I ran off down the shingle, hearing the shells and stones crunch beneath my dainty little wedding slippers. I could hear Neil running after me. He was quicker than I was. Within two minutes he had grabbed me around the waist and pulled me hard against him.
‘Wait!’ He did not sound even slightly out of breath, whereas I was already panting.
I drummed my fists against his chest, horrified to find my self-control deserting me, and yet feeling powerless to resist my emotions now that I had finally let go.
‘I wish I had never married you!’ I cried. ‘I hate all those horrible people, with their long noses to look down! If this is what my life is going to be like in the future then I wish I had drowned in the wreck of the Cormorant!’
Neil grabbed my wrists and held me away from him, to protect himself from my puny blows. ‘Catriona, please don’t say that—’
‘It’s true!’ I said. I was losing my restraint completely. All the fears I had bottled up burst out with the force of a volcano. ‘I only wanted to be with you,’ I said, abandoning all discretion. ‘I wanted to marry you, not your horrible family! I wanted it to be just the two of us—like it was on Taransay!’
‘Sweetheart—’ Neil said. He raised a hand and brushed a damp strand of hair away from my jaw.
‘There is a servant watching us,’ I said, looking over his shoulder to where a bashful footman in Sir Compton’s livery stood hopping from one foot to another in the rain. Lord Strathconan had evidently sent him to round us up like a pair of wayward sheep.
‘I’ll get rid of him,’ Neil said. He looked at me. ‘Stay there.’
I stood there, whilst the rain trickled down my cheeks and mingled with the tears that seemed to be forcing themselves out unbidden from the corners of my eyes. I did think about running off again, but I was cold and wet and dispirited and I knew Neil would only come after me.
‘You have not seen us,’ I heard Neil say. ‘In fact you thought you saw a man and a woman taking the path towards Ghyll Head…’
There was a chink of coins and a muttered word of thanks from the footman. A moment later Neil had taken my hand again, and was pulling me along the beach in the opposite direction from the Manor.
‘Where are we going?’ I gasped, trying to keep up with him as he half dragged, half carried me over the shingle towards a tiny cottage on the edge of the shore.
‘Somewhere we can be alone,’ Neil said grimly.
I looked back at the lights of the Manor, winking in the dusk. ‘They’ll come after us.’
‘They will have to break the door down to find us, and I do not think even my uncle would be so tactless,’ Neil said. He pushed open the gate with his foot and bundled me up the short path to the door. ‘When we made our original wedding plans I asked Mr Campbell if we could spend our first night together alone,’ he added, opening the front door and drawing me inside. ‘I had anticipated that we would be staying at the manse, and I thought that a night under that roof might dampen our…um…spirits. Mr Campbell suggested that we borrow this cottage. I understand it is usually used by travelling ministers?’
Under other circumstances the irony of the manse guest house being the venue for our first night together might have amused me. I might also have admired Neil’s planning, for I knew what he meant—no doubt we would have spent our wedding night lying awake side by side like effigies in Mrs Campbell’s narrow single beds, waiting for the daylight to come. But truth to tell this felt little better. I was tired and distressed and I felt so lonely. I wanted my mother then; I wanted her warmth and her understanding and her uncritical affection. I wanted her to enfold me in her arms and I was shocked and horrified to feel that way.
Neil had gone over to the grate to coax the fire into life, whilst I stood and shivered in the centre of the room.
‘Here,’ he said, putting up a hand to the ties of my wedding bonnet, ‘take this off. It is soaking.’ The bow unravelled in his hand and the bonnet slid down to my shoulders and fell from there, unheeded, to the floor. I was glad it was gone. It had been making my head ache. I rubbed my brow irritably. My hair was too tightly pinned. I put my hand up to loosen the knot and realised that I was shaking. Everything seemed wrong suddenly—appallingly, terrifyingly wrong.
‘I’m sorry,’ Neil said, seeing my expression. ‘I’m so sorry, Catriona. I did not realise that you felt so strongly about my uncle and his entourage.’
‘How could you know?’ I said, tired and bitter. ‘We have not had chance to talk since you came back.’
‘No,’ Neil said. ‘Everything happened so fast, and whenever I looked for you my aunts would tell me you were having a gown-fitting or were choosing your trousseau, or that it was bad luck for me to see you before the wedding.’ He shook his head. ‘I should have thought what it would be like for you, having them all descend on you like a plague of locusts when you were new to all this. I should have tried harder to get to you—climbed in through your bedroom window or something.’
I gave a little giggle, my spirits reviving slightly. ‘I believe Sir Compton had stationed a gamekeeper below with a shotgun,’ I said. ‘Clearly no one has faith in my chastity.’
‘More likely they doubt my honour—and with more cause,’ Neil said dryly. ‘Mr Campbell told me that you were bearing up well under the circumstances, but I should have pressed him for more information.’
‘You asked him about me?’ I queried. Mr Campbell had been the only person allowed to see me alone, and only then because he had insisted it was for my spiritual welfare in preparation for the wedding.
‘Of course,’ Neil said. ‘The trouble is that he is so very discreet.’
‘He told me—discreetly—that you had tried to dissuade Lord Strathconan from inviting so many guests,’ I said.
‘I did,’ Neil said bitterly. ‘I did not want our small wedding spoiled. My uncle and I quarrelled over it, as we do over so many things, until he—’ He stopped.
‘What?’ I prompted.
He looked at me. His gaze was very sombre. ‘Until he asked me if I was so ashamed of you that I wanted to hide you away,’ he said. ‘It was clever of him, because it angered me so much that I said I was as proud of you as I could be and he could invite the whole of Scotland to the wedding if he wished—which he promptly did.’
The cottage was silent. I could hear the muted roar of the sea outside, and see the moon dappling the shingle, but inside it was very quiet.
‘You are proud of me?’ I said softly. I felt the hard, unhappy knot in my stomach unravel slightly.
Neil touched the wet strands of hair that had been released from my bonnet. His fingers were warm against my cheek.
‘I am more proud than I can say to have you as my wife,’ he murmured. His hand fell to my shoulder. ‘You should take off these wet clothes,’ he added. ‘You will catch a chill.’
Suddenly—as easily and as swiftly as that—I was shivering with a different kind of fever. Perhaps I was a little drunk on all the high emotion that had gone before. Perhaps I was simply relieved to know that he still cared for me and had wanted to marry me, was not acting solely out of honour and duty. Perhaps I simply wanted to blot out all my fears for the future and lose myself in him in this brief time that we had alone together.
Whatever the case, I wanted him desperately in that moment. I wanted him, and yet I felt abruptly and uncharacteristically shy. Suddenly this night, which I had longed for with a most immodest excitement, seemed mysterious and terrifying.
‘I’m frightened,’ I blurted out.
Neil paused for a second. ‘Don’t be,’ he said softly. ‘Catriona, sweetheart, I’ll not hurt you. I’d never hurt you.’
He was watching me. He must have seen the wild jumble of my thoughts expressed on my face, for he put out a hand, caught my wrist and put an end to my doubts and fears by pulling me into his arms. His mouth covered mine.
I gasped, I think with relief more than anything else, but the instant I opened my lips Neil took a
dvantage to take my mouth so thoroughly, so completely, that I forgot about being shy or fearful, and about everything else as well. My whole body responded to the touch of his lips. His tongue curled with mine in intimate seduction, slow and deceptively gentle. The heat flared and burned low in my stomach, and I pressed closer to him as his arms went around me and his mouth moved softly, tenderly over mine, yet with an absolute primal possessiveness that made me shake all the more. When he let me go I was gasping for breath, and he was breathing as hard as I was.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said again, and his fingers moved to the front of my gown, unhooking the row of buttons there, moving lower and lower down the bodice.
His gaze was concentrated, and the intense, dark focus of his eyes made the flaring heat inside me build to a long, slow burn. A lock of hair had fallen across his brow and I put up my hand to brush it aside. He turned his lips against my fingers, but he did not take his eyes from his task until the buttons were undone down to my waist.
The gown crumpled to the floor and I was left in my shift and petticoats. Neil unpinned my hair and ran his fingers through it, loosening my curls, allowing them to slip through his fingers.
‘When I combed your hair that time on the beach,’ he said, ‘I wanted to kiss every single curl.’
He put his hands on my bare shoulders, and then slid them down my arms until he was holding my wrists lightly. The hairs on my skin rose to his touch, every inch of me heating beneath his hands, though I felt cold and shivery at the same time as though I had a fever.
‘I have something to confess to you too,’ I said. ‘You remember the time that I came upon you washing in the pool?’
He raised his gaze to mine. There was an expression in his eyes that had my heart thumping wildly.
‘It was not the only time I watched you,’ I said.
He smiled, that wicked flashing smile that made my heart turn over.
‘Then I will also confess,’ he said huskily, ‘that the muslin curtain between us was utterly transparent in the firelight. I watched you every night, and I wanted you.’
I remembered undressing without inhibition, in the belief that I was hidden. The thought of what Neil had seen made me weak, but it was intolerably exciting at the same time. His soft, erotic words had conjured images of my nakedness and his response, and I closed my eyes. A second later Neil was kissing me again, and I kissed him back with all the heat and passion that was in me, winding my arms about his neck and arching against him. We slid to the floor on the thick rag rug that lay before the fire.
There was nothing but firelight and candlelight in the room, soft and golden. I pulled Neil’s shirt away from his pantaloons so that I might burrow beneath the folds and touch his bare skin. I ran my palms over the broad planes of his shoulders and back, and heard him say something, rough and low, as he shrugged out of the shirt to enable me to touch him all the more. My inhibitions were gone now, and I wanted to explore every inch of the hard, muscled body I was exposing. I reached for him, but he pushed me gently back onto the rug, following me down, kissing me again, tempting, provocative, leading me to match him caress for caress.
At last he broke the kiss and I fell back, panting for breath. Neil was opening my chemise and leaning over to stroke my skin in one long caress from my neck down to my belly. My body ached for him, ached to be free of all clothes and all restraint. Except…
I would like to say that in this moment of extreme passion I was lost to everything except the demands of my body and the absolute need that I had for Neil. Unfortunately that would not be true. As the edge of my chemise parted I remembered that my chest was almost as flat as a washboard, and for a moment I felt as inadequate about my appearance as I had when confronted by Ellen’s glowing beauty the first time I arrived at Glen Clair. I am not generally afflicted with lack of confidence in this way, but I almost stiffened and pulled away from Neil. Once again it was too late, however. His hand was resting inside my chemise, over my ribcage, just below the miniature curve of my breast, and now he brushed the material aside and lowered his dark head to take me in his mouth.
I cried out. The sensation was indescribably good and it pulsed through me, setting me tingling with heat and fire. My body rose to meet his, wanting something I could not quite understand; I reached feverishly for him, but he held me down so that he could prolong his caresses, his lips moving so slowly from my breast to my stomach and still lower, to graze the soft skin of my inner thigh. I did not know where the rest of my clothes had gone. I did not really care. I thought I would melt with the sheer pleasure he could give me.
‘Catriona—leannan, piseag…’ Sweetheart, little cat… His words were a whisper, a breath against the most secret part of me, a breath that made me shiver, the goosebumps rising all over my skin. He touched me there with his tongue and I shattered at once, my body clenching so tight and fast that I screamed. The power and force of the feeling stole my breath, and Neil kissed me slowly, thoroughly, taking my little cries and gasps into his mouth as the stars spun overhead and my body spiralled down to rest.
Eventually I opened my eyes wide and stared at him. ‘What did you do?’
He laughed and smoothed the hair back from my face with tender fingers. ‘I can show you again, if you like.’
‘No!’ I grabbed his forearms. His hands had started to move over me again, gently, almost stealthily, and I was shocked to feel my body responding to him. So soon…I wanted something, some fulfilment that had been denied me despite the blinding pleasure of that moment. This was all strange to me, and shocking in its newness, but there was also something deeply instinctive in it.
I am not a patient person—you will have realised that by now—so when I reached for Neil again in sheer desperation, and still he held me off, I think I ripped the remainder of his clothes from him with complete abandon. Yet even in my frantic state there was something about the first touch of his naked skin against mine that stopped me. The smoothness and yet the friction, the warmth of him, the sense of recognition, and yet the utter unfamiliarity, untried, unknown…I ran my hands over his body, desperate to know him, desperate to learn, but then after a moment I lay still, completely awed, my gaze locked with his.
‘I did not know,’ I whispered. ‘I did not realise it would feel like this…’
‘It can feel even better than this,’ Neil said.
Slowly, carefully, he moved over me, placing his hands by my head, with the swollen tip of him resting just inside me. He was watching my face so intensely I could not have broken the contact had I wanted. His lips brushed mine.
‘Muirneag—darling girl…’ He eased himself within me, and I shifted to try to draw him in. I felt my body resist. I was frightened again now.
The thing that I remember most about that moment is my anxiety, for my heart battered my ribs so hard I was afraid it might burst.
It did hurt. Anyone who says differently is either very lucky, very forgetful, or they are lying.
‘You said you wouldn’t hurt me,’ I said, almost accusingly, and Neil gave a rather shaky laugh. He looked very tense. I understand now just how much a strain such self-control was placing on him, although in that moment I had no idea. I think I made him suffer quite a lot in my innocence, which is perhaps fair.
‘I had no choice, ma cridhe,’ he said softly.
Beloved. That almost made up for the pain. I gave a little self-satisfied smile and moved slightly, to see if it still hurt.
Neil gasped. He looked as though he were counting, or doing some kind of complicated mathematical calculation, which struck me as odd at the time. There was a desperation in his eyes that was actually rather pleasing to see.
‘Catriona,’ he said, and his voice was hoarse. ‘If it still hurts you—’
‘It does not,’ I said. I moved again, saw him close his eyes in anguish, and understood my own power at last.
Pushing matters a little further, I wriggled voluptuously and heard him bite off a word that w
as definitely an expletive rather than an endearment. Then I dug my nails into his back, and that was enough to banish his control as he moved and put an end to our waiting.
Even then he was careful not to hurt me. He moved within me in long, slow thrusts that after a while started to drive me mad with wanting. Yet when I urged him to quicken he would only prolong the pleasure, in those same unhurried, easy strokes, dipping his head to kiss me, or allowing his lips to drift across my breast until I was straining to him in an agony of need. Eventually I could bear it no more, and dug my fingers into his buttocks, pulling him more tightly inside so that he was as deep and hard within me as it was possible to be. Then at last he drove into me without restraint, and this time I slid with agonising slowness to the edge of bliss, and again slipped slowly, oh, so slowly over the brink, my eyes wide open, transfixed. Neil’s fingers locked in mine, his release following my own and sweeping us both away.
When I opened my eyes I saw a look of absolute stunned astonishment on Neil’s face. I will never forget it.
I frowned slightly. Did that mean it had been good, or bad, or indifferent? Normally I am not troubled with self-doubt, but on this occasion, with no means of comparison and no notion of how to go on other than by instinct, I was suddenly anxious.
‘Is something wrong?’ I asked. ‘Did I…? Was it…?’
Neil seemed to waken from a trance.
‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing wrong.’ He blinked, still looking stunned. ‘I’ve never…It was perfect.’
He rolled over and gathered me into his arms, tucking me snugly into the curve of his shoulder. The fire warmed us. I realised with a little jolt of disbelief that we had made love on the floor, on the hearthrug that I had helped Mrs Campbell and Mrs MacLeod to weave from spare rags. The thought of their faces if they had seen the use to which we had put their rug made me laugh.
‘I thought we were supposed to do this in bed,’ I said against the curve of his throat.
‘We can do that soon, if you wish,’ Neil said, and I shivered.
Kidnapped: His Innocent Mistress Page 18