She walked across the flagstones to the chapel – again, Lady Amabel had insisted she was wed there – something unheard of in the castle's history.
She walked up the aisle, feeling joyful unreality. Then she saw him.
Tall, with his reddish-wheat hair shining in the green light from the clerestory windows, he was there at the front of the chapel, a long brown cloak trailing from square shoulders, spine straight.
He heard her footsteps, and turned. His eye caught hers.
She smiled.
The radiant beauty of his grin lanced into her heart and she felt herself fill with tender joy.
The ceremony was a blur of sweet, harmonious Latin. She said her vows, then Conn did, and then, almost before she could credit the speed, she was standing before him as he lifted the veil and very gently drew her toward him.
His lips pressed hers, sweetly, softly; his tongue a hesitant probing just at the gateway, and then stopped. Her blood raced as she further contemplated such kisses, later, when they were alone. Then they were facing the acclaim of the crowd.
“Hurrah!” The sweet, high voice of Lady Amabel hailed her first and Glenna flushed with joy. She was there in a blue dress, her hair adorned with flowers. Then they were heading down the aisle and out into the sunshine.
Conn sat across from Glenna at the banquet. It was a modest affair, held in the solar, just for the family and themselves. Conn's knee pressed her leg throughout and Glenna felt her heart soar with love.
“Glenna?” he whispered at some point in the evening, as Lord Dougal stood to make a speech.
“Mm?”
His green eyes shone with merriment. “Should we slip away?”
She blushed. “No, dear,” she whispered. “I think he's going to end the dinner now. We'll have time enough.”
Sure enough, Lord Dougal finished the speech and then, with congratulation and smiles, the family withdrew. Lady Amabel grinned at her and went out. They were alone together.
Conn stared at her across the table as if he couldn't quite believe it. Glenna smiled. They stood and gently, tentatively, as if they might both catch fire, took hands.
Then it was mouths, hands, arms, and two bodies, pressed together, gasping, pulsing with want and joy and longing.
Glenna looked up into Conn's eyes. He smiled down at her, a little wildly.
“Shall we..?”
“Yes. Let us go.”
They headed up the stairs to their new bedchamber. They left a silent room behind them.
Conn leaned against the pillar as he took Glenna into his arms. He couldn't believe this was happening as he thrust his tongue so gently between her lips and felt it probe the warm wetness of her.
She leaned against him and he felt his need growing, swelling into a desperate hardness that pressed against her where she leaned on his chest. He sighed and, breath catching in his throat, gently broke the kiss.
He looked down into her eyes and stroked that silky brown hair. “Glenna?” he whispered.
“Yes?” she asked.
He looked into her eyes, trying to ask the question he didn't know how to say. He didn't want to scare her.
She smiled up at him; a sweet smile, just naughty around the edges. “Yes,” she whispered. To his utter surprise she kissed him. He felt a sweet wonder as she planted a kiss, slow and tender, on his lips, thrilling through him like fire as her tongue lapped the line between his lips.
Then she grinned up at him.
“That was a surprise,” he whispered huskily. She grinned.
“Mm.”
Then he could resist her no longer. He pushed her back onto the bed and she giggled as he kissed her neck, her chest, and her breasts.
“Stop it!” she giggled. “You are torturing me...”
He chuckled and sat back. “I'm not, am I?” he asked, feeling a slight vein of panic at the thought.
“Not really,” she murmured as she valiantly strove to stop giggling. “But it does tickle ever so much.”
He smiled. Sat back and just looked at her. She was so beautiful, with her big eyes, sweet smile, and her long hair loose and lovely on the pillow.
He reached out a hand and gently took her shoulder, then let his hand slide down to start unbuttoning her dress.
Glenna shivered as Conn unbuttoned her dress, one slow button at a time. She had been scared at first – it was a possibility that this would bring back memories of being on the floor beneath that frightening man. However, nothing could have been further from her mind.
She didn't think of it as Conn slid her dress from her. It was as if those memories flew away and all she knew was the sweetness of his lips on her as he peeled the dress from her body.
She sighed and closed her eyes as he let the linen move down to her hips and then he slowly plucked the under-dress away.
Then, to her utter surprise, he sat back and just stared at her. She was naked on the bed. His eyes moved softly across her skin, starting at her head and lingering at her breasts and at her thighs. She shivered with the love she read there.
She gasped as he moved and gently took her nipple into his mouth. It sent a fire racing through her belly that ignited something inside her and made her shiver. She felt his hands stroke her and move lower and then, suddenly, his fingers were stroking between her legs and he was gently and carefully parting them.
He moved lower, so that he was kneeling between her thighs. His hand moved between them and she gasped at the sweet, delicious sensation as he stroked her there. It seemed as if a spark touched her. She felt a throbbing ache start to spread through her body that increased and heightened as he plied his fingers, so that soon she was unable to lie still but had to move her body, jolting and shivering as the sensations built and grew.
When she felt as if she could bear it no longer, he leaned back and looked down at her a moment more. Then he undressed himself, faster than she would have thought possible.
She stared at him. His body gleamed in the firelight as he drew the tunic over his head. His whole body seemed carved of solid muscle from his neck to his waist, his chest rippling in the flame-redness of the fire's glow. As she watched, he opened his belt and his trousers fell. He turned to face her and she flushed, seeing the magnificence of him.
He came to kneel between her thighs again. He smiled a little uncertainly, as if not sure what she would make of him. Then he raised a brow in question. “Yes?”
She nodded. She had some idea of what came next and knew that it was what she wanted.
She closed her eyes as, slowly and gently, he pushed himself inside her.
Oh. The sensation was sweeter than she would have imagined. There was a brief stab of pain, and then it was gone as he pushed right inside and then withdrew, and then repeated the action at a slightly different angle. The third time he did it, the angle was such that the sensation that flooded through her was so sweet, so intense, that she thought she might cry aloud.
Then, as the sensations built, grew, and flooded through her body, she did cry. She gasped and gasped as he pushed into her faster and faster and...
Then she felt a sudden crescendo as if her whole body was filled with too many sensations that rose and filled her and flooded her. She felt as if she might lose consciousness and then, a moment later, as he cried out as well, thrust, and then lay, still and sighing, on her chest, she did lose knowledge of everything except the joy, and his sweet weight on her.
Later, he awoke and she awoke to know she'd fallen asleep and he was just now moving off her, rolling so that he lay next to her, with his arms wrapped round her, holding her close. She snuggled closer to him and he held her tight, planting sweet kisses in her hair.
With her arms tightening around his muscled firmness, a new sensation of fulfillment deep inside her, she closed her eyes, put her head on his shoulder, and slept until the dawn.
EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
The sun shone into the turret-room at Lochlann. Glenna sat with her s
ewing on her knee and looked into the fireplace, where a fire burned brightly in the grate. It was sunny, though it was wintry cold outside. She was warm by the fire though.
Her sewing lay in a small pile by her chair, pieces wrought of fine linen, soft and patterned with the tiniest stitching.
“Glenna?”
“Yes, milady?”
“I am drowsy today,” Amabel said with a yawn. “I do wish it would get warmer. I want to go outside again.”
Glenna smiled. “You would still needs be careful, milady.”
Amabel, six months with child, sighed. “It's so tiresome!” She shook her long dark-haired head and grinned brightly at Glenna.
Glenna chuckled. “It shan't be when the baby comes.”
“That's true, certainly,” Amabel grinned. “But they must needs take time, mustn't they?”
Glenna shook her head, grinning cheerfully. “Well, they are a new person, milady! That must needs take time, not so?”
“I suppose so. I expect my son to make his entrance to the world in springtime.”
She agreed. “That would be right, milady.” The identifying of the babe as a son bothered her not at all – Amabel was a seer and they both had ample cause for knowing it. If she said that, it was.
“Yours not much later,” Amabel commented, looking across at Glenna.
“I think so, milady,” Glenna nodded comfortably. She felt so at peace. She would not have expected that – she would have thought being expectant of a bairn would set her teeth on edge with nerves, but she felt quite calm.
I think I love this babe already. She felt she loved him – or her – from the moment of their existence, at least when it made itself known to her.
“My lady?”
Amabel sighed. “What, Colla?”
“Your husband's in the solar. Said he had need of your eye on something.”
“Oh!” Amabel smiled at Glenna. “Excuse me, dear. My sewing is neglected...as ever..!” She made a broad gesture at the little nightgown she was decorating with seed-stitch.
“I know the feeling,” Glenna said feelingly, reaching down to lift her needle where she sewed some small shoes in thick woolly fabric.
“Quite so.” Amabel smiled ruefully and lifted her hand in a little wave as she headed out through the door. Then there was silence. Glenna sat and contemplated the present, and the future. She could not have felt more content.
She was sitting looking out at the sky, darkening now with clouds that promised snow, when she heard footsteps in the hallway.
She smiled.
Somehow she would always know those footsteps. They were imprinted on her heart, like the lopsided grin on those thin lips and the way he frowned when he was thinking, lips slightly pursed.
“My dearest?”
Glenna smiled and let herself enjoy the way his voice settled on her heart, making her feel loved. “Yes?”
“I just finished with the men,” he said, coming in with the cold of the courtyard following him like a snowstorm into the room.
“Mm?” She frowned, looking up at him inquiringly. He was so handsome, his pale cheek flushed with scarlet from the exertion, his reddish hair curling and golden in the flame-light.
“They're very good,” he said, flopping down with exhaustion into the chair before the fire. He looked up at her from under his eyelids and sighed. Then he laughed. “It's a relief, actually – I'm quite worn out!”
Glenna smiled. “Well, you have to do twice as much as them – at least.”
“Yes!” He chuckled. “Makes me look forward to retiring.”
Glenna grinned indulgently. “Whist! You've still got years ahead of you.”
He laughed. “I know. But sometimes, when I come in and see you like this, I wish I didn't. I wish I could just sit here, and carve little utensils and watch you sew and tell stories together.”
“What a nice thought.” She smiled and set aside her sewing, turning to face him. “But wouldn't we tire of it?”
“We might,” he agreed. His eyes glimmered and he reached for her hand, making her heart beat quicken and her body tense. “Though if we did, we could always do something about that – for if we did, it would be for want of doing something else.”
“Oh?” She grinned at him, a slow fire filling her as he came to sit before her, his hands holding hers, the fingers gripping firmly but tenderly, squeezing the blood a little faster into their cold fingertips. “What might we do then?”
“Something like this,” he murmured, kissing her.
Glenna giggled and let him kiss her and she kissed him back, her hands stroking slowly down his spine, relishing the thick, firm muscle that corded his backbone. He drew her against him, growling appreciatively like some contented creature as she kneaded the muscles down his spine, the rumble of his voice setting a bur of contentment through her body.
She smiled and kissed him. “I love you,” she said simply. As he replied, whispering the words over and over in her ear, his hands stroking down her body and setting a sweet fire burning in their wake, she knew she would never be more content.
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ALSO BY EMILIA FERGUSON
Lairds of Dunkeld Series
Book 1 Link -> Heart Of A Highlander
Book 2 Link -> The Highlander’s Challenge
Book 3 Link -> The Highland Hero
Book 4 Link - > The Cursed Highlander
Book 5 Link - > The Highlander’s Dilemma
Book 6 Link -> The Highlander’s Awakening
Book 7 Link -> The Highland Secret Agent
Book 8 Link -> A Highlander’s Terror
Acknowledgement
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Publisher’s Notes
Copyright © 2017 & 2018 by EMILIA FERGUSON & MOUNTAINSKY HOUSE PUBLISHING CO.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real or dead people, places, or events are not intentional and are the result of coincidence. The characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author/publisher. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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