She wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead and held his face in her hands. “And now, you are truly mine, my heart.”
Caya woke the next morning buried under mounds of blankets and sheets. Declan’s bed smelled deliciously of him and their lovemaking. She smiled and stretched, expecting to roll to her side and snuggle against his warm, naked body. But the furrow in the mattress where he had slumbered was empty and cool. Where was he?
She sat up quick and hissed. Declan’s attentions had left her feeling a little raw this morning. She hadn’t minded at all last night. He’d been so tender, so gentle, and then, in the end, so ardent, how could she have refused when he’d asked to do it a third time?
Truth be told, she’d enjoyed their union more than she’d expected. At first, when her body had tingled and trembled in his hands, she thought she might be making too much noise. But Declan reassured her between his kisses she could cry out as loud as she liked. Even now, her nipples tightened remembering the assortment of words he’d called out just when he… She stifled a wicked giggle.
Wood creaked as bare feet thudded up the staircase. He was trying not to wake her, tiptoeing around in the next room—her room. What on earth was he doing in there? Then a long splash of water and the clunk of a bucket.
“Declan?”
He appeared at the doorway bare legged, bare chested, wearing only a kilt, and grinning like he’d just done something naughty. “Morning, love.”
“What are you wearing?”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb, trying to look casual. “My philibeg.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“My uniform kilt from when I was in the army. Margaret collected the laundry this morning. All my trousers are in the wash.”
A jolt of alarm sang through her body. Margaret? Doing the laundry?
“But I’m your wife now. I should take care of things. What time is it?” She clutched the sheet to her breast and scanned the floor. Pointing to a pile of linen, she said, “Quick, hand me my shift. I need to get dressed.”
Her husband launched himself from the doorway, took two long strides, and leaped onto the bed like a cat. She squeaked and scooted backward against the headboard.
“Declan Sinclair, you can’t possibly want to do it again. It’s broad daylight.”
“Oh, aye.” He kissed her forehead. “I’d take you at any hour anywhere.” He hooked a finger around the sheet and tugged it away for a peek. “Because if I wanted you before last night, I burn for you now.” He cupped a hand under her breast and kissed her until she moaned and arched into his palm.
When he released her, he tossed away the bedclothes in one sweep of his long arm. She yelped and pulled her knees up to her chin to cover herself reflexively.
Laughing, he scooped her into his arms and lifted her off the bed.
She felt weightless for a moment, and then she panicked. “What are you doing?” Had she driven her husband mad with lust? He said he would take her anywhere. Would he carry her outside and have her in the garden?
“Relax, love. I have a surprise for you.”
He carried her into her special room and set her on her feet in front of her French bathing tub. Steam rose from the water’s surface. A sacrifice of several dozen decapitated daisies floated on top.
Declan was suddenly bashful. “Margaret said every bride needs a good soak after…after…”
She kissed him. Her darling husband had no trouble making love to her. But for some reason he couldn’t find words to talk about it. He quickly shed his reserve and let his hands slide down to cup her bottom and pull her against his aroused…
“What do you call your private parts?” Her hand traveled to the stiff bulge pressing into her middle to make it clear what she meant.
He took a sharp intake of breath, closed his eyes, and went still. “Erm…that’s my cock,” he said with effort.
“I love you, husband. And I’m very fond of your cock.”
Declan’s eyes flew open. She chuckled, pleased to shock him. Caya stepped over the edge of the tub and lowered herself into the water with a sigh. “Oh, thank you. This is wonderful.”
He knelt on the floor beside the tub, cupping water, drizzling handfuls on her shoulders and down her arms. After a long while she opened her eyes. He was staring at her, adoring her. He plucked a daisy from the water and caressed her puckered nipple with the soft petals.
“I’ll be riding into town to see the chair-maker today. This house needs furniture.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“A’course. We’ll have him make whatever you like.”
“We need a dining room table with at least two chairs. Maybe four,” she said absently.
“We’ll need seven.”
She stroked his cheek. “I think four will do.”
He shook his head as if she hadn’t understood him. “Nae. We’ll need seven.” He reached into the water and placed his palm on her belly, never breaking his gaze.
Caya gasped. “Declan, did you have another dream?”
He lifted his left hand out of the water and spread his fingers wide. “Five,” he said, and then he smiled. One of his irresistible smiles. The kind that made her smile back.
Epilogue
Caya entered the kitchen just as dawn streaked through the crack in the shutters. She flipped the latch and swung them open, bathing the room in a pale light. She shrieked when a tartan heap the size of a sleeping cow shifted and rolled over on the floor to her left.
“Magnus, you scared the life out of me,” she rasped, clutching a hand to her heaving chest.
A thunder of footsteps from above signaled her cry had roused her slumbering husband.
“Caya!”
“It’s all right. It’s only Magnus,” she called and turned back to Declan’s massive cousin. “What are you doing sleeping on my kitchen floor?”
Declan burst into the room with dirk in hand and not a stitch of clothing. “What’s amiss?” He gave the impression of a lunatic, with eyes wild and snarled hair sticking out every which-way.
“It’s just Magnus.” She tossed Declan a kitchen towel and he clutched it to his privates.
“Why’s he here?”
“I’m sure he’ll tell us over breakfast, but you need to get dressed first.”
Deeming the threat neutralized, Declan nodded, turned, and casually strolled away. She took a moment to admire his slim backside. His smooth white bum looked so vulnerable when he was naked.
A few mild oaths rumbled behind her—Magnus using the center workbench to pull himself to his feet. To watch him, one might think Atlas had the easier of the two tasks. But what really gave her pause was when he pushed his own sleep-tousled hair from his face.
“You…you shaved,” she stammered, and recalled the set-to he’d had with Dr. Farquhar after the battle on board The Tigress. The doctor had insisted he needed to shave Magnus in order to stitch his wound, and Magnus had insisted the doctor soak his head in turpentine. Dr. Farquhar had obviously won. That was only a few days ago. “I’ve never seen you without your beard. You look so different.”
The big-but-no-longer-burly man closed his eyes and deflated. “Oh God. Not you, too.”
“I’m sorry. It just takes some getting used to, is all.” She shook off the initial shock of the dramatic change in a man she thought she knew well. “The cut on your face is handsome—I, uh—I mean—” She took a breath. “The cut is healing nicely.”
Magnus scowled at her. “Thanks.” His gaze flicked to something above her head.
She swung around to find her husband, now dressed in trousers and a rumpled shirt from yesterday. She hadn’t heard him approach in his stockinged feet.
Like her, Declan was taken aback by the change in Magnus. “What happened to you?” he asked.
Caya dragged over the milking stool and the upturned wooden box they’d been using in lieu of furniture until their new chairs arrived. “Sit. I’ll hav
e tea ready in no time.” She hung the kettle over the flame, poked up the fire, and set the cast-iron girdle in the embers to heat. By the time she finished grinding the beans, the two cousins had settled in.
“I heard you wouldnae leave your cot until your whiskers returned.” There was a teasing tone in Declan’s voice, a dangerous thing to poke fun at Magnus in his irritable condition.
Magnus shifted, and the stool groaned under his weight.
“I came to congratulate you. I hear you two handfasted three days ago.” Magnus smiled up at her. “You see? Did I not tell you his dreams always come true?”
“That doesnae explain why you slept on my kitchen floor last night,” Declan said, his voice flat and demanding.
Magnus launched himself off the stool on a growl and paced the room, his size making the kitchen look tiny by comparison. Caya judged his agitated state may have been triggered by something embarrassing, something he was reluctant to share. Since Magnus didn’t look like he was ready to talk anytime soon, she handed Declan the egg basket.
“Would you go, dear?”
“Me?”
“Yes, please.” She poured boiling water over the tea leaves in the pot.
“But I cannae find my boots.”
“They’re right outside the door where you left them.”
He grumbled something in Gaelic and dragged himself outside.
As soon as he’d gone, she set the kettle down and gave Magnus a stern look. “If you won’t talk to Declan, talk to me. What’s going on?”
He stopped pacing and folded his tree-trunk arms across his chest. “They willnae leave me be.”
“Who won’t leave you be?”
He pointed in the general direction of Balforss and leaned forward. “Those women,” he said, as though speaking of monsters.
“The women you rescued from the pirate ship?”
“Aye.” He folded his arms again and thrust out a belligerent chin.
“Do you mean Miss Mary and Lady Charlotte are bothering you?”
“Aye,” he said with more force.
“What are they doing to vex you?”
“They keep bringing me food.” He might have said they kept bringing him snakes, he was that appalled.
“Really?”
“Aye, they do.”
Odd. She’d never known Magnus to complain about too much food.
He further reported his torture included idle chat, as well. “They stand at my door and ask, ‘Are ye well, Mr. Sinclair?’ and, ‘You were so brave to save us, Mr. Sinclair,’ and, ‘How can we ever thank you, Mr. Sinclair?’ Three times a day for the last three days. I couldnae take it any longer. So, I came here to find some peace.”
“Miss Virginia brought you food, too?” She didn’t doubt Mary and Charlotte would chase after Magnus, but Virginia?
He shifted his weight to the other foot and spoke to the floor in a volume she could barely register. “She’s the only one who hasnae dogged me.” As embarrassment spread across his face, Caya glimpsed a moment of unguarded affection for the willowy English woman.
“I see.” She poured them tea and pointed to his stool. He sat without protest, waiting while she retrieved the cream and joined him. “Do you want Miss Virginia to dog you?” she asked and put a dollop of cream in his cup.
“She would never. She’s too dignified.”
He was right about that. Of all the rescued women, Virginia was the most levelheaded, the one who held the respect of the others.
“Have you spoken to her?”
“Once. Twice actually. But the first time was on board The Tigress in the middle of the stramash, so that hardly counts.” His mood lightened as he warmed to the subject of Virginia Whitebridge.
“Tell me about the second time,” she pressed.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He gently rocked side to side, smiling at the fire as if revisiting a pleasant memory. “She um…she held my hand while the doctor stitched me up.”
“Were you that afraid?”
“Dinnae be daft,” he said, offended.
“Then why did she hold your hand?”
“Auntie Flora made her hold my hand and talk to me, distract me so I wouldnae dunt Dr. Farquhar on the head.” He turned and complained, “Did ye ken that bastard scalped me while I wasnae looking?”
“You mean, while you were looking at Miss Virginia,” she teased. Pink patches bloomed on his naked cheeks. How often had his blush gone unnoticed before having his beard removed? She sipped her tea and motioned for Magnus to try his. “You know, maybe Miss Virginia is waiting for you to call on her.”
“I cannae.”
“Why?”
Magnus rolled his eyes and pointed to his face.
“I don’t understand.”
“I need to wait until it grows. I look better with it.”
Caya sat back in her chair. Why on earth would he want to hide his handsome face behind—?
“When was the last time you shaved?”
He shrugged. “I cannae say as I’ve ever scraped my face.”
“Have you seen your reflection recently?”
He squinted a suspicious eye at her as if she had it in mind to lay some sort of trap.
Caya grabbed his hand, yanked him to his feet, and dragged him out of the kitchen.
“Cousin, where are you taking me?” he asked, stumbling through the house after her. When she got to the staircase, he resisted. “I’ve seen the second floor.”
“Follow me,” she commanded.
After much tugging and cajoling up the stairs, she shoved the monolith into her room and positioned him directly in front of her mirror.
“There now. Look at yourself.”
Magnus stood transfixed, staring at the stranger in the glass. He must not have seen himself in years.
“Do you still think you look better with your beard?”
He turned his head to one side, then the other. “I’ll be damned.”
“You’ll be dead if you dinnae take yourself oot of my wife’s boudoir.” Declan stood in the doorway, legs spread wide and arms akimbo, looking both angry and dumbfounded. “I love you, well, cousin, but Caya is my wife. I’m no’ sharing her. You’ll have to find your own woman.”
Magnus tore himself away from his reflection and lurched toward Declan. “I came to ask you, have you had any dreams about me, man?”
Declan relaxed his stance but made no response.
“I ken you had the dream about Alex and Lucy having a bairnie, and then you dreamed Caya was your wife…” He swallowed audibly. “So, I was wondering, did you dream anything of me?”
Magnus waited, hope-filled eyes fixed on Declan. But her husband didn’t blink or flinch. He didn’t move a muscle.
At last, Declan swallowed and shook his head. “No. Sorry. Nae dreams.”
The big man gave him a faint smile and nodded. “I see. Nae worries,” he said, his voice clipped and low. “I’ll be off.” He slipped out of the room and barreled down the staircase.
“Husband?” Declan wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Why did you lie to Magnus?”
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Author’s Note
Balforss is a fictional place based on a real country home hotel. Forss House Hotel is located at the Bridge of Forss approximately four miles west of Thurso in Caithness. I had the pleasure of staying there twice and highly recommend it to anyone visiting the northernmost reaches of Scotland. This magical place gives the Balforss novels their texture and, I think, their soul.
Acknowledgments
My sincere thanks to Red Oak Writing Studio, Wisconsin Romance Writers, Editor, Erin Molta at Entangled Publishing, and my agent, Cassie Hanjian at DeFiore and Company. To our friends and family, my husband and I express our deepest thanks for their love and gentle support.
; About the Author
Jennifer Trethewey is an actor-turned-writer who has moved her performances from the stage to the page. In 2013, she traveled to Scotland for the first time, where she instantly fell in love with the language, humor, intense sense of pride, and breathtaking landscape. Her love for Scotland has been translated into her first series of historical romance novels, The Highlanders of Balforss.
Trethewey’s primary experience in bringing the imaginary to life was working for one of the most successful women’s theater companies in the nation, where she was the co-founder and co-artistic director. Today she continues to act, but writes contemporary and historical fiction full-time. She lives in Milwaukee with her husband. Her other loves include dogs, movies, music, good wine, and good friends.
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