Beloved

by Stella Cameron

  “Come, come, now, baby,” Max said, catching Kirsty’s wrist and urging her to sit on the dry grass in front of him. “You’re my favorite Scottish kelpie. Always will be.”

  She applied a forefinger to his nose and brought her eyes so close to his that hers crossed, and he laughed. “Dinna laugh at me,” she said, giggling herself. “At least say ye dinna kill anybody in that foreign place. Me ma says a man who kills isna’ a man unless he’d die fer the want o’ the killin’.”

  “Aye,” Max said, beginning to slip into the brogue he’d once deliberately adopted. “Well, since it’s you I’m talking to, and since I know you’ll like me no matter what, I’ll tell the truth.”

  He rested his chin on his folded hands. Life was good at Kirkcaldy. After what he’d almost done to Ella, he didn’t deserve to be here with the rest of the family, but he was grateful they refused to let him leave them. Uncle Calum had helped the most. He’d told Max how he’d risked everything to be sure who he was—and how much he regretted never having met his father. If Uncle Calum could admit a few mistakes, why should Max do less?

  Kirsty maneuvered onto her tummy, stretched out, and copied Max’s pose. She’d mimicked everything he did from the day he’d first been taken to visit her parents’ cottage. He’d only been a child of eleven then, rather than a man of sixteen.

  “So tell me, then, ” Kirsty said. “The truth, Max.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “And ye dinna fight a dozen men?”

  He closed one eye and looked into her blue ones with the other. “No,” he said without intending to. “No, I didn’t fight a dozen men. I didn’t even fight one.”

  “Hmm.” Her hair shone. She plucked at yellow blades of grass. “I like ye, Max Rossmara.”

  “You’re passable yourself, Kirsty Mercer.”

  “Hmm.” She wrinkled her nose. “Ella … Lady Avenall’s even more beautiful than when she wasna’ Lord Avenall’s wife.”

  “Ella’s beautiful,” Max said, and felt the twist of self-dis- gust that had become his frequent companion. “And good. And brave. Saber’s not so bad, either.”

  “He’s bonnie,” Kirsty said. “Ye’ve a verra bonnie family. My da and ma say as much a’ the time.”

  “They’re right,” Max agreed. “Bonnie and honorable.”

  “And kind,” Kirsty said, never taking her gaze from him. “Ye’re all kind. I love ye all. Even the old one who makes me scairt.”

  “The dowager?” Max tweaked her chin and smiled. “She’s the best. And we all love ye, too.” He glanced around. Uncle Arran and Aunt Grace sat with their children under the wide branches of an oak at the foot of the rise where Max and Kirsty lay. Uncle Calum and Aunt Pippa walked, arm-in-arm, down steps from a terrace beneath one of the castle towers. Papa and Mama were on their way from the lodge to join the rest of the family for a picnic.

  When he’d last seen Great-Grandmama, she’d been arguing with Blanche Bastible about a bonnet.

  Who knew where Ella and Saber were, except they were together? They were always together.

  “Elizabeth grows tall,” Grace, Marchioness of Stonehaven, said. “I believe she will escape the curse of being as short as her mother.” The company of her husband and children never failed to fill her with peace and joy.

  Arran put a powerful arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his shoulder. He leaned against the oak. “If Elizabeth resembles her mother in any manner, she is favored,” he told Grace. “She has your fair hair.”

  “And your green eyes, my lord.”

  “We are fortunate in our three children. But, above all, I am blessed in you.”

  She kissed his cheek. “I painted you again yesterday.”

  “Oh, no!” He drew away from her and pretended to curl up as if in pain. “No, no, say it isn’t true!”

  “Arran Rossmara, you are a beast!” She pummeled his broad back and the children came, running and shrieking at the prospect of a family romp. “Behave yourself, Arran. Calum and Pippa are walking in this direction. And the others will be here soon enough.”

  He caught her around the waist and swept her to her back on the grass. Elizabeth, Niall, and two-year-old James entered the fray.

  “I don’t suppose we shall see Ella and Saber too soon,” Arran said, his green eyes flashing as they did when he looked at her and thought of private times. “They have more sense.”

  “More sense? I painted you and you laughed at me. I shall not be easily diverted.”

  “I shall look forward to seeing your latest representational painting of me. Do I bear the customary gold adornment?”

  Grace smiled. “You do indeed.”

  “Well,” Arran said. “Since you insist upon painting me naked, and in paying particular homage to what you must consider to be my best feature, one hopes you have done it justice.”

  Grace contrived to steal a covert squeeze of the “feature” he mentioned.

  Arran bared his teeth. “Have a care, my sweet, or you will embarrass us both. On second thoughts, don’t have a care. Be carefree.”

  “As you say,” Grace agreed. “But I’ve just discovered something that must be set straight at once.”

  “And what might that be?” He gathered her in one arm and sat up. With his other arm, he surrounded their three small children.

  “Hello, Calum!” Grace called. “Hello, Pippa. Come and join us.” To Arran she whispered, “I shall have to retouch the painting. I’ve obviously grossly underestimated your best feature.”

  He laughed aloud. “We’d best collect ourselves. The clan is about to come together.”

  “Where are Ella and Saber?” Grace said.

  “They’ll be along,” Arran told her. “With eyes only for each other. And wherever they are, you can be sure they’re together.”

  Calum, Duke of Franchot, drew his duchess to a halt some way distant from Arran, Grace, and their children. “We should let the boys catch up, Pippa.” At three and two, William and Charles were fiercely independent and liked to make their own way. They had negotiated the flights of stone steps to the lawns but were diverted by something to which William pointed.

  “Oh, bother,” Pippa said. “Look at him. Falling into a flower bed already. That child cannot curb his curiosity for a moment.”

  “I seem to recall that his mother has always been adventurous.” Pippa had never hesitated to embark on lone journeys through their estates in Cornwall. He held her arm more tightly beneath his. “But I don’t think your venturesome nature is what I like best about you.”

  She folded her hands on his forearm and swung away. “My coquettishness? That’s it, isn’t it? You love the way I flirt.” When she laughed, her deep-blue eyes sparkled and he was once again enraptured by the dramatic contrast to her dark hair. “Calum? Isn’t that what you like best about me?”

  Overwhelmed by his feelings for her, he drew her close and rested his chin atop her head. “If that was what I liked best, there would be precious little else to like.”

  “I like everything about you, Calum. I always have.”

  “You once didn’t like my temper.”

  “You needed your temper—and your fearlessness. I know that now.”

  Calum studied Pippa’s face. “What I love most about you is your gentleness. Your gentleness has made me a gentler man, a more thoughtful man.”

  “Only a strong man dares to be gentle,” she said, smiling at him.

  He glanced past her. “Struan and Justine have arrived. Ah, how good it is to be gathered together here.”

  “Mmm. I wonder where Ella and Saber are?”

  “Who knows.” Turning her toward Arran and Grace beneath the great oak, he steered her onward once again. “Although we do know they’re together. They’re always together.”

  Her only mistake had been to wait, to wait even the short time she had waited before traveling to Scotland—and to Struan. Lady Justine, Viscountess Hunsingore, laughed, and steadied herself as the
carriage drew to a halt.

  “And what amuses you so, my dear?” her darkly handsome husband asked. “When you chuckle like that, I wonder if you have some secret you have kept from me.”

  She looked at him from beneath thick lashes. “Oh, I do. A great secret.”

  Struan leaped to the ground, caught her by the waist, and lifted her from the carriage they used to travel between the castle and the hunting lodge where they made their home. He reached back inside to pick up tiny Sarah and to help two-year-old Edward to the driveway.

  “I shall not press you for your secrets, Justine. I have learned the folly of imposing my will—trying to impose my will upon yours.”

  “Such a clever man I married,” she told him. “Because you are so clever, I’ll share the reason for my laughter. It’s because I’m happier than I ever thought possible. And I laughed at myself for being such a goose.”

  “A goose?” He looked at her sharply.

  She inclined her head. “For ever allowing you to leave Cornwall without me—after we first met. And then for not following you to Scotland immediately.”

  Struan remembered the night when she’d arrived, declaring that she had come simply to “help” him. How quickly that had changed. “But you did follow,” he said. “I choose to thank God for that. Otherwise, I should have been forced to hunt you down myself. So much more of a chore.”

  This time they laughed together, and turned together at the sound of a hard little cough. The dowager, with Blanche at her shoulder, stood a short distance away.

  “Grandmama!” Justine said. “What an—incredible bonnet.” More gray than black, the brocade creation all but trembled with the weight of jet and crystal beads suspended beneath the brim.

  The dowager raised her head, causing the dangling decorations to bobble. “There, Blanche. I was right. Justine has always had the most marvelous taste in all things, and she thinks this bonnet suitable.”

  Justine turned away in time to hide her smile. “It looks as if we shall be the last to arrive,” she said when she could control her voice. “They’re all over there under Grace’s oak.”

  Struan adjusted his grip on Sarah and let Edward run toward the lawns. “Not Saber and Ella.”

  “No. No, you’re right. They will come—when they remember.” She shook her head. “How those two do live for one another.”

  “For and through one another,” he agreed. “And how grateful we are for that. They are inseparable.”

  Saber and Ella stood at a window in Revelation, the tower that had been Arran’s bachelor quarters, but which he now shared with Grace.

  “I love Scotland,” Ella said.

  Saber hid a smile. “I’m surprised to hear you say as much.”

  “You know—” Ella pursed her lips and poked his ribs. “You fun me, Saber. I suppose you mean that I ‘say as much’ far too often.”

  “There is nothing you say that I would not listen to as often as you wish to say it,” he told her, pleased with his own charming repartee. “I love Scotland too. How could I not love it when it means so much to you?”

  “You, sir,” she said, narrowing her eyes and pointing at him, “are a silver-tongued rogue.”

  “Only with you, my love, only with you.”

  She turned to look through the windows. “We should join the others.”

  “Surely we have time—”

  “No,” she broke in tartly. “We do not have time. You, husband, are insatiable.”

  “And what a trial that must be for you.”

  She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Ella kissed him until he feared they might be forced to delay going outside.

  When he slipped his hands from her waist to her bottom and pulled her against him, she placed her fists firmly on his shoulders and arched away. “In case you forget the event, my lord, we are barely out of our bed—again.”

  “Haven’t forgotten,” he said, nuzzling her neck, licking the hollow above her collarbone—and the soft rise of her breasts. “Unforgettable.”

  “In that case—”

  “Repeatable.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Unforgettably repeatable.”

  “Saber, we have to—”

  “Repeatably unforgettable.”

  “Repeatably isn’t a word.” Giggling, she fell against him. “We are supposedly taking a stroll to collect ourselves before presenting our faces to the others. I suggest we continue—and quickly.”

  “We could do the other quickly.”

  “You are impossible.”

  “Thingie,” Saber said, chuckling deep in his throat. “A quick thingie?”

  “You horror! I’ve made a monster of you.”

  Saber grew still. He framed her face and checked every beloved feature. “You took a monster and made him human, marvelously human. You made me believe in myself again. You made me seek the light when I would have sunk deeper and deeper into the darkness. I truly believed I was doomed to madness.”

  Her expression grew serious. “Only by confronting the darkness could we hope to take away its sting, Saber.”

  “I wish I could completely chase away the specters.”

  “Perhaps they will disappear one day. Meanwhile, you have me at your side to help you. And the episodes grow fewer and fewer.”

  His smile spread from the inside. Saber felt its warmth engulf him, and saw Ella’s eyes glow with reflected pleasure. “We went through hell, you and I,” he told her.

  “And we escaped,” she said. “I try not to think of the past— particularly not—”

  “Not of what happened to you at Lushbottam’s? When you were a child, or when our enemies were unmasked?” They had made a pact never to avoid the events that had all but destroyed them both. “We have the future to look to now, Ella.”

  “It will wait.” Ella caught his hand and pulled him. When he held his ground, she scowled and yanked harder. “The past is over but not forgotten. The future is to be anticipated and planned for. It is the present in which we live, my love.”

  “Hmm. And in the present our company is expected elsewhere?”

  “Indeed. So, if you will allow me to lead you, my love?”

  Reluctantly, grinning at the effort she expended, Saber did allow his wife to urge him, step by step, toward their appointment with the family.

  When they emerged from the tower into the sunshine, he whirled Ella back into his arms and kissed her soundly. “A pact, beloved,” he said. “Can we make a pact?”

  “Name it. They are all watching.”

  “And enjoying every moment. Our pact shall be: Together, forever.”

  Ella grew still. She raised her eyes to his. “Forever together, beloved.”

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  STELLA CAMERON

  lives in Washington State with her husband, three children, and beloved dog, Spike. A happily transplanted “Brit,” she loves being a wife, mother, friend, writer, and an American––in that order. Hopes? To be fitter, thinner, and more patient. Fears? Running out of time to write all her stories.

  You can write to her in care of Warner Books, Inc., Time & Life Building, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 or visit her on the internet.

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  http://www.seanet.com/Vendors/byran/stella.html

  HIS HIDDEN FURY

  Five years earlier Saber, the Earl of Avenall, had won her young fancy, then mysteriously vanished. Now fate reunites them and Ella stands before him: grown, beautiful, seductive. Even as Saber swears never to taint her with his own dark demons, he cannot resist her. Nor can he stand idle while vicious ton gossips set out to ruin her. As their passion grows, so does his inner torment. Yet Ella knows that together they must face society––and each other’s secrets––if they are to realize the full bliss of their love.

  HER FORBIDDEN PAST

  Hunted by a scandalous girlhood, Ella Rossmara vows to find happiness. In London for the Season, she is matched to a man she detests––but yearns for another, the enigmatic Earl of Avenall, the man they call Saber.

  “HER NARRATIVE IS RICH, HER STYLE DISTINCT, AND HER CHARACTERS WONDERFULLY WICKED.”

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  *Available from WARNER BOOKS