Taken By the Laird

by Margo Maguire

  “I’m sorry for the delay,” she said, going right to the teapot he’d placed on a table in front of the sofa. “The gown was too long for me. I’d have tripped on the hem if I hadn’t shortened it.”

  “Oh aye. Amelia was nearly as tall as me. I’d forgotten.” It was true. He could hardly picture her anymore, and he thought of her as little as possible. He watched as Bridget sat down and poured, her surprisingly strong hands performing the task with grace.

  “Thank you for putting it that way,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am much too short,” she remarked. “I’ve been faulted for my lack of height on enough occasions to know it’s true.”

  He came around and sat beside her on the sofa, disturbed at the thought of such a petty criticism against her. “You are not short at all.” He lifted her chin with his finger and looked into her eyes. “You fit me well, don’t you agree?”

  Deep pink flushed her high cheekbones and she looked away. “If you say so, Laird.”

  “Aye,” he said quietly, letting his finger drop to the modest neckline of her gown. He ran it lightly across her collarbone. “You are perfect.” He’d said it before, and he meant it. Perfectly beautiful, perfect in bed, perfectly unattached.

  She gave a short laugh. “Oh, hardly.”

  “You don’t believe that you please me?” he asked, moving his hand to her waist. If she was a pure erotic fantasy in her trews and tunic, she was equally alluring dressed in this feminine confection of green and white. “Whoever you are, you fascinate me.”

  He saw uncertainty in her eyes. “Whoever I am?”

  “Aye. In whatever guise you choose to appear, I want you, lass. Fiercely.”

  He touched his mouth to hers and kissed her lightly, belying the immense arousal he felt. He needed to draw back, else he would take her back to bed before she had a chance to break her fast.

  “You’re not Scots, are you?”

  She turned her attention to the table and the tray of oatcakes and dried fruit he’d brought in. “No. I was born in England, but my mother was Scots.”

  “But you’ve lived here. I can hear it in your words,” he said, subtly seeking whatever information he could glean from her.

  She nodded. “I spent my early years in England with my parents. But after my father died, I was sent up to Edinburgh.”

  “Where you awaited your aunt to return from Greece?”

  She shook her head. “No. I was too young to remember her then. And, in any event, I wouldn’t have known she was coming for me.”

  He supposed not. “How did you fare in Edinburgh?”

  “My mother had some distant relations there. They…they took me in, one family after another,” she said with a false brightness to her voice. She looked down, and a muscle in her jaw contracted. “I was one more mouth to feed—certainly an unwelcome one.”

  Hugh felt a wave of irritation for her father, who might well have been a gentleman to have sired a daughter like Bridget. A very lax gentleman, who had not planned better for his child. Frowning, he asked, “Did your father not provide for you before he died?”

  “Yes, of course he did,” she said quietly. “But I was very young, and those who had control over my fate were only too happy to leave me to my own devices.”

  Hugh felt his own jaw clench, and he made a point of relaxing it. He wanted to know more, to know everything. But she was not exactly forthcoming. She would not say the name of the employer who had tried to accost her, and she did not seem eager to tell him of her early years.

  “Which accounts for it, then,” he said more lightly than he felt.

  “For what?”

  “Your independence. You’ve had no one to rely upon but yourself, have you?”

  “I had my aunt…” she said.

  “But you had to seek employment for your keep.” He leaned forward and cupped her cheek in his hand. “She must not have had the means to support you.”

  She shrugged, clearly disinclined to discuss the matter any further. Obviously, neither her father nor her aunt had possessed the wealth to keep her, and so she’d been required to hire herself out as a governess.

  Her situation was not at all unusual. Many young women were respectably employed in households all over Britain. But when Hugh and Bridget parted, he intended to settle enough money on her that she need not seek employment ever again. He did not believe he could stand to think of her wrestling away from yet another insufferable employer in her future.

  “You are not a careful player, I see,” said Hugh, leaning forward to study the chessboard. Brianna had enjoyed modest success at chess, simply because her play was rash and unpredictable. Her opponents never knew what to expect from her.

  “Are you saying I’m reckless?”

  “Sometimes ’tis best to have a strategy in mind before you take action.” He’d clasped his hands loosely together, and they hung between his knees. They were strong, as were the muscles in his arms and shoulders. Last night, he’d carried as many barrels of brandy as the burliest hands.

  “But sometimes ’tis necessary to act quickly,” she said.

  “And hope for the best? Hmmm…”

  Brianna smiled wryly at the undercurrent of meaning. He was chastising her once again for her rash flight from Glenloch as he moved his bishop, giving her access to his king.

  Brianna’s docile smile turned into a broad grin when she placed his king in check.

  “You needn’t look so happy about it,” he growled, pondering his next move.

  “Oh, but I do.” She laughed. “I have a feeling ’tis not often that the Earl of Newbury, Laird Glenloch, is bested at anything.”

  “I’m not beaten yet,” he said, moving his queen. “Check.”

  When he looked up and smiled at her, Bree’s heart seemed to stop, and not because of the game. Her mouth went dry and her throat closed.

  “Try to maneuver out of this one,” he said.

  She didn’t know if she could. ’Tis lust, pure and simple, she told herself a little bit desperately. Her heart was not involved in the least. It couldn’t be. It was merely the strength of his personality and the powerful attraction raging between them that confused her senses. He was a master of flirtation and seduction, and Bree knew this game was only a prelude to the lovemaking they would soon share.

  The only question was where. Would he seduce her in the library? Or take her back upstairs to his big, comfortable bed?

  He moved suddenly and took her hand, drawing her up to her feet. “Where is your coat?”

  “In the scullery,” she said, glad of the distraction.

  Keeping hold of her hand, he led her to the back kitchen, where they located their coats hanging on hooks on the wall. He took hers down and draped it over her shoulders, then shoved his arms into the sleeves of his own.

  “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Following an impulse,” he replied. “You should know about those.”

  “I nearly won.”

  “Aye. Nearly.” He laughed and took her outside, through a door that was far from the buttery where they’d hidden his smuggled brandy.

  The sky was still full of thick, dark clouds, but the snowfall had slowed to a few wispy flakes. Brianna lifted her hem and walked toward the sea, noting that the snow came up well above her ankles. Her recently dried boots became wet again, but she did not care.

  She turned and saw Hugh bend down and pick up a handful of snow. He walked toward her, forming it into a ball.

  “No!” She laughed. “You don’t intend…”

  But he did. She quickly recognized the wicked gleam in his eyes and reached down for her own handful while making a run for it. She saw the remnants of a low stone wall emerging from the deep snow, and darted for it, crouching behind it as she formed her own missile.

  “Throw yours, and it’ll mean war!” she cried in good humor.

  “I’m counting on it,” he said, his voice
coming closer.

  Bree stood and ducked, just as his snowball came at her. She quickly threw hers, hitting him square in the chest.

  He kept coming toward her, and Bree squealed and ran through the snow, her speed hampered by her wet boots and her voluminous skirts. “ ’Tis not fair! I should have changed clothes first!”

  She felt a ball of snow hit her back. It was obvious he was holding back, for it was not a vicious hit. “I’ll get you for that!”

  “Try!”

  She grabbed another handful and formed it into a ball as she ran, then turned and pelted him with it. But she lost her footing and fell, landing on her bottom in the soft snow.

  Laughing, she started to scramble away, but he caught up to her, turned her onto her back, and pinned her down. He dipped his head close, his lips only an inch from hers. “You’re not cold, are you, lass?”

  She gazed into his eyes and saw the heat of desire in their depths.

  “No!” she said, shoving him off her and rising to her feet. The game was on. She ran as fast as she could, skidding past snowdrifts, dodging and throwing snowballs at him, and laughing until tears filled her eyes.

  She felt him close on her heels and knew he would soon catch up to her. Bree looked forward to it, but not too soon. Their merry chase invigorated her and dispelled the disturbing inklings of her heart. She did not want to think about what Hugh was coming to mean to her, or of her imminent departure from Glenloch. This was pure fun, with nary a troubling thought to vex her.

  She rounded the corner of the castle and flattened her body against the wall, waiting silently for him to follow. When he did, she let him pass, then crouched down to make another snow missile. He turned before she was finished, and grinned as he lunged at her, missing her as she darted away.

  She squealed when he caught an edge of her coat and struggled against his capture.

  “You are all mine, wench!” He lowered one shoulder and tossed her over it, holding on to her legs as her head dangled down his back. “It’s time to go inside.”

  Chapter 9

  Wha may woo without cost?

  SCOTTISH PROVERB

  They did not make it past the scullery the first time Hugh made love to her. But he managed to get her up to his bedchamber for their second go. And their third.

  She dozed now, curled against his chest, where she belonged. A wisp of her hair tickled Hugh’s chin and he smoothed it away, much too content and satisfied to consider her intention to leave as soon as the weather cleared.

  He did not want her to go.

  And why should she be so anxious to go into hiding at Dundee, without any of her belongings, when she could stay at Glenloch, with him?

  Hugh had not yet suggested that she stay, although his actions surely spoke volumes. She could not possibly mistake his desire for her.

  He intended to remain at Glenloch at least a month, and he could think of no better way to pass his leisure time there than with Bridget MacLaren. He wanted to make love with this woman in every room of the castle, and sleep every night through with her in his arms.

  Her chess game was a reflection of her personality, he thought. Intelligent but daring, deliberate and delightfully impetuous. She charmed him with her resilience during their short tenure in the primitive croft, intrigued him by her sudden appearance and assistance the previous night, unloading the boats, and captivated him with her playfulness in the snow. She renewed him.

  It occurred to him that if Amelia had been half as hardy and amenable as Bridget MacLaren, their marriage might have succeeded.

  The thought of it took his breath away. Hugh’s opinion on marriage had been very clear since long before Amelia’s death. He wanted naught to do with it ever again.

  Bridget sighed against his chest, and Hugh reflected on what she’d told him about herself. She’d been vague about her father and the lack of arrangements he’d made for her upon his death. She had said the bare minimum about her employment, and he still didn’t actually know if she’d been a governess or a lady’s maid. He hadn’t learned the name of her employer, or whether she had any connections in Dundee. In spite of the lack of information, he realized how completely entwined they were, so much that he could hardly tell where he ended and she began.

  He extricated himself slightly and decided her reticence was perfectly satisfactory. It helped to keep an appropriate distance between them. With limits and no expectations. If he could convince her to stay at Glenloch all winter, they would enjoy each other for a time, and part ways when he tired of her.

  Or she tired of him.

  He felt disgruntled at that unwelcome notion. Looking down at her sleeping face, he recognized that she was unlike any of his previous mistresses. She was no practiced flirt, angling for attention and gifts. Bridget MacLaren was unspoiled and unpredictable. If she’d been a nobleman’s daughter, she’d have been presented at court and to society. And they would have deemed her an Original.

  Hugh deemed her ideal—for his purposes. Where an Original would have been sought after by the young wife-hunting bucks of the ton, Hugh did not intend to do anything more than slake his lust with her.

  The dress Brianna had hemmed was definitely worse for the wear. If only she’d understood Hugh’s plans when they’d gone out into the snow, she might have changed into her groom’s clothes. Now, she would have to remain in his bed, allowing the gown she’d taken from Amelia’s room to dry, or put on the old trews.

  Hugh must have laid the gown out by the fire before he left, but the lower half had been well-saturated by their snow games. It would be some time before it would be ready to wear.

  She lay back and gazed absently at the shadows on the ceiling, caused by the fire in the grate. There was a pleasant soreness in her shoulders and legs, as though she’d spent hours riding her favorite mare through the countryside.

  And yet it had been just a man.

  She thought of the wedding she’d abandoned and wondered why a woman was not allowed to wed a man of her own choosing, one who appealed to her. A man who made her laugh and caused her knees to quake with his heated glances. A man who made her heart clench in her breast at his intimate touch.

  A man like the Laird of Glenloch.

  Brianna closed her eyes and put her foolish thoughts aside.

  She managed not to sigh as she climbed out of his bed and found her chemise draped on a chair. She drew it over her head, then pulled on her coat and stepped out of Hugh’s bedchamber. There were plenty more gowns in Amelia’s room across the hall. Bree went inside and saw the familiar ghostly form the instant she opened the door. Its filmy shape hovered beside the bed, and signaled for Brianna to join her there.

  Bree let the door close behind her and went toward the hazy light that seemed to move aside when she came near. “What is it?”

  The wavering light flickered near the head of the bed, then drifted toward the wall. Bree followed what seemed to be insistent gestures, but they meant nothing to her. Her inability to understand what the Glenloch Ghost wanted frustrated her, for it had a truly urgent air about its movements.

  “Who is the man in the locket?” she asked.

  Her question went unanswered. Likely the ghost was not Amelia and did not know who he was, or maybe the pendant was only part of what the ghost wanted her to understand. The miniature in the locket seemed a clear indication that Amelia had been involved with a man other than her own husband.

  Brianna wondered if Hugh had known. By his own admission, he and his wife had not been close. Many fashionable couples did not reside together. Brianna certainly would not have lived in the same house with Lord Roddington if their marriage had taken place. She could not fathom the depth of Amelia’s unhappiness with Hugh and wondered if she’d chosen her moment to jump from the parapet because he’d been nearby and she could punish him that way.

  If that was the case, ’twas no wonder he’d made a very public vow never to wed again.

  It was freezing in Amelia’s chamber
, so Bree quickly chose another gown and hurried back to Hugh’s room. If the apparition had something more to tell her, it would have to do it in the warmth of Hugh’s bedchamber.

  She added more peat to the fire, then covered her legs with her shawl and sat down near the fireplace with a needle and thread.

  The ghost did not reappear, and Bree wondered if there were limits to where it could wander. The servants did not seem to fear its presence on the lower levels, but only in the upper rooms and galleries. Amelia’s possessions were intact, and Bree was sure the locket had not been found because the servants wanted no contact with the dead woman’s things.

  And yet Brianna felt no uneasiness in Amelia’s room or any other part of the castle. Glenloch had become her refuge when every other aspect of her life had failed her, and she was going to find it difficult to leave when the weather finally cleared.

  The castle might be her safe haven, but Hugh had become her sanctuary. He could have no idea how consoling it was to lie in his arms, to feel his sheltering strength around her. As lovely as these moments together were, Brianna was quite aware that her respite at Glenloch was temporary. And she knew she would never again feel the same contentment. Or the same desire.

  She could not imagine any other man attracting her the way Hugh Christie did, with his dark, brooding looks and his mischievous streak.

  As though her thoughts could make him materialize, he arrived at the door.

  “You’re awake,” he said.

  She nodded. “I found another dress to wear.”

  “I shouldn’t have caused you to ruin the other one.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. Entirely.”

  “No.” He grinned. “Like hell it wasn’t.” He crouched next to her chair. “I shouldn’t have caused you more work.”

  “Oh. This. ’Tis nothing.”

  His eyes glittered darkly in the firelight, and she followed her impulse to lean over and kiss him.

  He cupped her chin in his big hand and Bree closed her eyes, enjoying his warmth and his show of affection. His touch did not portend an intention to take her to bed, or to draw her into a discussion or game. ’Twas just a simple moment in time, a touching of lips with warmth and affection, and the promise of more to come.