Breaking their kiss, Vin buried his face in the curve of her neck, kissing and biting as their wild passion grew. He felt her tighten and lifted his head to watch her once more, her eyes closed, her head arched back as she bit her lip.
“Lovey, look at me,” he urged thickly. “Let me see.”
Moira blinked and met his hot chocolate gaze just as she shattered with a throaty scream. “Ah!” she arched her whole self against him, clinging to his shoulders. “Vin! Oh, Vin!”
The moment she found her release, Vin burst inside her flooding her hotly as she spasmed around him, her body gripping his. He drove brutally into her with a shout, feeling his own climax tear through him.
“Ah, God! I can’t…lovey, ah, God!” Vin collapsed on top of her as she continued to pulse around him. Their hearts pounded as one, their haggard breaths left their chests heaving against each other.
The doorknob rattled and they both froze holding their breath.
A soft thump immediately followed it leading Moira to think that her maid, Lucy, had come up intending to enter and had bumped straight into the door when it hadn’t opened. She could just hear the maid’s thoughts as she stood on the other side of that portal, wondering why it would be locked for Moira rarely locked it. Thank God, Vin had thought to do so!
After a brief pause, the knob jiggled a bit, and then jiggled again.
A moment later a light knock sounded. “Lady Moira?” Lucy called.
Taking a deep breath, she called trying to sound as normal as possible. “Yes, Lucy?”
“Lady Glenrothes is wondering if you’ll be joining them for luncheon?”
Moira traded a startled look with Vin. Neither had thought anyone was at home. “I will. Um, please let her know I was napping and will be down as soon as I can.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Their eyes met. Vin’s teeth flashed as he smiled and Moira couldn’t help but giggle.
Vin pressed kisses to her neck and cheek before gathering her to him and turning onto his back pulled her next to him. Catching his breath, he stared at the silk rosette in the center of the canopy. “That was for the best, I suppose. I will need a chance to regain my energies for tonight.”
“What are you doing tonight?” she asked with wide-eyed innocence before casting a wicked grin his way.
He laughed and caught her to him tightly kissing her deeply. “The question isn’t what, lovey. It’s who.”
“Mmm,” Moira hummed as she watched him rise and gather his clothes. “I rather like the idea of being done.”
“And I will enjoy the doing.” He playfully set a light smack to her bottom. “Come now, at least let me help you lace you corset back up unless you’d like to explain to Lucy why you had it off.”
With a laugh, she climbed off the bed to join him.
Chapter 28
Friendship is Love without his wings!
~ Lord Byron
Vin waited on the second-floor landing for Moira so that he might escort her into luncheon. As he leaned back against the banister, he began to consider that the interruption to their sensual afternoon was for the best for more reasons than the one he had given her.
Despite Moira’s saucy behavior, she was an innocent, virginal woman. Even more experienced women tended to have trouble separating lust and sex from something deeper. He’d seen that look in her eyes when she held him. That tenderness. Given what they already felt for each other, he didn’t think a little tenderness was misplaced but he didn’t want Moira thinking there was more to this affair than there was.
Friendship with occasional sex was all he wanted from her. It was what she wanted as well, by her own words. She felt the same loneliness he did. They were only each giving what the other needed. Companionship. He would find a way to keep the balance, to keep their friendship and attraction from transforming in her mind to more than it was. Women tended to assume love when there was only lust and get grandiose ideas about the future. Moira was more levelheaded than most, but she was still a woman and an unmarried one at that. She might develop unwanted expectations.
Yet, he was heartily aware of his own reactions to their intimacy. It he thought he felt peace and contentment with her at his bedside, it was nothing compared with how he felt with her in it. There was a rightness to it and, as he had thought before, it could become addicting. He didn’t need one more crutch to get through life and hated any thought that he was becoming dependent on her. Vin felt he somehow needed to figure out how to cope on his own. But that didn’t stop his mind from yearning for something more. Vin frowned appalled by the very idea of needing a woman. He had seen how far that got men. It was something he didn’t want to entangle himself in.
He would simply have to find a way to keep his friendship with Moira detached from their sexual affair. If Vin were to start thinking about them together, it might plant ideas in his mind that were best left unexplored. Besides, there was always the risk of a change in her love of him if she were to discover the truth of Jason’s death and his role in it. He needed to keep his distance from her emotionally, learn to not rely on her too heavily for anything lest she come to hate him one day and abandon him in every way.
* * *
Moira came down the stairs to find Vin staring at the wall lost in thought. It was a look she’d seen often on his face in the past couple weeks whenever she came on him unawares. It was as if he were somewhere else entirely and she wondered where his mind went to in those times. What he thought about.
Vin noticed her arrival and, though he didn’t smile, his eyes lit with appreciation as they settled on her. She was so incredibly lovely, he thought. Her brown eyes were dancing as if she were excited, her cheeks flushed with becoming color. She’d left her hair down and wore a simple white blouse with a cameo at her throat and dark green skirt. For all the formal gowns he’d seen on her this week, he thought she’d never looked more appealing.
Pushing aside his doubts, he held arm out to her and they descended the stairs together, finding Francis and Eve in the drawing room waiting for them.
“Evie,” Moira said happily, unable to contain her bubbling enthusiasm for the day, a direct contrast to the rain slapping at the windows and the wind rattling them in their panes. But there was a fire burning brightly as she went and perched by her friend’s side on the settee. “I thought you were attending Ilona’s luncheon this afternoon.”
“Canceled for the weather,” Eve told her, eyeing her thoughtfully. Leaning closer, she drawled under her breath, “Napping, hmm? Suddenly it seems quite doubtful.”
“What can I say, Evie? You’re a horrible chaperone,” Moira’s eyes twinkled merrily at her friend.
“I must be,” Eve returned. “Your father would never forgive me.” She considered Moira with a tilt of her head before smiling mischievously. “I suppose I must ask you the same question you and Abby once asked of me. Tell me, Moira, how was Vincent MacKintosh?”
A hot blush burned Moira’s cheeks. “I should never have teased you so much. You seem to be taking great joy in turning the tables these past several day.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Did he…?”
“I will only say it was carried out to our mutual satisfaction,” Moira whispered back. “Is that enough for you?”
“It will have to be I suppose.” Concern shadowed across Eve’s face. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“No, not really,” Moira shrugged away the worries that lingered on the horizon. “But aren’t you the one who urged me to take the risk? You said not a month ago I needed to give Vin a chance and I am.”
“I don’t think I ever truly imagined it going so far. I don’t want to see you get hurt, dear,” Eve worried.
“I won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Moira studied Vin as he stood talking with his brother but his eyes were on her. She could read the warmth there. The affection. But there was some hesitation there as well. Was it simply h
is unwillingness to accept his feelings or was there more keeping him from her?
“I just need to have faith, I suppose. Without him, I don’t know what else I would do. He is what I want for better or worse.”
“What are you ladies whispering about?” Francis asked as the dinner bell chimed.
“Nothing,” Eve assured him. “Let’s eat, shall we? Moira is famished.”
“I am?”
Eve arched a brow at her friend. “Aren’t you?”
Chapter 29
Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
~ Mark Twain
Francis watched his brother throw back his head and laugh at whatever it was Moira was telling him and the sound of it warmed his heart, their shared amusement flooding him with relief. After the past month, he thought he would never hear his brother laugh again.
To say that Vin had been a different man since his return—a fact every one of their siblings had taken the time to point out—was an understatement. Sadness, misery had hung on Vin’s shoulders as heavily as Francis’ ill-fitting jacket.
He would have thought his brother couldn’t become any more morose than he’d been those first weeks in London as he began recovering his strength. The first week during his return to Edinburgh, however, Francis had begun to think Vin might never smile again much less laugh as he was now. Nearly every day, he would come upon his brother to find him staring into a fire, out a window or at the ceiling of his room. The look on his face would hold such devastation Francis would have to look away, and then slip away to allow his brother his privacy. Whatever he was thinking of in those moments removed his mind from his body and sent it into the depths of despair.
A despair Francis had begun to feel as well. He’d felt helpless in those moments, wanting to help but knowing Vin didn’t want it. Or couldn’t accept it. Pride was often a difficult burden to bear. If he had known Moira was the key to Vin’s recovery before, he might have sent her down to London in Sung Li’s place.
He watched Moira talking animatedly to Vin, her hands waving over her head before creating a large circle in front of her and Vin burst out in laughter once again. Moira laughed as well shaking her head before she caught Francis watching her out of the corner of her eye. She turned to him curiously and Francis gave her a smile and a nod hoping she could see his appreciation in the gesture. Moira nodded as well returning his smile before Vin recalled her attention with a “Then what happened?”
She leaned in and whispered in a conspiratorial fashion. Whatever she said sent them both into peals of laughter that brought a broad smile to Francis’ face. But that smile slid away when Vin caught her hand in his raising it to his lips. He kissed it looking at her with open desire and promise in his eyes that had Moira blushing and Francis shifting uncomfortably.
Bugger me, he swore inwardly. When had that happened? It was a clearly intimate look that could only mean one thing.
Vin and Moira were sleeping together.
Or rather, not sleeping together.
He knew since Vin’s return from Raven’s Craig the previous night that he was acting differently. Vin had spent the whole day acting like…well, rather acting like the brother he had known years ago. The tension was gone from his brother’s shoulders, the worry gone from his eyes.
But at what cost?
He turned to find Eve standing at his elbow, their newborn son in her arms. She’d just returned from fetching wee Preston from the nursery and was now staring at Vin and Moira as well but there was no surprise in her expression, only concern.
“You knew about this?” he asked in a low voice, drawing her attention to him. At her slight nod, his frown deepened. “Were you not going to say anything about it?”
Eve shook her head silently, but a smile twitched at the corner of her mouth before she bit her lip to hide it. He shook his head as well but in disbelief. “You of all people, my Eden. Where has my proper countess gone?”
“She was banished by you,” she teased, lowering their baby into his arms before seating herself close to his side. “In a manner very similar to that, if you’ll recall.”
“I don’t think you risked as much as Moira,” he argued, calling her attention to a basic truth. “I loved you even then.”
Eve rested her head against her husband’s strong shoulder and hugged his arm. “It’s all right. It will be all right.”
“Will it?”
“Listen to them,” she whispered into his sleeve though she could not help but feel the same dread she knew Francis was feeling.
Vin had taken Moira, shedding the desperate wanting they had seen in him over the past two weeks, and Moira had finally gotten her Vin as she had always wanted. However, it was a delicate balance at this point. Eve knew that only too well. Soon Moira would want more. She would want what she had desired for years. Vin as her husband. If Vin refused to give her the love she wanted to go with it, Eve feared the bitterness would drive them apart.
Leaving them both empty and desolate once more.
“He sounds so happy, my paradise,” Francis murmured into Eve’s hair. “I wish for his sake, Vin would realize that a lifetime with Moira might make him even happier than he is right now.”
“He will,” Eve told him firmly.
“Before it’s too late?”
“All we can do is keep helping it along any way we can.”
“By allowing Moira to be ruined?” he argued, wondering if they had failed Moira somewhere along the way by allowing this to pass. “No man will want her after this. What if Vin turns her away? What will she do then?”
Eve could only shake her head. She had worried the same questions in her mind the last several days, but it boiled down to the simple truth that Moira and Vin were both adults and free to make their own choices even if they resulted in the worse.
“I don’t know. All I can do is hope. It is what she wants, Francis. How can I deny her that?”
“We are the worst chaperones in the world,” he told her, then reluctantly chuckled. “I took that same risk Moira is taking with you, you know. Do you remember, Eden?”
“I remember I had to seduce you myself to get you to make a move,” she teased, stretching up to kiss him lightly.
“I bound you to me until I knew that you would never let me go,” he corrected, shifting the baby so he could wrap an arm around her. She could feel his heart beating hard beneath her palm. “I made sure you’d become so addicted to me that you’d never let me go.”
“Is that what you did?” she teased before sighing regretfully. “Francis, we can’t yet.”
“I’ll never let you have another child if it keeps me from your bed,” he growled, burying his face in her hair before turning to suck on the sensitive flesh below her ear.
“It hasn’t kept you from my bed,” she told him breathlessly, tilting her head to allow him greater access.
“From your body then.”
“And hardly from that,” Eve teased. “You have been ever inventive this week, my love.”
“I have had a couple new ideas.”
“Romantic ideas?”
“I always do my best, paradise.”
“I know you do…” She sighed mournfully. “There are so many wonderful ways to spend a rainy afternoon. Do you think we might sneak away for a while?”
“Don’t tempt me,” he growled in her ear before shaking his head ruefully. “If we go, I have little doubt they will follow suit. I don’t think I can so fully encourage this folly.”
“Good Lord, Francis,” she giggled. “Where do you think they were before luncheon?”
With a groan, Francis leaned his head back against the settee. “We are the worst chaperones ever.”
“I’ve heard the same as well.” Eve smoothed the dark, downy hair on their son’s head with the back of her finger. “Let them have their nights. I will do my best to distract their days.”
Eve smiled down at her son as he opened his eyes. “Moira, come and look! I
think Preston is going to have Da’s eyes.”
“How can you tell that already?” Moira returned, rising to join them near the fire. Vin followed along behind her. “He’s not even a month old yet.”
Eve allowed Moira to scoop her son from her arms, enjoying the sight of her friend rocking the baby in her arms as she cooed down at him. She would make a wonderful mother someday. Eve wanted that for her friend. She wanted Moira to find the same bliss she had found with her Francis. After all the years Moira had spent waiting for Vin, Eve hoped her friend would not have made her sacrifices in vain.
“I think he smiled at me!” Moira exclaimed. “Is he old enough to smile yet?”
“Not really,” Eve told her, holding back a grin of amusement when Moira turned offering Preston to Vin.
He took his nephew awkwardly, allowing Moira to instruct him on how to properly hold an infant. Moira must have forgotten Vin was one of the oldest of eleven children. He’d likely been holding a baby without a care since he was leading strings himself. He made a good show of it though, letting Moira prompt him to cradle Preston in his arms, but Eve could see the casual expertise in his movements. Moira was the one she normally worried about.
* * *
Vin looked down at the baby in his arms. It was one thing to play with Laurie and Tristram, they were lads and he understood them. He could even take some pleasure in Richard’s twin girls but they were chubby toddlers and seemed much more sturdy than this newborn infant. It had been a long time since he’d held one so small and even then, they had seemed bigger to him. This new, innocent life seemed almost alien to him, not in form but in what he represented.
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