by Paula Quinn
Her eyes filled with large glistening tears while he began to move again. Slowly, meaningfully.
“Ye weren’t supposed to seize my heart, lass. But ye did.”
Like the first night they danced, he made love to her, caressing her in his arms as if she were everything to him. She was. He explored her, shared her intimate smiles, and kissed away her tears.
Later, when they rested, Edmund thought about what Malcolm had told him. His cousin was correct about their course. They’d veered off, and he led the charge. As precious as Sarah was to Amelia and Luke, she meant nothing to the two most powerful men in Scotland. But Amelia did. He knew how valuable she was. He didn’t know what he would do about their course, but he knew that he loved this woman and he’d asked his best friend to stand with him. Of course, Malcolm vowed that he would.
“Edmund?”
“Aye, love.”
“Is there a garden at Camlochlin?”
He moved in to kiss her. “Camlochlin is the garden, love. ’Tis only missing its angel.”
Evening grew into the stillness of a night kept young by the laughter of a tavern wench while she traipsed around the lord of Ravenglade’s bed, the quiet conversation of a servant and a knight coming to know each other over sweet wine and a warm fire, and the whispered promises of momentary lovers locked in passion’s embrace.
“This is the third time ye have consented to me, lass.” Edmund watched Amelia’s lips curl into a teasing smirk while she wrapped her legs tighter around him.
“Do ye intend to have me then, Highlander?”
Her voice was thick with passion, her gaze on him smoky and sparked with the same hunger he felt coursing through him for her.
“I do, Amelia.” He kissed her chin, her throat, and drove himself deep into her. He almost lost himself when she cried out. “But I would not claim a woman as mine without her consent.” He bit her chin, then took her mouth with broad, slow strokes of his tongue that matched the rhythm of his thrusts.
“Do ye give yer consent, just fer tonight?” he asked, breaking their breathless kiss to look down into her eyes, slowing his movements and fighting the effect her tight thighs around his waist was having on him.
“I do.” She nodded, tears welling up in her eyes, and arched her back, pushing her hips up. She moved in a little dance beneath him, against him, that shook him to his core.
He slipped his arm around her small waist and flipped onto to his back, bringing her over him. He smiled and drew in his bottom lip when she straddled him, bravely taking his full size.
Looking up at her, he knew that his heart was lost to her. Mayhap it had been from that very first night. He was in love with her.
Setting his palms on her hips, he guided her for a little while and then he drew her down on him, her breasts pressed to him, his breath becoming hers, his hands tight on her rear. He guided her up, down, once, twice, and then he felt her shudder and grow tighter around him. He slowed his thrusts, grinding her hips against his in a dance that pulled tight, short groans from her lips.
“Drench me, love,” he whispered as she obeyed.
He watched her and did the same for her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
By now, Sarah knew almost every curve, every arc, and every angle of Lucan MacGregor. But nothing was more perfect than his dimpled chin, she thought, wiping the last traces of blood from it, the decadent fullness of his lips, and the ease with which they curled whenever he looked at her. He was, she decided, the most perfectly formed man she’d ever met. She finished cleaning the last of the wounds on his face, a slight cut along his chin from the fist of a man even bigger than he was. Lucan had taken the blow straight on, shook his head, and then delivered a thunderous uppercut to his opponent that Sarah feared had killed the man. It hadn’t.
“Ye’re very dangerous without yer sword.” She didn’t move from her position standing between his knees where he sat.
“’Twas a good fight.” He looked at her, his gaze level with hers. “I prefer it to more serious fighting.”
She nodded, realizing for the first time, because of her closeness, that his left eye was slightly more golden and his right, a bit more green. “Ye’re verra’ handsome.”
“Thank ye.” His smile widened into a grin that snatched the breath clean out of her. “But I should be the one telling ye how bonny ye are. From the moment I saw ye, I didn’t care if everyone else in the world vanished, as long as ye remained.”
She shook her head and severed her gaze from his, still unfamiliar with such adoration.
He smoothed a lock of her hair off her cheek and traced her bottom lip with his thumb. “Ye’re going to have to grow accustomed to such words, Sarah. Fer I wish to bestow them on ye until ye’re old and gray.”
She closed her eyes. Och, how could this wondrous man care for her?
“Sarah?”
She opened her eyes and set them on his and smiled. She had to smile, for he made her heart soar. She thought of the hours they’d spent together last night, talking, laughing, learning about each other. Never in all her life had she shared so much with a man…with anyone, save Amelia. She wanted to kiss him, to explore him, but she was frightened because unlike the other men in her life, Lucan meant something to her. She liked him very much…and she was tired of being frightened. Amelia was correct, Lucan was different. It was time to trust a man.
When she took his face in her hands and bent to kiss his bruises, he coiled his arm around her waist and pulled her against his chest. He opened his hand, spreading his broad fingers over the small of her back, and tilted his face to hers. She kissed his mouth, and her knees almost gave out beneath her. His lips were soft, temptation itself. He moved them with pure mastery of motion, opening his mouth and spreading his tongue inside her, withdrawing just enough to share her breath. Her insides burned with flames only he could extinguish.
He rose up out of his chair and led her to one of the settees in the solar. There, he sat and pulled her gently down with him. They lay, tangled in each other’s arms, his long, muscular legs around her.
How safe she felt, cherished for more than the pleasures she could give him. For the first time in years she felt innocent, untried, vulnerable. Her heart beat madly, but she tried not to fight what he made her feel. His kisses were like the finest wine, smooth, warm, intoxicating. His fingers moved through her hair, over her throat, and down her hips until she felt heady with desire.
He held her face between kisses and told her how bonny she was and how she made him feel like a man. She laughed a little. He needed no help in being a man.
“How is it possible that no woman has snatched ye up yet, Lucan?”
“Some have tried, but none were right fer me. Until ye.”
Her heart accelerated and she had the urge to run, to find the control she used to have with men that she seemed to have lost with this one. But she couldn’t move. She didn’t want to. She didn’t care if she wasn’t in control. Not this time. “What is it about me?”
He shook his head. “I admit yer beauty attracted me at first, but there was something else. Ye seemed verra’ exposed, at risk to things around ye…like a wanderer in the lair of dragons.”
“Ah”—she smiled—“so ’twas a knightly thing. Ye wanted to save m’ from danger. What happens when I’m secure and no longer need a protector?”
“If ye let me”—his voice was low and rough along her mouth—“I will always protect ye from danger.”
“That sounds permanent, Lucan.”
“’Tis how I intended it to sound, lady. I want ye in my life. I want to make love to ye and watch ye grow fat with my bairns.”
He kissed her and held her in his arms when she trembled.
Bairns? That was permanent indeed. Would she ever be ready for such permanence with a man? How would she know? She looked at him and he smiled. And she knew.
“So ye retrieved neither yer cousin’s hand, nor his dog.” Darach didn’t care if he was beat
en senseless for a second time; he had to gloat when William entered the barn that morning almost as bruised as he had been when they captured him. “I must tell ye, going to Ravenglade fer the hand was foolish. I’m certain m’ kin had a good laugh over it. The dog…” He shrugged. “If ’twas Edmund who took it, ye likely willna’ be seein’ the beast again. Edmund has an affinity fer canines. Owns the ugliest one in Scotland.”
“And ye might not be seeing Edmund again,” William warned him and took a seat on a nearby stool, “or the rest of them.”
“How many were there?”
“What? Ye know damned well how many there were. There were three! In my defense, I delivered a number of gut-crunching blows.”
“Well then,” Darach said while relief filled him. There were three. Lucan lived and fought. “Let me thank ye fer providin’ m’ lads with proper sport. Hopefully, when I am recovered, ye’ll allow me the same pleasure. As fer that second warnin’ ye’re about to give me, I likely will be seein’ them all. They didna’ kill ye, nor even one of the others. That means a bargain was struck fer m’ life.” His mouth snaked into a smirk. “Ye knew ye couldna’ take them on, did ye no’? We come from fightin’ stock. Ye rode to m’ cousin’s castle and walked straight into hell. Did ye promise m’ life fer yers?”
William stared at him for a long time. So long, in fact, that Darach thought he might have croaked in some kind of time-delayed consequence of having the shyt beat out of him.
“I had fifteen armed men at my side,” William finally said. “Sixteen to start, but I’m told that Grant made a quick end of Andrew by smashing his head into the wall. Still, the Highlanders were outnumbered. I hadn’t gone fer a fight, but even if I did, they weren’t afraid, even with the numbers so stacked against them. ’Twas a wee bit intimidating, that.” At first, the chief seemed to be speaking to himself, rather than to Darach, which would explain better why he’d complimented his enemies. But then he clearly looked at his prisoner and smiled slightly. “Neither Alistair’s hand nor his dog are worth dying over, so I used ye as a pawn.”
“That’s no’ always a good idea,” Darach told him, with more respect for having been honest. “My kin dinna’ respond well to Grants’ or MacGregors’ lives bein’ threatened.”
“Aye,” William said curtly. “I surmised that much while they pounded our asses to the ground.”
Darach smiled, making a mental note to remember William’s words for a future ode he might want to someday write to the lads. “They’re brutal bastards. Did ye lose any teeth?”
“Nae.” William actually laughed, surprising Darach even more. “But Janet says my nose is broken and she had to stitch my brow.”
“And he didn’t yelp and whine the way ye did when I stitched that gash that wasn’t closin’ on ye last eve, Grant.”
Darach wasn’t sure if the sound of Janet Buchanan’s voice made him want to smile or shout blasphemies. He looked up to heaven while she entered the barn. When would he be delivered from this sharp-tongued hellion?
“Did ye use a dull sewin’ needle on him, too, witch?”
“Of course not, wretch. He’s my brother.” She tossed him a cool wooden smile. “His scar will be much straighter than yers as well.”
“Pity fer him.” Darach yawned. “We Highlanders take pride in our scars.”
“I’m certain yer women don’t feel the same way,” she threw at him, then turned to William.
“Our women are no’ sensitive barn wenches who recoil at the sight of a real man.”
Her back stiffened. “Let me kill him, William.”
“Don’t touch him, Janet. I’m deadly serious. I wasn’t thrown into a damned moat last night fer naught.”
“Ye were thrown into the moat?” Darach asked him, doing his best to conceal his grin.
“Most of us were—”
“William, must ye tell him?” his sister complained. “He’ll only wallow in it.”
“I don’t care. This feud is foolish. Mayhap MacGregor is correct and there are bigger, more threatening enemies waiting in our mist.”
“He is correct,” Darach said. “And there are.”
William agreed. “But presently, yer kin are more dangerous than any laws. I intended all along to return ye to them. I just wanted to wait a few days until ye didn’t look so beat up.”
“I’ll let them know that,” Darach promised.
“Tell me, they will most certainly come fer ye then?”
“Most certainly,” Darach assured him.
“When?”
Darach shrugged his shoulders. Even if he knew, he wouldn’t tell him.
“Well, I should have told them I would return ye but the moat came quickly. If they don’t come tonight, I’ll arrange to have ye taken back in the morning.”
He turned to his sister. “See that he eats and is cleaned up. I need to prepare everyone and see that there is no more bloodshed.”
“I’m tired of looking after him, Will!” Janet called out to her brother, and then shifted her gaze to Darach when they were alone. “One more day and then I’ll be rid of ye.”
Darach tossed her a lazy smirk. “Ye’ll miss me. What else will ye have to fill yer dull days?”
She laughed and he almost hated how beautiful she was when she did. He didn’t like her, but he couldn’t deny that no lass in England or Scotland was as bonny as she.
“I’ll practice my skills so that if I am ever so unfortunate to meet ye again, I can kill ye properly.”
Hell, she was a fiery wench. He offered her a cool smile that carefully concealed what he really thought of her. “If I’m ever tortured by yer company again, I’ll gladly let ye kill me.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The warm sun felt so good on Amelia’s skin, though she was still slightly mortified by how much of her skin was exposed.
Edmund had taken her to a lovely loch just north of Ravenglade, surrounded on three sides by majestic willow and oak and leading out into smaller rivulets. Nestled within a glen of thick woodland, it offered the seclusion they desired to swim and make love in the cool water.
They had promised themselves only one night, but one night wasn’t enough. Amelia wasn’t sure if a lifetime would be enough. She knew they were foolish by continuing to be together, but she didn’t care. Tomorrow would bring its own tears. She didn’t want to dwell on the inevitable. What good would it do her to deny them these last times together?
She had never swum nude out in the open. At first, she thought they were mad for undressing outdoors. She’d already gone mad to continue this obsession with him. But when he stripped naked under the sun, she nearly fainted at the sight of him, all tall and golden against a backdrop of nature. When he beckoned her to follow him into the icy water, she followed, as naked as he.
She barely knew how to swim. Living in Edinburgh and being the duke’s niece didn’t afford her much opportunity to swim in a loch or anywhere else. Edmund held her while she floated on her back, gliding across the surface. He steadied her when she floundered at the absence of his hands and then dipped his mouth to her glistening nipples.
When he carried her out into deeper waters, she almost panicked, but he drew her body to his and held her aloft. She clung to him, not because she was afraid of the depths, but because she never wanted to let him go. How would she ever? She would rather die than live an empty life without him. It frightened her because she didn’t expect to feel this way. She thought she could be strong and leave him when the time came. But the reality of it seeped deeper into her veins every moment that she spent with him. She was in love with him. Maddeningly and passionately in love with him.
She met the ardor of his kiss with equal measure. She wrapped her legs around his waist and beckoned him with her hips to guide his stiff sword into her. She cried out when he impaled her. She felt weightless in his arms and after a moment her body relaxed around him. Pressing her hands to his wet, hard chest, she pushed herself up and back, moving upon him while he
cradled her rump in one arm and dragged her to him so that he could kiss her mouth, her throat, her breasts. He drove her mad and made her doubt that anything existed in the world, save him. She wished nothing did.
Later, they rested on the shore, in each other’s arms, while their clothes dried on the rocks. They shared childhood memories while Grendel and Gaza chased red squirrels and explored the surrounding area.
“I was in my thirteenth year when I and my cousins first saw battle. The Menzies had come to Camlochlin to reclaim some cattle they accused us of stealing.”
“Did ye?” Amelia asked against his bare chest.
“Nae, though we had stolen cattle before. That time ’twasn’t the MacGregors. My uncle Rob rode across the vast vale and tried to talk with them rationally, but from what I understood the Menzies and MacGregors have long been enemies, ever since the days when my grandsire made war with the Campbells.”
“Highlanders remember wrongs done to them fer a long time, do they not?” It wasn’t a question. Amelia and every Lowlander knew it to be true.
“Aye. But I aim to help change that. Our centuries-long divisions have made us weak against England. Feuds need to end.
“Anyway, some thought Rob should have used the cannons the instant the Menzies set foot on our land, but our chief is fair and not blood-thirsty, so he tried to speak with them first. But one man among the Menzies didn’t want to talk and hurled his dagger into the small crowd that had gathered around our warriors. It struck young Hamish MacKinnon and killed him. That was when hell opened its fiery jaws and swallowed Camlochlin up for a wee bit.”
“What happened?”
“They fought. My uncles, my kin, they took down men before my eyes, with sword and ax. They were brutal and merciless, as if every wrong ever done to them came afresh to the surface and gave them might to slay whatever they faced. I watched and also picked up my sword, as did my cousins Adam, Malcolm, and Luke.” He smiled as if the memory were one that pleased him. “And wee Darach. ’Twas when we knew he was fearless, mayhap too fearless fer his own good. He was nine, I think, and he leaped into the melee with a battle cry that nearly made his poor mother fall over dead.”
