In the fading light, Gregor said naught.
“Well?” she prompted.
“Well, what?” he whispered.
“Well, what do ye think?”
He was silent a long moment. “I think ye like to hear yerself talk.”
She giggled and poked him in the side. “One of us has to talk, husband. Do ye mind it so much?”
“Nay.” He squirmed just slightly under her touch as she moved to circle one of his nipples. “I love ye the way ye are,” he rasped.
“So, what do ye think about babies?”
His breath whooshed out of him as his large hand came up and flattened hers against his chest. “I think ye’re goin’ to get another chance, if ye keep that up.”
In surprise, she lifted her head from his shoulder to stare down at his member, lying heavy and soft against his thigh. She turned to him. “We can do that again? Really?”
“Nay, wife,” he hissed. “I’m no’ a bull, ye ken.”
That’s when the laughter broke free from her, and she rolled on top of him. Her hair formed a curtain around them as she smiled down at him.
One of his hands found her hip, and the other reached up to brush across her cheek.
“My jewel,” he whispered. “My Pearl.”
And just as her sisters had said, the sound of her name on his lips sent a shiver through her the laughter couldn’t hide.
“I love ye,” she said.
He was her husband, her Gregor. He didn’t have to speak for her to know what was in his heart. And the way his eyes sparkled told her they were going to have a very happy forever together.
Epilogue
Summer
Pearl moaned in pleasure as Gregor massaged her scalp and worked the soap into her long hair. She sat between his knees, the water lifting her up as she tilted her head back so he could reach everything. As far as he could tell, her hair was the cleanest damn hair in the whole clan, but if his wife enjoyed his ministrations, he was going to continue.
“I dreamed o’ this,” Gregor confessed.
And Pearl, being Pearl, didn’t even wince at the sound of his rough voice. In fact, since their marriage, he found himself speaking more and more; not just to her, but occasionally to others. And the Sinclairs didn’t seem to mind his voice, either. None asked him about the injury to his throat, none asked him to repeat himself. They followed the example Pearl set, and just accepted him.
It was humbling.
She smiled softly. “Ye dreamed of washing my hair?”
“Aye.” He remembered that long-ago morning at the loch, when he’d imagined her bathing behind him, only to turn and find her wearing his shirt. “I wanted to bathe with ye.”
She slid forward, out of his hold, and turned over. He was momentarily disappointed that his view of her breasts was covered, until she smiled impishly up at him, her honey hair still covered in suds and dangling around her shoulders.
“I used to watch ye, and wonder what yer shoulders would feel like, ye ken,” she said.
She rested her forearms on his knees, driving his arse further into the loch’s pebbly bottom, but he didn’t mind, because her rear end bobbed to the surface behind her.
“An’ now?” He lifted a brow.
She shrugged. “They’re all right, but no’ my favorite part of ye.”
He smiled. He was doing that a lot more often these days, too. “Ye’re feeling aright? Truly?”
She just hummed and slid up against him, so he could reach her head once more. He tilted it back, and helped her run water through the strands, although he was sure she could manage it on her own.
Last night she’d told him her suspicions. Although her stomach was still flat, her breasts had changed slightly in the past weeks, and the smell of mutton now turned her stomach.
Gregor—the Sinclair Hound—was going to be a father.
As he watched his fingers thread through her hair, he tried to imagine himself holding a wee infant. A son or daughter.
“A daughter,” he whispered, knowing he’d treasure her the way he treasured her mother.
“Nay,” she was quick to contradict him, her eyes still closed as the water cascaded around her. “A son. With his father’s beautiful eyes and strength.”
His lips twitched again. No matter how much she said she admired his body, he knew the truth: if their child was lucky, he or she would look and act like Pearl. She was beautiful, kind, and loving, and their child would be blessed to have her for a mother.
Their child.
He shook his head ruefully. It was still hard to believe, and he’d spent the day in a daze. Dougal had knocked him down twice before Gregor shook himself out of it. With William home recovering, the commander had turned the training of the younger men over to Gregor, who took his responsibility seriously.
Except when thoughts of Pearl intruded.
Sighing now, she sat up and pressed herself back against his chest. His forearms rested on his knees as he gladly took her weight. He wondered what she was thinking about.
But because Pearl wouldn’t be Pearl if she stayed silent more than a few moments at a time, she didn’t leave him wondering long.
“Do ye think it’s true? Will Agata find the Sinclair jewels for our children?”
He shrugged, careful not to dislodge her from her perch. “They’ve been lost for generations.”
“Aye, and if what my sisters suspect is true, they were hidden away on purpose. But they belong to the Sinclairs.”
Gregor cupped her breasts in each hand, and sighed in unison with her, pondering his oldest sister-in-law’s plan.
The day before Pearl had left Sinclair land for Elcho Priory, she’d visited her old nurse. Elspeth was ailing now, and had given Pearl a piece of ancient tapestry, which she’d ignored in her anger at her father. It was her sisters—Agata, Saffy, and Citrine—who examined it and decided it was a sort of map to the location of the lost Sinclair jewels.
It was the reason Agata had returned to the Mackenzies, although the rest of the clan believed it had to do with the young step-son she’d left with his father’s people. The foolish quest was probably also the reason Saffy had disappeared a few weeks later. Gregor had been the first to volunteer to lead a search party, but the laird had just chuckled and dismissed the concern.
“She’s right where she needs to be,” was all the crafty old bastard had said.
And Gregor had accepted his laird’s decision, knowing if his wife wasn’t concerned about Saffy’s whereabouts, he shouldn’t be either.
“We grew up hearing stories of the jewels. It’s impossible for us no’ to be curious what happened to them, and why.”
He flicked one thumb over her nipple, liking the way she squirmed and pressed her arse closer to him. “Impossible, aye?”
“Well,” she admitted in a near-breathless voice. “I guess I’ve other things to be concerned about. I’m a wife, ye ken. An’ I have responsibilities.”
“To yer clan. An’ to me.”
“And to our baby,” she reminded him, a smile in her voice.
“Aye,” he whispered, brushing her nipple again.
She moaned. “Gregor.”
His lips curled upward once more. She was the first person in a decade to call him by his real name, and as far as he was concerned, everyone else could continue to call him Hound if she called him Gregor. Especially if she said it in that pleading tone.
He dropped his hands to her hips and flipped her around to face him, not caring at the way the movement splashed water all over them. They were alone in the private stretch of beach, and he had her all to himself.
“Wife,” he rasped, “ye’re the most important jewel in the world.”
She was smiling when her lips closed over his, and he knew the truth, he’d love this woman until the end of his days, and beyond. She was his Sinclair Jewel.
Are you wondering what exactly Agata is up to at the Mackenzie holding? Are you ready for the rest of the Sinclair
Jewels’ stories? Then sign up for Caroline’s newsletter to be alerted when The Mackenzie Regent is available!
The Sinclair Jewels Series
Book 1 – The Sinclair Hound
Book 2 – The Mackenzie Regent
Book 3 – The Sutherland Devil
Book 4 – The MacLeod Pirate
Author’s Note on Historical Costuming
Listen, I know men didn’t wear kilts in medieval Scotland. You know men didn’t wear kilts in medieval Scotland. The first record of the Great Kilt isn’t until the 16th Century, but tartans (the plaid made with specific colors) are much, much older.
So, my medieval Highlanders wear kilts, because…come on. You just can’t beat a hot Scottish guy in a kilt with a sword!
Hopefully you’ll forgive this little bit of historical inaccuracy for the delicious dude on the cover.
About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Caroline Lee has been reading romance for so long that her fourth-grade teacher used to make her cover her books with paper jackets. But it wasn’t until she (mostly) grew up that she realized she could WRITE it too. So she did.
Caroline is living her own little Happily Ever After in NC with her husband, sons, and brand-new daughter, Princess Wiggles. And while she doesn’t so much “suffer” from Pittakionophobia as think all you people who enjoy touching Band-Aids and stickers are the real weirdos, she does adore rodents, and never met a wine she didn’t like. Caroline was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006 (along with the rest of you) and is really quite funny in person. Promise.
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