Beloved (48 page)

He caught her around the waist and swept her to her back on the grass. Elizabeth, Niall, and two-year-old James entered the
fray.

“I don’t suppose we shall see Ella and Saber too soon,” Arran said, his green eyes flashing as they did when he looked at
her and thought of private times. “They have more sense.”

“More sense? I painted you and you laughed at me. I shall not be easily diverted.”

“I shall look forward to seeing your latest
representational
painting of me. Do I bear the customary gold adornment?”

Grace smiled. “You do indeed.”

“Well,” Arran said. “Since you insist upon painting me naked, and in paying particular homage to what you must consider to
be my best feature, one hopes you have done it justice.”

Grace contrived to steal a covert squeeze of the “feature” he mentioned.

Arran bared his teeth. “Have a care, my sweet, or you will embarrass us both. On second thoughts, don’t have a care. Be carefree.”

“As you say,” Grace agreed. “But I’ve just discovered something that must be set straight at once.”

“And what might that be?” He gathered her in one arm and sat up. With his other arm, he surrounded their three small children.

“Hello, Calum!” Grace called. “Hello, Pippa. Come and join us.” To Arran she whispered, “I shall have to retouch the painting.
I’ve obviously grossly underestimated your
best feature
.”

He laughed aloud. “We’d best collect ourselves. The clan is about to come together.”

“Where
are
Ella and Saber?” Grace said.

“They’ll be along,” Arran told her. “With eyes only for each other. And wherever they are, you can be sure they’re together.”

Calum, Duke of Franchot, drew his duchess to a halt some way distant from Arran, Grace, and their children. “We should let
the boys catch up, Pippa.” At three and two, William and Charles were fiercely independent and liked to make their own way.
They had negotiated the flights of stone steps to the lawns but were diverted by something to which William pointed.

“Oh,
bother
,” Pippa said. “Look at him. Falling into a flower bed already. That child cannot curb his curiosity for a moment.”

“I seem to recall that his mother has always been adventurous.” Pippa had never hesitated to embark on lone journeys through
their estates in Cornwall. He held her arm more tightly beneath his. “But I don’t think your venturesome nature is what I
like best about you.”

She folded her hands on his forearm and swung away. “My coquettishness? That’s it, isn’t it? You love the way I flirt.” When
she laughed, her deep-blue eyes sparkled and he was once again enraptured by the dramatic contrast to her dark hair. “Calum?
Isn’t that what you like best about me?”

Overwhelmed by his feelings for her, he drew her close and rested his chin atop her head. “If that was what I liked best,
there would be precious little else to like.”

“I like everything about you, Calum. I always have.”

“You once didn’t like my temper.”

“You needed your temper—and your fearlessness. I know that now.”

Calum studied Pippa’s face. “What I love most about you is your gentleness. Your gentleness has made me a gentler man, a more
thoughtful man.”

“Only a strong man dares to be gentle,” she said, smiling at him.

He glanced past her. “Struan and Justine have arrived. Ah, how good it is to be gathered together here.”

“Mmm. I wonder where Ella and Saber are?”

“Who knows.” Turning her toward Arran and Grace beneath the great oak, he steered her onward once again. “Although we do know
they’re together. They’re always together.”

Her only mistake had been to wait, to wait even the short time she had waited before traveling to Scotland—and to Struan.
Lady Justine, Viscountess Hunsingore, laughed, and steadied herself as the carriage drew to a halt.

“And what amuses you so, my dear?” her darkly handsome husband asked. “When you chuckle like that, I wonder if you have some
secret you have kept from me.”

She looked at him from beneath thick lashes. “Oh, I do. A great secret.”

Struan leaped to the ground, caught her by the waist, and lifted her from the carriage they used to travel between the castle
and the hunting lodge where they made their home. He reached back inside to pick up tiny Sarah and to help two-year-old Edward
to the driveway.

“I shall not press you for your secrets, Justine. I have learned the folly of imposing my will—trying to impose my will upon
yours.”

“Such a clever man I married,” she told him. “Because you are so clever, I’ll share the reason for my laughter. It’s because
I’m happier than I ever thought possible. And I laughed at myself for being such a goose.”

“A goose?” He looked at her sharply.

She inclined her head. “For ever allowing you to leave Cornwall without me—after we first met. And then for not following
you to Scotland immediately.”

Struan remembered the night when she’d arrived, declaring that she had come simply to “help” him. How quickly that had changed.
“But you did follow,” he said. “I choose to thank God for that. Otherwise, I should have been forced to hunt you down myself.
So much more of a chore.”

This time they laughed together, and turned together at the sound of a hard little cough. The dowager, with Blanche at her
shoulder, stood a short distance away.

“Grandmama!” Justine said. “What an—incredible bonnet.” More gray than black, the brocade creation all but trembled with the
weight of jet and crystal beads suspended beneath the brim.

The dowager raised her head, causing the dangling decorations to bobble. “There, Blanche. I was right. Justine has always
had the most marvelous taste in all things, and
she
thinks this bonnet suitable.”

Justine turned away in time to hide her smile. “It looks as if we shall be the last to arrive,” she said when she could control
her voice. “They’re all over there under Grace’s oak.”

Struan adjusted his grip on Sarah and let Edward run toward the lawns. “Not Saber and Ella.”

“No. No, you’re right. They will come—when they remember.” She shook her head. “How those two do live for one another.”

“For and through one another,” he agreed. “And how grateful we are for that. They are inseparable.”

Saber and Ella stood at a window in Revelation, the tower that had been Arran’s bachelor quarters, but which he now shared
with Grace.

“I love Scotland,” Ella said.

Saber hid a smile. “I’m surprised to hear you say as much.”

“You know—” Ella pursed her lips and poked his ribs. “You fun me, Saber. I suppose you mean that I ‘say as much’ far too often.”

“There is nothing you say that I would not listen to as often as you wish to say it,” he told her, pleased with his own charming
repartee. “I love Scotland too. How could I not love it when it means so much to you?”

“You, sir,” she said, narrowing her eyes and pointing at him, “are a silver-tongued rogue.”

“Only with you, my love, only with you.”

She turned to look through the windows. “We should join the others.”

“Surely we have time—”

“No,” she broke in tartly. “We do
not
have time. You, husband, are insatiable.”

“And what a trial that must be for you.”

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Ella kissed him until he feared they might be forced to delay going outside.

When he slipped his hands from her waist to her bottom and pulled her against him, she placed her fists firmly on his shoulders
and arched away. “In case you forget the event, my lord, we are barely out of our bed—again.”

“Haven’t forgotten,” he said, nuzzling her neck, licking the hollow above her collarbone—and the soft rise of her breasts.
“Unforgettable.”

“In that case—”

“Repeatable.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Unforgettably repeatable.”

“Saber, we have to—”

“Repeatably unforgettable.”

“Repeatably isn’t a word.” Giggling, she fell against him. “We are supposedly taking a stroll to collect ourselves before
presenting our faces to the others. I suggest we continue—and quickly.”

“We could do the other quickly.”

“You are
impossible
.”

“Thingie,” Saber said, chuckling deep in his throat. “A quick thingie?”

“You horror! I’ve made a monster of you.”

Saber grew still. He framed her face and checked every beloved feature. “You took a monster and made him human, marvelously
human. You made me believe in myself again. You made me seek the light when I would have sunk deeper and deeper into the darkness.
I truly believed I was doomed to madness.”

Her expression grew serious. “Only by confronting the darkness could we hope to take away its sting, Saber.”

“I wish I could completely chase away the specters.”

“Perhaps they will disappear one day. Meanwhile, you have me at your side to help you. And the episodes grow fewer and fewer.”

His smile spread from the inside. Saber felt its warmth engulf him, and saw Ella’s eyes glow with reflected pleasure. “We
went through hell, you and I,” he told her.

“And we escaped,” she said. “I try not to think of the past— particularly not—”

“Not of what happened to you at Lushbottam’s? When you were a child, or when our enemies were unmasked?” They had made a pact
never to avoid the events that had all but destroyed them both. “We have the future to look to now, Ella.”

“It will wait.” Ella caught his hand and pulled him. When he held his ground, she scowled and yanked harder. “The past is
over but not forgotten. The future is to be anticipated and planned for. It is the present in which we live, my love.”

“Hmm. And in the present our company is expected elsewhere?”

“Indeed. So, if you will allow me to lead you, my love?”

Reluctantly, grinning at the effort she expended, Saber did allow his wife to urge him, step by step, toward their appointment
with the family.

When they emerged from the tower into the sunshine, he whirled Ella back into his arms and kissed her soundly. “A pact, beloved,”
he said. “Can we make a pact?”

“Name it. They are all watching.”

“And enjoying every moment. Our pact shall be: Together, forever.”

Ella grew still. She raised her eyes to his. “Forever together, beloved.”

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Teresa Salgado

S
TELLA
C
AMERON

lives in Washington State with her husband, three children, and beloved dog, Spike. A happily transplanted “Brit,” she loves being a wife, mother, friend, writer, and an American––in that order. Hopes? To be fitter, thinner, and more patient. Fears? Running out of time to write all her stories.