Heather didn’t get the joke, but Boz surely did. He paused in his chortles of glee to yell, “God save me from ever falling in love,” as he heard his cousin instruct the driver to keep driving until he received different instructions. Boz shook his head in greater glee as he saw that his kinsman’s hands were on the buttons of his pants before he jumped into the carriage.
Several young women consoled Geoff and Boz thought he might head over to Madame Odette’s. He was behind Bonnie and Carrick getting into the carriage, which the couple apparently didn’t realize. Laird MacIver paused a moment to fondle his wife’s tush as he helped her in. He paused for a long moment actually. The pause ended only with a discreet cough from Boz.
Carrick colored slightly and then winked as he said, “Something about being around those two just puts a man in the mood.”
The carriage carrying the couple had been rambling around London for over two hours. The coachman even stopped for a pint with friends at a pub, telling them that the gentry he was driving would not mind a bit. Which was more than true, as they didn’t even notice.
Nial was cherishing Heather. It was the only description she could think of that came close to the tender quality of his lovemaking. He swore her breasts were slightly larger and was convinced that his cousin was right that she carried their bairn. Of course it was far too soon to know, but the thought was intoxicating. Not that she needed anything more heady than the love that shone from the eyes of the man who worshipped her and who was even now bathing her in a midnight blue sea of passion.
He looked like a lad seeking his third sweet as he sheepishly asked, “Love, I know you’re exhausted, but I need you again, and I fear that my chances to satisfy the craving you rouse will be few and far between for the next couple of weeks. Could we, I mean, can I. Bugger it. I need to love you again, Heather. If that’s okay with you?”
Her answer was to widen her legs, but it was all he needed. He said, “Thank God,” as he thrust inside.
She whispered back, “Thank God for faeries.”
******
It was a rousing evening for all, which turned out to be a very good thing because Nial’s fearful anticipation that he was about to be deprived came true. The next few days were hectic with packing the Crandle household and the Harrison household for the trip to Skye and the wedding that could not come soon enough for Nial. There was no more time for dabbling with romance.
While there was no time or privacy to make love to Heather, Nial refused to miss seeing her for a single day. His visits tended to be broken up by someone interrupting to ask her a question or to jerk her away from him for a fitting for her wedding gown or her trousseau. It was the evening before their departure for home that Heather tested Nial for the last time.
John and Violet hosted a “small” ball to formally announce Heather and Nial’s engagement, which Maclee found foolish. His cousin already announced the betrothal and he even fought a duel – such as it was – to protect his entitlement to Heather. Yet somehow, to the Crandals it was not official until it was the occasion for a ball. The night of the party he arrived late, having been delayed by business. He was barely in time for the formal announcement.
When he got there Boz and Peter huddled together, and both gave him pitying looks. Violet hurried over with Bonnie. They wore harried expressions and seemed to be trying to block his view of the room, which he found more than odd.
“Listen here, Nial,” Bonnie said, “You have thoroughly compromised my daughter. She may carry your child at this moment. By goodness, you have to marry her now. Do you understand, young man? You refuse at this late date and you will be fighting a real duel with her father.”
Now Nial was really confused. He had pretty much made it clear to all of England that he would marry Heather if he had to force her. His intent had never once altered. What was going on here? “Lady MacIver, Heather is mine. I have claimed her and to our people that means something. Yet I am more than anxious to get her to Kilcuillin before a priest to make my claim legal under the laws of every country in existence. I can insure you that I intend to… no, I will marry Heather.”
Peter clapped a hand to his back in sympathy at his firm avowal, Boz quirked an eyebrow at him, and Geoff, who for some unexplainable reason was here, burst out laughing as he staggered a step and said, loudly, “Maclee, God is an Englishman.”
“Myself, I’ve always been convinced he was a Highlander. Why would you insult the almighty by claiming otherwise?”
“Bec…because,” he hiccuped, “I nearly married that dowd. But God inter…. ahh inter… helped and it was your quill that got stuck in that ink. And now, stuck you are.”
“I’m trying to remember that you are drunk, Badgerton. On this evening, your inebriation is all that is saving you from feeling my fist. My quill is none of your business and I can assure you that Heather’s ink is not something you should ever consider.”
Geoff burst out laughing again, raised both hands and said, “Trust me, Laird Maclee, she is all yours.”
Nial finally managed to shove his way past Bonnie and Violet, and stopped after taking about three steps into the ballroom. Standing a few feet away was the Heather who was not the toast of the ton. This was the lady who ran away broken-hearted on a lovely Skye evening after he betrayed her trust and her love. She wore a gray granny dress that hung on her frame like a sack, and one of her famous bonnets sat atop her head.
Jeers surrounded them. He heard a shrill female voice shout that Heather was “pathetic” and another hooted that she'd always known the girl was a "hideous hag" and didn't know why the men hadn't seen it sooner. As for those men, including many who had seriously sought her hand, their comments weren't nearly so kind. These were insults she had taken her entire life until she came to believe they were all true. He stood quietly, observing her as he realized that this was his final test. She knew he would marry the London debutante. But would he wed the lass she still saw every time she looked in the mirror?
As he stood there, gazing at her, what he saw was inner beauty. When they were old and doddering, this beauty would still grace her countenance. The caring of her soul and the fire of her spirit would always shine from those glorious golden eyes.
Carrick was on stage with Peter, calling the crowd’s attention. He didn’t dare give the Maclee a chance to intervene. “My wife and I are pleased this evening to announce the betrothal of our daughter, Heather Ceana, to Laird Nial Maclee.”
The band struck up a waltz, and Nial grabbed Heather, disdaining the traditional posture under the rapt gazes of those who waited for an open breach. He drew her close, and her eyes darted to his face. His soul was speared by the tears he saw that she was trying to fight – evidence that she had already decided that Nial would not love this lady. He drew her closer still, and the entire crowd fell so silent that they seemed bewitched or entranced.
Not enough space separated them for a piece of parchment to pass through, but she was still too far away for him. He drew her flush against him and bent her backward over his arm as his lips lowered toward hers. Her eyes were wide with surprise as he took her mouth passionately, possessively, his craving open for all to see. He felt her lips tremble as he nipped at her lower lip until she opened to allow his tongue inside to duel with hers.
It was long moments before he straightened, and when he did, he allowed her only time to take a single breath. Then his mouth took hers again. “Silly girl,” he said against her lips, “You should have known better than to give me ideas by wearing this outfit.”
“Ideas?”
“Now I might demand you dress like this every day so that no other man has an idea of the bounty that only my eyes would feast upon in the privacy of our bedchamber.”
When his head lifted, she wore a stunned expression. “You love me. You really love me.”
Nial’s brow lifted as his lips quirked the sensual grin that was his alone. “I'm certain I told you that before. But words, as they say, are che
ap.” He wiggled his brows as he leered at her. “I'll be glad to take you upstairs for a thorough demonstration of all the kinds of love I have for you at this moment.”
He bent to follow through and she laughed as she shook her head no. “Behave. We’ll be up all night to finish our packing as it is. Perhaps you would relent and allow us a day or two longer before we depart so that the household might catch a wink of sleep tonight?”
Stubbornly, he shook his head, saying, “Sweet, the only thing that would make me happier than shaking the dust of England off my shoes tomorrow would be doing it tonight.”
Her family surrounded them after the dance. Nial found their amazement insulting and said so. “Heather is my love and my life. How could such a small thing as they way she chooses to dress alter that? If she shows up for breakfast garbed like this every day, I will love her. If she shows up garbed as the temptress of the last few weeks, I will love her. Most of all,” He said, thinking that Bonnie deserved the embarrassment for having such a low opinion of him, “I will love her each night in our bedchamber when she is garbed not at all.” Bonnie blushed and then winked at him, knowing she had been repaid in kind.
The rest of the night passed in a whirl of joy for Heather, marred only by Viv sneaking into her bedchamber after the ball for a private word.
“I’ll not be going with you to Skye, Heather. Later tonight I will receive a fake message that my maiden great-aunt Genevieve in France has fallen ill and needs me to tend her. The family will think I am there for some months, which will allow me time to make the crossing to America. I have everything set there and I can’t wait. I feel that my life is about to begin.”
Viv would not be swayed from her firm intent, and seeing her happiness, Heather knew she could not betray her confidence. She worried about her cousin, but perhaps it was time for Viv to spread her wings. Her fate might await her in America.
With hugs and tears and promises to write, the cousins reluctantly parted.
As much as she would miss her English relations, Heather was anxious to go home. She too wanted to make Nial hers in the ceremony that would be respected under the laws of every country in the world. All the lasses who panted after him might not respect the ceremony, but Heather had every confidence that she could take care of them.
After all, Nial and the faeries were on her side.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The first day of the journey, Nial was crammed into a coach with Heather on one side, Boz on the other, and Bonnie and Carrick across from him. Peter rode with his parents, as did the dowager duchess. The Harrison children stayed in London with nursemaids. In honor of his long-anticipated victorious return to his homeland, he wore his kilt. He loved his kilt and everything it symbolized. Before they traveled half a day however he heartily condemned it to purgatory.
The problem? His lady liked to touch him. Her touches were not obvious or blatant. They were subtle and ostensibly appropriate. They were also driving him batty. While she and Bonnie had a long discourse on the menu for the banquet that would follow the wedding, Heather stroked his forearm. With each stroke, Nial’s tarse jerked awake and quivered at the ready until she ceased the contact and he was able to cool off by imagining horrific images of violence, or that he was in a long, rambling discourse with the elders.
Just when his bloody arousal calmed, Heather would resume her touches. Each time, the gluttonous monster woke up and lingered in a semi-aroused condition until her touch ceased and he had to think himself calm again. By early afternoon he pretended a voracious appetite simply to get out of the carriage. He voiced a suggestion that he ride his horse the rest of the day but Heather’s expression grew so downcast that he couldn’t bring himself to desert her.
About mid afternoon the MacIvers dozed off and Heather curled into him, placing her head on his shoulder. That posture caused her gown’s neckline to widen, and when he glanced down, he had a generous view of her left breast. As she drifted towards sleep, her hand curled into his lap and his member pumped as his arousal grew from a low groan to a roar. She moved her hand around, and his staff stretched and lurched until his kilt was badly tented and he couldn’t sit still. The pressure of her hand would not allow his thoughts to calm his body, and soon his entire body shuddered with the burning pressure of strident desire.
He grew so desperate that he closed his eyes and prayed to the almighty for Boz to join the others in slumber. If his cousin would just close his eyes, he could put Heather’s hand where it would ease his distress. In his current condition, it wouldn’t take much. The damned duke looked suspiciously not tired, and as Nial’s furtive glances grew harder to ignore, the dratted man leaned over and said, “I never nap during daylight hours, old boy.”
“Pretend,” Nial gritted out from between clenched teeth. Boz gave a deep sigh and closed his eyes. Nial reached for Heather’s hand just as the carriage hit a hefty rut and jolted Carrick and Bonnie awake. Unfortunately it didn’t jolt Heather awake, it just caused her to start and grip what she was holding tighter. Nial ground his teeth together and prayed for nightfall and five minutes alone with Heather. Eventually he got one but not the other.
******
Between the leisurely pace of travel and the days of deprivation before they left London, it had been well over two weeks since Nial’s copious passion had found safe-harbor within Heather by the time they docked at Skye. Even burdened with lust, he managed a slightly strained smile as they stepped ashore on their island home. A morning mist clung to the sky and shaded the peaks of the Cuillins, and the flowers of every hue grew in wild and untamed beauty that soothed the hearts of the travelers who had been gone too long.
He ignored their companions and paused for a moment to plant a far-too-heated kiss on his lady’s lips and to whisper against them, “Home with my fate in my arms. I need nothing else from life.”
Heather reached a tender hand to his cheek and he pressed against it before he planted a kiss there and with a long-suffering sigh, turned to greet the masses.
In the eternal manner of the secret grapevine that passed such news along, word had gone out that the lairds of Clan Maclee and Clan MacIver would return today. A large party waited at the landing to greet the group. Among them were a fair number of ladies come to sigh over the natural treasure of the island returned at long last. Nial kept Heather carefully within the circle of his arms.
The lasses frowned at her suspiciously, since none of them recognized the interloper who took far too much of the laird’s attention. It was not their unnoticed glares of resentment that occupied Nial’s attention. Rather, it was the fomenting interest of the young men whose eyes glistened with admiration at the beautiful temptress. The women pressed forward to lure Nial’s interest, and the men pressed forward to obtain Heather’s and the crowd thronged until the couple separated.
Nial felt a female hand on his bum and another on his chest as one of the bolder young widows he had favored in the past leaned close and said, “There is an empty spot in my bed and between my thighs for you Laird Maclee.” The comment was definitely overheard by Heather, who was too busy with young men jockeying for favor to respond verbally, but the daggers in her glare would have been response enough for a woman with any degree of intelligence. Unfortunately, it had never been the widow’s mental acuity that concerned the laird.
The Maclee glanced over to see that four young bucks surrounded Heather. That meant eight eyes roamed over the bounteous bosom her neckline exposed. One of the more intensely interested had taken hold of her hand to kiss it and was by God nibbling on her fingers. That was the particular straw that broke the camel’s back for Nial.
With the same expression of challenge in his eyes that opposing warriors saw in the heat of battle, Nial pushed aside every form that separated him from his lady as he shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Enough!”
He reached her side and wrapped an arm tightly around her waist and used the other to jerk her hand away from the admire
r. Her eyes twinkled in amusement at his clearly possessive gesture, but the twinkle stopped abruptly when she realized that a female hand cradled his tush. She mimicked his gesture in reaching behind to remove the offending talons from the bum that belonged to her.
“Hey,” objected a male voice.
“Hey,” objected a female voice.
“Back off,” was Nial’s surly command. Not used to having Laird Nial’s voice directed in anger, as he was generally more tolerant of a degree of groping on the island that he never allowed elsewhere, the crowd was puzzled. The threat in his tones convinced them to step back a pace or two.
“Laird,” came the angry voice from the female whose hand had been evicted from his backside, “I don’t know who she is but you’d better tell her that women are never allowed to become possessive over you. If she becomes angry over a hand on your bum just imagine how upset she will be when it’s my turn to warm your bed.” The female voices rose in agreement with the speaker.
“I have a different bone to pick with you,” said the deeper voice from the man who had been nibbling Heather’s lovely digits before they were so rudely jerked from his grasp. “I’ve as much right as you to touch this lovely creature, and if she prefers my touch to yours it’s apt to mean that she would rather own than rent.”
Nial lifted Heather’s left hand in his to hold it out and display it to the crowd. Loud gasps of shock from the men and women proclaimed that all eyes recognized the famed Maclee betrothal ring that the lovely lady wore. “Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to someone you have all known since she was small. This is Lady Heather MacIver. I have long known the inner beauty of the woman, the charm and caring and strength of her character, but until very recently, I was blind to the fact that the inner beauty was matched by the outer glory of the lady.”
He kissed the hand wearing his ring and continued. “Heather is my faerie fated forever and in three days time,” he ignored the loud groans from Bonnie and Violet that protested the rush, “we shall be wed in the kirk. That means that the only female flesh that shall meet mine shall be my lady’s. As for the men, if you wish to have the right to touch my Heather, you best plan to do so over my corpse, for I will after this day meet any touch with the point of my sword. Be very sure that your lust does not overrule your brain, for I will tolerate no interference with this one. She is mine and there is nothing I have that I value near as much. See that you all remember it.”
A Faerie Fated Forever Page 24