Never Kiss a Laird

by Byrnes, Tess

  “Don’t you try to charm me, Hugh,” the old woman warned angrily. “I would never have pegged you as a womanizer and a scoundrel. I am extremely displeased. If word of this was to get out, no respectable family would ever receive you! No mother of an unmarried daughter would allow a trifler and libertine into her home.”

  An unwilling laugh escaped Sally’s lips. “Oh, your spotless reputation,” she teased in a voice only Hugh could hear. He turned and the wicked gleam in his brown eyes was reflected back in her blue ones.

  “What is going on here,” Regina Denham suddenly appeared at her daughter’s door. “I thought I told you to go to bed, Sarah.” As she moved further into the room, her outraged glance took in Hugh, his state of undress, and the presence of a champagne flute in her daughter’s hand. “Sally Denham, what is this man doing in your bedchamber?” She noticed the thin nightgown that was her daughter’s only covering. “Put on your robe at once!” she shrieked.

  “Please allow me to introduce, myself, ma’am,” Hugh said, with a quiver of laughter in his voice. “I am the Earl of Kane.”

  “I hope you mean to tell me what you are doing in my daughter’s bedroom in the middle of the night, sir!” she demanded, although her tone had changed subtly at the introduction. She looked keenly at her daughter, and seeing the happy flush on her cheeks, and the disheveled state of her nightgown, a calculating look came into her cold eyes..

  “Certainly, but explanations can wait until the morning.” Hugh demurred. “I must return my godmother to her room. I will call upon you and the Viscount in the morning.”

  “See that you do,” she snapped, determined that one way or another that special license would be put to use in two days’ time.

  Hugh bowed, and with a final, apologetic glance at Sally, he shepherded his furious godmother from the room.

  Lady Waverly turned at the last minute, and caught the caressing smile that Sally gave to her disgraced lover. “You two should be ashamed of yourselves. I don’t know which one of you is the worse, but I begin to think that you suit each other perfectly.”

  Sally and Hugh exchanged a conspiratorial look. “I begin to thing so, too,” the Earl murmured.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The moors were a riot of early summer wildflowers, nature’s last display before the landscape would once again resume it’s stark, autumnal splendor. Just now the countryside was covered with purple heather, blue harebells, and dotted with white and yellow mountain avens. A blush of starry moss campion gave a pink glow to the edges of the moors, and beyond, clouds of yellow gorse reflected the warm sunlight.

  The Earl and Countess of Kane dismounted, tying their mounts, Rufus and Beauty, to a convenient bog myrtle branch.

  Hugh pulled a small leather satchel from Rufus’s saddle, and slipped his arm around Sally’s waist as they wandered through the scented countryside.

  “Did Mrs. White send a picnic?” Sally asked, looking at the bag Hugh carried. “She has been over-feeding me shamelessly ever since we were married.” She thought for a moment, then commented hopefully, “Actually, I am a bit peckish. Did she send sandwiches?”

  “No,” he replied evasively. “It’s something I brought along.”

  Sally gave him a quizzical look, but forbore to question him in the pleasure of gathering a bouquet of wild flowers. The sun was hot, and bees buzzed lazily around them, gathering nectar for the thick dark honey that Mrs. White supplied every morning with Sally’s scones.

  By the time she had gathered an armful of blooms, Sally realized that they had wandered quite a ways from the horses.

  “Should we head back?” she said reluctantly.

  “Just a little further,” Hugh urged.

  Sally was puzzled, but as she looked around herself she realized they were very close to the caves Hugh had played in as a child. “Where are you taking me?” she asked suspiciously.

  Hugh merely smiled and took her hand, pulling her behind him as he climbed the gentle rise up to the cave in which they had sought shelter during the thunderstorm.

  Entering the cool, dark cave, Sally looked around in wonder. Someone had arranged candelabras on every flat surface, and the little cave glowed with the reflection of hundreds of candle flames. In the center of the cave a bed had been positioned. The posts at the four corners were so tall they almost touched stone at the top. Sally was a little perturbed to see that her best Battenberg lace bedding adorned the inviting bed.

  She turned to look at her husband. “How on earth did you accomplish all this?” she asked a little accusingly.

  “We have unfinished business in this cave, my lady,” Hugh grinned.

  “Hugh McLeod, if there is a maid’s dress in that satchel,” Sally threatened, trying not to smile, “I will march right out of this cave.”

  Hugh laughed out loud, clapping a hand to his forehead. “How did I forget that?” He dropped the bag he carried on the end of the bed, and scooped his wife up in his arms, gently setting her on the bed.

  Sally felt the familiar reaction to his proximity that three months of marriage had only intensified. She watched him open the leather satchel and pull out a velvet-covered box.

  “Sally, we did not have a conventional courting,” he began.

  Sally smiled tenderly at her husband. “No, we definitely did not.”

  “We became lovers before we even knew each other.”

  Sally grinned. “I was, after all, a fallen woman.”

  Hugh chuckled. “Well, if you weren’t before we met, you certainly were thereafter. But everything happened out of order, and I never gave you an engagement ring. I would like to rectify that omission now.” He opened the small box, and a singularly fine solitaire diamond, set in a gold ring, twinkled in the candlelight.

  “Hugh!” Sally exclaimed, eyeing the gorgeous ring. “You have given me everything already. This is not necessary.”

  He slipped the ring onto her finger, nestling it up against the plain gold band already there, pressing his lips to her hand.

  “You saved me from a life of dishonor and shame, after all,” Sally continued, caressing his hair with her other hand. “And you rescued me from a most unwanted suitor, ruining your own reputation in the process.”

  Hugh grinned at the memory. He slowly climbed up onto the bed, and stretched out beside Sally. “Yes, we are quite the disgraced pair,” he murmured, kissing her. “Now, where were we?”

  THE END