Haunted By A Highland Curse: A Steamy Scottish Medieval Historical Romance

by Emilia C. Dunbar

  Too angry to give the woman he had married the benefit of due consideration, Niall dismissed Brogan with no more than his eyes and headed back outside to the grounds.

  The stables were on the eastern side of the grounds, away from the groundskeeper’s home. Whenever he was away, the dogs tended to loiter around old Herman’s feet and needed to be kept away from the horses.

  The whitewashed horse stalls were several hundred yards from the estate, but Niall could have made the walk blindfolded. He knew every inch of this land as he knew his own skin. The length of his stride had him there in minutes, his gaze trained on the front of the building when two figures emerged from inside with one of the animals.

  One was his stablehand, Roy. A skilled young man with the equines, he was Herman’s nephew, and Niall had taken him into his employ three years ago when the groundskeeper was too old to manage both the gardens and the stables. He was young, tall, and despite his slim build, surprisingly strong. He had served Niall well since he had come to Aberlynn.

  The other figure was slighter, female, and possessed a long braid that waved gaily in the afternoon breeze. She wore a long green dress and a leather belt looped at her hips. Her little hand rested on the front of the animal’s nose, her lips pursed like she was giving the creature a comforting sound.

  Too far away to hear their conversation, Niall increased his pace as they exchanged pleasantries, and the boy made Caoimhe laugh.

  It had been an infuriating state of affairs that despite all his necessary business, Niall had not been permitted to forget his new state of matrimony.

  Everywhere he had gone, those he knew congratulated him on finding a wife at last. As if, at twenty-seven years of age, he was ancient. They asked after Caoimhe, wondered if she was settling into her new home, if the two of them were planning children, and if the new year’s festival would be held at Aberlynn this year instead of the open meadows. With every question that he had been unable to answer, Niall’s patience had been thinned. He didn’t like being unprepared, nor was he used to the expectation that he would be seeing to another’s happiness or need to be aware of their activities.

  It was just another duty, a chore, to have upon his already busy plate.

  Instead of allowing him to forget that fact, almost every conversation he had been a part of in his absence from Aberlynn had forced his thoughts back to the stranger in his home, back to Caoimhe.

  Such thoughts had only served to stoke the flame that he had yet been unable to douse.

  Despite the little bit of fear that was bubbling away, deep in her belly, Caoimhe was smiling. She had never ridden a horse before. Not since she was very young and would sit astride the saddle in front of her father. That had been before the incident with the stray dog. Somehow, her phobia of canines had been contagious, slipping to that of other animals. And, in her childlike state of trepidation, horses had just seemed light large, less hairy dogs. Allowing them to pass by while pulling a carriage or towing a cart, she had no problem with. But being this close, near enough to place her hand upon its head and feel the warmth of its breath upon her face…

  She had never been so brave.

  And yet, the conquering of one’s fear—even just a little—was an exhilarating experience. Her lips curled back into a smile and her eyes were bright with her own sense of pride.

  Roy made it easier.

  Knowing when to be calm and when to crack a joke, the stablehand had been her closest ally for the last two days. He had selected her a mare on whom to practice, one of calm temperament and friendly disposition, and then talked her through how to approach the animal, without spooking it.

  “Spook it?” Caoimhe had said, with a tone of amusement, the first time they had drawn the animal from her stock. “I’m the one who’s scared.”

  “But you’re the human with the whip,” Roy had told her. “Lady’s Breath knows that you’re the master because you walk on two legs and she walks on four. Horses are only dangerous if you frighten them.”

  And so their lessons had begun.

  Roy was kind. He was patient with her fears and never overstepped his boundaries. He didn’t push or berate. And he had cheered her up when, initially, she still had yet to summon the courage to properly touch the creature, let alone mount her. He seemed perfectly happy to go about things at her pace.

  And now, here she was, petting a horse as if he were a simple lap cat.

  “You’ll be riding her in no time, Miss Caoimhe,” Roy told her. “Brogan has enough trouble finding you now; he’ll never manage when you have a horse under you.”

  Caoimhe laughed, feeling good in the bright afternoon sunshine, until movement over her shoulder caught her eye. She turned, her braid falling into the hollow of her neck, and her eyes wincing against the sunlight.

  She felt her heartbeat quicken when she recognized the figure coming their way, his long legs eating up the ground between them. His height was immense, his shoulders broad and strong, and his gait was one of power and command.

  Niall couldn’t be mistaken for anyone.

  As he drew closer, Caoimhe saw a look of thunder on his features that had her pulse racing faster and her fear slipping from beyond her control. She panicked for a moment, took a hasty step back into the horse, and then jumped back with a little squeal. Roy reached out to steady her, his hand on her arm. And suddenly, the thunder on Niall’s face was a full and black storm.

  “What exactly are you doing?”

  Despite the week apart, Caoimhe was unsettled to realize that she had recalled the timbre of his voice with accurate clarity. He was still several feet away and she had to raise her voice to be heard, as Roy let her go and suddenly became intensely focused on one of Lady’s Breath’s bridle buckles.

  “I…I wanted to see the stables.”

  “Roy, do you not have duties to attend to?” Niall demanded, his words blunt and harsh, as he came upon them.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Then see them done.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Caoimhe’s gaze switched from one to the other, her eyes round and her lips parted. She hadn’t meant to get Roy into trouble, or anger her husband. Had she known he was returning that day, she would have been in the manor, awaiting his arrival. She would have greeted him properly, as a wife should.

  She had not the time to beg forgiveness, however, before Niall reached out and took hold of her arm.

  His grip didn’t hurt but it was firm, his fingers locked solid. Instantly, she felt imprisoned by his touch, and her natural instinct was to rebel, to dig her feet into the grass and find divots with her heels. A single tug to move her in the direction of the castle, however, had her losing her hold on the earth.

  Feeling childish and hurrying to walk beside Niall instead of being dragged behind him like an infant, Caoimhe was out of breath before they had walked a dozen steps. Her legs were not as long as Niall’s, and every stride of his took two of her own. She glanced up at his face but saw only a stony disregard, his eyes focused on his destination.

  “My lord, I…” Caoimhe wasn’t sure what to say. Should she apologize? Did he need something?

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Caoimhe snapped her mouth shut. What was she to call him? Master Brodie? Niall? Sweetheart? Somehow endearments, or even just his first name, felt too familiar when the man beside her was little more than a stranger. Her husband he might be, but her love he was not.

  The reminder had Caoimhe feeling shame over the heat that she felt in his touch.

  As he pulled her inside, away from the bright sunshine, she could no longer make the excuses of a hot afternoon in the late summer months. It was his fingers that cast a brand over her arm. The warmth burned in a way that singed without pain. It curled over her skin and through her muscles, up over her shoulder and to her heart. Once it had claimed her pulse, it beat throughout her body, heating her blood and stalling her lungs. She struggled to catch her breath, and felt a blush claim he
r cheeks.

  Every shift and move that he commanded of her, every corridor they marched down, every corner they turned, had her body collide or brush against his. Every touch fanned the flames and she wondered if she were coming down with some sort of fever. Either way, she wanted loose of his hold and began to rebel as they reached the staircase that led to their personal chambers.

  “Let go of me!” she insisted, pulling on her arm.

  His grip only tightened.

  “You’re coming with me,” he commanded. His voice was deep, and it rolled around the room like a clanging bell of fate.

  “And I shall. But I shall do so because you requested it, not because you have dragged me with you like a sack of potatoes!”

  Niall’s feet slowed a little as he turned to look at her. Her choice of words seemed so bizarre to him that it had broken through a little of his hostility. He watched her now with a look of intensity over anger. She was a little unnerved to see that he was breathing heavily too.

  There was a moment of quiet between them, only the rise and fall of their shoulders breaking the stillness of the hallway. It was Niall who broke the silence. His expression changed to one of determination, as if he were forcing the words to leave his lips against all better judgment.

  “Would you still go willingly if you knew I was taking you to claim my husbandly rights?”

  Caoimhe felt a flutter of nervousness in her belly, a tightness in her core at even the idea. In order to avoid the embarrassment of her own virginal ignorance, Caoimhe’s gaze broke away from his. As an exercise of avoidance, it did no good, for her stare was only drawn to the lines of his neck, the way that it curved into the breadth of his shoulders, with hollows and shapes that clung to each muscle. She looked away and spotted only his hands, broad and long-fingered. She stammered in her shock.

  “N-now?” she asked him.

  She looked about herself, her hands wringing together before the wool of her dress. Her body suddenly felt sensitive to its presence, each bump and weave of the fabric sharp against her skin. Her gaze caught the sun through a nearby window, still high in the sky.

  “Is…is it not still too early?”

  Niall’s lips thinned in displeasure at so weak an excuse. His eyes grew shrewd.

  “If you think that all acts of pleasure are only carried out at night, Wife, you are more naive than you already appear.” His nostrils flared. “And given the date of our wedding, I would say such things are, instead, long overdue. Are they not?”

  Unsure what to do, her body trembling and her heart sputtering in her chest, Caoimhe felt a little lightheaded as she closed her eyes and nodded.

  What more could she do? For she was his wife and if he sought the company of her in his bed, she had not the position to make objections.

  Her husband needed no further encouragement as he took hold of her again—her wrist this time—and guided her up the stairs and towards their bedchambers.

  11

  For the Sake of a Bairn

  Some of Niall’s frenzy seemed to calm once he had them both behind closed doors. He had taken them to her sleeping quarters instead of his own, and Caoimhe knew not what to make of that. Perhaps in days to come, she would wonder and worry that there was a distance between herself and her husband, an avoidance of closeness that had him unable to bring her into his most private of sanctuaries. But, in this moment, as Niall drew the cotton shade across the window and stained the room in color, Caoimhe could barely think beyond the next heartbeat.

  The shades, hung above the open window, were made of rich wools of cerulean and navy. As the sunlight broke through their weaves, it cast a spell of blue across the room.

  They were underwater; at the bottom of the loch and hidden from the world.

  Fitting, for Caoimhe felt as if she might be drowning.

  Niall gave little by way of guidance. Caoimhe stood at the foot of the bed, toes turned inwards. Her fingers became tangled together when she had nothing else to hold onto and her breathing was erratic, never able to draw deep. Definitely drowning.

  All she could do was allow him to tow her through the waters, by example.

  When her husband shifted his weight back and then forth, toeing off his boots, Caoimhe quickly shook her feet free of her slippers. When he removed the belt that cinched his tunic to his waist, Caoimhe unwound hers from her hips.

  She followed him, allowing Niall to be her current to the depths of this unknown.

  When he bent to remove his underthings, his tunic still in place, Caoimhe hurried to the chair in the corner of the room. Her stockings were difficult to remove standing, and she fought with them for a few minutes. Her actions were hindered as she attempted to otherwise maintain her modesty with her skirts.

  “You’re slow.”

  The words were spoken in a tone she had not heard from Niall before, had not heard from any man. They came with a sense of impatience, gravelly and with sharp edges.

  “Sorry,” Caoimhe muttered, blushing even deeper.

  When her toes were finally free, she came back to her feet. Her knees knocked together for a moment, and she could feel her own pulse in the side of her neck. It hammered in her ears too and had her breasts feeling heavy.

  “Take off your dress.”

  Caoimhe’s lips parted in surprise. Did men not also fully disrobe for such things? Why was she to be completely exposed, if his tunic was to stay in place? There was a small moment of rebellion over her own dignity, blossoming in her heart, but the look in her husband’s eyes told her to simply obey, that he was to be the one to make decisions in this voyage of discovery.

  With a little difficulty, Caoimhe was able to reach for the stays that held her gown in place and loosen them enough for the piece to fall to her ankles. Her undergown was now all that she had to hold to her skin. Her arms bare, the slip held by two ties upon her shoulders, the white muslin fell to her toes. She was a swath of white in the dark room.

  Virginal.

  Perhaps the thought crossed Niall’s mind too, for he took a moment of pause, his stillness only increasing the tension that resonated between them.

  Caoimhe couldn’t tell what she wanted in that moment. She felt exposed. Laid bare before she was even nude. Her hair was still in its braid; her toes were curled, clasping at the little tassels at the end of the rug. Part of her wanted to run, to flee and find shelter where she could cloak herself in her chastity and never be seen in the flesh by anyone again. Yet, another part of her wanted comfort and security. Reassurance that her courage to be vulnerable was not being wasted or misplaced.

  One instinct would have swayed her towards the door. The other, into Niall’s arms.

  As neither could agree, she simply hovered. Torn between the two.

  When she made no move to undress entirely, Niall closed the distance between them and gave no ceremony to removing the ties upon each shoulder. The muslin fell to join the wool and Caoimhe’s eyes screwed shut. She shook with the anticipation of what he might do next, how he would handle the body that he had exposed.

  She had heard married women talk of their men, of their appetites and their needs. She knew that such ways between a married couple could be gentle and loving, or they could be rough and fierce. But did one need to love in order to be gentle?

  For she knew that her husband did not love her.

  Caoimhe’s arms came around herself, her eyes still closed and fearing the judgment in Niall’s silence. She only knew that he was still there, standing so closely before her, because of the sound of his breath and the heat of his presence.

  A moment later, Caoimhe squealed in surprise, her eyes popping wide open. Niall’s arms had come around her. One at her shoulders and the other behind her legs. In a single motion, he had swept her up into his arms.

  He carried her the few feet to the bed, Caoimhe tensed in his hold and was unable to think of anything besides the smell of him, of his skin, and the way that that long tendon of muscle rode from his jawline t
o his shoulder.

  She wasn’t given time to adjust, as Niall shifted the bedclothes back with his knee and laid her upon the sheets. They were cold against her back and had gooseflesh break across her skin. The peaks of her breasts turned pert, and her lips parted on a gasp.

  She saw Niall’s neck move in a deep swallow.

  After a moment of hesitation, in which Caoimhe wriggled a little beneath his scrutiny, unsure where to put her hands or whether she might cover herself, Niall removed the choice from her.

  Suddenly, he was there.

  Within the bed, atop her body.

  His weight came down upon her, braced a little on arms that bulged beneath the short sleeves of his tunic. Their bare legs tangled together and she felt his hair tickle at her skin.

  She wriggled a little beneath his weight and Niall moaned as her breasts pushed up against his chest. She froze.

  Niall was looking at her oddly. With a heavy-lidded stare that would have seemed drowsy if not for his eyes. They were dark—darker than she had ever seen them—and they bore into hers with an intensity that sent sparks down her spine. His breath was coming heavy and hers had turned shallow. Both of them sounded as if they were drowning now, gasping for cool air that was impossible to find in a room that had turned hot with their presence.

  And then her husband was kissing her.

  It was no light kiss. Not the hasty peck that had been offered at their wedding, no gentle brush of lips meeting. Niall’s mouth consumed hers. His lips moved over hers in a way that was possessive, owning. His moulded his claim to her mouth until it admitted to its own submission; a soft whimper against his lips. And Caoimhe then found herself kissing him back.

  One of Niall’s hands came to her cheek; the other touched her hip and made her jump. She grew tense, but his kiss melted it away. He felt at her breasts, at her thighs. He reached down to stroke the length of her legs, as if he were attempting to memorize the nuances of her limbs, his fingers circling her ankles and her wrists. Each new sensation had her chest stilling in a frozen breath, a tightness in her belly aching. Each time, Niall’s lips drew her focus and had her mind forget the little scary moments.