A Scandalous Scot

by Karen Ranney

  “May I touch you?” he asked, his voice a husky burr.

  “Where?” she asked softly, her words a mere breath of sound.

  “Here,” he said, placing one finger against her shoulder.

  “I suppose that would be acceptable,” she said primly.

  She sat back on her heels, pulling him closer. When he mounted the bed to kneel in front of her, she reached around him to squeeze his beautiful muscular buttocks.

  The finger he’d placed on her shoulder moved to trace a path to the base of her throat and from there to rest between her breasts. Slowly, as if asking permission, the finger moved to the left, over the curving slope of her breast to rest against her nipple.

  She would have cautioned him that she’d not given him permission to touch her there, but his finger slowly twirled around the nipple, causing heat to blossom deep inside.

  She closed her eyes, the better to experience the sensation, an awakening, perhaps. A dampening, readying herself for him.

  His kiss made her lose her concentration, until all she could think about was him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, breasts against his chest, her cleft pressing against his length.

  Suddenly, she was on her back and he was over her, kissing her ear, her throat, her breasts, an exploration conducted with lips, mouth, and gentle whispers as he lingered over select locations.

  Smiling, she threaded her fingers through his thick hair, her heart expanding with an indescribable joy.

  His fingers danced among her swollen folds, her legs widening instinctively. He tasted her then, his tongue darting, circling, teasing.

  “Morgan.” His name sent chills through her.

  “Jean.” He kissed his way back up her body, whispered her name in her ear. “Jean,” he said again.

  Time elongated, then narrowed to frame only the two of them. If the world outside this bed existed, she neither felt nor saw it. Only Morgan with his teasing smile and intoxicating kisses, who touched her with slow fingers, as if fascinated by the sensation of skin against skin.

  When he entered her, so slowly she almost screamed at the restraint of it, her hands gripped his shoulders, then his waist, then his buttocks to pull him to her.

  He refused to hurry, however, torturing her with need.

  She made a helpless murmur and won a quick kiss for it. She placed her palm against his cheek, before gripping his shoulders with insistent hands, anchoring him in place by a touch gone suddenly dominant and needful.

  She wanted the moments to last forever. Let her forever recall the touch of his tongue, the tenderness of his kiss against each eyelid, his soft breath as he nuzzled the hair at her temple, then kissed the curve of her ear.

  Her mouth opened against his skin, her tongue tasting him.

  The bedchamber became an oasis of shadows, a place of whispered promises, grazing kisses, and the touch of his fingers gliding over her skin. Her fingers clenched on his upper arms, then shoulders, before grasping his back as he entered her. Her breath caught on a sob as her forehead ground against his shoulder, her eyes tight as her body responded, knowing him, trusting him, as he led her into a land of pleasure.

  For a few moments she was lost in the movement, the hot, slick feel of his body thrusting into hers: torso to breast, hip to hip, thigh to thigh. She lifted up, wanting more, needing more, until she felt something give, an abrupt surrender that poured molten bliss into a hundred places in her body and melted her bones.

  She murmured his name, and he clenched, emptying himself into her with a throaty growl that ended with a kiss.

  Were those her legs or his? And whose hand lay possessively between her breasts, fingers splayed? Lost in the throbbing aftershocks of passion, she didn’t care.

  Morgan smiled at her when she opened her eyes. Embarrassment warmed her. When the blush traveled to her cheeks, he laughed, raised his head and kissed her.

  She was reminded of the first time she’d seen him. If she’d known then what she knew now, she might well have grabbed him and kissed him soundly. She did exactly that, kissing his smile.

  The light revealed the teasing glint in his eyes, the tousled black hair, the sheer beauty of his shoulders and chest. She leaned to the side to get a glimpse of his buttocks, smiling at herself.

  “And just what are you looking at?” he asked, brushing a kiss across her nose.

  “Your lovely backside, Your Lordship.”

  Before this moment, with his smile coming wicked and amused, she might never have confessed to such a thing.

  “Never the likes of those breasts of yours, Your Ladyship.”

  She smiled back at him, feeling his equal in this moment, captivated by passion, and perhaps a little bemused by it.

  When they loved again, it was sweet and simple, she rising and falling away, him setting the slow and silky rhythm. When pleasure seeped through her, it was with grace and delicacy, a reminder that passion can have a pure edge, and one not so needy.

  Delight unfurled where they joined, and deep inside petals of bliss traveled outward. Her legs trembled, her fingers tingled, her breath hitched even as her blood surged through her body.

  On a sigh, she surrendered, becoming nothing more than a feeling, a color, a wisp. Only Morgan kept her from disappearing.

  She wrapped her arms around him and sighed again, holding him with tenderness and quiet joy.

  Loving him, as she’d never loved another.

  Chapter 35

  RULES FOR STAFF: Attend all church services in suitable, respectable attire and with the appropriate demeanor.

  With Catriona gone from Ballindair, the castle became an almost enchanted place. Or perhaps it was Andrew’s absence that was responsible for Morgan’s pervasive feeling of relief.

  If it rained, he blessed the fact it would aid the crops. If it remained sunny, he took pleasure in the Highland summer day. Nothing could disturb his ebullience, unless it was the condition of his steward, a man he was coming to admire more each day.

  Or perhaps the whole of his existence was made better by the presence of one woman, his surprising wife. Even thinking of her made him smile, and when he caught himself doing that, he laughed, and focused once more on his tasks.

  When gloaming swirled at the base of the trees, and waning sunlight sparkled through the highest branches, Morgan would put down his ledgers, dismiss any visitors to the library, and nearly sprint to the Laird’s Tower.

  They’d not given up the habit of eating dinner in the sitting room, and it was a cozy prelude to a night promising passion and wonder, surprise and delight.

  He’d never felt this way before, and it amazed and amused him. At the bottom of those feelings was another: caution. Jean was, with every smile and comment, beginning to wrap herself around his consciousness and embed herself in his mind. Perhaps she was even stealing little bits of his soul.

  Whatever was happening was new and too difficult to reveal. But even the cynical part of him was being won over by a woman’s laugh.

  He found himself winding around her at night, as if she were his pillow. When he awoke one night, it was with a curious sense of discomfort. Jean wasn’t beside him in the bed. He listened for a moment, but no sounds came from the bathing chamber.

  He sat up, lighting the lamp beside the bed.

  Annoyed, he grabbed his robe and made his way into the sitting room, the lamp an impromptu lantern.

  She wasn’t there, either.

  Had she gone ghost hunting again? What could those damn ghosts give her that he couldn’t?

  He put down the lamp and dressed, then made his way to the Long Gallery by the glow of moonlight. When he discovered the chamber empty, he was more worried than annoyed. She’d fainted in the West Tower, which was the second place he visited.

  She wasn’t there, either.

  As he passed the kitchen, he saw two crying maids, each comforting the other, followed by a young man blinking rapidly.

  He reached out, grabbed the lad’s arm
and asked, “What is it?”

  Please, God, don’t let Jean have been hurt.

  The young man belatedly realized who Morgan was and jerked to attention. “Begging your pardon, Your Lordship. It’s Mr. Seath.”

  Morgan suddenly knew where Jean was.

  A crowd of people surrounded the steward’s door, parting for him as he approached. He stood in the doorway for a moment, then crossed the small sitting room to the bedroom.

  William Seath lay on his bed, his emaciated frame propped up on two pillows. His hair had been brushed back from his forehead, his features appearing even sharper in death. An odd glow surrounded him, until Morgan realized it was the lamp beside the bed casting a yellowish hue throughout the room.

  Yet the man was smiling, his face serene, without the lines of fatigue and pain that had marred his appearance for so long.

  Mrs. MacDonald sat on one side of the bed, Jean on the other. She was speaking softly, and it was a moment before Morgan realized she was praying aloud.

  Her hand lay over Mr. Seath’s in a comforting touch.

  The windows were open, the better to allow Mr. Seath’s soul to leave Ballindair.

  He came to stand beside Jean, reaching out to clasp her shoulder. She didn’t turn or look up at him, only sagged against him as if needing his support.

  “He was a good man,” Morgan said, feeling his throat tighten. “A very good man.”

  Mrs. MacDonald nodded, tears streaming down her face. She made no effort to hide her grief. Nor would he have asked her to do so. To hell with those damn rules for staff.

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” he asked.

  “Tom came and got me,” Jean said. She placed her free hand against his where it rested on her shoulder.

  If she were another woman, or William Seath another man, or even if he had been the same man he’d been upon returning from London, he would have said something about the impropriety of the Countess of Denbleigh visiting a man—even an ill one—alone in his bedchamber.

  But he only smiled, and said, “I’m glad you were with him.” He looked at Mrs. MacDonald. “Have the mirrors covered,” he said, “and the clocks stopped.”

  The housekeeper turned surprised eyes to him.

  “He was like a member of the family,” Morgan said. “What we do for our own, we should do for him.”

  She nodded, and began giving instructions.

  “And the bell, sir?”

  He gave his assent. A man from the staff would stand before Ballindair and ring the heavy bell signaling a life’s end. Those who heard it would know they’d lost someone of importance at Ballindair. They would be invited to participate in the service to both mourn William Seath and encourage his soul to rest.

  “Did he have any family at all?”

  “No,” Jean said, looking up at him. “Ballindair was his family.”

  He nodded. “Then we’ll act the same,” he said.

  When Jean stood, he took her into his arms in full view of the staff remaining at William Seath’s door.

  Jean and her aunt were preparing to sit vigil with William Seath. His body had been washed and then dressed again in his dead clothes. Only then was he laid in his coffin. Because he was so emaciated at the time of his death, only two of them were needed for that task.

  If he’d had any family, the task of watching over the body would have fallen to them, but there was no shortage of volunteers for the hours ahead.

  Her aunt opened her Bible, preparing to read aloud from it, when Morgan entered the Clan Hall where the bier had been erected.

  “I’ll sit with Jean,” he said.

  Aunt Mary merely nodded and slipped out of the room without a word.

  Morgan moved a chair to sit beside her. Perhaps it would have been more proper for him to be on the other side of the coffin, but she was grateful for his proximity.

  “You were very fond of him,” he said.

  She nodded, unwilling to tell him not all her tears were for the steward. Instead, she was feeling selfishly melancholy at the moment.

  The time had come.

  What would he say? Worse, what would he do?

  There was every possibility he would simply walk away. Or he might commend her honesty at the same time as he banished her to a different life, one away from him.

  Regardless of what he might do, she had to tell him who she was.

  “You once asked me how I knew Mr. Seath’s condition was so dire,” she said, speaking softly in deference to the occasion.

  He nodded.

  “My mother had the same wasting sickness,” she said. She clasped both hands in front of her, squeezing tightly. The pain made her concentrate on the feeling in her hands, and not the mists of the past rising to envelop her. She didn’t want to think of those days. She didn’t, yet she must.

  “She became ill very sudden,” she said. “Because my father was a physician, he knew the symptoms well. He told us she hadn’t long to live.”

  He placed his hand over hers. She looked down at their hands, wishing she could absorb some of his heat. She was cold, from the inside out.

  “The end didn’t come soon enough,” she said. “Each day was agony for her. Then each hour. Even the air against her skin was too much. Sometimes, we could hear her praying to die.”

  How many times had she heard her mother weeping? Or those long, agonized moans indicating the morphine wasn’t helping?

  On that last morning, her father had come into the kitchen, looking pale and drawn. He’d aged in the intervening weeks, the lines of suffering reminding her of those on her mother’s face.

  That morning his eyes had looked haunted, and he simply stood in the middle of the room. When she had gone to him, followed by Catriona, he extended his arms around both of them, lowering his head to whisper, “My girls.”

  That was all he’d said.

  Looking back, she didn’t think it was a cry for help or a plea for forgiveness. He had simply acknowledged the moment as the last guilt-free one he would have. Then he left them, returning to the bedroom he’d shared with his beloved wife.

  What had happened next had never been in any doubt. Her father came downstairs to the sitting room an hour later. He faced both Catriona and her, saying very calmly, “I have ended your mother’s misery.”

  An excess of morphine had simply stopped her breathing.

  He’d not attempted to escape his crime, but reported himself to the authorities.

  “As a physician,” Jean said to Morgan in the Clan Hall, “he’d always attempted to save lives. In that instance, he willfully took one.”

  Not once, however, had he ever seemed to regret his act. Instead, a sense of calm and peace had come over her father as he awaited his punishment.

  “What happened to him?” Morgan asked.

  “They hanged him for what he’d done,” she said.

  She’d never said those words aloud. Aunt Mary knew the story, of course, and after her father surrendered to the authorities, everyone in Inverness had known.

  Her father had adored her mother, to the extent of destroying his own life to help her.

  Her father had never expected either Catriona or her to forgive him. And he’d also been prepared for the authorities. He hadn’t tried to evade them or the consequences of his deed. Instead, he went to the gallows wearing a small smile, the guard had said. The last word on his lips had been their mother’s name.

  The power of love was frightening.

  Love made people behave in ways that were improvident. Love ruined reason. Love was like a cancer, encompassing everything in its path.

  And she’d caught the disease.

  Morgan didn’t move, his hand still covering hers.

  “I’m sorry, Jean.”

  She glanced over at him. In his look was only compassion, not censure. Perhaps she’d be able to recall that expression later, when it was gone.

  “It was a very great scandal,” she said. “Both Catriona and I were known as the
Murderer’s Girls.”

  People had avoided them at the shops and in the street. They’d been shunned by their neighbors, and any friends who’d remained through their mother’s torturous illness.

  The greatest kindnesses had come from strangers: a guard at the prison who arranged a place for them to wait where they didn’t have to view their father’s hanging; a woman who asked if they were hungry on the way to Ballindair, then shared her dinner with them.

  “I don’t remember any scandal involving the MacDonalds,” he said, frowning.

  Here it was. The moment she’d dreaded ever since marrying him.

  “My name isn’t MacDonald,” she said. “Nor is Catriona’s.” She took a deep breath, a little difficult given that she could barely breathe. “It’s Cameron. Jean Cameron.”

  He nodded. “I remember the case,” he said. “Dr. Cameron. I think they called him something else.”

  “A great many names.” She was not going to recite the list of calumnies they’d uttered about her father.

  “I’m sorry, Jean.”

  In that instant, she realized he still didn’t understand.

  She leaned close to him, lay her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. He smelled of something wonderful: the scent of his soap or simply him? She didn’t want to move, but to stay here forever, in just this place, within his comforting arms.

  But to do so would be to cheat him of the truth, and it was something she owed him.

  She pulled back, keeping him from reaching for her by the simple act of placing her hand against his chest.

  “I’m the one who’s sorry,” she said.

  “For what?” His eyes softened. “Do you think I would blame you for your father’s actions, Jean?”

  “You came home because of scandal,” she countered.

  “I came home because it was time to come home.”

  Her smile felt bittersweet; did it look so to him?

  “You lectured me on honor, Morgan. It was the reason we married. You wanted to be honorable above all else.”

  “And you questioned the meaning of honor, if I recall.”

  She forced herself to meet his gaze as she struggled to get her voice under control.