Morna's Legacy 04 - Love Beyond Measure (23 page)

I couldn’t imagine what I had to do with it.

“We already had Jeffrey at that point, but to our surprise Maggie became pregnant again, only to miscarry the child a few weeks later. As per usual, I said something about the child not being meant for us and for the first time in a decade, she lost it on me. She said that I was a fool to think such a thing when we had the likes of you to show us what an untrue notion that was.

“She said that anyone with half a brain could see that your parents didn’t come close to deserving you and that if you were meant to be anyone’s child, it was ours.” He paused and brought my hand up to his lips, kissing it gently. “I understood then how stupid it was, but it had brought me comfort when I needed it so I never spoke it again until I told it to you when you were pregnant because really, Maggie, was right.”

I’d never looked at it as Maggie had either, but it was certainly a way of thinking that could be seen from several viewpoints. As a soon-to-be mother I’d taken it as Mitsy had, words to calm my doubt that I could be the mother I wanted to be for my child. For someone more empathetic to the woes of others, as Maggie had been, or as a child who’d grown up under terrible circumstances, I could see how the thought could be seen as placing uncalled for guilt on a blameless child. No child is meant to grow up in anything less than a loving and caring home.

Still, I didn’t understand what him telling me all of this had to do with my getting married in a matter of moments. “Okay, forgive me, Charles. What are you trying to say?”

“Only this, Grace.” He stopped walking.

I looked up to see where we were. We were just at the end of the path leading to the secluded tree with the low sitting branch—Eoghanan’s special place of thinking where he’d taken me the night Cooper and Jeffrey had disappeared. It would be good to make a new, happier, less-stressed memory in that place.

“That is always how Maggie saw you…as hers, no matter who you were born to. While I know that your real parents aren’t here to see you marry the man you’re meant to, I am here and,” he choked up slightly and I squeezed his hands in comfort, “she is watching all of this from heaven and beaming. I couldn’t love you or be any more proud of you than I am right now.”

I was full out crying now, and Bebop quickly moved to dab the tears from my face, shaking his head in apology. “Forgive me, I’m a stupid man. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“No, you didn’t.” I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. My whole life I wanted to be your child rather than the child of my parents; to know that you wanted me as much as I did you…nothing could be more pleasing to hear.” Inhaling to gain my composure, I turned so that I faced the front of the tree-lined path that served as my aisle. “I love you, Charles. Now, let’s get me married, shall we?”

*

I wondered just how many brides could recall very much about the actual ceremony part of their wedding, for as it drew to a close and Eoghanan leaned in to kiss me, I realized that I’d been rather lost in a haze of happiness, my emotions so swelled that I couldn’t remember anything.

I felt his lips touch mine and guilt swarmed me, until he leaned in and whispered in my ear.

“Ye have made me the happiest man in the world, lass. I am now yers forever, and ye are mine.”

It didn’t matter that I couldn’t remember the ceremony, or just exactly what words had been said. The last words he’d whispered to me were what it was about anyway. They were all that truly mattered.

I just wished I could shake the feeling that everything was going too well.

Eoghanan McMillan was an utter fool if he thought keeping her off McMillan land would protect them. Jinty had other ways to keep herself abreast of what went on in the castle, other ways to look for the perfect opportunity to take the boy.

She’d been right to think the boy was special to him. The warning in his eyes had been clear enough the day he’d seen her inside the castle. She’d known he suspected who she was. It didn’t matter in the least.

She watched them now; Eoghanan and his new bride riding away from the castle. They would be gone for days, the boy left in the care of his real father, a man far less threatening than Eoghanan. She’d continue to watch the child closely and, at the opportune time, she would take him away.

Eoghanan would return to find his new son gone.

*

“If ye look back in the direction of the castle once more, lass, I shall turn me horse around and we will go home.”

“I’m sorry.” I turned my head around and leaned back into him, kissing the underside of his chin. McMillan Castle was far from view by now but, for whatever reason, looking back toward the castle helped to ease my nervousness at leaving Cooper.

He’d be fine, of course. He stayed with his father at least two nights a week back in New York, but for some reason, I was irked by an unexplainable sense of worry. Whether it was the newness of our situation or the vastness of the castle and its endless ways for Cooper to get in trouble, I didn’t know, but it wasn’t fair of me to give Eoghanan anything less than my full attention.

“How much farther are you taking me?” I reached my arms up behind his head, gently massaging the back of his scalp while I leaned into him, just as I’d done the day I’d cut his hair.

He let loose a deep contented sigh of enjoyment. “Ach, Grace, as much as I love the way that feels, I doona think I can stay sitting up properly on me horse if ye continue that.”

Following our wedding, we joined the others residing at the castle for the gathering at a large celebratory dinner that lasted well into the wee hours of the morning. We’d collapsed so exhaustedly into bed that thoughts of binding our marriage vows through consummation hadn’t crossed our minds for a moment. Now, however, it was all I could think about.

“So why don’t you get off your horse for a bit. Seems to me like we’ve still got quite a ways to go.”

“Aye, that we do, Grace. At least a full day more which is why I doona understand why ye think I should get off me horse, ’twould only delay us further.”

I laughed against him, rather shocked at his daftness. It was the one thing constantly on the mind of any man and the moment it was so clearly on mine, he couldn’t take the hint. I shifted my bottom, rocking it into him a bit to emphasize my point. “Who cares if it delays us a little? I want to be…” I hesitated, trying to think of the word I’d heard once. “What is it that you all say? Tupped? I want to be tupped by my husband.”

The catch of his breath was instant and so was the slight pull on the horse’s reins. “Tupped is no a kind sort of reference, lass. Ye should be careful saying just what it is that ye want. I doona think ’tis that.”

I couldn’t tell whether he meant it as a challenge or he just didn’t wish to get his hopes up, but I reached behind him and pulled at the hair along the base of his neck. “I don’t think it’s really your place to tell me what I do and don’t want. I’m more than capable of figuring that out for myself. And right now…I don’t want to be cherished. I don’t want to be caressed or taken slowly…”

He pulled the horse to a stop before I even finished. “Right now, I want to be claimed by my husband. I want you to throw me up against one of these trees and take me so roughly that the only way I can sit this horse again is by sitting sideways.” He nearly choked on his own spit, and his breathing came ragged in my ear.

“I want my
husband,
” I emphasized the word, drawing it out and speaking in the most seductive voice I could manage. It sounded rather ridiculous to me, but it seemed to do the trick for him just fine. “To fu…”

Finally, he spoke, flinging himself off the side of the horse so that he could pull me off with him. “Ach, hush yer mouth, Grace. I doona even know what to say to ye. I have never in me life heard a lass speak such.”

His tone was admonishing, but he still hurriedly pulled me toward a secluded area amongst the trees, his chest rising and falling quickly with each step. He didn’t look back at me until he stopped walking, spinning to force my back against a wide-based tree, his cheek leaning forward to press flush against mine. “’Tis verra shocking.”

“Is it?” I enjoyed this exchange so different from any we’d had before. The evening he’d been drunk, he’d kissed me roughly—his own inhibitions dampened enough by the ale to permit him to treat me less gently than he had at any time since that night. I’d enjoyed that brief encounter very much. Every woman wanted to be cared for, to have a man take their time with them, and Eoghanan certainly did both of those things. In this instance, however, I didn’t want to be taken slowly. Now that Eoghanan was my husband, I wanted him to know that I trusted him to do with me what he wished. I wanted to feel as if I belonged to him and him alone. I wanted to be claimed by him.

“Aye, ’tis Grace. I canna tell if ye speak in jest or no.” He leaned his hips into me, the length of him pressing into my abdomen. “Ye see, lass,” his voice grew more husky every second, “it doesna matter how good the man, there is a bit of beast in all of us. ’Tis hard enough for us to no treat ye such when we know ye doona wish it; but when ye ask for it, Grace…” he paused, drawing in a shaky breath. “Ye should no tease a man with such things.”

I smiled against his cheek, slowly sliding my hand in front of me, bending my knees slightly so that I could reach underneath his kilt and wrap my hand around him. “Do I look like I’m teasing you? I care far too much about you to do that.” He groaned into my ear as I rubbed him. “I am entirely serious, Eoghanan. I need you. Now.”

He growled and removed my hand from him, raising my dress as he spun me so that my chest and face pressed against the tree.

“As ye wish, lass, but doona say that I dinna warn ye against this.”

“We canna ride the horse the rest of the way. I’ll leave him with a man I know in the village. We must make the rest of the way on foot.”

I nodded, flipping myself over so that I could slide off the top of the horse. “Thank God.” He’d done as I’d asked him, much to my regret, and I had indeed been forced to ride the rest of our journey sideways, my thighs much too sore to spread them over the width of the horse.

After one more day of riding, we arrived at the smallest of villages that sat at the base of a tall cliff. Only one trail led up the hillside. While I could see that was where he intended to take me, I still couldn’t make out the final destination.

“Still tender are ye, Grace? I told ye I dinna think ’twas truly what ye wanted. I dinna mean to harm ye, lass.” He dismounted and gathered me in his arms, kissing me down the side of my cheek until his lips landed tenderly on my own. “I love ye more than ye can ever know. I would never knowingly hurt ye.”

“You didn’t. Just bruised me a little. It is not your fault. I brought it on myself.” I laughed against him. “I only wish I’d known just what I was asking for. I think perhaps I wanted to behave more adventurously than I truly am.”

“Aye, I feel much the same. I willna deny that no matter how I bury meself inside ye I love it enough to sell me own mother for a chance to do it again, but I want to see yer face when I make love to ye, Grace. I want to touch the verra piece of yer soul that is now shared with me own. ’Tis a wondrous thing that can occur with the pairing of two bodies.”

With my face resting against him, I breathed in his heady scent, undeniably male after so many days on the road. He smelled of sweat and earth, and sex. It was a comforting, surprisingly lovely smell, and I loved it. “You know, I don’t think there’s a single man alive that would admit to feeling that way.”

“Aye, and I doona think most men do feel as I do, lass. I am no a common man. ’Tis perhaps the poet in me that makes me so.”

“Hicumm….” The deep noise came from behind, and I twisted to find a man in his mid to late forties standing with his arms crossed and a pleased expression in his eyes. “If ye be a poet, then I am Laird of yer brother’s castle. Now, introduce me to yer new bride.”

Eoghanan stepped away to greet the man but kept one hand on the small of my back, nudging me along with him. “’Tis good to see ye, Tinley. This is me wife, Grace.”

I smiled and nodded to him, trying my best not to speak as to rouse the usual conversation that ensued as to the strangeness of my accent.

“Do ye have it ready for us?” Eoghanan moved to bring him the horse as Tinley answered.

“Aye, me wife helped in the preparations. I think ye will find it to yer liking. Doona ye worry about yer beast. I shall take good care of him until ye are ready to return home. There’s enough food to last ye a week if ye need it, though I expect the lass will grow tired of ye far earlier than that.”

Talk of preparations only heightened my curiosity further. Eoghanan must have sent a rider ahead of us to request such work of Tinley right after we’d announced our wedding for it to be ready and awaiting us today.

Eoghanan handed the reins over and reached for my hand. “I have no doubt that ye are right, but I’ll do me best to keep her as long as I can.”

“Aye, I’m sure ye shall. She is far too pretty for ye, even before what happened to yer face.”

The man’s words made me flinch. I’d never known him without the scars, which made it easy to forget that once his face and body had been entirely undamaged by Niall’s blade. He looked perfect to me now. The realization that others saw him as injured, as different from how he once was, had trouble resting with me.