Night of the Highland Dragon

by Isabel Cooper

  Almost. Not quite. As the first button gave way, William tore his mouth from Judith’s and caught her wrist. “Wait,” he managed, half breathing the word. “I’ve nothing on me.”

  She frowned, perplexed. “Nothing?”

  “Preventives. French letters—” He hesitated. Surely she knew. She behaved like a woman of the world, and her actions of the last few minutes were more evidence of that. Still, a gentleman’s upbringing made him pause and wonder how to go on.

  “Oh,” she said as he was still searching for words. An impatient shake of her head sent her hair tumbling around her shoulders. “Don’t worry. I can’t have children.”

  It was so tempting to believe her. She sat in his lap with a hand at his groin, her breasts heaving with every quick breath and her face flushed entrancingly. Every inch of William’s body told him to take her word for it.

  “No,” he said, both to it and to her, and he pushed her hand away. He had no reason to believe that she was telling the truth—even if she thought so, he’d known more than a few people about whom the doctors had been wrong in that area—and a child would be even worse for him than for another gentleman. Blood connections were always dangerous.

  He half expected Judith to try again and steeled himself to refuse, but she left her hand where he’d placed it. Catching her breath, she sat unmoving except for her free hand, which twisted the fabric of her skirt back and forth.

  William recognized the struggle. He knew it well, and also knew that neither of them had to win it entirely. Before Judith could speak again, he wrapped one arm around her waist, steadying her on his lap, and pushed her skirts up again with the other hand. She’d turned sideways slightly, the better to reach his buttons, and the position gave him access too. It was quite easy to slip his hand up her thigh and trace his fingers over the opening of her drawers.

  “Oh,” again, but this time it was desire and relief mingled. She arched up, seeking his touch—and at the same time, her hand slid between them again, returning to her prior task. Her fingers moved with even less finesse than before, often going still entirely as William stroked her, but before very long the buttons opened.

  William didn’t want to close his eyes. He wanted to watch her. But he was overwhelmed: cool air and then a warm, firm hand closing around his shaft, soft heat and wetness beneath his fingertips, the smell of pine and smoke and female arousal. He couldn’t do anything but lean his head back, let his eyes close, and lose himself in the moment.

  Neither of them had the time or the inclination for gentleness. Judith was wet and hot around his fingers, stiff beneath his circling thumb, and her hand slid up and down his cock with sure, steady pressure. William held on to his control by a thread as she started rocking her hips again…and the thread started to snap when she flung her head back and her whole body went tense for a second. In the next instant, she was climaxing around his hand, and he couldn’t hold back. He thrust into her grip again and again, until pleasure crashed through him and blotted out all sense of time or place.

  * * *

  They had no time to linger. William was still collecting himself, breathless and boneless, when he heard footsteps outside the compartment and a knock at the door. He pulled his hand back to his side, while Judith yanked down her skirts, but the door, thank God, did not open. He only heard the conductor’s voice outside: “Belholm, next stop,” and then more footsteps as the man moved on, impatient to get to his other duties.

  A hasty bit of work followed: cleaning, rearranging, and otherwise trying to make themselves look like they’d just spent a placid journey being completely respectable. Of all the women he’d known, Judith possessed the most impressive facility for putting her hair up neatly without maid, mirror, or even stable ground to hand. William didn’t say it aloud.

  He didn’t know what to say. He half expected Judith to warn him again that nobody would believe or care about any tales he chose to spread, or question his motives. That had been insulting, but William thought he might prefer it, since now she didn’t speak at all. She barely even looked at him, concentrating on her dress and her hair.

  Preoccupation? Shame? Anger? He couldn’t tell.

  “Have you a way of getting back tonight?” he finally asked as the train pulled into Belholm station.

  “I left a horse in town,” she said. She sounded surprised but not affronted, much to William’s relief. More reassuring still, she went on, “You’re not likely to find the ride comfortable, though. Nor would he be very inclined to carry two people our size. What will you do?”

  “Take a room in the town and walk back tomorrow when it’s light.” He smiled at her. “You don’t have to tell me that I don’t know the road as well as you do, and I don’t much enjoy broken ankles.”

  “Good,” she said. She stood up, fastening the last button on her coat. Her hair was tidy under the hat, the wool coat concealed any rumpling of her clothes, and the only signs that she’d recently been writhing in his arms were her swollen lips and flushed cheeks. “Have a good night, then,” she said as the conductor opened the compartment.

  “And you,” said William, and he watched her leave. She walked into the darkness as if she were meeting an old friend.

  Eighteen

  The first frost had come and gone—not early enough to interrupt the harvest, but severe enough to put a decisive end to it. The day of the festival was windless, cold, and bright, with the suggestion of brittleness that always accompanied clear days in the winter. Judith gave orders to lay on extra wood and to build the fires in the hall well before dinnertime. When she left the castle doors, the smell of smoke was heavy in the air. It was a familiar scent, and one she usually let pass without thinking. That day it reminded her of the year marching on, as so many had before.

  This year’s Harvest Maiden was carrot-topped Mairi Murray, who rode atop the corn-laden cart in her blue-and-pink-sprigged Sunday best, with a crown of pink and purple heather atop her flowing hair. Claire, one of the few girls who’d stood no chance at cutting the last sheaf, seemed to be content enough with her lot. In sky-blue muslin and with the dignity of coiled and pinned hair, she followed the cart with the other girls her age, walking at a pace sedate enough to give all the local boys a good look. Caring much less for making a show, the younger children thronged around the outside, laughing and shoving in their own private exchanges.

  Judith chuckled to herself. She’d been one of those children once. She remembered plum cake and singing. She’d generally contrived to lose her bonnet in the melee, much to the dismay of her mother and various nannies. Girls now didn’t have to be bothered, lucky little things. Braids were much more convenient.

  The equivalent of Claire’s crowd had been present back then too, but Judith had never been one of them. Adolescence hit the MacAlasdairs hard: not only did one’s body change, horrifying enough, but one had to adjust to and control the urge to transform into an entirely new creature. By the time she’d learned proper control, she’d also learned that she was different—and her childhood friends had moved past her, some into marriages and families of their own, others into service. None had remembered her very well.

  Mortals worked that way. She’d left shortly after learning to control her shape. She could still feel her mother’s kiss on her forehead. The day had been autumn, and the smell of smoke had been the same.

  Then the cart was inside the castle gates, and Judith came back to the present to play the role that had been hers for twenty years. As the singing stopped, she stepped forward, smiled, and took the bound sheaf of corn from Mairi’s hands. Judith spoke a few words, none unusual and all good-natured, stepped back to laughter and cheers, and watched the crowd explode into the castle grounds.

  At moments like this, it was hard to believe there weren’t very many people in Loch Arach. They seemed to be everywhere, from elderly women walking around together in the sunshine to babies gurgli
ng cheerfully in their mothers’ arms. The gardens held couples and would-be couples; the pond, under the stern eye of Janssen, was a source of wonder and winter-groggy amphibians for children of a certain age.

  Judith walked through the crowds, speaking to some people, not interrupting others, noticing who was there and how they looked. Mrs. Murray wasn’t there, of course, though her husband was laughing with some of the other men. Old Hamish was getting around nicely; she’d heard his hip was paining him in cold weather, but either it wasn’t too bad or the ale helped. Gillian Gordon and her family were admiring the flowerbeds—at least Judith could see Gillian herself and her mother, and her son riding on his father’s shoulders, but where was Ross? She spotted him a little distance from the rest of his family, smoking and gazing at one of the castle walls.

  He didn’t look very well. His face was drawn even at a distance, and he held his shoulders tightly. Judith wondered briefly if he’d had bad news from London, or if living in close quarters with his family was just proving hard on his nerves. He wouldn’t have been the first man to feel that way.

  “Lady MacAlasdair?”

  A voice cut into her thoughts. She turned to see one of the other new faces in the village: the mild brown eyes and soft features of Dr. McKendry’s friend Mr. Hamilton.

  “I wanted to say how very much obliged I am,” he went on when she greeted him. He spoke like a university man, she noted, but his accent was still strong. “It’s awfully good of you to play hostess to all of us like this.”

  “Oh,” she said, “it gives me a chance to talk with people. And it’s nice to celebrate something before winter comes and we all huddle inside for months.”

  “Aye, McKendry’s been telling me grim tales. I don’t entirely think he expects me to live out the winter.”

  “I’m sure you’ll live,” said Judith, laughing. “I’m just not certain how you’ll feel about it. I hope you don’t mind spending a good deal of time indoors.”

  “If it keeps my mind on my research, so much the better.”

  “Oh? Are you a scholar?”

  “A surgeon, actually. I’ve just been stricken with the urge to experiment—a hazard of the profession.”

  “You can’t tell me you’ve set up a laboratory here,” said Judith, lifting her eyebrows. The thought that a surgeon might want to experiment on animals turned over uneasily in the back of her mind, like a monster stirring in restless sleep. Surely Hamilton could get all the mice or guinea pigs he wanted legally.

  “A small one, yes. At the moment, I’m rather keen on theory. I had a good deal of practice in Fife.”

  “Practice doing what, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “I’m experimenting with blood transfusion. Dr. Blundell did some marvelous work thirty years ago, but there are still so many advances to be made—and so many puzzles to figure out. For instance—” Just as his eyes were beginning to gleam, he stopped himself. “But it’s no subject for a lady. I’m sorry. And, oh, there’s Mr. Arundell. My dear fellow, do come join us.”

  Hamilton’s relief at avoiding an awkward subject was palpable. Judith could only hope her unease at the situation was much less so. “Good evening,” she said as William approached. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself.”

  A number of inappropriate ways to go on promptly popped up in Judith’s mind, everything from You know how much I like to see you…enjoy yourself to And if you’re not, you can always enjoy me. She bit the inside of her cheek. This would have been a wonderful time to be a pure, innocent miss who knew nothing of innuendo, but she was two hundred and thirty years old and had been a sailor or a soldier for most of that time. She knew a filthy way to interpret every third word in the English language.

  “Oh, yes,” said William, and he smiled slowly at her. There was the innuendo again, only he didn’t even need words. What question was he answering again? “Reminds me of my own youth. Fewer smuggled firecrackers, though.”

  The festival. Enjoying himself. Right. Judith gave herself a firm internal shake, which with any luck would dislodge her mind from her loins for a while. “Don’t say that too loudly,” she said. “People will get ideas.”

  “And McKendry doesn’t need the work,” Hamilton agreed, then gave William a curious look. “You grew up in the country, then?”

  “Yes—Sussex. And my chums and I went to the odd fair or two when we were at school.”

  “With permission?” Judith asked.

  William smiled innocently. “Sometimes.”

  She had to laugh. “Official fireworks might not be a bad idea next year, at that,” she said, remembering nights in Shanghai with a shared bottle of rice wine and colored flowers exploding overhead. “Assuming they won’t scare the horses into a year of fits.”

  “Or cause an avalanche,” said Hamilton, casting a wary eye toward the mountains.

  “No need to worry there. These stones are old and settled.” And if they weren’t, Judith didn’t say, she’d know well in advance. That was one of the things she and her ancestors had always kept an eye on—both with patrols in dragon form and with magic—in one of the north-wing rooms where the servants didn’t go.

  “I’ll take your word for it. I’m a city lad myself. I have to admit that this much nature unnerves me from time to time.”

  “Not an unreasonable point of view,” said William. “Any patch of earth or sea probably has a few surprises left, and they’re more than likely unpleasant to us tiny occupants.”

  “On that,” Judith replied, “we’re agreed.”

  The crowd around them took on a new purpose and headed for the doors of the castle, gawky boys approaching girls with their hands in their pockets and elderly women taking their husbands firmly by the arms. Judith could guess what they were about, and she knew for certain when she heard the first few notes of “The Duke of Perth.”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, “the dancing’s starting. They’ll expect me in the first set—and it’ll warm me up a bit.”

  * * *

  Thinking back later that night, Judith couldn’t say when she’d realized William was watching her. After the second dance she shed her cape, finding the wool of her dress plenty warm enough by then, and maybe she’d glimpsed him as she’d hurried back from the coatroom. Maybe she’d seen him in the corner as she turned to face a new partner. Maybe, and she didn’t like to think much about the possibility, she’d been looking for him the whole time.

  At first he was just standing and holding a glass of ale. He and Hamilton had apparently taken their conversation indoors, and McKendry had joined them along the way. The next time Judith glanced over, as she took Andrew Stewart’s arm and proceeded down the line, Gillian Gordon had joined the three men. McKendry was using her to demonstrate turning while the others laughed.

  Ross, Judith noticed, was neither in the group nor the dance, nor drinking with Gillian’s husband, Ronald. She hoped he was doing the gentlemanly thing and squiring his mother about. Mrs. MacDougal wasn’t as young as she had been, and Gillian could use a change of society.

  The next time she saw William, he was standing across from her and holding out his hands. Judith blinked. The music left her no time for surprise, and many years of practice carried her forward before she was even conscious of moving. “Feeling adventurous?”

  “Always,” he said, flashing her a grin. “Dr. McKendry said this was one of the simpler dances. And—when in Rome…”

  “I’d not have liked the Romans overmuch, I think,” said Judith. William’s hands were warm against hers, not as callused as many of her tenants’ but enough so to increase her suspicion that he was no gentleman of leisure. “But aye.”

  They separated, circled, and came back together. He was a little off count, clearly new at this, but not bad. He’d also taken off his greatcoat in preparation, and it was a grand thing to watch him in motion, even while s
he took petty satisfaction from his errors.

  “You don’t underdo hospitality, do you?” he asked, looking around at the garland-hung hall, then toward the door to where the tables were beginning to fill with silver-covered dishes.

  “I don’t give many parties. There’s no point in going halfway when I do.” Judith wound a figure eight around him, came back, and watched him do the same. “You catch on quickly.”

  “We had to learn the quadrille when I was a boy at school. It’s not very much like this, but it helps a little.”

  Another figure parted them, to the tune of a fiddle and many stomping feet. Judith stepped toward William; they took arms and walked down between the rows of dancers. She wondered for a second if people would talk, but she felt no particular gaze on them. Most people, she thought, would just see Lady MacAlasdair being hospitable to the newcomer. She hoped so, at least.

  “Besides,” said William quietly, “as unexpected skills go, I think mine pale in comparison to yours.”

  “Brothers. I told you.”

  “They must have been extraordinary brothers.” They took hands again. William looked down at her, his eyes bright and razor-keen.

  “They were,” said Judith, smiling thinly. “Are. In many ways.”

  “And—”

  The door burst open before William could go on. Through the crowd, Judith glimpsed Young Hamish, alternately pale and black-streaked.

  Before he opened his mouth, she knew what he was going to yell.

  “Fire!”

  Nineteen

  In an instant, Judith dropped William’s hands and crossed the room, slipping nimbly between the now-frozen people on the floor until she stood at Young Hamish’s side. “The store?” she asked, her face sharp with focus.

  “Aye, m’lady. Started in the chimney, I think.”

  William headed toward the two of them as the rest of the ballroom came out of its paralysis. Movement and sound returned, though muted: whispers and murmurs, uncertain moves toward the door, and more decisive gatherings in a corner.