Dearest Ewan,
I have won the battle and hope to take the whole of the war! Papa is at last convinced in favor of travel, and we leave for an extended tour of the Continent, staying with such friends as he has made throughout his many years of foreign correspondence with other landowners concerned with animal husbandry and agricultural improvement.
We begin with the long sail to Italy, stopping at Malta for some few weeks, and then on to Leghorn, or Livorno, as I’m sure you would properly call it. We shall see all the sights of Italy, but none of France, for Papa thinks the politics there too radical for safe passage. Papa assures me there are treasures and sights aplenty to be seen on the Continent outside of Paris. Still, I long to be in the city of your residence and walk its streets and parks in your footsteps.
I pack all my correspondence with me in the cleverest writing desk imaginable, so I might have the benefit of all your letters whilst I am away. I like to have them with me always, since I cannot have you.
I hope I am a good traveler on the longer sail to Italy (longer than the trip to the Northern Isles), or I shall never be able to complain after all my nagging poor Papa! If I am, I shall only tell you, who will understand my agonies. But, oh, I hope it isn’t so, and that I might find the world just as I want it. You, I know are just as I want. And so I remain, always,
Your devoted traveling friend, G
Chapter 23
Greer closed her eyes tight to hold back the cathartic heat behind her lids, and to shut out anything that wasn’t the sublime feel of Ewan with her. Her world narrowed to the physical—to the strange and powerful sensations stirring within her body. She wanted to forget everything else—the danger, the fear and sorrow—and keep only this fierce joy.
This was what she wanted—this blissful joining. This becoming one.
She wanted to let the rest of the world go on without her, while she made something for herself with the man she loved—the man she had always loved. She wanted to give in to the heat and weight of him, poised above her. To the pleasure she knew lay just out of reach, waiting, beckoning her forward. Toward bliss.
She was no stranger to the ardor she knew could be made in her own body—she was two and twenty and not some child who had never explored her body’s own potential to give pleasure. Pleasure was not new, but the possession of his body—his heat and scent and strength surrounding her—was.
Hot, salty tears slipped from the corner of her eyes—tears of relief and release. The long years of waiting, the lonely nights of grieving were over. She could let the past go and concentrate on the future. Concentrate on making the pleasure grow into something more. More daring, more passionate.
She could hear her love’s agitated breathing meld with her own, and all but feel the pleasure and excitement coursing through his veins. “Ewan,” she said, because she had always wanted to say his name like this, in the breathy soft quiet of the night. She had dreamt of such a moment in the long years that had gone before.
She cupped her hand at the back of his skull—his dear precious fragile, hard head—to pull him down for another kiss. To rekindle the delicious hunger that had taken her this far.
She kissed him again, lightly tracing the indentations of his dimples with her tongue before she followed the angled line of his jaw up to his ear. “With my body I thee worship.”
The words came unbidden, but now that she had spoken them, she understood herself—this was what she had wanted, this close intimacy, this physical manifestation of care and kindness.
Her heart was weighted with something deeper and more profound in the midst of physical bliss—a heart-wrenching, bittersweet sort of peace. This was the wedding night they should have had.
This was the sacred joining they had both long desired.
But they were both different people now. His ordeal was etched upon his body—in the taut line of his jaw, in the broken crook of his nose. Pain had etched itself deep into his body, but he was resilient. He had somehow absorbed the worst of its blow and come out so whole, he was a miracle.
A miracle that he was alive. A miracle that after everything that had happened he was still hers.
And, oh, sweet heavens, but he was a braw lad. His arms and torso were honed, as if everything but the essential man had been stripped away. His skin was tanned down to his waist, where the skin turned paler again. His chest was very lightly sprinkled with hair, as golden blond as his head. It glinted in the firelight, leading her eyes down to where the hair trailed lower to the junction of his thighs where his manhood disappeared into her.
She could feel heat flush up her neck and across her face. And lower, where the hot pulse of bliss stirred restively.
He didn’t seem to mind her stare. When she tore her heated gaze back up to his face in embarrassment, he just looked back steadily, not laughing, certainly not expressing shock or censure. “It’s only us, lass. Do as you please.”
She ran her hands down his smooth chest and then lower, curiously seeking his sex where it joined hers and found the round weight of his stones.
“Oh, God, lass, aye,” he bit off, the words deep and guttural with gratification.
He kissed her more deeply as her hand settled firmly about him, hungrily delving into her mouth with his tongue, until she felt the urgent press of his pelvis against hers, and he pushed her legs wider with his hands.
“Easy, lass. Handsomely now,” he whispered into her ear. “Let us make haste slowly.”
Her heart all but burst within her chest. Nothing he could have said or done—no stroke of his hand across her flesh could have touched her as deeply as those five words. This was her Ewan.
And so they did make haste very slowly indeed—for a while. Until the slippery sensations of urgency began to slide under her skin, leaving her tingling with need for something more.
Her hands fisted in the rough wool of the plaid, and in response he covered her hands with his own, and smiled down at her, rubbing his nose against her cheeks, and kissing every part of her face. “Hold fast, lass. It’s coming.”
He lowered his head to her breast and took her nipple into his mouth in a way that made her release her hold on the blanket and cradle his head to her chest. In a way that made her body move under his. Made her arch her breasts up to him in supplication.
“Aye, lass,” he whispered against her wet skin, and it felt to wonderful, so glorious that she thought to do the same for him, running the flat of her palm across his chest until she could rub the nubs of his flat male nipples between her fingers.
He arched back, and his hands replaced his mouth at her breast, and Greer pulled his mouth back to hers, kissing him back, sliding her tongue with his, wondering at the taste, the smell, the feel of him around her.
Her body began to move of its own accord, her hips rising rhythmically beneath his. He pressed up higher on his arms, taking his weight off her, and flexed his hip muscles against her.
Oh, gracious heavens. It was bliss.
“Ewan.” She breathed his name because he was everything she wanted everything she felt for him.
“Aye, that’s it, lass.”
She moved more purposefully in response, arching her pelvis toward him, and he nudged his hips against her again, and lowered his head to her breast, suckling her in time with the pulse of his body surging into hers. Greer closed her eyes and concentrated on the rhythm, and the wonderful, powerful sensations sliding to and fro under her sensitized skin. Her palms tingled with the need to touch him, to worship his body with the same abandon he was worshiping hers.
She ran her hands up the living sculpture of his sleek, taut arms, kneading the sinuous muscles there, before riding upward around his neck, over his shoulders, and down onto the lean line of his chest
He made an inarticulate sound nearer to pleasure than pain.
Greer opened her eyes to see him rising above her, his teeth gritted and bared in something too much like anguish. “Ewan?” She whispered her question.
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“Keep on, lass.”
“This?” She ran her hands across his chest again, slower this time, her fingers tracing over his nipples in imitation of the way he had touched hers.
“Aye. Like that.” He rose higher upon his knees, pulling her tight against him before he let go of her hips, and molded his hands to cup her breasts. He flicked the tight rosy peaks with his callused thumbs.
A sound she did not know she could make—of carnal encouragement and need broke from her mouth on a cry. Her eyes crashed shut as she felt the first wave of pleasure push deep into her belly.
Ewan ran his hands down over her hips and around to her bottom. He traced the curve of the taut globes with his clever hands, cupping her flesh to draw her closer still. She opened her eyes to watch his hands round to her hips and pull her up high against him. She felt a jolt of such intense, joyous pleasure streak through her, and something inside, some last vestige of restraint came untethered and ran riot—a heady, insistent, intoxicating rush of bliss that rose higher still with each escalating thrust. His body surged into her, stronger and stronger, feeding the need, stoking the fiery heat that built where their bodies touched.
Greer felt herself slipping away, losing herself to the inexorable whirl of sensations. She clutched at his hips, his shoulders, his neck—anything to anchor herself against the relentless tide of pressure and pleasure.
Oh, she wanted. She wanted, she wanted.
She planted her feet flat against the blanket and angled her body higher, trying desperately to appease the persistent, insistent need. But then Ewan drove the breath from her lungs with the simple efficacy of lifting her legs flat against his chest.
The sharp, aching pleasure bolted back through her. She heard a high keening moan and knew it came from her, that it was a sound of approval as much as distress, because it felt so good—too good, a pleasure so intense it was almost pain.
But Ewan was relentless. He leaned into the strength of her legs and she watched him, moving above her with such strength and beauty that her heart constricted. She felt him, apart from her and yet in her all at the same time, and she knew in that instant what it meant to be undone—to let go of every last tie to reality and give way to the glorious physical wash of upending emotion that shot through her.
She closed her eyes and felt him stroke his hand down her belly, into the thatch of curls shielding the place where they were joined. He teased his fingers through the hair, then slipped his fingers lower, ever so slightly lower, to the sensitive, engorged flesh below.
Greer cried out and bucked up hard. It was too much and not enough all at the same time—her head begin to thrash against the blanket. But Ewan wouldn’t let up. He pulled her back hard against him, holding her hips still against him as he surged inside her. He held her just so, so that something changed and sharpened, and it felt good, so good. She felt like she was going to break into a hundred pieces of bliss.
And then she did. Heat and joy and peace and relief cascaded through her body in rushing, tumbling waves, leaving the glorious serene warmth behind.
And then, in the next second, it was he who tensed, and with a sound that was both joy and anguish, pushed himself into her, one last time.
Greer felt strange and weightless, as if she couldn’t feel the blanket beneath her, as if all the feeling had drained from her body, leaving her pleasantly, gloriously numb. She watched with a sort of detached amusement as Ewan let go of her and sat back on his heels, slipping away from her body, and then collapsed by her side. He looked as dazed and disoriented as she felt.
The two of them were gasping for air as if they’d run up the moorside, winded and spent. She felt her lips curve into a broad smile, heard the puff of laughter that blew across her lips. “Well, that was worth the wait.”
“Patience is its own reward.” She heard the wicked amusement in his voice as he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her snugly against his chest. “My sweet lass,” he whispered against her hair.
Greer smiled in wonder at the strange scratchy feeling of his chest against her back and closed her eyes in contentment. She felt so happy, so safe in his arms that she wanted to stay and savor the moment for just a while longer. She took a deep breath and felt his breathing slip into the shallow regularity that signaled he was already asleep.
She curled herself tight against him, and stayed awake for a long time, listening and feeling and thinking of the wonderful strangeness of the heat and scent and texture of the man surrounding her. It was overwhelming and yet perfectly right, knowing that this night was the start of the rest of her life with him.
She slept, and woke at dawn to find herself alone, but bundled in blankets.
“Ewan?” She stretched herself awake.
“I’m here, lass.” He was coming in the door with more fuel for the fire.
“Of course you are, sweet man.” She covered herself with the blanket and reached for her now-dry clothes from where he must have hung them before the fire, while he busied himself with stacking the wood. “And I think it best that we go immediately to Dalshee—your friends should still be there.”
“Friends?” His head came up sharply.
“Alasdair Colquhoun, whom we spoke of before, and Archie Carrington. They will be most anxious to see you—they came to Dalshee in concern when they heard about your death.”
His smile came with a frown. “But I’m not dead.”
“No, thank goodness.” She laughed. “It’s made things ever so much nicer for me.”
“Aye. Me, too, lass.” But he was frowning at her, as if he were trying to puzzle it all out. “I didn’t understand it at first—that I had been assumed to be dead. ”
“Not just assumed, Ewan.” He had to understand the level of malice brought against him. “Your cousin held your funeral. It was awful.”
He scrubbed his hands through his hair as if his head pained him. “Devil put me in hell,” he muttered. “I knew someone tried to kill me, and I understood I needed to stay hidden for my own protection, but I didn’t know anyone thought me dead and buried.”
“Oh, yes. I don’t suppose it occurred to me to tell you, you were dead.” She tried to joke, to return them to their cozy happiness, but it really wasn’t even remotely funny. “But then again, I wasn’t sure who you were when I first met you on the moor.”
“I’m Crieff. I understand that now.”
“Aye.” She was so grateful to have him back. “My Ewan—fifth Duke of Crieff, sixth Earl Beinnàigh, and a host of other lesser titles and honors that I had once memorized but have thankfully forgotten.”
“Aye. I went there, to Crieff, this morning,” he told her. “I went there to find my horse—to get Cat Sìth, that the ostler told us about. He’s here—Cat Sìth, not the ostler—in the lean-to out back.”
“Oh, gracious. Your cousin won’t like that.” Perhaps the search to reclaim such a valuable horse was what had spurred Cameron and Gow’s search of the glens—even if Malcolm couldn’t ride him, the stallion was a valuable asset he could sell. “I’m glad you’ve got him safe.”
“I rode to that Inn at the Bridge of Shee,” Ewan went on. “And I recognized it, the bridge. It brought back new memories—images of grey stone and mortar speckled with moss. And blackness at the edge of my eyes. Water. And wanting to close my eyes against the pain of the light—which must be part of someone trying to murder me.”
Greer’s normally strong legs suddenly felt unsteady, as if the mountain had shifted beneath her feet. She braced herself to hear what she was sure she already knew. “Do you remember who?”
“Nay. If I remembered that, I wouldn’t be hiding up here in the hills, would I?”
“Nay, I suppose not,” she agreed. “Can you remember anything else of your assault? Anything at all?”
He closed his eyes as if the very act of remembering brought him pain, but he swallowed and spoke. “It’s like everything else—it comes in bits and pieces. In snatches of memory that co
me and then go before I can recognize what they are and what they mean. When I went to Crieff I remembered it—the castle and growing up there. My grandfather. Eating in the long dining room, when he had guests to stay, listening to them talk. Listening to him tell me what it meant to be Crieff.”
“I’m glad you remember him—he was a grand gentleman. He came to Dalshee once, for dinner, and spoke to me very kindly as if he really were interested in whatever a ten-and-seven-year-old lass had to say.”
Ewan smiled at the characterization. “I remember dinners with him like that, too. Just the two of us, which was different from what I was used to.”
“From traveling with your friends?”
“Aye.” He narrowed his eyes, as if that helped him see the past more clearly. “Alasdair, Archie and…Rory, in a wretchedly ill-built set of rooms in…Spain, I think.”
“Italy.” Greer could only marvel at the swiftness of the returning memories, and pray they continued. “Rome—on the Piazza di Spagna, number seventy-four.”
“Oh, aye?” But the pleasure lighting his face was not of remembrance—it was discovery. “Fancy you knowing that.”
Something about his tone—the offhand amusement—chilled her. Doubt crept up her spine like a spider. “But I wrote you there.”
“Did you?” He frowned and shook his head, again, as if he could not think of why any letter might be important. “I don’t remember that.”
Doubt was replaced with dread. “Aye, I did. I wrote often. Many letters over the years.”
“Really? I don’t recall at all. But we were betrothed, were we not? You are the heiress of Dalshee, or is there some other flame-haired lass I’ve lately fallen in love with?”
“Lately?” Her fear made her voice shake. “Aye. I am Dalshee, the same way you’re Crieff—though I am only a woman. I am Lady Greer Douglas, the heiress of Dalshee. And your betrothed.”
“Aye, I know that now.”
Knowing was not the same thing as remembering. “We were in love. Before. We were to marry because we were in love.”
MAD, BAD & DANGEROUS TO MARRY (The Highland Brides Book 4) Page 24