Muira stared up at him, her pretty little mouth hanging open, and her wide, teary eyes riveted on his face.
“Well I think you-you-” she flailed, looking for some insult to hurl back at him, “-you always have to be right!”
“I am always right!”
“See!” Muira cried, getting to her feet too, and prodding his chest furiously. “Was it right to stop here overnight and-”
“Hell woman! I knew you blamed me for the damn tree falling over!”
“You said the roads would be clear!”
“You didn’t want the roads to be clear!” Lachlan bellowed. “You never wanted to leave Castle Cameron!”
“Well of course I didn’t!”
“Well maybe you should have thought of that before now?” Lachlan snarled. He couldn’t explain why he was so hurt by Muira’s positive loathing of just the thought of his home, if their positions had been reversed, if he was facing a lifetime’s residence at Castle Cameron then he knew that he wouldn’t be jumping over the moon about it…
“That’s not fair, Lachlan!” Muira argued, her voice cracking somewhat on his name. She turned away from him, and walked a few paces outside the little clearing where they’d spent the night, into a denser patch of woodlands.
Lachlan felt a twinge of guilt; it hadn’t been an easy twenty-four hours on his wife. Quite apart from their imminent arrival at Eilean Donan Castle to worry about, Muira had been forced to cope with sleeping rough, and eating hare, and a total lack of all the basic amenities that she was used to; just because he was also tired and hungry didn’t mean that he should forget that Muira had been suffering. His thoughts wandered back a few hours to that night-and she had been terrified.
He glanced at the two Cameron men, both were making a very obvious effort not to listen what was going on between the couple, clanking the horse brasses, talking louder, and generally being conspicuous. After a disparaging shake of his head in their direction, Lachlan went after Muira.
“Go away,” she whimpered, when she heard his approach.
“And leave you out here all on your own? I don’t think so, lass,” Lachlan said, his tone returning to its typical gentle drawl.
“I want to be left out here all my own!” she snapped tearfully.
She was standing stubbornly with her back to him, and when Lachlan moved around to look at her face she deliberately avoided his eye. “Muira,” he sighed wearily, catching her hold gently by the arms, though she still refused to meet his gaze.
“Lachlan, I said-!” she began furiously, and in her anger she finally did raise her head.
Muira’s breath caught in her throat and Lachlan could instantly feel why. There was something simmering in the air between them, sizzling between their bodies, drawing him towards her. For a second, as he listed into her enticing heat, he thought that she was going to slap him, and he knew he wouldn’t have stopped her, because the only thing he could think about was feeling her mouth moving underneath his own.
He groaned, unable to tell who had closed the last hairsbreadth of distance between their lips, knowing only that it was closed, and that he never wanted it to be opening again. He kissed her, hard and deep, his anger having turned, in a flash, to a fierce passion that was fuelling his actions.
Muira seemed to be similarly entranced. Lachlan grunted as she answered his advances with an intensity that she hadn’t dared before. She was hungry and needy, and Lachlan wondered it there was any possible way that he could have her here, on the ground, against a tree, with her clan men only a few feet away?
He heard Muira gasp when she realised his state. It was frankly embarrassing how enthusiastically his body responded to her touch! But in spite of that, Lachlan couldn’t resist the urge to grind against her, pushing her back against a thick oak, and pinning her between the trunk and his body.
“Lachlan!” she squealed, her eyes wide and glazed with a spark of fear in a fire of lust. “Not here?” she panted, as if she doubted it was possible.
Lachlan wondered if he was up to the challenge of proving her wrong?
“Why not?” he panted, breathing hotly against the delicate skin of her neck.
“They’ll see!” Muira gasped, her eyes were growing wider by the second. “They’ll hear!”
“We’ll have to be quick and quiet then, won’t we?” Lachlan grinned wickedly.
He didn’t think that the first criteria would be too hard to achieve, the second maybe more so, but now that the idea had presented itself to him, he knew that there was no way he was going to be able to leave and return to the carriage without following through.
“Don’t you want it, Muira?” he whispered, daring her to lie, to contradict the longing he could read so plainly on her face. “To feel me inside you?” he rasped, beginning to hike up the folds of her skirt. “You know that’s where I want to be,” he grunted, tilting his hips, as if she could have forgotten the huge bulge that was pressing against her.
“Oh God,” she whimpered, wrapping her arms around his neck, twisting her fingers into the long, thick locks of his hair. “We shouldn’t,” she puffed, but it was said with the clear understanding that they would.
Lachlan chuckled deeply, capturing her mouth again, still tugging up her skirt, leaving her creamy white calves and thighs exposed to the elements. He shuddered when one of Muira’s own hands slipped from his shoulder down his chest, making a fast beeline for the askew fabric of his kilt. He was once again surprised, but not at all displeased by her enthusiasm.
Muira delved under the tartan, palming his cock heavily, drawing a rumbling groan from deep in the back of Lachlan’s throat.
“They’ll hear you,” she purred into his ear, intensifying her efforts. “They’ll know what we’re doing.”
Lachlan couldn’t stop a curse falling from his lips. Was he completely mindless with desire, or did she sound pleased that it might be so? After ripping up her dress, exposing her completely and testing her readiness, he decided it might actually be both.
“I can’t be gentle,” he panted raggedly, parting her legs and impatiently arranging his kilt.
“Don’t be,” Muira gasped. “Don’t-” and then Lachlan’s hand was pressed tight against her mouth, muffling the scream she wanted to make when he thrust into her cunt, forcing her to take him to the hilt in one swift motion that had him knocking up against her womb as he stole the breath from her body.
It was always so good, every time surpassed his memory of the last.
Lachlan lifted Muria clean off the floor, pounding into her with almost animalistic need. She whimpered softly as the rough bark of the tree dug into her back, but locked her legs around her husband’s waist, pulling him deeper into her wet heat.
He wasn’t going to last any time at all, Lachlan could already felt his muscle twisting in anticipation of release. He slipped a hand between their bodies, and pinched the raised nub of clit between his thumb and forefinger, and feeling her immediate, answering shudder.
“That’s it, lass,” he groaned, still pumping into her sheath at a furious pace. “Come for me,” he begged.
She cried out against his hand, (which was still clamped over her mouth, stifling her moans), and to Lachlan’s huge, disbelieving, relief, shattered around him, clenching just once around his sex before he exploded, and then milking his cock as he spilled himself into her womb.
“Oh-oh, Lachlan,” Muira puffed. In the swirling dizziness of his release he had let his hand fall away from her mouth. She was taking great gulping breaths of air, in an attempt to recover from her earth shattering orgasm, but she was also still clinging to her husband tightly. “That was-” she gasped senselessly.
“I know,” he groaned, looking as though he could hardly manage to stand. He gently pulled back, slowly letting Muira find her feet. “You-you’re-” he stammered, but seemed not to know how to carry on.
Muira looked up at him for a moment, and then, blushing now that the passion, which had swept them both int
o madness, had cool, tried to straighten her clothes. There was nothing to be done about her flushed skin or kiss swollen lips however.
“Do you think they’ll know?” she asked quietly, nodding back towards the camp. Muira’s blush heightened when she realised that she could actually just about make out moving figures through the forest of tree trunks.
Lachlan’s wicked grin sent heat flaring in her so recently sated womb. “Do you care?” he purred.
Muira opened her mouth but couldn’t find an answer. She knew that she should say yes, but something deep and primal within her, something Lachlan had only awoken a few days beforehand, was screaming no! Besides, when she was pregnant everyone would know. Muira audibly gasped, fortunately Lachlan was attending to his kilt and shirt and seemed not to notice. When she was pregnant? From where had that thought sprung?
Muria hadn’t been so innocent as not to know that it was sleeping with one’s husband (whatever vague connotations that term had held for her before her marriage) that made a woman pregnant. However, while that knowledge had been tucked away in a corner of Muira’s mind, she had not thought on it in relation to herself! Could she already be pregnant? How many times did it take? What-?
“Are you ready to go back?” Lachlan asked, nudging her in the direction of the coach.
Muira gave her head a silent nod, and let her husband wrap an arm around her waist (she wondered if he was deliberately trying to kindle the men’s suspicion) and lead her back towards the camp.
It might have been her imagination, but she was sure that the young footman couldn’t look her in the eye as he helped her into the carriage, and that the old driver kept sporadically chuckling as he help Lachlan tie Faidhiach to the back of the carriage. Still, she tried to put it out of her mind.
Everything went out of her mind as she sank back onto the hard, straw stuffed seats. They felt like the softest feather bed after a night of sleeping on the hard ground. Muira had dozed off before the carriage even started rolling.
..ooOOoo..
It was the sound of angry, raised voices that woke Muria from her dreamless sleep, several hours later. She sat up with a start, trying to make out what was being said.
“…and I’m telling you, no mangy Cameron wagon is getting past these gates! I’d as soon-”
The wave of abuse stopped. Muira couldn’t hear what had been said to silence the furious man, but she did recognise the soft, rich tone of her husband’s deep voice.
“Lachlan! Hell! Didn’t recognise you there for a moment!” The voice boomed again.
Muira sank down in her seat. Oh Lord, they’d arrived! And she still looked a dreadful state! And she had no idea what Lachlan was going to tell the Laird to explain the little matter of her being his wife! And now she was dangerously close to hyperventilating!
“You all right, lass?” Lachlan asked, popping his head back inside the coach.
“Yes,” Muira squeaked, wondering if he believed her in the slightest. Probably not, judging by his worried smile.
“It’s going to be all right,” he said, hopping back inside the carriage as it started to move again. “It’s going to be fine,” he reiterated, which did nothing to settle Muira’s nerves. If he could have feigned a look of confidence to accompany the affirmation it might have helped a little.
The carriage had barely even stared moving when it stopped again. Muira was so tense she thought that something might snap is she moved and looked out a window at her new, she gulped, home.
“Here we are then,” Lachlan murmured. He leant forward and dabbed a kiss against her lips, at least managing to bring a splash of colour to her pale cheeks. “Ready?”
Muira didn’t answer, she couldn’t speak, but she did manage to nod her head. Lachlan squeezed her hand and opened up the door, pulling her after him, out to a hugely imposing set of stone steps, which led up to a proportionally huge, and even more imposing stone castle.
“Uncle Lachlan! Uncle Lachlan!”
Muira gasped as half a dozen children came running across the courtyard towards her husband. From what she could tell the boys and girls ranged in age from about three to ten years, and all looked positively delighted to clap eyes on their… uncle? Lachlan turned and gave her a sheepish smile just before they were engulfed.
“Some of my sisters’ children,” he explained.
“Some of them?” Muira repeated. She raised her eyebrows in surprised, watching as one little girl clambered into Lachlan’s arm.
Lachaln chuckled. “Aye, we MacRaes like our large families,” he grinned. He shot Muira a smouldering glance that made her cheeks colour, as he patted the little girl on the head.
“Uncle Lachlan why did you come home in that carriage?” “Why were you gone so long, Uncle Lachlan?” “Did you bring us anything?” “Who’s she, Uncle Lachlan?” “Yes, who’s she?”
In just a few moments the jumble of hardly distinguishable questions had settled on one topic. Muira. Muira held her breath and waited to see how her husband would answer. However, the voice that spoke next was not Lachlan’s. It was hard, and female, and it came from the top of the stone steps, close to the huge castle doors.
“Yes, Lachlan my dear, who is this?”
The speaker could only possibly be one person. Lachlan’s mother. Muira felt any chance she had possessed of ever fitting in at Eilean Donan whither and die in a heartbeat. The woman was tall and imposing, she still had a fine figure despite her advancing age, but her face was cold and pinched.
Muira didn’t know how long Mrs MacRae had been a widow, but she wanted to believe that it was the lost of her husband that had left her looking so severe. Surely no one who had been born so austere could have raised a son as warm and generous as Lachlan?
The woman walked down the steps towards them, eyeing Muira as if she were a very dangerous and unpleasant disease.
“Mother,” Lachlan nodded, confirming Muira’s very worse fears. “This is Muira MacRae,” he said without hesitation. “My wife.”
The first true emotion that Muira had seen light the woman’s hard face flashed in her pale eyes-and it appeared to be something between disbelief and sheer horror.
“Your wife, Uncle Lachlan?” “But her skirt’s all muddied and torn.” “And just look at her hair!” “She can’t be your wife, can she, Uncle Lachlan?” “Uncle Lachlan?” The children made a number of confused murmurs and objections, before being shooed away by their grandmother.
Muira felt even worse when they had gone-if that were possible. The children certainly hadn’t been on her side, but she had gained a sense of safety from their youth. Nothing too terrible could happen in the presence of a little three-year-old girl clinging to Lachlan’s shirt now, could it? Muira hadn’t thought so at any rate. Now faced with just her motherin-law she wasn’t sure what was about to happen.
“Now do be serious, Lachlan,” Mrs MacRae said, in a tone of voice that Muira imagined did not usually brook argument. “This girl,” she said, shooting a sneering glance down at Muira, “is a Cameron. Is she not?”
“She was a Cameron,” Lachlan argued firmly, reaching for his wife’s hand and pulling her a step closer to him. Muira could have crumpled into a little puddle of relief when she was afforded this show of protection.
“Good God, Lachlan! What have you done? This will ruin you!” Mrs MacRae gaped. “What in the world possessed you?”
Muira shrank back against her husband as Mrs MacRae’s words lashed over her like a whip crack. She timidly raised her eyes to look at Lachlan’s face, a little surprised to see that he was wearing a rather harsh scowl. She didn’t think that a full-blown argument with his mother was the right way to go about things, and to be honest she hadn’t expected one, fearing that he would respect his mother’s views more than he valued his duty to her, his wife.
“I hardly think you need to be quite so dramatic about it, mother,” Lachlan said. Muira was relieved, if also a trifle disappointed, to hear that his voice was even. “You have
been pressing me to find a wife ever since Bridghe got married,” he pointed out calmly.
“A suitable wife, Lachlan,” Mrs MacRae hissed, forcing the words out through obviously clenched teeth. She let her cold eyes fall on Muira, looking over the dishevelled appearance of the young woman with a barely conceal sneer.
“Muira is Laird Cameron’s niece,” Lachlan frowned. “As our own Laird is attempting to settle a peace between our two clans I can see nothing unsuitable about our marriage.”
“You can see nothing unsuitable about marrying a girl you can only have known for a matter of days! Especially when there were so many bonnie lasses here vying for your attentions?” Mrs MacRae demanded furiously.
Her eyes fell accusingly on Muira, who gulped, and felt very keenly that her motherin-law was silently demanding to know what she had done to trick Lachlan into marrying her. She also felt a terribly deep pang of jealously at the mention of the other women, who had shown an interest in her husband before his journey to Castle Cameron.
“Mother, I will explain everything to you later,” Lachlan sighed wearily. He hadn’t slept for at least thirty-six hours, Muira thought guilty. “We’ve had a terrible journey. I would like to speak briefly with Laird MacRae so that I can present Muira to him, and then retire to my rooms and rest.”
Mrs MacRae looked absolutely outraged by this suggestion. “You can’t see Graem,” she snapped. “He had one of his turns while you were away getting married and is in no state to see anyone.” She shot a nasty glance at Muira as her son dipped his head in a worried frown.
“In that case, we’ll retire immediately,” he nodded, taking a step towards the large castle doors.
“Would you like me to find a room for Miss Cameron?” Mrs MacRae asked icily.
Lachlan turned back to face her. “Mother,” he said. He did not raise his voice but his tone was clearly menacing. “Muria is my wife. I would therefore expect you to treat her as such,” he warned.
A flush of colour appeared on Mrs MacRae’s cheeks. She pinched her thin lips together very tightly and deigned from further comment. Lachlan shook his head tiredly and made to walk up the rest of the steps and into the castle.
A Beautiful Lie (The Camaraes) Page 11
