The Bridegroom Wore Plaid

by Grace Burrowes

  He let out a growl of pleasure at her overture and felt her hips lift against his body.

  She wasn’t cold. She wasn’t the aloof, standoffish lover he’d worried she might be. She was eager and shy and lovely, which was worse—far worse.

  And much, much better.

  He lifted off her a fraction of an inch, wondering when he’d let himself give her that much of his weight. It was too soon for that—they had a great deal more ground to cover first.

  Julia’s hand came up, stroked over his hair, then clutched a fistful at his crown, holding him still for her questing lips. She’d apparently found her initiative, forging delicately into his mouth, seeking more of him.

  And if he wasn’t mistaken, more of herself.

  So he let go a little more, put some rhythm into his kiss, put some swagger and dare into it until she was orally consuming him, making little sounds of want and frustration that had Connor wishing his trousers to Halifax.

  “Nightgown off, Julia.” She lifted her arms in compliance so quickly she almost clipped him on the chin with her elbow. It was a summer nightgown, gone in an instant, tossed who knew where in her willingness to show him her treasures.

  And they were treasures. She lay on her back while Con sat on his heels between her legs. He let her suffer a few panting breaths of trepidation while he took lazy, decadent inventory by moonlight: Perfect, full, pale breasts crested with small pinkish nipples puckering invitingly in the night air. Shoulders a touch more broad than he’d anticipated on such a diminutive woman, but tapering to a feminine waist that curved right back out to lovely hips. Not quite an hourglass—she was sturdy and apparently not given to overly tight stays—but so very definitely a woman.

  She turned her face aside, which he took for a silent plea for his hands, his mouth. Him. She’d be begging before he was through with her, and he’d be cursing.

  He shifted forward to hang over her, so they touched only when he gave her his mouth again. Start slowly, he admonished himself, teasing his lips over her features. Beneath him, Julia caught the shift, letting him set a more languorous pace. She also took advantage of the distance between their bodies to run her hands over Con’s naked ribs.

  Her touch shifted gradually from a hesitant request to hungry seeking. She mapped his entire torso with two hands—his ribs, chest, waist, hips. Her fingertips explored his nipples slowly and thoroughly, as if she’d never explored such territory before.

  Con had encountered female hands on his person in every imaginable intimate caress, but this… plundering of him was unraveling his composure. He retaliated by shifting up enough to catch her busy hands in each of his and press them to the mattress on either side of their bodies.

  Which left him free to plunder her, to run his nose along the underside of each warm, rosy breast and hear her breath catch in her throat. He did it again, making her squirm delightfully beneath him, and then when he made a third, slower pass, she sighed and went quiet.

  Surrender, of a sort.

  Only then did he put his mouth to her, by degrees and inches and slow marches, making her wait and whimper while she tried to pull her hands from his. When he finally drew on her nipple, gently of course, she groaned.

  “Hush, lass.”

  She couldn’t keep quiet, which pleased him enormously. The sounds coming from her were soft, plaintive, and erotic, escaping in time with the restless shifting of her hips in search of him. He felt the dampness of her curls against his belly and paused, laying his cheek on her abdomen.

  The next part was tricky. She was English, after all, but he was betting she’d cast that aggravating detail into the darkness along with her nightgown.

  He certainly had.

  “Spread your legs for me, Julia.”

  There was an instant’s pause, but only an instant. He grabbed a pillow for her hips, though he had to show her what he was about.

  Some husbands—some English husbands—were not worthy of the name.

  He sat back to gather his courage in one hand and his self-discipline in the other, then reached out to stroke his fingers over the smooth, soft expanse of her belly. So pale, her skin, and so warm.

  She arched her pelvis toward him, her eyes huge in the moonlight.

  “Trust me, Julia. For the next few minutes, you trust me.”

  She did it again, moving under his hand like a cat insisting on its owner’s caresses.

  He ran his palm up the front of one of her thighs, a nice muscular turn of leg that suggested she enjoyed riding and walking. She was going to enjoy what he had to give her too.

  As if he had all the time and fortitude in the world, Con learned the feel of her legs with his hands. His touch wandered over her abdomen, down to her knees, made occasional forays back up to those luscious, succulent breasts. Only when her restless shifting was continuous did he slide both hands up from her knees and brush aside her curls to expose her sex to the moonshine.

  He used both hands, focusing his touch on the bud of flesh at the apex of her sex. The shock of it went through her palpably.

  “Oh, Connor… Connor…”

  His name, but not just his name. A blessing, a pleading, a promise to him and to the night. She wasn’t so English after all.

  She held still for an admirably long time while his fingers explored her intimate glory. He could not resist dipping his head to kiss her, though only fleetingly. She was sweet here too, and hot, and ever so ready to be cherished.

  Which he did, for long, long moments, until she got a hand fisted around his wrist so tightly Connor noticed it even over the throbbing in his groin. He increased the tempo of his caresses, touching her carefully and then not so carefully at all.

  She muttered something that wasn’t a prayer, though she called upon the Lord’s name in guttural desperation, and then her breath was soughing harshly in her chest as she bucked up hard against his hand.

  He rode it out; rode out the thrashing and grinding, the low moans from her, the rising crest of his own arousal. She was fierce and glorious in her pleasure, also greedy and more athletic than a mortal man might withstand.

  He withstood it, nonetheless.

  When she lay panting and sated, he found he’d hilted two fingers in her heat and pillowed his cheek on her abdomen. While she heaved one mighty breath after another, he felt the small aftershocks spasming through her.

  She’d been long overdue. Long, long overdue. More overdue even than he.

  “Oh, Connor MacGregor. You…” Her hand landed in his hair on a sigh. She caressed his scalp, ran her touch over his ears, and for some godforsaken reason, he didn’t want to withdraw his fingers from her. It was a pathetic gesture toward the joining his traitorous body wanted, so he made himself slowly ease away.

  “Don’t go.” She caught his jaw in her palm, pressing his cheek over her womb. He submitted, the ache in his groin shifting to a thick languor throughout his body, almost as if he’d come and come hard.

  “I’m heavy.” It struck him he was apologizing, but for what he couldn’t have said.

  “Mmm.” She wrapped her legs around him and squeezed in an odd, wordless hug. In her unconventional embrace, he felt a little of his heart—his sanity, his pride, his very reason—slip into her hands.

  He nuzzled her belly, stopped trying to puzzle through the politics of it all, and smiled. In moments, she was asleep, which was a fitting reward for her labors.

  When he was certain she slept soundly, he peeled himself away and got his shirt back on. A walk in the brisk night air was in order if he were to get any rest before dawn. A long walk, far enough from the house that his common sense and pride could find him and beat him into submission.

  It was one thing to strike a blow for the honor of lusty Scotsmen everywhere; it was quite an
other to be defeated by his own tactics. He padded over to the bedroom door then paused to survey the woman sleeping in the bed.

  She was cast away with her pleasure, curled on her side, her breath fluttering the end of her braid where it dangled from her shoulder to the back of her hand. He returned to the bed, shifted her braid, and let himself press one last kiss to her cheek before he repaired to the corridor.

  Before he made a complete ass of himself and climbed right back into that bed.

  Halfway to the staircase, Con came to an abrupt halt.

  “Gilgallon.”

  “Connor.” They both spoke very softly.

  “Brother, is that a female you have asleep there in your arms?” Genie Daniels was nothing if not female, and she was curled in Gil’s arms like a drunken rag doll.

  “She fell asleep in the library.” Gil glanced down at the woman he cradled against his chest, and the hopelessness in his eyes was pure torment to see on a proud man’s face.

  Genie Daniels had done a damned sight more than fall asleep in the library, as had the guilt-stricken, lovelorn Gilgallon.

  “The English don’t adjust quickly to our short nights.” Con put as much understanding as he could into a single sentence. He hadn’t seen this coming, and there could be no good end to it. Not for Genie, but more significantly, not for Gilgallon.

  “You won’t say anything to Ian?” Gil was asking for discretion, for compassion, and it probably killed him to do so.

  “What in God’s name would I say?”

  Gil nodded, relief plain on his features, then his eyes narrowed. “The only bedroom on this corridor besides Genie’s belongs to Mrs. Redmond.”

  “So it does. I guess that makes two of us who won’t be troubling Ian with details that can’t matter in the least.” He gave Gil and his burden a wide berth, left the house, and spent the rest of the night out-of-doors, wrestling with his conscience.

  And his heart.

  ***

  “Meet me in the stables after breakfast.” Ian pitched his voice low, so it blended with the general hubbub of breakfast chatter. Augusta, being a quick study, nodded as she accepted an orange from the basket of fruit Ian had proffered.

  He replaced the fruit on the sideboard, tried to ignore the scent of lilacs filling his nose, and took his customary position next to Genie.

  It was a long fifteen minutes, but at least by now he knew what to expect. If he made conversation with whoever was on his other side—Mrs. Redmond today, and looking particularly fetching—then through occasional asides, polite inquiries, and civilities, he could draw Genie forward into a discussion.

  Such a bloody damned lot of work. He would have resented it except for the distinct sense it was work for her too. Down the table, Augusta was excusing herself, murmuring something about drafting a letter to the vicar’s wife in Oxfordshire.

  Con joined the breakfast party looking a bit peaked, Mrs. Redmond took her leave, and Ian used the opening to excuse himself as well. His intended made not even a token protest at losing his company, which ought to have caused him some despair.

  When he got to the stable, Augusta was outside Hannibal’s stall, scratching the old blighter’s chin. “Apologies if you had to tarry here long. Will you really write a letter to your vicar’s wife?”

  She left off with the scratching and turned a smile on Ian. “Of course. She’s about the only person I have to write to, and the surrounds here are so pretty I feel compelled to convey a description of them to someone.”

  He’d seen that smile on her face before, a happy expression at odds with her words. “You will write to Mary Fran when you leave here, Augusta. I’ll worry about you otherwise.”

  The smile dimmed. “If you insist.”

  “I do.” He winged his arm at her. “I’d like to show you the old mouser’s grave, if you can spare the time.” And he wanted to apologize to her in some way for what had passed between them the previous day—the kissing, the cursing, the cursing about the kissing. The rest of it.

  He was a sorry case indeed.

  “Thank you, Ian. I did not want to impose.” She slipped her arm through his, her acquiescence and her proximity settling something inside Ian as they began to move toward the path through the trees. “I’ll want to visit him again before we leave for the South.”

  “Would you ever consider joining Genie’s household rather than returning to Oxfordshire?”

  Stupid question. He hadn’t realized how stupid until he heard the words leaving his mouth.

  “I have not. Julia’s household is a possibility, but she’s so far north for much of the year.”

  Far north, far away from civilization such as Augusta Merrick had been raised to understand the term, which was probably for the best.

  “This way,” he said, guiding her along the fork in the path. “The other way will take you eventually to Balmoral.”

  The longer they walked in the woods, sunlight slanting through leaves and branches, birds flitting about the canopy, the less restless Ian felt and the more sad. He was attracted to Augusta Merrick in a way he did not entirely understand, but it wasn’t just a reaction to the notion of marrying her cousin.

  Would to God it were that simple.

  “This is lovely,” Augusta said, dropping his arm and advancing into a sunny clearing. “Very peaceful and private, for all we’re not that far from the house.”

  Far enough. Ian tossed that thought off into the bushes, where it lay, waiting to pounce the moment his common sense turned its back.

  “The cat is over here.” He took her hand in his and led her to the far side of the little space. “If you don’t know it’s a cemetery, it looks like any other sunny patch of undergrowth.”

  “And you planted him some heather. Will it grow here?” She knelt to brush her fingers over the stiff branches of the shrub, keeping her other hand in Ian’s.

  “Very likely. It’s hardy stuff.”

  “Thank you, Ian. Thank you more than you know.” She rose, using his grip for leverage, and just like that they were standing quite close. Some bird started a cheerful chorus, and amid all the scents of the woods, Ian caught a whiff of lilacs.

  “Augusta… I hope you know… It’s not that I don’t… that is, yesterday…” He wanted to drop her hand, and he wanted to lay her down and sink himself into her body until neither of them could recall how to find their way out of the woods. The mingling of desire and regret was new to him and piercingly painful.

  “Yesterday,” she said very softly, “was lovely.”

  “Lovely, yes, but it can’t… Augusta, I want to kiss you again, right here, right now, when what I meant to do was apologize. I sincerely meant to apologize. Please, for the love of God, will you slap me as hard as you can?”

  She kissed him, rose up on her toes and gently laid her mouth to his. She brought sweet, soft curves, warmth, and a sense of voracious longing to him, heartbroken longing, on a whiff of flowers.

  He took her in his arms with a groan and kissed her back, no grace, no finesse, just need and regret expressed by his mouth on hers. He was aware of her hand cradling his jaw, aware of how perfectly her body fit his.

  And even more aware of how impossible their situation was.

  He broke the kiss just enough to rest his forehead on hers. “Augusta, I am so verra sorry. So sorry. This solves nothing.”

  She kissed his forehead, which provoked a dizzying confusion of both comfort and torment in Ian’s guts. “It doesn’t complicate anything either, Ian. I’m sorry too.”

  She took his hand, and he let her. Let her lead him back to the path that would take them to the house, and let her drop his hand well before they approached the stables. When they reached the gardens, he let her leave his side, while he remained among
the flowers and watched her make her way alone into the house.

  ***

  Augusta took half the morning to settle her nerves after the outing with Ian, spent two hours trying to compose one prosaic letter, took a luncheon tray in her room and ended up sketching Ian’s left hand as best she could recall the look of it wrapped around her right.

  He had such lovely hands. She gave up on the letter and kept the sketch, but called a halt to her hours of self-indulgence and went in search of Mary Fran.

  Whenever Augusta thought she’d found a minute alone with Mary Fran, it turned out Matthew was lurking in the vicinity, or the baron, or the baron and Matthew both. Uncle finally declared the library too stuffy for reading the newspaper, and Augusta seized her moment.

  “Matthew, may I have a word with you?” She aimed a smile at the cousin who might have been her spouse and subtly twisted the tail of his conscience.

  “Of course. Lady Mary Frances was good enough to show me the portrait gallery yesterday. Shall we walk there?”

  He escorted her up through the house, considerate and careful with her, though she’d seen the brooding frown he’d aimed at Mary Fran before departing the library.

  “Were you always such a gentleman?”

  His eyebrows rose as he strolled along beside her. “I hope I was. I gather from your question there is some doubt.”

  “Not doubt, just a failure of accurate recollection. Are you enjoying your stay here?”

  She intended it as a polite, passing question, but Matthew’s lips quirked, and his gaze lit with humor as they perambulated past some dark paintings in heavy, gilded frames. “I’m enjoying it immeasurably. Far more than I’d intended.”

  “You came on a holiday not intending to enjoy yourself?”

  “I came to make sure Altsax didn’t force Genie into marriage with some old curmudgeon who thinks bathing unhealthful and a wife’s purpose to ensure the succession when she isn’t peeling potatoes in his root cellar.”

  Interesting. She’d sold him short by not attributing such fraternal concern to him. “And you are satisfied on this point?”