“It’s all that kept me going.”
“Shona…”
“There’s nothing, nothing, Morgan, I wouldn’t forsake or sacrifice for someone I love—for you— if he loved me in return.”
He made another rough, gravelly sound in his throat and shut his eye, his lashes a thick sable fan across his suntanned cheekbone. “I would gladly do the same. Only, I haven’t anything of value worth sacrificing.”
He opened his eye, such stark pain lining his face that she wanted to run to him, wrap her arms around his strong, sturdy form, and tell him how very wrong he was. The love of such a noble man, if she dared believe he might love her, was all she would ever need to be content for the rest of her days.
“I’ve nothing to offer a woman either,” he said, so low his lips scarcely moved. “Except a face so ravaged, children cry out and cringe in fear when they see me.”
Our children wouldn’t.
The unbidden thought jolted her clear to her toes then sent a frisson scampering back up her spine, causing her nape hairs to twitch in excitement.
As if chagrined by his confession, he turned abruptly and took a couple of lengthy strides away.
“Oh, Morgan,” Shona whispered, compassion for his suffering tangling her insides. “Your face, even scarred, is more precious to me than any other man’s unflawed features could ever be.”
Love emboldened her to speak her mind. Perhaps imprudently, she acknowledged as she clasped her hands until her fingertips grew numb, the silence stretching taut and awkward between them. Every passing second doused her hope like water droplets steadily dripping onto a dying fire’s embers.
He heaved a throaty sigh and scraped his hand through his hair, pulling several strands free of the ribbon at his nape. “I should return to the house. I’ve no wish to cause a rift between you and Sterling, nor provide more on dit for the gossips. I’m leaving as soon as I’ve packed.”
Why did he continue to insist there was, or could be, anything between her and Lord Sterling?
Morgan was the one who said she had expressive eyes. Couldn’t he see the love glowing in them for him?
He smiled, a tender, sad, defeated thing, the uninjured side of his mouth not quite bending. “Shona, I wish—”
Giving an infinitesimal shake of his head, he pressed his lips into a severe line, causing his scar to stand out, stark and white. A jagged, cruel testament to his inner turmoil. However, his tender gaze caressed her as surely as if he’d brushed his big, callused hand over her bare flesh.
Desire flared, immediate and potent.
In that instant, Shona knew. She almost gasped at her sudden insight. Morgan was making love’s supreme sacrifice for her. By encouraging her to marry Lord Sterling, a man he believed could provide her with everything he could not.
Foolish, dear man.
And if she let him walk away without telling him how she felt, let her innate bashfulness and fear of rejection keep her from declaring her love, she’d never forgive herself. She’d live with the regret for the rest of her life.
She came to him, and after taking his scarred hand in hers, kissed the back of it, where fine dark hairs covered the sun-browned flesh.
His features grew even more guarded, but he didn’t pull away.
She pressed his hand to her face and rubbed her cheek against the warm, solid flesh. Raising her gaze, she murmured, “I love you, Morgan. And I don’t want to marry anyone else.”
If she’d expected him to grin or whoop for joy, to declare his love and sweep her into his arms and shower her with passionate kisses, she was very much mistaken.
He gently withdrew his hand, his expression inscrutable. “I am deeply honored, and your words humble me, but they change nothing.”
Had she played her hand too soon?
Played the wrong hand entirely?
Had her newly dredged up boldness backfired?
She searched his face, desperate to find a trace of the desire she’d seen yesterday. The minutest flicker of the silver flecks in his eye encouraged her.
“You are wrong. I’ve prayed for a man like you my whole life. I know we met but a few days ago, and I won’t pretend to understand how it happened. But love doesn’t adhere to a watch or a calendar, Morgan. Love can happen in an instant.”
He remained silent, yet she pressed onward.
“Maybe not for everyone. It may take some longer for their affection to grow. Others don’t recognize the sentiment for what it is at first. But you and I…” She gestured between them, her voice growing strong, more confident. “When our eyes met as you swam across the lake to me, I felt my heart open.”
Like a rosebud waiting for the sun’s warming rays.
“Don’t. It’s impossible.” Voice raw and rough, he tucked his head to his chest, posture rigid and fists clenched at his sides
It took a fraction for her to understand.
He wept.
This brave, wounded soldier cried because she’d declared her affection. And she hadn’t a doubt, he’d been as ravenous, as fraught for her love as she was for his.
She could have no more stopped herself from twining her arms about his waist, laying her head against his shuddering chest, and holding him tight than she could’ve saved herself from the lake that day.
“All I want is you, Morgan. If you’ll have me. If you love me, it is enough.”
Slowly, as if waking from a trance, he encircled her with his strong arms and pulled her nearer. So close not a hair’s breadth separated them.
“People will say that I’m a fortune-hunter.”
“Are you?”
Of course he wasn’t, but somehow, she knew he needed to tell her so himself.
His breath warmed her scalp as he pressed his lips to her crown. “No. If you had nothing but the clothes on your back,” he gave her a squeeze, “which by the way, you look exceedingly fetching in today, I’d grovel at your feet for a kind word. Still, the tongue-waggers will spread ugly tales. It cannot be helped.”
She shook her head against his chest and chuckled. “Pooh. My mother’s a convicted criminal and your father’s a slave-owner. Both are far more offensive than pretentious people judging us. Besides, you’re forgetting just how powerful my brother-in-law is. And he has loads of equally powerful friends.”
“Are you sure, Shona? Absolutely sure? You’ve no doubt whatsoever?” He held her snugger, as if afraid she’d change her mind. “What’s happened between us is irregular. I couldn’t bear for you to decide you’d made an impulsive mistake later on.”
He certainly sounded like a man in love. But he hadn’t actually said he loved her.
She slanted her head, catching her lower lip between her teeth.
Ask him.
“Do you love me, Morgan?”
Well, it seemed she did have the cheeky boldness of a bloke with bull-sized ballocks, after all.
“My beautiful Scottish lass, I love you so much, my heart aches. My thoughts are consumed with you. And if I adore you this much after such a short period of time, spending decades with you will be such a blessing, I can hardly comprehend its magnitude.”
She blinked away a sudden surge of joyful tears. “Aye, Morgan. Then, I’m sure.”
He released a great, shuddery breath.
“Thank God. The hardest thing I’ve ever done was telling you to marry Sterling, when I wanted to claim you for my own. I love you, Shona, Lady Atterberry.” He kissed her then, such reverence and adoration in the firm pressing of his lips upon hers that tears sprang to her eyes once more.
She opened to his gentle probing, pouring every ounce of her love into the tangling of their tongues.
It mattered naught if anyone else thought her too hasty. This incontestable pull, a meshing of spirits, as if they’d searched and searched, until they’d finally and instantly recognized their mates, could not be denied.
That was all that mattered.
Breathing heavily, Morgan at last levered away.
She was instantly bereft. Being in his arms was akin to coming home after an extended journey.
He kissed her forehead. “And you’ll marry me?” A bit of hesitation still leached into his voice. “Not for several months, though. We don’t want the gossips to have an apoplexy. It will give me time to court you properly.”
“Several months?” Not a bit of it. Shona formed a moue with her mouth and shook her head as a pair of swans glided past. “I don’t wish to wait.”
“Three months then. I suppose I ought to be rather flattered you’re so eager to wed me.” His wink was decidedly, and deliciously, as devilish as his grin. “Now, tell me. What did you wager Miss Rossington?”
“Why, that before week’s end, I’d kiss the most attractive man here.” She stood on her toes and wound her arms about his neck. “And I won that marvelously wicked wager.”
Wedderford Abbey
January 29, 1821
Morgan traced a fingertip across Shona’s collarbone.
Turning toward him, she smiled and sighed softly in her sleep.
This generous, sweet-natured, exquisite woman—a veritable wanton tigress in his bed—was his beloved wife. He glanced at the bedside clock.
Had been for thirteen months, two days, and twenty blissful hours.
Astonishingly, he grew to love her more with each passing day. And daily, often more than once, he sent a silent prayer of gratitude heavenward, not just for having her in his life, but that he’d been fuming in the oak stand that providential afternoon she’d tottered into the lake.
Had he not been there, she wouldn’t be lying beside him, and they’d not be as happy and content as a colony of mice given full reign of the larder.
Once married, he’d insisted she permit him to take on the steward’s role. Morgan hated idleness, but more importantly, he needed to contribute to their household. He’d brought no money to their marriage, so the least he could do was assist in running Wedderford Abbey.
The glow of Shona’s ivory skin in the firelight proved irresistible.
He bent his head and feathered kisses from her shell-like ear, down the graceful column of her throat, to the glorious swell of her full breasts, barely concealed beneath the filmy peach nightgown she wore.
As always, she smelled of orange blossoms with a hint of musk.
“Morgan?” she murmured sleepily as he fingered the linen aside, affording him the luxury of the splendid display beneath.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you, darling.” Years of rising before dawn had proved a difficult habit to break, so, as he did every morning, he’d stoked the fire to make sure she awoke to a warm chamber.
Today her siren’s call, the urge to hold her cocooned within his embrace, had lured him back underneath the coverlet.
That and two months of celibacy.
Six weeks ago, she’d given him a son.
A strapping lad with thick chestnut hair, blue eyes, and his grandsire’s vocal cords. And who, by the miracle of his very existence, had persuaded Ruben Le Draco that perhaps selling his tropical holdings in exchange for a relationship with his son and grandson was a most fair bargain indeed. Father had even confessed he’d never removed Morgan from his will. For his part, Morgan had taken a wait-and-see approach to his sire’s change of heart.
He scooted lower and tucked Shona into his side, his groin pulsing with hot need.
Hounds’ teeth, he wasn’t a stag in the rut, a wild beast who’d fall upon his still recovering wife. Though, truth be told, despite the daily plunges into the frigid pond behind the manor—more of a smallish loch, actually—he’d limped about with a constant cockstand the past fortnight.
Shona draped her thigh across his, bumping the disgruntled appendage between his legs, and Morgan stiffened and groaned.
She nudged his penis again, and he swatted her wonderfully rounded bottom.
“Stop that, or I won’t be responsible for what happens.”
She giggled, and giving him a coy look, brushed her fingertips down his torso in a torturously slow descent.
Stomach muscles tense and his breath suspended, he prayed she’d venture lower still.
God, please.
“Mayhap I want that to happen.” She slid her hand another pair of inches under the bed clothes. “The doctor said I might assume my wifely duties. Although,” she encircled him with her soft hand, and Morgan reflexively bucked his hips upward, “I don’t concur with his analysis.”
Scorching disappointment battered him. Still, he summoned a smile and cupped her face. “When you’re ready, my sweet.”
“Oh, I’m ready. I’ve been ready for weeks, but was forbidden coitus. I referred to the doctor’s flawed assumption that the more intimate parts of marriage are an obligation I must endure.” She rose, and then, with a sultry half-smile, straddled him. “I quite like this part of married life.”
“Indeed?” Morgan grinned and splayed his hands atop her thighs, slowly pushing her silky nightgown even higher.
Her full breasts, made more so since she insisted on nursing their son, swung tantalizingly close to his face beneath their wispy covering.
He’d suspected she possessed a fiery, sensual streak beneath her carefully subdued exterior.
He gritted his teeth, his raspy breath hissing from between his teeth blending with her blissful gasp as she lowered herself onto him.
“I love you, Shona.” He gripped her hips, letting her set the pace.
She smiled, rapture blooming across her radiant face. “I ken. And I love ye. We are proof that love at first sight truly exists.”
“Indeed, we are.”
Before you go, if you enjoyed THE WALLFLOWER’S WICKED WAGER please consider leaving a review.
USA Today Bestselling, award-winning author, COLLETTE CAMERON pens Scottish and Regency historicals, featuring rogues, rapscallions, rakes, and the intelligent, intrepid damsels who reform them.
Blessed with fantastic fans as well as a compulsive, over-active, and witty Muse who won’t stop whispering new romantic romps in her ear, she lives in Oregon with her mini-dachshunds, though she dreams of living in Scotland part-time.
You’ll always find dogs, birds, occasionally naughty humor, and a dash of inspiration in her sweet-to-spicy timeless romances®.
Her motto for life? You can’t have too much chocolate, too many hugs, too many flowers, or too many books. She’s thinking about adding shoes to that list.
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Dearest Reader,
I’m so thrilled you chose to read The Wallflower’s Wicked Wager. Since I introduced Shona Atterberry in Heartbreak and Honor, and mentioned her in To Tame a Scoundrel’s Heart, I thought she deserved her own story.
Though she was a victim, she refused to let her past shape her future. At first readers might think she’s a weak, feckless character, but she proves she’s not. I hope you grew to admire her as much as I did.
As for Morgan—such an inherently decent man deserved a woman to adore him, despite his scars. Shona sees him through the eyes of love, just as he sees her.
For those who might struggle with the love at first sight concept, or think the romance was rushed, I actually researched love at first sight and surveyed a slew of readers to see if the phenomenon exists. It does! My cousin’s husband asked her to marry him on their first date, and reader after reader shared their delightfully romantic tales of immediate love and swift marriages that have lasted for decades.
Please consider telling other readers why you enjoyed this book by reviewing it at Amazon, Goodreads, Apple, and Barnes & Noble. Not only do I truly want to hear your thoughts, reviews are crucial for an author to succeed. Even if you only leave a line or two, I’d very much appreciate it.
So, with that I’ll leave you.
Here’s wishing you many happy hours of reading, more happily ever afters than you can possibly enjoy in a lifetime, and abundant bless
ings to you and your loved-ones.
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BookBub
Highland Knight of Dreams
A Highland Dynasty Novella
by
Amy Jarecki
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by Amy Jarecki
All rights reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Chapter One
The Highlands of Scotland, 1670
“Did you see her?” Quinn’s gaze darted through the forest, honing like a falcon as he searched for the beauty. With a dig of his spurs, he cantered ahead, leaving his companions in his wake.
“Her? Are ye seeing selkies now, brother?” hollered Eachan, his horse losing speed behind.
Glenn MacGregor’s grandiose laugh resounded like cannon fire, the warrior’s mount nearly able to keep pace. “He most likely saw a rabbit. No matter, I’m hungry and up for the chase.”
Certain his eyes hadn’t deceived him, Quinn lurched over his horse’s withers, demanding a gallop. “Haste, ye wee beasty!” He scanned the foliage for any flicker of movement, for a glimpse of a blue gown. No, he hadn’t seen a vision. He’d seen a goddess.
To where had she disappeared? As plain as the nose on his face he’d spied her standing in a clearing. The sun’s rays illuminated wisps of her waist-length hair as it shone like gold. The wind set her skirts to sail, and they billowed in a surreal whirlwind of color.
For the briefest of moments she’d stood like a doe, her eyes wide, her stance majestic, yet sensing impending danger. When the nymph spotted him, she’d turned and fled as if she thought Quinn the devil incarnate.
Super Summer Set of Historical Shorts Page 11
