Lord a’mercy. He’d given her a pet name already. The same one the children called her. And instead of being outraged and indignant, she was flattered.
Not that bit about being compared to a saint’s posterior, however. No woman, breathing or dead, ever wanted her complexion compared to a man’s bum.
Yes, yes. Perfect. Focus on the affront. His impudence. His crudeness.
“Did you truly just compare me to a man’s behind? A poet you most certainly are not, Dugall Ferguson.”
Actually, that line about flames in her hair and golden fairy dust—
Cease, Gwendolyn Nicolette Eleanor McClintock.
“And my given name—which, by the by I haven’t given you leave to use—is Gwendolyn. Not Gwenny.”
Sounded like a pet sheep’s name, for pity’s sake.
Or a hen.
Gwen the hen.
She couldn’t quite check her groan at the absurdity.
Wasn’t hen a Scottish term of endearment?
A cheerful grin, like a got-loose mule in a briar patch, curving his strong mouth, he picked up the whisky again.
Struggling for seriousness, she scolded, “You needn’t look as happy as a dead pig in the sunshine.”
He laughed, a deep throated burble that made her grin despite her determination not to let him affect her.
“Yer accent be tolerable, but yer colloquialisms . . .” Still chuckling, he shook his head, his raven mane brushing his collar. “They be God-awful.”
“My accent is tolerable?” She poked his shoulder. “Your brogue is thick as cold bread pudding. And as for idioms, I think the pot doth call the kettle black. What was that expression you used earlier? ‘Black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat?’”
“Here.” He thrust the bottle at her. “A swig will do ye good, I think.”
“No.” Gwendolyn gave one short shake of her head. “I don’t drink heavy spirits. And besides,” she swung the horsetail hair before his face, “I’m fixin’ to stitch your gashes, and I’ll need steady hands to do my best work.”
Touching him would frazzle her usual robust composure for sure. She needn’t be tipsy from drink, too.
“Trust me, lass. One swallow of Scotch will take the edge off yer nerves, even if it be cheap swill.” His eyes grew warm around the edges, and faith glimmered within them.
It would take a good deal more than a swallow to calm the source of her unease. All six-feet-five inches of it.
“I trust ye to do a neat job, and even if’n ye dinna,” he lifted a broad shoulder, the movement pulling his shirt taut across his indecently wide chest, “it’ll only give the other lads hereabouts a fair chance at the lasses.”
What an insufferable, arrogant, charming scoundrel.
He dangled the bottle before her. “Unless yer afraid, that is?”
“Hardly.” Afraid of a swig? Ridiculous.
Gwendolyn seized the neck and, inhaling, raised it to her mouth. She tipped the bottle and took a gulp.
Eyes watering, she gasped and choked as liquid fire raced from her throat to her stomach to pool in a molten puddle.
“Good heavenly days! You might’ve warned me.” That wasn’t Grandpapa’s brandy, by Jove.
After setting the bottle aside, she swiped at her damp eyes. A pleasant feeling, rather like warm spice-laced peach preserves, spread outward from her middle.
“You wouldn’t have dared if I had.” He tilted his dark head, his gaze keen and probing, but tender, too. “Feelin’ a bit braver now?”
“I’m always brave.” Or tried to be.
“I vow ye are.” Was that admiration in his gruff voice?
Gwendolyn set about threading the needle. He was right, drat him. She did feel a mite calmer.
“I shall try not to hurt you too much, but there’s really no help for it. You have two cuts that require four or five stitches each and another pair that require at least two.”
“I winna move an inch.” Rather than close his eyes, he searched her face, then touched her jaw with his big-as-a-cigar pointer finger.
More warm preserves flowed languidly through her.
At this rate, he should worry she’d seduce him.
“I told ye, Gwenny. I trust ye.”
Obstinate man. The sooner she stopped arguing with him, the sooner she’d be done and could distance herself from his much too alluring person. “Dugall, I’ll have to . . . That is, I need to . . .” This proved harder than milking a steer. “In order to have the best angle to sew your gashes, I’ll need to stand between your legs.”
To Dugall’s credit, though mirth and something much sultrier darkened his eyes and sharpened the planes of his face, he silently spread his legs.
Gwendolyn edged between his indecently marble-hard thighs, and with grim determination not to be distracted by the array of manly muscles so near her touch, set to her task.
Several minutes later, her poor lower lip having been clamped, chewed, and all around abused as she concentrated on suturing his lacerations, she snipped the last horse hair.
“There. Finished. Fifteen in all.”
Dugall had closed his eyes about half way through the process, and she was most grateful. Having those penetrating orbs watching her, scant inches between their faces, his whisky-tinted breath warming her neck, proved wholly unnerving.
Every pore, every cell, every part of her—particularly the feminine parts, to her utter consternation—had noticed such things as his delicious manly scent, the firm, curving muscles she pressed against to reach his forehead, and the lips mere inches from hers.
She bent over him and carefully applied a bit of salve to each cut and scrape. “I’m sorry if I hurt you terribly.”
He didn’t move, and worry consumed her.
“Dugall?”
His preposterously thick eyelashes raised and his gaze trapped hers. Snared, incapable of moving, she didn’t balk when his agile hands encircled her waist and pulled her onto his lap.
She didn’t resist a jot when he lowered his head and claimed her mouth in a blazing kiss that made the whisky seem like cooled, sweetened cream.
And she didn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around his sturdy neck and shoulders and eagerly offer up her lips like a woman starved, relishing his mouth upon hers as he skillfully devoured the tender flesh.
No, she eagerly surrendered.
His broad palms pressed into her back, urging her nearer as, kiss after hot kiss, he battered her ever weakening resolution to remain impervious.
He pulled away first and brushed her cheek with the knuckles of one hand. “Gwenny, I’ve wanted to do that since I awoke and saw ye hoverin’ over me.”
Dazed, her senses still reeling and her mouth tingling, she fought to bring her breathing and frolicking pulse under control.
“My heavenly days,” she managed to whisper at last.
Not a one of my betrothed ever kissed me like that.
Chapter 9
Betrothed? As in more than one? How many more?
The most irregular feeling coiled around Dugall’s ribs. Not disappointment exactly, nor was it surprise. Bugger him if he could name the foreign, but wholly uncomfortable sensation.
He would bite his tongue in two before he pried, however. Something as intimate as a broken betrothal—multiple broken betrothals—needed to be shared voluntarily.
Her lips slightly parted, a few loose tendrils of Gwendolyn’s vibrant hair coiling around her ears, and one hand clutching his shirtfront, she stared over his shoulder.
Finally, she cut him a wary glance. “Did I say that out loud?”
“Aye.”
“Oh.”
A fetching flush swept over her high cheekbones, making the freckles stand out. She releas
ed his shirt and inhaled deeply.
He would not probe, though curiosity danced an exuberant jig within his imagination. It was as obvious as his battered face that she’d not meant to divulge the information, and it disconcerted her that she had.
When she still didn’t move, but continued to sit on his thigh, her countenance glowing and slightly stunned as only a woman thoroughly and satisfyingly kissed was wont to do, he gave her ribs a little squeeze and angled his head.
For someone who’d been betrothed more than once, she didn’t seem all that skilled in the art of kissing. Just how experienced was she in other matters? He knew few couples who, once officially affianced, hadn’t enjoyed life’s more carnal delights.
Far too many early bairns confirmed that fact.
“The door be open, Gwendolyn. Anyone might pass by—”
She jumped to her feet, faster than a chicken after an insect.
“I . . .” She licked her lips, then with a slight shake of her head, set about straightening the medical basket, her chagrin palpable.
His face itched bloody awful, and the sutures pulled uncomfortably where she’d sewn his flesh together. The pain of the needle entering and exiting his skin hurt far less than breathing in her light floral fragrance as her knee or thigh intermittingly bumped into his pelvis.
That had been exquisite torture.
He knew few genteel women who possessed the stoicism to suture gashes. Other than Seonaid, his youngest sister, not a female in his family would’ve been capable.
Gwendolyn had been so intent on her mission, her pretty green eyes slightly narrowed in concentration, she hadn’t noticed the gradual swelling of his groin.
Only by closing his eyes and conjuring every unpleasant thing he’d ever experienced, and imagining a few ghastly scenarios too, had he managed not to disgrace himself.
He’d either be for the river again tonight, or wait until the water turned cold before bathing. He’d be walking about with a cockstand for the foreseeable future. Normally, he might’ve accepted an eager lass’s invitation to share a few blissful moments, but the notion held no appeal.
The only bonny woman he yearned to bed stood inches away and studiously avoided looking his direction. Which gave him more opportunity to study her form silhouetted by the blaze in the hearth.
Once she’d finished puttering with the basket and contents, and piled the soiled cloths into an untidy stack, she brushed her hands down her odd skirt’s front. “Mr. Ferguson—”
“Dugall.”
She flicked her long fingers dismissively.
“I oughtn’t to have kissed you. I’m afraid having done so, I don’t think the arrangement we discussed earlier would be wise after all.” She met his glance squarely, though unease, or perhaps discouragement, rimmed the edges of her eyes.
He traced a fingertip along the armrest. “Why, because we enjoyed a kiss? We’re adults. I wanted to kiss ye, and ye wanted to kiss me. There’s no harm in that.”
“You don’t understand.” Darting a leery glance to the doorway, she made to step away from him. “I must remain above reproach. I cannot risk losing guardianship of the children. Normally a male is appointed, and if anything untoward were to occur . . . Well, surely you understand how traumatic it would be for us all.”
A valid concern, yet in his gut Dugall knew that was only part of the reason for her withdrawal into starched propriety. If ever a woman’s blood sang with suppressed passion, it was Gwendolyn McClintock’s.
He stood and grasped her elbow.
Her eyes widened, but she made no effort to pull away. So, she harbored a degree of trust for him, too.
“I do understand, and yer sacrifice is noble. But what do ye want as a woman, Gwenny? Are ye content to raise yer niece and nephew, or do ye want more? Because the woman I just kissed, wants more. She’s starvin’ for much, much more.”
She did yank her arm away then.
“You overstep the bounds. You don’t know me. That kiss was a mistake and mustn’t happen again.” Brushing wisps of coppery hair off her forehead, she pulled her auburn brows taut. “Which, as I said before, is why you cannot remain as Suttford’s steward.”
Dugall scraped a hand through his hair. “I canna in good conscience leave ye and the children at Hollingsworth’s mercy. I give ye my word. I shan’t attempt to kiss or touch ye again.” He winked. “However, I winna hold ye to the same promise, lass. Feel free to seduce me at will.”
Head canted as she considered him for a lengthy moment, her still-pinkened-from-his-kisses lips twitched, and she tapped her fingertips together.
“Purely a business relationship, Mr. Ferguson.” She shook a finger at him. “No knavery or flirting. Is that understood?”
Och, back to Mr. Ferguson, is she? We’ll see, my fiery American. We shall see.
He’d quite enjoy this challenge.
“Aye. But if ye ever want to talk to someone, my family tells me I’m a good listener.”
Her expression closed as sharply and tightly as a snuffbox’s lid. “Our discussions will concern the management of Suttford and nothing else. I’ll not pry into your prior relationships, innumerable though they probably are, and you’ll not enquire into mine. Understood?”
“Perfectly.” His fanciest neckcloth was less stiff and starched than Gwendolyn at the moment.
She’d been wounded mightily. He’d stake Bran on it. But a woman like Gwendolyn was made to love. She might honestly have convinced herself she’d be content raising her niece and nephew, but she’d always feel like she’d missed out.
The trouble was, he wasn’t the person to lure her from her self-imposed spinsterhood.
He had plans. Plans he’d carefully laid out for years. They didn’t include forging a permanent relationship with a beautiful red-head, parenting her charges, and managing an estate larger than Craigcutty.
Now a delicious dalliance . . .
Prudent to change the subject before his thoughts became any more snarled.
“I’d like to ride over to Craiglocky tomorrow and apprise Ewan of the situation here.” Dugall wandered to the door, and after glancing up and down the hallway, smiled at her. “Why don’t ye come? Yer aunt, Kandie, and the children, too?”
It might help cool the tempers that were sure to rise when those at Craiglocky learned he’d collaborated with the enemy.
Indecision played upon Gwendolyn’s features. “So soon after arriving here? I’m not sure that’s wise. I planned on taking the children for a walk and exploring our new home.”
Not an outright no as he’d anticipated. He pressed home his advantage. “There are children at the Keep near Jeremiah and Julia’s ages, and I think yer aunt would find Ewan’s Aunt Kitta very intriguin’. She’s descended from a famous Viking earl.”
“Ewan’s aunt? Not yours?” Standing in the center of her chamber, exhaustion apparent in her rounded shoulders and the fine lines edging the corners of her face, she appeared quite forlorn.
Dugall folded his arms and leaned a shoulder against the door frame. “Aye. Kitta’s married to Ewan’s uncle. He was brother to my mither’s first husband.”
Part of the rancor between the two households stemmed from something that had occurred after Mither was widowed.
“From the list you rattled off earlier, you have quite a large family. I’d believed Aunt Barbara, the children, and I the only kin we had left, but now I suspect there might be a slew of relations we knew nothing of.” A tiny frown knitted Gwendolyn’s fine brows as she rolled her sleeves down. “Your family must be worried sick about you.”
“I sent a missive to the castle right after we arrived. So what say ye about tomorrow, Gwenny?”
“Gwendolyn, you exasperating man.”
Dugall wiggled his eyebrows and gave her hi
s most beguiling smile. “We can ride and the others can go by carriage. I distinctly recall ye sayin’ you’d enjoy a longer ridin’ excursion.”
She laughed, the musical echo floating around the chamber and coming to rest like a velvet mantle atop him.
“You remembered that, did you? What about your head?” She gestured to his face, concern pulling the corners of her mouth downward. “I’m not convinced it’s wise for you to even be up and about, let alone atop a horse, truth be told.”
“Unless I’m insensate, I’ll not stay abed.” Gently fingering the stitches, he hid a wince. “It aches, but not unbearably. Besides, the ride to Craiglocky takes less than an hour, and I must travel to the Keep. I need clothes and other essentials.”
He glanced down at his tattered garments. “These are only fit for the rubbish bin now, I fear.”
“You might save them for meaner tasks, so you don’t risk ruining more.” She removed her apron, and after draping it across a chair, swept to the fireplace.
“Say you’ll join me,” Dugall said. “It’s a chance to meet your closest neighbors.”
“Fine, we’ll meet our new neighbors, but then it’s to work around here.” She circled her hand in the air to indicate the house and grounds. “I cannot have Hollingsworth thinking I’m neglecting my duties. He’s already running around like a blind dog in a meathouse.”
Americans certainly had a colorful way of speaking.
Off-key warbling carried into the chamber. A moment later, Dugall stepped aside to permit a white-haired elf of a woman, a faded plaid draped about her stooped shoulders, to toddle in.
Somewhere between sixty and eighty years of age, she shuffled to Gwendolyn. The pixie took Gwendolyn’s hand and patted it as she peered up at her. “I’m yer Aunt Dolina, Gerard and Gawyn’s sister. I ken when I awoke from my nap ye’d arrived. Ye have the look of Gawyn about ye. His hair and eyes.”
Seductive Surrender (Highland Heather Romancing a Scot Series Book 6) Page 8