It was one thing to retrieve letters by stealth, quite another to invade a ducal mansion by climbing over a young lady’s balcony.
Megan finished with the fire, and was ready to retire early, the better to enjoy Hamish’s company when he came to call in the morning. He’d said he’d come by, and he wasn’t the sort to break his word.
She had closed her bedroom door and pulled a few pins from her hair when a movement in the shadows caught her eye.
How lovely, for Megan had been in error. Apparently, Hamish MacHugh was the sort to fall fast asleep in his intended’s very bed.
Hamish had drifted off on anxious thoughts of the trouble his siblings could get up to without him on hand to supervise, but he dreamed instead of bliss.
A gentle arm wrapped about his middle, soft caresses trailed over his back, a sweet kiss was pressed to his shoulder. No camp follower had ever smelled this delicious, no army cot had ever been this luxurious.
He sat up. “Damn it to hell. I fell asleep.”
Megan remained beside him, in the bed. “You don’t snore.”
“You’ll not be informing the world of that, please. I meant only to rest my eyes.” And the bed had looked so inviting, all warm covers, fluffy pillows, and elegant velvet hangings.
“I know how that feels,” Megan said, trailing a hand down Hamish’s arm. “If my eyes get too tired, there’s nothing else I can do but close them and rest, they sting and water so. Cuddle up, Hamish. I’ve missed you.”
Cuddle up. He’d never heard that particular command before and he liked the thought of obeying too well.
“I shouldn’t be in this bed with you, Meggie.”
She hiked up on her elbows, which dipped the covers low enough to reveal a fetching décolletage embroidered with emerald vines and pink roses.
“You’d better not be sharing a bed with anybody else, Hamish MacHugh.”
He flipped the covers back, but stayed where he was, felled by the sight of Megan with her hair in a single loose braid.
That braid begged to be unraveled. “Are you the jealous kind, then, Meggie mine?”
“Where you are concerned, I am. If you don’t intend to be a faithful husband, we’d best part ways now.”
Megan had surprised herself with that declaration. Hamish saw the hesitation in her eyes, the vulnerability and the resolution. Well, damn Fletcher Pilkington all over again.
Hamish crouched over his beloved. “Listen to me, Meggie. Firstly, when I make a vow, I keep it. Forsaking all others, means forsaking all others. Secondly, I suspect once we’re wed, the effort required to show up at meals with a few clothes on will tax the limit of my abilities. I’m marrying a passionate woman.”
That reply earned him a kiss on the mouth. “So make love with me, Hamish. We’re in a bed, with a guarantee of privacy, and opportunities like this won’t come along very often.”
Opportunities like this ought to never come along this side of heaven. “I thought we’d talk, Meggie. Cuddle a bit, visit, and get to know each other better.”
Perhaps Hamish already knew his intended well enough, because he could tell by the way she tucked the covers around him, that she was humoring him. From her, humoring wasn’t so bad, but Hamish wasn’t a complete fool.
He climbed off of her and situated himself at her side. His cock objected mightily to the change of location, which was just too bloody bad. To take Megan in his arms would be privilege enough that—
Megan slid an arm under Hamish’s neck and urged him closer.
“Meggie, my self-restraint is that of a mere mortal man. Don’t expect me to—”
“Cuddle up, Hamish,” she said, wrestling him into the position of her choosing. “Let me hold you for a change.”
“If you insist.” Thank heavens he’d shaved before embarking on this sortie. Her breast made the softest pillow beneath his cheek.
“I do insist,” she said, stroking his hair away from his brow. “What would you like to talk about?”
He wanted to talk about her breasts, her kisses, and what they should name their first eight children.
“Do you miss your parents, Meggie?”
She caressed his ear, which resulted in a curious, shivering sensation. “Of course not. They just left. Do you miss yours?”
He had known she would be this type of wife—fierce, perceptive, brave—but the reality was still a challenge.
“I do. My mama especially, because I was a boy when she died. Part of my job as oldest is to keep her memory alive for my younger siblings, to tell the stories. My father hasn’t been gone as long, though I fancy he’d have made a proper duke, given the chance.”
“Was he stern?”
Megan’s caresses were soothing, making everything in Hamish relax and his eyes grow heavy. Desire hummed through his lassitude, sweeter than the usual ache he felt when near Megan, but no less demanding.
“Papa was more stern than most of the generals I served under, but I suspect now he was mostly bluster. This isn’t what I came here to discuss, Meggie.”
She yawned, which had the effect of gently raising and lowering Hamish’s pillow. “What did you want to discuss?”
Hamish owed Megan an explanation of how matters stood between him and Sir Fletcher Pilkington. That explanation wasn’t exactly urgent—he’d shied away from it earlier in the day—but neither had putting it off made the telling easier.
“This morning, you asked me about Spain.”
Megan shifted, or rather, commenced an ambush. Hamish had been floating on the cusp of bliss and torment one moment, the next he was being rolled onto his back, his intended positioning herself over him on all fours.
“This morning I changed the subject,” Megan said. “You weren’t mentioned in the dispatches, you don’t socialize with your fellow officers, and my soldier cousins haven’t much to say where you’re concerned. I have the impression that for some men, campaigning across Spain was the occasional inconvenient battle between taking out the hounds, flirting with the ladies, and playing jokes on fellow officers, but not for you.”
How easy it would be to make love with her. How delightful and necessary to join their bodies and fall asleep in her bed, carried off by a tide of physical satisfaction and intimacy.
And how quickly Megan would see through that subterfuge.
“You cuddle up,” Hamish said, gathering her into his arms. “This is not lovers’ talk, Meggie, but neither is it a topic to air in public. Spain was hell. We did the best we could—all of us, the Scots, the English, the Hussars, the French, the Spanish, and the Portuguese. We all did the best we could, and now we do the best we can to forget the bad parts.”
“Which is most of it, I gather. Go on.”
Go on. What a soldier did best, a good soldier. “I stopped Sir Fletcher from having a fellow flogged, though at this point, I don’t know if Sir Fletcher even recalls the incident.”
“I don’t understand flogging a soldier,” Megan said. “Seems if a man’s willing to risk death for his country, he ought to be thanked, not further threatened by his own officers.”
“There you’d be trying to apply logic to the army, which is always a risky bet. Army discipline isn’t as bad as it used to be. Soldiers are no longer flogged for having their hair in disarray, and Wellington frowned on anything more than fifty lashes.”
Megan was sprawled on Hamish’s chest, and her simple proximity had inspired the notice of his breeding organs. She didn’t seem to mind—worse, she seemed to have no self-consciousness at all about Hamish’s arousal.
Though if any topic ought to scotch a man’s wayward thoughts, talk of military discipline should.
“So Sir Fletcher wanted somebody flogged for no reason?” she asked.
“Oh, I expect the fellow was about to help himself to regimental stores. We were frequently short of rations, and marching on an empty belly grows wearying after the first twenty miles. Sir Fletcher made an allegation against this fellow and then summoned the
provost marshal, who acted as a sort of roving military police.”
“You weren’t around to put in a word for the accused?”
“My men fetched me as the drum-head court-martial was in progress, else it would have gone very badly for my fellow. I supplied an alibi, said I’d seen the boy elsewhere at the time the alleged crime was to have taken place. The provost marshal decided it had all been a misunderstanding—mostly because nothing had been taken and the charge was theft, not attempted theft.”
“Sir Fletcher is like that—nasty but lazy, both. I am glad you stood up to him.” Her kiss suggested she was very glad, indeed.
“The point, Meggie mine, is that Sir Fletcher has no honor. He’ll lie, cheat, manipulate, and inveigle others into doing his bidding. In this case, he took out his pique on Colin with more foolishness between officers. Sent him into the hills knowing the French were scouting the area, though Colin got back to camp none the worse for his outing. I don’t trust Sir Fletcher, and I’d like to set a date soon and whisk you off to the Highlands.”
Megan ceased nibbling on Hamish’s ear. His kilt had twisted to the side, and her nightgown had somehow got bunched at her waist, meaning paradise—or perdition—was one well-placed wish away.
“There can’t be any whisking until my parents are back from Wales. Uncle Percy will negotiate the settlements with you, but Papa must approve them. Until Papa has given his assent to the terms, we shouldn’t set a date.”
Hamish knew that. He also knew that he’d once again not had the discussion with Megan he’d needed to regarding Spain, the military, and the havoc Sir Fletcher could wreak.
“I should be going, Meggie. If I stay here much longer—”
Megan kissed him to silence, then began undulating her hips in a manner calculated to part an angel from his last scruple, and Hamish was no angel. He was, however, a gentleman.
“Meggie, you lovely, daft creature … If you keep that up, I won’t answer for the consequences. I ought not to disrespect Moreland’s hospitality by stealing into your bedroom this way—”
“Into my bedroom, into my heart,” Megan muttered against Hamish’s mouth.
“But I missed you, and I knew you’d be waiting, and I can’t—dear God, Megan Windham.”
She’d shifted, and in one brilliant, bold maneuver, gloved Hamish with her heat. He went from struggling to find the resolve to part from her, to struggling for breath.
“You were saying?” she murmured, moving on him.
“I was saying …” Something, something important, and honorable, and … damn. “Don’t stop, Meggie. Not yet.”
Her teeth gleamed in a smile, and she didn’t stop. Not for a long, long time.
Love brought Megan insights, not all of them happy. Twenty-four hours after sharing intimacies with Hamish, she was still contemplating those insights from beside yet another dance floor in yet another ballroom.
Megan’s beloved, for example, woke up as nimbly as a starving cat shifts from watching its prey to pouncing. Still one moment, in mid-leap the next. Hamish was not cheerful upon rising either. As best Megan had been able to decipher his expression the previous night, he’d awakened prepared to kill—or die.
Fortunately, she was learning to set less and less store by appearances. Hamish looked fierce, but his touch … oh, his touch. Hamish MacHugh’s caresses were insight on top of revelation wrapped in wonderment.
“Megs, take pity on me and come for a turn on the terrace,” Devlin St. Just, Earl of Rosecroft, said, extending a hand to her. “The noise in this ballroom is enough to give a stout-hearted fellow a bilious stomach.”
Megan accepted her cousin’s hand—he’d apparently been assigned guard duty this evening—and rose from her bench.
“A breath of fresh air appeals,” Megan said, for she couldn’t spend the entire evening watching Hamish dance with her sisters and cousins. “I’m promised for the supper waltz.”
“If you weren’t, I’d be having a talk with your duke.”
“He’s not my duke yet,” Megan said as Rosecroft led her through the wallflowers, dandies, and dowagers milling among benches. Rosecroft comported himself in a crowd the same way he did everything else, with a decisive efficiency that brooked no obstacles.
He soon had Megan out in the lovely night air, where, indeed, quiet was to be had.
“I would never argue with a lady,” Rosecroft said, tucking Megan’s hand around his arm, “but I might quibble with a cousin. Murdoch is very much your duke. He makes you sparkle.”
“Would that I could make him sparkle,” Megan said. “Hamish is a private man and he carries shadows.”
“We all carry shadows, Megan. What of Sir Fletcher? He was all set to be your swain of choice, and now he’s least in sight.”
Sir Fletcher was Megan’s shadow, but he no longer had the power to frighten her. “Sir Fletcher is among the gathering this evening, along with two of his sisters. He and I are … civil.”
For a moment Megan and her cousin strolled along the gravel walk in silence, the sound of the ballroom fading as they moved toward the back of the garden. The torches were spaced farther apart here, and the night air bore a teasing hint of lilacs.
A lovely evening, but last night had been lovelier.
“I don’t like how Sir Fletcher watches you,” Rosecroft said. “Westhaven has declared me overly protective, and Valentine says I’m anticipating the day when my girls make their bows, but I’m here if you need me, Megs, as are Westhaven and Valentine.”
The reassurance was as lovely as it was disquieting. “Why would I need you?”
He patted her hand. “Maybe you don’t, but we like to be needed. You will never, ever tell Moreland I admitted to that. He’s smug enough as it is.”
Uncle Percy was shrewd, or Aunt Esther and Uncle Percy were a shrewd combination. “My thanks for the concern, but it’s not needed. Hamish is an entirely worthy fellow, and he has attached my affections.”
Rosecroft snorted.
“What does that ungentlemanly rejoinder imply?” For it had been a cousinly snort, not a dignified father, husband, and respected titleholder snort.
“You’re in the courting bedroom, I hear, and Murdoch looks like an athletic specimen. Scaling the maple and hopping the balcony shouldn’t be too much challenge for him.”
Gracious days—and nights. “I will pretend I did not hear that observation, and pretend I am not blushing fit to light up the night sky, Devlin St. Just.”
“If Her Grace raises with you the topic of certain purchases one can send one’s maid to make at the apothecary,” Rosecroft went on—parenting girls had apparently given him entire arsenals of ruthlessness—“you will blush and stammer and look mortified but intrigued. The intrigued part is important. Ask me how I know this.”
“I will not ask any such thing. We will please return to the ballroom now.” Megan spun on her heel, and Rosecroft followed.
“I know this, because at some point, every young fellow must be taught a few basic facts.”
“Devlin, I will disown you.” Or burst out laughing, for he was very intent on this awkward display of protectiveness. “You could not have brought up these subjects in broad daylight, else your own blushes would be too evident.”
“A soldier learns strategy, and I got the short straw, because Valentine likely cheats and Westhaven is in the confidence of the Almighty. I was planning on setting Emmie on you, but I’m your cousin.”
The short—? “And the oldest and a former commanding officer,” Megan said. “Thrice cursed, you poor lamb. Did it ever occur to you that I have female cousins as well, and that they are also quite protective?”
Rosecroft paused beneath a lamp, his expression confirming his consternation.
Megan wanted to be inside the ballroom in time for her supper waltz with Hamish, but the moment was too precious to ignore.
“In your haste to slay all dragons, Devlin, you and your dear, henwitted brothers forgot the existence of yo
ur five sisters. That should worry you, for they are unforgettable women.”
He bowed. “As are you.”
“Well done.” Megan kissed his cheek, and indulged in the pleasure of swanning off after having had the last word with one of her male cousins. Her glee bordered on gloating, until in the gallery outside the ballroom, she caught sight of Sir Fletcher Pilkington.
And he was marching straight for her.
Chapter Seventeen
Women were not very bright, but some of them had formidable instincts.
Sir Fletcher thus knew the moment Megan Windham caught sight of him, for her posture changed, from a lady displaying her ballroom finery, to prey. She did what any trapped mouse ought to do—looked for a way out—but Sir Fletcher had chosen his moment well.
“You are welcome to stroll with me in the garden,” Sir Fletcher said, “or we can enjoy the offerings in the portrait gallery one flight up.”
“I’ve strolled my last garden with you,” Megan said, taking a step to the left.
Sir Fletcher blocked her, and because people were assembling for the supper waltz, this passage was temporarily deserted.
“I say we’ve many more moonlit gardens to enjoy together,” Sir Fletcher replied. “Come along, Megan. You and I have matters to resolve. We can either make a nasty scene right here—a lovers’ quarrel, let’s call it—or we can have a civilized chat on the terrace.”
Her frustration was some satisfaction for all the hours Sir Fletcher had spent nursing a sore head and a murderous grudge.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Megan said.
Oh, she was very much on her mettle. “Yes, you are, darling.” He kissed her cheek, leaving her two options. She could scream, or she could give him an excuse to escalate their spat.
Another desperate glance canvassed the exits. At any moment, somebody might come by, in which case Sir Fletcher would bestow another kiss on her.
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