DARE THE WILD WIND (33 page)

For a second, Brenna had suspected Drake of importing the bed for their wedding.  Drake's father or some other ancestor must have possessed a streak of hedonism that equaled his.

The maid unfastened the satin bodice of her gown.  When Brenna was clad in her nightdress and
negligếe
, Martine brushed out her hair to a fiery burnished cascade that fell over her shoulders and rippled to her waist.  Then, with arch tact, Martine withdrew through the far door of the bedchamber, leaving Brenna alone.

She had no more excuse to delay.  Sh
e wouldn't cower in her room.  But when she stepped across the threshold, she was acutely conscious of the diaphonous cloud of the
negligée
around her, and her nightgown clinging like a whisper of silk to her body. 

She saw Drake's sharp intake of breath.  He sprang to his feet. 

"My God," he said, a husky note in his voice.  "You're a vision."

Brenna's face flamed, and she saw desire struggle with his inflexible pride.  He indicated the cold delicacies and pastries laid out on the small table set with gleaming silver and china.

"And quite likely one who thinks I plan to starve her into submission," he finished with a dry twitch of his mouth.       

Brenna felt a wash of relief at his old mocking tone.  She glanced at the food without appetite.  "I only want a little wine."

Drake took a step toward her.  "Brenna," he said, "I promise you tonight won't require that."

His voice had changed
, low now, and oddly reassuring.  Caught off guard, Brenna gazed back at him, her heart suddenly thudding as he closed the distance between them.  His expression sober, he spoke haltingly for a second.

"What I said in the coach wasn't calculated to inspire confidence.  On occasion I forget you're still just a girl."

It was an apology, a gesture at truce.  And Brenna knew it made no sense to spar with him now.  "I made a bargain with you," she said.  "I mean to keep it."

His topaz eyes flickered.  Then he mastered his reaction.

"Occasionally I could dispense with your honesty, but I've never doubted your sense of honor."  He drew a short breath, and took her gently by the arms.  "If we have a bargain, Brenna," he said softly, "then I suggest we make the most of it."

Slowly his sinewy hands slid up her arms.  In spite of the tense rebellious knot in the pit of her stomach, Brenna shivered at his light caressing touch.  She was disturbingly aware of the power and maleness of his body, of his thick
muscled chest and the long hard columns of his legs, and the corded strength of the arms that barred any hope of escape.

His fingers brushed the slender line of her throat, and h
e traced the soft curve of her mouth with the feathery pressure of his thumb.  Without willing it, Brenna felt her mouth part under the tingling erotic pattern of his touch.  His gaze held hers, and he drew her closer to him.

“
You tremble like a virgin," he said in a hypnotizing whisper.  "As if you've never been touched." 

Drake's mouth dipped to find hers, his lips seeking, search
ing, traveling from the tender corners of her mouth to the swelling fullness of her lips.  With each gossamer questing foray, her mouth opened irresistibly to his, betrayingly and reluctantly blossoming like the petals of a rose. 

Softly, his mouth caught hers, then with growing demand, and his arms closed around her, pressing her body against his.  She yielded, and he k
issed her deeply and fiercely, molding her even  more tightly against him.  The heat of his kiss seared her, and the raw hunger of his mouth sent a strange chord through her, igniting some dark nameless need inside her.  An exquisite ache twisted up in Brenna, and she lifted her lips to meet his, demanding as he demanded, pressing to him to somehow heal her.   

His tongue probed and then invaded her mouth, and her own tongue curled moistly, triumphantly, around his, cocooning and welcoming it, some wild treacherous part of her urging him on. 

Drake made a low ragged sound in his throat and gathered her up off her feet, into an intimate contact that denied nothing of his desire.  Their flesh all but fused in an incandescent heat, consuming Brenna's last trace of reason.  Robbed of her breath and all impulse to retreat, she clung to him, gasping as his mouth found and lingered at the velvet lobe of her ear and then trailed down the ivory pillar of her throat.  Tiny points of light exploded inside her as his lips ravished the sensitive hollow, sparking a strange licking flame inside her. 

Beyond thought, beyond pretense, Brenna pressed her face against the hard shaven warmth of his cheek and the springing thickness of his hair, a captive of his will, of the renegade kindling at the center of her very being. 

Her
negligée
fell away from her shoulders, and she was swimmingly aware of his fingers brushing aside the tissue thin silk of her gown, of his hand sliding beneath the soft curve of her breast.  Caressing, cupping it, his fingertips teased and circled with delicate, tantalizing skill.  Then, when she all but cried out in primitive wordless need, his palm and fingers grazed the taut swell of her nipple.

At her helpless quiver of pleasure, he tore the gown impatiently away.  Fright assailed her for a heartbeat as it fell, cobweb light, to the floor, leaving her naked before him.  Then his lips traveled over her upthrust breasts, and she arched her back and closed her eyes, welcoming the hot wet assault of his tongue as it wreathed and licked at each straining pink bud.  The warm brush of his fingers
traced the sensation of his suckling mouth, and then his strong callused hand glided down the smooth curve of her back to cradle and gently stroke the round firm swell of her hips. 

Brenna whimpered softly in her throat, quivering at the sweet tingling torment of his touch, and his exploring hand sought her secret and forbidden center. 
Rapture
.  A starburst of sensation radiated through her.  Then another and another.  She cried out loud and writhed against him.  The universe, the room around them, began to spin away into blackness.  And still, relentlessly, his knowing fingers delicately teased and probed. 

"Please," she breathed, barely able to speak.  "Please."  She wanted him to stop, she wanted him to go on, she was catapulting over the edge of madness.

She heard his voice, hoarse against her ear.  "Beg me, Brenna.  Tell me to take you."

Some vagrant shred of pride inside her cried
never
.  But the rhythmic fluttering and caressing of his hand ravished her will, and his hard maleness pressed urgently against her, not to be denied.

"Yes."  She gasped out his name.  "Take me.  Take me now."

His mouth closed over hers, and he bore her swiftly down to the floor, ripping at his own clothing.  Then his weight was atop her like a strange benediction, and he redoubled her pulsing need before he plunged at last inside her. 

White
  hot pain and dizzying pleasure collided.  For a brief instant Drake drew back.  Then his desire drove him on, and Brenna met each thrust blindly, instinctively, ecstasy eclipsing pain, her own traitorous body as insatiable and desperate as his.  Wave on wave of sensation crashed through her, building, ascending some great perilous height.  And then Drake's mouth and body encompassed the earth, and the sun exploded inside her.

She felt the scalding rush of his seed.  A thousand ripples seemed to wash away from her in ever
widening circles on an endless smooth lake.  Languor overtook her, and when she opened her eyes, she saw Drake gazing down at her.  He rolled to lie beside her on the richly  patterned carpet, and, propping himself up on one elbow, he laughed.

"For all the care I took to do things properly, we might have mended our differences in the coach.  If we have gotten an heir, we'll have to keep it our secret that we were in too much haste for our bed."

      
*****

The morning sun spilled through the windows, and a perfumed summer breeze stirred the silken curtains on the shell
shaped bed, brushing light cool fingers over her body.  Brenna sat up, then caught the sheet around her.  But Drake wasn't beside her.  She was alone in the tangle they had made of the bedclothes.  She had dreaded opening her eyes to face him, but he hadn't waited to greet her with the soft words of a lover or even to gloat.  He hadn't waited to bid her good morning at all. 

She felt an odd pang at being deserted.  Then she shook off her reaction.  What had she expected?  She didn't know.  But she was certain of one thing
, she was relieved to find him gone. 

After last night, Drake could make light of all she had ever said to him.  The madness that had overtaken her shamed her.  She had surrendered to his every demand, welcomed his every invading touch, her body a traitor to her will.

He had gathered her up in his arms and carried her to the wide voluptuous bed to make love to her again
, slowly, so slowly, until their first frenzy ignited anew.  Reveling in the skill of his caressing hands, in the feel of his hard male body, she abandoned all thought to a desire that matched his, goading him, meeting his probing manhood with a feverish primitive need.

At last they slept, his long body curving around hers.  In the pearl
rose light of dawn, he had claimed her again, this time simply and directly.  And she had opened to him as if nature had meant her for no more than this, to answer his desire and to slake her own.

The door to the bedchamber creaked, and Martine crossed the polished marble floor to close the French doors to the balcony.  Wrapping the sheet a little tighter around her, Brenna pushed back the hair that tumbled over her face. 

"Leave them open."

"Ah, my lady, you are awake."  The maid drew back the sheer floating curtains of the bed.  "Will you want a tray sent up?"

Brenna realized she had eaten nothing since a light morning meal at
Grosvenor Square before she left for Saint Paul's Cathedral.  And she had been able to swallow very little of that.  But she didn't mean to encounter Drake in her present state.   She shook her head and swung her bare legs over the edge of the bed. 

"Draw me a bath.  I'll dress, and breakfast downstairs."

Laced into a light airy gown of pale mint lustring silk, Brenna descended Wellingbroke's grand staircase with a poise she didn't feel.  In the corridor outside their private apartments and the great barrel
vaulted gallery, the servants greeted her with surreptitious smiles, and sly stifled laughter followed her.

It would have been no different if her wedding night had been spent with
Cam at Cairn Creath.  Brenna had forbidden Martine to hang the sheets from their bed outside their window.  It was an old custom, but she would begin with a measure of dignity, not by blushing and casting down her eyes at every insinuating look.    

Martine told Brenna breakfast was laid out in the morning room.  And that Drake had left no word about where he had gone
, only that he would return by midday.

Throned in lonely grandeur at the long table, Brenna felt like a guest.  Draped in snowy linen and set with antique silver and S
évres china, it could seat twelve, suitable for an intimate family gathering, though the Dalmorals had never numbered so many in Brenna's lifetime.  Tucking into a breakfast of scones and sausages and smoked herring, she gazed out through the tall windows.

The barbered hedges and topiary garden forme
d an old fashioned Elizabethan maze, and a small replica of a Greek temple stood on a rise above a copse of trees beyond it.  The vista was graceful and beautiful, and as stiff and mannered as a woodcut in a book.  A wave of homesickness washed over Brenna, a deep ache for the wild sweep of the moors below Lochmarnoch Castle and for the craggy heights above them, for the Highlands, unfettered and untamed.

Unobtrusively, the servants poured fresh tea from a shining
rocaille
service, lifted domed covers on silver platters laden with hot rashers of bacon and soft cooked eggs, and ladled thick porridge into a bowl she could only leave untouched.  There was food enough on the sideboard to feed a family of tenants, so much Brenna couldn't begin to sample it all despite the hearty appetite she brought to the table. 

Drake's majordomo opened the paneled doors just as Brenna laid her napkin beside her plate.  "My lady, you have a caller." 

"A caller?"  Brenna glanced up in surprise.  In
Scotland, a visitor might arrive at any time of the day, but in London Eleanore had advised her that no one of any breeding paid their respects until well after noon.  And it was unheard of to come calling the morning after a wedding.  "Who could be visiting today?"

The butler cleared his throat.  "Naturally, my lady, I'd take the liberty to turn any ordinary caller away.  But the dowager countess has arrived, and she insists on seeing you without delay."

"Drake's grandmother?"  Could something have happened to Drake?  The thought sprang unbidden into her head, and as quickly Brenna dismissed it.  What disaster could befall Drake in the peaceful
Surrey countryside?  And why would the dowager countess bring unpleasant news?