He fell silent, struggling with his words. Grace made to rise from the bed, but he held up a hand to stop her.
“Grace, do you know why I married you?” He answered before she could frame a response. “I married you because I had to, yes, because of an agreement I made with my grandfather. It was not for the reasons you may think. It had nothing to do with money or any of the other reasons. It was part of a debt I owed him made many years ago, a pact I made with the devil that he is.”
He paused, gathering his thoughts. Grace simply waited, knowing there was more.
“Do you know how my father died?”
“Mrs. Stone said something to me the night we were at Westover about an illness.”
Christian shook his head. “That is what my grandfather told everyone. It was a brilliant excuse. No one ever suspected the truth.”
“The truth?”
“Grace, my father did not die because of any sickness, real or imagined. My father was killed defending the honor of my mother against the man he’d learned she had been having a clandestine liaison with.” He stopped for a moment and when he spoke again, his voice was ragged with emotion. “The man whose child she likely carried.”
The full meaning of his words reached her a moment later. “Eleanor?”
“Yes.” He finally stood before her now. “To this day she does not know that we do not share the same father. After my father was killed, I promised my grandfather I would do anything he asked of me if he would never reveal the truth of her conception.”
“But she is his granddaughter.”
“No, Grace, to his thinking, she was not conceived of my father. Eleanor is simply the illegitimate daughter of my mother, who my grandfather never cared for because my father had chosen her to be his wife against his wishes. After my father was killed, my grandfather was ready to leave my mother penniless and banished from the family. She would have been ostracized by society and Eleanor would have been labeled a bastard. She would never have known the advantage of that same world that had created her.”
“But what does that have to do with agreeing to wed me?”
“It was my grandfather’s condition, a part of it. In return, he would guarantee his silence and allow my mother and Eleanor the protection and financial support of the Westover name. They were to live in London in a residence separate from my grandfather. He would provide Eleanor with a season and a dowry so that she might marry well. No one would ever know that Eleanor had not been conceived legitimately.”
Grace’s thoughts turned to Eleanor, and to how willing she had been at the Knighton ball to accept Grace as her sister. How tragic it would have been had she been punished for the circumstances of her conception. “But what of Eleanor’s true father? Wouldn’t he have known the truth?”
Christian closed his eyes, his throat working with emotion against the demons that consumed him. Suddenly he was putting words to what had happened while Grace listened on in silence.
“He awoke me before dawn. I can still remember the light from my grandfather’s candle stinging my eyes as he shook me from the warmth of my bed. He tossed me a pair of breeches and told me to come with him, that I was about to enter a man’s world. I barely had enough time to pull on my coat before he was pulling from my chamber and dragging me along the dark hallways at Westover Hall. He said nothing more of what was happening, and I knew enough of my grandfather’s temper to keep silent.
“My father was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, dressed all in black, looking scarcely at all like the man I had called father for nine years. He told my grandfather he shouldn’t have brought me. I will never forget his eyes, fixed with a look I only later realized was insanity.
My grandfather refused to listen to him, saying something about how I would learn the lesson my father should have learned long ago. My father had simply shrugged, turning to walk outside. We followed, climbing into the carriage that already awaited on the drive. No one spoke during the short ride, not even when we stopped at a misty moor where my father had often taken me hunting. The sun was just barely starting to rise and I saw a horse there with a lone figure standing beside it. It was then I realized that my father was going to fight a duel.
“I stood watching as my grandfather and my father walked to meet the other man. A pistol box was presented and weapons chosen while my grandfather recited the rules of honor.” Christian scoffed. “Honor. There is nothing at all honorable about two men agreeing to kill each other.
“The weapons were primed and checked and places were taken. Ten paces were measured out before each man then turned to face the other. In the beating of a heart, a single shot was fired. I saw my father drop into the tall grass. I saw the other man lower his arm to his side beneath the cloud of smoke from his pistol. I ran for my father, crying out when I saw the blood seeping from a wound in his chest. His eyes were already fixed in death and I heard the slow, rasping sound of his last breath leaving his body.”
Grace reached for his hand, tears flooding her eyes. “Oh, Christian, I am so sorry.”
He took a deep breath. “A short time later, the other man came forward to make sure he had killed my father. He even nudged him with the toe of his boot. I lost all awareness of myself. I remember taking up my father’s gun. It was still cocked and primed. I stood and pulled back on the trigger. I discharged his shot. I heard a second shot fire. I watched the man who had killed my father fall to his knees. I looked and saw my grandfather then beside me, smoke rising from the pistol he held. Together, we had committed murder.”
If Christian looked at Grace and expected to find disgust for what he had just revealed to her, he was mistaken. Instead tears of compassion were running down her cheeks. She stood from the bed and placed the palm of her hand against his face. Christian closed his eyes, fighting against his own emotions, and took her wrist and kissed it softly. His other hand he gently placed against her belly where even now his child grew.
He whispered against her hand. “No one ever knew the truth.” He lifted his head and looked at her. “My grandfather paid the local physician to swear that my father had died of a sudden illness. He paid some men to dispose of the other man’s body so that his family would never know what became of him. No one ever knew the truth. Except my grandfather. In order to prevent him from seeing through his threat to my mother and Eleanor, he made me promise my life to him. From that day on, my one sole purpose became that of procreating the next Westover heir. And when a son was born, it would be his.” “His?”
Christian’s eyes stung with the tears he had refused to shed for so long. “Grace, he made me vow to give him my son. I thought I could prevent it by never marrying. But then he found you. I thought I could keep him from it by making it a marriage in name only. All I had to do was share your bed once, that night at Westover Hall. I had to take your virginity, but that didn’t mean I had to sire a child. I thought I could do it, but my grandfather got the better of me. He had chosen well, because no matter how I tried, I could not resist you. Every time I came to you, I would lose my resolve. I couldn’t control it, and I would hate myself afterward because I feared you would become pregnant. Do you understand now why I reacted the way I did at hearing that you carried our child? All I could think was that my grandfather had won, that no matter how I had vowed to myself that I would not give him an heir, in the end, I still had.”
Grace touched her hand softly against the ties of his sark. “He will only win, Christian, if you allow him to. If we allow him to.”
Christian swallowed back his emotions. “I know that now, Grace. It took facing him tonight to come to that realization. As I stood in the darkness of that courtyard, even as I hated him so deeply, all I could think about was all I had done to keep you from reaching me. From the very moment when you came tumbling into my life, you changed everything I had known. I wanted only to keep you from knowing the darkness of my world. I was too blinded by my hatred for my grandfather to see that by keeping you apart from me,
I was only preserving that darkness. I should have welcomed you, but instead I hurt you. I blamed my grandfather for the misery I faced each day in the mirror when instead I should have realized that in forcing me to marry you, he had given me the greatest gift I could ever receive.” He touched her softly on her cheek. “He gave me you.”
Grace looked at Christian, her heartbeat racing.
“You make me a better man, Grace. You gave me your love when I gave nothing in return except anger and pain. I will forever regret having not realized it sooner.”
She shook her head, placing her fingers against his lips. “Do not speak of it.”
Christian covered her hand with his and kissed her fingertips softly, watching her. “I want to love you, Grace. I need to love you.”
Grace blinked away her tears and said on a gentle whisper. “Then love me, Christian. Love me now.”
Her words echoed through his consciousness like the whisper on the Scottish wind. Christian closed his eyes, lifting her up and burying his face against her neck. Gently he lowered her to the bed beneath him, her golden hair spilling about her shoulders in soft waves, inviting his fingers to thread through the silken tresses.
Christian took her face into his hands and lowered his mouth to kiss her, taking her tenderly against him. He felt her arms go around his waist, felt her hands run down over the length of him to his legs, her touch filling him with her willing warmth. He felt her fingers slide beneath the fabric of his kilt, running upward over the backs of his thighs. A jolt of desire rocked him as she cupped his buttocks in her hands and he moaned into her mouth, feeling the pressure of her softness against his sex. He felt the fire that had consumed him every time he’d come to her before ignite like wildfire and pulled his mouth away from hers, fighting to maintain his control.
He would not hurry this. They had all night. This time he would give Grace a woman’s pleasure. He would show her lovemaking in its truest sense, without pain, without chaos. Tonight he would watch her as she found her release and he would know the reality of an earthly heaven.
Slowly Christian guided Grace back against the pillows, taking up the blouse she wore and helping her to slip it over her head. Her breasts were white in the moonlight and the sight of her nakedness set his heart to pounding, as he took in the perfect roundness of her breasts, the smoothness of her belly that would soon swell with his child. He unhitched the fastening of her skirt and slid the fabric down to her toes.
Christian stood at the side of the bed, just staring at Grace in the firelight, awestruck that she was his, that she would give him the gift of her love again after all that had taken place between them. He didn’t deserve her, but he thanked God for her. Christian reached over his head, pulling off his shirt. He watched her eyes study his body in the moonlight and felt his sex harden in response as she fixed her eyes upon where it pushed at the fabric of his kilt. He released the buckle at his side and let the woolen fabric fall to his feet.
Grace reached for him, beckoning to him as he stood naked at the side of the bed. It was all the invitation Christian needed. He slid onto the mattress beside her, pulling her soft warmth against the length of him. He took her mouth again, tasting her with his tongue as he took the weight of her breast into his palm, feeling the softness of her skin, working his fingers over her nipple, teasing it to hardness as she murmured into his mouth. He traced his fingers downward over her belly to the down froth of curls that marked her most passionate place. Lifting her slightly, he urged her legs gently apart. He touched her softly and felt the moistness of her slick against him.
Grace threaded her hands through the thickness of Christian’s hair as he slowly rubbed his fingers over her, stroking her, seducing her at the very center of her desire. He felt her body tighten beneath his touch as she knew the beginnings of sexual pleasure. He released her mouth to kiss downward over her neck and shoulder to her breast. Grace arched against him as he suckled her, drawing in her breath and tightening her fingers in his hair as she lost herself to him. “Oh, Christian, it is so…”
Christian nuzzled her belly, knowing what he would do to her, how he would make her body respond to bring her sensations she had only just known a hint of. He kissed her belly and nibbled at her hip as he slid further downward, parting her legs as he moved between them. He drew her hips upward then, gathering her against him, and lowered his head to taste her.
He felt Grace stir, uncertain at such an intimate caress, until her own untested sexual instincts overcame her hesitation and she eased beneath him. Christian worked his mouth over her, tasting her, teasing her with his tongue, tantalizing her as she drew close to her climax. He felt her legs tighten against his shoulders as she sought that which she had yet to find, heard the soft pleasured breaths she gave as each sensation rippled through her. He took her closer, again and again until she cried out and he felt her body shudder against him on the wave of her release.
Grace watched him with eyes that were filled with the wonder of new passion as Christian eased her hips to the bed. He slowly slid his body upward, the muscles in his belly clenching when he touched her with his hardness. He struggled to hold himself in check. He took two deep breaths and slowly, gently entered her, drawing in another slow breath as he buried himself within her. It was the most incredible feeling he’d ever experienced— the tightness of her around him, the joining of their bodies as one—and he drew her up against his chest as he sought to command his desire.
Perhaps it was an unconscious fear of harming the babe, or that he had exorcised the demon of his grandfather from his life, but when he began to move, Christian did so with total control over his body. Each movement of his hips carried him deeper and deeper inside her warmth. His movements began to quicken and he felt Grace lift her hips to meet his every thrust, her fingers gripping his forearms as he rose up over her, entering her deeply, fully, completely, over and over until he felt her take her second climax. He buried himself within her and his own release took him so strongly, so absolutely, that he shouted out words he had no recollection of immediately after, spilling his seed deep within her womb.
“Oh, God, Grace, I love you,” he moaned against her neck as he rained gentle kisses over her, tasting the saltiness of her heated skin as they lay with their bodies still joined amid the confusion of bedclothes beneath them. Some time later, after the fire had dimmed and the night slowly began to give way to the dawn, Christian drew Grace up to him with her back against his chest and her buttocks settled snugly against his hips. He set one hand against her belly where their child lay and brushed the soft tangle of her hair onto the pillow above her head. Clasping the fingers of her hand with his he breathed in the sweet scent of her neck as together they drifted off to a lover’s sleep.
Chapter Thirty-four
The next days were like living a dream for Grace and Christian as they thrilled in the rediscovery of one another. Their waking hours were filled with the warmth and laughter of a Skynegal summer, their nights wrapped in each other’s arms, sharing tender kisses and ardent lovemaking.
Robert and Catroina had gone to Rosmorigh in the south, taking a number of the Highlanders with them. Robert had arranged for a sloop that would carry some of them farther south to Mallaig, others onto the islands of Mull and Jura and to a landing point where they could find land transport into Glasgow. Still more would continue to the Borders and to England, to live at the duke and duchess’s estate, Devonbrook, in Lancashire. Before they had gone, Christian and Robert had drawn up a proposal they planned to present at the next sitting of the House of Lords. Christian and Grace realized that presenting the proposal would necessitate that Christian return to England. He had decided, however, to wait until after their child was born.
Since Skynegal had become such an important part of their lives, they made plans for extending the castle with an additional wing to the eastern side. Grace began drawing up preliminary sketches that they would use as a guide while Christian set to making inquiries in Edin
burgh for an architect. The mare Jo came into foal and Grace and Christian had watched as the tiny roan-colored newborn had stood for the first time on his spindly legs, taking his first uncertain steps amid a chorus of cheers from those looking on. Every day at sunset, Grace and Christian would walk along the shore of the loch with Dubhar ambling beside them, but Grace’s most treasured time with her husband was late at night, after they had made love before the light of the fire. He would draw her body close to him, his arms wrapped protectively around her increasing belly. They would talk sometimes until the early hours of morning, about their childhood and about their hopes for the future—the future they would share together.
This morning Grace was seated in the estate office with Dubhar warming her toes beneath the desk. Christian sat across from her, checking the list of provisions for McFee and McGee, who were to leave for Ullapool later that morning.
Grace had just finished her morning cup of tea when she glanced up and saw Eleanor standing in the doorway.
“Oh, Eleanor, good morning,” she said, “won’t you come in?”
Eleanor’s expression, Grace noticed, was unusually serious.
“I was hoping I might have a private word with my brother.”
Grace glanced at Christian, who was watching Eleanor closely, then stood to leave. “Of course. I was just going to go through the last of the trunks we found from the garret.”
Grace left the room, calling to Dubhar before closing the door quietly behind her.
High in the south tower there was a small chamber that looked out over the restless waters of the loch. Too small to be used as a bedchamber, Grace had begun using the place to organize some of the heirlooms she had discovered while foraging through the castle. As the collection had grown, the chamber had become a gallery of sorts in tribute to her ancestry, spanning nearly the full chronology of Skynegal’s history.
Each of those ancestors had their own place where their particular contribution was displayed in a makeshift visual biography. There, near the door, was Hannah MacRath, a young bride who had come to Skynegal from the Lowlands in the days of Queen Mary. Her petite figure was preserved in the small embroidered shoes she’d once worn, with cork wedges placed into the heels to give her added height. Amazingly, Hannah had brought eleven children to adulthood and had lived to the age of ninety-three. Hannah’s legacy to Skynegal was a small, leatherbound herbal journal and numerous small bottles in which the ladies of Skynegal had kept dried flowers and leaves to use as medicine.
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