn free traders. This night, he would work alongside them and assess the operation for himself.
Berk Armstrong might be a problem, but worse was the possibility that someone had actually informed him of Benoit’s ship holding fast near the cove. Everyone in Falkburn benefited from the free trade. Only a fool would betray them to the Stonehaven customs officers.
And only a fool would think he could get away with stealing from the Laird of Glenloch. He had the initial information he needed to find out how it was being done. There had been five hundred tubs of brandy in the buttery the night before. Once it was let down and the caramel color added, it would yield ten or twelve gallons of drinkable brandy from every tub.
Hugh wanted an accounting of every gallon, almost as much as he wanted Bridget MacLaren in his bed.
It was full dark when they arrived at Glenloch, and he could see Mrs. Ramsay leaving with her young MacTavish grandsons and the two female servants who worked for her in the castle. None of them would dare ask where he’d been or what he was about, but Hugh was uninterested in dealing with the questioning glances they were sure to give him. Besides, it never hurt for their laird’s actions to be somewhat beyond their ken. “We’ll go around to the buttery,” he said to Bridget.
They went down toward the sea and the grate through which his tubs of brandy would be passed, the same place where Bridget had come into the castle. Hugh looked to the water for any sign of a ship, but there was none. And no one in the tower to signal it. It was still early, though. He knew that Benoit rarely arrived before midnight.
Bridget had been quiet for the last mile of their walk, but she turned to him after they’d scrambled through the grate. “I’m famished.”
“Aye. Food first.” Then he had plans for later.
Brianna followed Hugh up the steps, then through a passageway and into the scullery. The room was still warm so soon after the servants’ departure, but she and Hugh were chilled and they kept their coats on as he stoked the fire. Bree stood close to the hearth and let the heat penetrate to her bones while Hugh found a plate of oatcakes, which they quickly devoured. He went about opening doors to adjoining rooms and corridors, obviously looking for something.
“There used to be a…” he muttered. “Ah, here it is.” Brianna looked on as he dragged an iron tub from a small alcove and placed it in front of the fire. Then he went back and collected a wooden bucket from the same place.
Using the bucket he’d found, he filled the bath from the copper boiler at the back of the stove. Brianna soaked up the heat while she watched him perform the task, considering what he had in mind. Arousal surged through her, with more heat than the fireplace could possibly project when she realized he meant for h
er to bathe there—probably with him.
When the tub was full, he located a cake of soap and placed it on the tub’s edge, then returned to Bree and started to unfasten the buttons of her coat. His eyes seemed much darker in the flickering firelight than they had in the muted daylight of their walk back to Glenloch.
“A bath, Laird?”
“I did not treat you well last night.” He slipped the coat from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. “I would have preferred to see to your comfort…your first time…”
“I have no complaints.”
He nipped her lower lip and pulled it gently into his mouth.
Brianna shuddered and slipped her arms around his neck. He unfastened the buttons at her throat, then broke their kiss to pull the shirt over her head.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, taking both her hands in his and stepping back slightly to gaze at her.
“You needn’t ply me with empty compliments,” she said, embarrassed by his bold perusal.
“Never was a compliment so far from empty.” He released her hands and feathered the backs of his hands over her nipples, letting out a tremulous breath as he did so.
Brianna could almost believe he meant it, contrary to all of Lady Stamford’s criticisms. Brianna knew her hair was unruly, her chin too pointed, and her eyes too wide. But none of those flaws seemed to matter to Hugh.
He suddenly changed course and began to disrobe, dropping his clothes in a pile beside the tub. “Take them off, Bridget. Your trews.”
She held the edge of the bath as she did so, and as soon as the last article of clothing hit the floor, Hugh swooped down and lifted her into his arms and then stepped into the water. He sat down, turning her on his lap as he lifted her hair and pressed light kisses to the back and sides of her neck.
With her back against him, he cupped her breasts and gently swirled their tips between his thumb and fingers. She felt his erection pressing against her lower back, hot and insistent, teasing her and making her wait.
He took the plain-smelling soap into his hands and worked up a lather, then rubbed it all over her, starting at her neck and working down, teasing her breasts, then working his way to her nether regions. His hands had learned her well, for he tantalized her with his touch, promising future delights.
Taken By the Laird Page 10
