Brigand

by Sabrina York

  “What the hell are you doing down here?” he boomed.

  Rory fell on his behind. Tavish dropped the keys. “Uh, n-nothing, McCloud.”

  A bold-faced lie. Ewan’s fury rose. “Did I or did I not give strict orders that no one was to come to the cellar?”

  “I-I… H-he… W-we…” Rory’s lips flapped.

  “Go.” And when they didn’t move quickly enough, again, this time a roar. “Go!”

  They skittered up the stairs, not bothering to take their lamp.

  Hell. Hell and damnation. She wasn’t safe. Not even here in the dungeon where he could lock her in.

  The only place she would truly be safe was with him.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Violet perched on the bed, ready to flee, with her threadbare blanket clutched at her neck, eyes wide, knuckles white. Her hair cascading in thick ropes over her shoulders. Her lips apart and trembling.

  And he knew.

  He knew.

  She wasn’t safe with him either.

  Chapter Seven

  Violet wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or worried that Ewan had decided to release her from the dungeon and take her up to his nice warm solar. But once she saw the fire, she didn’t care. She rushed toward it with her hands outstretched and shuddered with pleasure as delicious heat seeped into her bones.

  He poured some amber liquid in a crystal glass and thrust it at her. “Drink this.” His voice was gruff.

  “What is it?”

  “Whisky. It will warm you.”

  She took a sip and grimaced.

  He poured himself a dram and tossed it back, then poured another, sat in one of the chairs by the fire and nursed it as he studied her.

  She disliked his intensity. It made her self-conscious. But she sloughed the feeling off and adopted a mantle of insouciance. At least she hoped it was insouciance. The whisky helped tremendously. She sashayed to the other chair and sat as well, then dragged it closer to the fire and poked her feet toward the licking flames.

  He stared at her feet and frowned. She couldn’t help looking down as well, and she grimaced. No wonder they’d captured his attention.

  Her delicate slippers had finally fallen apart and she’d spent the better part of the day with bare feet. They were filthy.

  He stood and crossed to the dresser, picked up his water pitcher and poured it into a bucket, which he set on the hearth.

  “What are you doing?”

  He glanced at her. “Warming water. Those feet need to be washed before you crawl into my bed.”

  An incongruous laugh bubbled from her lips. “I’m not getting in your bed.”

  A storm cloud lowered his brow. “You most certainly are.”

  She took another sip of her whisky. Then another. “I shall not. I already escaped that fate twice today, thank you very much.”

  Ooh. He didn’t like that. The storm cloud darkened more. For some reason it amused her.

  “I am not Craig. I do not force women.”

  “Oh pish.” She waggled her fingers at him. “You’ve bullied me plenty since you kidnapped me.”

  “I didn’t kidnap you! That was Callum MacAllister.”

  “You brought me here. You held me prisoner. You made me slave in your kitchens.” She leaned forward and hissed, “You locked me in your dungeon.”

  “It wasn’t like that and you know it.” But it was. It was exactly like that. He knew it too. She could tell by the red tide creeping up his cheeks.

  A curl of warm elation settled in the region of her chest. She swung her feet—in this chair they didn’t touch the floor. “I can’t imagine what Edward will have to say about all this.”

  It was comical, the way he blanched. Spewed his drink. Sputtered. “Edward? Who the hell is Edward? Is he your beau?”

  Really. There was no need for him to snarl the word.

  “Edward is my cousin. He’s a duke. And a very powerful man. He will very likely have you hanged. That’s what they do to men who kidnap girls, you know.”

  “I didn’t kidnap you.”

  “I doubt it will make any difference.”

  He glared at the fire and tossed back his drink. “Probably not,” he grumbled.

  They sat in pleasant silence for a minute or two. Well, it was pleasant for her. She was enjoying his discomfort. Perhaps it was the whisky that made her bold, or the fact that she’d been so miserable when the evening ended and was not so miserable now, but when the question that had been plaguing her rose in her mind, she asked it.

  “Ewan, why do you hate me so?” She was glad her tone was merely quizzical and not melodramatic, as it probably would have been had she not downed half her drink.

  He blanched again. “I don’t hate you.” He got up and poured another dram. And then brought the decanter back to the little table between them.

  “You do. You hate me.” She studied him from beneath her lashes. “I wish I knew why. When I was a girl I…I thought you liked me.”

  He rubbed his palm over his face. “I did like you.”

  “Then what changed?”

  He didn’t answer so she asked the other question burning in her breast. “Why did you leave Browning?”

  His head snapped up. The feral look in his eyes gave her a start. “I didn’t leave.”

  “You did. One day you were there…and then you were gone.”

  “I didn’t leave. I was banished.”

  Her heart thudded. “What?”

  “My mother was turned out. Let go. Without references.”

  All the blood drained from her face. For someone of the servant class, that was akin to utter disaster. They would have been destitute with no home, no money, nothing. “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “I do not.”

  He studied her in silence. When he spoke, his voice was a low thrum. “Why did you tell your father about that kiss?”

  She wrinkled her brow. Tell her father? That Ewan St. Andrews, the lowly groom, the upstairs maid’s son, had kissed her? He would have flayed him on the spot. “I didn’t.”

  “Really?” He said it as a question but he wasn’t asking. He stood and paced, raking his hair as he’d always done when he was upset. It made him seem young again. A boy again. Hers again.

  “I told no one.”

  “Not even a little confession to your Abigail? Not a whispered brag to a friend about the silly, stupid groom who doted on you?”

  “You were neither silly nor stupid. You saved my life, Ewan. You were my hero. I would never have betrayed you like that.”

  He whirled on her. “Then how did he know? How did he know everything? Why did he drag me into his study and strip off my shirt and cane me bloody?”

  Pain swelled in her chest. Tears pricked her lids. She ached for that boy. “Oh, Ewan…”

  “He called my mother into the room and made her watch as he beat me. As he called me, and her, all manner of foul names. And then when he was done, he delivered the coup de grâce. He dismissed her.” Ewan stormed to her side and boxed her into the chair with one brawny arm on either side of her. “She was with child, Violet.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Yes. Horace Wyeth sent us out, literally, into the cold. With nothing.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Your father was a bastard.”

  Violet could not respond. She knew it was the truth. Her father had been—and died—a less than honorable man. She brushed the tears from her cheeks. She did it surreptitiously because she didn’t want him to notice. “Where did you go? Did you have family?”

  “No one.” He stalked to the fire and checked the temperature of the water in the bucket, swishing it with his fingers. “Her people tossed her out when she turned up pregnant with me. She never spoke of them. We nearly starved that winter…” He broke off and stared into the flames. He recovered himself with a sharp shake of his head. He picked up the bucket, a sponge and a cloth and knelt before her. “You don’t want to hear the re
st of this story, Violet. And frankly, I’m weary of telling it.” He dipped the sponge into the bucket and picked up her foot, scrubbing harshly.

  She allowed it. He needed something. Needed this.

  By the time he’d finished the first and toweled it dry, he had calmed, at least a bit. He was gentler with the other. When he finished he dropped the sponge in the bucket and started to stand but she forestalled him with a palm to his cheek. He froze at her touch. Closed his eyes. Leaned into it perhaps.

  “I am so sorry, Ewan. But I swear to you, I never told.”

  “Then how did he know?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe someone saw us.”

  She could tell by his reaction he had never considered the possibility. Granted, they’d been in the woods, in a shadowy copse. But they could have been seen. It broke her heart he’d simply assumed she had been so silly, so feckless. That she’d blabbed about something as sweet and sacred as that kiss had been to her.

  “I’ve never told a soul.”

  “No one?”

  “No one.”

  Their gazes tangled. “I blamed you.” His voice broke. “I blamed you for years.”

  She straightened his hair, fixing the damage he had wrought. “It’s all right.”

  “No. It’s not. I should have known.”

  She silenced him with a finger to his lips. “It’s done. Let it go.”

  Let it go.

  Something he had not been able to do for sixteen years. The prospect of releasing this burden, being free of its weight, tantalized him.

  She tantalized him.

  God. He wanted her.

  He shouldn’t kiss her now. Even though she stroked his cheek in an enticing caress. Even though she looked at him as though she was willing to forgive him all. Even though her pink tongue darted out to dab at rosy lips.

  He was betrothed to Kaitlin.

  He was supposed to marry Kaitlin. He needed to marry Kaitlin. To buy the cachet, the entrée into the ton he needed to secure Sophia’s future.

  Seducing his bride’s best friend was hardly good form.

  He shouldn’t kiss her…

  He rose up on his knees and leaned into her. Wrapped his arms around her and tugged her closer. Her eyes flared. A light he knew well and coveted. Adoration, trust, arousal.

  He shouldn’t kiss her. He shouldn’t…

  But she kissed him. She dipped her head and brushed her soft, sweet lips over his, suckling, nibbling his lower lip, enflaming him. And he was lost.

  He yanked her fully into his arms and seated his palm at the back of her head and sealed his mouth on hers. He twisted to the side, pulling her from the chair and settling her on the thick Aubusson carpet before the fire.

  She whimpered but it hovered on a sigh. She found the loose ends of his shirt. Her hands crawled up his back beneath it, scoring his flesh with their tender touch. He shuddered and deepened the kiss, questing.

  God above. She tasted like honey and whisky and woman. He couldn’t get enough. Unable to resist, he let his kisses trail over her cheek to her ear. He sucked her lobe, which caused her to wriggle deliciously beneath him. His cock, already hard, already ready, throbbed. He nudged it into the softness of her belly, mimicking what he would like to do, what he would do.

  He fixed his mouth to the delicate skin of her nape and nuzzled her, nipped. She shivered and moaned. She tipped her head to the side to enhance his access. Her nails dug into his flesh. She clutched him closer. “Yes.” A breath. “Yes.”

  Fire flared in his brain as she arched into him, rubbing against his straining cock. God, she was responsive. Warm. Willing. And here. In his arms.

  Violet.

  He shook as he worked the buttons of her frock. He opened them to reveal her breasts and his breath stalled.

  Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

  Exquisite alabaster swells tipped with rosy pink buds. Her nipples were puckered, pouting. No force in the world could have stopped him from tasting them. He drew one into his mouth, groaning in delight. He couldn’t bear to release her but he had to try the other. Back and forth he moved, suckling one tip and then the other; they swelled, tightened, ruched.

  When he grazed one with his teeth and tugged, she wailed and fisted his hair and held him there. “God,” she growled. “Ewan. Yes.”

  He would have responded but he was incapable of forming words. His tongue was busy, his mind bereft of cogent thought.

  Well, one cogent thought echoed in his brainpan.

  One thought, one urge, one burning need.

  He yanked up her skirts, trailing his palm along a velvet thigh. Her lips parted as she realized his intentions, but she did not protest.

  His heart leapt into his throat and swelled, near choking him with anticipation.

  She did not protest.

  Everything within him seized when he found her core. The tuft of silky curls. The warm, sleek entrance to heaven. Everything seized because she was wet. Slick. Ready.

  His body pulsed with the force of his heartbeat.

  He stroked her lightly. She mewled and shook. His fingers trembled as he pressed them deeper, found her pearl, that tight knot of nerves, that hard little bundle at the crux of her being.

  “Ah.” Her lashes fluttered. Her lips parted. Sweet awe transfixed her features. He dabbed at her clitoris, circled it, teased until she began to pant and squirm.

  “Do you like this?” A hoarse whisper, words forced through clenched teeth.

  “Yes. Please.”

  “Oh, I’ll please you, sweeting.” He doubled his efforts, dipping his head and tormenting her nipples at the same time.

  Her frenzy rose, and then it broke. She went rigid then devolved into a series of shudders and gasps and frantic wails, bathing him with her warmth.

  Good God, she was exquisite in her pleasure. Her head thrown back, her eyes misted over, her lips parted on a whispery sigh. He could stare at her forever. Forever. Until the end of the world.

  But he couldn’t.

  Need was upon him, and riding him hard. He fumbled with the ties of his braes, yanked them down, fisted his cock and set it in place. Her dampness kissed him and he sucked in a breath. Anticipation clawed at him. Hunger raged.

  He nudged her, touched her hymen. A thought flickered in his brain, the notion that he shouldn’t take her, shouldn’t despoil her, shouldn’t steal her virginity. But he discarded it quickly as absolute lunacy.

  This was Violet. He’d wanted her, wanted this, his entire life.

  Ewan St. Andrews McCloud was a man who took what he wanted—and God help him, he wanted her. He would have her.

  He thrust his hips, sinking in, sinking deep.

  Her body engulfed him in a hot, slick, tight embrace. Sensation scored him. Ripples coursed through his body, a bliss so sublime he could no longer think. No longer breathe. No longer see or hear or feel anything…anything but her.

  Their gazes locked. In her eyes, he saw it. Saw her pleasure, her delight. Her adoration.

  He’d never realized how much he’d missed that. Never recognized the hole its loss had carved in his soul. While he was in her, with her like this, he felt suddenly complete once more.

  Every tear he’d ever shed, every sacrifice, every loss was washed away by the flood of emotion she evoked, the flood of desire their linked bodies created.

  She writhed beneath him. The walls of her cunt rippled around him in agonizing waves. Sanity fled.

  He yanked out. She gasped, then the gasp became a deep moan as he plunged back in. Again and again, from this angle and that. He found the spot, the one that made her quiver and quake, and he worked it, barraging her with thrust after thrust after thrust of hard, hot passion.

  He knew when she came again. Her body tightened, an excruciating hold. She panted and cried out and a warm wash coated his aching cock, easing his passage.

  A frantic fervor possessed him. A burning, boiling need for release. For possession. Complete possession. As he worked her, coaxi
ng her to the edge of bliss once more, his tension rose to an unbearable peak.

  She lifted her knees, clasped his hips. Grunted and begged and quaked under the weight of every plunge. It drove him wild that she was right there with him, wrapped in rapture, urging him on, weeping for more.

  His pace increased. Shorter, harder, deeper. He felt his crest, his completion, burning in his balls, coiling at the base of his cock.

  Need blurred his vision. A need so raw, so feral, so bestial he could barely contain it. He dipped his head and captured her nipple. She cried out, came around him, clamping his cock in a vise—a vise of pleasure.

  He crested.

  Sucking in a lungful of much-needed air, he exploded. His seed erupted into her waiting womb in a hot, desperate flood. Wave after wave of seething delight scorched him, burning him to the core.

  And then a peace unlike anything he’d ever known rushed in to fill the void. It welled up within him and bubbled into his soul, saturating him with an unspeakable serenity. He closed his eyes and reveled in the moment.

  It was the sweetest moment of his life.

  And it was all because of her.

  Violet.

  Chapter Eight

  Violet awoke in heaven. A soft mattress cradled her body. Warmth cocooned her. A sense of well-being sang in her heart. It had been so long since she’d felt something so wonderful, she almost didn’t recognize it.

  It took a minute to center herself, to remember who and where she was.

  Memories of the previous night flooded her and with it came a scorching heat. It crawled up her neck in a prickling tide.

  Oh. Had she done that?

  Had she splayed herself on the carpet before Ewan’s fire and begged him to take her?

  She had.

  And heavens. It had been marvelous.

  She should probably feel the thorns of shame stabbing at her conscience. She did not. For years she had dreamed of that boy, that kiss.

  If she would give herself to a man, she couldn’t imagine a better choice. And after her experience with Craig, after the horror of nearly having her innocence ripped from her—by a man who revolted her—she could feel no regrets at giving it to Ewan.