“I didn’t want you to be hurt,” she said.
His face softened and his gaze dropped to her mouth. Her lips parted and she licked her bottom one nervously. He reached over and traced it slowly with his thumb, sending wild sensations pulsing through her.
“Ye worry about me?”
She stared up at him, trying not to tremble as he softly brushed the side of her face with his fingers and then let his hand drop to her shoulder. She had an almost irresistible urge to arch her back and thrust her achy, needy breast into his palm. Good Lord, he was mesmerizing her with his slow, gentle touch, yet making no move to kiss her.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she managed to say.
“Nae?” His fingers traced the outline of her mouth again, and before she realized what she was doing, she closed her lips around them, sucking his fingers into her mouth.
His body stilled and he closed his eyes. Then, with a low growl, he crushed her to him, his mouth ravaging hers, his kisses hot and demanding. Jillian melded into him as his hands stroked over her back, pressing her closer, then ranging lower to cup her buttocks and lift her against his erection. She twined her fingers through his hair, her tongue warring with his, needing to be closer, to be a part of him. They both broke away, panting. Ian sighed heavily, dropped his hands and moved away.
“Doona think ye can trick me to forgive ye, lass, by using yer body.”
Jillian widened her eyes, indignation returning. “I would never do that. What do you think I am? Some common whore? Like Delia?” Too late, the words were out.
His head snapped up, his eyes blazing. “Doona compare yerself to her.”
He shook his head as though to clear it. “What’s done is done,” he said in a resigned tone. “What did the earl say to ye?”
“Nothing. He wasn’t in.”
Ian looked relieved. “Promise me, lass, that ye’ll leave it be.”
“I don’t want to,” Jillian said and took a deep breath, “but I will. Every bone in my body tells me that violence is not the way to solve anything, but I also think I understand what you’re doing. You’re allowing the earl to regain some respect.”
“Aye. Sherrington is a good mon.” Ian moved closer to Jillian and drew her into his arms. “Thank ye, lass.”
“Just don’t get yourself killed,” she said.
Ian grinned. “I’ll have to stay alive so we can continue what we’re starting here.”
He slanted his mouth over hers, giving her a deep, penetrating kiss that left no doubt as to what he meant. His hand moved to cup her breast, kneaded it while his thumb flicked against her nipple.
A loud crash in the hallway followed by thudding footsteps interrupted them. They broke away from each other just as the door opened and Wesley barged in, followed by Givens.
“What was that noise?” Jillian asked, hoping her voice didn’t shake as much as her body was.
The butler looked sheepish. “I’m afraid I dropped a silver platter. Most clumsy of me, my lady.”
Jillian frowned. Givens hadn’t dropped a thing in the five years that she’d been in this house. Why—? And then she chewed her lip, trying to keep from smiling. He had dropped the plate to warn them of Wesley’s approach.
Wesley looked at each of them suspiciously. “What are you doing in here, Cantford?” he asked.
Ian met his look and Jillian wondered how he could appear so calm and steady when her own legs still threatened to buckle under her from the passion of his kisses.
He leaned down and picked up a book from the table. It was Le Morte D’Arthur, the same book she’d left lying there.
Ian held it up and looked at her. “A little inspirational reading,” he said, “to prepare for the duel tomorrow.”
She stared after him as he left, wondering if maybe medieval knights were still alive and well.
The next morning dawned gray and dismal. A light mist had begun to fall as Ian adjusted the cinch on his horse’s saddle. He glanced up as soft footsteps approached and saw Jillian standing in the doorway, dressed in her riding habit.
“Why are ye up?”
“Why do you think?” she asked. “I’m going with you.”
“Ye are not.”
“Try and stop me.”
He let the stirrup drop and turned to her. The stubborn lass looked all too fetching in the still dim light, and he had a mad urge to tumble with her into one of the empty stalls. He dinna need to be thinking about her naked body, soft and yielding beneath him, when he had a mon with a gun to face soon.
“I doona need ye distracting me.”
“I won’t distract you. I promise,” she said. ‘I’ll stay behind you where you can’t even see me.”
“Aye. And what if Sherrington’s bullet misses me and strikes ye? Ye will stay here as I told ye to do.”
“I won’t,” she answered and signaled to the still-sleepy-eyed stable boy to bring her mare out.
“Doona do it,” Ian said.
“Do as I say,” Jillian told the boy.
The lad looked from one to the other of them, confusion on his face.
“Do it!” Jillian said in a sharp voice that caused the boy to scurry away before Ian could counter her command.
Ian grabbed her arm and started walking with her back to the house. Although he did not hurt her, his grip was strong enough that she couldn’t break it and she found herself stumbling along beside him. “Let me go!”
“Nae. Not until I have ye locked in yer room.”
She tried to yank her arm away from him with no success. “If you expect me to stay in there, you’ll have to chain me to the bed.”
Ian stopped suddenly, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Doona give me ideas, lass.” He grinned at her. “Unless ye would like for me to do that when I come back. I will be glad to hold ye captive and pleasure ye until ye beg for mercy.”
In spite of herself, she felt her body tingle at the kind of pleasure he could give. “Now you’re distracting me,” she said and gave her arm another jerk, but his hold hadn’t lessened.
They pushed past a startled Givens and Ian opened the door to her bedroom and moved her inside. He removed the key and closed the door, locking it from the outside. “I’m taking the key with me,” he said as she pounded on other side, “in case you try sweet-talking Givens into releasing you again.” He paused and was glad when the pounding stopped. Maybe the lass had come to her senses. “Just think about what I said earlier,” he said through the door. “I’ll be thinking about it too.”
He hoped he wouldn’t be too wounded to follow through.
It was a short ride to the Hill, but the mist had turned into a steady drizzle by the time he arrived.
Sherrington stood waiting, his graying hair slicked wet with rain, the surgeon beside him. Not far away, Delia waited in the carriage. She looked excited rather than worried, and Ian turned away in disgust.
Wesley rode up as he dismounted. Ian wasn’t really surprised to see him, since he was no doubt hoping that either Sherrington or Ian would be dead at the end of this. Wesley was still in the clothes he’d worn the night before and he looked hung over. He was the least of Ian’s problems this morning.
A small crowd had begun to gather. People huddled in long coats to protect from the wetness, but eager to see bloodshed. Ian turned away from them.
He approached Sherrington and held out his hand. The earl nodded and shook it, his grip firm. Under any other circumstances, they could have been friends, Ian thought.
“Your choice of pistols, my lord,” the surgeon said as he opened a box that held two dueling pistols.
Ian reached for one, but the earl stopped him. “I would prefer swords, if you don’t mind, Lord Cantford.”
Ian frowned. Surely, Sherrington knew that he handled a sword like it was an extension of his own body. Which it was, since he’d been trained from the time he was lad of ten and could hardly lift the heavy claymore. Word of Ian’s prowess with the rapier had become well-known
in Society’s circles, since he practiced every morning at Le Rapier Tranchant. What was the earl thinking? Then suddenly he knew. Sherrington was known to be a crack shot. He was giving Ian the advantage. Ian muttered a Gaelic curse at the woman who was sitting in the carriage. If she had even a dram of the earl’s honor in her, neither of the men would be here this dank morning.
“I believe the choice of weapons is mine, my lord?” Ian asked.
Sherrington regarded him gravely. “It is, my lord.”
“Then I prefer pistols,” Ian said and chose one before the earl could answer.
“Very well.” He took the other one and they turned their backs to each other.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ian glimpsed a swath of green velvet joining the assembled group, clearly standing out from the grey of the sky and black of the cloaks other people wore. Jillian. The little wench had managed somehow to escape and followed him here. She was just as stubborn and strong-willed as his sister, Bridget, was and he wondered if anything would work to get her to comply with his wishes. The best he could think of at the moment was loving her senseless.
It was a distraction he didn’t need at the moment. He frowned when he saw Wesley headed over to her. Damn the man.
“Ten paces,” the surgeon said and stepped back.
He counted them, willing himself to remember Sherrington’s height and where his pistol would be held. The crowd was totally silent and Ian didn’t dare glance toward Jillian. He had to concentrate. He’d have only one shot to do this right.
The men spun and he fired the musket, Sherrington’s weapon flying from his hand even as the one Ian was holding flew from his. Surprisingly, his hand was only slightly singed from the gunpowder. He had expected the earl to at least wound him.
They walked toward each other, the crowd still silent. Sherrington extended his hand. Ian took it.
“My wife isn’t worth your life,” the earl said and then bowed and moved away.
Jillian tried to run to him, but Wesley held her back. Ian held his gaze, long and hard. Whatever game the mon was playing with him wouldn’t be finished on this field.
He looked at Jillian and gave her a look that said they weren’t finished either, and then he mounted the horse a lad brought to him and rode away.
Chapter Fifteen
“Well, that certainly worked well!” Delia glared at Wesley from the confines of her carriage as her driver circled The Ring at Hyde Park later that afternoon. “My stuffy husband is still alive.”
Wesley flinched. It hadn’t gone exactly as he planned either. Cantford was alive as well. The only bright spot was that Jillian had seemed to welcome—or tolerate—him by her side during the duel. Although, looking at Delia’s angry face, maybe that hadn’t been such a bright spot after all.
He moved across the carriage to sit beside her, one hand reaching for her breast. She slapped it away.
“I don’t think I care to share my body with you,” she said coolly. “Not after you abandoned me.”
Wanting nothing more than to slap the sneer off her face, he restrained himself. It wouldn’t do to leave a bruise where someone could see it. “I didn’t want to leave you, pet,” he said, “but she beckoned me. Surely you saw that.” He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. “She’s my stepmother, after all.”
Delia withdrew her hand. “Are you planning to marry her?”
The question halted his hand in mid-air as he reached for her again. Had she heard about the night he had stupidly bragged at the club intending to put the Highlander down? He searched his memory. Sherrington had been there that night, although not at his table. Could he have overheard something?
“If you’re referring to a certain night at White’s, I was drunk and I think maybe I mentioned something about a widow that young being a catch for any man.” Wesley nipped Delia’s stiff, unbending neck. “I didn’t mean myself.”
She moved her shoulder, shrugging him off. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Wesley balled his hands into fists. He hated it when a woman was arbitrary. Delia needed to be taught a lesson, but this was hardly the place to do it. The driver or footman would pounce on him in a flash if she screamed, but his rage was building.
“Then what the hell are you talking about?”
Delia’s look could have frozen the Serpentine pond nearby even though it was early June. Her voice was even colder.
“She said you’d go to her.”
Wesley frowned. “What?”
“That bitch said you’d dance attendance on her.”
He could have sworn he saw frost on her breath and icicles forming along the windows. And he had no idea what the idiot woman was talking about. “I don’t dance attendance on anyone, not even you, pet.”
Delia slanted a glance at him. “Jillian Alton said you’d asked her to marry you. Yes or no?”
Wesley was nonplussed. When in the world had Jillian talked to Delia? Delia had already left by the time Jillian arrived at the masquerade ball. At any rate, Delia had been more than willing to rut with him later. As far as he knew, the two women didn’t even like each other. But he was beginning to realize it had been stupid of him to push that idea of marriage on to Jillian. He should have waited, gone in for the kill in a vulnerable moment. If the Highlander hadn’t goaded him…damn Ian Macleod to hell. But he would worry about that later. Right now, he didn’t want to risk losing a woman who begged for the kind of pain he liked to inflict.
“She only wishes that I would marry her. She stands to lose everything. My dear father didn’t think I’d ever be found, so he left no provisions for her specifically in his will.” Wesley gave a self-depreciating shrug, hoping Delia would recognize the power he held. “It’s all mine.”
Her greedy eyes lit with interest at that, as Wesley had hoped they would. He moved a little closer. Delia didn’t move away.
“So you’re going to throw her out?” she asked.
Never. But Delia didn’t need to know. All Wesley wanted right now was to get the bitch mellow enough to spread her legs for him so he could pound into her until she was raw and sore. He rather liked the idea of leaving her unsatisfied too. A bit of revenge for making him beg.
“I’ll need to keep her a bit longer,” he said. “We’re going to the country estate and she’ll be useful in showing me the accounts and how things are run. Once I know how I can make the estate even more profitable…” He let the sentence hang and laid a hand on Delia’s thigh, close to the juncture of her legs. In spite of her unsmiling face, her body shifted slightly, allowing his hand closer to her mound.
“Ah, yes, your house party,” she said.
“My what?”
Delia gave a little moan as two of his fingers began to massage her nub through the fine muslin of her dress. “Lord Newburn—your father—always gave the first house party of the summer season. His widow kept up the tradition…probably for that brat of a sister of hers.”
“Forget Jillian and her sister,” Wesley murmured as he pushed the shoulder of her gown back to expose a breast while he hiked her skirt to slip his fingers between her somewhat dry folds. He undid his trousers. “Let’s concentrate on us.”
“I’m still quite peeved with you,” she said as he half-rolled on top of her. “I don’t know that I will allow—” She broke off in mid-sentence as he slammed his shaft hard and deep inside of her. “Ouch. That hurts.”
He grunted, impaling her again. Having her somewhat dry gave a wonderful friction to his cock. She wasn’t as slippery.
“You like the pain,” he reminded her as she cried out once more. He covered her mouth with his hand and pushed himself back in to the hilt once, twice more and let his seed spill. He withdrew as she was beginning to pant, a sure sign that she wanted more.
“Why did you stop, love? I’m just getting started,” she said with heavy-lidded eyes and a husky voice.
He fastened his trousers and smiled. “The carriage has stopped, pet. We’ve
completed the circle. I really must be going.”
“But—”
He opened the door and stepped down. “I’ll have a little surprise for you once we get to the country.” Whistling, he walked to where he had tethered his horse and thought that there were lots of leather straps hanging in the barn at Newburn.
“Tell me again what happened!” Mari bounced on Jillian’s bed as she was laying out clothes she wanted to take to the country. “They both shot each other’s guns away?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jillian said, remembering how her heart had been in her throat as she watched Ian pace away from Sherrington. “After it was over, the earl said something to Ian, but no one heard what it was.”
“But the earl didn’t even look at his wife when he left?” Mari prodded.
Jillian shook her head. She wondered if Delia had even noticed since she had been sending dagger-eyed looks at Wesley for abandoning her to stand by Jillian. It had taken all of Jillian’s strength of will not to pull away from him after the shots were fired, but something in Ian’s look had made her hesitate…and keeping Wesley beside her only proved the point she had made with Delia earlier. Of course, Wesley was no fool. He’d seen Delia glaring also and excused himself once the crowd began to scatter.
“Well,” Mari said, “I’m glad I’m going with you. That way if anything exciting happens, I’ll be there.”
Jillian looked at her little sister, so adventurous and full of enthusiasm. She was glad Mari had been spared some of the darker elements of life. Right now, Jillian was hoping the most exciting thing that happened on this trip was finding out how may foals had already been born.
She chewed on her lip, hoping that Wesley would not contradict her when she asked Ian to stay at Newburn during the party rather than moving on to Cantford. She needed help with the breeding stock, determining which of the yearlings would be sold and which had good enough conformation to be added to the existing stock. Wesley had shown no skill in that area. And there was the matter of Gunnar. How was the stallion going to be treated once Jillian left? Or would Wesley fulfill his threat and sell all of them if Jillian didn’t marry him? And that wasn’t going to happen.
Rogue of the Highlands: Rogue, Book 1 Page 20