“Are they not forbidden?”
She felt, rather than saw, the shrug of his shoulders. “That’s an English law, and an old one. Who is to know what we do here?”
“What are they playing?”
“The Sinclairs’ lament. Would you like to know the words?”
She nodded.
“Here is my heart a-calling, now when the night is falling; all the proud Sinclairs greet you here in this glen. Home is the smile to meet you; home is this land to hold you; home is Glenlyon and the spirit of her men.” His hands pressed against her back, bringing her closer to him. “It’s a catchy tune, lass, but there are some who say it’s played a bit much. Still and all, it’s our pipes, and we’ve a right to them.”
She was struck by a sense of loss so profound that it nearly defeated her. She reached up, blindly, and curved her hand around his neck. She laid her forehead against his chest; her other hand rested upon his shoulder. She would never be here again. And circumstance would send her far from Glenlyon, far from the border, perhaps even to London.
But she had tonight. It would have to be enough.
Ten
His fingers threaded through the hair at her temples; his palms flattened on her cheeks. He bent until only an inch separated their lips. Her flesh beneath his hands seemed to warm as he waited, patient. Her breath caught, such a small sound to mark the moment. It was one of complicity more than surrender.
How long had he wanted her? Since he’d first seen her, or even before that? From the beginning of his life? It seemed that long.
“Ealasaid,” he murmured against her lips. Their kiss was a welcoming, to more than passion. To belonging. To love.
He pulled back, finally, and laid his forehead against hers. Her breathing was fast, her hands gripped his arms tightly, and her cheek was hot where he touched it with gentle fingers. Anticipation was part of loving, and he wanted her to feel every measure of the pleasure and pain of it.
As he did. His blood was as heated, his breath as harsh, and his flesh was hard and straining against his trousers.
He pulled away and knelt before her, his hands reaching for her shoes.
“Lachlan?” The question was there in her voice, but she didn’t step back.
He placed his hand on the back of her ankle. A soft tug, and she raised her foot. He quickly removed her shoe.
“You’ve lovely feet, Ealasaid.”
“Thank you,” she said.
So polite, his Ealasaid. Would she thank him, later, in her proper English voice? He grinned. If he did it right, she would.
Another movement, and the other shoe was removed. He burrowed beneath her skirt, trailed his hands up one leg to the top of her stockings. He looked up at her. She was staring down at him, but she did not step away. A slight tremor raced under her skin, as if she were awakening to his touch one slow inch at a time.
“I’ve wanted my hands on you since the night I first saw you, Ealasaid.” His hands met at her knee. He was prevented from touching her skin by the coarse weave of her stockings. Why didn’t she wear silk and fine ribbons? And why were her clothes of less fine quality than those of a rich English miss? This observation amused him, since the only real concern he had for clothing right at this moment was to remove hers as soon as possible. Other questions would be asked and answered at a later time.
He began rolling the hem of her skirt up slowly. He was a man with a notion of seduction on his mind. And she seemed in tune with it, her arms fallen to her sides, her gaze not moving from his hands. He reached up and gently folded her hand around the edge of her skirt. Complicity was so much more heady than dominance. He wanted her to be his partner in this act.
Once her legs were visible, he trailed his fingers to the top of one stocking and hooked his thumb inside it, feeling her skin for the first time. Soft and warm. A sound like a growl emerged from between his lips, some male noise that was both appreciation and warning to her if she but knew it. He rolled the stocking down her leg, taking his time with it.
When her leg was bared, he bent forward and kissed her naked knee. Her hand fluttered out—whether in protest or from sensation, he didn’t know. But her only words were a soft gasp of sound, a tiny whimper.
“Ealasaid,” he said, tracing her name in a soft kiss against her skin.
He reached for her other stocking and rolled it down. Instead of kissing her, he reared back and looked at her. One of her hands was on her mouth, knuckles pressed against her full lips. The other was clasped to her waist, holding her skirt from falling.
“You look just as you did the night I first saw you, wading in the burn and pretending to be a brownie,” he said, the sound of his voice harsher than he intended. She had no comment for that, but then, he didn’t expect one.
He bent forward and kissed the knee recently bared, trailed his fingers up the back of her leg from ankle to knee. She trembled beneath his touch.
“Your skin is almost hot, as if a fever burns you.”
They were well matched in that. He was consumed in fire, hiding it only by the greatest of wills. Had he not, he would be inside her now, with her legs wrapped around him, easing this damnable ache of too many days’ duration. But she was innocent and she was his, and he would have her pleasured and sighing in his arms by daybreak.
By such vows were Sinclairs known.
His hands made the slow progression from her knees to her thighs, burrowing under fabric, pushing it aside. His fingers skimmed over the smoothness of her skin, sweeping over curves and then repeating the gesture in appreciation for her sweetly rounded flesh. Again, a small gasp from her. It seemed to measure both her innocence and his daring.
His hands slid beneath fabric, traced even farther upward until they reached her hips. His thumbs met and brushed against the curls at the juncture of her thighs. Not intrusive, only teasing.
He looked up. Her eyes were closed.
“You feel warm here, too, Ealasaid,” he said softly.
Her knees trembled. Her fist pressed tight against her lips as if to restrain a sound.
He reached up and pulled her down to him, and she sank like a feather into his arms. Kissing her was like falling into a void where the only constants were her hands gripping him and the surge of blood in his veins. His body thrummed, shouting messages of hurry! and now! His mind seemed to have similarly lost its sanity and sided with his flesh. Both feverishly urged him to ease himself into her.
Patience, Lachlan.
He laid her down on the grass of Glenlyon, bent over her and unlaced her dress.
“I’m of a mind to make you mine this moment, Ealasaid,” he said, his voice having lost its teasing edge. “Tell me you’re not afraid.” Please.
She only shook her head from side to side. Her hands were clenched in the material of her skirt, and he gently pried it from her grip. His fingers fumbled with her clothing, his experience forgotten, his haste and hunger only too apparent in the trembling of his fingers and his rapid breath.
Somehow in the last few minutes, even silent, even still, she’d transformed him into a ravening beast. When his hands found her breasts and cupped around them, he uttered a gusty, relieved sigh. Appeasement was close.
He pushed her dress up until it was wadded around her torso. Half in desperation, half with humor, he swore venomously. He was rescued by Ealasaid sitting up and sliding the material over her head.
Another moment, and she did the same with her undergarments. She was finally, gloriously, naked.
In another minute, so was he.
A proper woman would have stayed his hands, or moved away, or told him no when he announced his intent. But she had lost those careful markers that showed the way to a circumspect life. Censure simply did not matter. Pride was buried beneath future loneliness. Consequences did not hold as much power as curiosity. She was desperately lonely, an expatriate offered a night of freedom with those of her kind. To hear the Gaelic and the pipes, to be a Scottish lass for these moments,
seemed a blessed gift. She wanted all that was hers to want, all those things she’d been told to put aside, emotions too volatile for polite company, passions too strong for her position. She wanted, for a few hours, to be the woman she could have been, had not circumstance altered her life.
And most of all, she wanted him.
She wished she could have been perfumed in roses for him, with her hair brushed until it shined, and her gown one of silk. But she would not have changed the hour or the time or the setting of this joining. Let it be here, at Glenlyon, with the sound of the pipes a soft and wistful backdrop. She would remember it always.
His hands cupped her breasts; his finger traced from a full curve to the length of her nipple, measuring it. Her back arched in surprise at the touch of his lips there, and her body seemed to heat even further.
A low keening sigh slipped from her as he suckled her. Her hands reached up to bracket his head, fingers spearing into the thickness of his hair. With suddenly demanding hands, she brought his mouth to hers, instantly changing his soft chuckle to a guttural moan.
No woman had ever embraced her ruination with such hunger.
His teeth grazed the underside of her breast, and his fingers smoothed over her belly. She made a sound, a pairing of groan and entreaty, and gripped his arms with trembling hands.
Her body felt as if it was weeping. She ached in places rarely felt, and she needed something she’d only dreamed about in the last few days. Him. Lachlan.
His fingers stroked her intimately, urging her to whimper in his arms. When she did, he bent down and whispered into her ear, some harsh and lovely words in Gaelic. The sound of it was right for this place, for this moment, beneath the skies with only the earth and the stars as witness.
He was heavy against her, his flesh hard and hot and insistent. She widened her legs in wordless invitation. He accepted it instantly, lowered himself over her, and entered her with a sudden, sharp thrust.
Her soft moan of pain stopped him. He braced his hands on either side of her arms and lowered his head, his breath coming in great, shuddering gasps.
“There’s a time and a place to be grateful for your innocence, Ealasaid, but I cannot tell you that now is one of them.”
It was an odd time to feel a spike of humor.
She surged up beneath him, clamping her hands upon his hips and driving him into her. His low and fevered curse accompanied the pain of his full entry. She ached with it, but it was not unbearable, even with him settled in her, hard as iron and almost as heavy.
“My innocence is no longer an encumbrance,” she murmured, trying to hide her smile. But he began to kiss her then, only to rear back and look at her. In the dark, his expression was hidden. Was he angry?
“It could be that we’ve wasted a few days,” he said, his voice amused.
“And precious moments now,” she said, her fingers trailing over his arms.
He surged more fully within her. His fingers clamped on either side of her head, kept her steady for his kiss. Amusement abruptly faded beneath the hunger again. He gripped her hands and entwined their fingers, their elbows grinding into the grass.
“Come with me, my Ealasaid, because I cannot wait.” He began thrusting into her, a long, slow, measured invasion that counted off a cadence as old as time.
Her gaze was on his face, even though he was draped in shadow. She knew he watched her, as well.
Each time he thrust against her, an answering spark seemed to glow. Flickers of sensation began to mask the ache and grow within it, rendering it unimportant. A small wildfire began to race along her spine; a cord within her was lit, and the flames traveled up and over and through her. They were colored orange and red and blue and a fiery orchid, and all the hues and tints she could imagine.
She closed her eyes, helpless in the face of it. Lachlan leaned forward, kissed her, and whispered words into her ear. Tha gaol agam ort. She knew the words well, had heard them from her parents often: I love you. His skin was slick with sweat, and his hands clamped on her hips as he drove deep.
She cried out, and he swallowed her cry, his kiss urging her on to touch all the colors of this magical rainbow, to become part of him as he was even now part of her.
He took her, this reiver, to a place she’d never been before, one in which there was no silence and no loneliness, only weeping joy and a belonging of the flesh and mind and heart.
When it was over, and after the night had reluctantly given way to the first creeping rays of dawn, she held him in her arms and loved him again, feeling neither shyness nor regret for her actions.
He was, after all, her beloved.
Eleven
He dismounted before he reached the house, then reached up and scooped her into his arms.
“You’re tired, lass,” he said gently, smiling down into her sleepy face. She’d nodded off during their trip home. He’d wanted to keep her at Glenlyon but had not wanted to cause dissention in his new family by doing so. Her parents would not understand, being English, that her Scots wedding was as legal as any obtained in England. Perhaps he could talk with her father and see if their wedding could be advanced. He disliked the idea of leaving her. Too, he realized that he didn’t particularly want to wait many more days until they were wed in the English fashion.
He could imagine Coinneach’s response to that admission.
She wound her arms around his neck and nuzzled her face into his neck. She murmured something, the feel of her lips against his skin too enticing. He had a long ride ahead of him, and she needed to be in her bed before the sun crept any higher in the sky.
“Lass,” he said. “ ’Tis true I’ve worn you out, but you’ll have to wake up now.” His grin was quick as she mumbled something but made no move to open her eyes.
He set her on her feet and steadied her. For a long moment, she leaned against him. Then she sighed and stood upright, weaving only slightly.
“I should feel like a sinner, Lachlan. If nothing else, wicked. But I don’t. Isn’t that daft of me?”
He smiled. “We did nothing wrong,” he said, his hands rubbing from her shoulders to her wrists. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. This moment of parting was becoming more and more difficult. “We’ve done nothing the kirk would punish us for.” He leaped down and brushed a kiss against her forehead. “I can’t properly call you lass from now on, can I? But I’ve grown accustomed to calling you Ealasaid. Do you mind it to your first name? It’s an ugly one, I’m thinking, and it bears no resemblance to you.”
“Janet is not such a terrible name,” she said and leaned against him, half asleep still.
“Janet?” He pulled back and looked into her face. Her eyes opened reluctantly. “Have you a bevy of names, then? I’m talking about Harriet; I’ve no liking for that one. You’ve not the look of a Harriet, you know.”
She opened her eyes wider and shook her head slowly. “My name isn’t Harriet.”
He speared his hand through his hair, with the oddest feeling that he had not heard her words correctly. Or perhaps he was still asleep on the grass of Glenlyon, sated and pleased and more hopeful for his future than he’d been in a long time.
“My name isn’t Harriet,” she repeated. Her voice was soft, but he heard the words right enough.
He shook his head. “Aye, it is. Squire Hanson’s daughter. My English bride.”
It was as if the words he’d spoken had been carried on tiny bullets that embedded themselves in her heart. His English bride. Which meant, of course, that he could only be one person. Not simply a Scots reiver. Not a man from Glenlyon, but their laird.
She could see his face in the dawn light. His eyes seemed to scream at her.
“I am not Harriet,” she whispered. She took one small step back from him. The distance might have been measured in miles for all the endless time it took. “My name is Janet.”
She took one more step back from him. Then another.
“And you’re the laird of the Sinclairs, ar
en’t you?” Her voice trembled.
He nodded. Once. A short, sharp nod. “Didn’t you know it, lass? That was my clan about me all night. They greeted you well enough as my future wife.”
She shook her head over and over. But negating it didn’t make this moment go away or wipe out the past few days. She’d fallen in love with him, with his smile and his laughter and his rueful admission of disliking reiving. He had loved her, and she’d held him when he’d shuddered against her, and he’d kissed her when she’d moaned. And now he stood looking at her as if she was a ghost.
“I’m not Harriet,” she said once more.
“Then who are you?” The words sounded no louder than a whisper for all their harshness. Did he find this moment to be as odd and strange? As if nothing were right about it, as if it was a dream induced by too many comfits or too many spirits.
“I am Harriet’s companion,” she said dully. “I read to her when she’s bored and straighten her threads and massage her forehead. That’s all. I do not offer peace on the border nor a dowry for you.”
Silence lay between them, a valley in which nothing grew. Not explanations nor apologies or regrets. What she thought was incapable of being translated into speech, and whatever he felt was trapped behind his silence.
The dawn sky lightened. The odd stillness between them was marred by the sound of a bird calling from a nearby tree. An alarm of nature. “You’d better go inside, then, before you’re discovered.”
She only nodded.
There were too many words they might say, and none they could. She lowered her gaze, turned, and walked away.
He told himself to stop watching her, to turn away as easily as she did. Both warnings were ignored as he stared after her. The hope that had so joyfully come to him the moment he’d met her and had only grown in her presence was gone. All his belief in the future was gone, too.
Scottish Brides Page 29
