Roderick opened the keep’s heavy door and made his way through the entrance. Given the late hour, Annabel would be abed. Had she been just as disappointed as he to have missed her lesson in the library?
He came to a halt and cocked his head to one side. Something familiar broke the night-time silence. It had a pulse, a steady beat no different to that inside his chest. And as is the purpose of a pulsating heart to keep one alive, so too did this deep-toned sound, with equal intervals, restore life to the castle.
Roderick’s spirit soared and he laughed with true appreciation for that which he’d sorely missed. The castle’s heartbeat had returned. He turned, quick to retrace his steps, drawn to the very thing he believed to have resuscitated Finvreck.
The grandfather clock. He admired the freshly polished wood. Through its clean glass face, the hour hand sat at three minutes to eleven. He opened the door in the clock’s midsection. Like reacquainting himself with old friends, he saw two iron weights. One to keep time, the other a strike weight. The pendulum swung repetitively left, then right, left, right.
Hypnotic. Calming. Reassuring.
Nostalgia returned. He saw himself again as a wee lad hiding in the back of the large clock’s casing. His body would absorb the vibrations every time the hammer struck the bell, his ears ringing in its aftermath.
The instruction booklet and bottles of lubricant sat exactly where his father had always left them. Brass cable cords winding around the drums glistened with fresh drops of oil.
Mellow heat, and not the customary shiver upon entering the castle, enveloped him. Marvellous how sudden happiness and treasured memories could ward off the cold. No sooner did he think it than his gaze slid sidewards to the hearth. There, a fire burned, banked with logs aglow in the grate. How had he not noticed when entering the keep?
One observation led to the next. The shine of polished panelled walls where once clan armament had been displayed. His gaze lifted to the mounted stag heads. Their glass eyes looked alive and clear. Flickering lit tapers in tall five-armed candelabras highlighted golden threads in wall hangings and tapestries.
The heavy rug underfoot appeared fresher, its colours brighter. Exposed flag stones looked clean enough to place upon them his supper.
Gratitude formed a lump in his throat. This was the Finvreck he remembered. Tomorrow he’d thank Morag for instigating such agreeable and homely housekeeping. Angus must have tinkered with the clock. Why had the old man waited until now?
Guffaws loud enough to wake the dead had Roderick turn to see Gillis and Darach stumble up the steps into the keep and close its heavy door. He pressed a finger to his lips. ‘Shh.’
The men quietened, their faces lighting up in surprise when the old clock chimed. It commanded each man’s focus and kept them riveted to the spot, listening to the hammer strike the bell. The air reverberated after the eleventh chime. For a moment, the men stayed silent, as if respectful of standing on hallowed ground.
‘Weel!’ Gillis scratched his fox-coloured beard. ‘There be something I havenae heard in a while.’
Darach sniffed the air.
‘Lavender,’ said Roderick.
‘Nae. Nae lavender,’ Gillis contradicted. ‘’Tis heather.’
Roderick quirked an eyebrow at the same time Darach laughed.
Gillis baulked at them. ‘’Tis heather. I’m telling ye.’
‘Since when did ye become a botanist?’ said Darach.
‘A what?’
Darach rolled his eyes. ‘Exactly!’
‘If ye’re asking what I think ye’re asking, then the answer is since tonight, when I bedded the widow MacPhee. Her mattress was stuffed with sprigs of dried heather, so I ken the scent verra weel.’
Darach scowled. ‘Do ye nae think that maybe what ye’re smelling is that strip of her shift she tied around yer neck?
Gillis’s two-fingered hand went straight to his throat. He looked sheepish and grinned. ‘Oh. Aye. I forgot about that.’
Roderick spied a wooden bowl of dried flower heads on the sideboard. On approach, he lifted a handful, sifting them through his fingers. Definitely lavender. ‘Look around ye,’ he said. ‘Finvreck’s maids have been no less idle than us today and are no doubt exhausted, as am I. I bid ye goodnight.’
He’d taken only two steps, when he turned to add, ‘Gillis, should you lurk in the castle’s corridors and spar again with your mysterious attacker, tell him to aim for somewhere other than your groin. We set out at dawn and I can’t have you unsteady on your legs like a newly doctored gelding.’
Darach laughed. ‘Aye! Protect yer wee tadger, else ye’ll be as stuffed as the widow MacPhee’s heather mattress.’
Gillis swung a punch at Darach and missed. He muttered a curse then asked Roderick, ‘What will ye have us do tomorrow?’
‘The same thing we did today. Along the coastline.’
‘Tracking the Jacobite rebel before the Redcoats find him?’
‘Aye.’ Roderick nodded. ‘Tomorrow then.’ He left the men and bypassed the kitchen, having no appetite for supper. All day he’d hungered for a tall redhead with lips the colour of a blood sunset. He made his way to his bedchamber. Once inside, he stripped off his filthy clothes and poured the pitcher of cold water into a wide washbasin. He plunged his face into it and splashed water over his head.
He stood straight, tilted his head back and raked fingers through wet hair. Water beads ran down his neck and spine, not nearly icy enough to remedy his fevered skin. How many times today had Annabel come to mind? How many times had his blood run a little faster? Hotter? Every time he’d closed his eyes, he’d touched her, tasted her. Visions of her seemed to carry the very sound of her voice.
The voice of a traitor to the English Crown.
The voice of a liar who’d so thoroughly used him. Anger curdled his blood. She’d betrayed his trust and good will.
Or had she? Had he jumped to unreasonable conclusions? Her vehement loathing of the captain might be for an entirely different reason to what Roderick suspected. Still, the possibility of her treasonous deceit roused in him resentment.
He could go now, wake and confront her. Give her the benefit of the doubt. If he sensed she was being dishonest, he’d find a way to wring the truth from her. Insist she explain her disguises and surreptitious behaviour. The sand-and-dirt-encrusted men’s boots he’d spied in her room. The primrose petal in her hair. The slouch hat on the chair, identical to that which Gillis had swiped from ‘he’ who’d assaulted him.
He lathered soap on a cloth and washed himself, all the while ruminating this morning’s events. Captain Stokes had shown macabre pleasure in detailing the pursuit and subsequent death of a known Jacobite sympathiser fleeing on MacLeod land. A second man was on the run, the Redcoats target to be captured and taken to trial. Or murdered.
Had Roderick not accompanied the captain and His Majesty’s troops during their day-long search, then cottars might have faced a wrath no different to Cumberland’s butchery.
Roderick wished he could erase from his mind any suspicion of Annabel’s disloyalty just as he easily scrubbed sweat from his chest. Being accused of harbouring a felon did not sit well with him, and even though he knew himself skilled in diplomatic strategies, words of reason might not be enough to send Hubert Stokes on his way. Better to convince the captain to leave the matter in Roderick’s hands.
He rinsed the cloth in the basin and cleansed soap from his body, reminding himself of his promise made to Annabel. He’d protect her, guilty or not, while she resided here at Finvreck. If she were any way involved in treasonous affairs, he’d find and lay evidence at her feet. He’d deal with her as he saw fit.
He set the cloth aside and reached for a towel. A shuffling sound came from beyond the door, followed by a timid knock. At this hour?
He pulled his breeches on in haste and opened the door to see Jessie standing there, lit taper in hand and dressed in her nightshift and shawl. She gasped at the sight of his naked chest and jumped back, gaze plummeting to the ground.
‘Begging yer pardon, Laird,’ she stuttered, ‘but …’
The moment she hesitated, Roderick assumed the worst. Annabel! ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’
‘Nae. My mistress, she …’
The maid stood there unable to speak. Daring to disturb the laird at this hour, and then to find him semi-clad would be reason enough to render her tongue-tied. He sought to ease her nerves and spoke with slow calm. ‘Where is she, Jessie? Where’s Annabel?’
She kept her eyes on the ground. ‘In the library.’
‘The library?’
‘Aye. She insisted on waiting up for ye.’
It never occurred to Roderick that she’d do that. He snatched from a chest of drawers a clean linen shirt and slipped it on. ‘Thank you, Jessie,’ he said, reaching for his boots. ‘Go back to bed.’
‘Aye. Thank ye, Laird.’ She bobbed a curtsy and, with what must have taken even greater courage, said, ‘Promise me ye’ll see her to bed, Laird. In yer absence, she’s worked herself to the bone and needs her rest.’
Roderick nodded. ‘You have my word.’
‘’Tis yer word, Laird, that I trust. Thank ye.’
Roderick suspected something else lurked behind her tremulous smile, but the moment she scurried away, he dismissed it from mind.
He set off along the corridors and down the stairs. He’d assumed Annabel to be asleep and tomorrow he’d apologise for having missed her lesson. The lass was truly committed to learning to read and write if she was still revising what he’d taught her.
The only light in the library came from the fire in the hearth. All was silent save for the hiss and pop of crumbling logs.
Roderick expected to see Annabel to his right, seated at the desk, if not slumped over it, asleep. The chair was empty. He approached the desk and spied extinguished remains of candles. Melted wax hung from the two-armed brass candlestick like icicles from a branch. His childhood reading book lay open, with countless sheets of parchment strewn about it.
On closer inspection, the ink had long since dried but each page was filled with experimental attempts at handwriting, including the repetition of vowels. Other pieces of parchment showed complete sentences copied word for word from the open book’s page. Each crude written attempt showed steady improvement in her hand.
Jessie was right. Her mistress had indeed applied herself most diligently to her lessons. Roderick was pleased with Annabel’s determination to read and write. Any tutor would be proud of her.
His attention swung to the high-backed chair facing the hearth. He approached on silent feet and there, curled up in a ball with feet and legs tucked beneath her skirts, slept Annabel. One of her hands cupped her cheek where it rested against the winged inside of the chair, the other hand lay in her lap. Her shoes sat neatly on the floor.
Is this what sedition looked like? This fallen angel?
Something wrenched around his heart and squeezed until he thought it no longer beat. Now was not a good time to die. Not if he was to rescue the lass from herself. Assuming she needed rescuing.
He took a breath but daren’t move in the event he wake her. For fear of losing a selfish moment to gaze upon that face, so peaceful and serene, and to appreciate the way the tips of her long lashes rested on skin so fair. To look at that mouth with lips he longed to kiss and to trace a finger along the arch of slender brows.
Red-gold highlights in her hair held him mesmerised. The thick mane had burst the bond of a satin emerald ribbon which lay against her throat. Roderick reached for, and wound one long, springy curl around his finger. He pressed the lock to his face. It caught on his faintly stubbled chin. He let the silky curl glide from his finger.
His eyes were drawn to the subtle rise and fall of her chest with each sleep-induced breath. He clutched his hands behind his back, a preventative measure against hooking one finger beneath the modesty cloth and touching pale skin beneath it.
She looked comfortable enough. If not for his promise to Jessie in taking Annabel to bed, he’d have preferred to let her sleep undisturbed while he sat in the chair opposite, content to watch over her. He brought his arms forwards, flexed his fingers, then slid one hand beneath her knees, the other behind her back. She stirred, mumbling a protest to be left alone. ‘Shh,’ he said softly and lifted her. ‘Sleep now.’
For a woman who was as tall as he, she was surprisingly light. She turned her cheek and flattened one palm against his chest.
Roderick negotiated the corridors, aware of his own rapid heartbeat, the woman in his arms, and the warmth of her body cradled close to his. Her hair spilled over his arms like a wide waterfall.
‘Ye’re late.’
The gentle reprimand brought him to a standstill at the top of the stairs. He looked down into sleepy eyes. A mistake, for he involuntarily drew her tighter to him. ‘Aye. I’m late.’
‘Tardiness is a trait ye deplore. Remember?’ Spoken not in an unkind tone, but as a reminder of him having neglected to practise what he’d preached.
‘Aye,’ he said again, and continued on. ‘Go back to sleep.’ The bedchamber door stood ajar. He leaned his shoulder into it and stepped inside the room. Fresh logs had been added to the burning hearth. Jessie’s doing, perhaps, to warm the room knowing he’d soon deliver her mistress to bed.
‘Ye kept me waiting.’ Another soft admonition.
‘I apologise.’
‘Ye said, “’Tis a mark of disrespect to keep one waiting”.’
‘Aye, lass, I did.’ He’d have rather her yell and scream at him like a jealous lover than to have to hear the weight of disappointment in her voice. He’d let her down and disliked himself for having done so.
Roderick paused beside the canopied bed. It was easy to imagine himself in it. With Annabel. Yet another mistake. He tore his gaze from the feathered quilt to look at her. ‘I meant you no disrespect, nor did I intend to keep you waiting. I was otherwise … occupied.’
‘Doing what?’
Now was the perfect opportunity to catch her off guard, to take advantage of her vulnerability and confront her with news of his meeting this morning with Hubert Stokes.
He should tell her that he vehemently denied the captain’s accusation of harbouring a Jacobite felon, reminding the captain that Finvreck would refuse refuge to anyone of that ilk. To champion a Jacobite rebel would be an unforgiveable and stinging insult to the memory of his mother.
‘Doing what?’ Annabel repeated.
Roderick ignored the question and lay her on the bed. Her hands locked tight around his neck. Alert eyes sent him a challenge. She was not ready to let go.
He stood straight again, still with her in his arms. ‘Tomorrow I’ll explain and make it up to you.’
‘Make it up to me now and explain tomorrow.’
He was helpless to ignore her sensual provocation and waged a private internal war. A war with suspicion and resentment on one side and surety of her innocence on the other.
When her hand slid from his neck to gently palm his cheek, he summoned the will not to lean into it. He chose to ignore the whisper of seduction in her yellow-green eyes before her focus fell on his mouth. He pretended not to enjoy the intimate stroke of her thumb pad across his lips, nor did he flinch when her fingers in his hair awakened nerves that sent tingles screaming down his spine.
He pressed his lips together, now forced to breathe her in through his nose. She intoxicated him more than if he’d imbibed Finvreck’s entire supply of fine whisky. His pulse beat hard and insistent in his ears. His mind said leave, now, but that traitorous part of him throbbed faster than he could count, urging him to lay with her and care not a whit about anything but this moment. To indulge in her delights. Give in to temptation. Make it up to her in the manner to which she beckoned. He darted a glance at the door with no recollection of having closed it.
‘I missed ye,’ she whispered.
‘And I, you,’ he confessed.
Was it her hand behind his neck pulling him closer to her mouth, or had he voluntarily bent to her lips? His mouth parted over hers and a frenzy of sensation shot from head to toe.
Dizziness overcame him. He broke the kiss in the interest of her safety and lowered her onto the bed in the hope she might let him go.
Impossible. That kiss was the start of no turning back. Exploratory hands slipped beneath his untucked shirt and flattened against his back, drawing him ever closer to her. He stood over her with hands braced on the mattress. A soft sigh sounded against his ear.
‘Dinnae leave,’ she said. ‘Stay.’
He lacked the will to refuse her, to stop her hands pulling the shirt up his back, over his head and dropping it on the floor. Fingertips explored his chest, gliding over each nipple. Sensation spiked. He caught her hands in his, pressing them to the pillow either side of her head. He sat down beside her and drew in a shuddering breath.
He stared at the halo of red hair fanning the pillow. At trusting eyes. At a mouth capable of giving him endless pleasure.
God help him. It took every thread of self-control not to hike her skirts above her waist and take her with the force of his need. He caressed her wrists and forearms. She shivered, sensitive to his touch, eyelids fluttering like butterfly wings.
A brooch pinned the modesty cloth to the neckline of her dress. His fingers hovered over the decorative piece of jewellery. He lifted his gaze to hers and caught her subtle nod. His heart shattered, no less fragile than the barrier of her maidenly innocence.
His hands trembled when he unpinned the brooch and set it on the bedside table, along with the lace.
Under Annabel’s watchful eyes, Roderick’s finger slipped beneath, and followed the low neckline of her dress. He heard her breath hitch in her throat. He methodically loosened the lacings at the front of her sleeved jacket and pushed the edges aside. His gaze shifted back and forth between her lips and her eyes.
Feverish anticipation hung in the air between them. He was desperate to see and hold her naked and so lifted her with him to stand face-to-face beside the bed. He turned her to face away from him and swept her hair over one shoulder to better see and unlace her stays. A deep sigh escaped her when they loosened and fell at her feet. Her skirt followed, leaving her clothed only in her shift and woollen stockings.
Roderick snaked his arms around her waist and drew her to his chest. He smoothed his hands over her flat belly and the tops of her thighs. He took the weight of both breasts in his palms, drawing from her a sigh so sweet as to heighten his appetite for her. With thumb and index finger, he rolled the tips of each breast and watched them rise beneath her shift.
She held on to his hips and pressed her bottom against his groin. Roderick groaned into her neck, instinctively seeking out and cupping the mound between her legs. Her impatient sigh had him turn her again in his arms, to lower his head and suck one, cotton-covered nipple.
‘Roderick!’ She pushed her breast against his mouth.
A gentle nip with his teeth and she gasped. She reached down between them and stroked him. Roderick’s stomach muscles tensed and he grew harder beneath her hand. If not for quickly pulling away from her, his body would have usurped mind over matter. He took back control, drawing the shift over her head and easing her down onto the bed.
Their actions would not be without consequence. Roderick was about to consummate the proxy marriage to Annabel. He knew the document to be legally worthless, but seeing Annabel willing and waiting validated for Roderick a truth only now he could wholeheartedly embrace. This was the laird’s bedchamber. He wanted her here in his rightful bed and in his life. Now. Always. They would be wed in the kirk as soon as he could arrange it.
The idea of her conceiving his child made him eager to bed her.
He divested himself of boots and breeches while raking his gaze over the delights of her bare-skinned body.
Her eyes widened at the sight of him standing ready to take her, and though her eyes betrayed her uncertain fear, she lifted her arms and beckoned him.
‘Soon, Annabel.’
Her frustration died on a pleasurable gasp when he set his mouth to the softness between her legs. He touched the heat of her arousal with his tongue, running it up and down her cleft.
She trembled. He pulled back a fraction. She arched her hips towards him and trembled again when his teasing tongue settled into a probing rhythm—a promise of further intent.
He retreated, this time to remove her stockings, kissing his way down each lithe leg. Roderick raised himself above her, covering her body with his. He kissed her so thoroughly and with such voracious need that when he drew back, they both gasped for breath. He used the moment to nestle himself between her thighs, ready to ease inside her.
He anchored his forearms either side of her face, watching and waiting for her breathing to recover. ‘The pain you’ll feel will be short-lived. I promise.’
Trusting eyes smiled at him behind heavy lids. She clutched his shoulders. Her touch was like a slow pleasurable burn; so too her slick centre where he pressed the tip of his arousal and then held still, giving her time to adjust, to stretch.
He pushed a fraction harder and, noticing her grimace, he stilled. He held at bay his hunger for her, that primal, all-consuming urge to ruthlessly plunge and dive deep. Instead, he took care to bring her focus back to their mouths, to distract her with the hypersensitivity of their lips locked in a sensual, scintillating kiss. When her body relaxed, he took her with one, single, powerful thrust.
Her muffled cry was as short and as sharp as would be the stab of pain. Roderick held still, lifting only his face to look down at hers. Watching the tension ease around eyes shut tight. The heat of her body seared his. Her inner muscles held him firm. His eyelids closed as rigid control had him subdue the unstoppable wave building inside him.
When he opened his eyes, Annabel was staring up at him. A light, such as he’d never seen in those lovely eyes, glinted. With the next heartbeat, she moved in an age-old rhythm. Roderick took a deep breath, slowly withdrew and eased back into her on an exultant sigh.
She met each subsequent stroke with an urgency to match his own, lifting and twisting her hips to take him deeper, her body stretching to accommodate him. All of him. Her hands clutched him about the ribs. Her breathing grew frantic in his ear. She was close to release. Roderick took her higher, thrusting deeper than the last until, on a strangled cry, her heart thundered against his chest and her body surrendered to its quivering fate.
Scant moments later, the wave Roderick had fought so hard to hold back came crashing down with such force that it swept him clear over and beyond the precipice of pleasure to a destiny he could not deny.
Somewhere in his barely lucid brain he saw his future. With Annabel. At Finvreck. In Scotland.
In the ensuing moments, he rolled onto his back, taking Annabel with him. There he lay, content, muscles slack, limbs loose, drowsy in the aftermath of losing himself in her. It was a release like no other. Emotion gripped him.
His pulse gradually steadied beneath her head on his chest. Did she feel it? Was she as connected to him as he to her? He glanced down at her hair, a royal red-gold crown in the firelight. She’d draped one arm across his stomach and slung a long leg over his thigh.
Amidst the sounds of her breathing and the crackle of the hearth’s fire, he lay thinking about the fetching fledgling he’d claimed as his own. He’d sensed honesty in her touch. Sincerity in her sighs. An earnest awakening of a body so pure.
He held her in his arms as tightly as he held on to the belief that she was innocent of seditious intent. Innocent of committing any wrongdoing against himself or Clan MacLeod.
She’d trusted him with her body. When next he asked her, she’d trust him with her secret. Of that he was certain. It was that certainty that aroused him, feeding his need to lose himself inside her again. With the gentlest of finger strokes on her fair, satin skin, Roderick stirred her body to life. This time he took her on a slow journey of open intimacy, to a place of exquisite sensation, and they consummated their union with perfect closure.