A Faerie Fated Forever (21 page)

Her forehead puckered curiously for it was a cool night with a lovely breeze. Then she saw that the hand wiping his brow trembled just a bit, and she shifted forward uneasily. What was this about?

He stuffed the handkerchief in his pocket and reached for her hands again.

“Heather,” he said in an uncertain tone. He squeezed her hands so hard it hurt and she grimaced. Saying, “Bloody hell,” he jumped off the bench to pace before it several times, wringing his hands. Abruptly, he halted, paused in front of her and fiddled inside his jacket for something. He withdrew an ancient pouch and sat it on the bench beside her. He stood stock still for a long time, staring at the pouch with an intent, almost resentful expression.

He squatted on his heels in front of her and took her hands. This time, his palm was drenched and as unsteady as a vine in the wind. He dropped her hand again, and rose to his feet, wiping his hands on the sides of his trousers like a wee munchkin.

The words he muttered so quietly that she had to strain to hear him were not at all childlike. “Damn it no. No. I will do this right. Only one though, not two. Two is begging. I won’t beg. I will ask firmly.”

Now she'd grown quite worried. Was he ill? Had something happened at home? One and not two what?

He started to bend but halted as he lowered himself. He grimaced and stood quickly, saying, “This is wrong. It’s all wrong.”

He walked over and repositioned her in the seat like a toddling infant. “Here, Heather, the pond is pretty. Look at the pond. There’s a butterfly. Watch the pond and the butterfly,” he pointed with a finger that trembled. “I’ll be right back,” he said as he ran off to the side where horses were tethered.

She couldn’t resist a glance, and saw him take something from his saddlebag. It seemed important to him that she keep her gaze on the water so she studied the pond and worried about Nial. Her worry consumed her, and she paid no attention to her surroundings. The butterfly could have sprouted horns and turned into the devil incarnate and she would have taken no notice.

She was so preoccupied that she didn’t hear him return, and didn’t know he was there until a pair of golden, muscular calves appeared right in her range of vision. She jerked her gaze up to his eyes. He had changed into his kilt, and stood in front of her as a Highland laird in full ceremonial regalia. He seemed more focused this time. It was as though in shedding the English garb he shed his anxiety.

He smiled and she was struck by anew at by his masculine appeal and sensual magnetism. Standing there, with his black locks framed in moonlight, wearing his sword, his sporran and his kilt, he was the image of everything her Highland home meant. Then she looked at the proud navy blue eyes and realized they watched her intently and were so full of love that she started to pinch herself. Surely, she had fallen asleep and would awaken to find this all a wondrous dream.

A moment later he reached to the bench beside her and took the pouch and placed it reverently on the ground. He opened it carefully to unfold a piece of fabric the same shade of navy as his eyes. He arranged the cloth in some precise pattern, folding it at certain angles and then checking it over and over again. “I only intend to do this once in my life, so I wanted to get it right.”

He knelt on one knee before her, and opened his right hand to reveal a lovely blue diamond ring, bearing a large center stone, surrounded by smaller golden citrines. "This ring has passed through generations of my family but its size has never been altered. Each laird changes the small stones flanking the blue diamond to suit the lady who will wear it. 'Tis given only to brides who are the fated love, and it fits the finger of each perfectly."

She gulped and chewed her lower lip. The jewel was lovely but the glow in his navy eyes outshone any bauble man could ever create. She focused on his eyes and when he glanced up from the stone to catch her at it, she could identify the glow. It was love of the sort that belonged in the faerie tales little girls were taught to set aside so they could accept a lesser reality. Heather's eyes grew moist as she realized that her faerie tale hero knelt before her in flesh and blood.

She reached out and trailed a finger down his jaw. "Not a toad frog after all."

"Heather, pay attention. We'll have to discuss your preoccupation with amphibians some other time. Let's get back to the ring, okay?"

"Okay," she said. "But it doesn't hold a candle to your eyes."

The tenderness returned to his smile with her words. "You should recall that my mother never wore this ring. My grandmother's last mortal act was to call me to her bedside. She gave it to me and demanded my promise to wait for my fate so that I might enjoy the enduring happiness she had with grandfather."

Heather inhaled a deep breath and forgot to let it out.

“I kneel before you upon my family’s treasured faerie flag. It has been the central dream of my life that one day I would be blessed enough to unfold the sacred talisman and kneel upon it before my lady. Only lairds asking the question of their fated mate are allowed this privilege. That I kneel before you on this flag and have not vanished in a puff of smoke should be proof enough even for my stubborn love that you are my fate.”

“Sweetheart, I dreamed of you before I knew you and when I knew you, I could not see that my fate stood before me. I knew what you were to me for the first time when your golden eyes filled with tears, shame and the pain I caused. You ran from me and I considered suicide, and nearly carried it out one day at the hidden loch.”

He saw her start at his words, and as though the shock had reminded her, she began to breathe again. “It is now my greatest ambition to see those golden eyes filled only with love and joy and the knowledge that you spend your life with the man lucky enough to be placed on earth for you. Heather, I love you. You are my first thought in the morning and my last in the evening. You hold my heart and my soul and you complete me. Will you marry me and walk forward with me into our faerie fated forever?”

She remained quiet for only seconds, but to the man who waited, they were interminably long seconds for her answer was his life. One word granted him a long one filled with love and joy or a short one, filled with agony and remorse. Then she smiled, and her golden eyes filled with love that washed over him and gave him a quiet certainty of her response. The tears trailing from her eyes and the emotion clogging her throat made speech difficult. She nodded yes, and opened her mouth on a happy sob to say the word. His navy happiness lit the dark gazebo like the noonday sun.

He remained on his knee to take her hand and place the ring that sealed their bond on her finger. "I knew 'twould fit your finger perfectly, my love, just as you fit me."

He leapt up to pull her off the bench. She threw herself into his arms and she took his mouth in a flurry of love that turned hard and urgent almost instantly. "Can you feel how hard I am for you, love?" He growled against her lips. "I hardened in a torrential rush with your acceptance." He moaned and swiveled against her caressing hand, even as he protested. “My love, I would not share your passion with anyone, and this place is not private.”

Heather disagreed. “I would seal our pledge this moment with our bodies.” She placed a hand on his chest and pushed him to the bench. "You want to do the same or you wouldn't be sitting right now."

He shrugged. "I could have resisted the shove, but I really wasn’t trying very hard." Humor lit his eyes as he continued. "My big head knows the risk in taking you here, but the little head is in charge right now and it seems to agree with you."

Her golden eyes donned a wicked spark. "Then you're in trouble, sir." His tarse twitched forward and started thrumming when she crooked her little finger. “Up with the kilt my laird. I would see what I have bargained for. I would see that which every female in the ballroom would give years of their lives to experience.”

Nial’s navy eyes blazed his need, as his hands reached to flip up the kilt, obeying the command of this one woman without question. He displayed the rigid extent of his desire and her golden eyes caressed him in a slow sweep from his balls to the head of his erection. Her gaze was a touch he felt physically and as it kindled hotter and hotter, and swept up and down his expanding length he thrust against it. She gathered her gown around her waist, showing him her drenched readiness. His gaze lingered on the wet brown rainbow of curls, and she thrust against it once before she lowered herself over him.

He retained the mental prowess to make a single comment. “No drawers? I should beat you for dancing with other men like that.”

She moaned as she felt him enter her. “Would you beat me, my love?”

Whether it was her moist, tight heat enveloping him, or the fact that she had casually used the endearment, he couldn’t truly say. But words were nearly beyond him. She waited for an answer, and he gave it to her, in a harsh grating tone that attested to his need. “Love of my life, if I place a hand to your firm bottom, I can promise that striking it will be the last thought in my mind.”

He tugged her bodice down and had a ripe cherry in his mouth the second the silk shifted. He suckled it as hard as he wanted to thrust but she set the pace. He refused to alter her tempo although the shallow way she rode him nearly drove him insane. He tried to distract himself from the urge to grab her hips and pound into her by fixing his attention to her breasts. Even so, the very instant that she came he grabbed her and forced her fully down upon him and he exploded in that single thrust.

He kissed each breast as he pulled the material back up. He shifted restlessly under her as she planted kisses over his face. When she bit his earlobe and flicked her tongue within, he mimicked her thrusts with his renewed arousal. He moaned as he said, “My love, you cause me to regress to a state of primitive craving. It must be those claws of passion, for there is no outer limit to my desire for you. But we should stop, surely we have already tested the boundaries of our luck.”

The wanton temptress was firmly in control and she preferred to ignore boundaries. It was, after all, the temptress within her that made her the mate for the sensual man she rode. The temptress wanted to play. She enjoyed controlling the mighty laird with the power of his need and it was a never-ending source of amazement that she was only beginning to accept that it was for her alone. The temptress called the tune, but soon enough she became entrapped within the melody and the play ceased. As she immersed herself in the physical expression of the magic they made together, she cried her love for him, and his voice joined hers, to create a symphony of love eternal.

Some time passed before she rose to straighten her gown. Nial flicked his kilt down and stood behind her, gathering scattered hairpins and awkwardly playing maid by placing them at rather random spots amidst her hair. He bent to kiss her neck as he swept the locks up. “Love, I’ve been in England far too long to suit me. I would wed you at the kirk at Kilcuillin at the soonest date we can possibly arrange. Are you yet ready to put behind you the carefully-crafted make believe world of the
ton
?”

She turned to him as she said, “Yes, my love. It is time to go home to Skye.”

He stepped back to survey her appearance. "Your gown is rumpled, your lips are full and swollen. I fear that my best efforts at styling your glorious hair leave much to be desired and," he paused and leaned close to sniff her neck, "You smell of me."

He saw that he had left his mark on her right breast that began at its curve, above the neckline of her gown and continued far below the fabric. He traced it with a finger, and smiled at the goose bumps that followed. “I fear I’ve marked you most openly, sweet. Yet I wish to announce our bond to your father and I wish to crow it loudly to Badgerton and your would-be suitors. Will you mind?”

In answer, she quirked a finger to bid him to lean down, which he did without protest. She fastened her lips to his neck just above his hastily tied cravat, and sucked and bit with all her might. She leaned back to survey her success. “Now I have marked you most openly as well. Will you mind?”

He laughed as he led her back inside. “Not at all. Mark any area of your choosing with your passion. However, I fear that our appearance announces to all what we have been doing. ‘Tis perhaps just as well that the words follow so soon.”

They made their way through the embracing couples on the terrace and entered the balcony door just as the music of that dance ended. Nial rapidly sent away the series of dance partners angry at missing their chance to hold the lovely lady close. “Heather shall not dance with other men from this evening forward. I suggest you seek other, available, targets. This one is mine, and I don’t share.”

He spotted Carrick and Bonnie and shepherded her towards them. Their progress was met with murmurs of commentary upon their appearance that started quietly and rose to a dull roar by the time they stood before her parents. His arm around her waist held her next to his heart and the wide grin on his face spoke for him before he said a word.

Carrick broke off his comment to John to join his wife in a shrewd and correct assessment of the meaning of their appearance. Bonnie found her voice first. “It is ever so interesting to see a man leave a party garbed as a
Sassannach
and to have him return as a proper Highland laird. And arm in arm with my disarrayed and glowing daughter as well.”

Laird MacIver refused to wear anything other than Highland garb and he snorted. “A change for the better if ever there was one. Yet I believe it is the triumphant hunter with his prize I see before me. Tell me, son, was there a recent occasion that required the withdrawal of the famed faerie flag? ‘Tis my understanding that such would decree a need for proper Highland attire as well.”