“Och, I dinna think so.” Emeline made a pretense of sauntering to the fireplace, swinging her hips provocatively. Liam particularly adored her bum. Gathering the curtain of her hair, she bent over and poked the fire, aware she gave her husband of just over a year, a view he very much admired.
Before she straightened, strong arms encircled her from behind. “Ye promised to obey me, serve me, love, honor, and keep me,” he whispered in her ear, his tone husky with unappeased desire.
“I think that was more of a suggestion, rather than an absolute decree.” She turned in his embrace. “Besides, ye, Liam MacKay, Baron Penderhaven, like the chase. Admit it. As long as ye ken the outcome.” She bent her neck and placed a hot, opened-mouthed kiss on his pectoral muscles.
The sculpted flesh—pure masculine rawness—jumped beneath her lips, and she smiled against his fragrant skin. Had any man ever smelled so…masculine? She loved that she could make him respond like this. A mere look or an innocent touch and Liam became a blazing conflagration. And when he took her to his bed, God above, no woman had ever experienced such bone-melting ecstasy.
He lowered her to the fur before the roaring hearth, the hard angles of his beloved face standing out harshly with his passion. “Emeline MacKay, I love ye,” he murmured into the sensitive hollow where her neck met her collarbone.
He’d learned all of her most sensitive places and didn’t hesitate to exploit his knowledge to his advantage. Not that she minded overly much.
Arching her neck to allow him greater access, she trailed her fingertips over the ridges and swells she knew as well as her own body. Perhaps better. “And I ye, Liam, master of my heart.”
He moved to her mouth, his tongue dueling with hers as his manhood nudged insistently at the apex of her thighs. Would she ever tire of this joining? Of becoming one with this man who touched so much more than her physical body but who’d taken her heart captive? He’d stamped his spirit upon hers for all time.
“Look at me, Em,” Liam insisted, his head poised at her entrance.
She couldn’t deny him. Lifting her gaze to his, she read the adoration there and knew he could see the same in her eyes.
A soft moan escaped from her parted lips as he slid into her, and soon they were swept into the current of blissful sensation, their hearts and souls melding as one.
“Liam!” Emeline cried as the first powerful tremors sluiced through her, spiraling her higher and higher until everything exploded into wave after wave of exquisite pleasure.
His release came on the heels of hers and, with a guttural groan and a final hard thrust, he spent himself. Liam rolled onto his back, taking her with him. Eyes closed, he trailed his fingers in large figure eights across her back and buttocks.
“Liam?”
“Hmm,” came his relaxed, satiated, and nearly inaudible reply.
“I have a surprise for ye.”
One quicksilver eye cracked open. “A good surprise or one I’d rather no’ hear until mornin’?” He screwed his mouth to the side. “Dinna tell me Arieen had her bairn? Is it a wee lass or laddie?” Positive he’d discovered her secret, he beamed, cocksure and proud.
She chuckled, running her fingers through his chest hair. “Nae, no’ yet, though verra soon. ’Tis about a bairn. Berget and Skye are with child, too. They told me yesterday. Both are due the beginnin’ of summer.”
Despite the hearty blaze a few feet from them, now that her ardor had cooled, her flesh prickled with cold. Even so, she was loath to leave her husband’s arms. Here, the world’s cares and worries fell away. In his embrace, time stood still, and only this wondrous unity mattered. Why, their breathing had even taken on the same rhythm.
“’Tis what happens when a man and woman love each other,” he said softly, almost reverently. “A child born of such a union is the ultimate gift, a culmination of love, and the bairn is blessed from its verra conception.”
Her eyes pooled with tears at the loveliness of his words as much as the melancholic note that had seeped into his melodious baritone. He so longed for another child, and each month when her flow came and she disappointed him, she wanted to weep.
Emeline didn’t doubt he thought of Joseph and Mareona. She visited their graves weekly, sometimes taking flowers, often wondering what they’d been like. What they’d be like, had they lived.
Those first few months, Liam couldn’t bear to go with her, but time had begun to heal that wound, too. He’d always carry the scar of their deaths—how could he not?—but inch by determined inch, he’d been able to move forward with his life.
And isn’t that what mattered?
Persevering in the face of impossible adversity? Clinging to hope that tomorrow would be better in some small way than today?
One leg slung over his hairy thigh, she drew little circles on his chest. The long, freshly pink scar marring his torso still made her cringe. She’d come so petrifyingly close to losing him. She buried her nose in his shoulder and hugged him fiercely.
Kissing the top of her head he asked, “What’s this surprise?”
“Ye’ll have to wait until July to find out.”
“July?” came his puzzled reply. Then he went utterly still, and except for the snapping fire and ticking clock, silence enshrouded the bedchamber.
At last, unable to bear the strain any longer, she lifted her head, meeting his flummoxed eyes. Suspicious moisture glinted at the corners along with desperate hope and a shred of fear, too.
“Jo, do ye mean…?”
Unable to contain her joy for an instant longer, she braced herself on his chest. Smiling, she nodded. “’Tis what happens when a man and woman love each other.”
The End
Author’s Note
My research for this story proved quite fascinating. As I explored flash floods in Scotland, I discovered that even as I wrote this tale, several flash floods had impacted Scotland in 2019, including one in Edinburgh.
The Great Plague of Marseille, for which I based the plague in France in my story, began in 1720 and lasted until 1722, killing over 100,000 people. Though I didn’t mention the cause of Emeline’s father’s death, I left it to the reader to surmise how he died. I also hinted why Skye’s father was so ill. This outbreak was the last major epidemic of bubonic plague in Europe.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Christmastide gathering Liam and Emeline host at Eytone Hall. An Act of Parliament in 1640 labeled “Yule vacation” celebrations paganistic and illegal in Scotland. Oliver Cromwell also banned Christmas. Up until that time, the Christmastide had been a religious festival celebrated in much the same way the holiday was kept in Catholic Europe with feasts, gifts, games and, of course, church services.
The act prohibiting Christmas was repealed in 1686, but Christmas wasn’t officially celebrated as a public holiday by the Scots again until 1958. However, according to my research, many Scots privately celebrated a subdued variation of the religious holiday, but not Yule. Those who did so were subject to fines and even imprisonment. I’ve taken literary license to include a celebration for my Heart of a Scot characters, introduced by an English character who adores the holiday.
I had so much fun researching and writing TO WOO A HIGHLAND WARRIOR, and hope you enjoyed reading Liam and Emeline’s story. If so, please consider leaving a review. I’d appreciate it very much!
Hugs,
Collette
About the Author
USA Today Bestselling, award-winning author, COLLETTE CAMERON pens Scottish and Regency historical, featuring rogues, rapscallions, rakes, and the intelligent, intrepid damsels who reform them. Blessed with fantastic fans as well as a compulsive, over-active, and witty Muse who won’t stop whispering new romantic romps in her ear, she lives in Oregon with her mini-dachshunds, though she dreams of living in Scotland part-time. You’ll always find dogs, birds, occasionally naughty humor, and a dash of inspiration in her sweet-to-spicy timeless romances.
Her motto for life? You can’t have
too much chocolate, too many hugs, too many flowers, or too many books. She’s thinking about adding shoes to that list.
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