Seduced by a Scot

by Julia London

  “Criosd, Maura, donna stop now,” he said roughly, and grabbed her head between his large hands and lifted it from his body so that he could kiss her.

  She was disarmed, so completely powerless. He could do to her what he liked and she would welcome it. She didn’t want to think, she wanted only to feel. She wanted him to love her as man and woman loved.

  His breath was warm on her skin, his body a fire against her. He untied the lace of her chemise and dipped his head, filling his mouth with her breast. Maura pushed her chemise from her shoulders and slid it down to her waist so that he could ravage her body. He growled with approval, wrapped a thick arm around her waist, and abruptly flipped her onto her back. He straddled her, moving down her body.

  She arched her back, moved her legs against his hips, pressed her knee against his hardness. He caressed the flare of her hip, then the soft flesh of her inner thigh, then put his body between her legs.

  Maura’s breath was quick with anticipation. Nichol began to trace a hot line down her belly with his lips and tongue, nipping at her belly button, then lower, until his head was between her legs. This was new, this was astounding. She thought she would lose her mind and lifted her hips, then cried out when his lips closed around her sex.

  She was beyond rational thought, sunk into a cloud of oblivious pleasure, her body pulsing, her fingers searching, her mind completely gone. He’d aroused her to the point of complete madness, and she began to pant, desperate for the release. When it came to her, it was hard and long, sending her tumbling down a slide into pure, ethereal pleasure. And even in the heat of the moment, she understood it wasn’t just the physical release—it was something much bigger. It was a sense of finding absolute sanctuary in another human being. It was allowing herself to be so vulnerable with another person that she was made that much stronger.

  She had been guarded for so long, it was absolutely freeing to let go and trust him.

  The release shuddered through her until she couldn’t bear it any longer. She wiggled out from beneath him, pushed him onto his back, and climbed on top of him, straddling him, eager to feel him deep inside her. She slid down his shaft and watched his eyes flutter shut. He grabbed her hips, pressed his lips together, and opened his eyes, locking them with hers. And he kept them locked with hers as they began to rock in unison.

  She believed he felt it, too. That he felt as vulnerable, felt as powerful, felt all the things she was feeling, and he was the same as her as they moved against each other. When his release neared, he sat up and folded her in one arm, braced himself with the other, and carried them home.

  He held her tightly to him for a long moment, then slowly reclined with her onto his back. She pressed her hand against his bare chest, felt the wild beating of his heart. He felt it, too, she supposed—he covered her hand with his.

  After several moments, she slowly lifted her head. A swath of her hair covered half his face and she pushed it away, stroked his jaw.

  Nichol’s eyes were closed. He lazily stroked her back, up and down, his fingers running the knobs of her spine. He said something so softly that she couldn’t understand him. “Pardon?” she asked, and kissed his cheek.

  “I said, you have undone me.” He turned his head to her, kissed her tenderly on the mouth. “Utterly, irreparably undone me.”

  Those words filled her with indescribable joy. “Should I no’ have done?”

  He smiled, closed his eyes once more. “You should no’ have done.”

  She laid her head against his chest again, drew a circle around his nipple with her finger and asked, “What do we do now, then?”

  “Now?” He caressed her shoulder. “Sleep. The sun will be up before long, aye?”

  That was not what she meant. He knew that was not what she meant. “Donna leave me here, Nichol,” she said against his chest.

  His embraced tightened. “Ah, leannan. Where would I take you, then? What would I do with you?”

  “You might take me to Balhaire. Where is it, then?”

  “Ah, Balhaire,” he said. “Far in the Highlands.” He told her about this fortress above the sea. He told her about a woman named Catriona, who had married the Duke of Montrose in spite of his considerable efforts to prevent it. He told her about the lady’s home for wayward women.

  “Her what?” Maura asked.

  He chuckled, and it reverberated in his chest. He explained it all to her, and the time he’d spent there with this family, and as he talked, Maura had never desired to be anywhere quite like she desired to be there. “I want to go there,” she said.

  “Aye,” he agreed wistfully.

  But Maura was quite serious. She had never been to the Highlands and it seemed as good a place for them as any. Tucked away from the world. Where men wore plaids and women...well, she didn’t know what women did there, but she’d find something.

  “How was your supper this evening?” he asked.

  Damn him, he’d not entertain her fantasy. “Tedious,” she said with a sigh. “He’s quite strange. He doesna know how to have a proper conversation.”

  “Aye, he’s shy, he is. And his nerves get the best of him around you.”

  She lifted her head and looked at him. “Do you really think so?”

  “Aye,” he said, and stroked her face. “I donna know what else to think. He seems unusually distracted to me.”

  “I donna care if he is,” Maura whispered. “Donna leave me with him, Nichol—”

  “Lass. Mo chridhe,” he said. “I’m to be on a ship at the end of a fortnight, aye? I canna take you with me. I have committed to it and I canna risk my livelihood.”

  That stung her. “All right, then, you canna take me with you. No’ this time. But you can come back for me, Nichol.”

  He looked at her strangely. “I suspect you’d be married by the time I returned.”

  She hated that he said it and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. How could he be so distant with her now? Had their lovemaking not felt as profound to him? “You said I undo you!” she said, and pushed up, sitting up beside him. “I said you have captured me! What more can two people say to each other to indicate their true feelings?”

  “There is more,” he said, and played with the ends of her hair as he watched her.

  There was more. Maura wanted to say it. She longed to say it. But she was afraid—if she trusted him with those words, words she’d never used before in her life, would he toss them aside and leave her anyway? She didn’t think she could bear another betrayal. Not this one. Not something that had settled so deeply in her soul.

  Nichol slowly sat up. “Maura, listen to me, please,” he said quietly. “As much as I desire things to be different, they are no’, are they? I canna give you this life, aye? I canna give you a fine house and a theatrical troupe to amuse you. Think of it—you will be mistress of this house—”

  “This house has a mistress,” she shot back.

  “You will be mistress here. You will have the freedom to come and go as you please. It is the best possible solution. Had I no’...” He paused, seemed to consider what he would say next. “Had I no’ come to esteem you so completely, I would tell you that you are a fool, that you could not have hoped for better than this house and this marriage. Dunnan will put you on a pedestal, he will.”

  “His mother will knock me off it.”

  “She willna do so once you are married. Donna fret about it—I will speak to him. But this is the best for you.”

  She pushed his hand away from her and crawled off the bed. “I’ve had quite enough of men explaining to me what is best for me,” she said, and grabbed her chemise from the floor. “I know what is best for me, Nichol, and until this moment, you were best for me, aye?”

  “I am trying to help you understand, Maura, that I am no’ the best for you—”

  “It is no’ for you to decide!” she
said loudly. “I will decide what is best for me.”

  “All right,” he said with infuriating calm. “Is no’ having a home best for you?”

  “I donna care,” she said petulantly.

  “You donna even know what it means,” he scoffed, and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  “Do I no’, then?” she demanded, casting her arms wide. “Look around me, Mr. Bain—I have no place to call home, and I’ve no’ had one in nearly a month.”

  “Is it best that sometimes you will have a fortune, and other times no’ a farthing to your name?”

  “That could happen to anyone, could it no’?”

  “Maura—”

  “Donna say it,” she said, throwing up a hand. “Donna say a word, then, because I donna care what you think is best, do you hear me? I know what is best for me, and do you know what else I know, Nichol Bain? You could use someone to love you as much as I could.”

  “Do you love me, then, Maura?” he asked thoughtfully.

  Tears suddenly filled her eyes. The euphoria she’d felt only moments ago had disappeared. She wanted to say that she did, but pride and fear of betrayal stopped her.

  “Do you?” he asked again and stood.

  “Would it matter to you if I did?” she whispered.

  He did not reach for her. He looked pained, aggrieved, as if she’d insulted him or told him he was vile to her. “It would matter,” he said softly. “More than I have words to convey, aye? But I’ve told you, I have no home. I move from one opportunity to the next. I canna provide for you, and I donna know what I would do to provide if I didna do this. But even if I could change who I am and make a home for you, it’s more than that now. I have discovered I am a bastard born,” he said low. “I canna claim a title, I canna claim an inheritance. I canna even put you at my brother’s home, for he has come to revile me as much as my father.”

  “He does no’!”

  “Aye, he does. Do you know what he said to me on the drive? He told me to never come there again. That his father had warned him about me, that I would endeavor to take what was rightfully his, and he’d no’ allow me to ruin the peace that he would finally, at long last have.”

  She was stunned. “What did you say?”

  “I told you. I told him the truth. That I had no’ abandoned him, I’d been sent away. That I only loved him, that I’ve no desire to take from him. That I’ve wanted nothing from my father or Cheverock. But it’s too late—the well has been poisoned by my father. I willna see you poisoned, lass. I willna see the resentment build in you. You deserve more. You deserve better than that which I can give you. And moreover, Maura, I must also decide what is best for me.”

  Maura gaped at him. He looked as bereft as he had the night he’d learned his father had lied to him all these years. As if he’d lost something quite dear. She pulled her chemise on over her head and turned away from him, walking across the room.

  Nichol didn’t try to stop her. He said nothing as she slipped out of the room.

  She closed the door behind her and ran back to her room. Through the window, she could see the first pink light of day peeking out over the horizon on a glittering world of white.

  She was freezing, but she suspected all the fire in the world could not warm her now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  NICHOL HATED HIMSELF.

  He was pathetically weak, unable to deny himself, or Maura, for that matter. But he should have. If he were a good man, a decent man, he would have sent her back to her room. He ought to apologize for it, atone for it, but he didn’t know if she could be appeased.

  He tried to convince himself it was Dunnan’s fault for being so bloody feckless. He would have a strong talk with him, then, convince Dunnan that the only way to salvage the damage he’d done was to persuade Maura of his true desire to marry her.

  The last time Nichol was here, Dunnan had been quite adamant that he wanted a wife. He needed a wife. He’d begged Nichol to help him. Well, he’d helped him all right, had put his own damn heart on the line, and Dunnan had been nothing but a fool.

  He would fix this. That’s what he did, he fixed things, and he had yet to encounter a problem that could not be repaired. He had said last night that she’d undone him, and that she had. But he would put it all back together again, by hook or by crook. He would fix this for her, he would fix this for him.

  He would not think of how badly he wanted to tell her he loved her, too. He couldn’t tell her, for if he did, she would not accept what must be. He had meant it when he said she deserved better than to be married to a homeless bastard. She deserved all that Dunnan could give her.

  Nichol had stared out the window of his room for what had felt like hours, watching the sun melt the snow. In the distance, he could hear the rattle of wagons as men pulled flats of stones over the roads to pack the snow so that coaches might pass. Come the morrow, he’d have no excuse to stay any longer.

  He leaned his forehead against the cold pane of glass and closed his eyes. How would he do it? He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her. Was it possible he could convince Dunnan no’ to marry her, but to keep her here until he came back for her? Was it possible he could find a livelihood that would grant him the opportunity to be a husband, a father? Was it possible that for once in his life he could allow intimacy to flourish in him rather than shut it away?

  Ah, but Dunnan had told everyone that he intended to marry her. And what if Nichol didn’t come back? He was bound for France with a Welshman—anything could happen. He could be delayed, or worse, he could be killed. Then what? Would she live out her days here at Luncarty, unmarried, with no prospects, a prisoner in another house? At least if she married Dunnan, she could come and go as she pleased. She would make new friends. She could take a lover if she so desired.

  The thought of her with another man made him feel nauseated. There were no answers that suited him. Nothing that put him at ease.

  He remained at the window until the steady staccato of drip drip drip drove him mad. The sun was nearly overhead when he went down to breakfast.

  There was no one in the breakfast room except Maura. She was once again dressed in her plain frock, her hair bound at her neck. She had the hint of shadows under her eyes, for she’d not slept. Neither had he.

  She scarcely looked at him as he entered the room and calmly continued to butter a point of toast. “Good day,” he said.

  “Bonjour,” she said briskly.

  Nichol went to the sideboard and filled a plate with bread and cheese. He’d just taken his seat when Dunnan came in the dining room, his natural hair sticking up in unnatural directions, and wearing a free-flowing dressing gown. “Oh aye, you’re both up, are you? Good morning.”

  “Good afternoon,” Maura said without looking up from her toast.

  “Pardon? Oh, indeed it is,” Dunnan said. He sat at the head of the table and gestured to his butler to pour tea. “Quite an evening we had, did we no’? Did you enjoy yourself, then?” Dunnan asked. He was looking at Nichol, but Maura said, “Aye.”

  That was the moment Nichol lost all patience. If Dunnan had shown her the slightest bit of deference, they wouldn’t be having this terribly awkward breakfast. Everything would have been settled. He wanted to shout at him to be a man for once in his life. “Where were you last night, if I may?” Nichol asked, in a voice curt enough to bring Maura’s head up.

  “Me?” Dunnan said, avoiding Nichol’s gaze. “Oh, well, I was afflicted with the most terrible of headaches, I was. I thought it best to take a tincture and go to sleep.”

  He hadn’t looked as if he’d had a headache when the dancing had begun. And he didn’t look as if he’d slept any more than Nichol or Maura had.

  “Did you see how thick the snow is?” Dunnan asked with sudden cheeriness. “You’ll no’ make your escape today, Bain. They’ll need more tim
e to clear the roads, aye?”

  “That will give us time to have a proper talk, aye?”

  “You and me?” Dunnan asked as he accepted his tea from the butler.

  “The three of us—you, me and Miss Darby,” Nichol corrected.

  Maura looked at him. “Me?”

  “Aye.”

  Maura frowned down at her plate.

  “Fillian, please do tell Mamma that Mr. Bain should like a word—”

  “Do no such thing, Fillian,” Nichol interrupted sharply, and leveled a look on Dunnan. “Your mother is no’ needed, lad. This is your business, and yours alone.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said firmly. Then, “But she prefers to keep informed with household matters.”

  “This is no’ a household matter. Your mother is no’ invited.”

  “Ah.” Dunnan shifted in his seat. “She’ll no’ care for that, no.”

  Nichol leaned across the table and pinned him with a look. “I beg your pardon, Dunnan, are you no’ the man of the house? Or would that be your mamma?”

  Dunnan paled and glanced sheepishly at Maura. “Of course I am the head of this house,” he snapped. “I donna care for the insinuation, Bain.”

  “I’ll say no more,” Nichol said. “Shall we meet at half past two in your study, then?”

  “Aye,” Dunnan said quickly.

  Nichol speared a piece of cheese. “Miss Darby?” he asked, and looked up.

  “Aye,” she said firmly, and folded her arms across her middle as she sank back in her chair.

  “There then, it’s all settled,” Dunnan said, his good nature restored to him. “Fillian, build a fire in my study. It’s so blessed cold in this house I donna think we’ll ever see it properly heated.” He began to natter on about the expense of heating this house in the course of the winter, and had thought to go to peat, as he’d heard it was far superior burning quality, even if it did have a rather pungent smell.

  As he nattered on, Nichol looked across the table to Maura. Her gaze narrowed slightly, and he believed that she was silently challenging him in some way. But then she stood, causing Dunnan to nearly knock over his chair in his haste to stand. “Until half past two then,” she said, and strode out of the room with the same determination he’d seen when she desired to leave Garbett House.