by Lauren Royal
“But now that he’s shown up, a duke and all”—Duncan slanted a none-too-friendly glance at Trick before focusing back on Niall—“you won’t be needing any of Da’s paltry holdings. With a new brother to provide for you.”
Niall’s mouth opened and closed like a salmon out of water.
Kendra saw Trick’s jaw set before he pointed his knife at Duncan. “What makes you so certain I’m willing to provide for Niall? I’d lay odds your father didn’t jump to such a conclusion.”
Duncan sipped from his ever-present whisky, glaring over the rim. “What do you know of our father?”
“Enough to suspect he wouldn’t readily cut his youngest son out of his will.” Trick met Duncan’s glare with one of his own. “His favorite son.”
Sensing violence about to erupt, Kendra bit the inside of her cheek. “Can we not all be civil?”
Annag turned in a huff, her gaze narrowing with disdain on Kendra’s low neckline. “You stay out of this.”
“You’ll address my wife with respect,” Trick said through gritted teeth. If Annag had been a man, he’d have been on her, Kendra thought, drawing the shawl tighter to cover the front of her gown. As it was, she sensed he was barely holding himself in check.
When Annag’s son began crying, Duncan’s face turned red to match. “Who needs this trouble?” he barked at Niall, half-rising to his feet. “Ever since they got here”—he waved an angry hand at Trick and Kendra—“I cannot have a word with you without them sticking their noses into it. Keep them out of our family business, or else—”
“Or else what?” Niall stood, his fists clenched at his sides. “I’m grown now, aye? You cannot beat me up anymore. I’ll floor you in a minute.”
It was no idle threat. Niall topped his brother by a good four inches, and his youthful frame was solid and honed, while Duncan’s was softened by sloth and drink.
Apparently not as dim-witted as he was surly, Duncan sat back down. “Just keep them away,” he growled. “Both of them.”
“They’re family as much as you,” Niall shot back. “My family.”
Annag aimed a pointed look at Duncan. “Blood will tell.”
“Blood will run if you don’t back off,” Trick said darkly. His knife clattered to his trencher, and, as he stood, his hand went to the hilt of his sword.
Kendra rose quickly, reaching out a restraining arm. “Have we not seen enough violence here tonight?” Evidence still remained of the earlier brawl. “Come, Trick. I know where I’m not wanted.”
She curtsied to Niall but ignored his siblings as she took Trick by his sword hand and led him away. He allowed himself to be dragged, although not before fixing Hamish’s older children with a murderous glare.
Murderous…Kendra wondered for a second if she’d just narrowly prevented murder. Trick was a highwayman, after all, accustomed to violence, and she’d never seen him this incensed.
But then she shook her head, chiding herself. Her husband might be an enigma, but she felt certain he was no murderer.
Still, it couldn’t hurt to get him as far from Annag and Duncan as possible. She led Trick out the door and around to the garden. The whole long way he didn’t say a word, but as they stepped into his mother’s wonderland of little model castles, she felt him begin to relax.
Night had nearly fallen, and the branches overhead were black silhouettes against the dark gray sky. Hand in hand, they walked in silence up the long avenue of trees and back, up then back again. The crunch of their footsteps on the gravel seemed lost within the sounds of rushing wind and rustling leaves. Trick’s grip gentled on her hand, and his breathing settled; his gait became looser.
A light mist began to fall, and in mute agreement, they headed back inside.
The door shut behind them, blocking the rain and the noisy wind. In the tunnel that led through the thick stone wall, Trick stopped and put his hands on her shoulders. Illuminated by the torches that lit the entry, his eyes searched her face. Kendra gazed back, wondering what he was looking for.
“I don’t like those two,” she said quietly. “I wouldn’t put anything past them. I don’t know what Hamish has to bequeath to his children, but I suspect they’d go to any lengths necessary to see it ends up in their hands. All of it.”
Trick shrugged, moving closer, backing her up until she felt the wall, hard against her spine. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “They’re powerless, and they know it. They speak from desperation.” He skimmed his knuckles across her cheek. “Don’t worry your pretty head about them, leannan.”
Leannan. It sounded different now that she knew what it meant. “My head is more than pretty,” she retorted, not immune to his nearness or the sudden spark that lit his eyes.
He nodded slowly. “Aye, that it is.” The wind had blown much of her hair loose from the bun, and he tucked it behind her ears, one side and then the other. He glanced into the great hall, sending a quelling glare to some poor soul who dared to look their way. Then, shielding her body from view with his larger one, he lowered his lips to hers.
The kiss was long and gentle, reawakening the feelings that had started in Hamish’s chamber. Of their own accord, it seemed, her hands moved to touch the rough wool of the kilt where it stretched across his hips.
“Hmm.” With a low laugh, he swept both her hands into one of his, then raised them above her head and pressed her against the chilly stone. In contrast, his body felt warm along the length of hers. And his lips this time moved faster, pressed harder. She felt strangely vulnerable with Trick restraining her arms, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. In fact, it was thrilling. Thrilling with an edge of…something else.
He pulled back and cocked a brow. “That’ll teach you to take advantage of a man in a skirt.”
“Will it?” she wondered, and a shiver ran through her.
She knew for sure it would happen tonight.
“Are you cold, lass?”
“Maybe a bit.” Nervous and excited and backed against the cold stone wall. But the stones were more than cold. “There’s something about this place…”
He put a palm to the wall and leaned his weight on it. “What?”
“I…well, I’m just not comfortable here.” She tried to look away, but he captured her chin in his free hand, forcing her gaze to his. “Even as a child,” she said, “exiled on the Continent, parentless with no home to call my own, I never felt as out of place as I do here in this castle.”
One of his fingers traced a lazy line on her jaw. “Then you’ll understand why I wasn’t in a hurry to return.”
Her skin tingling under his fingertips, she nodded. It wasn’t only this place, these people, that contributed to her unease. It was also her husband. The enigma. The emotional distance between them. In many ways, he was still a stranger to her.
But he’d made a start today, confiding a bit more about his childhood. And she’d made a promise to herself, to trust in him fully, to stop holding back. And beyond all that…despite her lingering doubts…
Well, she just wanted him.
He drove her wild, and she wanted to see where that wildness took them.
And there was only one way to find out.
“Come upstairs,” she whispered.
FORTY-FIVE
“GOOD EVENING, dearies.” When Kendra and Trick stepped into their chamber, Mrs. Ross came forward, two goblets in her hands. “I thought you might be wanting a wee sack posset to help you sleep.”
Sleep was the last thing on Kendra’s mind, and she was fairly certain Trick felt the same. But she took one of the cups anyway, and sipped the warm, thick liquid, sweet and fragrant with the scents of cream and wine.
Gazing at Trick over the rim, she watched as he removed the roll of papers from the front of his kilt and tucked it into his trunk before turning to Mrs. Ross. “We thank you,” he said with a nod and a smile. “And we wish you a good night,” he added pointedly.
With a smile of her own, Mrs. Ross handed him the second
cup as she left.
Kendra sagged against the door after Trick closed it. “How strange that she would be waiting here for us.”
“She was my old nurse.” He sipped from his cup before setting it on a bedside table, then unbuckled his sword belt and tossed it on the desk. “I reckon she saw us together earlier and figured it wouldn’t be long until we were for bed.” When she blushed, he pulled her close. “I don’t want to be thinking about Mrs. Ross now.”
His eyes burned into hers. She leaned away to sip some more posset, hoping the wine would bring her strength. And courage.
Trick gently pried the cup from her fingers and set it down beside his own. He slipped the shawl from her shoulders, balled it up, and tossed it on a chair. Running his fingertips over the skin revealed by the absence of the shawl—and her scooped neckline—he placed a shivery kiss just below her collarbone. “I much prefer these delightful English dresses,” he murmured.
His lips tickled her skin. Until today, she’d never thought twice about the low necklines that had been in fashion since King Charles was restored to the throne. Trends were driven by Charles’s love for everything French, which meant she’d worn gowns like this all her life, even as a little girl exiled on the Continent.
But, thanks to her exasperating, overprotective brothers, never before had anyone taken advantage of the sensitive skin such dresses revealed.
“I like this dress, too,” she said breathlessly as he trailed kisses up her throat, all the way to her lips. Her hands went straight to the warmed wool of his kilt and hiked it up just the barest inch.
A chuckle rolled through his throat. “I think I like my skirt as well,” he said against her mouth.
The heat in his tone made her whole body tremble, and she leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his middle to hold herself up. At a noise on the stairs, she froze, her heart beating double-time.
“Do you hear something?”
Trick’s breath tickled her ear. “Something like what?”
“Like footsteps. In the stairwell—can’t you hear it?”
“Nay.” He raised his head. “Wait. Maybe I can.” The sound was faint, muffled, so soft their heartbeats and breathing nearly drowned it out.
Nearly.
She bit her lip. “There are people in there, I’m sure.”
“Don’t worry about it.” His lips grazed hers, sweet with the flavor of creamy sack posset. “It must be the ghosts of men going up to Prisoner’s Leap,” he murmured, and she couldn’t tell if he was jesting or not. “They won’t bother us in here.”
“D-do you believe in ghosts?”
“Right now I believe in finishing what we’ve started.”
She twisted away from his kiss. “What if it isn’t ghosts on those stairs, but someone much more real and frightening?”
With an exasperated groan, he bodily picked her up. He walked to the bed and plopped down, sitting her on his lap. “Like who?”
Fear mingled with more pleasant sensations, turning her head. “Mrs. Ross, maybe? What if she only used the sack posset as an excuse, and she was really up here as part of a plot, but we surprised her—”
“A plot?” He shook his head decisively. “Mrs. Ross wouldn’t hurt a midge.” He reached to the bedside for his goblet of sack posset, taking a generous gulp as though to prove it wasn’t poisoned. “She cared for me as a bairn. Why should she want to do me harm?”
“She cared for your mother more, and she’s less than happy with the way you ignored her all those years.”
“She was, true enough. But she knows now that it wasn’t my fault. I cannot believe she still holds a grudge.”
“How about Annag and Duncan? They surely do.”
Trick’s clever fingers pulled the pins from what remained of her bun. “I seriously doubt Annag and Duncan are hovering behind that door.” The gray day had delivered on its promise, and rain slashed against the small window set deep into the wall. “It’s the storm you’re hearing, Kendra.”
“Niall, then? He’s been passed off as the duke’s younger son. If something were to happen to you, he’d inherit it all. The dukedom, Amberley, Duncraven…”
In the midst of combing his fingers through her loosened hair, Trick stopped and stared at her, his jaw slack with disbelief.
“No, I don’t believe that, either,” she admitted with a sigh.
A flash of lightning brightened the window. “Listen,” he whispered. His gaze captured hers, and the backs of his fingers brushed over her jaw as the answering thunder rumbled. “It’s naught but the storm. And another storm, brewing between us now.” He held her steady with a gentle hand on each of her cheeks.
His tenderness should have calmed her, but instead it had the opposite effect. Her pulse doubled, her breathing ceased, and her body felt on fire, a fire that seemed to melt everything inside her all at once.
She was swept up into the storm.
The mysterious footsteps forgotten, she threw herself at her affectionate, golden, mysterious husband, sprawling with him on the bed, and kissed him with everything she had.
FORTY-SIX
THE STORM HAD diminished to naught but a light patter of rain.
“I cannot believe it,” Kendra said.
“What?” Trick asked, his voice husky against her neck where he was kissing her.
“I just—” Shaking her dazed head, Kendra struggled to catch her breath. “Od’s fish.”
“What is it, leannan?”
She sighed, a sound of regret from the deepest place in her heart. “I cannot believe I deprived myself of five weeks of that.”
His reply was a strangled laugh, but he held her close and found her lips once again.
She felt languid and tired and happy, and it was a long time before her heart slowed and her breathing quieted. Before the joyous reality sank in that she was now, finally, truly a wife.
Trick’s wife.
There had been some pain—more than she’d expected, in truth. But it had passed, and what had come after…
She stifled a giggle.
What had come after had been nothing like she’d imagined. But good. Very, very good.
And if she didn’t miss her guess, Trick had enjoyed himself to an equal degree. Though they still had a ways to go, tonight they had shared something special. She reached for him, pulling him down to her, enjoying his warm weight. It seemed they were the only two people in all the world for that moment.
Until she heard the phantom footsteps again.
“It’s the rain,” Trick reminded her. His voice sounded low and lazy. Perfectly content. She felt a little thrill knowing she had made him that way. “We’re alone here at the top of the tower. It cannot be anything else.”
“Annag and Duncan…”
Taking her with him, he turned over and nestled her against his chest. “Do you honestly think they’ve climbed up on the roof to come down these stairs and spy on us? On a stormy night like this?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t put anything past those two. It’s obvious enough they don’t like you…or me.”
“They’re bitter. Odds are Niall has always been favored as the duke’s son—Lord Niall while they were plain Duncan and Annag. Then their father left their childhood home to live here—although they were grown, that had to hurt.”
“And now you’ve returned to claim that father—”
“A bit of his attention, maybe, but I’ve no claim on Hamish.”
Rain thrummed on the roof above them, little needles of it striking the small window. She met Trick’s eyes, remembering other eyes that had looked familiar. Beneath his shining hair, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. Suddenly she pictured Hamish, that same expression on his face.
And it all fell into place.
She reached a hand to graze his cheek, the faint stubble scratchy against her fingers. “Do you not see, Trick, how much you’re like him?”
“Niall? Aye, I’ve said how uncanny—”
“Not Niall.
Well, yes, Niall, but you must know there’s a reason for that, for why you’re so very alike.” She hesitated, but much as she wished to linger together in a state of pure contentment, she couldn’t hide this knowledge from him, not even for a few hours. “It’s because you share not only the same mother, but the same father as well.”
“Do you think so?” Some of the puzzlement cleared, his amber eyes filling with a hesitant hope instead. “I suppose the timing makes it possible. Father was last here when I was nearly six, and Niall was born the next year….Maybe Niall is my full brother.” He managed to sound bitter and elated at the same time. “Wouldn’t that be something?” he added before he suddenly frowned. “But why, then, would he say he’s Hamish’s son?”
“Because he is,” she said gently. “And so are you.”
FORTY-SEVEN
THE BREATH LEFT Trick’s body in a rush. “That cannot be.”
“It is.” Kendra’s eyes searched his before she scooted up to sit against the headboard beside him, taking the coverlet with her. “No, I haven’t asked Hamish about it, nor did he come to me. But I’ve eyes in my head, Trick, and I’m not as close to the situation as you are. You share his features and his manner, and then there’s the way he looks at you.”
“The way he looks at me? How is that?”
“With longing and pride. Were you the duke’s son—his love’s child fathered by another—wouldn’t he view you with resentment, instead? He’s your father, I’m sure of it.”
He couldn’t find the words to disagree, mostly because he wasn’t sure whether he disagreed or not.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Kendra pressed. “I know you don’t hold him in much affection, but that will come, don’t you think? Deep down, I believe he’s a good man.”
“It’s much to absorb,” he admitted. “Finding a new brother, and now maybe a father.”
It was too much to absorb with his mind still reeling over what he and Kendra had just experienced together. Tonight, everything had changed between them. He couldn’t say what was different, exactly. Aye, they’d finally made love, and aye, it had been glorious—even better than he’d anticipated, after all those weeks of waiting and wanting. He would never forget this night.