“What?” Munro looked genuinely flabbergasted. “No, you must be mistaken.”
Conall shook his head and stood to face Munro. “No. She told me true, the day I returned when I asked if she’d taken up with you while I was gone. Said she wanted to, but you’d have none of it.”
“And so I wouldn’t,” Munro said, his face suddenly blank, hiding his thoughts again.
“I ask again,” Conall said solemnly. “Why?”
“She was meant for you,” Munro told him. “Anyone could see that.”
“You watch her all the time,” Conall said slowly, staring at Munro and seeing things clearly for the first time. “You want her.”
“I’d have to be half a man not to,” Munro told him. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t resist my urges and let the lady choose. She chose you.”
“She didn’t,” Conall insisted. “You made her. You said no. She deserved a real choice.”
“Damn it, are you listening to me? She waited for you. She chose you. She won’t be waiting for you forever. No one will wait for you forever.” He stopped speaking abruptly, and Conall got the impression there was more he wanted to say but he wouldn’t. Conall didn’t care how agitated Munro got. He already had a bruised face, so there was no call to worry about that.
“She needs someone,” he said in a choked voice. He turned away and cleared his throat. Then he faced Munro again, determination firing through him. “She wanted you. And you want her. So go get her. Go on.”
“Are you daft?” Munro demanded. “To be giving away a woman like that?”
“She doesn’t want me,” Conall said. “But I warn you, unless it’s marriage on your mind, you’d best stay away from her. I’ll not be putting her through that again.”
Munro gave a choked growl. “There’s no talking to you, so I’ll talk to her. And not about me marrying her, but you.”
“Why are you so determined to see us together?” Conall asked, truly perplexed. “When you could have her yourself?”
“Because you deserve each other, not me,” Munro said through clenched teeth.
“You mean she doesn’t deserve you?” Conall asked, not understanding. “Are you saying you’re too good for her, and I’m not?”
“For Christ’s sake, have you got stuffing in your ears? I said nothing of the kind.” Munro stalked over to the tent entrance. “I’m going to settle this once and for all. And you better live up to your words, Fletcher. You’d better be marrying her when I come for you.”
Conall smiled sadly. “I’ll be going to your wedding,” he assured him.
Munro threw his hands in the air and ducked out of the tent.
Chapter Six
Graeme knocked loudly on Avril’s door. He could hear her sniffling inside, the damn door and walls of the hut were so thin. Christ, why hadn’t Conall built her a new one?
“Who is it?” she called out, trying to sound angry instead of miserable, but he wasn’t fooled.
“It’s me,” he called out softly. “Graeme. I mean, Munro.”
He heard her unlocking the door, and it opened, though he couldn’t see her. He stepped inside and she pushed the door closed. She’d been hiding behind it. He turned to her and she had her head down, the plaid wrapped around her.
“Ah, lass,” he said sadly, and she threw herself in his arms, crying. He hadn’t expected it, and stumbled back a step. She just wrapped her arms around him tight, enveloping him in the plaid with her. “You poor thing,” he said softly, running his hand over her hair. Shining pieces of it had come out of her plaits, which she’d wrapped in a coronet around her head. She felt slight and fragile in his arms and he wanted to hold her in his lap and not let her go.
“I’m not a poor thing,” she said stubbornly, sounding all stuffed up in the head from her crying. “I’m mad at him.”
“Course you are,” he told her. “You should be. Now be a good girl and marry him.”
She shoved him away and stared at him in horror. “Marry him? Have you gone mad? Do you know what he comes from? A laird! His mother is a lady. My father was a tinker and my mother a seamstress.” She shook her head. “No good can come of such a misalliance, I tell you.”
“So that’s your only objection?” Graeme asked. “That he’s too above you in station?” She nodded. Graeme swore under his breath and her eyes grew wide. “That’s nonsensical woman’s logic. If the man wants to marry you, he doesn’t give a damn about where you come from, you understand?” She set her mouth in a stubborn line and refused to agree. He tried another tack. “He’s suffering, you know. He loves you. You’ve broken his heart. He thinks you don’t love him.” Tears welled in her eyes and he felt like a cad. “Where’s the sense in both of you hurting?” he asked, gently tucking a fall of hair behind her ear. “When you could be together? Man and wife?”
“He only thinks he loves me,” she blurted out. “Isn’t that always the way for men with their first?”
Graeme was struck speechless. He’d had no idea Conall had been an untried lad when he went to Avril. Handsome devil that he was, Graeme had assumed he’d been with as many women as his twin, who was notorious even here in the Crimea for his womanizing ways. Avril looked guilty as sin as she stared at him in dawning understanding.
“Oh Lord,” she breathed, “you didn’t know. Oh, God, Munro, don’t tell him I told you. I shouldn’t even be speaking of these things with you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me!”
“You were his first?” he said, his throat tight as he imagined the scenario, Avril talking Conall through his first fuck. He knew it would be a fantasy he’d not get over for a while.
She nodded. “And that’s why he thinks he loves me. He thinks he has a responsibility to me now. That he owes me something. I don’t know.” She waved her arms around in the air. “Who knows what’s going on in that bloody honorable head of his?”
“You’ll marry him,” Graeme said firmly.
“I will not,” Avril said just as firmly. “And neither you nor he can make me.”
“Then you’ll go home,” Graeme told her. The idea suddenly came to him. He had the means to buy her passage home. He should have done it long ago. But Conall loved her, and he had affection for Conall, and then he’d cared for Avril after spending time in her company. And so he’d ignored what he’d always known, in the back of his mind, was the truly right thing to do. “I’ll buy you passage and you’ll go home.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” she said, clearly affronted. “I’m saving up my money and I should be able to go by springtime. I’ll not be taking charity, not even from you.”
“What about Conall? You’d let him buy you passage, wouldn’t you?” Graeme asked, suddenly desperate for her to be home and safe. “He made you his woman. He can do that.”
She shook her head. “I’m not his anymore, am I? He’s through with me, and no, I wouldn’t be accepting his charity either.”
Graeme pulled off his cap and slapped it against his thigh in irritation. “Damn it, woman, do you have to be so stubborn?”
“It’s all I know how to be,” she said with her nose in the air, as proud as any lady he’d ever seen.
Avril’s heart was beating fiercely. She’d acted outrageously tonight with Munro, throwing herself in his arms and crying on his shoulder and speaking of her and Conall’s carnal relations so casually. He must think her a strumpet or worse. And now him offering her money. She gathered the tattered ends of her self-control and wrapped it tight around her with the plaid. The plaid Conall and Munro had found for her. Tears gathered in her eyes again.
“Ah, I’m sorry for calling you stubborn,” Munro said, making a face. “Don’t cry again.”
“I’m not crying over that, you fool,” she snapped and then covered her mouth with her hand. Munro laughed.
“Good to see you haven’t lost all your fire,” he said affectionately.
She sniffed disdainfully. “I haven’t lost a bit,” she said, trying to convince herse
lf as well as him.
Munro looked around and set his cap down on her rickety shelves. He picked up the teapot and peered inside and she winced. “It’s cold,” she told him. “I’ll make fresh.”
He held the teapot out of her reach. “No, I’ll make more,” he told her. “Sit yourself down. You’ve had a day of it, haven’t you?”
She didn’t take offense. “Indeed I have,” she agreed, sitting wearily on her little stool. “Turned away hungry lads tonight too, and I sure feel guilty for it.”
“Never you mind,” Munro said, dumping the cold tea on the ground outside her door. He shut the door firmly and glared at it for a moment before turning back and filling the pot with fresh water from the bucket she had near the stove. He fed the fire and she felt the heat where she was. She hadn’t realized how cold she’d let the hut become. Munro whistled under his breath as he fixed the kettle.
Avril watched him, enjoying the sight of a man doing for her. Conall had done the same a time or two. Munro was a handsome devil, though different than Conall. He was so tall that another inch would have him stooping in the hut. He was rugged, though he’d said his father was a professor. He looked as though he slept in the hills rolled in his plaid without a thought for the city or civilization. His dark hair shone like a raven’s wing in the light of the stove fire. His eyes looked black and wicked in the same glow. He didn’t wear a beard like Conall, just some side whiskers and a mustache as dark as his hair. She could see stubble on his chin.
“Are you growing a beard, then?” she asked. He looked surprised for a moment.
“No,” he said, rubbing his hand over his chin. “I just haven’t shaved. I need a strop, my razor’s dull.” He peered at her in the dim light. “Do you think I should grow a beard?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, a little breathless from the way he was watching her. “It’s not my place to say.”
“I’d like to know what you think,” he said softly. “Tell me. Would you like me in a beard?” She nodded, biting her lip. “Then I’ll grow a beard,” he said, and he turned back to her tea.
Chapter Seven
Conall watched Avril’s hut from behind the tent just across from it, although still a good twenty-five yards away at least. He’d seen Munro go inside, and he hadn’t come back out yet. He checked his pocket watch. Over thirty minutes in there. He couldn’t hear them from here. If he were closer he might be able to hear what they were saying. Or doing. Avril made these little sounds in the back of her throat when she was being pleasured. Conall would recognize those, though it had been weeks since he’d heard it.
He sat down, knees bent, arms on his knees, close enough that he could peer around the corner of the tent. He felt like a fool doing it, but he couldn’t make himself go. It wasn’t jealousy so much as—ah, hell, he wasn’t sure what it was. Munro was a big man. He’d dwarf his Avril. She’d have to stand on a stool to kiss the man. And in bed, well, she’d have to be on top or she’d be staring at his belly button.
At the thought of Avril and Munro copulating, Conall’s prick stiffened. He reached under his kilt and readjusted it. But for once he didn’t make himself stop thinking about it. He’d admit now he’d thought about it a lot. Even when he was with Avril alone, he’d imagined what it would be like if Munro were with them. Perhaps it marked him as a pervert or some such, but as it was only in his mind he didn’t think it mattered. He wondered if Munro’s prick was as big as the rest of him. Probably. Christ, he’d like to see Avril fuck that.
He choked and had a coughing fit at the thought. He tried to muffle it in his fist. What the hell was he thinking? What kind of man imagined his woman fucking another man and got a hard cock at the thought? He was a pervert. Maybe Avril had known and that was why she didn’t love him. Had he done something when they were fucking that let her know he was wrong in the head? He laid his forehead down on his crossed arms and sighed.
“Well, what’s wrong now?” Ham asked impatiently from behind him. “First you get shot, and then I hear you’ve walked away from Mrs. Scott, and now Tommy Thompson comes to tell me you’re sneaking about behind his tent and crying in the dark. Jesus Christ, boy, do we have to send you home to Mum?”
“You ought to,” he mumbled without raising his head. “I’m sick in the head and no good to anyone.”
“Ah, Christ. It’s worse than I thought. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself.” Ham heaved a sigh as he sat down next to Conall and peered around him and the corner of the tent. “Are you spying on her?”
“Yes,” Conall said defiantly. “Her and Munro.”
“Munro, is it?” Ham asked with a delighted chuckle. “Well it’s about time the man got some. He was doing a damn good imitation of a monk.” He slapped Conall on the back. “Sorry it had to be your woman he’s riding.”
Conall remembered how close Ham was to Finn and his new wife back in Scutari. He was probably used to having to listen to a man’s troubles about women. He’d always been the one brother you could talk to. He didn’t make fun like Brodie or scold and cuss like Dougie. Nor was he too busy like their eldest brother Rowan or too young like Bram, the youngest brother, who had both stayed behind in Scotland.
“That’s just it,” he confided in a guilty whisper. “I’m not sorry at all.”
Ham went very still next to him. “No? So you’re not in love with her.”
“Of course I’m in love with her,” Conall said indignantly. “Do you think I’d have taken up with her if I wasn’t?”
“Many men would have,” Ham said with a shrug.
Conall punched him in the arm. “Well, I’m not many men. I’m your brother. You’re supposed to be thinking the best of me, not the worst.”
“If you love her,” Ham said patiently, “then why doesn’t the thought of Munro fucking her bother you?”
Conall bit his lip, afraid he’d already said too much. “Well, he’s a good man, isn’t he?” he said, avoiding the real answer. Or maybe it was the real answer. Maybe he was reading too much into his overactive prick.
“Mmm, he is,” Ham agreed. “But that’s not why it doesn’t bother you.”
“It isn’t?” Conall asked, worry making him frown at Avril’s hut. A picture of Munro thrusting above Avril, both of them panting and sweaty and fucking hard flashed into his head and he nearly groaned at the lust that slammed through him. “No,” he admitted quietly, “it isn’t.”
“I thought it would bother me, you know, the idea of Finn on Edith without me,” Ham mused. “But it keeps me warm at night and my prick hard.” He grinned at Conall. “I guess we both got that in our blood, eh?”
Conall’s jaw dropped open as he stared at Ham. “You mean you’ve fucked Finn’s wife?” he asked incredulously. “Does Finn know?”
Ham laughed. “Oh, Finn knows. He was there for it.”
Conall’s face flamed red-hot in embarrassment. He wasn’t sure if it was because of Ham’s words, or the revelation of his dirty secret. “Oh,” was all he said, turning to stare at Avril’s hut again, afraid to meet Ham’s eyes.
“Do you disapprove?” Ham asked. He was trying to sound casual, but Conall could hear the hurt in his voice.
“No,” Conall rushed to assure him, turning to face him and then looking away again. “But it’s not normal, is it? I mean, what we want.” He admitted his desire to set Ham at ease, but it was a burden unloaded. He felt better for admitting he wanted to see Munro and Avril together.
“Ach,” Ham said dismissively. “Who’s to say what normal is? Is it normal to stand there and watch an enemy army approach you and not try to run away, as we did at Balaclava?” He shook his head. “Truth is, lad, it runs in our veins. Our father and mum were the same. You remember Uncle Davie?”
Conall was again struck with amazement. “Yes, of course. He was Da’s best friend since they were children. He was never far to be found until he died.”
“Mmm,” Ham said, staring at Avril’s hut. “He was their lover, you kn
ow.”
“You lie!” Conall exclaimed in shock, remembering both his parents’ profound grief when Davie Farrell died.
“No, I don’t,” Ham said, shaking his head. “Row told me and Dougie he caught the three of them together once. They were all together, just like Finn and Edith and me. Do you understand?”
“He was…with Mum?” Conall said, confused. Was there more?
“No,” Ham said, staring at him solemnly. “He was with Da and Mum.”
Conall’s heart lurched and began to beat double time. Without his even trying to think about it, the picture of him and Avril and Munro all sweaty and naked and humping popped into his head. His prick actually hurt it grew so hard. “Christ almighty,” he whispered.
Ham nodded. “Now you do understand.”
Conall stared at him. “And you and Finn…”
“Aye,” Ham said. “Me and Finn.”
“Does it hurt?” Conall asked, and Ham laughed. Conall blushed again. His face must be the same color as his scarlet jacket.
“A little the first time,” Ham said, “just like for a woman. Ah, but lad, just like a woman there’s pleasure to be found after the pain.” The look on his face was dreamy. Conall was sweating in the freezing winter he was so aroused just talking about it. Because they were talking about him and Munro, weren’t they? Well, he was. Ham was talking about Finn, which was something he was trying hard to ignore.
“So I’m not a pervert?” Conall asked with grin.
“Course you are,” Ham said. “And so am I. At least to everyone else. But that doesn’t matter a bit when you’re with them. Trust me.”
Conall shook his head. “They’ll never do that. Not Avril and Munro.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Ham said with a knowing look. “She wants you both, everyone knows that. And I’ve seen the way he looks at you.” He put his hand on Conall’s shoulder. “Don’t let the opportunity for true happiness pass you by, Conall. This is war, make no mistake. We were all damn lucky at Balaclava, you most of all. You’ve got a second chance here. Use it wisely.” He stood up and, with a pat on Conall’s shoulder, left him there to think and spy.
Conall: The 93rd Highlanders, Book Two Page 5