The Scot Who Loved Me

by Gina Conkle

  All on the other side of the river. The countess stopped an arm’s length in front of her. Her brown eyes fevered, determined. A storm was building, the pressure about to blow. Anne braced herself.

  “I intend to expand my circumstances, Mrs. Neville, and my purpose for seeking you is simple. I am inviting you to join me.”

  She shifted her feet, the ground less solid at the moment. The offer was disorienting to say the least. The countess must’ve sensed blood in the water, a weakening of resolve or simply the advantage of surprise. The lady’s emboldened smirk slid sideways, though with the countess, boldness was the air she breathed daily.

  “My offer astonishes you.”

  “It is stunning, to say the least.”

  “I have ample resources, but I need to employ someone I can trust. And you would be well compensated.” Lady Denton delighted in delivering those last words. She relished them the way people relished clotted cream.

  “Such an offer, but we hardly know each other, my lady.”

  “But we know of each other, don’t we?” The smirk morphed, feline and sure.

  Either the Countess of Denton knew more about her than she anticipated (and thus, outplayed her) and was keeping a close eye on an adversary. Or she had no idea about Anne and the league. This last possibility seeded her hope.

  “I’m mired in disbelief, my lady, because you already have an army of servants to tend to your every need. You don’t need me.”

  Lady Denton faced the water. In profile, her expressive mouth flattened. “Ask yourself how many women of commerce exist in the City. Then ask yourself, of those women, how many have a modicum of education and intelligence. Then ask yourself how many of those women understand and have experience in the business of warehouses, of factoring and rents.”

  “I see.” This was one of the more flattering and honest conversations Anne had had in a long time, but she couldn’t trust the woman.

  “Between my brother and the minions who serve him, I battle men daily, Mrs. Neville. A woman with a keen business mind in my employ would change that.”

  “You mean someone else to do battles for you.”

  “The daily battles, yes.” The countess shrugged an indolent shoulder. “It is the way of the world, except with me, you would be well paid. And you would live as independently as you saw fit.” Lady Denton smoothed a wind-teased ruffle. “I have considerable resources at the ready. Should you join me, I will make it worth your while.”

  There was the knife to her heart, driven to the hilt and twisted. The lady didn’t have resources: she had stolen Jacobite gold.

  “Your ledger, Mrs. Neville.”

  The ledger was again in her possession. She held it, the bottom angled on her plain gray stomacher. She’d been so concerned about what to wear, as if gowns made the woman. What a fraud she was. She’d allowed herself to be dazzled, flattered, and impressed. Temptation was the countess’s version of independence, but it would come at a cost, namely the people counting on her.

  Silk shoes crunched a soft retreat. The countess was several paces away when the footsteps stopped.

  “There is one condition.”

  Her nape chilling, Anne met Lady Denton’s resolved stare. Something awful was coming. She knew it with every fiber of her being.

  “You can’t marry Will.”

  Her stomach dropped. It was silly. The condition was just as farcical as her farce of a betrothal. But she had to ask, “Why? Do you want to marry him?”

  “Marry him?” Lady Denton snorted. “And give up the astounding freedom a widow of my wealth and stature enjoys? To a commoner? Absolutely not.”

  “What about Mr. MacLeod?”

  “A bare-knuckle fighter I found in Bristol.”

  The lady’s tone suggested MacLeod was a shell found on a sandy beach, examined, considered, and soon to be tossed aside.

  “But . . . why Will?”

  “Because I want him.”

  There it was. A terse, mundane declaration. The countess could very well have placed an order with a draper: I’ll take ten yards of the red silk, twelve yards of green damask, and that highlander, Will MacDonald. Will was a token bargained for like trade goods, which was foolish until another thought struck, this one landing with the heaviness of an anvil in her already-pained stomach.

  “Do you love him?” she asked weakly.

  “Love? No.” Lady Denton was definitive until her gaze wandered and her mouth softened. “But there is a quality about him . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s . . . well, he’s . . .” The floundering countess searched the air.

  Righteous ire squared Anne’s shoulders and sharpened her tone with an inexplicable need to defend the man.

  “You mean to say that he’s a true gentleman, not the sickly version that permeates half of London. Will is a man of the land with a sense of honor that runs long and fierce. Brash at times, given to brooding when he can’t put his back into hard labor, yet he possesses a discerning mind, one that wants to make sense of what’s around him.” Her hand curled to a fist. “And he is good, my lady, more good than you will ever know.”

  Her ladyship’s eyes had gone wide.

  “You do have a tendre for him.” A tiny shrug and, “Let your love for independence take its place.” The countess back-stepped gracefully into a cloud of dust moats as she delivered her final blow. “You have until the night of the art salon to give me your answer, Mrs. Neville.”

  The silk enigma that was the Countess of Denton departed. Anne stayed in place a good long while. She couldn’t move for the struggle to untangle an astonishing array of thoughts. The first, and safest, was her shock at what the grasping woman saw in her—that she was hungry for independence . . . over love?

  The ageless river slapped the wharf, quiet and rhythmic, calling forth her past. A scramble of evidence spilled unkindly. Her first marriage had been an act of obedience. Her second, for a purposeful end. She’d pledged her troth to a lonely old man to gain a foothold in London for no other reason than to recover Jacobite gold and the sgian-dubh, Clanranald MacDonald’s ancient ceremonial dagger.

  She was as mercenary as a woman could be.

  Nothing got in the way of her mission for the clan. Nothing.

  Her hold on the ledger turned awkward, its armor of numbers and custom less appealing. She wanted love and a future the same as other women, save the Countess of Denton apparently.

  And God help her, she wanted Will.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Will’s boots were in her entry hall, square toes pointing out. Blessed relief that he was not dead in a ditch washed over her, however brief. Will needed a good push into said ditch for the worry he’d caused, and she’d be the woman to shove him.

  A gust escaped her. This was exhausting.

  Hat and ledger dumped on the entry table, she leaned over, pinched the boots together, and held them high with one hand for inspection. What sorry specimens. They could use a good cleaning. Bits of grass. Mud caked in cracked leather. Boots that had not tramped through Grosvenor Square to seize Jacobite gold driven by misguided heroism. Will had high regard for the league. She’d seen it in his eyes and heard it in his respectful tone.

  She returned the boots to their rightful place on the floor. Where had they been?

  “Aunt Maude? Aunt Flora?” Her voice reached into her home. No one answered.

  She and Will were alone.

  Her gaze wandered up the stairs. The quiet house meant Will was likely in his bedchamber. She sprinted up the stairs on agile feet, the soles of her low-heeled shoes slapping scuffed treads. Her skin tickled under her stays. A flush was spreading. She was going faster, breathing harder.

  Anticipation was the crackle of a sparked fuse. She needed to hear his voice.

  To see him and talk to him about . . . anything.

  At the top floor, the hallway was quiet save her sawing breaths. Time and use had worn a bowed path in uncarpeted planks. Like a tree
branch that path. It forked in the middle, leading to her door and the other, a finger’s width open. She strode to it and knocked twice.

  “Will.”

  A muffled, “Anne.”

  He sounded sleepy. She frowned at the door. A nap? Really?

  She swanned in, petticoats swinging, confidence flying until her gaze landed on his arse. Moon white, curved stone, shallow indentations at the sides. She halted while her confidence made an about-face and fled. She wasn’t sure if it was coming back. The day had been a trying one after all, and Will possessed the finest arse. Ever. Currently it nested in rumpled sheets which framed his caber-tossing thighs.

  Another breathtaking part of him, those thighs. Long, solid. Crisp brown leg hairs, the sunlight striking them with gold. They defied the bigamist’s breeches. Aunt Flora had told her so. Only two pair fit him. Which was why his legs belonged in a wind-stirring kilt and he belonged in Scotland. With her.

  She touched her bodice. Under cloth and corset, her heart fluttered like a butterfly at that notion.

  While heart and soul gloried over Will with her, the sheets fluxed, soft as clouds. With the drapes open, daylight blessed long manly legs and feet. Her gaze built a road along those legs, over his arse, and up his back to welts dispersing like watercolor. Inch by inch she went over his heavenly form until she came to molten eyes.

  Ah, Hades. He showed a modest side and swathed his arse with bed linens—his mythical power no longer in view.

  “Mrs. Neville.” His brogue was graveled irony. “Why don’t you come in?”

  “Mr. MacDonald, I think I shall.”

  Stiff formality was her placeholder when lacking recourse. The idea of hearing Will’s voice disappeared on the length of him stretched out lionlike. Even the soles of his feet were beautiful.

  Will finger combed hair off his face. He’d been asleep, naked, as one does if his name is Will MacDonald.

  “I came to talk to you. I thought you said my name in invitation.” She gestured to the door as if it would give testimony. “It’s why I came in.”

  Bed ropes squeaked, and Will sat up, his wonderfully meaty and sinewed torso revealed in all its glory. Hillocks and dales of smooth skin over knotted muscles. More sun-kissed gold hairs ringing male nipples. He grabbed a handful of the bed sheet as if to cover more of himself.

  “What are you doing?” she cried.

  He blinked sleepy eyes. “Trying to get dressed.”

  What blasphemy, covering himself.

  “No. Stay just as you are. Please.”

  His brow furrowed. “It’s no’ proper, me like this and you in a bedchamber.”

  “Oh, but kissing me senseless and having sex with me in the countryside is quite acceptable?”

  “We were young and foolish.”

  “And now we’re older and wiser.”

  Will was doubtful, a lion’s mane of hair falling around his shoulders. She advanced on him with cautious steps, so as not to spook her quarry.

  “Rest as you were. You look a wee bit tired.”

  One side of his mouth quirked. “A wee bit is it?”

  “Maybe more.”

  “I am tired, lass.” He accepted her offer to throw propriety to the wind and stretched stomach down on the mattress. Will put his cheek on the bunched pillow, his face to her.

  She took a seat at the side of the bed. Will rested comfortably, his body’s gentle ebb and flow in time with his even breaths. She rested a hand in the field of white between them.

  This was strange agony. To come this far yet know they had miles more to go. Where was the bold man who’d tucked her medallion between her breasts? The dance of man and woman was fraught with mystery and wonder. It left her with an inkling that Will had waited years for this moment, but she’d be happy to start with his whereabouts last night.

  “Why didn’t you come home last night?”

  Will’s eyes honed on her with the precision of a gimlet tool. “Home you say?”

  “Do you deposit your dirty boots anywhere else?”

  “You don’t have to clean my boots,” he said in a sleep-grumbled voice. “The men of West and Sons Shipping wanted to share a pint, which turned into three or four and a farewell dinner at a chophouse.”

  Their afternoon conversation took on the intimate feel of a minor marital spat, which was as discomfiting as Will naked in bed.

  “They like you.”

  “Most people find me congenial.” His mouth was a torment. Wide, sensual, framed by another day’s whiskers.

  “I find you congenial.”

  His answer was a pleased grunt, and appreciative eyes.

  A fuse crackled in their stillness. Hot and weighty. She scratched her fingernails on the linen between them. Will took note, watching her over his shoulder’s brawny summit. The move was hers. The conversation was hers. Yet, by the sheer force expanding inside her, she was incapable of talking. Her mouth was dry, her tongue heavy, and her hand slid closer to Will’s body.

  Will shifted his hips, the intimate whisper of sheets following. “I spent all night with the lads. No harlots, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Her relief was like the sun. His No harlots heralded a new and welcome turn. Will sensed it too, his big smile half-buried again in the pillow.

  “We were out all night. Then I spent my morning asking about Rory MacLeod and men with T-branded thumbs who might’ve been at Gun Wharf the night you were attacked.”

  “And? What did you find?” she asked, though Will stretching his arm across the sheet toward her was more compelling.

  “Rory MacLeod is new to the City, a bare-knuckle fighter with a middling reputation.”

  She swallowed dryness building in her throat. “And the men with T-branded thumbs?”

  “Too many to count,” he sighed. “London’s infested with rats and criminals. It’s a race between the two, and I’m no’ sure who’s winning.”

  Her heart swelled. She couldn’t stop herself from gushing, “You’re winning, Will MacDonald, with your better nature and your sense of honor.”

  She brushed the side of his thigh. The unseen fuse hit a powder spot. Sparks danced hot and fast. Will was statue still.

  Her hand ventured higher. “You have certain power over the gentler sex, you know.”

  “I flashed my thighs and bits at Marshalsea. You couldna help it, lass. You were overcome.”

  Her smile felt grand. “Your secret weapon, these caber-tossing thighs.”

  She rubbed crinkly hairs on his leg and touched his flesh. Will’s ribcage expanded from a fast inhale.

  He was so hard.

  “What else can your thighs do?”

  She exulted in the feel of him. Strong. Vibrant. Gooseflesh prickling where she touched. This was a different world, a cocoon, this bed with him and her in it. Clothed or unclothed didn’t matter. This belonged to them.

  The more she caressed, the more Will melted. Boneless, jointless, slayed by simple pleasure. Long, tanned fingers splayed in white sheets, the fingertips digging into the bed.

  She bent over his hand and kissed each knuckle. Light, soft kisses. Seeds of affection. Sweet and worthy of a young girl kissing a young man for the first time in a summer glen.

  Will slowly turned his hand, palm up. Her lips hovered above his wrist.

  Their first kiss.

  Amber eyes watched her. Will offered connection, to their past, to what they once had.

  Could they try again?

  Carnal tenderness was her answer. A gentle kiss on his wrist, to the fragile sinew and veins that made this not-so-fragile man.

  His audible inhale was a gift. Her smile grew against his flesh. Her mouth wasn’t ready to leave this warm, poignant skin.

  Will grinned in return, though it was half-buried in his pillow.

  This was fair. He deserved to be the center of pleasure.

  She sat up, her limbs languid, her soul light. The sheets were cozy and they smelled of Will. Even touching his sheets g
ave her pleasure. She skimmed his thigh and her fingertips discovered the crease where thigh and bottom met. A barely there line. Skin soft, flesh firm. From the white of the pillow, Will’s eyes pooled black.

  Hades was pleased.

  Her exploratory hand rucked the sheet over the finest hill any woman could conquer. But there was the rub. Will MacDonald was not a thing to be vanquished or a prize to be claimed. He was the gentlest of hearts . . . if one dusted off his rough charm and unwrapped layers of stubbornness and brood.

  A man like that deserved more kisses. Everywhere.

  She bent over and placed a sweet kiss on his arse, so tender, it bordered on quaint.

  “What are you stirring up, lass?” His voice was a drowsy rumble.

  Long hot kisses were her next answer.

  His skin pebbled under her lips. Will’s fingers dug into the bed, an eyes-closed clutch of pleasure.

  Her hair fell around him, and her medallion landed on his skin. Her heart was galloping and the peculiar dryness in her throat was gone. With her mouth, she boldly sought the twin dimples at the small of his back. The curve of his arse. Will’s hamstring and the side of his knee.

  Her gown shushed against bedsheets.

  Will’s hips were grinding slowly on the bed. She leaned in and let his fine arse rub her breasts.

  He was worthy of this . . . this worship. She dug her fingers in bed linens with furious need.

  She wanted him. She scooted fully onto the bed, needful and desperate.

  This was more than desire . . . it was—

  A door slammed below. She dropped her forehead on Will’s thigh, her breath ragged. She needed to collect her wits, scattered as they were. Desire thickened her blood to the sweetest honey. Its nectar dripped through skin between her legs.

  With a reluctant push, she sat up, the mattress moaning, Will moaning. She’d sprawled herself half over him.

  Her feet hit the floor. She wobbled like a newborn foal and set a hand on the bedpost to steady herself. Will was in no hurry to change position. He lay as she found him, belly down, legs wider. The same ballocks which swung into view at Marshalsea were snug in the apex of his legs. Hairy and comfortable. How Will’s bits ought to be.