by Lisa Torquay
His tongue broke through her lips and raided the inside irreducible. Her throat produced another sound, this time in pleasure and surrender.
Later she would beat herself at the ease with which she gave in to his touch. But right now, her frame glued to his as her hands bunched his shirt-sleeves in a quest to remain standing. She kissed him as though she had been starving for decades not a mere forty-eight hours.
One of his muscled arms laced her waist as they nearly to melded together. Her spine connected with the wall beside the door, every inch of her smashed to him. He deepened the kiss, and it descended into a dissolute carnality that lit every single cell in her. His solid erection printed into her belly and erupted the need to ride it until she transformed in a mass of lasciviousness.
This weakness for him could not prevail. To propose a marriage of appearances and capitulate with a simple kiss would mock her resolve.
As abruptly as they clutched to each other, her arms pushed him away as she strode to the other end of the room, her back to him.
Several times she filled her lungs with air, willing her heart to quieten.
“My uncle had mistresses,” she produced in an almost inaudible voice.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lachlan had been so invested in touching her he took many seconds to adjust to the sudden break of the kiss. What she said made no sense.
“What of it?” he asked, not surprised with the lack of standards of her bastard of an uncle.
As she turned, her expression shocked him. Repulse, sadness and bitterness smothered it.
“My aunt died ever more inside with each mistress he paraded.”
He remembered her late relative from the functions he participated in, a fragile-looking woman with a perpetual sorrow marring her elegant person. Come to think of it, Moira resembled a little the older woman’s petite form, wavy chestnut hair and delicate face. But none of her personality.
“It was no secret to anyone,” he said.
Even as a lad, he remembered hearing the stories. The Pitcairn never hesitated to use his power to ‘induce’ a few of these women to what he demanded.
“In a dejected state, Aunt Olivia used to seek my mother’s support every time it happened.” Her arms wrapped around her waist at the bad memory. “I was a girl, but I never forgot it.”
Moira lifted her disheartened eyes to him and he had this urge to take her in his arms and shield her from every ugliness in the world.
A scowl crumpled his features as he fisted his hips. “And you think I’ll do the same,” he gleaned. He could have imagined any motivation behind her withdrawal but this.
“Lairds are prone to it,” she answered simply.
“Was your father?” Lachlan questioned.
Her hazel eyes snapped to him. “Well, no. But Malcom had his…trysts, and you—” she trailed off, letting him complete the sentence by himself.
“You’re comparing me with that villain,” he accused.
“I’m not comparing!” she threw. “You bear all the signs.”
“I did nothing to deserve this insult,” he argued with displeasure.
“Not yet,” she sustained.
Lachlan paced the carpet, hands raking his hair. “Your judgement is clouded by someone else’s story.” He turned to her, anger threatening to pour out of him. He could not believe she was imposing this estrangement on them because of other people’s lives.
Her gaze stayed him, a serious expression on her delicate face. “Perhaps, but I’m not willing to risk the humiliation my aunt had to bear all her married life.”
He halted before her, looking down on her hazel irises. “You’re condemning us both to loneliness based on the experience that’s not yours.”
“You’ll not be lonely for long,” she insisted.
“I’m not that kind of man.”
“How can I be sure?”
“For one, my father was a faithful husband, and he was the role model I’ve had.”
Her head tilted to one side. “I have to admit your brothers seem quite steady.”
He nodded in agreement. “I want no other woman, only you,” he confessed not very comfortable with the fact.
Her glare bulged on him in surprise, her cheeks reddened. “It’s because I’m still a novelty.”
“Bluidy hell, Moira!” he exploded. “You’re so set on your convictions you cannot see what’s right before your eyes!”
Her both hands raised in a gesture to calm him. “Fine, I’ll admit you gave me no reason for suspicion so far.”
The last two words evinced her reservations firmly in place.
“I’ll thank you for your extensive trust,” he mocked acidly.
Husband and wife fell silent, each ruminating their own thoughts for a long while.
Lachlan expelled lengthy air through his nostrils. “Here’s the deal,” he started, they could not remain in this stalemate. “If I ever stray, I promise to leave, so you won’t bear any humiliation.” In his view, the possibility was remote to say the least. “Until then, we proceed as we started.”
Her head lowered in deep reflection. Long minutes elapsed. “I need time to think,” she requested, lifting her head to him.
Not ripping his gaze from her he nodded. At least, she had granted the matter further consideration.
“Though any magistrate will agree that you have marital rights,” she added.
Irritably he pierced her with his glare. “That is not what it’s about,” he replied in an obdurate tone. “I’d never force you to anything.”
A faint grin pulled her delicious lips. “I know.”
That was something, he soothed himself, and responded with a grin of his own.
Stillness dominated the drawing room again, both standing before one another like two statues.
“I’d better retire,” she said at last. “Good night.” And did not give him time to answer before she left.
Lachlan strode to where he had left the whisky, picked it up and tossed the content as it went down in a burning trail.
Moira and Lachlan sat at the small dining room while the servants served their dinner next evening.
She had slept badly, her mind whirling around their conversation in the drawing room. If she were to listen to her gut feelings, she would have accepted his proposal then and there. But her logical thought resisted tenaciously. Fear of going through what her aunt had. It also played a huge role in her restlessness. So her night had gone by amid her torn thoughts.
The footman, John, neared Lachlan to pour him wine. Her husband declined, preferring to stick to his clan’s whisky. She looked at him sitting at the head of the table impressive in his McKendrick tartan; and he caused shivers in her.
“How’s the crop going?” he asked, startling her out of her thoughts.
She took a sip of her wine to make her throat work properly. In his presence, the tension between her feelings and her head took on a straining hue.
“Not bad, I believe. The yield will not be so big as usual, but we’ll not starve.”
John offered wine to the laird, which Lachlan refused.
Lachlan turned a smile at her that nearly blinded her. When serious he was perdition, smiling he was beauty personified, and she stood no chance. She kept on looking at him like a silly debutante from one of those useless London balls.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he answered as he accepted the roast meat and potatoes Murray served him. He attacked his food with gusto and she observed mesmerised the movement of his tanned throat. If she could, she would consume him whole on this very table. The unbidden thought made her insides melt.
Murray served her and walked back to the kitchen. “And when can Caitlin and her family move back to the cottage?” She took a small bite of meat, not missing his eyes following her lips, and they tingled, yesterday’s scorching kiss so insufficient.
John loomed over Lachlan to offer wine a third time. Her hus
band viewed the lad impatiently and with a bored expression. He finally allowed the wine into his goblet. Politely, he lifted the beverage to drink it as the lad placed the decanter on the side-table.
Moira eyed the footman. The servant had a crumpled expression on his plain face. In a flash, her mind shot back to the day Malcom died. There had been something strange about the footman that day, too. The wine decanter had not been the same they used and the wine had looked a little blurry, not its usual colour. Malcom did not wake up the next morning, he had been dead. Her gaze focused on John’s decanter, which differed from the one he served her from. And its content had the exact same aspect as the one served to her brother.
Like a woman possessed, she stood up and slapped the goblet from Lachlan’s lips at the very moment he would sip from it. “Don’t drink it!” she yelled. The red liquid splashed over the table and dripped to the carpet.
As fast as her petite form allowed, she pounced on John who, taken by surprise, fell to the floor boards with a thud. She dived for him.
“Call Murray!” she demanded from Lachlan. He sat eyeing her fixedly with a strange expression on him.
Starting into action, he hollered for the butler in the same second the footman overthrew Moira and motioned to stand up with the clear intention of running.
Lachlan’s boot stepped on the lad’s chest with enough pressure to immobilise him. “Not so fast,” he said to the boy.
The butler came in with an alarmed expression at the sight of the dining room turned war-field.
“Murray, please,” Moira said. “Take this decanter to Mrs. Murray. She’ll know what’s in it. Tell her to keep the wine.” His wife was versed in herbs and remedies.
“Yes, my lady,” he acquiesced quickly recomposed.
When the older man left, Moira swivelled to the lad on the carpet. “The wine is poisoned, isn’t it?” She needed no answer, her memory was enough. But she had to confront the footman.
Utter fear distorted his features. “I-I dinna ken, my lady.”
Lachlan picked up the goblet that retained a few drops in it. “Drink it, John,” he commanded grave.
The servant’s face drenched in despair. “N-no, my laird, I canna.”
Murray returned. “Excuse me, my lady. My wife said it’s cyanide in the wine. She found crystals precipitated on the wine tumbler.”
Moira blanched to a greyish hue, her legs swayed and she feared she would pass out. Her lungs inhaled a deep breath and she strived to stay conscious.
“We’ll call the magistrate,” Lachlan’s calm voice kept her grounded.
“No!” John begged. “Please, my laird, dinna do that!” Sweat bathed his brow. “My sister is with Laird Pitcairn’s child. He said that if I dinna obey him, he will put her out.”
Unmarried and pregnant, the girl’s destiny would certainly be to walk the streets of Aberdeen.
Moira cast a hard look at the boy. “Your sister will find sanctuary here,” she assured him. “But you should have come to us rather than commit a crime.” Attempt on a Laird’s life would put him in big trouble, yet if she let this go unpunished, others would try even worse crimes.
“I’m sorry, my lady,” and started to cry.
When the magistrate arrived, Moira and Lachlan explained the case and the man took John with him.
Laird and Lady were alone at last.
“He insisted too much in serving you,” she explained to her husband’s inquisitive stance. “I remembered the aspect of the wine was similar to the one served to Malcom the night before he died.”
A chill ran through her and she began to tremble uncontrollably. Her legs gave, but Lachlan was there to pick her up. All colour drained from the surface of her body. Shock had taken over her system.
Her giant of a husband sat with her on the same settee he had occupied just the previous evening. She hid her face in the curve of his thick neck for fear of giving it all away.
It just dawned on her that she had nearly lost her husband. The fact made her feel so hollow inside that she trembled twice as intensely. Her mind produced images of what her life would have been without him in it, and a feeling of dark despair accompanied them. A life without him would be the bitterest she had ever imagined. She would die inside without the man she loved.
Oh, dear, she loved the deuced giant!
Her body jerked at the realisation.
“Shh,” he said in her ear. Everything is fine now.” His voice came calm, soothing.
Her head snapped to him. “How can you be so calm?” She struggled to keep hysteria from her voice, but feared she had not succeeded. “You nearly lost your life!”
He looked at her with a tenderness she had not seen before, a thick thumb caressing her cheek. “But I did not. And the most important is that you are unharmed.” He pressed the glass of whisky to her lips. She took a large gulp eager to go back to her normal.
But the rage at Hamish increased tenfold. That he had put the clan in danger was bad enough. To threaten her husband’s life, a McKendrick, was taking it too far. Come morning, she would take decisive action. She did not care if it made her more vulnerable, or that it might increase the danger to her clan. This could not, and would not, go without a response.
They remained so long in the drawing room that Moira nearly forgot herself. She looked at him again, his beautiful eyes on her as if he could not absorb enough of her.
“Thank you for saving my life,” he said in that low tone of his, the one that bathed her in so much delight.
“You are always welcome,” she answered simply.
She wished she had known how to avoid her brother’s death, too. And imagined him still here leading the Darrochs with his able hand. None of her predicaments would have happened, including marriage to the man she disastrously loved.
The thought started her into action. Slowly, she disentangled from her husband and stood. “I should go,” she justified her skittish reaction.
Attentive coffee eyes looked at her. “Are you sure?”
She remembered that night after her uncle had slaughtered her poor pets. Lachlan had not allowed her to sleep alone, which gave fodder for gossip in the clan, leading them to marriage. One he had not wished for his life. The memory gave her forces to do what she must.
“Yes,” she replied, turning so he did not see the disheartened expression on her face.
In haste, she retreated to her chamber.
Lachlan lay in his large bed that night wide awake. His bed felt empty and cold. He missed his wife, not only their ultra-compatible physical togetherness but also her warmth, her wit, and even her tart tongue that made him laugh so often.
Were it not for her, he would have lost his life tonight. But if he was frank, without her, life seemed half-lived, just a shell of what it really should be. He did not know if he should blame her or thank her for bringing him here. To experience this torment that having had her and then having to live distant from her caused in him. If he had not accepted to play their ruse, he would never have understood what companionship meant. He would not crave it either, no one craved what they did not taste.
For the life of him, he did not wish to die ignorant of what she had brought to his life. She filled a void he did not even see was there. Only to lay here wanting it all back. With her, exclusively. Yet, he needed to give her time to realise he meant what he told her in the drawing room. The waiting might shred him to tiny pieces, but he would stand firm. She must make the decision to risk breaking through her fears and imagined unhappiness.
On the other side of the connecting door, Moira sat on the edge of her bed. She stared at said door, with yearning and with love. And doubts, loads of them.
Were it not for her previous trauma of losing Malcom, she would not have been able to avoid this tragedy. The realisation made it all worse. It hit her that life could be too fragile and brief. Too brief.
Why try to preserve her pride when time with Lachlan
would always be so precious. Life did not come with guarantees. It surprised her how willing she was to take several risks with the management of her clan but cowered when confronted with what really mattered. The man in the next chamber.
It dawned on her it had been no coincidence she chose this precise giant to bring here and propose marriage. She had wanted him for long years. That he meant a solid alliance, that he would help her clan’s predicaments had been meaningless distractions, excuses for her to stay with the man she really wanted.
How could she be so blind?
Now he was just feet away, her husband, the only man to whom she would have given the right to her body, her heart, her soul. With her slim fingers she fiddled with the edge of her nightgown. What was the use of staying away, saving her pride when she almost lost him tonight? What would these things serve her if the worst happened?
Wistfully, her eyes flew to the door again. He had proposed a midway for them to cope with her fears. If such fears materialised, it would not matter if they had a full life or a shell one. The future was for them to build. A full life was in their hands to nurture. Her fears were merely illusions without real basis as it was. He did not give her any concrete reason for her to have them. She pushed him away for the mistake of others, exactly as he stated.
Hesitantly, her legs moved. Slowly, she stood up, eyes fixed on the wood panel. One doubtful step after the other, she neared the frontier between her fears and her happiness. The man she loved, the man she had craved for so long remained so close, yet so distant. The need to vanquish her fears as she had vanquished every single obstacle in the last year, invaded her. She could do this, she was a fighter. There was no guarantee, but if she did not try, she would never know.
Her hand on the handle, she filled her lungs with air and courage.
And pulled the door, ready to push the limits of her demons.
In his chamber, a low fire burned in the fireplace, bathing the room in a warm glow. Instantly, she spotted his large frame on the canopied bed, taking almost all the space.
His head turned, their eyes clashed, and the glowing logs seemed to have moved inside her. Internally she burned, but her feet froze on the spot. The sight of him so delectable amid the bed sheets was enough to turn her to cinders. The only thing she could do was gobble him with her eyes, for lengthy, lengthy minutes.