Claimed by a Scottish Lord (26 page)

Rose forced a smile. ―Do you have a place to sleep tonight?‖

The woman dipped slightly in reply. ―Lord Roxburghe said I was to stay in Friar Tucker‘s room, now that he is gone. He said Mr. Colum will fetch me when ye are ready to leave in the morn.‖

―Did he say anything else? About Friar Tucker, I mean.‖

―Nay, mum. All his lordship said was that I am to be prepared to leave here with ye before dawn, my lady.‖

Anaya looked about her as she worried that she had forgotten something. The woman had helped Rose remove her dress and comb out her hair. She had packed Rose‘s one small trunk and laid out tomorrow‘s attire, which was the same traveling dress in which Rose had arrived. The blue-and-yellow beribboned garment was a bright spot on the droll seventeenth-century settee.

Rose had no idea the time that had passed since Mr. Colum had left her at the door that evening, but she wanted to be alone now. ―You have done enough for me, Anaya,‖ Rose said, liking the woman but uncomfortable with her over-willingness to please, and unused to servants.

―Go seek your bed and hopefully some rest. Tomorrow will be a long day for us all.‖

―Yes, mum.‖

Before she could leave, Rose stopped her. ―Anaya . thank you.‖

―Yes, mum. Thank you. His lordship asked if I wanted to stay with ye once we returned to Stonehaven, my lady. I said ‘twould be an honor. I will see you in the morning.‖

Rose heard the door shut behind Anaya in the other room.

Wearing a simple nightdress and robe, she had been awaiting Ruark‘s onerous arrival in a place of warmth. A single candle on the table and the coals in the brazier provided the only light and warmth in the room.

Returning her attention to the plain wooden box on the floor, she rose from the stool where she had sat to read Friar Tucker‘s letter. She folded the letter and laid it aside, then knelt and worked the lid off the box.

It contained her mother‘s threadbare purple-and-green plaid wrap. The one Rose had worn most every day of her young life. A palm-sized Bible Friar Tucker had given her when she was five, various silly trinkets collected over the years. Her entire life contained within a plain wooden box the size of a turnip basket.

Nothing was as she had once imagined it would be.

With a false sense of bravado, she left her place beside the warm brazier and walked to the table, where she poured sweet red wine into a goblet. She nursed the rim of the cup, unable just to tip it back and drain the contents. Her stomach would not allow it, any more than it had allowed her to eat that evening.

She did not want to be intoxicated tonight. However unplanned this marriage had been, ‘twas still her wedding night. She wanted to remember it.

The door opened a crack, as if someone had turned the latch but was not yet ready to enter. She heard Ruark speaking to someone outside the room, probably Colum. He entered the room, not seeing her at first. He hesitated, then shut the door behind him, and slid the bolt home. He carried himself with ease.

His leather boots, turned down at the cuffs, gave him unnecessary height. Whoever had built these rooms had not had tall men in mind. Her new husband‘s head was mere inches from the wooden beam that braced the ceiling. His gaze wandered over the room before finally coming to rest on her.

Her white dressing gown afforded her little protection from the heat of his gaze. A blue ribbon closed the robe and tied beneath her breasts. Anaya had seen to her appearance. She didn‘t have to look at herself to know the low décolletage revealed the soft rounding of her breasts above its scalloped lace. Her hair, falling softly to her waist, had been brushed to a sheen. She had not the least doubt that she was beautiful. She had wanted to be beautiful.

Ruark braced his back against the door and folded his arms. She could not read his thoughts, but her heart raced as if she had consumed more than a few sips of wine.

―You would test my mettle further?‖ she asked, wondering why he was not moving toward her.

She also noted that he wore no sword or dirk.

―Nay, love. I know your mettle. But since my life depends on my caution these next few days, I am merely taking note of my surroundings.‖

Their old repertoire returned some of her verve. ―Surely you do not think I would attempt to murder you?‖ she said with nonchalance.

Subdued amusement played on his face. ―You have only attempted to do so twice. I am hoping now that you are wed to me, you are of a different bent, especially since we already know one another well.‖

―I thought you were not coming,‖ she said after a moment, her quiet tone filled with emotion she did not want to feel.

He unbuttoned his waistcoat and stepped forward at last. ―You thought wrong, love.‖

She forced herself to breathe evenly. ―Who will serve as witness?‖

He set the waistcoat atop her trunk against the wall. ―Does it matter?‖

She looked about at the walls, attempting to spy cracks or holes in the stones. Then she remembered the hidden door, the way she had escaped that afternoon. Ruark‘s hand came alongside her jaw and stopped her from searching. The odd bit of lace on his cuff fell around his finely shaped hand that seemed to belie its strength. He had moved without a sound to stand beside her.

― ‘Tis no one you know or will ever see again, Rose.‖

She tightly hugged her torso, drew in her breath on the heel of a pause and nodded. ―I suppose that is no mean feat. I know very few people.‖

His eyes swept her. ―Are you chilled?‖

She should not be cold with him standing beside her. ―A little.‖

He walked over to the single brazier in the corner of the bedchamber, where he knelt and added more coal. She watched the way his shoulders pulled at the fine lawn of his shirt.

After a moment, he braced one elbow on his knee and saw the box. He fingered the faded plaid, then turned the letter over in his hand and skimmed the script. ―Tucker was here?‖

―Clearly, he had an idea that I would not be returning to the abbey,‖ she said jutting her chin toward the box. ― ‘Tis all I had that was truly my own. Strange, I am an heiress, yet it still feels as if all I am is in that box.‖

She had not meant the words to sound so cold, but they did, and then she realized she didn‘t have to care what anyone thought of her. At least her thoughts were hers and hers alone.

Ruark walked over to the table and poured a glass of wine. ―Wine?‖ he asked, holding out the bottle to her.

Her hands trembled a little. ―I have drunk enough. If we are to have an audience, I will remember what I do this night.‖

Yet, her heartbeat tripped over itself. How fast her resolve crumpled. ―Did you see Friar Tucker before he left?‖ she asked.

―Nay, I did not. Colum handled the details.‖ He studied her over the rim of the goblet, then drained the glass. ―Is it necessary to talk about this tonight?‖

Perhaps he was telling her he was in no mood for conversation or that particular conversation, or perhaps he was only telling her that nothing they said was between only them. Privacy was an illusion. The stone walls gave the false impression they were alone.

Rose cast about for something relevant to say but could not seem to wrap her thoughts around anything solid.

He turned his head. His glance took in the rest of the simple quarters including the narrow bed hardly large enough to fit her much less the both of them. ―Have you been comfortable here?‖

―This room is better than most in which I have stayed,‖ she said.

She could have said the mattress was hard and lumpy and the ropes squeaked, but the look that passed through his eyes told her he already assumed as much.

―Certainly ‘tis better than spending this night bivouacked outside with your men,‖ she said.

And just that fast, the matter between them suddenly wavered and shifted to the forefront.

He seemed to recognize this as well.

A small shiver slipped under her skin as she fixed her gaze on his. He framed her face with his hand. ―There can be no doubt when this night is gone that ours is a legal marriage, Rose.‖

The tenor in his voice told her he was not referring only to her father but to questions that might be raised by his own people later. He was not so much protecting her as he was securing the future for any children they might have together.

Children
.

Of course, she would have his children.

―You need not fear this night, Rose.‖

In other words, he would make it quick. She nodded her comprehension. Her next words, though faintly uttered, conveyed resolve. ―I understand.‖

She would do what she thought was expected of her. She wanted to feel no shame this night. Not tonight when this was supposed to be her wedding night. It mattered little that there were people who listened, even watched from the alcove behind the walls. She would not let that fact intrude. She had the power to block them from her mind. She had power.

Turning away from him, she began removing her robe, bending her head to pluck at the ties.

Ruark came to stand at her back. She felt a tingling awareness of him along her spine as he placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her slowly to face him.

She finished untying the ribbon laces, then lowered her arms and let the robe fall in a pool around her bare feet. Her night dress, though thin, was not sheer, but it revealed the soft peaks and curves of her breasts and hips.

―We are of the same bent to see this night over and done with, Ruark.‖

She pushed to the balls of her feet and tried to kiss him, but he stopped her. He raised his palms to her face, touched his thumbs to the rise of her cheeks, but not so far that she did not feel his breath on her lips.

For a moment, she lost herself in his gaze. And ‘twas not difficult to find pleasure in his touch as he brought his mouth down on hers. It was not a scorching kiss. Yet, by its very gentleness, possessed and burned just the same.

The backs of his hands whispered down her arms and, twining his fingers through hers, he raised them to his shoulders.

She was hardly aware of his palms on her waist.

Hardly aware that he spoke her name as he shifted and closed the distance between them until his hips aligned with hers. He scored the soft underside of her breasts, rekindling more than the spark inside her. In the glimmering candlelight, he became like the solitary flame that burned in the room. She resisted her feelings for only as long as it took to draw in her first breath.

And then she was aware of nothing at all. His touch was liquid, and it was suddenly simpler to abandon herself to him.

She threaded her fingers into his hair, loosening the queue, and letting the action define her desire.

She wanted him to touch her as much as she wanted to be touched by him. She wrapped herself in the fragrance and heat of him. She held him and was held in return.

Only when he pulled away did she remember they were not alone. But as if sensing the thorn in her thoughts, he whispered soothingly, telling her to look at him. To feel only him, know only him.

He gently and persistently kissed the fear away, turning her head so that her mouth shaped more firmly to his, increasing the unrelenting pressure of his lips, compelling in their promise. Then he reached around her and blew out the single candle in the room, descending the room into a colorless shadow realm revealed only by the burning coals in the brazier.

She became like the whisper of his voice, ethereal and otherworldly, yet there was not a part of her flesh that did not feel alive.

She drew in a deep uneven breath. His mouth grazed hers. ―Come.‖

She opened heavily lidded eyes as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed, where he laid her atop the covers. She watched as he undressed.

Unlike her, he stripped down to flesh and muscle. Then he dragged an eiderdown from the settee and climbed beside her, tantalizingly warm as he brought his mouth back to her lips. She cradled his face, taking the weight of him against her body as he moved atop her, but not inside her, though she felt his member heavy against her thigh. It was as if he, too, recognized this moment for what it would mean to their future, and that her elemental desire came as much from her need for him as her need to trust him.

He drew back, his expression one of tender desire, controlled yet not completely restrained. He would not hurt her, nor see her hurt. ―Keep the eiderdown over our heads,‖ he said.

―But then no one will know . ‖

She felt his chuckle. ―They will know.‖

Then he raised up on one elbow and looked down her body, his hand pulling up the nightdress. She adjusted her body, helping him as he pushed the gown higher and over her head, letting it flutter to the ground beside the bed. His lips closed on the tip of her breast. He kissed her then suckled first one rigid peak then the other, taking his ease with each as he laved her with his tongue. Lower still, he moved, across the underside of one breast, his lips fluttering hotly down her stomach, pausing over her naval to dip his tongue and taste.

Wrapped in an eiderdown cocoon, she wanted to touch him, but could not and still hold the blanket over them. The quandary frustrated her. Her restless mewling came as much from frustration as bliss, and drew him back to her mouth, where he explored deeply, swirling his tongue around hers and wresting another cry from her.

His kiss was as intoxicating as it was unrelenting and anchored her to him in the humid darkness beneath the covers. ―Shh, love.‖

With no warning, he shifted his body. His hair brushed her chin. His lips her breast. He moved lower. His tongue a fluttering caress.

He drew on her flesh and gently kissed her naval. ―Ruark . ‖

Her tone questioned his actions. While her body wanted to know more. Tension heightened her tactile senses.

Then he kissed her.

There.

Lightly at first. His humid breath teasing.

He slid an arm beneath her thigh, splayed his fingers over her buttocks and, with the other hand he parted her moist flesh, exerting a gentle pressure. She whimpered at the first touch of his mouth.