The Laird's Willful Lass

by Anna Campbell

  “Will ye no’ drink a toast with me to an enterprise well begun, lassie?”

  She set the teacup down on the nightstand and lifted the small, heavy glass filled with golden liquid. “I drink to the man who has shown me a new world. Salute!”

  His eyes warmed. “I’ll drink to the loveliest lass in the Highlands. Here’s to your bonny black eyes, Marina Lucchetti. Slàinte mhath!”

  She reached forward to clink her glass against his, and noticed the way his gaze dropped to the gaping neck of her shirt. She hadn’t got far with the buttons. “You’re not looking at my eyes, Mackinnon.”

  Another half-smile. “Aye, that’s true. It’s not only your eyes that are bonny, mo chridhe.”

  Through her gratification, she frowned in puzzlement. “What’s that you call me?”

  “Mo chridhe?”

  “Mow cree?”

  He chuckled at her hesitant pronunciation. “Something like that. It means ‘my heart’ or ‘my darling.’”

  “You’ve called me your darling before. When you saved me from the cliff edge and last night by the loch.”

  “Aye, I have.” He sent her a searching look. “Don’t ye like it?”

  “Of course I like it,” she admitted. Like it? She loved it. The endearment transformed her heart into a great sugary puddle. “You know I do. You have a sweet tongue, Mackinnon.”

  “Let me prove it, my bonny lass.” He leaned forward and kissed her with a thoroughness that left her breathless. On his lips, the local liquor was almost as delicious as his words.

  When he raised his head, his eyes were dark. Feeling bold, she caught his free hand and slid it under her shirt and against her breast.

  His hand was warm, and the slight calluses abraded her skin with delightful friction. The merest brush of his fingers set her head swimming. She shivered again as her nipple hardened against his palm. A heavy, eager weight settled between her legs, where a pleasant ache lingered from his possession.

  “Marina…” He spoke her name with such longing that she trembled.

  When he squeezed her breast, her powerful reaction made her wriggle against the rumpled sheets. With each shift, she was breathtakingly conscious that her body had changed. She ached in places she hadn’t known existed before today.

  She lifted the glass to her lips. “Drink up, Mackinnon.”

  The liquor tasted strange on her tongue, but as it slipped down her throat, it warmed her on the inside the way his touch warmed her on the outside. The rich aftertaste almost convinced her she might come to enjoy the flavor. In about a hundred years.

  Fergus surveyed her with a glowing admiration as restorative as any spirits, then swallowed his drink in a single mouthful. He set the glass on the nightstand.

  “I didn’t know desire could be like this.” She blushed. “I think I’ll like being your mistress.”

  “I’ll do my best to make you happy, lassie.” He scratched a nail across her beaded nipple, feeding her restiveness. “I ken what a gift you’ve given me.”

  When he said things like that, she couldn’t resist him. “Oh, Fergus,” she sighed, leaning forward for a kiss.

  The kiss lasted far too short a time. He lifted his head and sent her a mocking glance. “Drink your whisky. It’s bad luck to leave any in the glass. Then I’ll pour ye some warm water for a wash, and we can have breakfast. You’ll need your strength for what I’m planning.”

  Marina swallowed her whisky, surprised that the taste already became more palatable. “Curse your control and your common sense, Mackinnon,” she muttered.

  He gave a brief grunt of amusement. “You know ye dinna want a laddie who gives no thought for your comfort and seeks only his own satisfaction.”

  She sighed, although his consideration made her heart cramp. “You’re still the laird, even now.”

  “Aye, always. And you’re still the reckless signorina setting her will against mine.” He spoke with no particular animus, so it was difficult to summon much pique.

  “Do you mind?”

  He shook his dark auburn head. “It’s exciting. I’ve never held a woman in my arms, not knowing whether she’ll bite me or kiss me.”

  She’d already done both, and she saw in his face, he shared the same thought. Her eyes narrowed on him. “Just remember that.”

  More of that devastating fondness lit his gaze. She found him madly attractive, but she also liked him more than any man she’d ever met. Dio l’aiuti, she even liked that she couldn’t turn him to her will.

  A woman might dare to consider herself Fergus Mackinnon’s equal. She’d be a fool indeed to think herself his superior.

  “You’re such a bully,” she said, without meaning a word of it.

  A wry smile curled his lips. “Face it, lassie, you love it when I push you around.”

  “Only when you’re right,” she retorted.

  He laughed aloud at that. “Aye, well, isn’t that all the time?”

  Before she could summon a suitable response, he dragged her into his arms for a kiss that promised passion. She could hardly wait.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The sun was sinking low behind the Cuillins on Skye when Fergus left his father’s luxurious hunting lodge. As his pony ambled homeward, Marina rested in his arms, soft, warm and sleepy.

  Pleasant exhaustion weighted his limbs, and his mind was at peace in a way it hadn’t been since he met the lassie who leaned against him with such trust. Sweet memories of the day filled him with wellbeing.

  Knowing he was this splendid woman’s only lover moved him at a profound level. When he’d first seen her dishing out orders from that carriage window, he’d decided she was difficult and prickly—if damned attractive. But today she’d turned to him with such beguiling eagerness and generosity, that he’d come to recognize that her essence was passion.

  Passion for her art. Passion for her life. Passion for…him.

  He’d never known a day of such extraordinary joy.

  His arms tightened, and with a drowsy murmur, Marina stirred from her doze to twist her head and kiss the side of his neck.

  He’d taken her again after a long and thorough seduction that left them both shaking with need. Again he’d experienced that incandescent intimacy as he thrust inside her. As laird, he was used to being alone. Leaders often were. But when he held Marina, he found a home.

  It had been a perfect day. Until now.

  Reluctantly, he drew the pony to a stop. “I cannae go back to the castle holding you in my arms, lassie. Or the world and his wife will ken just what we’ve been doing all day.”

  She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “I almost don’t mind, if it means I can stay here like this.”

  He’d wondered if having given him so much today, she might take fright and retreat behind her defenses. Instead she’d surrendered with wholehearted completion.

  It made Fergus feel like a king. It made him feel unworthy of her.

  “You will mind in the end,” he said, wishing he could face the world and proclaim this woman as his. But he’d sworn to keep her safe from talk.

  Dear God above, the agony of pulling away from her at his peak had come close to tearing him apart. Some forbidden, wicked part of him longed to flood her with his seed and know he’d planted his child inside her.

  But he’d given his word to preserve her good name, and the Mackinnon’s word was an iron-clad guarantee.

  The sheer animal pleasure of what they’d done to one another during this unforgettable day overwhelmed him, and he buried his face in her silky hair. The second time he’d taken her, he’d lingered to release it from its pins, so it lay like an ebony cape around her bare shoulders, offering glimpses of that pretty bosom whenever she moved.

  Och, what he’d have given then to possess an ounce of her artistic talent, so he could capture and keep that image. Even with only fallible human memory to rely on, he’d remember Marina’s melting dark eyes at that moment until the day he died.

  He
inhaled, so when he was alone in his bed tonight, her scent would linger in his nostrils. She smelled of sexual satisfaction, and crushed flowers, and a musky hint of sweat. A bouquet fit for paradise.

  She sighed. “The real world is dragging us back, isn’t it?”

  The aching regret in her voice echoed his regret at needing to pretend that nothing had changed, once he returned to the castle. Whereas in ways he had difficulty comprehending, after today, everything was different.

  “Aye,” he said without moving.

  “I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “I wish we’d stayed in the lodge.”

  “We can go back tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yes.” Her ready acceptance filled him with carnal anticipation. “But there’s tonight in between.”

  Aye, there was. Having caught her at last, he was loath to let her go, even for a few hours.

  “What I’d give to have you in my bed. High up in my tower, you’d be queen of the glen.”

  Her laugh was weary, and not just because of all they’d done at the lodge, he guessed. “You know I can’t. For your sake as much as mine. The Mackinnon can’t take a mistress here where he rules.”

  No, he couldn’t. He owed his people more respect than that. He suspected his father, for all his selfishness, had faced the same dilemma. The ostentatious fittings of the lodge had always struck Fergus as excessive to the needs of a man stalking the deer. As he’d grown to adulthood, there had been whispers about the previous laird trysting there with a crofter’s wife or two. Warning enough that he and Marina needed to be careful. The hills might appear empty, but gossip could run through the glen at an astonishing speed.

  “I don’t want to let ye go.” He was talking about more than the coming hours of separation, devil take it.

  And wasn’t that a terrifying revelation? They’d negotiated an affair, but with every minute, the connection strengthened between him and this extraordinary woman. Now the prospect of losing her felt like someone stuck a dirk into his ribs.

  To his relief, Marina took his words at face value. “We have tomorrow,” she said, repeating his reassurance.

  “Aye,” he responded, only just stopping himself from asking what happened when their tomorrows ran out and she went back to Italy.

  “I dare not look at you tonight, or Papa will guess what we’ve done,” she said.

  “And if I look at you, I willnae be able to resist hauling you into my arms.” He feared he wasn’t joking, although he appreciated the way she tried to lighten the atmosphere.

  “We’d scandalize Kirsty and Jenny.”

  He made himself laugh, although having to let Marina go felt like someone hammered on a bruise. He wasn’t ashamed of what they’d done. It seemed more sinful to hide how he felt than it had to join his body with hers.

  Reverend Angus in his kirk would find that thought utterly reprehensible.

  “We must go back,” he said. “It will be dark soon.”

  In the end, Marina was the one who shifted. He couldn’t command his arms to release her.

  “Fergus, it’s been a day I’ll always treasure.” She slid to the ground and stared up at him, her eyes luminous in the gloaming. “Thank you for your care and your kindness. Thank you for the…pleasure.”

  Although her words were powerfully moving, they made him frown. “That sounds like goodbye.”

  Her lips twisted. “No, but I want you to know how precious you made me feel. There was desire, but there was friendship, too, and I loved everything we did.”

  “Marina…” Her name emerged as a choked mutter. “You are precious.”

  He dismounted and stepped up beside her. “Give me one last kiss.”

  To his surprise and regret, she shook her head. “No.”

  “No?”

  Her smile was tremulous. “If you do, I’ll be all starry eyed, and there will be no hiding what we’ve been up to.” She bit her lip and despite her denial, the need to kiss her gripped him with talons of steel. “You go ahead, and I’ll come behind and try and look as if I’ve spent the day innocently sketching the landscape.”

  Damn it, she was right, but he didn’t like it. He wanted to shout it from the mountaintops that this exceptional woman was his and that he dared heaven and earth to take her away from him.

  Then as he stepped back, he remembered that she was going to leave anyway, that this was a temporary liaison, and that once her father could walk again, she’d be on her way back to Florence.

  “I’ll kiss you a thousand times tomorrow, lassie, to make up for it.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.” Bravely clinging to the smile, she raised her hands to her hair. “Am I tidy, or do I look like you’ve tumbled me six ways to Saturday?”

  He smiled. “You look bonny.”

  Impatience flattened her lips. “That’s no answer.”

  “But ye always look bonny to me.”

  Her eyes narrowed on him. “Don’t use your Scottish charm on me, Mackinnon.”

  “It’s worked so far.” He tucked a few strands of hair back into her simple chignon.

  “Fergus…”

  “You look windswept but decent.” He feared that her kiss-reddened lips and the somnolent satisfaction in her eyes were more likely to give her away to an observer than untidy hair.

  “That’s good.”

  “And your hair is often a rat’s nest. You’re always tugging at it when you work.”

  “You noticed that?”

  “I notice a lot.” He shrugged. “I love watching you.”

  She shot him a cross look. “More Scottish charm. Stop it.”

  With a brief laugh, he caught her hand and carried it to his lips. “I’m only speaking the truth. Now we must go in, before I give in to my base urges and rush ye back to the lodge. I’m letting you sleep alone tonight under sufferance.”

  Her eyes softened to black velvet. “Blast you, Mackinnon, I’m trying to act as if nothing has happened, and you go and say that.”

  “Think about tomorrow, Marina,” he murmured, then took mercy on her and lifted her up into her sidesaddle.

  As he rode his pony down the hill, he suspected he, too, looked as if he’d spent the day in a heaven a thousand miles away from mundane life. He’d have to be careful, or his secret rendezvous with Marina would end up being no secret at all.

  “I will. I’ll also think about today,” she said softly from a few paces behind him, and only with the greatest difficulty did he resist dragging her off that pony and kissing her until she couldn’t stand up.

  By God, it was going to be a long wait until the morning, when he had her to himself again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Who would imagine such an independent miss would settle with such ease into life as a man’s mistress?

  The next few weeks passed in such a haze of happiness and physical satisfaction that Marina regretted the passing of each glorious, golden day. She’d resisted giving in to Fergus for many reasons, not least her fear of subjugating her will to his. Two such determined personalities were sure to clash, but so far, he proved to be a more reasonable man than she’d thought was possible when she first set eyes on him. She was sheepishly aware that he might say the same thing about her.

  There were differences of opinion, but to her surprise, he turned out to be willing to listen to her. On rare occasions, she even found herself coming around to his way of thinking.

  There was one place where they always agreed. In the big, extravagant bed in the luxurious hunting lodge. The merest touch of his hands on her skin set her blood singing with delight. She smiled to recall the day he’d pleasured her with his mouth, followed by his shocked gratification when she’d returned the favor.

  Each day, she come back to the castle in a glow of sensual bliss. She was afraid it must show, but nobody, including Papa, had remarked on the change in her.

  Which suddenly struck her as odd, given how well her father knew her.


  “What is it?” Fergus asked from a few feet away.

  Smiling in welcome, she raised her head from her drawing. “I didn’t hear you arrive.”

  Marina was sitting on the hill, not far from where she’d challenged him about his dismissive attitude to the women in his life. She hadn’t seen Fergus before she started work. These days, she knew the estate well enough to find her way to the places she’d decided to paint for the duke.

  He leaned in to kiss her with the casual affection that always made her heart stutter and stop. Her hand tightened on her pencil, and she made a false line that she brushed at with her thumb.

  As he’d predicted, the good weather had held until the end of September. October had come in with squalls. She’d emerged from her lover’s arms long enough to remember that she needed to return to Italy with preliminary work done on the duke’s commission, and that her hundreds of sketches of Fergus wouldn’t fit the bill.

  So the last two weeks, when the weather was fine, she’d resisted Fergus’s blandishments and worked. Autumn in the Highlands, she discovered, brought forth beauty to rival summer. The heather had faded from the hills, but the trees turned a magnificent red and gold, and bracken covered the slopes with a rich, rusty brown. Sunrise was magical, too, with the unreliable light sparkling on the frosty grass, portent of colder weather to come.

  Fergus’s duties as laird often called him away from her side, too. As the days went on, they settled into something like a life together. Their relationship began to feel oddly domestic, as if they shared something important and lasting, instead of the brief affair that she had to remind herself was the reality.

  Although she was wanton enough to appreciate the frequent bad weather, when a roguish Scotsman and his half-Italian mistress had no choice but to seek shelter in the hunting lodge.

  “Did you decide where to put the new school?”

  Fergus and Reverend Angus, the minister, had met today to discuss parish matters. Once she’d condemned her lover’s lordly behavior, but she’d come to admire his endless care for the people in the glen.