Amanda Scott (20 page)

“This way,” he said, guiding her toward the southern tip of Eilean Mòr.

Dimly she could make out Council Isle at the end of its stone-and-timber causeway, surrounded by black, mirrorlike water that reflected the stars above.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Trust me. I know a place that will give us as much privacy as we like.”

The words sent an anticipatory thrill through her until a dreadful thought stopped it cold. “You . . . you are not thinking that we should go into the building! My father’s documents . . . ’Tis a sacred place, sir, as is the stone table!”

He chuckled. “Believe me, lass, I don’t mean to desecrate any sacred place, even to be with you. Although if it should rain, I would not disdain shelter.”

“The sky is clear.”

“So it is,” he agreed. “Now have a care as we cross the causeway. Some of the boards creak.”

They did, but not so loudly that anyone would hear, and at least, she did not have to mind her footing as she had on the uneven ground. He had kept a hand under her elbow, and had seemed able to detect the slightest dip or hillock before it surprised her. She hoped his instinct for a safe trysting place proved as sound.

Her thoughts, no longer focused on footing or conversation, jumped to what lay ahead. With each step, her emotions teetered or entangled themselves. One moment she thought she must be mad, the next she offered thanks to God that her father was not a violent man. Other men had killed daughters who gave up their maidenheads to men not chosen for them. She did not think MacDonald would kill her, but she was not so sure about her brothers or her mother.

As she smiled at the thought of Lady Margaret wreaking physical violence, the stern image of her grandfather leaped to mind, followed a split second later by that of Alasdair Stewart.

“What is it, lass?”

“What?” They were approaching the building, some fifteen feet long and half as wide. The great stone table stood ahead to their left.

“Some notion struck you just then,” he said. “I could feel it.”

“I thought of Alasdair,” she said, not even thinking about evading the question. “I could see him in my mind, tall and furious.”

“Don’t trouble your head about him,” he said firmly, drawing her to the end of the building facing the south end of the loch.

“But what if I do have to marry him? He will find out, will he not, that—”

“You will not have to marry Alasdair Stewart, nor will we discuss him further. I find that I have taken a great dislike to the stupid man.”

“Faith, sir, I thought you did not know him.”

“I don’t, but he must be stupid if he can claim you as his wife and has not done so. Here now, this way.”

A moment later they reached the far end of Council Isle, where the building’s mass concealed them from the palace complex.

He bent and began feeling around at the base of the wall.

“What are you doing?”

“I was here earlier,” he said, “after the council adjourned for the midday meal. Someone might have found my bundle, but—”

“What bundle?”

“This one,” he said, hefting it. “A jug of wine and two goblets, wrapped in two fine thick cloaks.”

“You brought three cloaks with you? I thought you said you were poor!”

“One is Hector’s,” he said with the touch of laughter in his voice that she had come to love.

“And the other?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, unwrapping goblets and jug, and spreading one cloak on the ground as he added, “Someone left it in our chamber, so I borrowed it for the occasion, knowing two cloaks would make a softer couch for us than one. May I pour you some wine, my lady?”

She surprised herself by giggling. She never giggled, but even as she did, she felt a sudden urge to turn and run away as fast as she could go. Instead, ruthlessly suppressing the urge, she said, “Yes, please.”

Chapter 11

T
hey sat for several moments with their backs against the stone wall of the building, sipping wine from silver goblets until Mairi felt warm all through.

She heard a horse’s snuffling whinny from the stable enclosure. Otherwise, the night was so silent she felt as if her breathing might draw someone’s attention, but both the wine and Lachlan’s nearness reassured her. Had anyone told her she could feel comfortable sitting alone with a man she had met only three days before, she would have laughed, but she felt as if she had known him forever.

He put his arm around her, and she leaned her head against it, looking up as a star flashed across the sky, leaving a brilliant tail of sparks.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

“Aye, and made a wish, too. Did you?”

“Of course, and it is about to come true,” he said, leaning closer and kissing her. A moment later he took the goblet from her hand, set it down somewhere, and pulled her closer while his free hand pushed her cloak away and touched the soft plumpness of her breast where the deep vee of the kirtle’s neckline revealed it.

She gasped as his hand slid inside, moving the fabric off her shoulders. She wore nothing underneath, because Meg had taken away her shift.

“This dress should be illegal,” he murmured against her lips as his warm hand cupped her breast.

His hand was warm against her skin. Her blood flowed hotter still, like fiery rivers coursing through her veins to her core, making her body ache for him to touch it, to kiss her all over as he had once promised to do.

Stirring against him, she pulled him closer, holding him tight as he eased her down to lie on the cloaks he had spread. He kissed her again, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth and exploring its interior as his hand eased over her body, sending new sensations through her everywhere he touched her.

He paused, leaning up on an elbow to look at her. The slim crescent moon peeped over the hill, casting its silvery light on them, revealing his tender smile.

“I want to make you mine, Mairi. I want us to have no doubt about that.”

His words brought a quickening response from her body that she could not deny. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” she murmured.

“Don’t say anything,” he said, kissing her again.

His exploring hand moved lower on her body, skimming across her stomach to the juncture of her legs. As he eased her skirt up, she felt the chilly night air and wondered if she might grow too cold. But with his body atop hers and her blood racing, her legs felt the chill only for that instant. Then his fingers touched the bare skin high on one inner thigh, stroking her, and she could think of nothing else.

Her lips were soft and delightfully responsive, and her skin even softer than he had imagined it would be. Touching her encouraged him to play, to let his fingers stroke in reverence, and then, with his lips and tongue, to taste and savor. She showed no fear, only fascination, and briefly he wondered if she were more experienced in the art of lovemaking than he had thought.

But, no, she could not be, for not only were her reactions filled with virginal awe, but only the world’s stupidest man, having experienced the delight of holding her so, touching her, and stirring her passions, could give her up. And a man that stupid would lose no time in crowing of his conquest to every other man he met.

He continued to kiss her, savoring the warm velvety interior of her mouth and anticipating a corresponding warmth elsewhere. As the image stirred his senses, he trailed fingers along her inner thighs until she gasped again. Flattening his hand, he moved it slowly, delighting in the silky softness of her skin against his palm.

She was moaning, and he feared she might be one to forget her surroundings and give voice to her passion, particularly at her climax. He wanted to taste more of her, to take his time, but even if she were quiet, they dared not linger long, for every moment increased the likelihood of someone catching them. Even as he savored the treats of her body, felt her squirm beneath him, and enjoyed her moans of pleasure, a part of him—the part that never slept—continued to evaluate the risk they faced.

He believed what she had said about the guards at Finlaggan, for he had already seen that they spent their days wrestling, practicing archery, hauling boats, or sailing on the loch or along the coast. He had seen only a few guarding anything.

Still, in his experience, a lord as skilled and successful as MacDonald would not suffer men about him who neglected their duties, and the safety of his family would be paramount. An army or navy might not be able to invade Isla without warning, let alone Finlaggan, but Lachlan believed that he and a few of his men in a boat could gain landfall at both places on any dark night, without being caught.

Whether they could as easily, with impunity, gain entrance to the apparently unlocked private quarters of the Lord of the Isles and his family was another matter, and one on which he would not bet heavily, especially with Finlaggan full of off-islanders. Were it as easy as it seemed if one accepted the lass’s description, MacDonald would be dead by now and an invader ruling in his place.

While these thoughts tumbled through his subconscious, they stole nothing from his pleasure. His lips continued to savor hers, his tongue to dance with hers, and his fingers to explore. Wanting to examine her breasts more thoroughly, he moved lower, kissing her neck, the hollow under an ear, and her throat before he trailed a line of kisses over the right one and his lips captured its nipple.

Using his tongue, and feeling himself stir as he imagined the lass using her soft lips to such good purpose on him, he lingered over the right breast for a time before moving to the left one and then trailing more kisses down her belly.

She gasped again when his fingers invaded the moist area between her legs.

From their first meeting, Mairi had suspected that what she knew about couples and coupling was as nothing to the reality. When he touched her, she had been sure of it, but until that night, her knowledge of coupling had comprised only the curt answers received when she had boldly asked first her sister Marjory and later John Og’s wife, Freya, to tell her what took place in the marital bed.

“Do people get children the same way that horses, dogs, and cattle do, or more like chickens and hawks?” she had naively asked the latter.

“Like horses, more’s the pity,” Freya retorted, adding with a blush, “Go tend your duties, Mairi. I do not want to talk of such things.”

She had tried numerous times since, unsuccessfully, to imagine skinny Freya behaving like a mare in season, or John Og like a sexually aroused stallion.

“Art frightened, lass?” Lachlan asked quietly, raising his head.

His fingers stirred a new wave of aching heat between her legs, making her gasp as she said, “Nay!”

“I could tell that your thoughts were wandering and thought the only thing that could distract them right now must be fear.”

“Not fear,” she said. “Only curiosity about what you would do next.”

“This,” he said, moving so that she felt his warm breath stir the nest of curls near his tantalizing fingers.

“Oh! What are you doing?”

“Only kissing you everywhere, as I said I would.”

“But surely not there!”

“Everywhere.”

The warning voice in the back of his mind told him to get on with it, and complete the act that was his best hope for claiming her as his own.

As he kissed her nest, breathing in the womanly scent of her, he sent a prayer heavenward that his plan would succeed. Resisting the yearning to taste her and linger there, lest she protest more loudly, he moved gently up to kiss her lips instead, to still any protest before it flowered.

Freeing himself from his clothing was easy. The flat linked-metal belt he wore low on his hips clinked as he shifted it out of the way. His thigh-length tunic shifted easily, and his trunk hose opened just as easily. Reaching for her again, he gently used his fingers to be sure she was ready. Reassured by another gasping moan of pleasure, he fitted himself into her, careful to move with caution so he would not hurt her. The moment he touched her, however, his urge to take her increased so powerfully that it was as if he controlled a beast within.

His breathing quickened, and he could feel his heart pounding. His body throbbed, aching for release.

When Mairi realized that what touched her now was not his fingers she stopped breathing, wishing that part of her could perch on a tree branch and look down on them, to see exactly what he was doing. She could feel it—enormous in comparison to his fingers—and she remembered what Freya had said about horses.

But it did not hurt her. Instead, it seemed to toy with her, tease her, and the sensations it stirred were irresistible. She did not want them to stop.

She wondered what he was feeling.

His kisses were tender, light against her lips and cheeks, even her eyelids, and as she kissed his cheek and bristly chin, she felt herself surrendering, melting like warm butter beneath him.

Then he pressed harder, slid into her, and the ache of longing she had felt changed to a dull but sharpening pain. She squirmed and gasped, but he claimed her lips again, his tongue thrusting into her mouth. One hand moved to her right breast, stroking tenderly, teasing the nipple. Then with a moan, he shifted that hand to the ground beside her, balancing himself as he thrust into her, harder and harder, still holding her mouth captive so when the pain drew a cry to her lips, it went no farther.

Gasping now himself, he pounded against her, faster and faster, until at last he stopped, held himself above her for a moment, and then slumped atop her.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured.

“Did it hurt you, too?”

“Nay, it did not, and it will not hurt you either next time. ’Tis only when a woman has not done it before that it hurts her.”

“How do you know so much about how a woman feels?”

He chuckled. “Hector told me.”

Mairi’s return to the residence was without incident, and lying in her own bed a short time later, with Elizabeth breathing softly beside her, she considered the events of the night and decided that lovemaking was neither as Freya had described it nor particularly amazing. Her body still ached, but she was no longer bleeding.