Delilah watched his face as he strolled through the sunny fields of his memory.
“Aye,” the Highlander said, his voice thick with nostalgia, “it was a rough bit o’ work, but we kept improvin’ on it over the years.”
He blinked. Then looked down at her with those deep brown eyes of his.
“Not a soul kens it’s here. Only me and Fin.”
“And me.”
“Aye. And ye.”
Delilah sat down on the bed. Her gown was spattered with mud, rent and torn in numerous places from their flight through the woods around her home. She kicked off her shoes, sat back on the bed with her back against the rough timber wall.
I wonder how Mother and Father are. I wonder what lies that villain, Keicester, is feeding them.
She thought of how her life had changed overnight. This was the sort of behavior that irrevocably altered a young lady’s future. After last night’s adventures she would most likely be a pariah from any social circle that she might’ve had a mind to join.
She found that the thought did not disturb her nearly so much as it once might have.
She started at a popping noise, and she realized that she had almost dozed off. Marcus was busying himself getting a fire started in the stone hearth. The sight of the flames licking hungrily at the wood and the sound of the wind rustling through the pines around them made for a deliciously snug atmosphere.
“Do you mind if I get into bed?” she asked.
Marcus turned. “Nay, lass, ye lie down.”
Delilah looked down at her ruined gown, at the mud that caked the hem and skirt.
“Can you—would you mind helping me out of my gown?” she asked, her voice quavering only slightly.
“Yer gown?” Marcus asked.
“Yes, my gown. It’s covered in mud, you see.”
“Are ye sure ye—”
“Quite sure.”
She turned so that Marcus could get at the laces that fastened the gown at the back. She heard him step slowly towards her. Heard the rustle of his linen shirt as he raised his arms, felt his warm breath tickling the top of her head.
A slight tremor ran through her as his fingers brushed the nape of her neck. She smiled as he cursed softly to himself in Gaelic, fumbling with the delicate laces.
The gown relaxed around her shoulders as he unfastened the knot. She felt his hands moving down her spine, picking at the laces so that the gown slowly relinquished its grip on her body. She felt him pause at the base of her spine, knew that he had reached the end of the road.
Delilah realized that her heart was fluttering in her chest. Her breath came shallow through her nose. Her eyes were fixed, unseeing, on a knot on the timber wall in front of her, but all her senses were trained on the base of her spine, waiting to see what happened next.
You are brave. You are your own woman. Free to make your own decisions. And this man has a good heart.
With a shrug the gown fell from her shoulders.
She felt rather than heard Marcus’s indrawn breath.
She stood, clad only in her shift, her golden hair loose about her shoulders, her hands clasped in front of her to stop their shaking.
Marcus moved so that he was right up behind her, his chest pressed against her shoulders, his lips buried in her hair. Delilah felt his hands slide shyly about her waist, and she smiled at the hesitance of his touch.
She closed her eyes as she felt the prickle of his stubbly cheek against her smooth one. He kissed her neck and a soft moan escaped her.
Encouraged by this, Delilah felt the Highlander’s hands move up her body as he nibbled at her earlobe. She groaned again as they slid under her breasts, cupping them, the fingers running over her suddenly hardening nipples.
Lost in the moment, Delilah leaned backwards, tilting her head so Marcus might kiss her lips. The Scotsman did so, grinding his crotch into her buttocks as he did so.
A fire, the likes of which Delilah had never known, swept through her then. It was an animalistic need for closeness, for unity, to be a part of a whole.
She turned, her eyes gleaming, all thought of sleep forgotten—though not of lying down. Marcus bent to her at the same time as she pulled his head down. They kissed long and deeply, their tongues exploring each other’s mouths. The only sound was the crackling of the young fire and the occasional soft grunting moan.
Marcus reached down whilst they kissed and ran his hands slowly up the back of Delilah’s thighs, kneading her buttocks in his strong hands, circling her waist.
Delilah gave a little gasp as Marcus’s hands began to move inexorably south of her navel.
“Dae ye want me to stop?” he muttered, his breath warm in her mouth. He bit her bottom lip softly, and said, “The later ye leave it, the harder it’s goin’ to be.”
Delilah laughed softly, shook her head and kissed him. Then her own hands moved shyly down to his groin.
She was completely taken aback by the fiery hardness of him.
Marcus groaned deep in his throat and ground himself into her, so that her legs hit the bed and she only stopped herself from falling by grabbing his bare backside under his kilt.
Then his own callused hands were under her shift, under her buttocks and he lifted her clear onto the bed and lay her down.
A natural rhythm started between them, a rocking that seemed to stem between their two bodies, set by neither of them.
Delilah opened her thighs, and Marcus pushed into her, pressing his weight onto her. She could feel the heat between her own legs building, a furnace that seemed to be stoked to greater and greater passion by the Highlander as he moved against her.
Marcus pulled away from her then. Kneeling on the bed, he pulled his shirt hastily over his head. It got stuck in his long hair and he cursed as Delilah helped him out of it. Eventually he got it off, and he knelt over her, his hair disheveled and all over his face.
Delilah ran her hands over his lean, hard body, across the thickly muscled chest and taut stomach. She marveled at how strong he looked, thought how unfair a fight between him and the Viscount would have been.
Her passions flared up again and she pulled him down to her. With a sudden urgency, he pushed up her shift so that it was bunched under her arms. Delilah pulled it over her head the rest of the way.
She had thought that she would feel awkward and insecure when this day finally came, unable to meet the eye of the man whom she decided to share her bed with. This, though, this felt as natural as breathing.
Her back arched as Marcus lay a trail of soft kisses down her chest—as light and soft as the kisses of a butterfly’s wings against her skin—then circled one of her nipples with his lips and flicked gently at it with his tongue.
Delilah groaned through clenched teeth, wrapped her legs about the Highlander’s hips and pulled him into her. She felt the hot press of him against her, a slight resistance, and then he was inside of her, filling her, completing her.
She cried out as she rode the crest of a wave that was neither pleasure nor pain but some strange, unexplored land that lay between the two.
Her fingers were clenched into the muscles of his shoulders. She could feel the deep, hard thrusts as he plunged into her, was aware of the sweat between their two bodies, could feel the building heat emanating from where they were joined and spreading outwards, outwards.
Marcus tensed and gasped and at the same time, Delilah felt something within her break—an internal dam of sorts—and a flood of indescribable and violent contentment poured through her.
She shuddered and gasped, felt Marcus doing the same on top of her. Then she collapsed, going as limp as a puppet with its strings cut, and surrendered herself to a warm and blissful daze, the weight of the Highlander pressing down on her like safety made flesh.
The estate of the Earl of Glimouth resembled nothing so much as an anthill that had been stirred up with a stick. Servants rushed this way and that, whilst Lady Glimouth stood in the midst of them shrieking instructions o
n just where they should start looking for her kidnapped daughter.
“Tell me again what occurred, My Lord,” the Earl asked Lord Keicester.
The young Viscount was looking far less composed this morning than he had the previous evening. His moustaches were lacking their precise symmetry, his hair was positively awry, and most notably, he was sporting two impressive black eyes and a nose that was almost at a right angle.
“I told you, My Lord,” the young noble said, his eyes glittering with impotent rage. “I was taking the air last night when I saw your daughter climbing out of her bedroom window. This struck me as a fairly strange phenomenon and I strolled over to see what it was that had occasioned this abnormal behavior. The next thing I knew I was waylaid by a host of armed Scots.”
“A host you say?”
“Indeed. I was assaulted and robbed of a very fine rapier that I had just had commissioned. Your daughter ran off with the men.”
“And you only managed to catch a glimpse of a couple of these men in this company of marauders?”
“Yes, one particularly sticks in the mind, as it was he that your cursed daughter took off with. A great, tall brute of a fellow with a mane of dark hair and deep brown eyes. He wore a tartan of green, I believe.”
“And it was he who carried my daughter away?”
The man sneered at Lord Glimouth through his puffed up face, bloodied nose, and bruised eyes.
“My Lord, if you wish me to maintain the fiction that your wayward daughter was carried off by Scottish brigands for the sake of your wife, then I will do so. As two gentlemen speaking openly, however, I must point out that your daughter looked to be the instigator in this escape.”
The Earl of Glimouth fought a rising impatience with this young man in front of him with some difficulty. It was obvious the fellow had a trying time of it last night, but there were ways to go about voicing one’s thoughts.
“And what do you imagine she was trying to escape, My Lord?” Lord Glimouth asked.
“Why, I imagine the duties that awaited her as my wife,” the Viscount replied. “I am not sure how she was raised, and I wish to voice no aspersions on that count, but I expected somewhat better of a child coming from your line, My Lord.”
The Earl of Glimouth bristled at this, but held back a retort.
“Naturally,” Viscount Keicester continued, “I will not stand for this sort of rebellious and wanton behavior. You may consider this my formal intention to cancel our agreement, My Lord.”
The Earl fixed the young nobleman with an unfriendly eye. “Wanton behavior?” he said.
“What else would one call it?” the Viscount sniffed and winced.
“So the wedding is off?”
“Indubitably.”
“Very well. I will have your bags sent down and your carriage made ready.”
The Earl turned on his heel and walked up the steps towards the front door.
“My Lord?” Lord Keicester called after him.
The Earl turned and raised an inquiring eyebrow at the Viscount.
“If you could refrain from telling anyone of this unfortunate event,” and Lord Keicester waved vaguely at his face with his handkerchief, “it would save me much embarrassment.”
The Earl gave the young man one of his enigmatic smiles. “Oh, my lips are sealed, My Lord, of course,” he said. “I would not wish to sully your reputation.”
“My thanks—”
“I cannot vouch for the discretion of my staff, however.”
The Viscount’s face darkened.
“You know what servants are like, My Lord,” the Earl said cheerfully. “Who knows what humiliating tale your beating may have turned into once it has passed through the rumor mill.”
Leaving his wife to her flapping and panicking, and the loathsome Viscount to wait for his carriage, Lord Glimouth walked briskly inside, through a series of oak-paneled corridors, and into his comfortable office.
“The long love that in my thought doth harbor,
And in mine heart doth keep his residence,”
Lord Glimouth muttered, as he closed the door to his study. Sir Thomas Wyatt had certainly got that right in his poem, The Long Love.
He sat down in the worn chair, pulled ink and quill towards him, and began to compose an informal letter to his dear friend.
Callum,
My old friend, we like to think ourselves two shrewd and canny old men, yet I have news concerning our two children that will no doubt show us both the error of this sentiment…
Chapter 13
After he had struck down Viscount Keicester with a sharp punch to the nose, Finley had made his escape from the grounds of the Glimouth estate with relative ease.
What with the darkness of the night, and the insistence of the embarrassed Viscount that he had been waylaid by a whole host of Highland marauders, the Earl’s private guards were not overly zealous in their pursuit.
Finley made his way through the gardens like a hare, slipped into the belt of trees that ringed the estate, and made his way to where he and Marcus had left their horses. He was glad to see, when he arrived at the spot, that the Laird’s son and his lass had already departed. Stowing the stolen rapier in a rolled blanket tied to the back of his saddle, Finley rode with haste for the castle of the MacConnair clan.
Riding hard, Finley made it back to the castle in excellent time. He knew that he had to sniff about for Marcus’s sake, gather what news he could concerning how many men the Laird may have sent out on his son’s trail. He would spend a few hours gathering information, then get a new horse from the stables and ride for the hunting hut that he and Marcus had built.
Finley hid the stolen rapier in a water butt outside his own little cottage in the village. He dropped his blown horse at the stables and then walked up to the castle. He knew many of the servants who worked there—had pursued a couple of the maids without much success.
He walked through the fragrant kitchen garden of the castle keep, which backed onto the servants’ entrance to the huge kitchens. As he approached, the door to the kitchens opened and a maid came out with a basket of freshly washed sheets. Finley grinned. There were precious few people that knew more about what went on inside a castle than the maids.
“Mallory Lynch!” Finley hailed her, hitching his most charming smile onto his bearded face. “Aren’t ye a bonnie sight for sore eyes!”
Mallory was a quiet, reserved maid, who had started at the castle about five years previously. Finley had been unable to make much of her, but he had seen her making doe eyes in his direction when he had been walking about the place with Marcus and hoped that she might harbor a soft spot for him.
“What d’ye want, Finley Henderson?” the green-eyed woman said, walking over.
“Why, is it too much tae ask fer just a glimpse o’ that bonnie face o’ yers?”
“Fin Henderson, all the maids ken that ye’re one o’ the biggest rascals on MacConnair lands,” Mallory said. “What’re ye after, skulkin’ in his Lairdships kitchen gardens?”
“Shite, ye see right through me, lass,” Fin said, holding his arms out. “Clever as well as bonnie. Ye’ll have tae let me take a walk wi’ ye one o’ these days.”
Mallory cocked an eyebrow at him.
Worth a try, though I’ve never seen her pay any heed to any man, come to think of it.
“Truth tae tell, Mallory,” Finley said, “I’ve just returned from huntin’, and the Laird’s men are all over the roads. I was wonderin’ if ye kent what was afoot?”
The curvy little maid gave him an appraising look from under her lashes. After a moment she said, “Ah, go on and get yerself inside. There’s a dram o’ whisky waitin’ fer ye if ye behave yerself. I’ll just hag this washin’ and join ye shortly.”
Finley could resist many a temptation, but the promise of a cup or two of whisky in the presence of a female was not one of them.
Five minutes later Finley sat at a scrubbed table in a little room off of the huge
castle kitchen, nursing a horn cup of the water of life.
“Will ye nae join me?” he asked Mallory who sat opposite him, gesturing at the little jug of whisky that she’d set on the table.
“Nay, I cannae, I’ve things still to dae,” she said. She settled back in her chair, whilst Finley took a deep, fortifying drink, draining his cup. Before he had set the vessel down, Mallory had leaned forward to refill it.
An accommodating lass, this one. She’ll make someone a bonnie wife one o’ these days.
Finley took another slug of whisky. It warmed him, right down to the tips of his toes.
“So, huntin’ were ye?” Mallory asked.
“Aye.”
“Who with?”
“With? Wi’ no one. Just meself. The best company fer a hunt.”
“And ye saw all the commotion on the roads, did ye?”
“Aye, lass. Lots o’ comin’ and goin’ wi’ the Lairds soldiers. D’ye ken what’s got ‘em all so riled up?”
“They’re lookin’ for his Lairdship’s son.”
“For Marcus? Why’s that, then?”
Mallory leaned forward and topped up Finley’s cup again. “No one is quite sure what the bother is,” she said. “Though it must be some to-do as has got the Laird sendin’ his men hither and yon lookin’ for Marcus.”
Finley took another swig of the fine, peaty liquor. He propped his feet on a spare chair and sighed contentedly.
“And they havenae found out anythin’?” he asked casually.
“Nay.”
“Hm. And ye’ve heard nay rumors?”
Mallory’s eyes looked carefully into Finley’s reddening face. “Only that it might have somethin’ tae do wi’ a lass. An Earl’s daughter, or some such thing.”
Finley choked on his whisky, coughed and rattled the cup on the table to signify another refill if he may. Mallory obliged.
“Earl’s daughter?” he asked.
“Those are the rumors, aye.”
Finley avoided her eye.
“The Laird will be glad ye’re back,” Mallory said.
Captured by his Highland Kiss Page 10
