by Gwyn Cready
“Are you joking?”
“Och, you have nae heard the half of it. The exercises ended with a blue ribbon being tied rather tightly around, well, the man’s assets. The procedure ensured that the third exercise, involving her ladyship, whose own maidenhead, I believe, was but a faint memory, offered almost no risk of an unwanted child. More important, however, the ribbon, once tightened, guaranteed a certain unflagging constancy in the clansman, a quality most valued by her ladyship.”
MacHarg shook his head. “I am in awe of her practicality.”
“MacTavish clansmen wear blue ribbons into battle even today, though the sight of it never fails to make me laugh.”
“Tell me,” he said, crossing his arms behind his head, “in the story about to unfold here, in this bed, are you one of the maidenly attendants or the chieftess herself?”
She drew her gaze over his daunting length. “I am nothing if not maidenly.”
“In that case, you have convinced me to abandon my original plan.” He climbed to his knees, adding considerably to his daunting-ness. “But before you begin, allow me to give some brief instruction in how it should be done.”
He inserted his shoulder between her thighs and brought his mouth to her bud.
She dug her fingers into his hair, gasping. His tongue warmed her already swollen flesh. Every flick, every caress stoked the fire. This release was coming faster and far more powerfully than the last. She arched hard, and he held her there, on the back-breaking edge of absolute pleasure.
“No, no, no!” she cried.
The next shameless caress undid her. He held her until the tremors subsided.
“You’re a fiend,” she said, dizzy with the reverberations. “Onto your back. Ye shall be paid with the same hellfire.”
Twenty-six
That had the opposite effect of what I was expecting.
Duncan unraveled Abby’s dark, lustrous locks from his clenched fingers and glanced at the flushed cheeks of the woman whose head had just come to rest on his belly.
Well, not that. That had exactly the effect I was expecting.
From the waist down he was numb, as boneless and unmovable as a spatchcocked chicken. But his heart paced like a caged animal.
He’d severed himself from women before. With the ones who had exerted no claim on his heart, it had been easy—a dinner, a gift, an apology—his fault always. Breaking it off with the ones who’d worked their way into his blood had been harder. Even then, though, he’d scrupulously drawn the line when things had gotten complicated. But with the women who’d turned the tables and ended it with him…
Even when he’d accepted the facts intellectually, his body demanded closure. And the only way to get it had been to swive them within an inch of their lives. Dirty, mindless, nails-down-the-back fornication that left both of them gasping for air. Only then had he been able to shake off the blow.
But the last hour had not cured him of Abby. It had only deepened his addiction. What had he done to himself?
“Did you like it?”
“Yes,” he said, almost afraid to speak.
“No need of lady’s maids?”
“I could no more serve another than I could fly to the moon.” Ever. He would never take another woman to his bed. He knew it as clearly as he knew anything.
“Don’t be so sure.” She smiled. “You haven’t seen my ladies.”
“Abby? I may call you Abby, may I not?”
She smiled. “As you have called me a name or two rather more shocking, I think Abby will be fine.”
He had to ensure she didn’t marry Rosston, and there was only one way to do it. “Abby, I have to go. Right away. As soon as we can manage it.”
She sat up, the playfulness on her face gone. “Why?”
“It’s for you. For us. I told you I have the money. I must get to it.”
“MacHarg, I dinna mean to insult you, but I doubt a man in your situation has the money to—”
“I have the money. Believe me.”
She took his hand. “I’ll delay the wedding as long as I can. You dinna need to persuade me with promises you canna keep—”
“Abby, I have the money. It’s in my home, not here. I’ll collect it and return as soon as I can.” The idea of finally doing something useful with his money thrilled him. He needed to find Undine, and he needed to think about how he’d make the money liquid in eighteenth-century terms. “With my money in your pocket, you need never worry again.”
She gazed at him strangely. “You’ll bring the money and then what will happen? Would we marry?”
“Yes, Abby, yes! Don’t you see? Rosston will have no power over you.”
“No,” she said quietly. “Ye would.”
“No, no,” he protested. “You misunderstand. I don’t want to marry you for your power. I want to marry you because”—the words seemed foolish now and calculated to ensnare her—“I care about you.”
Something awful flared in her eyes. She climbed out of the bed and pulled the cover off it. “You are not the first man to try that tack,” she said, flinging the satin around her. “But you may be the most scurrilous. Was all of this a ruse to try to position yourself at the head of my clan? For all his maneuvering, Rosston, at least, has had the grace not to insist on indulging in his wedding night before his wedding day.”
He stood. “Abby, you’re wrong.”
She picked up his sark and threw it at him. “For God’s sake, is there a situation in which you are not at ease with a cock-stand?”
With an aggrieved sigh, he jerked the linen over his head. “Abby, let me—Oh, Christ.”
He didn’t know how she’d gotten the bow into her hands, but for the second time that day, he was staring down the shaft of an arrow. “I might ask if there’s any situation in which you are not at ease threatening mortal danger.”
“Put on your plaid and go.”
“I’m not leaving until we settle this—”
He heard the twang and resultant thump, but his head did not fully register the event until he looked down and saw the arrow’s fletching still vibrating just below his balls.
“Remove your cock from my view,” said Abby, nocking another arrow, “or I shall remove it from your body.”
He huffed loudly, stepped carefully over the arrow now firmly lodged in her floor, and pulled the shirttail down as far as it would go.
“I did not bed you with the intent of stealing your place at the head of the clan. You sent me for the chain, ye ken, not the other way around. And I intend to give you my help despite your resistance to it.”
She sniffed. “I am not resistant to help. I am resistant to the sort of help that comes shackled to obligation.”
God, she was infuriating. Duncan scooped up his plaid and wrapped it several times around his waist. “Believe me when I say you have stripped me of any desire to obligate you further. The money will be a gift. Do with it what you will.”
“I don’t want your gift, MacHarg.”
He strapped the belt around the plaid, thinking for an instant it would be far better applied somewhere else. “Perhaps you’d prefer to earn it?” He gave her a brief and meaningful look.
“Aye,” she said calmly. “I would.”
He nearly dropped the belt and the plaid. “You’re not serious.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I dinna want to be obligated to you or any other man for that matter.”
“You would sell yourself instead?”
“Why not?” she said, gesturing to her body. “’Tis mine to sell, fair and square.”
She meant it. “You’re letting your pride get in the way of common sense.”
The only response he received was a steely lift of her chin.
He almost pointed out that he was already sleeping with her for free, but apparently she had anticip
ated this thought, for the look in her eyes made it clear that that accommodation had ended. At once, the specifics of the negotiation took on a very concrete relevance for Duncan.
“All right. You said it was five thousand pounds to save the clan, aye?” He imagined the glorious weeks and months—and acts—it would take for her to work off a debt that size. “How shall we calculate this then?” he said, his eagerness increasing by the second. “Not that I would expect an upstanding lass like yourself to be versed in the commerce of the street, but do you happen to have any knowledge of the going rate for such a transaction?”
She snorted. “’Tis not the going rate with which you need to concern yourself, MacHarg. ’Tis the going rate for me. There’s a difference, ye ken?”
He swallowed. The memory of that silken hair and those exquisite breasts was still clear in his head. “I do.”
She lowered the bow. “The rate is five hundred.”
“Per night?”
“Per ejaculation.”
Today’s two ejaculations would have already cost him a fifth of the entirety of what he would lend her. On the other hand, there was something deeply arousing about the sangfroid with which she was negotiating this. If he had the money in his sporran right now, he would bend her over the bedstead, lift up his plaid, and—
“MacHarg,” she said sharply, “your attention is wandering again. Do we have a deal?”
“Well, I…” The likelihood of effectively negotiating a lower rate cost of fornication while sporting a full-on erection did not seem high. Abby shifted, inadvertently exposing a long length of tan thigh. A dark and titillating desire took root in his head.
“What?” She’d seen the change on his face.
“I…I mean, if I am to pay such a price, I-I want certain stipulations.” For a man who’d negotiated a dozen million-dollar deals, he sounded about as confident as a teenager trying to negotiate the price of lawn mowing. Up your game, Duncan.
“Oh? And what might those be?”
“Well, it’s just one thing, really.” God, did she have to look at him as if she was measuring his moral worth and finding it lacking? She was the one who had turned a perfectly normal commitment to copulate into a transaction. “I want to finish inside you.”
She lowered the bow just enough to see over the arrow. “Why?”
There were many reasons, and he considered each. He wanted to feel when he came what he had tasted and touched. He wanted to feel her release the instant before he found his own. But these paled in comparison to the most important reason.
“I want to know if you’re willing to risk getting with child.”
He felt as if he had just bet far more than he could afford to lose and was waiting for her to turn over her cards.
He watched the careful calculus in her eyes.
“It’s a considerable risk,” she said objectively.
“Aye, it is.”
“My reputation as a whore would be set.”
“Nae. Ye could marry.”
“You?”
It was as much a challenge as a question.
“Aye. If you wished it. I wouldna attempt to command your clan, Abby, or you, no matter what you may think. But in bed, when ye chose it, aye, I would. And you could be sure I would never, ever come anywhere but inside ye again.”
“Och, a poet in our midst. I feel certain Edmund Spenser wishes he was as canny a hand with a sonnet as you.”
“Now you’re the one dragging your feet,” he said. “I want to know ye risk as much as I.”
“And what is it you risk, Duncan?”
It was the first time she’d said his name. The rich, throaty reverberation would live forever in his heart. “I take to your bed with no promise of a future with you.”
Her grip on the bow relaxed. “I canna think of many men for whom that would be a concern.”
“Well, it is for me. So what do you say?”
“I say I will take your offer of a gift, Duncan. Any man who could tell me that deserves to be taken at his word.”
It took a moment to orientate himself to the sudden change in momentum. “You’re saying you’ll take the money—as a gift?”
“Aye.”
“And ye willna have to marry Rosston?”
“With five thousand pounds in my pocket?” She made a distinctly Scottish noise. “I’m nae a fool.”
Duncan felt light enough to fly. They had all the time in the world. Visions of the coming days danced in his head—days at her side, nights in her—He paused.
“And we can still…I mean when we’re together—and alone, of course… Which is to say our, well, ‘arrangement’ is probably the best word—”
“Tell me, MacHarg,” she said, cutting him off from what would have proved to be a very clumsy and possibly insulting finish, “does your position in this other land require you to conduct negotiations?”
He gave her a sheepish look. “Aye.”
“And you’ve managed to make five thousand pounds at it?”
He laughed.
“Let me set your mind at ease. We will revert to the previous terms of our alliance, which is to say you will be free to try to earn your way into my bed any way you wish, and I will be free to judge whether you’ve achieved what you’ve set out to accomplish.”
He shook his head as if clearing it. “Those were the previous terms? Clearly, I need to pay closer attention.”
She smiled. “I’m been telling you that since I met you.” She dropped the bow on the bed and put her arms around him. “As for the other…well, that, too, can be earned.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me how.”
“Och, I should think not. Suffice to say that, as in all things, attention and a good deal o’ devoted practice will put you in the way of success.”
He pulled her close, taking in the light scents of fire smoke and lilacs in her hair. He knew he needed to tell her the truth of his origins. And if Abby could accept Undine had the power to pluck him from another land, she could probably accept Undine had the power to pluck him from another century as well. But that could wait until later. The candles were starting to gutter, and her bed looked warm and inviting.
“This has been a day of so many reversals,” he said, kissing her, “I dinna want to tempt Fate further. Will ye take me to your bed one last time to sleep?”
“My maid knocks at dawn.”
“And I shall be gone a half hour before that.”
She dropped the wrap and slipped back under the covers, eyeing him with a giddy smile.
He reached for his buckle. “I canna believe this is the same day that included me failing you so badly with Harry. I am very sorry, Chieftess, for the trouble I’ve caused you.”
She waved away his concern. “Ye didna cause me trouble. Truth is, I didna really want Harry dead. I am not quite chieftess enough to kill a man I hold so dear.”
Duncan gave a weak chuckle. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you sent me then—” The realization hit him like a truck. It was all he could do to find breath enough to speak. “Did you send me because you knew I’d fail?”
“Duncan, it’s nae a crime to be unready to—”
“Answer me, Abby. Did you send me—pick me among all your men—because ye knew in your heart I couldna kill him?”
“’Tis not as simple as that. A chieftess does not always have the luxury to—”
“To what? Not use people? Not leverage their failings?”
“I dinna consider it a failing that your heart is a compassionate one, Duncan.”
“But your men do. That is not a strength in this place, is it? I will never be a man like them in your eyes, will I?”
He saw the pity on her face and thought he might be sick. “Answer me, Abby.”
Her lip quivered but there w
ere no tears in her eyes. Just resignation. “No.”
“And ye sent me after Harry not caring that my failure would nearly destroy me?”
“Aye.”
The only clear thought in the furious storm in his head was that he needed to get away from her.
“Well, you have your wish, Abby.” He opened the wardrobe and jerked the frocks out of his way. “You see I am learning to pay attention. I just don’t like what I see.” With a hop, he landed in the darkened stairway and didn’t look back until he reemerged in the dark, whiskey-laden air of the cask room.
Twenty-seven
Alternating between shame and fury, Duncan stumbled blindly up the stairs to the castle’s main floor.
A compassionate heart, was it? Well, he felt none too compassionate now. He needed to find Undine. Where did the white witch sleep in this place, if in fact she slept at all? Surely there was another way to get him home, and he would make sure she found it. He’d had about all he could stand of Clan Kerr.
He could hear the laughter and shouts from the men—the real clansmen—in the bailey. Does anyone sleep in this godforsaken place? He headed up the grand staircase to begin his search of the warren of bedrooms.
“MacHarg.”
Rosston sounded drunk, though when Duncan turned, the man looked as steady as an ox, watching him from the bottom of the stairs.
“Where were ye just now? I’ve been looking for ye.”
Did he look like bent on murder? Duncan couldn’t tell.
“Walking,” Duncan said placidly, continuing his ascent. “Couldna sleep.”
“Och, I suppose Harry’s death would weigh heavily on any man.”
Duncan froze.
“I mean had he died. And if you were a man.”
Duncan charged. Rosston might be a better man with a sword, but he had made the mistake of not unsheathing his sword before he spoke, and Duncan’s first punch landed home an instant before Rosston’s weapon could clear the metal.