CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

 

For Alexander, the world was white and red. White birch. Red blood. Repeat.

Her ribs had been broken. That was why she’d mewled and crumbled against him the day he was shot. She’d been in excruciating agony because the bastard had broken her ribs.

White birch. Red blood.

The bastard liked to twist and bruise her delicate wrists. Not to fracture, mind. Just for pain. To watch her writhe in pain.

White birch. Red blood.

She’d worn long sleeves and gloves. She’d kept her gaze low and sweetly bashful. She’d held her skirts high above the mud. She’d done everything to avoid perturbing the bastard because when he was vexed, she suffered.

White birch. Red blood.

Alexander had watched her in Charlotte Square. He’d seen her go several days without eating. He’d seen her speaking with Munro at her servants’ entrance, risking herself to warn the MacPhersons about her brother’s plans.

White birch. Red blood.

He’d ignored his instincts because nobody could be that damned good.

White birch. Red blood.

Another tree fell. The rage continued pounding inside him, so hot it burned cold. It wanted a dead man’s blood, a dead man’s pain.

“Alexander?”

He stilled.

“What in the name of all God’s wee creatures are ye doing?”

Awareness of her charged through him like a lightning storm. His muscles seized and rippled with the force it took not to reach for her. Not to take. He commanded his body to calm. After several slow breaths, it complied—reluctantly. “Go back to the house, Duchess.”

She wore silk. Leaf-green, the same color as her eyes. He hadn’t seen her wear silk since her arrival in the glen. She was as bonnie as summer itself. And she carried a broom, for some reason, waving the thing at a swarm of midges as she picked her way toward him. “You’re bleeding. What have ye done to your poor hand?”

He glanced down. “It isnae broken.” It might be broken.

“How many trees have ye pummeled into falling?”

“One or two.” It was definitely more.

“Alexander! This is madness.”

It definitely was.

“Have ye tried using an ax, for God’s sake?”

“Willnae work.”

“Why not?”

“This isnae about the trees.”

After eyeing his hand, her gaze went from perplexed to frustrated. She shook her head. “Why would ye punish yourself this way?”

He had many reasons, but he settled on two: “I need it. And I deserve it.”

With a click of her tongue, she lifted her skirts and picked her way toward him. She took his uninjured hand and tugged him in the direction of the river. He allowed himself to be pulled because he was curious about what she planned to do. Only for that reason. Not because she bloody ruled him. She didn’t. He was in command of himself.

When they reached the river, she unwrapped the cloth from around her hand, dipped it in the water, and very gently laid it across his knuckles. “You don’t enjoy seeing me injured. Is that right?”

He frowned. “Bit of an understatement, that.”

“Well, I don’t want you to be injured, either. I especially don’t want you injuring yourself on purpose.” She took his hand in both of hers and raised it to her lips, carefully kissing the unbroken parts. “Please, please don’t do this again,” she whispered. “If ye must pummel things, find a way to do it without hurting yourself.”

She didn’t rule him. It wasn’t as if he would fall to his knees every time she demanded something.

“Done.” He didn’t know where that answer came from. But her lips were soft, her breaths warm and sweet against his hand.

She rinsed the towel and dabbed gently. “Why did ye say you ‘need’ to pummel trees?”

Telling her the truth seemed like a very bad idea—the sort a man might pay for into old age. Yet, she’d likely learn the truth on her own. And she’d asked so sweetly, with a wee kiss on his forearm. “My nature isnae easy,” he said. “Do ye ken I was in a Highland regiment as a young man?”

She nodded. “Annie told me. You and Campbell both, aye?”

“I followed him into the regiment, then into war on the Continent. Didnae think much about killin’ before then. I’ve hunted since I was a wee lad, but that was always to feed us. We raised coos for the same reason. Da taught us to respect every beastie, to never take our survival for granted. Just because we could kill didnae mean we should.”

Quietly, she rinsed and dabbed and dotted wee kisses above his wrist.

“But sometimes a man is good at things he shouldnae be.”

Her tender ministrations paused.

“And sometimes a man doesnae discover that until he does them.”

Leaf-green eyes lifted. “Are you good at killing, Alexander?”

“Aye. In the regiment, my commanders added to my duties once they kenned what I could do. They were always lookin’ for men who didnae mind the rougher assignments.”

“Rougher?”

“The important men run their wars from behind a desk. We’re their weapons. When they find a good one, they use it ’til it’s naught but rust and wear. I happen to be good with a blade. Good at stayin’ hidden. A good shot.” He gauged her expression, wondering if he should risk frightening her. But she didn’t seem frightened. Concerned about him, perhaps, but not frightened. “Good at pain.”

Still not frightened.

“I understand how to cause it, how to control it,” he continued, watching her closely. “How to learn useful things, such as which divisions a French marshal might send west of Salamanca if he believed he had the advantage.”

She swallowed, but she still held his hand with tender care. “Your commanders asked ye to hurt people?”

He shrugged. “They kenned if a certain man had to die mysteriously or a wee bit of information had to be pried loose, the job would get done.”

“But you left the regiment. You came home.”

“Aye. Couldnae continue with that lot. When ye’re good at somethin’, ye want to master it. I thought it best to leave before I was naught but rust and damnation.”

She was taking this rather well for a lass. Her lips were pale, but she hadn’t moved away from him. “Did you master it?”

“Oh, aye. Still use it from time to time, but only when necessary. Yer brother and his men created a lot of necessary.”

She rubbed his forearm with her thumb. “This is why you pummel trees. You’re punishing yourself for being good at killing.”

“Nah. I’m givin’ myself a vent because the man I want to kill is already dead. The punishment part is because I didnae see ye clearly enough.” He brushed her bonnie cheek with his uninjured hand. “If I hadnae blinded myself, I would have made what Broderick did to him look like a wee skelp on a lad’s backside.”

She swallowed again and stared down at his battered knuckles. “What do you see clearly now that ye didn’t before?”

Out of the dozen answers that came into his head, only one captured the heart of it. “My woman.”

A faint smile curved her lips. She raised his hand to trail dainty kisses from his wrist to his elbow. “I want you to tup me again.”

Arousal surged through his cock, rushing to meet her demand. “Bluidy hell, lass.”

“But first, I want to know why ye call me Duchess. Early on, I assumed ye intended to mock me, but I no longer think that’s true.”

Damn it all, now he couldn’t get the vision of tupping her here in the wood out of his head. He’d have to follow through or it would haunt him. “Ye should be a duchess,” he answered. “But as ye’re mine, and I cannae offer lofty titles, I call ye what ye are to me—my wife, the mother of my bairns. A woman too fine for aught that’s ordinary.” He shrugged. “Ye’re my Duchess. That simple.”

Her eyes turned soft and glowed as green as her ring. “And ye’re my husband. That simple.”

He drank in the sight of his woman in her bonnie green dress. Sunlight flittered through the trees above like wee birds, dappling her silk and lace. She was an angel, this woman. A regal, ethereal, delicate—

“I’ve an appetite to take ye in my mouth, husband.”

Sweet, bloody Christ.

“Now, if ye’ll be so kind as to lend me your plaid, I think I can use it to avoid soiling my knees. Dirt is devilishly hard to clean from silk.”

“God Almighty.”

She unwrapped his plaid with flicking motions and laid it at his feet with a saucy, triumphant grin. When his cock sprang free to greet her, she gripped and squeezed as if it gave her the purest pleasure to touch him. Then she dropped to her knees, licked the tip with a hungry little lap, and spread her lips around the head.

“Duchess.”

Her groan hummed around him. Her hand gripped him at the base to hold him still for her sweet, eager suckling.

His cock was a dark, flushed stalk inside her wee, dainty white fist. The contrast between his rough, blunt hardness and her pale, delicate beauty was almost obscene. But nothing aroused him like the sight of her aroused, lambent eyes and her sweet, eager mouth. His ballocks ached to deliver what she was demanding. His cock pulsed in agonizing want.

“I’m going to come in yer mouth if ye dinnae stop,” he warned.

Her moans grew more excited. Her hips moved in wee circles as she played his slit with her tongue. Why had he taught her about that? She’d used it to torment him ever since.

“Does my cock please ye, Duchess?”

Her answer was a long, agonized moan. She drew him deeper, nearly to her throat.

But he was too big for that delicate mouth to take more. And he wanted to finish inside her sheath again. So, he pulled back, gently cupping her cheek and soothing her displeased grunt with a stroke of her lips. “Easy, love. I need to tup ye now. If I take care not to soil yer skirts, will ye let me?”

Her hand clawed into his thigh. Her nipples stood out in high relief against her silk bodice. Her lovely throat rippled, and her sweet, pink tongue swiped over his cock head. “Aye,” she groaned. “Just hurry.”

He moved behind her and dropped to his knees. After carefully raising the back of her gown to expose her naked buttocks, he pressed her forward onto her hands. Her petals bloomed for him, pink, swollen, and glistening with her honeyed desire.

His woman loved taking him in her mouth.

But he loved taking her sheath—as many times as she’d allow, which was many, and in any way that pleased her, which was all of them.

Slowly, he watched his cock spreading her soft, swollen folds until the flushed stalk stretched that wee opening impossibly wide. Sinking inside her inch by inch, he savored her fluttering welcome, the spasms that were like tremors before a quake. A warning that the earth was about to move.

When he was seated as deeply as he could go, surrounded by her fire and on fire to give her more, he braced himself over her and pressed the tiniest bit deeper.

She sucked in a breath, her shoulders tensing. Shaking. “Alexander!” she gasped.

He kissed that long, beautiful neck, rewarding her for indulging him, then retreated a fraction. “Are ye tender, love?”

Her breaths came faster as she worked her hips against his. “A wee bit.”

“Eight times,” he breathed. “We’ll have to go easier tomorrow. Ye’ve been hungry, eh?”

“Oh, God. Starving for ye.”

He kissed her soft cheek, turning her mouth to his. He started his rhythm, keeping the ride slow and gentle. He palmed her belly and pressed with the heel of his hand to add the light pressure she enjoyed in this position. As anticipated, she went wild, bucking and thrusting her hips back into his.

“Harder,” she begged. “Faster, please.”

“Dinnae wish to wrinkle yer gown, Duchess,” he teased in her ear. “Now, I’ll take this sweet sheath as slowly as I want, and ye’ll come for me like the bonnie wife ye are. Isnae that so?”

She screamed his name through gritted teeth.

He kept his pace steady and added more pressure with his hand. “Such a beautiful woman, my Sabella. ’Tis pure heaven bein’ inside ye.” His head was a fog of heightened lust, coiling sensation, and intoxicating enchantment. He’d known she was his from the first. But he’d had no idea how fortunate he was. His woman was nearly always wet, soft, and eager. Her sensuality stunned him every time.

Though it was obvious how desperately she wanted him to move faster, she settled in, arched her back, and patiently let him set the pace. He wanted to savor her—the rose-and-lavender scent of her hair, the richer, womanly scent of her honeyed arousal, the sweetness of her moans whenever his cockhead slid past that wee, puckered spot inside her. He liked to take his time.

But she was squeezing him hard, now, using the tightness against him. And he couldn’t bloody resist her. Perhaps she did rule him. Just a little.

His cock worked deeper. Faster. Faster. He chased her satisfaction and intended to delay his own. But the sensation of being milked and spurred while she pretended wifely obedience shot him past his breaking point. His new rhythm stuttered. His seed surged upward, exploding inside her. She screamed her ecstasy and seized upon him like a proper duchess demanding to be served until she was full.

He fed her everything he had. In fairness, she fed him, too.

Late that night, as he lay with his bonnie wife draped over him in their bed, he contemplated the turns of a man’s good fortune. Getting shot wasn’t so bad, really. “I’m a lucky man, Duchess.”

She chuckled, throaty and sensual. “Do ye suppose so?”

“Aye. I want ye to birth my bairns.”

More chuckling and a dainty yawn. “If we keep havin’ days like today, I’ve a suspicion ye’ll get your wish.”

He grinned, even though it was dark and she couldn’t see him—and his hand hurt like it was fucking broken. He’d have to speak to Magdalene about it tomorrow. He wasn’t looking forward to the lecture.

“I confess it makes me nervous,” she murmured. “My mother died in childbed. Our wee brother, too.”

Frowning, he stroked her naked back. “What about yer father?”

A lengthy pause. “He couldn’t bear to be without her.”

Bloody hell.

“In some ways, I wish he’d left us sooner. It took him a year to decide, and in that time, he spent every farthing and then some. The house had to be sold to pay debts. Nobody apart from a greedy cousin wanted to take us in. Kenneth had to steal me away until he reached his majority.”

Alexander didn’t enjoy hearing about Kenneth, but for better or worse, the bastard had been at the center of her life since she was wee. He braced himself and asked, “He was a lord. Didnae his title help?”

“No. Our father’s disgrace followed us, and there was no estate. Kenneth was fourteen when we fled our cousin’s house. He found work wherever he could. A weaver’s shop. A livery stable. He wagered a bit in the beginning. Got pummeled a time or two for having such good luck. But he invested those winnings in speculation schemes. In time, he earned enough to buy the house in Charlotte Square. Kenneth was always clever.”

Kenneth had been more than clever. Much of his wealth had come from a club that catered to certain perversions. Many prominent figures in Edinburgh had been caught up in his blackmail net, which was how a minor Scottish lord had wielded enough influence to orchestrate Broderick’s downfall. It was also why his accommodations in the Inverness jail had resembled the finest inn, and why he would never have been punished by the courts. With judges and dukes in his pocket, Kenneth Lockhart hadn’t needed to worry.

“I wish I still had something of my mother,” Sabella said sleepily. “Now that I’m wed and might become a mother myself, I think about her a great deal.”

“Ye didnae keep anything of hers?”

“Everything I had was in my trunks.”

Bloody hell. He’d forgotten about that.

“She had the loveliest emerald necklace and ear bobs. Kenneth made certain we never sold them. He insisted I must wear our mother’s jewels when he escorted me down the aisle to my husband.”

Feeling a bit sick, Alexander focused on keeping his muscles relaxed wherever they touched her.

“I would have liked to have Annie’s letters back, too,” she said. “And the documents from Kenneth’s estate. What do ye suppose a thief does with that sort of thing?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he waited for her to fall asleep. Then he left their bed and carried a lantern upstairs to the attic. Apart from dust and cisterns, it was empty—except for one corner. He removed the canvas draped over green leather with brass trim. Then he opened the largest trunk and withdrew the emerald necklace. Lamplight glinted on the faceted jewels. They reminded him of her eyes.

Next, he sifted through her belongings as he hadn’t bothered to do when he’d hauled them up here. He found a neatly tied bundle of letters from Annie. Then he found Lockhart’s estate documents inside a leather portfolio. A second, smaller bundle of letters fell out. When he examined them, he frowned.

The letters were unopened. And they were from Kenneth Lockhart’s mistress, Cecilia Hamilton. The same mistress Broderick had dallied with, provoking Lockhart’s wrathful jealousy.

Alexander hesitated only a moment before he opened the first letter. With each subsequent letter, his unease grew.

Before his death, Lockhart had married his mistress. Cecilia Hamilton was now Cecilia Lockhart. Following Lockhart’s demise, she’d fled to Amsterdam, where Lockhart had sent funds to aid in his escape.

Cecilia had written Sabella to warn her about someone named Cromartie, with whom Lockhart had made a bargain. Cecilia didn’t specify the terms, but it sounded like the bargain had something to do with Sabella and that Sabella would understand the context.

Cromartie believes he is owed, the letter said. Be careful.

Ominous and maddeningly cryptic. Alexander’s gut tightened. Churned. He didn’t know who Cromartie was, but Cecilia clearly saw him as a threat to Sabella, enough that she’d written to warn her.

She’d also written for another ominous reason.

Alexander cursed. He stuffed the letters back into the portfolio, slammed the trunk closed, and threw the canvas back into place. Bloody hell.

Bloody, bloody hell.

Before his death, Kenneth hadn’t just married Cecilia Hamilton. He’d impregnated her. Which meant that Lord Lockhart might soon have an heir.

And Alexander might soon have to tell his Duchess how far he’d been willing to go to keep her.