by Julia London
Payton smiled fully and bowed low. And then he began to move, his stride unhurried, his gaze never leaving her as he made his way through the lively crowd, the hem of his plaid kicking up with his gait. Mared turned fully toward him, her heart pounding harder and harder with his every step.
She was practically levitating out of her blue silk slippers when he finally reached her and paused to let his ravenous gaze take her in. “Good evening, Miss Lockhart,” he said, a roguish smile of delight on his lips.
“Good evening, Laird Douglas.”
“Ye are a vision of beauty, lass. Ye’ve surprised me.”
“Thank ye,” she said, bowing her head with pleasure. “And how pleasing to see ye so nattily turned out in yer Highland dress. Many was the time I thought ye a Highland imposter.”
“I should be offended, I am sure, for I am as true a Highlander as ye are a beauty,” he said, casually bracing his arm against the tree on which she was leaning.
She laughed and glanced around at the crowd, several of whom had already begun to dance. “Ye flatter me, and yet ye know I’ll no’ be the least bit enticed by it.”
“Donna be so certain,” he said with a low chuckle, “for I have no’ yet begun to flatter ye.”
“Ye shouldna waste yer breath.”
“But I canna be deterred. I shall continue shamelessly, for a gorgeous woman deserves every flattery a man can offer.”
“Mmm.”
He laughed. “I’ve naugh’ seen this gown, for I am quite certain I would remember it very well. Very well, indeed,” he said and grinned roguishly at her décolletage. “There is no’ a more admired woman here this evening, ye may rest assured.” His gaze drifted down the entire length of her, then languidly lifted his gaze again, skimming over the curve of her hip, lingering on her bosom, and rising to her lips and then smiling in her eyes again.
His gaze was beginning to burn through her silk dress, and Mared unthinkingly lifted her hand to her neck and asked, “How have ye found the wedding?”
“’Tis bonny,” he said absently, still admiring her hair. “Weddings always are.”
“I feel rather sorry for the poor bride,” Mared sighed, fanning herself with the tip of her shawl. “Poor dear, marrying a Douglas. She’ll know nothing but vexation and stubborn pride all her days.”
“Oh, I rather think better a Douglas than a Lockhart, for a Lockhart would undermine her fortune at every opportunity with his inordinate fondness for hairy coos,” he said, and with the back of his hand, he traced a line across her collarbone.
Mared drew a steadying breath. “She must descend from shepherds, then.”
“Of course. Do ye think a Douglas would marry ought else?” he muttered as his caress drifted down her arm to her hand.
She would melt, she was certain of it, and glanced anxiously at the crowd. “No’ unless he was assured that he might dictate the very course of her life, no.”
He laughed, turned her hand over, and held it in his, palm up. “Ye obviously didna hear the priest then, or ye would be reminded that when a woman gives herself in marriage, ’tis her duty to faithfully obey her husband.”
Mared laughed gaily at that and watched him bring her hand to his lips to kiss her palm. Ahot rush of fire spread rapidly through her arm to her heart. “Rubbish,” she managed to say. “’Tis a man’s duty to honor his wife, and I should think that would imply all her customs and manners as well. But alas, I didna hear any of the ceremony, save the last wee bit, and I didna care for even that, for it was quite wrong.”
“What part? Tell me, and I shall disabuse ye of yer obvious misunderstanding,” he said with a lopsided smile and carelessly kissed the inside of her wrist.
“Very well,” she murmured, quietly sucking in her breath as his lips moved on her wrist. “Gus an dèan Diah leis a’ bhàs ar dealachadh.”
Payton smiled. “‘Until death shall separate us’? Pray tell, what fault could ye possibly find with that?” He paused to kiss the inside of her elbow. “Unless, of course, ye donna believe in vowing yer fidelity and devotion to yer husband for all yer days?”
“I believe in vowing fidelity and devotion, ye may rest assured. But I’d no’ like it to end with death. I should think the vow would swear devotion for an eternity.”
That prompted him to look up from her arm with surprise. “How very romantic of ye.” His gaze dipped to her lips. “And to think that all this time, I’ve believed ye possessed no’ even an ounce of romantic thought in that…heart,” he said, his gaze dipping to the swell of her bosom.
“Ye might very well be surprised, sir.”
“Oh? Pray, tell—I am dying of curiosity.”
“And I am dying of hunger,” she said in a moment of cowardice and pushed away from the pine. She began to walk toward the tables where the feast had been laid, pausing only briefly to glance over her shoulder to see if Payton followed.
He followed all right. Much like a lion calmly stalking his evening meal.
She smiled when he caught up to her and tucked her hand securely in the crook of his arm to escort her across the grassy lawn.
Tables had been set with enough food to feed an army, while two pigs were roasted over open pits. Payton grabbed a plate and piled game, sweetmeats, and cake onto it. Mared managed to find an entire flagon of wine—handed to her by a smiling footman who could not seem to take his eyes off her—but Payton was quickly at her side, scaring the footman away with a single look, and led Mared to a grassy spot where they could see the dancing and the wedding games.
They sat together as if they had long been lovers, watching as the bride prepared to jump over the besom broom for good luck, laughing together when a dog caught the broom in his mouth and gleefully ran with it dragging from the side of his mouth and darting just ahead of the three footmen who tried desperately to catch him.
They ate roasted fowl and bannock cakes with their fingers, nibbled on sweetmeats, and made a game of which couples would be married next. Their conversation was light, Mared’s heart even lighter. She felt, for the first time in her memory, that she was part of something and not simply standing on the outside looking in. Payton put her completely at ease, and even as a number of cousins and relatives approached the two of them sitting there, and some of them were clearly surprised to be introduced to a Lockhart, she felt oddly content to be a Lockhart in the midst of so many Douglases.
She felt something else she could not quite as yet name…but it left her feeling warm and golden.
When the sun had gone down and enough ale and whiskey had been drunk to float a galleon, the dancing was begun in earnest. Alan found them on the hillside and asked Mared to dance a Scottish reel. Laughing, the two of them went around the ring of eight, turning left, then right. When the dance was ended, Alan handed her to a friend, and they danced a jig, and then she danced with Harold at Una’s urging, then a rather stodgy Douglas cousin who eyed her bosom the entire set of another reel.
When another country dance was begun, she was handed back to Alan, and she twirled away from him, stepped to her left, then to her right, and back again. But it was not Alan’s hand that landed on her waist, it was Payton’s.
“Ye’re even bonnier when ye dance, Mared,” he said in her ear, and she stepped forward, to the right, to the left, and back again. “I shall dream of this dance in far more intimate circumstances,” he added, and Mared laughed as he twirled her around. Her twirl was stopped by the hard wall of his chest. He grinned down at her with smoldering eyes—she could feel the force of his gaze rifle through her like a shooting star, landing squarely in the middle of her chest.
They continued the dance, Payton expertly twirling her this way and that, catching her close to his body, then letting her go. They were spinning and twirling and going around again in the light of five campfires, grabbing hands and pulling into one another, then letting go and drifting on to the next dancer, until they were united again, their eyes never leaving one another.
Th
ey danced until their breath was labored and they finally stopped for ale, at which point they noticed a boisterous crowd had begun to take up the call to send the bride and groom to their bridal chamber.
In the golden glow of the firelight, Mared watched the happy couple and the friends who would attempt to assist them.
Payton touched the small of her back. Impulsive, foolish thoughts, born out of Anna and Ellie’s speech to her, were suddenly rattling around in her head like a caged animal, desperate to be out, and Mared put aside her ale and turned to face Payton, eyeing him quizzically. “How would it be, do ye think, if the bride were a Lockhart, and he a Douglas?”
He seemed surprised by the question. “No consequence.”
Mared smiled a little and lifted a skeptical brow. “No?”
“No. There is no Douglas or Lockhart where they go tonight.”
“How is that possible, assuming he was a Douglas and she a Lockhart? How could they possibly forget it?”
“Very easily, lass,” he said with a grin, and at her look, he took her hand in his. “Rather plainly put, when a man loves a woman, his heart calls to hers. And if the woman loves the man, her heart responds. The two hearts, then, they begin to beat as one. Names cease to exist—nothing exists but the rhythm of those two hearts, beating in time with one another…until one is practically indistinguishable from the next.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
The roar of the crowd caught their attention, and they both turned to look. The crowd was moving with the bridal couple down the path to the front entrance of the castle where they would be wildly serenaded as they were escorted inside.
Mared twisted her hand so that her palm was against Payton’s and laced her fingers through his. She stared at their hands for a long moment, then asked, “Does a lass know if a lad’s heart is calling to her?”
“Aye,” he said quietly. “She knows.”
“Do ye suppose,” she whispered, stepping closer to him, “that his heart knows when hers has tilted in his direction?”
“He doesna know…but he hopes,” he murmured, his gaze falling to her mouth again. He leaned down and touched his lips reverently to hers.
When he lifted his head, Mared smiled softly and stepped backward, tugging at him, silently asking him to come with her.
Payton’s brow wrinkled—but Mared tugged at his hand again and stepped back, still tugging, until they were slowly but surely moving.
“Mared—”
She quickly pushed a finger to his lips, and with a low laugh, she tugged once more.
A wickedly seductive smile suddenly spread across his lips, and he caught her chin in his fingers and kissed her soundly before catching her around the waist and making her run with him into the dark.
Twenty-three
B ecause the crowd followed the bridal couple to fete them on the way to their marriage bed, Payton and Mared slipped in through the servants’ entrance unnoticed, and made their way in complete darkness to his chamber, where he slid the bolt in place and locked them away from the world.
He turned around to Mared. She’d lit two candles and was standing in the middle of the room, looking, all of a sudden, rather small. The willful and playful smile she’d used when tugging him along, the bravado with which she’d laughed and rushed headlong into this bliss, was gone.
This was not right, his conscience told him. Mared was so much more than a tryst. He’d been captivated by the exhilaration of her wanting him and his overwhelming desire to make love to her that he’d not really considered what she was suggesting.
Like him, she’d been caught up in the thrill of the wedding celebration, for she was a passionate woman—but she was not usually a foolish woman. And he thought, as he stood there gazing at her by the light of two single candles, his hands on his hips, that she regretted her impetuosity now.
“Ye need no’ fear,” he said quietly, prepared to be a gentleman, no matter how much it pained him.
Mared blinked; her silk shawl slid, unnoticed by her, to the ground. “Take off yer clothes, then,” she murmured.
Payton started, and then he laughed. “Never one to mince words, are ye, leannan?”
“I donna pretend to know…how, precisely,” she said, her voice a little stronger, and she swallowed as her gaze flicked over him. “But I am rather certain that ye must remove yer clothing.”
Aye, the grit of the gods she had in her. Payton strolled toward her, shrugging out of his coat and tossing it aside. “It can be achieved with clothing, but it is much more satisfying without,” he agreed.
She gave him a small, self-satisfied smile. “What of the waistcoat?” she asked, gesturing to him.
He untied his neckcloth and threw it over his shoulder, and then divested himself of his waistcoat and tossed it aside, too. And then he reached her, straddled her skirts and put his hands on her arms, ran up them lightly, feeling her satin skin. “’Tis customary for a man to direct the proceedings, if ye donna mind.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because that is the way of it, particularly when a woman has no experience and a man has quite enough.”
“Is that a rule?” she asked, frowning up at him.
“No’ a rule, Mared. But men prefer to be the one in pursuit, not the one to be pursued.”
“That scarcely makes any sense at—”
He silenced her with a kiss. Mared sighed into his mouth and curved into him, tilting her head up, opening her mouth to him.
But Payton lifted his head and gave her a gentle shake to make her open her eyes. “Tell me why,” he softly demanded.
“Why?” she asked dreamily, looking at his lips. “Why what?”
“Why this. Why now?”
The question sobered her; she straightened, fixed her gaze on the open collar of his shirt. Shrugged a little. Bit her lower lip. And winced. “Because…”
“Because?” he prompted.
“Because…I have determined that ye are no’ as…repugnant…as I once believed.”
He snorted. “How ye flatter me,” he said and leaned his head down, took in the scent of her hair—lilac and roses.
She caught the fabric of his shirt and held on as if she feared she might fall. “I only mean to say,” she tried again, her grip of his shirt tightening as his mouth grazed her temple, “that ye are—”
As he touched his lips to her eye, she gasped softly.
“Ye were saying?” he murmured, feathering her skin with light kisses to her neck.
“Th-that perhaps I have feelings for ye I didna…concede,” she said shakily, and twisted the fabric of his shirt as he moved, dipping down, to kiss the curve of her neck into her collarbone.
“Mmm,” he said. “Go on, then.”
She drew a shaky breath and slowly released it as he moved to the other side of her neck. “I have come to understand that the…the Douglas in ye doesna matter.”
Whoa. Didn’t matter? Payton stopped his attentions to look at her, to see if she teased him.
“It seems rather unimportant now,” she admitted, blushing.
He refrained from shouting victory and tossing her on the bed in triumph and thought, as he resumed his feast of her neck, that those were possibly the sweetest words he’d ever heard.
“Ye seem to be less Douglas and more…man,” she murmured breathlessly.
“I assure ye, I am both Douglas and man.” He dipped to kiss the hollow of her throat.
“My heart has tilted, Payton,” she whispered. “It heard yer heart call and it has tilted toward ye, and I donna even know when it happened.”
Her admission galvanized his adoration of her. He’d longed to hear her say she esteemed him in some small measure, and her words squeezed hard around his heart, lifted it up, and gave him a joy he’d never felt in his life. He raised his head, cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her lips, her nose, her forehead, then wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly to him. “Criosd, Mared, ye donna know how I�
�ve desired to hear ye say it,” he said, and then reluctantly let go of her. And made himself step back.
She looked at him with confusion. “What are ye doing, then?”
“Something I never thought I’d do. But I’ll no’ take ye like some tavern wench. I hold ye in too high regard for that.”
Mared closed her mouth. Her brows knit together, and she slowly folded her arms across her middle and shifted her weight to one hip. She glared at him. Gaped at him. He seduced her confession of feeling for him, and now he would walk away? “Have ye any idea how much courage it took to ask this of ye?” she demanded.
“Aye, but I am a gentleman, and one who cares very much for yer virtue.”
He had to be jesting. “Of all the bloody times to fret over my virtue!”
“Mared,” he said laughingly, and put his hands on his waist and regarded her with a smile. “Ye are a bonny lass, but ye are impetuous as hell, aye? I canna allow ye to make a mistake as grand as this.”
The corner of Mared’s mouth tipped up, and she reached for the belt that held his plaid. “Just like a Douglas, is it no’, to determine how grand my mistakes are. And would a gentleman really force a lady to ask thrice?” she asked, wrapping her fingers around the thick edge of his belt.
Payton glanced down at her hand. “Do ye truly know what ye do?”
She rose to her toes and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. “No. I was rather hoping ye might show me.”
The expression in his eyes changed then, and he leaned down, caught her bottom lip between his teeth as his arms went around her. “God save me, for I’ll show ye, then. I want ye, Mared, I’ve always wanted ye. I want the taste of yer lips, the touch of yer tongue to mine. I want to feel yer breath on my skin, feel ye surround me when I am inside ye. I want to fill ye with hope and love and babies, I swear to the heavens I do.”
Mared sighed longingly and dropped her head back as he held her tightly to him, his lips on her neck.