by Mia Marlowe
Anger sizzled up in him. He’d done more than he ought to make her feel welcome. It was high time she gave an inch. “No man wants a wife who canna bear him. Would ye have me release ye from our betrothal and send ye home to your father?”
“No!” She stood quickly and turned to face him. They were standing close enough that her warm breath drifted over his neck when she tipped her chin to meet his gaze. “I can bear ye, Adam,” she said softly.
“No’ just because of my agreement with your father?” He bent to her till their lips were but finger-widths apart.
“No’ just because of that.”
“We dinna have to wed on the morrow.” Part of him, the aching stiff part between his legs, damned him for a traitor. Even tomorrow seemed too long a wait when he longed to sink into her softness, but he heard himself offering, “If it will suit ye better, we could put off the wedding until we ken each other a bit more.”
“I dinna want to wait.” She draped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him. Hard.
Chapter 6
“There’s much I canna claim to understand about the way of a man with a maid, but I do ken this. A lass will often flee from a fellow . . . until she catches him.”
From the journal of Callum Farquhar,
contrarian, reluctantly sober, and more than a little
melancholy over his past amours.
Oh, God, his lips . . . Cait struggled to form a coherent thought, but she had no words for the way Adam Cameron turned her world on its ear. She could only hold on and ride the waves of sensation as everything faded around her except the exquisite warmth and demanding urgency of his mouth on hers.
She’d only meant to kiss him with enough welcome to convince him not to delay their wedding. She didn’t think she could stand to drag out the farce a single day longer. The sooner she wed the man, the sooner she could carry out her father’s wishes and make herself a widow. A simple kiss should have been enough to seal the deal.
But there was nothing simple about Adam Cameron’s kisses. Instead of bringing them to the tidy, neat conclusion that postponing their nuptials would benefit no one, it unleashed this ungovernable longing, this wildfire that threatened to consume them both.
Adam’s mouth controlled her and she didn’t care. She gave herself up to the drumbeat pounding in her ears. His hands, big, rough, and possessive, roamed over her body. Even through her night shift, her skin rioted under his touch.
Cait pressed herself flush against him and he growled into her mouth, the feral sound of a male animal who’s cornered and can’t escape.
And doesn’t really want to.
Without breaking off their kiss, he grasped the neckline of her shift and ripped it open, popping off the neat row of horn buttons, one by one.
Gasping, Cait tore her mouth away. “I havena got another shift.”
“No matter.” Adam stared down at her bared breasts. The heat of his gaze made her nipples harden. “I’ll see ye have a dozen new ones, merely for the pleasure of ripping them off ye.”
He bent and kissed his way down to her breasts, nuzzling and nipping at the aching peaks. Cait’s breath hitched over her teeth. When he closed his mouth over one and sucked, her knees nearly buckled. Delight arced from her breasts to the folds between her legs. She’d never imagined such a delicious and dizzying sensation.
A small moan escaped her lips when he straightened and looked down at her. Her nipples still tingled. Why had he stopped?
“Ye’re beautiful, lass.” He cupped her cheek and thumbed her upper lip. “If I have my way, ye’ll trip about in naught but the skin God gave ye all the time.”
“That doesna sound verra practical,” she said, unable to keep from smiling at him. Her insides glowed under his praise, but she tried to tamp it down. She was supposed to keep her distance from the man, but every fiber of her being strained toward him. “I expect I’d turn blue with cold.”
“My Pictish princess,” he said, his voice caressing the words. “But if ye dinna wish to be blue, I’ve a remedy for that.” He scooped her up and carried her to the bed.
Cait pressed kisses to his neck. She hadn’t meant to, but he smelled so delicious, all warm leather and something indefinably male. She couldn’t resist tasting him. The salty freshness of him made her soft palate arch.
The heavy counterpane had been pulled back already, so Adam laid her down on the crisp linens.
Oh, God, he’s going to . . . It’s going to happen and I canna stop it.
She stiffened.
“Be easy, lass,” Adam said as he settled beside her. “I’ll see to it ye go to the altar a virgin yet.”
She swallowed hard. How could she tell him that was the least of what troubled her? This wasn’t at all how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to guard herself. Even once the words were said over them in the kirk, she’d planned to be icy and untouchable. She’d open her legs, but not her heart.
His intoxicating kisses had put paid to that scheme.
He leaned down to her again. “Dinna fear me.”
I fear myself, danced on her tongue but she couldn’t make her voice work.
He took possession of her mouth again while his hand played a lover’s game with her breast. He stroked. He teased. He took the ache and made it worse.
And better.
Who knew such torment could be so pleasing?
She ought to stop him. She ought to scream. Barclay and Fife would come running if they were within earshot. But then Adam’s men would join the fray. Her guards wouldn’t stand a chance.
Neither did she.
The laird of Bonniebroch was relentless. He pressed his lips against the base of her throat, planting feather-light kisses up her neck and along her jawline. Then he raked his teeth against her tender skin.
She gasped at the shock of it. And at the greater shock that the slight pinch of pain registered as pleasure along with the rest of the wicked game he was playing on her flesh. His hand left her breast and skimmed over her ribs. He dallied near her navel for a few breathtaking moments, then moved steadily down her body. His mouth found her nipple again, and Cait’s eyes rolled back in her head. It was as if her breasts sent a message of need to other places in her body, leaving her panting and throbbing.
He made her want the most outrageous things. She ached to be touched, to be tormented in the most unlikely of places.
Then, as if he’d divined her secret thoughts, his fingers slid down and invaded her soft curls, exploring the slippery folds between her legs.
“Aye, lass, like that,” he murmured when her knees spread apart without her being aware of moving them.
Traitor, she named her own body.
It didn’t change a thing. Adam Cameron continued to enslave her with pleasure and her body was his willing ally. He caressed her. He ran his knuckles over an especially tender spot and she sucked in a surprised breath at the joy that shivered over her whole being. She was swollen and achy and feverishly warm.
And, to her shame, she couldn’t stop herself from arching into his hand.
“That’s it, my Cait. Sing for me.”
She hadn’t realized till then that the small sounds of distress that reached her ears were coming from her own mouth. She wasn’t sure what she needed, but the throbbing ache grew deeper with each deft flick of his talented fingers.
Oh, how she wanted.
But Cait wasn’t one to beg. Her hips rose to meet his strokes, as she felt a knot inside her tightening. She hovered at the edge of something, almost there, nearly . . . Dear God, there must be an end.
Then the tightness broke. She came utterly undone.
She might have called out his name as her limbs bucked with the force of her release but she couldn’t be sure. Her mind was not working properly. Bliss washed over her, coating her, like the spray of foam had covered her while she waited for her selkie to come.
Then in a few more heartbeats, the ferociously joyful pounding faded and she was able to draw a deep breath.
He’ll take his ease of me now. ’Tis my chance to pull away. To no’ be here. No’ really. Oh, Lord, make my soul a wee mousie. Let me hide in the corner and not come back to my body till it’s all over.
But Adam didn’t move to take her. He simply smoothed his fingertips over her belly and pressed a kiss to her temple. Then he pulled her close in a surprisingly gentle embrace and held her still.
The man discomfited her out of all knowing. He was arrogant and brash. And patient and tender. Which was the real man? Or were they all him, light and dark, good and evil in some jumbled up chimera of a person? And if he continued to befuddle her like this, how could she find enough to hate about him to send him to his end?
“I may be a maiden, but I ken well enough what’s supposed to happen now.” She might know the mechanics of the ultimate act, but no one had prepared her for the devastating force of some of the preliminaries that had happened between her and Adam Cameron.
He’d given to her. And didn’t seem inclined to take.
“What . . . what about ye? Ye havena . . .”
“There’ll be time enough for that after we’ve said the words in kirk, lass,” he said as he rolled onto his back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Though I’ll no’ say ye dinna tempt me sore.”
She struggled to sit up. Aye, she still had possession of her body, it seemed, but she felt so different inside her own skin now. Scattered. Out of control.
There. Her womb clenched once more, a final, joyful squeeze. Even now, she wasn’t entirely her own. Adam Cameron had forced pleasure on her. And she’d liked it.
If a man felt even half as much pleasure in the act of marriage as Adam had just given her, she had to admit he was being chivalrous in the extreme by refusing to take her maidenhead.
“Thank ye,” she said softly. “I promised my father I’d be wed a virgin.”
He chuckled and rolled off the bed. Then he leaned down and gave her a final deep kiss. “And I promised your maid Grizel that I’d be on my best behavior.”
Her mouth sagged open. Her father would never consider a promise to her maid binding. He barely spoke to Grizel beyond issuing orders or railing at her for some imagined misdeed. “Ye would keep your word to my servant?”
“I have little choice but to keep my word.” He smiled down at her. “I’ve no great wish to find an adder in my boot, aye?”
Then his smile faded and his eyes took on a warm glow. “I doubt I’ll see ye again till we meet in kirk. Sleep well now, mistress.” One of his dark brows arched rakishly. “I dinna plan to let ye sleep much tomorrow night.”
Then he turned and left the chamber without a backward glance.
Cait burrowed into the bedclothes, pulling the warm linens up to her chin. Some of Adam Cameron’s unique scent had been grafted into the fibers and she inhaled him to her toes.
The man’s on his best behavior, he says. And all because he made a promise, she thought drowsily as lethargy stole over her body. Should he decide to be wicked, I’m truly lost.
Cait skimmed the surface of sleep, but didn’t manage to plunge into its blackness. Fragments of another promise kept rising in her mind to hold her in the waking world.
“Do ye, Cait Grant, by yer own blood and by the head of yer father, pledge to carry out all ye have sworn to do?” Morgan MacRath droned.
“Aye, I so swear,” she’d whispered and the sound echoed around the crypt in retreating sibilance. Her father gave her a nod of grudging approval as Morgan MacRath held a dagger before her. It dripped redly, but Cait was expected to kiss the iron at the juncture of the haft and tang.
She leaned forward and pressed her mouth to the cold metal. The coppery scent of blood made her belly flutter. She tasted it on her lips, but she didn’t turn a hair. She didn’t wish to show weakness before her father or his otherworldly counselor.
Not when Wallace Grant was finally pleased with his only daughter.
Cait threw back the bedclothes and clambered out of bed. How could she wallow in the scent of her father’s enemy? How could she let the man touch her, and not just her body, but her spirit as well? What a conniving devil Adam Cameron was. He was halfway to convincing her he was a decent gentleman with his promise to her servant and all.
She paced the length of the room, welcoming the cold that shot through her bare feet and up her shins. Cold was better than warmth. It helped her see things clear again.
She had a charge to keep. It didn’t matter that her betrothed was a man who could charm her into bed and take her body to a place of unspeakable delight. He was Wallace Grant’s enemy and, therefore, hers as well. Her father’s fortune—the fate of Scotland’s young king, come to that—depended upon her keeping her word.
Not to mention my father’s head.
It had all seemed just words at the time, eerie, mystical words of some dark incantation. Morgan MacRath had been in his glory as he conducted the weird ritual in the Grant crypt. It was a sealing, he’d said. A bargain with the powers to see their goal to an end. The light of triumph in his eyes when she swore reminded her of the soulless glow of a predatory animal’s eyes peering from the forest at midnight.
If she failed, would it mean her father’s head was truly forfeit?
She stopped in the shaft of moonlight and looked up at the cold ball in the black sky. She needed to be like the moon. No warmth. No constancy.
She had no choice. She had to succeed. She’d sworn. On her own blood and the head of her father.
Cait set her face like flint and resolved to spend the rest of the night plotting her bridegroom’s demise.
Chapter 7
“In all my studies of the arcane, I’ve come to believe the lore of the herbalist speaks most clearly to the human condition. As with the heart of man, there is a duality in nearly every beneficial plant, a light and dark side, as it were. For in every cure that restores health, there is a bit of poison.”
From the journal of Callum Farquhar,
cynic, suspicious of alchemy, but possessed of
just enough garden knowledge to get myself
into trouble.
Cait rose early. It was easy since she’d hardly been to bed. She bypassed the main hall, where most of the castle’s residents were breaking their fast and made her way to the walled garden off the kitchen.
Cook didn’t question her interest in the small plot. As chatelaine, Cait would be expected to doctor the ills and hurts of the castle folk. She was required to have a working knowledge of healing herbs and such. Nothing was more natural than the new lady of Bonniebroch apprising herself of the plants available to her.
There were neat rows of rosemary, thyme, and fragrant lavender. Basil and chamomile, licorice root and mint grew in profusion in the sheltered garden. Everything was disquietingly wholesome. She’d almost given up hope of finding something she could use until she spied the purplish-blue flowers in a shaded corner.
Wolf’s bane.
Cait knelt and pulled the small knife from the busk of her bodice to cut a few stems.
“Careful, milady,” came a voice from behind her.
Cait rose quickly—guiltily, she feared—and discovered the small man she’d saved from the pillory behind her. He stood in the doorway to the garden, fingering his damaged ear. “Oh, it’s ye, Mr. Farquhar. Ye gave me a start.”
“Ye remembered my name. Aren’t ye kind?” A smile broke over his thin face; then his gaze darted back to the plants in the corner. “Ye’ll want to be wearing gloves before ye cut wolf’s bane.”
“’Tis only poison if it’s consumed.”
He arched a wiry brow. “Aye, that’s true. But if ye’ve so much as a small cut on your hands, ye might take in enough of the malevolent properties of the plant through your skin to poison yerself by accident.”
Her father had neglected to warn her of that.
“If ye dinna mind me asking, what might ye be needing it for?” he said with a small dip of his head.
She wa
s grateful she had a story ready, but the lie still came haltingly to her lips. “My maid Grizel. She suffers at times . . . from the rheumatism, ye see. I’ve heard a poultice made with wolf ’s bane applied at the point of pain can be a great help.”
A small amount taken in a hot drink could also drop a grown man in a few seconds, but she wasn’t about to let Farquhar know she was aware of that use for the herb.
He nodded. “It may indeed help your maid. It may also help ye into the next world if ye’re no’ careful how ye prepare aconitum.”
“Aconitum?”
“Ah, that’s the educated name for wolf ’s bane. Comes from the Greek and it means, rather appropriately, ‘without struggle.’ Certain tribes in the Romanian mountains tip their arrows with it and drop their prey between one step and the next. Powerful stuff, that.” He reached into his sporran and pulled out a pair of serviceable work gloves. Then he advanced toward her, holding out his hand for the knife. “If ye please, milady.”
She handed it to him. If the fellow wanted to be chivalrous, there was no harm in allowing it. As he knelt to harvest the herb, Cait cast about for something to say that would keep him from pondering further about why she might want something that was so virulent.
“I see ye’ve replaced the twine in your ear with a horse nail. Most folk who’ve been pilloried try to let the hole close if it will.”
“I hope I am no’ most folk, milady.” He carefully placed the plants in her small basket, then cleaned the blade on his handkerchief before returning it to her. Only then did he remove his gloves. “I believe in learning from my mistakes, and by keeping the hole in my ear open, I’ll be forever after reminded of my brief but terrifying time in Bonniebroch’s pillory.”
“So ye intend to give up thimblerig?”
“Och, no.” He offered her his arm and she took it as they strolled back to the castle kitchen. “Why would I be doing that? As long as there are fools in the world, they deserve a wee skinning from time to time.”
