Widening his stance, Rory pulled Joanna into his arms, lifting her up for a passionate kiss. He rocked her slowly back and forth against his aching body, savoring the feel of her soft femininity pressed snugly against him. His heart kicked against his breastbone with each breath-stealing jolt of pleasure.
Even through her layers of petticoat and satin gown she must have felt the hardened bulge beneath his sporran and plaid, for she broke the kiss and leaned back in his arms, her long-lashed eyes huge and wondering.
“What you feel, Joanna,” he said thickly, “is hunger for my bride, but ’tis hardly any surprise.”
He lifted her higher to nuzzle the tantalizing curve of her neck and the sensitive spot behind her ear. When she scrunched up her shoulder in a reflexive reaction, he took her earlobe between his teeth and, with a growl, tugged gently.
“God, you smell wonderful,” he murmured as he kissed her temple. “Like honey and roses and everything sweet all rolled into one delicious pastry.”
She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t allow it. “You sound like a starving man,” she complained with a husky laugh.
“I am.” With another low growl he let her petite form slide slowly down the length of him; then he reluctantly released her and moved to the library table, where he picked up a package. “This is for you, Joanna.”
“Another present?” She lifted a hand to the milky pearls that hung round her neck, a diffident smile trembling on her lips. “But you and your family have given me so much already.”
“Those gifts were for the household,” he said. “This is for your personal enjoyment.”
She lifted her russet brows in puzzlement.
“Come on, don’t be shy,” Rory urged. He propped his hip on the edge of the table and gestured for her to move closer. “Open it.”
Taking the box from his hands, Joanna set it on the tabletop beside him, removed the twine, and lifted the lid.
“Why, ’tis beautiful!” she cried, her violet-blue eyes alight with pleasure.
Carefully she lifted out the small birdcage wrought of gold, with the figure of a yellow canary on a hanging perch. Leaves of jade and petals of amethyst adorned the top, where a shiny gold chain could be used to suspend the ornament from a window beam.
Rory brushed his fingers along the bottom of the cage and released the catch. A tinkling sound, surprisingly like the notes of a miniature clavichord, filled the room. With a gentle push, he set the perch in motion, and the porcelain canary swung back and forth to the musical vibrations.
“Oh,” she gasped in delight. “’Tis singing! The wee birdie’s singing!” She looked up at Rory, her eyes wide in amazement. “Where did such a marvelous thing come from?”
“’Twas likely made in India,” he said, pleased with her obvious captivation. “Or Persia, perhaps. A French merchant must have brought the trinket back from a bazaar in the Levant. I saw it in a shop window in Paris three years ago.”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he realized his mistake. Damn. When it came to romancing dreamy-eyed lassies, his straightforward, pragmatic nature always tripped him up.
A thoughtful frown creased Joanna’s brow. “Paris?” She studied the dainty piece, clearly fashioned for a woman’s diversion.
At the time, Rory had purchased the bauble for a current mistress. When he’d returned to Scotland, he’d found that, though the lady’s interest hadn’t waned, her staid, rich husband had taken grave offense at his young wife’s more flighty affectations—taking a lover being one of them.
The trifle had remained in a straw-filled barrel deep in the Sea Dragon’s hold, all but forgotten, until he’d remembered it the day he’d sent the letter to his mother. Arthur had been given the responsibility of retrieving it from the ship and bringing it to Kinlochleven.
“Rory,” Joanna began, her gaze fastened on the cage’s finely crafted wires. She paused, then continued in a small, hesitant voice. “Have you ever lain with a woman?”
He waited for a breathless moment before answering. He didn’t want to start their married life with a lie, but he wasn’t sure how she’d react to the truth.
“I have,” he said at last.
Her head drooped, making it clear she hadn’t taken the truth well at well. Apparently valiant knights in shining armor never romanced any demoiselle but their one true love. During their talk in the stables, Joanna must have assumed, when he said he’d tamed a few lassies, that he’d been speaking of courting, not coupling.
Her reply was nearly inaudible. “I see.” Touching a fingertip to a delicate jade leaf at the top of the cage, she tilted her head to one side as though listening in fascination to the tinkling notes. “Was she very bonny?”
He blinked at her assumption that his affirmative answer indicated only one female, but he was in no hurry to correct her error. Brutal honesty between him and his bride of a few short hours could clearly be stretched too thin.
He slid his hands over her shoulders and caressed the fragile bones at the base of her throat. She was so incredibly lovely, standing there in the white satin gown, with her reddish-gold hair drifting about her. All day long, he hadn’t been able to keep from touching her, or from burying his fingers in that glorious, silken mane.
“Joanna,” he said quietly, “do you remember when we stood on the barbican and looked out over the glen?”
Her curving lashes remained lowered, but she gave a quick nod.
“I said that I’d never seen anything so fair. ’Twasn’t the castle or the lands that I spoke of that morning, lass. ’Twas you.”
Her head snapped up, her eyes bright with disbelief. “Me? But I was covered with grime and dressed like a boy!”
He smiled as he took the trinket from her hands and set it on the library table. Then he sank into the caned armchair nearby and pulled her down on his lap. At her obvious skepticism, he tweaked her freckled nose playfully.
“I could see you were bonny,” he said, “even in your ridiculous disguise and with your hair hidden beneath that hideous cap.”
“Truly?”
At her sincere befuddlement, he realized Joanna had no notion of how adorable she really was.
“Truly.”
Before he could confirm his answer with a kiss, the brass cylinder in the cage’s hidden workings ceased its revolutions, and the notes slowly faded away.
“Oh, dear!” she said, squirming to sit up straighter, her mind on the now-silent ornament and not on the havoc she was wreaking below.
Rory’s tenuous control started to slip as the firm curve of her rump moved against his thickened sex. With a smothered groan, he readjusted his sporran and eased her onto his thigh, relieving the pressure.
Unaware of his distress, Joanna reached for the plaything, her eyes narrowed in disappointment. “Is it broken?”
He shook his head. Turning the birdcage over, he showed her how to wind the key, then start it once again.
She watched in awe as he returned it to the tabletop, the music tinkling gaily around them. “You mean I can make it play over and over, as many times as I wish?”
“As often as you wish,” he assured her with a chuckle.
“Thank you, Rory.” She slid her arms about his neck and pressed her smooth cheek against his stubbled one. She brushed her lips across his mouth, her bashful hesitation sweetly enticing. “Thank you for everything.”
He accepted her kiss of gratitude with greedy satisfaction and deftly slipped his hand inside the low neckline of her bodice. At the touch of his fingers on her silken skin, she jerked in a sudden, convulsive reaction, then shivered in breathless confusion.
“Oh…oh, my!” she whispered and sucked in a quick draft of air.
Rory smiled, certain no man—or bumbling sixteen-year-old lad, either, for that matter—had ever touched her so intimately.
’Twas more than his body that ached at the sight of his innocent bride in her lovely white wedding gown. His heart ached with tenderness at the sure knowledge that she belonged to him. Completely and forever. She was his wife, and one day would be the mother of his children. From that time onward, his life would be entwined with hers. The thought brought an unfamiliar and soul-satisfying gratification, a happiness so deep, so reverent, it was nearly pain.
“Did you enjoy your wedding banquet?” he asked, easing her gently over his arm till her head was tipped back.
“’Twas perfect.” She gazed up at him guardedly. But in spite of her obvious distrust, he could read the pleasure of his touch in the luminous depths of her eyes.
“I’m glad you feel that way,” he said tenderly. Beneath his caressing fingers, her breasts grew firm and full. Her warm softness brought a throb of yearning so deep and intense he nearly groaned.
She drew a shaky breath, her breast lifting in his cupped palm, responding to the light caress of his thumb across the taut peak. “Mmm,” she murmured. “We’ve been gone too long. Our absence will be noted.”
“Let them notice.” Rory bent his head and claimed her lips once again. He eased his hand from her bodice and moved it down the satin dress, relishing the feel of her feminine curves and the flat plane of her belly. His tongue played a game of enticement with hers as he slowly moved his hand beneath the embroidered hem of her petticoat and up one slender calf. His callused fingers snagged the delicate silk hose, and he vowed silently to buy her a dozen pair to replace it.
“We have supper yet to go, before the bedding,” he said huskily as his fingertips circled the rosette on her garter. “But there’s nothing to say we can’t enjoy a bit of pleasure before we return to our guests.”
When his hand slid beneath the lacy ruffle of her shift where it ended at her knee, Joanna wriggled and tried to sit up.
“Perhaps we should return to the hall now,” she suggested, her throaty contralto breathless with alarm. “Everyone will be waiting for us to lead them into supper.”
“Let them wait.” He traced the curve of her ear with his tongue as he smoothed his fingers across her satiny thigh. “I’m going to touch you, Joanna,” he murmured, aware of her growing tension. “Very carefully and very gently. Don’t be afraid. Open yourself to me, little bride.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this before the bedding,” she said in a worried tone, though she followed his soft-spoken directions.
He cupped her mound in his hand, thrilling to the feel of her fine-boned fragility. The heat of sexual need churned in his blood. Desire tautened every muscle in his feverish body.
“’Tis a natural and normal thing for a betrothed couple to experience a taste of the pleasure to come,” he assured her, his voice thick with tightly leashed passion. “Since our courtship was rather unconventional, I think it’d be wise for us to get better acquainted before the bedding.”
“God’s truth, I don’t think we could get any better acquainted than this,” she said brightly, struggling to scoot upward against the curve of his arm.
He smiled as he held her gently in place. “Ah, but we can, lass. And we will.”
Joanna felt a pulsing sensation spread through her as his fingers delved into the tight curls at the juncture of her thighs. She wasn’t certain that what MacLean was doing was as acceptable as he made it sound. Still, she couldn’t find enough breath left in her lungs to protest.
He stroked her with exquisite tenderness, barely touching her, yet bringing such intense pleasure that Joanna sighed. Her body moved of its own accord, and she opened her legs wider.
“That’s the way, darling,” he said, his voice coaxing and deep. “Let me pleasure you.”
He slowly eased a finger inside her, and as though she had no will of her own, Joanna’s muscles automatically responded by clenching him. She closed her eyes, too embarrassed to meet his knowing gaze. Her hips undulated with his strokes, and her breathing grew ragged and heavy.
“Rory,” she gasped, shaking her head, “I don’t think…”
Joanna pushed against his shoulders, suddenly frightened by the unknown. She tried to shove aside the feelings that were swamping her, taking her to someplace she’d never been. Someplace she’d never dreamed of. “I don’t think we should…right now…”
“Shh,” he whispered, “don’t talk, Joanna, just feel. Just feel me touching you. Feel me caressing your velvety warmth. You want me to touch you like this, lass. You know you do.”
Nothing in Joanna’s books or her studies had prepared her for what was happening now. Not her vivid imagination nor her daydreams nor the morality fables told by the scholars at Allonby.
Her heart pounded so wildly she thought it might burst. She clutched the soft velvet of Rory’s jacket, trying desperately to hold on to her reeling, gyrating world. Flames of excitement licked through her, and she moaned low in her throat as her slumbering eroticism awoke beneath her husband’s skilled tutelage.
“Open your eyes, Joanna,” he commanded, his deep baritone hoarse and insistent. “Tell me you want me.”
Joanna’s lashes flew up, and she met his piercing gaze. He held her enthralled, and she couldn’t look away. She reached up, her fingertips skimming the emerald gleaming on his earlobe, and threaded her fingers through his amberhued hair, aware of only his touch and the green eyes that devoured her.
“Rory,” she confessed, releasing a tortured breath, “I…I do want you.”
The light of male conquest flared in his eyes, and a victorious smile curved his lips. “Not nearly as much as I want you, darling lass,” he said, his voice rough with passion. “But you will. I promise, you will.”
Her husband seemed to know with unfailing expertise exactly where to touch, where to fondle, where to stroke. The pleasure steadily built inside Joanna, and with it an unimaginable tension. She grasped his muscular arms and rose toward him, seeking and finding his lips.
Soaring on a wave of ecstasy she’d never known before, she called his name in wonder, and Rory covered her mouth with his to muffle her plaintive cry of fulfillment.
A feeling of lethargy drifted over Joanna as she rested in the protective circle of his arm. She took in a long, steadying draft of air and idly fingered the lace at his throat, waiting for her heart to gradually cease its frantic race.
Rory placed light, reassuring kisses on her forehead, her cheeks, her nose and chin. “Sweet little wife,” he crooned as he readjusted her petticoat and gown and smoothed down the wrinkled satin folds.
Joanna met his heavy-lidded gaze, unaware of anything or anyone beyond the two of them. She traced his eyebrows and prominent cheekbones with her fingertips, studying each feature as though seeing it for the first time, then brushed her fingers over his lips.
“Ah, lass,” he whispered against the pads of her exploring fingers, “do you know how your husband hungers for you?” He took one finger into his mouth and bit her lightly with his sharp, even teeth.
“Ouch!” Joanna exclaimed, resisting the urge to laugh at his playfulness as she jerked her hand away.
What had she been thinking to brook such familiarities on his part? She’d foolishly allowed herself to forget for the moment that he was her clan’s sworn enemy. There’d be no bedding, no carnal pleasures to come. Once they were alone in her bedchamber that evening, she would inform MacLean that there’d be no intimacies between them. He’d tricked her into saying the marriage vows, and she intended to seek an annulment on those grounds.
Her bridegroom nipped the bridge of her nose. “I plan to keep you in bed for the next fortnight, Lady MacLean, and devour you like the tasty wee morsel you are.”
“If you devour me like a tasty wee morsel, Laird MacLean,” she told him with a skeptical frown, “there’ll be nothing left for the second fortnight.”
He grinned lecherously. “Then I’ll have to take very tiny, wee bites, won’t I?”
“My brother has everything planned,” Godfrey told the solidly built man standing by the bartizan’s narrow window. “Andrew will leave with her tonight.”
Looking out across Kinlochleven’s upper bailey at the battlements, Archibald Campbell, second earl of Argyll, took another sip of chamomile tea. He occasionally suffered from gout and had left the festivities in the great hall to retire early. Usually fastidious to a fault, this evening he received his clandestine visitor attired in a blue velvet chamber robe and comfortable slippers.
The earl had been allotted the castle’s second-best suite of guest rooms—the best having naturally been awarded to the king. The spacious chamber boasted a thick carpet on the planked floor and several fine pieces of carved oak. A large court cupboard held an array of glassware and silver, along with decanters of expensive wine and brandy.
“You’ll never get the lass out of this castle,” Argyll said dispassionately. “MacLean, along with his two brothers and that behemoth kinsman of his, could slay every one of your men-at-arms without breaking a sweat. And from the gleam of lust in his eye today, I’d say The MacLean would gladly do all the killing himself, should any man try to steal his new bride.”
Godfrey held a glass beaker between his palms, warming the cognac it held. “We’ve no intention of fighting our way out,” he replied. “There’ll be no alarm raised. Just make certain your men are waiting near Rannoch Mill when the two young lovers and their escort ride by.”
“How many will there be?”
“Andrew and four men-at-arms, plus the girl. I’ve convinced my older brother that only a small party stands a chance of getting past the guards unchallenged. And don’t worry about MacLean. By the time they reach the mill, he’ll have already met his maker at the hands of his Macdonald bride.”
“Never,” Argyll scoffed. He turned away from the window and peered at Godfrey with open skepticism. “That tiny lass couldn’t kill any man, let alone her able-bodied bridegroom.”
Godfrey shrugged. “If she doesn’t, ’twill not matter overmuch, for I can make it look as though she did. The king will be enraged, of course, when he discovers his favorite Highlander slain. But he won’t hang Joanna. ’Twill look like a tragic accident. A panicked bride, frightened of being bedded by her ancient enemy, tries to protect her virtue and elope with her handsome cousin. Her attempt goes sadly awry, and the overeager bridegroom falls victim to virginal terror.”
Campbell sank into a chair and placed the cup and saucer on a small table beside him. He steepled his fingers in quiet contemplation.
“It’d be best not to kill MacLean,” he said at last. “If you can prevent the consummation of the marriage, ’twould be enough. There’s no point in risking the king’s retribution for the murder of his beloved friend. Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Now you sound like my faint-hearted brother,” Godfrey replied with a chortle. He breathed in the fumes of the fine French cognac and took a sip. As the brandy burned its way down his throat, his determination to rid the world of the King’s Avenger increased. He’d never feel safe until the bastard was planted in his grave.
The earl lifted his brows in polite inquiry, and Godfrey continued. “My brother wants it to look as if Joanna and Andrew were the only two people involved. Ewen has instructed the lad to leave MacLean trussed up like a suckling pig in the middle of his marriage bed for his brothers to find in the morning. That way if anything goes wrong, Ewen can plead that he had no knowledge of his son’s intentions. He’ll claim the two youngsters were carried away by their passion for one another, thereby playing on the king’s sympathy. Everyone knows James Stewart is a romantic at heart.”
“The king might be touched by the story,” Argyll commented dryly, “but the spurned bridegroom will be a little less sympathetic. Just how do you intend to spirit the two impetuous lovers out of the castle?”
“There’s a secret stairway.”
Archibald Campbell smiled. It was a peculiarly humorless smile.
Ewen Macdonald wasn’t the only man who coveted the Macdonald heiress for his son. Argyll’s youngest boy, Iain, had barely turned fifteen, but he was man enough for his father’s purpose: to marry the Maid of Glencoe and bring the mighty fortress of Kinlochleven and the vast estates of the Glencoe Macdonalds firmly under Campbell control.
“If I get the chance,” Godfrey said malevolently, “I’ll slit MacLean’s throat. It’s the only way we’ll ever be free of him. I don’t care to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”
The earl slouched back in the carved oak chair and propped his swollen foot on a tufted stool. “You can’t honestly think James will believe the maid killed her bridegroom. God’s Mass, the two of them have been billing and cooing like a pair of turtledoves all day.”
Godfrey downed the rest of the cognac in one quick gulp and went to the cupboard to pour another. “Kissing and fondling is a far cry from swiving,” he tossed over his shoulder, “especially for a frightened, inexperienced lass. Besides, she’ll be gone when they discover his corpse. By the time the king learns that Joanna’s at Inveraray and married to Iain, he’ll be willing to overlook the death of MacLean. It’ll be that…” He paused to lift his glass in a salute. “…or accuse one of the most powerful chiefs in Scotland of outright treachery.”
If Argyll appreciated the flattery, he gave no sign. “Nevertheless, I want MacLean left alive. What time should my men expect the fleeing lovers?”
“Before midnight, if all goes well. Warn your men that they’ll be dressed as Observantine friars. And remember, Andrew is not to be harmed. Is that understood? Otherwise I’ll—”
“Otherwise you’ll do what?” Argyll asked softly.
Godfrey gripped the beaker’s stem and stared down at the cognac. Silently cursing the misfortune that had put him in Argyll’s clutches, he drained his glass without further comment.