Bride

by Stella Cameron

  “Let’s get on with it,” Glory demanded.

  “The entrance to this cave is hidden by a bale of twigs and dry straw, fashioned for the purpose. When we leave, other bales will be packed about the first. The straw is kept dry because there is a rock overhang above the cave. At the center of each bale are oil-soaked rags. One spark and the bales will ignite. You will not burn; you will choke.”

  Struan drew Justine against his chest and sat with her cradled in his arms.

  “You are already thinking of trying to run through the bales. If you do, you will burn. And should you live to reach the other side, you will be shot as you emerge. Your only hope is that I will change my mind and decide to spare you.”

  “Let Justine go.”

  “To give our identities away so soon?” Grably snorted with laughter. “I think not. You might try praying, Hunsingore. You were quite good at it once. Ask God to change my heart.”

  “Kill us and my brother will never rest until he tracks you down.”

  “He will not have to track me. I shall be close at hand, commiserating, advising—and laughing. You should never have stopped the payments you sent to the monastery for Glory.”

  “I thought she had married.”

  “She was always married—to me.”

  “But you were the abbot of—”

  “Do not be a fool. Rules are for the weak and the foolish. Men of intellect make their own boundaries. I shall leave you now. There is no need to bind you because there will be a watch outside. One move to leave this place and…” He smiled and swung the lantern afresh. “Well, I need not repeat myself. There is bread and wine. If the night grows too cold, avail yourselves of the skins.”

  “If I was to stay with you I’d make sure you were warm,” Glory said, winking at Struan. “Maybe we should tie your wife up again and show her how—”

  “Outside,” Grably said calmly. “Glory is a woman of considerable energy. Sometimes she forgets herself in her quest to use that energy.”

  “Where is Ella?” Justine asked clearly. “What have you done with her?”

  In his concern over present events, Struan had not thought of Ella.

  “Ella?” Grably shrugged. “Why should the welfare of the viscount’s plaything concern you?”

  “How dare you, sir!” Justine tried to evade Struan’s restraining grasp. “My husband is an honorable, generous man capable of taking the weak and needy into his care as equals. He is a man who has suffered too long because of your avarice and jealousy. He is a saint, sir! A saint!”

  Struan rolled in his lips and frowned to contain himself. In other circumstances, Justine’s ire—and her elevation of him—might be exceedingly amusing.

  “Where is Ella?” Struan asked, as calmly as possible. “And what is your connection to Avenall? I take it you worked together in this.”

  “He served me well. I have nothing more to say to you on the subject.”

  “Ella?” Justine cried.

  “Rest well,” Grably said. “Until we meet again in the morning.” He waved Glory from the cave and backed out after her. Immediately came the scraping of the promised bales across the entrance.

  When the sounds of pyre-building ceased, Struan and Justine continued to sit, side by side, on a sheepskin.

  “We should tend to that wound on your head,” Struan said at last.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” Justine retorted, her chin defiantly raised. “They could be duping us. It’s perfectly possible they’re not out there at all—or they won’t be once they’ve gone.”

  Struan could not help but smile. “You, my dear, are indomitable.”

  “Not at all. Merely logical.”

  He pointed to the cave entrance. “What do you see?”

  She frowned. “Speckles of red light.”

  “Lantern light through straw and sticks—and oiled rags. A reminder in case we decide to try our luck at testing their threats. We will not do so. Our only hope lies in being prepared for Grably’s return.”

  “How?”

  “I shall wait for him to appear and subdue him. Take away his pistol.” He gave what he hoped was a jaunty grin. “You are in safe hands, my dear.”

  “I am in the best hands in the world.”

  He found he could not respond.

  “They may light the bales without waiting, Struan.”

  “I do not believe they will risk drawing attention to this hiding place until they have the ransom they intend to extract.”

  “What do you suppose he meant about Saber?”

  What harm could there be in saying what he didn’t believe at this point? “Saber has Ella with him. Obviously Ella’s abduction was a decoy to draw us to a place where Grably could capture us. But you said Saber is gentle, and you know him well. I believe he loves Ella and has taken her away.”

  Justine nodded seriously. “That is what I shall hope for. She is too young for him as yet, but I would trust him with her. He would care for her well.”

  “We must decide how to deal with the matter of Ella and Max once we are free.” Whatever happened, he would ensure the coming hours were not filled with silence and fear for his lady. “I have certainly shown poor judgment in the matter of retaining a tutor for Max.”

  Justine laughed and poked his side. “If you speak of Grably, then indeed you have. If you speak of me, then you show extraordinarily good judgment.”

  He got up and prowled the walls of the cave. “There is another issue. I must find a means to ease their way—as far as their identity goes. They do not even appear to have a family name.”

  “That is simple.”

  Struan paused. “How so?”

  “They will become our children. There is a legal process. We can have papers drawn up.”

  His throat grew tight. “You mean those words, don’t you?”

  “Mean them?” She smiled up at him. “What a marvel to gain a husband, and a son and daughter. I who had never thought to be other than a childless spinster.”

  Looking upon her lovely, joyous face turned his heart. He glanced away to the muted glow at the cave entrance. Please God let him get Justine out of this place alive.

  “I do not regret tricking you into entering my body.”

  She startled him. “Hardly a matter to speak of aloud, my dear.”

  “Why?” She glanced around with exaggeratedly wide eyes. “Are we not alone?”

  He smiled faintly. “Very much alone.”

  “And that doesn’t make you happy?”

  “Under the circumstances—”

  “The circumstances are perfect. A man and his wife and the night ahead.”

  And then the morning light. Struan stood over her. “How delightful you make the situation sound.”

  “It is delightful. Being with you is always delightful to me.”

  Wonder was spread before him like a magician’s sleight of hand. There and then gone. Possible and then impossible. But always desirable.

  “When we last lay together you were very clever, Struan.” He raised his brows.

  “You contrived to trick me. I expect you thought I should scarcely notice not feeling you within me.”

  His body responded instantly. “Perhaps we should try to rest. I must be ready for Grably when he returns.”

  “He will not return for hours. Hours we have to spend together, Struan. Alone.”

  He cleared his throat. “Have you … Have you bled again, Justine?”

  Her fingers, closing on his thigh, shocked him. “Do not ask me that question again. I am not the simple woman I used to be in these matters. We may choke to death in this place. Or be killed in some other manner by the fiends who have trapped us here.”

  “I fail to see—”

  “Of course you do not see! You are a man, you dolt! You think only in ways made of things you can see and touch and explain with wonderful male logic.

  “We may die in this cave. Or you may die from a falling boulder somewhere on this estate. I may di
e from a fever. You may die from an accident on your horse, or beneath the wheels of a carriage.

  “Or I may die from making a poor attempt at giving birth to a child. Our child.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, Straun. Yes. We may die of any of these things. Eventually we must die. But it is the way we live that decides our worth. And unless we live to the fullest and shun fear, we are without worth.”

  Her passion rendered him silent.

  “We are man and wife,” Justine continued. “Joined together in the sight of God and our fellow men. We are to live together in that manner. I want that. And you want that.”

  Denying what she said was impossible. “I yearn for you, Justine. Looking at you, wanting you yet being afraid to take you, makes me half a man.”

  “Not half a man,” she told him, rising to stand before him. “A man ready to be whole with a woman he can make whole. If I am destined to die giving birth to our child, so be it. I will have had the ecstasy of feeling life from you within me. There is no greater gift I can receive.”

  He clasped her to him. “I could not live with myself if you died because of me.”

  “Until we die, we must live, Struan, really live. The rest is not for us to decide. And many women never become with child at all. I shall probably be one of those.”

  Unless she was already increasing she would almost surely be one of those.

  “Don’t you agree, Struan?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Good. And you agree that life should be lived to its fullest.”

  He sighed. “Yes.”

  “Good. Just in case our time to explore that decision may be limited, I suggest we make the very best of our opportunities.”

  He looked down into her face. “Would you care to elaborate on that suggestion, madam?”

  “Certainly. I should like to watch you take your clothes off again.”

  He felt color rise in his face, then felt foolish. “Surely you jest.” He indicated their surroundings. “Here?”

  Justine swept off her cloak and spread it atop the skins on the ground. She turned her back and said, “The tapes confound me.”

  He unfastened her gown, and with each contact of his fingertips with her skin, the heat in his loins grew. She turned toward him once more and slipped the blue gown from her shoulders as if they were in the safety of her chamber, or his, at the lodge.

  The front of her shift closed with tiny satin bows. These she undid as far as her navel. The flimsy lawn fell open to reveal her breasts and her slender waist.

  Seconds passed while he regarded her face, her body. Justine took his hands and spread them over her breasts. Rising to her toes, she settled her lips over his and stood still.

  Despite himself, despite the situation, Struan smiled. His sensual nymph still had a great deal to learn before she’d be ready to complete her book. Without preamble, he thrust his tongue past her lips and set about the small seduction for which she’d already admitted a fondness.

  Her nipples stiffened beneath his palms.

  His rod leaped and grew heavy.

  Breathing shallowly, Justine broke the kiss and stepped away, her breasts rising and falling rapidly.

  He frowned. “What is it, dearest?”

  “I asked you for something. I asked to see you remove your clothes.”

  Struan chuckled. “You are wanton.”

  “I know. A strumpet, I shouldn’t be surprised. Definitely very badly fallen. But your welfare is my concern, and you have suffered under the weight of those trousers entirely too long.”

  “You really do not know what you are talking about.”

  “Don’t I?” She arched a brow, folded her arms beneath her naked breasts, and regarded the part of him no well-bred lady was supposed to as much as glance at—ever.

  Discomforted, Struan glanced down at himself.

  Justine’s shriek of laughter brought his eyes to hers again. “What is so humorous, madam?”

  “You.” She pointed at the “part.” “And the horrified manner in which you look at… that. Don’t you know how beautiful it is?”

  “That is not exactly the word normally employed.”

  “Look again. It is exceedingly large and hard and alive and showing exactly how much it agrees with every word I have spoken.”

  “Justine.”

  “I told you to look at it.”

  More embarrassed than he’d considered possible, he did as she asked. Beauty aside, the rest of her description appeared accurate.

  “See? And it is past time for it to taste freedom.”

  “Justine.”

  “Justine. Justine. What grants it the most relief is a good dose of It.”

  Bemused, he shook his head.

  “Oh, do not pretend ignorance with me, my lord. Off with your trousers, this instant. I am ready for you.”

  He groaned.

  “I find I grow much bolder as we are together more.”

  “One trembles to visualize you even a month hence.”

  “Hah. There is something I must ask. I’ve been hesitant, but, for the good of my book, it is time to clear up a small mystery. Is it normal for a woman to grow wet … I mean, to grow wet here? She made a fluttering motion over the place where a shadow through the shift marked the juncture of her thighs. “I find I grow most awfully wet whenever I consider That. In fact, I have only to look at you—there—to become, well, like butter before a fire. As it were.”

  A jolt hit Struan exactly there. His knees threatened to buckle.

  “Is it normal, Struan?”

  “Normal in one so perfectly suited to being this fortunate man’s wife.”

  “Oh, thank goodness.” She smiled up at him. “This does seem one of those good opportunities I mentioned.”

  Glory had wheedled a horse out of Len and ridden to the stable yard at the lodge. Persuading Len Bottwell that he’d do whatever she asked him to do hadn’t taken more than a brief tumble with him inside the carriage. Men like Len weren’t used to the likes of Glory Willing. He’d mewled at her breast like a baby and all but cried when she pulled him between her legs and jounced him so hard his head thwacked the roof.

  Len would sit with the cave in sight and watch until Michaelmas if that’s how long it took Glory to go back to him. She smiled to herself. There was no one like Mr. Smith, but occasionally it felt good to remind herself that she could have any man she really wanted.

  Mr. Smith might not always be an easy man to understand, but he needed her. And there were things he knew how to do that no other man would dream of. She held her tongue between her teeth and visualized what they would do when she surprised him in a few minutes. He’d told her he would go to the lodge to prepare the ransom note, then return to the room he’d been given at the castle and await the commotion when the demand was discovered by the duke and the marquess.

  She knew where she’d find him—in Hunsingore’s apartments. Mr. Smith fancied those rooms. Before he’d left her near the cave, insisting he’d be quicker on his own, he’d let on how he intended to find a way to make the duke and the marquess believe he’d been so helpful. Then they’d be grateful and “suggest” they give him a place at Kirkcaldy to use whenever he pleased. And he was going to suggest—ever so humbly—that the lodge would be out of their way and give him a place to meditate.

  Glory swallowed a laugh. Meditate. If only all the people who thought Mr. Smith was so holy could see his idea of meditating!

  She let herself into the passageway leading past the pantries and cold rooms to the kitchens. Mr. Smith might be a little cross with her at first, but she’d soon make him glad she’d come.

  The sound of giggling reached her when she entered the butler’s pantry with its windows on the scullery and kitchens.

  And there was a voice, too, a man’s deep voice. Glory tugged on the ribbons at die neck of her cloak and crept forward until she could see into the dim rooms on the other side of the glass.

  Figures shif
ted.

  Glory pressed herself against the wall beside a shiny pane and peered through. She wore deep red, and in the darkness she’d be invisible unless she made foolish moves.

  Gradually her eyes adjusted to the shadowy gloom.

  The giggles grew to a shriek. And the man’s voice became insistent.

  A flurry of paleness dashed into the scullery. A female with a mass of blond hair and dressed in something white.

  Glory narrowed her eyes, then jerked farther back. The man pursued the female, a candle in hand. Light flared and Glory saw it was the Buttercup creature who leaned back against the sinks, her mouth stretched wide in a stupid grin, while Mr. Smith set his candle aside and approached.

  Twisting, gripping outrage all but stopped Glory from breathing. Mr. Smith never had other women. He’d always said no woman but Glory could satisfy him.

  Perhaps Buttercup had asked for too much in return for being the one to leave the letters at the castle. Mr. Smith might have decided to frighten her a bit. Very likely.

  Mr. Smith delved into Buttercup’s tight bodice and ripped it open. Buttercup squealed afresh. “You shouldn’t,” she said, all coy. She put her hands to her big breasts, not beginning to cover the abundance of naked flesh.

  Glory’s hands went to her own breasts. The little whore’s breasts were even bigger. Mr. Smith liked big breasts.

  “We’re both going to remember this,” he said to the girl. “I’ve waited for you, Butter.”

  “And I’ve waited for you,” she said. “I’ve done exactly what you asked. And I’ve waited.”

  The rest of the dress was rendered to rags. An ample, curvaceous body was revealed and, while Glory watched, Mr. Smith fell upon the slut like a man taking his first drink at the end of a long, hot day.

  Beside the sink lay a bar of soap. Before Glory’s horrified eyes, Mr. Smith ran water and splashed it over the struggling maid. She tried to fight him off, screaming aloud when he soaked her hair, then dissolving into helpless laughter as he soaped her all over.