Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction: Mackenzies (Mackenzies Series Book 9)

by Jennifer Ashley

  Her mother, the beautiful landlady who clearly knew Alec well, wasn’t wrong. Celia’s mother’s masquerades were gatherings of decorum, but Celia had attended others where shepherds chased masked shepherdesses into darkened rooms, and shadows under trees in a garden were filled with people not chatting or dancing.

  “Your mother is quite lovely,” Celia said. Both Glenna and Josette had dark hair and eyes, but the porcelain pale skin of the north. “As are you. You look much like her.”

  Glenna shrugged. “You’re kind, but I know I’m a stick with my hair everywhere.” She began to unpin Celia’s braids, unwinding them from their tight coil. The loosening of clothes and hair felt good, relaxing on this mad night.

  “That is what you might see in a mirror,” Celia said with conviction. “I see a very pretty young lady.”

  “Aw, ain’t ye sweet. Mum was an artists’ model when she were younger. Took off her kit to let men paint her picture. I ask you …”

  An artists’ model—this explained how Alec had met her. Which meant Mrs. Oswald must have taken off her kit for Alec. Celia tried to decide, through her exhaustion and bemusement, how she felt about that.

  She remembered how she’d reflected that artists’ models must live exciting lives when Alec had talked about them on her first day of lessons, and how he’d said they sat for him simply because they wanted to be paid. Mrs. Oswald, as beautiful as she was, seemed a sensible woman, at least at first glance, not scandalous at all.

  “If you’re wondering, my lady, Lord Alec ain’t my father,” Glenna went on with disarming frankness. “I don’t know who is, but it ain’t Lord Alec. I was already toddling around before Mum met him.” She pulled a brush through Celia’s hair. “Just thought I’d set your mind at rest. It’s his brother Mum fancies. Only never tell her I said that.”

  “Never.” Celia met Glenna’s gaze in the mirror and smiled. The girl was easy to like.

  Glenna kept up her rapid and cheerful chatter as she helped Celia into her nightdress, but Celia faded back from it, too many things jostling for her attention. Her life had changed tonight, but whether for good or ill remained to be seen.

  Yet, she couldn’t be terrified. Something had woken in her, defiance and hope, as though chains had fallen away.

  She belonged to Alec now, by law, but Celia couldn’t believe that a man who’d held his child so tenderly could be cruel to her. Most gentlemen barely acknowledged they had children at all, especially when they were babes. They didn’t hold them, bounce them in their arms, and worry about their teething troubles.

  At last Celia was ready for bed, her face washed, hair combed and braided. The bedcovers had been folded back, and Glenna competently lifted them so Celia could slide beneath.

  The bed had been warmed—Celia’s foot touched a cloth-wrapped brick that radiated heat. Glenna lingered for a time, shaking out Celia’s white velvet gown and straightening things on the dressing table. At last she departed, sending Celia a grin that was much too knowing for her age.

  Celia was married. With all marriage entailed. Her heart hammered, every footfall in the stairwell outside her door magnified.

  Would he come? Alec had married her to keep her safe, he’d said, to remove her from the game.

  Did that mean in name only? Or would Alec expect his right to her in bed?

  Celia shivered. Her mother had explained all about what men wanted from their wives, in explicit detail. The duchess had not wanted Celia to be an ignorant maiden, she said, and told her that the quicker a man was pleased, the more quickly he left her alone.

  Lie still and let him do whatever he likes, no matter how repugnant it might be to you, was the duchess’s sage advice. You are there to bear him a son and nothing more.

  Celia didn’t want to think about her mother and her disparaging words. She wanted to think about Alec, his breath-stealing kisses, his fine body, his strong hands that could render a beautiful picture in a few deft lines.

  Footsteps moved up and down the stairs, some hurried, one tread heavy and slow—a man’s. Celia stilled, but whoever it was kept moving, climbing higher into the house.

  The candles burned to stubs. Fire warmed the small room, the night dying into silence. Celia determined to stay awake, to wait for Alec, her fingers tingling as she planned every movement she’d make when he came to her.

  Those thoughts loosened her body and let lassitude take over. The next thing Celia knew, she was rising from a deep sleep, sunlight pouring through the window.

  She became aware of a weight on the mattress next to her. Celia turned her head to see Alec Mackenzie stretched beside her on the bed in kilt and shirt, his arm flung over his face, a soft snore issuing from his mouth.

  Chapter 19

  Alec woke to find Celia bending to him, the thick braid of her dark hair falling to his chest like a silken rope.

  Her face was shadowed, her eyes alight with green-brown depths. A smile touched her mouth as he focused on her, her face relaxing as though she’d watched him for some time.

  “Good morning,” she said softly.

  Everything wrong in Alec’s world dissolved. An angel smiled at him and took the pain away.

  “Sorry,” was all that came out of his mouth. “There were no other beds in the house. Josette’s rooms are full.”

  A pucker appeared between Celia’s brows. “We are married.”

  The simple statement swept away his apology, as though Celia wondered at his need to make it at all.

  “That we are.” Alec wrapped her braid around his hand. “But I thought an Englishwoman never shared a chamber with her husband.”

  Celia studied him, searching for something Alec couldn’t put a name to. “My parents certainly do not. Did yours?”

  “Aye, they slept in the same bed every night.” Alec pillowed his head on his arm. “That’s why me poor mum bore six bairns.”

  “Will you tell me about them?” Celia asked with interest. “Your brothers? I’d like to know. Since I married one of them.”

  She liked to say the word. Married. In her sphere, the state solved many a trouble—though it created plenty more, in Alec’s opinion. Marriage in the Mackenzie family had become a source of much shouting by their father. No one was supposed to marry without his permission, yet Alec and Mal kept doing it.

  “You want to talk about a bunch of large, noisy, smelly Highlanders? On the morning after your wedding? Before breakfast?”

  Another smile. “You can prepare me for when I meet them.”

  Mal would tease Alec to death but welcome Celia with open arms. His father would like her too, but there would be a long period of bluster and rage before he settled down to get to know her. Will would think Alec a fool for stealing such a high-placed English aristo’s daughter, but at the same time would admire Alec’s audacity.

  Angus …

  “Angus would have liked ye,” Alec said quietly. “He was the best of us, the only one who could keep my father calm and happy. We tormented him because he was our dad’s pet, but Dad clung to him after Mum died. He was so lost without her, ye see, and only Angus saw that. The rest of us left him to grieve alone.”

  Celia’s eyes softened. “You haven’t mentioned Angus before. Which brother is he?”

  “My twin.” Alec’s heart hollowed as he said it, the grief he’d been holding at bay threatening to tear into him. “He’s gone—shot by British soldiers north of home in some skirmish no one will remember. It’s like there’s an empty space right next to me, that will never go away. Angus was always there—we fought, we disagreed—all the time—we were nothing alike. But he was always there …”

  “Your twin. That explains it.” Celia’s voice was a near whisper.

  Alec focused on her with difficulty. “Eh? Explains what?”

  “When I drew the picture of you—that first lesson—the one you took away from me. I fancied I saw another man in the shadow behind you, as though there should have been two of you.”

  Al
ec’s breath caught. “Aye, there was.” He trailed off, his eyes wet, but Alec held himself still with effort. The last thing he wanted was his new bride to see him weeping like a wreck.

  Celia slid her arm around him and laid her head on his chest.

  She said nothing, did nothing, only held him. No inane words that everything would be all right—it would never be—or that she was sorry for him. She was, but what came to Alec was her compassion, her understanding.

  This from a woman raised by a cold mother, whose brother had turned his back on her, whose father was responsible for the deaths of Alec’s friends and family, even if he’d shunted the duty to others.

  That such a family could produce Celia, kind and understanding, proved that God was looking out for Alec Mackenzie.

  “You’re a wonder, love.” Alec brushed her hair back from her face. “Where did it come from? Your gentleness?”

  “Hmm?” Celia raised her head. She smelled of warmth and sleep and bare woman. Alec’s troubles began to recede as desire pushed through his thoughts. “Am I gentle? I get that from my father, I suppose. Whatever you think of him, he is a kind man, has always been good to me. If you met him, you’d understand.” She gave a light laugh. “You will have to meet him, eventually. You stole me away from him.”

  “That I did.” Alec put his hand behind her heavy braid and pulled her close. “And I’m glad. You might be regretting it, Lady Alec Mackenzie, but I am not.”

  Celia’s eyes widened. “Lady Alec. Yes, I suppose I am now.” Her wonder filled the cold spaces in his heart. “A fine name.”

  Alec hauled her up against him, pushing the covers down until there was nothing but her nightdress between him and the woman inside.

  He brushed her face with his thumb, tracing her cheekbone that went pink under his touch. Her lips were parted, red, desirable. Alec gathered her closer and kissed her.

  Celia still wasn’t skilled at kissing, in spite of Alec’s previous instruction. Better, but not practiced. She bumped his mouth, not knowing how to open his lips.

  Alec smiled into the kiss, deciding to surrender to her and let her do as she willed.

  “What sort of kisses are these?” Celia asked when they eased apart. “Married kisses?”

  “Kisses of lovers.” Alec skimmed his hand over her hair and drew it down her braid. “Kisses of passion.”

  “Passion.”

  Her whisper undid him. Alec was hard for her, need rising fast. Sunshine broke through the rain, slanting through the mist-streaked window to touch her body.

  Alec moved his hand down her back, reveling in the suppleness of it, his fingers coming to rest on her hip. “I want you, love. I think I’m dying of wanting you.”

  Celia touched his face. “Is wanting so very perilous? If so, I am in great danger.”

  “It’s no’ funny, lass.”

  “I know. I am deadly serious.”

  Then why did Alec want to laugh?

  He untied the ribbon that held her nightdress closed, and the loosened gown slid from her as Alec kissed her again, baring her skin. His hands found the smooth flesh of her shoulders, the soft curve of her side, and then the firmer curve of her breast.

  Alec cupped it, feeling her nipple drawn to a point, the desire that flowed through him strong in her.

  He needed more. Alec bunched the nightdress in his hands, pulling it up Celia’s body. He sank into another kiss then lifted her so he could pull the nightdress off over her head.

  Celia landed on him again, not a stitch on her now, her face pink with shyness. Alec had divested himself of coat and boots before falling on the bed in his kilt, shirt, and stocking feet. Now Celia worked open the tapes that held his shirt closed, her fingers moving against his chest.

  “I was shocked when you stripped off your clothes that first day.” She dipped her head to kiss the hollow of his throat. “That was your purpose, wasn’t it? To shock me.”

  “Aye.” Alec kissed her hair while she tasted his skin. “The prim duke’s daughter. I wanted to frighten you. But you weren’t afraid at all. You took up your pencil, and you drew me.”

  She gave him a self-deprecating look. “Not very well.”

  “You’re wrong about that. That’s why we had to take the sketch away from ye. Ye caught me too well.”

  “I couldn’t help it.” Celia ran fingertips along the face she’d rendered almost exactly. “You seemed to speak to me, and my hands knew what you were saying. Please tell me Lady Flora didn’t burn it.”

  “I have it safe. ’Tis special to me.”

  “The man in it is special to me.”

  Alec’s heart pumped hard, his need no longer able to stay quiet. He helped her pull his shirt up and off, Alec tossing it to the floor.

  Celia lost herself in exploring his bare chest, touching, kissing, nuzzling. Alec twined his legs around her, positioning himself at her opening. Celia didn’t react at first, squirming a bit as she sought to kiss every inch of his neck and chest. Alec let her play, the rub of her against him through the dark plaid firing his need.

  She was a beautiful, enchanting woman, a bud ready to flower. No, a better metaphor was one of the fairy folk the villagers of Kilmorgan were always going on about, trapped in a bubble of rain, unable to grow or change until one day, a human touched the bubble, and released the beautiful being within.

  Alec would take her to his homeland one day, into the beauty of the wild lands, to listen to the crofters and their tales. But his home was gone, he remembered with a jolt, destroyed.

  Celia was his family now. And Jenny, safe in a room above them, looked after by the cheerful Sally.

  Family. My wife.

  Alec ran his hand over Celia’s hips, loving her softness, then tangled his legs with hers, rubbing his foot in its cotton stocking up and down her leg.

  Celia lifted her head, her eyes sparkling with need but uncertainty. “We will join now?” She wet her lips, a nervous gesture, but it made her mouth moist and delectable. “The man inserts his phallic rod into the woman’s receptacle and spills his seed.”

  Alec stared up at her in amazement. Her expression was serious as she calmly voiced the dispassionate outline of what would happen.

  He didn’t want to laugh at her—someone had told her that, his Lady Innocence, or she’d read it in a book. But the words, so out of place with the dark heat inside this bed cut through his sphere of anger and heartache. Cut through it like a sword, smashing the shell around him and letting Alec Mackenzie out.

  He let out a laugh that built until the bed shook with it and his voice boomed around the room. He laughed for joy and the beauty of Celia, for the warmth of a beautiful woman, for the fact that he could wrap his arms around her and shut out the world.

  Celia flushed a dark red. “Is that not what happens? My mother went over it so carefully.”

  Alec jerked away the pillow beneath his head so he could lie flat and continue laughing. He imagined the cold-faced duchess explaining to Celia her duty to a lust-ridden Englishman eager for his young bride.

  His anger at her family returned on top of his mirth, but the morose Alec Mackenzie had fled into the wind.

  “Aye, that’s what happens, in words.” He gently eased her from him and sat up to unfasten the plaid. “But much more than that.”

  Alec peeled the kilt from his hips and dragged off his stockings. The tartan was the blue and green of the the Black Watch, similar to but not quite the same as the Mackenzies’s colors. He imagined Celia rolled up in Mackenzie plaid and his body went rigid.

  “On ye come.” Alec gathered Celia into his arms and slid her on top of him.

  She looked surprised. “I thought I had to be under you?”

  More laughter vibrated him. “Oh, lass, teaching you will be splendid. There is so much to learn—it might take us many years. I hope so.”

  “Well, you were hired to instruct me, weren’t you?” she asked, a teasing note in her voice. “I simply didn’t anticipate instruction
in this.”

  Alec’s cock went blood-poundingly stiff.

  The fantasy of Celia turning up for drawing lessons, flushed and knowing, shot through his mind. Alec imagined every detail of unlacing her stomacher, unfastening her skirts, peeling her clothes from her, each layer falling to reveal more. He’d take his time with her stockings, sliding the fine silk down her legs, skimming his hand behind her knee to the warmth there.

  He’d arrange her on the cushioned sofa he’d prepared while he dropped her silken clothing and stood back, studying her body as an artist, before putting pencil to paper and sketching her. Every line, every curve, every curl of her hair, the arc of her breasts, the proud tilt of her head.

  He’d pause from time to time, lay down the pencil, and love her on the sofa until they drowsed in the sunshine.

  Then he’d teach her to undress him, and he’d be the model. He’d lie back under her scrutiny while she rendered him on her canvas, and then they’d make love again.

  Alec’s mind, which absorbed and remembered every facet of a situation, played the scene to him in vivid precision. His entire being willed him to make the fantasy truth.

  He pulled Celia down to him, loving the warm weight of her body. Her breasts pressed his chest, her nipples points against his skin, as he moved one hand to the soft round of her buttocks.

  “I won’t hurt you, love.”

  Celia gave him a tight nod. “I can bear it.”

  Alec caressed her cheek. “I don’t want ye to bear it, my lass. I want ye to love every second of it.”

  She nodded again. “I’ll try.”

  Laughter threatened to overwhelm Alec, but he held it back. This was too important.

  He parted her legs with his hand and eased her very carefully over the tip of his cock. Alec bit back a groan as he felt her liquid heat, but he resisted simply thrusting into her. He had to go carefully, letting her understand, and trust.

  “Oh,” Celia said. Her eyes widened as Alec slid in the barest inch. “Oh.”