What a Scot Wants (Tartans and Titans)
Page 31
Thomson was followed by a handful of men, including the Duke of Bradburne and the Earl of Langlevit, both influential and deadly men, as Imogen had discovered. Her knees nearly buckled. Hilda had delivered the message to Bradburne as she’d instructed before leaving for Regent’s Park. She’d expected to be taken into custody for participation in an illegal duel and, until she’d decided not to kill Silas, hadn’t thought there would be another outcome besides her own death.
“I had nothing to do with that,” Silas said, but his voice was thin.
“The letters penned to one Lady Beatrice say otherwise. Not to mention what I’ve learned from the Italian police. It seems they’ve had their eyes on you for a long time in the disappearance of two young women.”
Silas whirled, snatched the gun from his footman, and aimed at Imogen. “This is all your fault!”
Imogen froze. He would not miss this time. All she could think of was the fact that she hadn’t been able to apologize to Ronan…or to tell him how she truly felt. She hoped he would know. Wait—she could tell his brother. “Niall, please tell him…”
Several shots fired at once, drowning out her words and making her ears ring. Imogen closed her eyes, but once more, pain miraculously did not come. Cracking her eyelids open, she saw men rushing toward Silas’s fallen body. Given the smoking weapons, he’d been shot by multiple men, including Niall.
Thomson nodded at the Highlander as his men restrained Silas’s man, who was weeping like a babe. “Get her out of here. I’ll take care of this.”
But before Niall could move, an enormous figure came bursting through the trees. “Imogen, ye better be alive or I will kill ye myself!”
A sob escaped her lips as she turned to see Ronan’s beautiful, beloved, furious face.
The love of her life caught her just before she fell into a dead faint.
…
In the carriage heading back to Dunrannoch House at a much slower pace than he’d taken to get there, Ronan’s hands pressed over Imogen’s limp body for the third time, searching for injuries, despite Niall’s repeated insistence that not one hair on her head had been harmed.
Her eyes fluttered open, a smile curving her perfect lips. “I’m not hurt, Ronan.”
“Are ye certain?”
She drew his fingertips to her lips and kissed them. “Yes.”
When he’d first arrived, hearing the sound of gunshots, he had feared the worst. Then he’d seen Imogen standing and he’d gathered her into his arms, only able to cast his brother a look of fulminating fury. He’d deal with him later, but at the moment, he’d been too overcome with gratitude that Imogen was alive. His eyes had taken in the scene, including Calder’s dead body, though all he had wanted was to get her safely out of there.
Ronan couldn’t bring himself to be angry with her, despite the ire and dread still simmering within him. He wanted to ensure she was safe and well…at least before he gave her ears the blistering they deserved.
“You must be livid with me,” she whispered. He didn’t answer, only brushed her slender throat with his fingers, afraid that if he opened his mouth, he wouldn’t be able to stop. “It’s over now,” she went on. “I simply couldn’t allow you to fight my battles for me, and I’m sorry for what I did to you. I knew you wouldn’t let me go, and I didn’t…didn’t want you to be hurt. Even though it appears you are anyway.” Her eyes slid to his wrists beneath his shirt cuffs, the marks raw where he’d pulled on his bindings before Vickers had freed him.
“Ye tie a good knot,” he said, his lips twitching. “We’ll have to try it again sometime.”
Her beautiful green eyes snapped to his, a lovely blush coloring her cheeks, and she bit her lip. “I must admit, when I saw you like that, I had similar thoughts.”
“Ye like having me at yer mercy?”
She blushed again. “Yes.”
Ronan couldn’t help himself after her shy admission. He kissed her and felt like he’d come home. She tasted like love, and hope, and life. And he wanted more. Cupping her neck, he nipped at her mouth, nibbling her lips, his tongue sweeping deep. She kissed him back just as hungrily…just as desperately. The coach pulled to a stop in front of Dunrannoch House, but neither of them moved.
Imogen pulled away long enough to whisper, “Take me upstairs, please.”
“You’ve had an ordeal.”
“I need you.”
Ronan didn’t argue. What needed to be said between them would come later. Right now, he needed her, too. More than breath. He leaped from the coach and took the stairs three at a time to his chamber, his future duchess clasped in his arms.
Vickers—who had returned faster on Zeus—had ordered the maids to replace the bedclothes and refresh the fire in the grate. A tray of food was on the bedside table, and, to Ronan’s surprise, a hot bath had been filled in the adjacent bathing chamber.
Bless the man. He deserved an increase in his wages, and Ronan might even forgive him for his mockery earlier.
Putting aside his desire, Ronan set Imogen to her feet and proceeded to strip her of her clothing. He went to his knees to remove her shoes and then her undergarments. His throat went dry. God, she was beautiful. All sinful curves and smooth, satiny skin. He’d felt her body the previous evening, but, seeing her in the daylight from the windows and silhouetted by the flickering firelight, he was speechless. Unable to resist, he pressed a kiss to the soft silk of her belly. When he rose and took her hand and turned away from his bed to walk to the bath, she protested, but he shook his head.
“Bath first, then food, and then ye can decide what else ye desire.”
“You,” she said simply.
“Imogen,” he began but was distracted when her fingers went to the belt at his kilt. He was embarrassingly hard beneath it, but her needs came first. Still, at her touch, he could only manage single words. “Bath.”
“Only if you’re in it with me.”
Ronan closed his eyes. The bath was large enough for two. After a moment, she made the decision for him as deft fingers released his tartan and tugged his shirt over his head. Her giggle made him open his eyes. He stood nude but for his stockings and boots, looking like a complete barbarian, his cock thrusting out and at full attention, but, judging from the way that she was looking at him as though devouring him with her eyes, she approved wholeheartedly.
Imogen crouched down to return the favor and help remove his boots. When she was done, he expected her to rise, but instead she gripped his hips. Ronan’s breath fizzled. Molten eyes lifted to his just before she made a hungry sound in her throat and closed her lips over the broad crown of him.
“Christ, Imogen!”
Ronan reached a hand out to steady himself as her tongue seared his skin, the feel of her hot mouth making his eyes roll back in his head. When she took him deep and sucked gently, he let out a ragged growl. He wouldn’t last much longer if she continued. After a few seconds of delicious torture, he tugged her up and then lifted her into the bath before joining her.
Her moan of satisfaction was worth cutting his own pleasure short. He positioned her with her back against him and started rubbing her shoulders with a cloth dipped into a nearby jar of soap.
“That feels wonderful,” she murmured.
What felt wonderful was her sweet arse pressed against his cock. Wonderful and equally excruciating. With strength he did not know he possessed, Ronan managed to scrub most of her and most of himself before the water started cooling. He cleared his throat, intending to reach for the toweling, before her fingers crept up his thigh, stalling him.
Imogen turned in his arms, kneeling between his spread knees and watching him. Her damp hair curled into her face, eyes like glittering emeralds. God, he could get lost in them forever. Not to mention the rest of her. She was perfection.
She held his gaze for a protracted moment. “Love me, Ronan,” she whispered.
“I do.”
Her breath rushed out on a sigh. “Marry me.”
Ron
an yanked her onto his chest, clasping her possessively to him. “As if I could ever let ye go. Dunnae ye ken? Ye’re mine, lass.”
“Does that mean you forgive me?”
He grinned at her. “Now forgiveness, my devious little future duchess, that needs to be earned, and Highland punishments need to be meted out.”
She swallowed, a pink tongue coasting over her bottom lip. “Highland punishments?”
“Aye. As duke, it’s my duty to see that justice is served.”
“And how will you punish me, Your Grace?” she asked contritely.
With a smirk, Ronan swatted her on her bare, damp rump, and her eyes widened. He felt his cock surge between their bodies, and he gave her another light spank. This time, she gasped and clutched at his shoulders, her pupils dilating, taking the green of her irises nearly to black as desire roared to life in them. The third spank had her writhing against him.
“Ronan…”
He shifted up, moving to rise and bear them both to the bed, but Imogen had other ideas.
“No, stay here.” She pushed to her knees on either side of his hips and hovered over him. When she eased down, taking his swollen shaft into the warm clasp of her body, neither of them were capable of speech. Her eyes fluttered closed, mouth parting on a moan as she worked her slick passage down his length. And when he was finally anchored deep inside of her, there was nowhere else he wanted to be.
Those brilliant eyes of hers opened and found him. “I love you, Ronan.”
Christ, this was what it felt like to love. To be loved.
“I love ye, mo gràidh.”
Ronan clutched her hips as she moved, setting the pace. He reached for her breasts, as perfect as the rest of her was, and rose to take a peaked nipple into his mouth. He’d never get enough of her. Imogen’s release came upon her quickly, and he followed her over the precipice as her body clenched and rippled around his.
There was nothing more beautiful, more pleasurable than watching Imogen in this moment. Watching her come apart and together again. So devastatingly beautiful, she took his breath away. As lost in him as he was in her.
His fearless warrior. His woman. His bride. His.
Epilogue
Six months later
Imogen stood at the window overlooking the privy garden at Holyrood Palace and scowled at the dark, flat sheet of rain clouds. They were coming in fast. And the timing could not be worse.
“They say rain on your wedding day is good luck,” Aisla said, joining her at the tall pane of glass, one of several in the luxurious state apartment inside the palace. “It’s a symbol of fertility and cleansing.”
“That’s absurd,” Imogen replied. “Whoever said that was only trying to make a bride feel better about looking like a drowned rat on the most important day of her life.”
Aisla laughed and put her arm around her. “Nonsense. You’ll look radiant no matter the weather. And besides, the rain seems to be holding. Not a drop yet!”
Niall’s wife gave her a reassuring squeeze and hustled away, toward a small pedestal, where Rory was currently being draped in a dress of pale, peach-colored lawn for the occasion.
Imogen’s wedding day.
A weightless sensation lifted her spirits at the thought, and even the slate-colored skies appeared to brighten. Curiously, they were the same color as Ronan’s eyes when he was caught in an impassioned trance, like he had been two evenings before, when she’d straddled him in his bed, riding him to complete euphoria. She shook her head at the wicked and somewhat fanciful thought.
Be rational, Imogen.
The weather was not conspiring against her, nor was it blessing her and Ronan’s nuptials. But Aisla had the right of it: who cared if it spit a little rain today? In a little under one hour, she would be the Duchess of Dunrannoch. More importantly, she’d be Ronan’s wife. And that title was the only one she cared about.
“Ye’re lookin’ all daft again, Lady Im. I can see yer face in the window’s reflection, ye ken.”
Imogen turned to view Rory and, when she saw all the ruffles on the peach dress, shook her head and laughed.
“Oh my, that color does not suit you in the least, does it? Hilda, there must be something else Rory can wear. The yellow gown made for the engagement ball, perhaps.”
A ball that had never come to pass.
After the duel and Silas’s death, the scandal revolving around Imogen and Ronan had whipped into a new frenzy. The man accused of the kidnapping plot had been imprisoned, since he was indeed proven to be working at the behest of one Mr. Silas Calder, and his employer would have been as well, had he not tried to shoot his way out of arrest. The newssheets had also hinted that Silas had been behind the death of the Marquess of Paxton, so the ton had been in a frenzy.
There’d been nothing to do but quit London. But considering she had done so with Ronan, once more as his fiancée, she hadn’t quite cared. The scandal would fizzle eventually, as soon as something else shocking happened to fill the gossip rags.
“Quite right, my lady. Goodness, she looks like a ripe peach!” Hilda agreed, she and Aisla moving toward the many portmanteaus that had been brought to the apartment the previous day.
Holyrood, set at the very end of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, would have normally been off-limits to anyone not associated with its current owner and resident, Charles X, the former king of France. But apparently the Comte d’Artois, who had been living at the palace since being overthrown and exiled the year before, was one of Lord Riverley’s acquaintances.
“There is a black Arabian of mine the Comte has been eyeing for some time,” Julien had explained with a nonchalant shrug when the invitation to hold their wedding at Holyrood’s palace and abbey had arrived at Ronan’s home in Edinburgh. The Frenchman, visiting the city for only a day or two for business, had grinned at the flabbergasted pair of them.
“And ye were willing to part with it if he opened his home to us?” Ronan surmised.
“Quite. And if you had any inclination to name your heir after the hero who secured such a spectacular setting for your nuptials, well, I wouldn’t object.”
“We’ll no’ name our son Julien,” Ronan had scoffed while a fluttering explosion had ignited inside Imogen’s belly. Our son.
Something Imogen had only let herself dream of before. Now, it might become a reality. They were both older, of course, but she didn’t expect their ages to be much of a hindrance. She was only twenty-nine, and Sorcha and Makenna were both older with young children and had proven it could be done. Again and again, in fact.
Now, after spending the evening and night in one of the most beautiful, sumptuously appointed rooms Imogen had ever seen in her life, with her maid, Rory, and her best friend, Emma, she was finally ready to make the short walk to the ruined abbey, adjacent to the palace. Ready to become a wife. And, if God willed it, a mother someday. Though, in truth, she was practically already one to a mischievous imp of a girl, currently dressed as a peach. She and Ronan had discussed making the lass their ward. To her surprise and happiness, he had readily agreed. Rory, it seemed, had captured his heart as well.
“Admit it, ye’re thinking of him right now,” Rory said, tugging off the dress as Hilda returned with the yellow gown.
“Of course she’s thinking of him,” Emma said from where she sat in a red-striped silk chair, one of many inside the royal chamber. She appeared cool and composed as she threaded a blue silk ribbon around a simple but elegant bouquet of Scottish wildflowers. “The pair of them can hardly keep their eyes off each other whenever they’re in the same room, and now we’ve been out of His Grace’s presence for nearly a full twenty-four hours. She must be desperate for a glimpse of his ducal manliness soon.”
Emma fanned herself while pulling an infatuated face.
Rory made a gagging sound, snorting with laughter, while Imogen shook her head at her friend. “Believe it or not, I missed your sarcasm, Emma. London is dreary. Without you there, it was horrible.”
“I don’t want to think about that yet.”
She and Ronan could not stay in Edinburgh. He had been away from Maclaren for too long, and it was time to get on with things. Before long, she’d learn what it was to be a duchess and a Highlander laird’s wife.
Though she looked much more forward to learning her way around the marriage bed. Ronan had told her it was larger than the one in his London home and that he planned to chart every square inch of it with their bodies in various positions of lovemaking. She’d giggled at his promise, saying it wasn’t just about the bed but the man inside of it. Exploring his body, discovering the things he liked, and the things she liked as well.
“I will dedicate a good portion of my day to yer education, my lady,” he’d whispered in her ear. “So long as ye teach me as well.”
A blush rose to Imogen’s cheeks at the memory of what Ronan had done to her next.
“Oy, there she goes again,” Rory groaned as Hilda tugged the yellow dress over her head and hushed her while Emma stood and displayed her finished bouquet. It was lovely, the ribbons laced along the stems and dripping with finer strings of lace and even pearls.
“Wherever did you learn to do that?” Imogen asked, accepting the bouquet.
Emma grinned. “Mary taught me.”
Imogen peered at her, dumbfounded. “Mary?” The young maid who’d kept allowing herself to be seduced by her ardent employers?
“It seems she took the last stay at Haven to heart,” Emma replied. “She paid us a visit a few weeks ago. She found work in a hothouse in Leith and says she’s doing well. Mary brought some flowers for the girls and taught them how to bind them prettily, like so.”
The unexpected news lifted Imogen’s spirits. It made her so happy to hear that one of the girls she and Emma had helped, one who she had started to worry would never learn or change her ways, had moved forward with her life. In truth, Mary was one of the lucky ones. She’d not been forced by a relative or an employer or beaten by a husband. She’d simply made bad decisions for herself. But now, it sounded as though Imogen and Emma had finally gotten through to her.