To Tame a Wild Heart

by Tracy Fobes

  She hesitated. “I wasn’t ready to return to Beannach yet.”

  “Why not?”

  Her lips pressed together, she said nothing. She wasn’t about to explain that she hadn’t had the strength to leave him. Anyway, they’d nearly reached the bottom and her stomach was twisting into knots. Would the male unicorn know some way to rouse the female? Or would he simply allow himself to die, once he realized his mate was dead?

  Sighing at her continued silence, Colin worked his way past saplings and boulders and approached the male unicorn, who lay in his customary location, just beyond the waterfall’s mist. Moonlight illuminated the mist with a soft glow and settled upon the unicorn, burnishing him with silver-gray. Ever so carefully, he removed the blankets he’d wrapped the female in and set her down next to the male, so that her body curled as much as possible around his. Then he stood next to Sarah and they both watched.

  At first, the male didn’t move. He seemed unaware of their presence. Sarah pressed a hand against her breast. Convinced the male unicorn had died since she’d last seen him, she began to tremble. “Oh no, we’re too late.”

  “Maybe not. Look,” Colin directed. “His nose is twitching.”

  Sarah squinted through the pale wash of gray. She tensed with excitement. One of his nostrils moved. Then the other. She almost clapped aloud when his blue eyes opened and he pushed up on his forelegs. Whinnying, the male turned around to face the female and licked her tenderly on her face and nose.

  Colin’s hushed whisper drifted through the mist to her. “Is he growing brighter, or am I imagining things?”

  “No, he’s growing brighter,” she agreed breathlessly. The male unicorn’s coat seemed to shimmer in the darkness. Moonlight wasn’t reflecting off his coat, she realized. The glow was coming from beneath his coat.

  Suddenly afraid, she clutched Colin’s hand. “What’s happening to him?”

  “I don’t know.” Colin stepped in front of her, shielding her with his body.

  The unicorn’s blue eyes began to sparkle, too, like a spray of a thousand stars at midnight. Shaking himself, he climbed to his feet and turned to face the female. Growing brighter with every second that passed, he whinnied loudly. Triumphantly. His brightness formed a silvery-blue aura around him that also encompassed the boulders and the ground.

  Awestruck, she huddled against Colin.

  “It’s like a cloud of magic,” he murmured, his eyes very wide.

  The unicorn’s horn rippled with ivory sparks, and the mist around him began to steam, as though heated by the beast’s aura. Blue eyes unblinking, the unicorn slowly lowered his head toward his mate’s. Their horns touched, and the ivory ripples that had encompassed the male’s horn transferred onto the female’s. Like loving hands those ivory ripples caressed her, spreading from her horn to touch the rest of her body. The silvery-blue magic grew brighter, and larger, until it held both unicorns within, and the female began to gleam with that same inner fire as the male.

  The female twitched.

  Sarah clutched Colin’s arm. Fear and joy warred inside her. Joy won. “My God, she’s alive. She’s awakening.”

  Glowing with the strength of a hundred candles, the female unicorn lifted her head. Her eyes opened, revealing irises as blue as her mate’s. She whinnied softly in her throat, and stood shakily, reminding Sarah of a colt newly born. The male immediately nuzzled her nose with his own and sidestepped so his body pressed against hers. Then he looked at Sarah, and Sarah felt all of the fear drain out of her at the gratitude and happiness she saw in his gaze.

  Startled, she realized that her cheeks were wet. She was crying and didn’t even know it.

  Colin urged her toward the unicorns. “He wants us to come closer.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m not sure. I just do.”

  Trusting in him, Sarah allowed him to draw her closer to the unicorns, until they stood within the magical aura, too. She tingled all over, and when she looked at her hands and Colin’s face, they were colored light blue. Instantly a vision began to form in her mind. She saw Colin close his eyes and knew he was seeing it, too.

  She allowed her own eyes to close. A gray castle came into view. Pine forests surrounded it. She understood that she and Colin had enjoyed many rides through that clean-smelling forest, and even a few secret trysts. Smiling, she entered the castle and stopped to view the scene within.

  As if she was a spirit watching from above, she saw herself with Colin, in a rustic drawing room with tartan for curtains.

  “That’s Cawdor Castle,” she heard Colin murmur.

  He was rolling about on the floor with a little boy with very black hair. She was sitting on a chair, scolding them, her belly big with child, when suddenly she joined them in their wrestling. Colin promptly trapped her next to him and began to kiss her even as their son jumped happily on his exposed side, shouting, “I won, I won!”

  Even though she was watching a dream-Colin kissing her dream-self, desire built in her body until her blood was clamoring with it and her senses swam and she needed him to take her into his arms so badly she almost sobbed with the force of it.

  She snapped her eyes open, and watched as Colin opened his a moment later. Startled, she looked around the valley. They were alone. The unicorns were gone, and the magic had dissipated.

  “We’ve seen the future,” she whispered, her eyes wide. “They’ve shown us what is to be. Oh, Colin, did you see it?”

  “I saw,” he answered huskily, his arms going around her. “Please don’t ever leave me. I want that future for us.”

  Then, a ragged sigh escaping him, he sat down and pulled her down with him, propping his back up against a rock and drawing her into his lap. “I think I owe you an explanation.”

  “Not now, Colin,” she demurred, wishing this perfect moment to last forever. “Explain it to me later. Or don’t explain at all.”

  “This is the last obstacle between us, and I will clear it,” he insisted. “First, you must understand that though the duke isn’t my natural father, I look at him as such. I love the old man, in my own way, and I didn’t want to see him hurt. When I first heard about you, I thought you might be out to play upon his grief and insinuate yourself falsely into his life, for monetary gain.”

  He played with one of the curls hanging against her shoulder. “Then, after I met you, I realized that you hadn’t the slightest interest in his wealth and stayed on only because you felt you owed him. And as time went on, I became concerned at the changes I saw in you. Like Sionnach, you were losing what had made you complete, and I didn’t want you to become like me . . . selfish, hedonistic, and utterly lost. And so I kept Cooper on, determined to pursue the truth and almost wishing he discovered you weren’t the duke’s daughter.”

  As he explained, the weight that had borne down on Sarah became lighter and lighter. She snuggled into the hard contours his body offered her and sighed contentedly.

  “I had planned to keep whatever Mr. Cooper learned to myself,” Colin continued, “at least until I figured out what to do with the information. Unfortunately, Cooper showed up with the real Lady Sarah at the very worst time, and Lady Helmsgate, who has always had a nose for trouble, exploited him and the girl to the best of her ability as soon as she saw them.”

  His voice shaking, he tightened his arms around her and buried his nose into her hair. “I love you, Sarah. Can you ever forgive me?”

  Blindly she turned her face to his, so that their lips almost touched. “How could I not? I love you so much that it almost hurts inside. Never stop loving me, Colin. I don’t think I could ever bear the uncertainty and agony of knowing that I might lose you.”

  He pressed a light, questing kiss against her lips. “Magic has helped me find a woman who means more to me than life itself. You’ll never be rid of me, no matter what happens.”

  “You promise to be faithful?”

  “I can’t even think of touching any woman but you,” he breathed aga
inst her lips, and then he kissed her again, his mouth becoming hard and demanding.

  She became unbearably conscious of the thinness of her gown and the chemise beneath it as he ran his hands up and down her back, and hunger for him to take her as fully and deeply as he could knotted in her belly. Her hands shaking, she pushed his coat from his shoulders even as he pulled the tartan from her and exposed her shoulders to the night air.

  Groaning, he lowered his head and nuzzled first her neck, then the tops of her breasts. Eager for more of his sweet caresses, she freed her breasts from the gown’s silken bodice, her nipples hardening in the cool mist from the waterfall. He swiftly covered first one nipple, then the other with his mouth, the warm sensation of his tongue at such odds with the mist’s coolness that desire exploded in her.

  His erection pressed against her buttocks, a hard, hot reminder of his need for her. She twisted on his lap, drawing a groan from him, then rolled off his lap and onto her back, pulling him down with her. Moss covered the stone beneath her, cushioning her back and growing warm with her body’s heat like nature’s very own mattress.

  He pulled off his shirt, then covered her with his big body and spread her legs with his knee. Her swollen nipples brushing against his chest introduced another delicate, sensual delight that left her gasping. The silken triangle between her legs began to ache with sheer animal need for him.

  Moaning his name, she strained against him, and when his hand slipped beneath her skirt and explored her most tender parts brazenly, she moved her hips against him with equal boldness, certain she would swoon if he didn’t soon fill her.

  He still had his breeches on, some sane part of her pointed out. That was a situation she’d have to remedy immediately. She played with his waist-band, finding the button and undoing it, then dragged his breeches down around his hips with his eager help. She found his navel with her fingertips, then dragged them lower, scraping his skin lightly with her fingernails.

  He shuddered at her caress, and his body tensed as he clearly waited for her to touch him intimately. But an imp of the devil got hold of her, and she allowed her fingertips to roam all around the pulsating core of him, almost but not quite touching what he wanted her to explore the most.

  “You need a new lesson,” he growled, and brought her hand to his hard length.

  Smiling, she gripped him and reveled in his husky moan.

  “This is how to please me,” he whispered, and showed her what to do. Taking great interest and delight in this new lesson, she practiced enthusiastically until he stilled her hand with his own. Again he began to stroke her between her thighs, circling and skimming her flesh and penetrating the emptiness inside her with his finger until she cried out for him to take her.

  Wasting not a moment, he merged his body with hers. His thrusts started out slow and gentle at first, but quickly grew more urgent as passion flamed through her veins and the swelling inside her grew to unendurable levels. Just when she thought she could stand it no more, her senses shattered with pleasure and she began to shake with the force of it, aware on some primal level that Colin was shuddering as well, his seed spilling into her.

  Afterward, they lay contentedly in each other’s arms, Sarah knowing with an unshakable certainty that they’d just created their first child. A boy.

  They would have to marry quickly.

  Still needing reassurance, she pushed herself up on one elbow and traced his lips with her finger. “You don’t care that I’m not the duke’s daughter?”

  “I don’t give a damn if you’re a pauper who was born in a brothel,” he growled, catching her finger between his lips and biting softly.

  She squeaked and pulled her finger from his mouth. “I never wanted to be the duke’s daughter. I wasn’t made for such a role.”

  “Sionnach taught us both to be true to ourselves,” he pointed out.

  “And the unicorns taught us to love. But what will society think when you marry a serving maid?”

  “Society can think what it likes. I have no use for it anymore. I have you, and you’re all I need.”

  “Where will we go, Colin?”

  He, too, sat up on one elbow and pressed a swift kiss against her lips. “To Cawdor Castle, of course. I’ve heard that its current owner has neglected it, and has nearly gone bankrupt. We’ll buy it back from him.”

  “It sounds almost like Inveraray Castle used to be,” she murmured.

  “I feel like I’ve come full circle,” he agreed. “Only this time, while I’m pulling an estate from the brink of bankruptcy, I’ll have my beautiful, luscious wife by my side.”

  He folded his arms around her then, and pulled her against him. Sarah gripped him in a fierce hug, her heart brimming with happiness. Magic, she knew, was often illusive and insubstantial, like a cloud of gold dust that dispersed on a summer’s breeze. But their love, though surrounded by enchantment, had become as real and enduring as the Highlands itself, and would weather any wind that fate might blow their way.

  Epilogue

  “O h, Sarah, I hope some day I find a man who loves me as much as the Earl of Cawdor loves you.” A little lace cap atop her red curls, the duke’s true daughter fussed around Sarah, rearranging the silk folds of Sarah’s wedding gown.

  A smile curved Sarah’s lips. She fixed one of the other girl’s curls to fall more attractively against her neck. “You will, my dearest friend. The duke wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Mrs. Fitzbottom hovered around both of them, plucking imaginary pieces of lint off their dresses and smoothing wrinkles only she could see. “It’s been a long time since these walls have witnessed a wedding. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the duke happier.”

  Sarah clasped the other girl’s hand. Their gazes met in the looking glass, and Sarah felt the warmth of friendship in her childhood playmate’s regard. She’d never really had a friend while she was growing up, and now regretted it sorely. How wonderful it felt to know a kindred spirit.

  Only a month had passed since Sarah’s debut, and in that time she’d grown to know her old friend very well. Memories of their shared past surfaced almost daily now, and at last Sarah felt as if she truly belonged. She had a history, a family. No questions remained unanswered. And with Colin at her side, she knew such happiness that at times she felt unworthy of it.

  Her worry that the duke might find out about the child growing inside her had been the only blemish on her happiness. The night she’d spent with Colin after they’d reunited the unicorns had proved fertile indeed. But now that her wedding day had arrived, that worry had finally dissipated. They would marry, and their son would be born a month early — not an uncommon occurrence for first babies. No one would ever know about her delightful transgressions with Colin.

  Unconsciously she pressed her lower abdomen.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Mrs. Fitzbottom sighed. “Come in, Your Grace.”

  Smiling sheepishly, the duke walked into Sarah’s dressing room. “You knew it was me, eh, Mrs. Fitzbottom?”

  “I told you not to bother us,” she chided, “but I knew that wouldn’t stop you. I only hope Mr. Colin shows more sense.”

  “Mr. Colin has no more sense than the duke,” a male voice announced, and Colin also strode into the room.

  “You’re not supposed to see the bride before the vows are exchanged,” Mrs. Fitzbottom said. “It’s bad luck.”

  “I place no faith in luck,” Colin declared, his gaze settling upon Sarah. “Not anymore. My gambling days are over.”

  Sarah returned his stare hungrily. His tall form made her dressing room seem so small and feminine. She left the redheaded girl’s side and went to his.

  He grasped her hand. “Any regrets, Sarah? Are you going to run from the altar before the clergyman can priest-link us?”

  She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it gently. “I love you, Colin. How could I have any regrets?”

  Palm tightening around hers, he bowed his head, resting h
is nose in her hair.

  Self-consciously, the duke looked away. His daughter moved to his side, placed an arm around his waist, and urged him toward the door.

  Mrs. Fitzbottom, picking up on her cue, grabbed the duke’s arm and started to haul him toward the door. “This dressing room isn’t big enough for five people. Let’s leave Sarah and Mr. Colin alone for a bit.”

  Between the two of them, they managed to get the duke halfway across the room before he broke free. “Just a minute, ladies. I came here for a reason: to tell Sarah that I’ve just completed a certain purchase, and plan to give this purchase to her and her new husband as a wedding present.”

  Sarah reached up to caress Colin’s cheek. “Don’t you want to surprise us?”

  “I’ve had enough of surprises,” the duke declared. “I’ve already told Colin, and I must say, he approves most enthusiastically.”

  Her mystification growing, Sarah lifted an eyebrow. “What sort of present did you buy us, Your Grace?”

  “He wouldn’t allow me to buy Cawdor Castle,” Colin revealed, his voice very near her ear. “Rather, he bought it for us himself. We can move there as soon as you’re ready.”

  “Aye, you both have a lot to do,” the duke added, his voice brimming with satisfaction. “Cawdor Castle is in worse shape than Inveraray was all those years ago, and I hear its tenants are some of the poorest in Scotland. Do you think you can help them, Sarah?”

  She pulled from Colin’s grasp and walked slowly toward the duke. Then, impulsively, she finished the last few feet separating them in a rush and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Your Grace, I don’t deserve such kindness.”

  “Aye, you do, lass, and more. You’ve brought so much happiness to me and to us all that I thank the day I first set eyes on you. Tell me you’ll never change, no matter what happens,” the duke implored, his face tight.

  Sarah released him and returned to Colin’s side. She grasped his hand in her own and smiled lovingly at each of them. “I promise you, I’ll never change.”