A Kiss for a Highlander (9 page)

“Yes, he is in the priest hole. Although he went most reluctantly,” Tom said.

“Did you give him food and water? He won’t be happy if he gets hungry,” Martha said.

“He has food, water and a blanket. He’d better remain hidden. If the soldiers come, we can’t risk a wild Scotsman springing out on them, dirk in hand.” Tom frowned at the staircase as if a wild animal lurked below its wooden slats. Which, in a way, it did, Martha thought.

“The priest hole cannot be opened from inside,” Martha explained. “Now that Fraser is in there, he can’t get out until I release him from this side. The family chronicles show that was a problem for one priest, who died when the family left the house, apparently forgetting he was in there.”

“I don’t think we will be able to forget about Fraser,” Tom said with a laugh.

“No,” Martha agreed. She turned away slightly to hide the little, secret smile that tried to claim her lips. “But he must be prepared to stay there for much of the day, since we don’t know for how long the soldiers will remain on Cousin Henry’s land.”

“I will send you word when I’m sure they are gone,” Tom assured her.

It was considerably later than she had anticipated when he returned to tell her that the soldiers had finally departed. The hour was so advanced that she was clad in her nightdress with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

“They have been scouring the estate for most of the day. Tell Fraser I will come back early on the morrow. We will need to decide what to do next. Jack continues to improve by the day, but I am not yet convinced that he is quite ready for the rigours of a ride to Scotland,” Tom said, as he bade her goodnight.

Holding her candle aloft, Martha raised the hinged stairs that gave her admittance to the first hidden chamber. As she stepped inside, her shawl snagged and caught on the rough stone walls. She allowed it to slip from her shoulders, reasoning that she would be just a moment and that she could collect it on the way back. Clad only in her nightgown, she carefully slid open the second panel and moved through into the wider space.

“Fraser?” He was lying on his back on the wooden bench that ran the length of the cell-like room and was sound asleep. A soft snore met her ears as she approached him. Leaning over, she shook him by the shoulder. “The king’s men are gone at last. It is safe to come out.”

Blinking away sleep, he sat up and stretched. His smile tugged at a point somewhere midway between her heart and—well, it would not be seemly to think about where else in her body it affected. Fraser rose to his feet, although he had to stoop in the cramped space. “I’m glad you have a candle to light the way, lass. It’s the one thing I didn’t think to fetch, and it’s woeful dark in here when you close the panel thus.” He reached out a hand and pulled it shut behind her.

“No!” Martha tried to stop him, but it was already too late. The panel was closed, imprisoning them both inside the enclosed space. In the flickering light of her single candle, she saw Fraser’s raised brows. “The catch can only be opened from the outside. We are trapped here now until Tom comes back in the morning.”

She shivered as she spoke, and Fraser’s glance took in the thin linen of her nightgown and her bare feet.

“Och, lass, I’m sorry.” He took up the blanket from the bench and draped it around her shoulders.

“Now you’ll be cold,” she said.

“I deserve it for being such a great, glaikit fool. And I ate all the food.” He pointed to an empty plate. “Although there is some water left.”

They sat on the hard bench in silence while Martha did her best to control the chattering of her teeth. Even the blanket around her shoulders could not ward off the chill that seeped through the thick stone walls and up from the flags of the floor. She jumped slightly when Fraser took one of her feet in his hand and chafed it between his warm palms.

“Ye’re frozen, hen.” His voice was full of remorse. His nearness and the intimacy of his touch were unsettling, and the golden light of the candle lent a surreal aspect to the scene. “I do know of another way to warm you up.” He paused, and she didn’t dare think about what his meaning might be. “If you’ll let me?”

She didn’t answer and he moved closer. Keeping his eyes on hers in the semidarkness, he reached out and took the blanket from her shoulders. She probably should have protested. Then he undid the laces at the neck of her nightdress, and the moment for objections had passed. His big hands felt warm against the cool flesh of her upper arms as he tugged the cloth down, exposing her small, pointed breasts to his gaze. The scars that marred her shoulder and upper arm continued across the top of her left breast, almost to the centre of her chest, making the undamaged skin below appear even whiter and purer in contrast. She closed her eyes, but she could still feel his eyes on her.

Slowly and softly, his hands moved across her scarred flesh, massaging and stroking. No-one else had ever touched her there—not since the nuns had treated her burns—and his caress made her shudder with a combination of shock and pleasure.

Then Fraser bent his head and very gently licked the tip of one pale-pink nipple. The sensation was so outrageously delicious that Martha didn’t move. She couldn’t.

He lifted his head and smiled into her eyes as she opened them again. “Just look at you, Martha Wantage. You’re not all hard edges and sharp points as you’d have the world believe. You choose these ugly clothes to hide yourself beneath, but under them, you’re all soft and round. Will you let me do it again?” Her eyes felt huge on his as, very slowly, she nodded.

He placed his hand beneath her breast, lifting it to his mouth as he lowered his head again, this time taking the whole of her left nipple between his lips and sucking it. How was it possible for his tongue to feel so soft and yet to rasp against her flesh? Martha’s head fell back as she gave a moan of complete surrender. Adroitly, Fraser moved his hands behind her, supporting her with his palms flat against her shoulder blades to prevent her from falling backward.

He moved his lips up to the hollow of her neck. “Tell me to stop and I will.”

“What will you do if I say nothing?” Her voice sounded husky and quite unlike her own.

“I’ll keep going until I think you’re warm enough.” She remained silent, and he gave a soft laugh of understanding.

He paused with his lips just brushing hers, and she thought back to the kiss she’d given him in the cellar. A kiss of hate. Was he thinking of it too? Would he pull back and laugh at the blatant longing in her eyes, the way her body arched now like a bow toward him? But no. He moved with infinite slowness, opening her lips with his and claiming her mouth with his tongue. He explored her, tasted her, owned her, and she was utterly powerless to do anything other than cling to him. He broke the kiss, holding her face between his hands and studying her.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, embarrassment punctuating her words. She tried to hang her head, but he wouldn’t let her. Every part of her ached. Her lips tingled, her hardened nipples throbbed, and deep inside her, starting at a point between her legs and spreading upward and outward was a burning, thrumming, maddening sensation that made her want to cry out and, at the same time, dig her nails into his flesh and hurt him in return.

“You don’t have to do anything. Leave it to me. There isn’t much room in here, so lean back against me.” Obediently—in that instant she would have gone to the end of the earth if he’d asked her to—she shifted her position so that she sat in the crook of his arm with her back against his chest and her head on his shoulder. Fraser slid his hand down to her breast and lightly caressed her nipple while he kissed the very specific spot where her neck met her shoulder. How did he know, Martha wondered, through a haze of pleasure, exactly what she wanted him to do?

“Oh.” His grip on her nipple had become harder, almost painful, and his teeth grazed the tender flesh of her neck.

“Did I hurt you?”

“Yes, but…I liked it,” she said, turning her face further into his shirt in embarrassment.

Laughter shook his whole body. “Then I might have to do it some more.” He did, and Martha soon forgot her embarrassment as she gasped and then moaned in pleasure.

Very gently, Fraser raised her left leg up onto the bench so that her knee was bent. He draped her right leg across his own strong thigh. His hand was warm on her hip as he lifted her nightgown up around her waist. She shivered, but it was no longer the cold that affected her senses.

“Don’t be scared.” Fraser’s breath touched her cheek. “I won’t hurt you.”

“It’s not that,” she whispered, turning her head so that she could brush his jaw with her lips. “I don’t think I have ever wanted anything so much in my life. That’s what scares me.”

His fingers were feather-light on the mound of her sex, barely touching her at all. Just brushing her flesh over and over until, with a natural rhythm all their own, her hips began to lift and circle. Then he held her outer lips apart and slid a finger into the wetness between them. He stroked her clitoris with his thumb, rubbing the tiny nub ever so gently. When she started to groan quietly, he applied more pressure and began to speed his movements up, slipping the tip of one finger just inside her at the same time. Martha gasped in shock as, almost against her will, her body bucked and ground into his hand in response. Her eyes were wide as she tilted her head back to seek reassurance from him. Was this how it was meant to be? Was she supposed to feel this wildness, this madness, coursing through her veins?

Fraser smiled down at her. “That’s it, let it happen.” He added a second finger and moved them both in and out of her. Martha’s whole world exploded. Throwing her head back and gasping his name, she gripped him tight, her muscles clenching of their own accord around his now-still fingers.

Fraser held her close and kissed her until the tremors were over. “So are you warm yet, Englishwoman?” he asked, amusement and tenderness in his voice.

“I think so, but I don’t know what I feel any more.”

“Good. That’s exactly how I intended it should be.” He shifted position so that she could nestle into his side and pulled the blanket over them both. “Now go to sleep.”

Chapter Nine

Fraser wasn’t sure if Martha did sleep. She certainly gave all the appearance of slumber, lying motionless and quiet next to him in the cramped space of the hard bench. The mingled scents of the faint lavender perfume in her hair and her arousal were twin torments. His own body was alive with a longing so fierce it scared him. While he held her warm and quivering in his arms, his fingers probing the secrets of her body and his lips tasting the salty sweetness of her flesh, it was difficult to remember his vow to do her no harm. Because, really, what harm could there be in doing that which was natural? With a woman who wanted him as much as he wanted her?

“Fraser?” Martha’s chin was sharp where she rested it on his chest, and because of the way the candlelight fell, he felt, rather than saw, her eyes searching his face.

“Yes?” His voice was brusque.

“I’m warm but I can’t sleep.” Tentatively, she moved one hand up to the opening at the neck of his shirt. Her fingertips lightly stroked the curling hair on his chest. “I might not know much about these things, but I do know something should have happened for you too.” He sensed she was blushing fiercely under the concealing veil of darkness.

“That would not be right.”

Her hand moved down his body, hovering over the waistband of his breeches. “Didn’t we go just beyond ‘right’?” Her voice was low and husky. Temptingly so.

She didn’t know what she was doing to him. He should stop this now by making sure no part of her was touching any part of him. He should move right away from her to a safe distance. But such an action was an impossibility in the confined space. Instead, he turned on his side to face her, acknowledging the inevitability of the moment. It was there in the feel of her small, firm breasts against his chest, the smooth curve of her buttocks as he slid a hand under them to lift her, moulding her exactly to him. It was there in the tremor that ran through her as she answered by fitting her body to his. To hell with being honourable.

With a soft, welcoming sigh, Martha’s lips parted to accept the demands of his mouth. Then, to his delight, she met the thrust of his tongue with delicate strokes and brushes of her own. He groaned and framed her face with his hands, angling her head to gain the best possible access to the sweet softness of her mouth. Martha wound her arms around his neck in response, answering him measure for measure. He realised he was grinding his erection against her belly like an overeager youth and, embarrassed, tried to arch his pelvis away from her.

“Don’t stop,” she murmured, pressing against him. She was so delicate that the difference in their sizes should have alarmed him. He had the power to crush her beneath him if he lost control of this situation. Yet, despite her fragility, Martha was in charge. She was setting the pace now, and she wasn’t prepared to let him take this slowly or gently. With her lips and her tongue and her ragged, panting breath, she was letting him know exactly what was going to happen. Damned if she wasn’t reading his mind.

Instinctively, she nestled her body against his, moving her hips so that she could feel the length of his erection pressing into the soft flesh of her stomach. Martha’s hands moved to his waist, pulling his shirt from his breeches. Her palms were warm as they caressed the taut planes of his stomach muscles, sending darts of pleasure shooting through to his nerve endings. Cautiously, she eased one hand inside the waistband of his breeches. Warm fingers brushed the tip of his cock, then drew back to fumble with the buttons on his breeches.

“I can’t make love to you here, Martha,” he muttered in a desperate attempt to cling to the last shreds of his integrity. He groaned softly into her hair. “There’s no room to move.”

“We don’t have to. I just want to give you pleasure…as you did for me.” She leaned over him so that her hair curtained his face, and kissed him, driving all rational thought from his mind.

Reaching inside his loosened breeches, Martha wrapped her hand around his shaft. Unable to help himself, Fraser groaned long and deep into her mouth. She squeezed gently, then slid her hand down his length in a single exploratory stroke before releasing him. Fraser’s hips bucked in a combination of shock and pleasure.

“Please don’t stop.” The words came out on a hiss.

Taking encouragement from this request, she touched him again. Her fingers curled around his shaft and gently drew his cock out through the opening in his breeches. Less tentative now, she commenced stroking him. Fraser strained upward, seeking more. While she ran one hand down his shaft, then back, she used the other to explore his aroused flesh. First, she traced a finger lightly around the rim. Then, moving lower, she cupped his balls.

“I know you said we couldn’t make love here,” she said softly, as Fraser lay back, rendered helpless by her touch. “But I’d like to try.”

Glad to regain control, he shifted into a sitting position with his back against the wall, lifting Martha so that she straddled him. Her hair fell about both their faces. “Are you quite sure, lass?” he asked and she nodded vigorously.

Fraser pulled her nightgown up to her waist, holding her buttocks steady so that his cock could probe her entrance. Martha’s hands tightened on his shoulders at the sensation of him probing her. Lifting his hips, he pushed himself upward and met resistance. Martha gasped.

“Will I stop?” Fraser asked.

“No.” It sounded like her teeth were gritted.

With one hard thrust, he drove into her. Martha cried out and dug sharp nails into his shoulder. Once he was fully engulfed in her tight warmth, it took every ounce of Fraser’s self-control to remain still. He needed to allow her body to stretch and grow, to become accustomed to the feel of him iron-hard and throbbing inside her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, with his lips against her neck. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I asked you to, remember?” she whispered, turning her head so that she could kiss him again. “Please, Fraser…I want you to move now.”

Ever so gently, he began to rock, holding her tight against him. “Ah, Martha,” he murmured. “Ye feel so damn good.”

Her tight muscles held him in a delicious grip. Following his lead, she matched his movements, grinding her pelvis in time with his while holding every inch of him deep within her. Fraser increased the pace, lifting her body so that he could thrust up into her. Tugging her nightgown higher, his lips sought her nipple, and a tiny sob tore out of her as his mouth closed around it. Just as Fraser felt his own control slipping, Martha began to writhe wildly above him, arching her back and calling his name. As the first explosion of pleasure hit him, Fraser lifted Martha so that his seed pulsed hot and hard over his own stomach instead of into her.

Gasping for breath, he drew her into his arms, kissing her long and deep until the quivering in both their bodies had stilled. For a long time after the kiss had ended, Martha was silent. Worryingly so. Fraser couldn’t see her face.

“Are you sorry, lass?”

“No. Are you?”

He laughed. “’Tis a foolish question to ask of a man, Martha.”

“Oh. I know nothing of these things.” It was a stark reminder of why he should have shown more restraint. However great the temptation, he should have resisted it. Even as those guilty thoughts crowded in on him, the memory of thrusting deep inside her that first time made his body tingle with renewed lust. Martha nestled back into his arms, a hint of mischief in her next words. “Do you think those priests of bygone days are all turning in their graves at the use to which we have just put their hiding place?”

When Tom Drury arrived the next morning and released them from the priest hole, Martha could see the look of sympathy on his face as she stammered out a garbled explanation. She was well aware that her blushes, coupled with the way she was unable to look at Fraser, spoke volumes about her embarrassment. Smoothing down her hair and nightdress in a flustered manner, she recovered her shawl and wrapped it thankfully around herself.

Fraser, on the other hand, seemed unperturbed and inclined to view the whole incident with amusement. He had reached a hand down into the hidden space and helped Martha out before setting off to the kitchen in search of food.

“I know it’s a difficult situation,” Tom said to Martha. “It must have been horribly trying for you to be confined in such a small space with a man you dislike so cordially. At least you can console yourself with the thought that he will soon be gone.”

“Yes.” Martha glanced toward the kitchen, where Fraser’s voice could be heard upraised in an old Scots ballad. “He will, won’t he?”

Later that day, word came of a Jacobite victory in the foulest of winter weather and worst imaginable conditions. This had taken place in a ferocious clash at Falkirk, north of Edinburgh. Fraser was elated, explaining that this would raise the spirits of the highlanders, not only because a defeat of the English was long overdue. Falkirk was symbolic as the place in which William Wallace had been defeated centuries earlier in a battle during which the Scots army had effectively been wiped out by the English.

Harry, his eyes alight with excitement, descended on the old dower house and spent an hour discussing the details of the battle with Fraser. For Martha the talk of charges and tactics and columns washed over and around her like a foreign tongue. She was too busy fighting her own constant battle, one which she waged lately with the voice inside her head which kept prompting her to throw herself into Fraser’s arms and demand he take her immediately up to his bed. With hindsight, she knew it was a battle she was destined to lose.

It was probably just as well, therefore, that Fraser suggested he and Harry should take their rods down to the lake which lay half a mile to the west of Mr. Delacourt’s farm boundary. The removal of Fraser from her vicinity would considerably reduce the possibility of Martha indulging any unseemly and embarrassing displays of wanton lust. She watched from the kitchen window as his broad-shouldered frame disappeared from view and tried to convince herself that she was glad of this distance from his presence. She needed time to think.

And she did think. She thought about how he sometimes kissed her with long, slow, erotic movements of his tongue and sometimes with quick urgent thrusts. She remembered the different sensations provoked by his lips softly suckling her nipple then his teeth sharply nipping. Her body thrummed at the recollection of his fingers probing just inside her and the very different feeling of his cock stretching and filling her.

“Oh, dear Lord,” she murmured, pressing the cool back of her hand to her burning cheek. “Will I ever be able to think of anything else again?”

But she had to stop these thoughts and plant her feet firmly back on the ground. She wasn’t Rosie, lost in some foolish, girlish dream of love. No, she had very deliberately allowed… She paused. What had she allowed, exactly? Fraser had not seduced her. Seduction implied an inequality that had not been part of their interaction. Martha might be less experienced, but she had not been less wanting. There was that thrill of remembrance once more. She had made a choice. It might be the maddest, most dangerous, most improper choice imaginable, but it was
her
choice nonetheless. And, having chosen, she would do it all again. And again. That awareness prompted a sudden, restless longing to see Fraser. He could be gone tomorrow. The thought made her heart clench with hurt.

Glad of something to do to stop her thoughts returning to her depraved behaviour of the night before, she snatched up a basket, filled it with several picnic items and set off in the direction of the lake to find the two fishermen. The day, although cold, showed signs of weak sunlight, and once she had left Delacourt Grange, Martha walked along a pleasant, green, hedgerow-lined lane that wound its way down pastured hill slopes. It was as she was about to cross a stile into the field that led to the lake that a voice hailed her. She turned her head, and her heart sank when she saw Sir Clive Sheridan striding toward her.

“Give you good noontide, Miss Wantage,” he said, in the slightly dismissive tone he generally used to her. Martha had long since got the message. She was unimportant to him if Rosie was not present. “You are a long way from home on a chilly day.” His sharp eyes dropped to her basket.

“Good afternoon, sir. It seems we are both keen to take advantage of a dry day despite the ice that lingers in the air.”

“Yes, indeed. I called in at the Crown to see what news I could glean of the rebellion. You will have heard, no doubt, of the news from Falkirk? A dark day indeed, but I believe we may trust Cumberland to rally his troops and teach these Jacobite dogs to know their place. There was a young guards captain name of Overton in the taproom.”

Martha hoped she managed to disguise the start of surprise she gave at the name by pretending to turn it into a shiver of cold. “I believe there are redcoats stationed nearby still,” she observed.

“They seek a dangerous fugitive.” Sir Clive puffed up with his own importance at the news. “Overton himself told me that a fine lord, friend to the prince himself, no less, was left for dead by a young redcoat on Swarkestone Bridge. The captain said he cannot have left the area so badly wounded he was. ’Tis a certainty he is either dead in a ditch from his wounds, or holed up nearby with rebel sympathisers. I’d not want to be in their shoes should he be found.”

“No indeed,” Martha answered him mechanically. Over his shoulder, she had caught a glimpse of two figures emerging from the bushes, carrying their fishing rods and reels. “Would you mind, sir, if we walked along the lane as we talk? I am feeling rather chilled by this wind as I stand here.”

Courteously, he offered her his arm and they walked along together. As she listened with half an ear to his discourse, Martha was able to see Fraser and Harry cross the lane behind them and make their way back in the direction of the old dower house. She felt her breathing gradually return to normal.

“Old Mr. Cartwright, who lives in Swarkestone village, had a strange tale to tell.” Sir Clive’s penetrating voice bored into her consciousness. “His horse, which he thought had been stolen from the blacksmith’s during the Jacobite invasion, strolled back into its stable a full two weeks later. Not that I’d give you tuppence for the old bag of bones myself. Are you on your way to distribute food to Mr. Delacourt’s tenants? I will happily accompany you all the way…”