‘More?’ he murmured glancing up along her body to meet her gaze—he was pleased to see desire had darkened her eyes to the colour of molten honey.
‘Much more,’ she panted and spread herself wider. This time when he lowered his mouth again it was to sup with reckless abandon until his tongue and lips had sampled every part of her sex. Her musk-scented dew was like manna from heaven on his lips and tongue. Her hips bowed up and he relished hearing her increasingly frenzied gasps and moans until finally she cried out as he brought her to a quaking climax.
He looked up from between her thighs. She looked thoroughly sated but he wasn’t done yet. His cock was definitely ready again. ‘I’m afraid I’m still ravenous, my lady.’
Her eyes flew open and she laughed, a sensual throaty sound. ‘You are a greedy man, Lord Lochrose.’
‘Always when it comes to you, mo ghaoil.’
He gently drew her upright so that she was kneeling before him. Her fiery hair was tangled all about her bare shoulders but the sleeves of her gown still managed to cling to her upper arms; the scar where his bullet had grazed her left arm had long since faded. He placed a soft kiss on the faint mark then eased her sleeves and chemise away until her upper body was completely bare except for her wildly tumbling locks. He swallowed, drinking her in. She was indeed a goddess. And she was his.
He knelt back onto his haunches and then lifted her upwards and forwards so that she was straddling him, her warm slick folds teasing the head of his cock. She smiled, gold heat flaring in her eyes as she reached forward to grasp his naked shoulders and then she eased herself slowly down onto his erection, taking him fully inside her. The moist heat and clenching muscles of her inner sheath were almost his undoing as she settled onto him.
He gritted his teeth, willing himself not to give into the urge to spurt his seed straight into her like a green youth. As if sensing the tenuous grip he had on his control she instantly stilled her movements and instead kissed his mouth gently, easing his tension a fraction.
When he’d regained sufficient mastery over his urges, he locked his gaze with hers and raised her up, encouraging her to set the rhythm of their coupling. She took his cue and began to ride him slowly at first; the sliding friction of her tight wet passage against his engorged flesh was the most exquisite of tortures.
But it wasn’t long before they both began to increase the pace. Jessie’s breath started to come in short ragged gasps as he thrust his hips upwards harder and faster, perfectly matching the tempo of her wild plunging. He cupped her breasts and covered her mouth with his, pushing his tongue deep inside. He couldn’t get enough of her.
And then at last he felt her inner muscles spasm convulsively around him. She threw her head back and cried out with pleasure, her fingernails grazing his back. The force of her orgasm was so strong he couldn’t hold back his own release any longer. With a long guttural groan, he lost himself in her, his seed erupting into her clenching womb. Replete, sated at last, he buried his face in her neck and breathed in the sweet, intoxicating scent that was so essentially her, glorying in the knowledge of their shared ecstasy.
And love.
Jessie lifted his chin and stroked the tangled damp hair from his brow. Her eyes glowed with deep emotion. ‘I love you, Robert Grant,’ she whispered. ‘You are the master of my heart an’ body an’ soul. Do no’ ever doubt it.’
He framed her face with his hands, holding her warm gaze with his. This woman, his Jessie, she had captured his heart and soul from the first moment he’d seen her, his lady of the loch. She had made him feel whole again, healed.
‘And I am yours, Jessie Grant, completely. Now and always,’ he stated with absolute sincerity.
Her answering smile, soft and languid, was all the invitation Robert needed to kiss her again. He pushed his fingers gently into her hair and kissed her deeply yet with tender reverence, wanting her to know not just through words, but his touch, that his world began and ended with her.
And that he would never stop loving her. Ever.
Author’s Note
The sons of Scottish earls do, in actual fact, have two titles according to Debrett’s Peerage. This is why Robert Grant is both the Master of Strathburn and Viscount Lochrose. He is commonly called Lord Lochrose.
I will admit I used a little poetic licence with regard to the Inverness to Edinburgh public coach Jessie Munroe attempts to catch. At the time The Master of Strathburn is set, 1756, there appears to have been a public coach that ran from Glasgow to Edinburgh once a week from around 1678 and twice per week from 1749. However, a regular public coach service did not operate between Inverness and the township of Perth (en route to Edinburgh) until 1806. As I needed a coach for my heroine I have deliberately tweaked this historical detail to suit my story.
Robert’s release from the Tolbooth by the Lord Advocate into his father’s custody appears swift, but releases of this nature were not without precedent. There are numerous accounts of how Aeneas Mackintosh—Chief of Clan Mackintosh and a supporter of King George—was captured at the Battle of Prestonpans during the ’45, but was then released into the custody of his Jacobite sympathiser wife, Anne Farquharson-Mackintosh or ‘Colonel Anne’ by Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the ‘Bonnie Prince’. Following the Battle of Culloden, ‘Colonel Anne’ was arrested by government troops, but after six weeks, she was released into the custody of her husband. For the purposes of my story, I chose to have Robert paroled in a similar fashion.
There are several historical figures that appear in The Master of Strathburn. Robert Dundas of Arniston, the younger (1713–1787) served as Lord Advocate—the chief legal adviser to the Crown and British government for both civil and criminal matters—from 1754 to 1760. At the time The Master of Strathburn is set, Lord Arniston was indeed a newly wedded man; in September 1756, he married his second wife, Jean Grant, daughter of William Grant, Lord Prestongrange. It is purely poetic licence on my part that Robert Dundas is depicted as being particularly lenient when dealing with my entirely fictional character, Robert Grant.
Governor George Haldane who makes a brief appearance at the beginning of the story was a general who fought in the second Jacobite Rebellion. In 1756, at the age of 34, he was appointed to the office of Governor of Jamaica.
The Tolbooth Robert is imprisoned in is not the same building one can visit today along the Canongate in Edinburgh. The Old Tolbooth, which no longer stands, was located in the middle of Edinburgh’s High Street, at the northwest corner of St Giles’ Cathedral. Constructed in the 14th century, over the years it functioned as a toll collection booth, a council chamber, and court house. The Tolbooth was used as gaol from the late fifteenth century. It was demolished in 1817.
Although the name of the popular English pudding ‘Spotted Dick’ is attested from 1849 when it first appeared in the cookbook The Modern Housewife or Ménagère by Alexis Soyer, it appears to have been a popular dessert in Britain for some time prior to this. The origins of the pudding’s unique name are unclear.
Thanks for reading The Master of Strathburn. I hope you enjoyed it.
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ISBN: 9781760370411
Title: The Master of Strahburn
Copyright © 2016 by Amy Rose Bennett
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Limited, Level 13/201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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