by Julia London
Cailean fumbled with his buckskins to free his arousal as Daisy pushed her gown from her body. He made a guttural sound of pleasure when she tossed it aside and sat up, holding her tightly on his lap to take one breast in his mouth, sucking the hardened peak into his tongue.
Blinded by desire and beyond redemption, Daisy wanted to give him what he had given her. She lifted herself up, then guided herself onto his cock as she covered his face with kisses, a mix of desire and adoration filling her body and soul, spilling out of her, enveloping him. It didn’t seem possible that she could feel so profoundly for another human being, to want him and his touch so bad that nothing else mattered.
He was moving in her, driving her to the brink again. Daisy trembled with sheer anticipation; the fever between them overwhelmed her, and Cailean, too, because he suddenly yanked her up like a doll and twisted them around, so that she was on her back on the settee. His actions grew more urgent, and he slipped his hand between her legs and stroked her in time to his movements.
It was Daisy who plummeted first. Her release drew a powerful one from Cailean. He was spent, and he somberly gathered her in his arms and pressed his face to her neck. Daisy clung to him as the heat ebbed from their bodies, afraid to let him go. If she let go of her hold of him, she would lose him forever.
Cailean, however, did not feel that panic, for he pushed up from her, kissed her tenderly, then sat up, still trying to catch his breath. He grinned at her. “You hair will need a wee bit of tidying.”
She laughed and sat up, reaching for her gown. She slipped it over her head and began to take the pins from her hair so that she might put it up again. There was an ease between them, a sense of comfort. Such compatibility, such harmony that Daisy said, without thinking, “I’m not going to marry him.”
Cailean paused in fastening his buckskins and looked at her. “Pardon?”
“I won’t marry Robert.” She smiled, certain he’d think this happy news.
But Cailean frowned thoughtfully and motioned for her to turn around so he could lace her gown. “Why no’?”
“How can I possibly?” she asked. “As it happens, I’m in love with someone else.”
The pulling of her laces suddenly stopped. And then Cailean put his hands on her shoulders and turned her about. “What did you say?”
“I said, I’m in love with someone else.”
She expected his blue eyes to shine. But Cailean’s frown only deepened, and Daisy’s belly began to quiver with dread. He took her face in his hands. “Diah, leannan, what are you doing?” he asked plaintively.
The quiver turned to nausea. “I just told you I love you, Cailean.”
But Cailean shook his head, and Daisy’s heart, so full only moments ago, began to deflate. “It’s impossible, Daisy, aye? You know it is. I’ve been honest with you, have I no’? From the beginning, have I no’ said—”
“That you had no interest in my fortune,” she said, shoving against his chest. “But you have interest in me, Cailean—you do! You obviously do!”
“Aye, of course I do!” He groaned, shoving a hand through his hair. He looked as if he was trying to impart something very important and she was refusing to listen. “Listen to me now. I want you with everything that I have,” he said, knocking his fist against his chest. “But I canna marry you, lass.”
“I didn’t—”
He wouldn’t let her speak. He took hold of her chin. “Heed me,” he said. “I’m no’ welcome in England and, in fact, I am wanted there. And frankly, you’re no’ particularly welcome here. Even if you were, leannan, I am five and thirty, well past the age for marrying and a family.”
Not only was her heart completely deflated now; the queasiness was strong. She sank onto the settee and pressed her hand against her belly.
Cailean sat beside her and took her hand. “My duty is to take my da’s place and lead this clan. And that I will do, before the end of the year. I canna leave Scotland now, no’ when Spivey knows where I am and what we do. England would mean the end of me, aye? No, I willna leave Scotland, Daisy, but you must leave Scotland. For the sake of Ellis, you must leave. You know what I say is true.”
Daisy couldn’t comprehend how this man, this beautiful, perfect man, could make love to her like he had and then say such jarring and awful words.
“A Diah,” he muttered, studying her. “You know I am right, leannan. Ellis must be in England. He’s a viscount. He has property, and he will need the connections only England can give him, aye? He canna hide away in the Highlands with a free trader, and neither can you.”
He was right. She knew he was right. But God help her, how she wanted him to be wrong. No matter what she felt, no matter who she loved, her responsibility to her son was far greater than her own wants. She knew this. She had always known this.
The weight of the truth was too much for Daisy. She pulled her hand free of his and sagged to one side, bracing her arms against the settee, breathing heavily, feeling as if she might be sick. All the wild hope she’d felt riding to Arrandale, all the hope she’d harbored that Cailean would somehow save her had been a foolish little dream. That dream was too much to carry now, and she felt as if she would collapse.
“Daisy,” Cailean said, and he caught her up in his arms, cradling her against his body. Daisy thought of Ellis, her boy, probably wondering where she was, and pushed free of his embrace. She didn’t need him. She didn’t need anyone. She stood and unsteadily shook out her skirts, then tried, unsuccessfully, to tuck her hair back into some coif. She finally gave up and let it hang loose down her back. She took several steps toward the door, almost stumbling away from him.
“Daisy, for the love of Christ,” Cailean said and put his arm around her shoulders, trying to pull her back, to keep her from leaving.
She held up her hand to make him stop. She swallowed hard, trying to gather herself, but her heart was still breaking, shattering into little pieces. She needed a moment before she could speak. Finally she asked, “What did it mean?”
He looked at her strangely, glanced at the settee, trying to understand her question.
“What you said when you left Auchenard,” she said. “What did it mean?”
“Och, lass,” Cailean said and gently stroked her hair. “It doesna matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Cailean stroked her hair. “I’d rather you no’ know. There is enough heartache, is there no’?”
She laughed ruefully. “It is too late to spare me, Cailean. My heart is broken into pieces. What did you say?”
He grabbed her hands and held them tightly. “That I love you, aye? That’s what I said, Daisy. I love you. I miss you. I am sorry for all of it.” He roughly smoothed her hair. “I love you with all that I have,” he said, his voice ragged with emotion.
A sob of despair caught in her throat. “I love you, too, Cailean. Dear God, how much I do.” She was utterly defeated now. She felt like so many disjointed pieces, a broken toy trying to function properly. She pulled her hands free of his and turned away, blinded by tears and overwhelming disappointment. She heard him say her name, but she was already walking. And then she was running. Running out of the house, for her horse, away from Scotland.
He went after her, of course, calling her name, but Daisy scrambled onto the back of her horse before he could reach her, and she spurred him on, because she couldn’t bear to hear another word. Not a single word.
It was unbearable and devastating to know that she’d found love—real, soul-searing love—and couldn’t have it because of her wretched place in this world, and because of Ellis, because of what her son needed to thrive and what his title needed from him.
It was so horribly, wretchedly, heartbreakingly unfair.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
OF COURSE CAILEAN knew she’d left—he saw the boats
going by with passengers and crates and trunks. He’d been tormented by it, too, wanting for the truth of their lives to be different and feeling wholly impotent in his power to change it.
He had to believe it was best it had ended as it had.
A few days later, Cailean and Aulay sailed for Norway.
Cailean knew he was miserable company. His brother thought it a fever, but there was nothing physically wrong with Cailean. His complaint, acknowledged only in his private thoughts, was his heart—it wanted free of his chest. It felt tight, as if something were tugging on it, making him so uncomfortable that he remained in a foul humor.
They were gone longer than he’d anticipated—almost sixteen days in all owing to unfavorable winds on the return voyage—and by the time they arrived back in Scotland, he still hadn’t rid his thoughts of her. It was like she had perched there, her eyes and devilish little smile taunting him at all hours of the day.
When he walked into Balhaire, he was immediately set upon by his mother. “Cailean, you must come!” she said, grabbing his hand. “Where is Aulay? Vivienne has been delivered of a boy!”
At long last, Vivienne’s fourth child had arrived in this world, and from the look of it, the bairn was a strong, healthy lad. Cailean leaned over the bed where Vivienne suckled her son, marveling at his little fingers, his button nose.
“He arrived a week past,” Vivienne said, stroking the lad’s dark patch of fuzz. “He gave me quite a fight, he did, but look at him, Cailean. Go on, then—hold him,” she said and unlatched the baby from her breast.
“I ought no’—”
“Donna be afraid of him.” Vivienne laughed. “He’s like all my bairns before him—he willna break.” She slipped the baby into his hands. The bairn began to wiggle his legs, his rosebud mouth searching for his mother’s breast. Cailean managed to get him into the crook of his arm—he didn’t believe Vivienne that he’d not break—and stroked his cheek.
“We’ll call him Bruce,” she said.
Aye, a strong name for a strong lad. Cailean looked down at Bruce and thought of Ellis. He was suddenly overcome with a well of longing so deep and vast that he was startled by tears of old and new regrets that began to burn in his eyes.
“Cailean,” Vivienne said softly, surprised. “A grha, what is wrong?”
Cailean swallowed back those blasted tears and handed the bairn back to his mother. “He’s bonny, Viv,” he said. “Bonny Bruce.” He smiled through the sheen of tears, touched Vivienne’s face and then went out as his sister and her husband exchanged a baffled look behind him.
Outside her chambers, Cailean paused, pressed his back against the wall and looked heavenward. For the first time in his adult life, he had no idea what to do with his emotions.
He shook his head and carried on to his father’s study. He knocked lightly and went inside.
“Cailean, come in, then,” his father said.
He did not rise from his seat behind the desk, a certain sign his leg ailed him today.
“How did you find Norway? Aulay believes it holds promise.”
“Aye, that it does,” Cailean agreed, although he’d be hard-pressed to recall any of the details in his current state. He walked to the hearth and looked into the fire.
“We’ve a lot to discuss, aye? There’s been a Jacobite uprising to the south of us,” his father said, then began to relate the news as he’d heard it. Cailean was generally quite interested in such news, but today he scarcely heard his father; his thoughts were miles away.
“Diah, have you heard a word?” his father said.
Cailean snapped to attention and jerked around. Somewhere in the course of the news, his father had stood up from his desk and come around to a chair, and Cailean hadn’t noticed. He was sitting with his leg stretched out before him. He studied Cailean as he rubbed his thigh. “What’s wrong with you, lad?”
“Wrong?”
His father’s ice-blue eyes narrowed, and he clucked his tongue. “I’m your father, am I no’? You look as if you lost your pup.”
All his life, his father had seen past the facade Cailean presented to the world. He had never been able to hide when he was troubled. He sighed, walked to the settee and sat heavily, bracing his arms on his legs as he leaned forward. “It’s far worse than losing a pup, aye?”
His father looked confused for a moment, but then he nodded and shook his head. “The Englishwoman, is it?”
Cailean’s eyes widened with surprise. “How do you know this?”
“Och, I donna know it at all,” he said with a flick of his wrist. “Your mother is the one who noticed. As has Rabbie.”
It was even worse, then, if his family had determined what ailed him.
“Donna look at me like that, lad—you’re no’ the first one of us to be afflicted by a woman, are you, then? She’s gone, is she?”
“Aye.”
“It’s good that she is. She’d no’ be safe at Auchenard.”
“No,” Cailean agreed morosely.
His father said nothing for a long moment. Then, “You love her.”
It was not a question. Cailean shrugged. “I do,” he admitted.
“Well, well,” his father mused. “Then there is naugh’ to be done for it, is there? You’ll go and get her.” He shrugged, as if directing his son to go to the hall and fetch some ale.
Cailean laughed ruefully. “She’s in London.”
His father lifted his hands. “Your uncle has a town house there.”
Cailean gaped at his father. “Have you forgotten that I am a free trader, then? That I was on the ship when the English seaman was shot by one of our muskets? Or have you forgotten that my grandfather was a known traitor? I’d no’ be welcome there,” he scoffed.
“Have you forgotten that it was your uncle who exposed your grandfather? They canna prove you are a free trader, lad. You’d be as welcome as any Scot. No’ warmly, mind you. But you might move freely.”
Cailean shook his head. It wasn’t that simple.
“Go. Dress like them, speak like them. Your uncle Knox will help, aye? He’s excellent connections.”
“And what, then, knock on her door and...?”
“And offer for her hand,” his father said, as if Cailean was thick.
Again Cailean shook his head. “She’s no doubt married now, aye?”
“And if she is, she’ll say no, and you’ll ride like the wind away from there. But if she’s no’ yet married?”
Cailean grimaced. He rubbed his face with his hands. “She may yet say no.”
His father smiled sympathetically. He reached across the space between them and put his hand to Cailean’s shoulder, squeezing it. “You’ve been wounded before, you have. And if you are wounded again, it willna hurt any less. No, lad, it will hurt like hell. You will prefer the pain of a musket ball to that.”
Cailean chuckled ruefully. “Do you mean to encourage me, then?”
His father grinned. “A man canna go through life without pain, aye? If she says no, you may console yourself with the knowledge that you were bloody well right, that women are more treacherous than the English, and you may never want for them again. You can live a life of misery and fall into drink and forsake your family.” His grin broadened as he leaned forward. “But at least you will know, will you no’? Better to die a bitter man than an ignorant one.”
“What of Arrandale? What of Balhaire?” he asked, gesturing to his father’s leg. “I’m to assume your responsibilities.”
“I’m no’ dead quite as yet. I can manage well enough a few months more. And I have Rabbie. Cat, too.”
A tiny light of possibility opened in Cailean’s thoughts. He was almost afraid to hope. He stood up and began to pace. “What of the trade with the Norwegians?”
“Aulay,” his
father said, as if it were all so very simple. Cailean shot him an impatient look and his father chuckled. “Diah, Cailean—you’ll no’ be forever gone, will you?”
“I canna bring her here,” he said flatly. “In the best of worlds, if she agrees to marry me, I canna bring her here.”
“Aye, you can. No one will touch her at Balhaire. I’d no’ go to Auchenard, no’ while the Jacobites are about, and no’ after the English captain has been there. But she may come here, and she and her family will be welcome.”
Cailean’s mind began to churn. He linked his fingers, ran his hand over his head. “There is the matter of her son. He’s a viscount. His education, his connections must be made in England.”
“Aye, they must. But he’s a wee bairn, Cailean. Cat said his tutor has come to Auchenard with him. Will he no’ come to Balhaire? When he’s older, he might return to England for his training, aye?”
Cailean desperately wanted to believe there was hope. He glanced at his father, and a swell of love washed over him. “How can I leave you now, Athair?” he asked plaintively. “You need me, aye?”
His father smiled fondly. “I canna move as well as I once did, aye, it is true. But I’ve four other children besides you, Cailean. Any one of them might act in my stead. We’ll do well enough without you for a time, and you need no’ worry over me yet.” Arran Mackenzie slowly came to his feet. “My advice is to go now, lad. Donna think too long or you will think your way out of it, aye? Go while the fire burns.”
The fire, so to speak, was suddenly burning brighter than it had in days.
* * *
IT WAS ASTONISHING how quickly a man with determination could arrange things. Cailean gave no thought to the dangers he faced. He could think only of stopping Daisy before she married.
He sought out Aulay, who was preparing to sail back to Norway. “I need passage to England,” he said.
“Are you mad?” Aulay demanded. “There’s too much to be done to romp off to England.”
“That I know, as well as you. But we’re sailing south.”
