by Claudy Conn
She couldn’t speak as he removed her white damp blouse and pulled away her lacey under-clothes to expose her breasts. She reveled in his deft handling, in the way he played with her nipples and her heart urged her on, as her body insisted she take from him as she allowed him to take.
What was she doing? Over and over, the same question. She was falling for someone she couldn’t have for so many reasons. This would end with her in misery, but for now, she had these moments and she damn well couldn’t give them up.
She wasn’t thinking, only feeling as she pulled away his billowy white shirt and exposed his hard rippled body. She saw unusual tattoos on his left shoulder and both biceps and traced her finger over the intricate details. Something was familiar about his tattoos, but she couldn’t think about that as he removed her skirt, allowing it to drop to the floor.
She kicked off her riding boots, he pulled away her remaining underclothes and then he held her naked body away from him and whispered, “Exerilla, ye are the most beautiful woman I have ever beheld.”
He had her in his arms and as he kissed her neck, went lower to suckle at her nipples; she threw back her head and whispered his name, “Hunter.”
“Aye, say it, lass, say my name,” he growled and the sound was primal.
This was so unlike the woman she had become. This was someone she hadn’t known was buried inside of the girl. She just didn’t tumble into the sack with guys. In fact, she had been a virgin for quite a long time, until Stevie. He had been mortal, with mortal failings and one day she woke up and knew it hadn’t all been his fault. Lost, she told herself, you are so lost. She had no answers; all she knew was what she felt and what she felt was need beyond her understanding.
He was out of his boots and breeches and standing before her and Exerilla discovered he was supersized. She stared for a moment. He was reaching for her and she was breathing hard and ready.
What happened next, took her breath away.
What happened next was a shower of cold water as it splashed over her and from every direction.
She stood alone; naked as the frigid sensation swept over her. She opened her eyes and saw him standing naked at the window. He was pure gold.
He turned and put a finger to his lips as he whispered, “Get dressed, and hurry, lass. He is still a distance and hasn’t seen our horses yet. I’ll go get them saddled, hurry out the back door”
She blinked because one of the first things she noticed was the speed with which he managed to slip into his clothes. How could he already have his clothes on? How had he heard anyone approach?
He was gone in a flash.
Time for magic, she thought as she threw on her damp clothes, with a minor blink, and hoped the magic had been minor enough. She hadn’t needed to use her wand, so she was fairly certain her father would not be able to trace such a small spell to her.
She rushed to take a quick glance out the window. She couldn’t see anyone, but her witch senses picked up on the approach of a rider. She dare not use stronger magic to discover who it was.
She wasn’t sure how Hunter had known someone was coming, he must have heard something. She had been lost to him and had not heard anything but his breathing. She sighed to think he had obviously not been as taken by their connection as she. She noticed that the fire in the grate had burned out. Not only burned out, but looked as though it had never been there. How very odd. She shrugged it off, and rushed out the back door to meet him.
A moment later, they were on their horses and racing madly toward Horwich House.
“Who was it, Hunter—was it Sir Jacob?”
“No, I am not sure. I couldn’t see more than a dark figure riding directly toward the woods along the edge of the trail to the cottage. There is no saying whether or not he would find the cottage, but no sense taking chances, lass.”
She saw the dark frown on his face and asked, “Do you think it was someone from Horwich House?”
He cast a long look at her, “Is that what ye think?”
She shook her head, “David Horwich seems to think I should not visit the stables at Cressly Towe rs”
His lordship smiled but no warmth was emitted from that smile as he said, “Does Horwich bother ye in any other manner?”
She frowned, “Nothing I can’t handle.”
He didn’t reply to this but she noted the grim set of his lips. They didn’t speak as they rode toward Horwich fence line. Before they could be seen, he stopped his horse and said, “I will not go as far as your stables. It might not serve today.” He touched her gloved fingers, “Exerilla…this doesn’t end here,” his voice was low like something feral. His blue eyes looked deeply into hers and it was so hard to think.
“No, Hunter MacTorry, I don’t suppose it does.”
He reached out, kept her a few more moments, telling her what every woman wants to hear from a man like him.
He chuckled softly, and tipped his hat before he turned his horse around and headed for the main road.
No one had seen him escort her to this point and she wasn’t about to give anyone food for thought. In this day and age she knew going into a cottage alone with a man, storm or no storm, just wasn’t done. Had she been saved from Hunter MacTorry or robbed? Robbed, she thought feeling naughty as a smile flickered through her, oh yeah, definitely robbed.
She was too engrossed, not paying attention, her inner witch focused on the sparkling sensation Hunter had aroused in her, and did not sense that she was being watched at that moment.
Ordinarily, Exerilla’s specific magical power was such that she would know that she was being watched by another magical being. Magic has a scent, a vibration specific to its user. She would have felt the vibe; and she would have picked up on the scent.
The Wizard Baudali was able to watch her interaction with Hunter and draw a conclusion.
He smiled to himself, and reached out to touch her with his magic, but was immediately repelled.
“What was this?” Baudali questioned out loud.
She was a human, he had immediately ascertained this…or was she? He would have to investigate further.
He wanted Hunter MacTorry dead…needed him dead, and she was the key to getting this done. He could not be looking over his shoulder forever, and he could not allow Ferrell MacTorry to live.
The way to Hunter MacTorry’s demise was through the little woman. He was curious if Hunter already enacted a protection spell around her.
He needed to investigate. “Hunter MacTorry”, he spoke in a whisper, “will you come to save your lady fair?”
~ Thirteen ~
DAVID HORWICH STOOD aside, using the tall evergreen bush for cover. He kept his horse in tow as he looked around and hoped no one would notice him.
The storm had subsided and the rain had dwindled to a foggy mist. He wore his hat low over his forehead. “Damn Jerry Swit to bloody hell!” he shouted. Why was he being kept waiting?
The sounds of approaching horses made him slink further against the evergreen, he couldn’t be seen out here. He couldn’t be connected to Swit in any way.
His mouth dropped open to find the riders of the swiftly moving steeds were none other than Lord MacTorry and his parent’s pretty little houseguest, Exerilla Radley. They rode right up to the Horwich property line and stopped by the post and rail fence.
She was a beauty, and one that he meant to have. Their voices carried on the breeze. Hers was light, enticing and seductive, but it was also touched with something else…affection.
“Och lass, I find m’self hating to let ye go ” MacTorry said with an intimacy that made David want to pull the large man off his horse and shoot him dead, “Thank you, but as I said, I think you are right, I better proceed on my own from here,” Exerilla answered on a light happy sound.
“Will ye meet with me tomorrow?”
“I…I don’t know…” she hesitated.
“Don’t ye?” he said as he leaned toward her and stole a quick kiss from her lips.
She laughed, “Good day to you, my lord.”
“Och, but ye are supposed to say m’name…say it, lass.”
“I don’t command well,” she answered.
“Then take it as a plea,” he returned.
“Hunter MacTorry, I bid you good-day. Now, I must be off.”
“Aye, I doona want ye to incur any trouble,” he answered on a serious note. “Off with ye then, so that I can watch ye take yer fence, and know ye are safely on yer way.”
She smiled, circled her horse back a few paces and set him at the fence before taking it at an easy and safe trot.
David watched his lordship and watched her vanish over the fence into the foggy mist. He turned and headed his horse for the main road.
David Horwich was burning with jealousy, anger and resentment. He was irritated that the little tart had invited his lordship’s advances but had previously spurned his.
He had watched and listened to their exchange with growing fury. It was possible that she was after a larger title and a fortune. If that was her game she would find, he was not a man to be trifled with. If she was going to behave like a little ‘bird of paradise’, she would do so with him as well.
He was going to make damn certain that she would end up in his bed before ever MacTorry got a hold of her.
If anyone was going to bed that very fine piece of fluff, it was going to be him and no other.
A voice at his back made him turn to find Jerry Swit dismounting with a jovial greeting and he growled at him, “You are late, but never mind, what have you for me?”
* * *
Hunter hurriedly slid the secret panel into place in the wainscoted wall and made his way out of the dusty cellar. After leaving Exerilla he had found that which he was already certain would be there.
He had used his magic as a last resort and discovered its location at once. There wasn’t much time. Sir Jacob and Jerry Swit might return at any moment.
He had known the moment he had seen the house that a Jacobean escape route would be within. Combined with his knowledge of architectural history were Jacob’s stories of his childhood at the Towers.
Thus, he had zeroed in on the cellar walls with his magic and it stood out at once. With his wand, he did the rest, lighting his way as he traveled the tunnel’s narrow corridor to its end.
He pointed his wand and saw that it would open into the woods that led to Horwich House where he had just left when he had escorted his Exerilla to the fence line. “His Exerilla?” He couldn’t, wouldn’t think of her that way and yet, every inch of his being, said that she was his, only his, forever.
Voices overhead interrupted his wayward thoughts, and he realized one of those voices belonged to Jerry Swit. The other, he did not quite recognize and yet, it sounded familiar.
He had no time, he had to hurry back to his room, wash up and change before the men returned. The tunnel, he had seen had not been used in years. He didn’t believe that Jacob was involved in the smuggling trade.
Even as he bathed all he could do was think of her, and thinking of her was getting painful. His shaft seemed to suddenly respond to every thought of her, every single thought.
He could still see her full breasts in his mind, still taste her lips and her tongue, and still feel those pert lovely nipples. Bloody Hell, he was on fire.
Everything about Exerilla astounded him, and awakened something in him he thought was dead. It wasn’t only her beautiful face, her tantalizing body, but her mind. By all that was holy, he loved her mind. The way she had of reaching out with those tantalizing fingers that turned his body into a myriad of sensations. She wove through his brain and took over. All he could do was whisper her name over and over again. What is driving ye man?
It was the little things she said, the way her thoughts scurried from one place to another, the manner of her speech, och aye, the way she smiled. Her smile slayed him.
She was a bright glowing creature and she ignited sparks of desire in him in a way he had never before experienced. He didn’t think past that. He wasn’t thinking about permanence and yet, when he thought of her, his entire being shouted that she was his. He had felt it and was surprised by it because somewhere deep inside of Exerilla Radley he sensed something dark.
She was a human and all humans had a dark spot inside them which they managed to overcome through determination, faith or love, but hers…hers was different.
He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. If she were a witch, he would have thought she was burdened and not quite a white witch, but she was human, so that was not the case.
Damn, but she was a beautiful woman, a mysterious American woman, but human. If he took her for his own he would only have her for her short human years.
Och aye, but when he touched her, he was sent into a universe of pleasure. He couldn’t think about anything else, but the feel of her silken skin, about the taste of her delicious lips, the rockets of fire she sent hurtling through his body making him want her beyond anything he had ever known.
It had taken everything he was to pull away from her today because he had kept a part of himself alert for intruders. He owed her that much.
As he threw on his clothes and made his way back downstairs to the library, Exerilla exploded into his mind. She took him down a road he didn’t wish to go, telling him, he had to win her for his own.
He couldn’t be distracted from his purpose by her. That wasn’t his reason for being at Cressly. He was here because it was convenient, because he wished to keep Jacob from Swit’s engineering, and work to help Ferrell.
Aye, he had failed to save his parents. He had failed to kill Baudali, but he couldn’t fail to save his brother and right the wrong. He simply couldn’t be deterred by this all consuming craving he had for a woman, exquisite and mysteriously intriguing as she was.
And that was another thing that set him on edge. Something about her spoke of another time, another place. Perhaps it was simply that she was from the wild American colonies.
At any rate, he couldn’t give in to his need for her…not now.
~ Fourteen ~
SIR JACOB PACED back and forth, his hand wildly running through his hair as Hunter stopped short at the library doorway and watched him for a short moment and said, “Good evening, Jake.”
“Aye then, Hunter, yes, yes…”
“Why don’t we make it better by discussing how to solve yer problem lad?”
“Problem? I didn’t say I had a problem.”
“Doona play a fool, lest I think ye one.”
Jacob plopped onto the sofa and threw his head back, closed his eyes and sighed long and hard before he sat upright and said, “Hunter, let me ask you this…and we are speaking hypothetically, understood?”
“Of course,” Hunter agreed.
“Supposing a man had gone and… well become involved in something totally private, Supposing that man had gone as far as to placate a blackmailer. What then?”
His lordship regarded Jacob gravely. “Blackmail is an ugly thing, Jake. It never stops. People who make a business out of blackmail, will do so forever. Is any secret worth carrying on your…er…one’s back forever?”
The library doors opened and closed once more and this time Swit stood grinning before he declared, “Ah, is that brandy you have there Jake ‘ole man?” With which he strode toward the wall table and proceeded to pour himself a generous glass.
“Well well. Did you win our wager this afternoon, Lord Scot?” Swit sneered as he said the words.
* * *
His lordship stiffened. “What the devil are ye thrashing aboot now?”
“Why all the heat? Just want to know if you won our wager. Horwich seems to think you were with his little guest. None too pleased.”
His lordship’s eyes narrowed and a dangerous underlining edged his tone. “Devil ye say!”
“Well did you bed the wench?” Swit wasn’t about to give it up and his lordship�
�s fists clenched and unclenched.
“Go to perdition ye blasted idiot,” his lordship snapped. “What is more, the wager is off! If I find ye even trying to talk to the lady in question, I’ll bury ye. Are we understood?”
“Seems to me if the wager is off, she is open game,” Swit was unwise enough to utter.
He found himself knocked to the floor in the flash of a moment, and his lordship gave every impression of wanting to do it again.
He rubbed his chin and said, “Ho there,” as he got up. “What is all the heat? Only wanted to tell you that David Horwich said to tell you to stay away from her.”
“Did he? By all that is wind, earth and fire!” His lordship felt the magic swirl inside of him, but it wasn’t his light magic. It was his dark and it wanted blood. He didn’t say another word as he got himself under control. The problem with learning dark magic…it called for payment.
Jake stepped in. “Enough. If you are speaking about Miss Radley, then I won’t have it—not in my home. She is a friend and I won’t have her name bandied about in this fashion.”
Swit had gotten up, downed his brandy, and poured another glass which he raised to Jacob and said, “Here is to the lad then. Mayhap, in the end he will be the one to win the lady’s hand.”
Jacob looked at him oddly, but said nothing as he turned away.
* * *
Dinner was torturous, and Exerilla quickly excused herself as she hurried to her room. David had stayed for dinner and had made uncomfortable innuendos that had both his parents frowning and asking questions.
In addition to that, he was staying the night which he announced as they took the dinner dishes away. He said he didn’t feel like the ride back to his lodgings.
Exerilla was suspicious of his intentions as she locked her door and brought the lantern close to her bed. She had brought a book up from the library and meant to read it.
She climbed into bed and snuggled down. She enjoyed action and romance in her reads but this novel was nothing like that. She was bored so she put it down and decided to try and get some sleep.
