A Scandalous Winter Wedding

by Marguerite Kaye

  Utterly lost in the moment, every instinct urged her to take him inside her. She tugged at his shoulders, pulling him on top of her, pressing pleading kisses to his lips. He responded with deep kisses, his fingers twining through her hair, long escaped from its pins, but when she fumbled for the buttons on his breeches Cameron rolled away.

  ‘There’s a point when even my self-control will falter, and I think we’ve just about reached it,’ he said, getting to his feet, holding out his hand to help her up. ‘Please don’t fret,’ he added, kissing her again. ‘I found that every bit as pleasurable as you did.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his eyes. ‘I mean it.’

  And she could see, astonishingly, that he did. ‘Thank you?’ she said doubtfully,

  He laughed, kissing her soundly once more before letting her go. ‘No, thank you. Now, I think we should put some clothes on and sample some of this food before it spoils.’

  ‘You’re right. Monsieur Salois, the Duke of Brockmore’s renowned French chef, will be less than impressed if we don’t do his dishes justice.’

  * * *

  They had climbed a spiral staircase to the rooftop temple to watch the sun sink over the lake before finally quitting the island. On the drive back, wary of danger from highwaymen and roadside blaggards lurking in the growing gloom, Cameron sat on watch, armed with a pistol which Kirstin had produced from a secret panel in the phaeton. Nothing should surprise him about her now, but she was still capable of astounding him.

  When they arrived at the hotel, the carriage and horses were handed into the care of another groom, this one clearly Kirstin’s own, for he drove the equipage off rather than heading for the mews belonging to the hotel.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cameron said, turning to her at the door of his suite, bowing over her hand. ‘For a perfectly lovely day.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to end here.’

  ‘I don’t want it to, but—are you sure, Kirstin?’

  ‘It is a matter of taking appropriate precautions,’ she said, and he was surprised to see her blushing. ‘You mentioned that you have...’

  ‘I do.’ His heart was already galloping, but he forced himself to ask her one more time. ‘Is that the only thing you’re worried about?’ When she nodded, he pressed her hand. ‘Give me a minute. I’ll join you directly.’

  When he did, Kirstin had already taken off her pelisse, bonnet, and gloves. She locked the door behind him. Her hand trembled as she did so.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not having second thoughts?’ he asked her.

  ‘Not second thoughts, but I can’t help feeling nervous,’ she admitted reluctantly.

  ‘You’re not the only one.’

  ‘It’s silly, isn’t it? A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the last time.’

  ‘Kirstin, I’m not interested in reliving the past. I don’t want to make love to the woman I met six years ago. I want to make love to you.’

  She thought this over. He waited. She gave that little nod of hers. Then she came to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She smiled at him. That smile.

  They kissed again, but there was none of the languor of those earlier kisses. These kisses were purposeful, urgent. He ran his fingers through her hair as they kissed, pulling out the pins as she unbuttoned his waistcoat. He shed it with his coat onto the floor.

  Their kisses had an edge to them now, a raw hunger that could not be sated by kisses alone. Still kissing, leaving a trail of clothing behind them, they staggered together to the bedchamber. He began to unhook her gown. She tugged at his shirt, smoothing her hands over his chest, pressing her mouth to his throat, licking him, making him moan. Her gown pooled at her feet. She stepped out of it and they moved towards the bed.

  He stopped thinking as he helped her out of the last of her clothes, lost in the sheer delight of sensation, his mouth on her nipples, watching her eyes flicker shut as he sucked, licked, stroked. She unfastened the buttons at the front of his breeches. He kicked himself free and she stared at him blatantly, examining his chest, his belly, down to his erection.

  She reached for him, running her hand up the length of him, curling her fingers around him, making his breath ragged, making him harder, thicker, pulsing in her hand. Then they were on the bed, her legs wrapped around him, their mouths meeting in another deep, hungry kiss, and he slid his fingers inside her. She was so wet. So tight. He stroked her. She moaned. Arched. Muttered his name. More than ready. As he was.

  He quickly sheathed himself. She wrapped her legs around him. One last deep kiss, tongue thrusting, and he entered her, pausing, breathing deeply, clutching at the ragged remnants of his control. She tightened around him as he eased further into her, her eyes wide, watching him shudder, feeling him pulse, and then he began to thrust, slow, harder, hard, fast, and she became a wild creature beneath him, her body finding a rhythm with his, matching him thrust for thrust. She cried out as she climaxed, and then he came with a hoarse cry, falling on top of her, his chest heaving, his arms tight around her, before his mouth found hers in one last, delightfully sated kiss.

  Chapter Nine

  Kirstin watched as her daughter’s left hand curled around the pencil, her expression one of intense concentration. Cameron was left-handed. ‘Corrie-fisted’, he called it, though he could write a passable script with his right hand, having been forced to favour it at school.

  Eilidh glanced up, smiled distractedly, and went back to her sums. The little kink in her hair was sticking up as usual. It was the same kink that Cameron had. And her hair, which Kirstin had always thought reminiscent of her own, was also the exact colour of Cameron’s. Marianne was forever saying that mother and daughter were the image of each other, but, looking at her afresh, Kirstin could see that the firm line of her daughter’s chin did not come from the Blair bloodline but from...

  From her father.

  Kirstin felt slightly sick. She wouldn’t ever be able to look at her precious daughter again without seeing Cameron. Every time she examined the clever, carefully detailed drawings Eilidh made, she would be reminded that she had inherited her artistic ability from her father. And she would wonder, as Eilidh grew older, which of her skills and ambitions and preferences were her own, and which had been derived from the man who would never be part of her life, whose identity she would never be aware of.

  A man who decidedly did not want children. A man who would resent his own child for curtailing his freedom.

  You can’t miss what you have never had, he had said bitterly, referring to his own lack of a father. But the words rang hollow, even though she was still adamant that Eilidh didn’t need a father, and equally sure that Cameron didn’t want a daughter.

  Kirstin stared down at the unread newspaper on her lap. The consequences of that first night with Cameron had been so momentous as to make her reluctant to repeat the experience. Her occasional dalliances with other men had been unsatisfying, but yesterday had proved once and for all that she was not, as she had assumed, beyond passion. When Cameron had left her in the early hours of this morning she had lain awake, replaying every touch, every sensation he had aroused, already longing for more despite the pleasant sated ache of her body.

  Such passion could only be transitory in nature, but they did not even have the luxury of that small amount of time. She would miss him, the only person in her life who knew who she was and why her life had turned out this way, for she had told him far more than she had ever confessed to Marianne. Cameron truly understood her. Save that there was something fundamental about her he didn’t know.

  Guilt gnawed at her as she studied her daughter. She was withholding a fact that he didn’t want to hear and it would destroy both their lives if she told him. Her guilt was therefore illogical. Yet it refused to be quelled. But it would, in time. One more thing to inure herself to.

>   The clock struck the hour and Kirstin smoothed her daughter’s hair affectionately. ‘Time for tea, young lady. Marianne said she would bring a chocolate cake.’

  ‘Are you staying for tea, Mummy?’

  ‘Yes, darling, but then I have to go out.’

  Eilidh nodded solemnly. ‘Business,’ she said, matter-of-factly, making for the stairs. ‘I know.’

  A delighted whoop told Kirstin that the cake had not been forgotten. Marianne appeared in the doorway and, seeing the question on Kirstin’s face, immediately shook her head.

  ‘Not a peep from anyone on the list you gave me, sorry.’ She picked up Eilidh’s workbook, flicking through the pages. ‘Not a single mistake, as ever. She has a real head for figures.’

  ‘Of course—she is her mother’s daughter!’ Kirstin said, more vehemently than she’d intended.

  ‘Have you a headache?’ Marianne asked, giving her a strange look.

  ‘No. Sorry. I had hoped that we would have news today, that’s all.’

  Marianne sat down at Eilidh’s desk, her slight build only just too big for the chair. A frown drew her fair brows together. ‘It’s horrible, thinking of those two girls locked up somewhere.’

  ‘Assuming the pair of them are still together. I’m aware I’m asking a great deal of you, Marianne, expecting you to look after the business as well as Eilidh in my absence.’

  ‘I like to think I’ve earned your trust.’

  ‘More than that. I rely on you.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking you could rely on me a great deal more.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re turning business away all the time. I could help, Kirstin. Not replace you, never that, but I could become more involved.’

  ‘But what about Eilidh?’

  Marianne hesitated. ‘You’re not going to like what I have to say.’

  ‘Not if you’re going to suggest—again—that I send her to school.’

  ‘You know that I’m right.’

  ‘No,’ Kirstin said flatly. ‘I won’t discuss this.’

  ‘Hear me out,’ Marianne persisted. ‘If you are still convinced I’m wrong then so be it, but you know that I’ve got Eilidh’s best interests at heart.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that. Go on, then, say your piece.’

  ‘Eilidh is a very bright little girl. She needs to be pushed more. But it’s not just that, Kirstin. She’ll be six years old this year. She needs the company of other little girls, she needs to make friends. She needs to learn how to socialise in company other than ours. It’s not normal, the way you closet her away.’

  ‘It didn’t do me any harm.’

  Marianne raised a sceptical brow.

  ‘I don’t want Eilidh to be normal,’ Kirstin said. ‘I want her to be exceptional. I think she is exceptional.’

  ‘You’re probably right. As I said, she’s very bright, but—but don’t you see you’re narrowing her horizons by keeping her isolated from the world? You’re not protecting her, you’re making her an outsider.’

  A lump formed in Kirstin’s throat. Tears burned her eyes. She knew, had always known deep down, that this moment would arrive, but she couldn’t face it, not yet.

  A child should not be condemned for the lack of a piece of paper declaring her parentage.

  How adamantly she had spoken those words to Cameron. How certain she had been.

  True, but unfortunately neither society nor the law would agree with you, he had replied.

  She knew in her heart that he was right. His was the voice of bitter experience after all.

  ‘No respectable school would take Eilidh,’ she said grimly. ‘And even if they did...’ She pressed her hand to her eyes. ‘I couldn’t expose her to that. Don’t ask it of me.’

  ‘You know, you could pretend,’ Marianne said gently. ‘About Eilidh’s father, I mean. Put a ring on your finger, call yourself Mrs Blair. You already dress like a widow most of the time.’

  ‘But it would be a lie,’ Kirstin said wretchedly. ‘A tacit admission that I had done wrong. That Eilidh was a sin. I would be giving in, don’t you see?’

  ‘Sometimes there’s no such thing as right and wrong. Sometimes there’s no place for principles. Sometimes there’s simply doing what is for the best.’ Marianne got to her feet. ‘Whether you permit me to take on a more significant role in your business is entirely your decision. But regardless, Kirstin, I urge you to consider sending Eilidh to school, for her sake, if not yours.’

  ‘I’ll think about it. After this case is complete.’

  Marianne touched her arm. ‘We won’t let it come between us, you will do as you see fit, but I owed it to my conscience to speak out.’

  ‘And I’m grateful.’ Kirstin smiled wryly. ‘I think.’

  She picked up the newspaper which had fallen on the floor, and was in the process of folding it up when a notice caught her eye.

  ‘Marianne!’ She scanned the notice again, her heart lifting. ‘Marianne, look at this. I think I may finally have found the key to unlock access to the secret club.’

  * * *

  Kirstin had been gone all day. If she’d had good news to report he’d have heard by now, surely. All this waiting around was driving Cameron up the wall. It left him with far too much thinking time. He was a man who preferred action to words, but he hadn’t even dared leave the hotel, lest Kirstin return. He’d answered every scrap of correspondence. He’d drunk far too much coffee. He’d paced the floor so many times he was surprised there wasn’t a path worn in the carpet.

  As the clock struck six, he closed his eyes wearily, but the moment he did images from last night started playing out, frustrating him in a very different way. He’d been abstinent for too long, that was what it was. He’d forgotten the sheer joy of release, the bone-deep satisfaction afterwards of lying together, skin to skin, slick with sweat.

  Aye, right! He had not forgotten because it had never been like that before. Cameron groaned. Last night had had nothing to do with abstinence. Last night, and yesterday afternoon on the island too, had been all about Kirstin. When they’d made love, whatever kind of love they had made, it had been about more than their bodies uniting—not that he’d be such an eejit as to say there had been a meeting of their minds too. What the hell? It had been special, and it was as simple as that.

  Cameron rubbed his chin. He needed a shave. And he needed to think about what all this meant. They had their own lives, the pair of them, they lived in very different worlds, and he’d meant it when he’d told her he was happy with his. But now he wasn’t so sure. He had a sneaking suspicion that Kirstin had filled a gap he hadn’t even known existed. He had a sneaking suspicion that he could easily fall in love with her if she let him.

  ‘Eejit,’ he said, aloud this time, just to make sure he was listening to himself.

  How could he fall in love with a woman he barely knew? All very well that she’d admitted she was The Procurer, but he still hadn’t a clue how she lived, or even where she lived, and each time he’d tried to ask her she’d turned the conversation.

  When he took over the tea business from the Marquis of Glenkin he was to send supplies to her place of business, for God’s sake! Why was she so obsessively secretive? It couldn’t possibly be because she didn’t trust him. So what the devil was she hiding?

  * * *

  Twenty-five minutes later, Kirstin walked through the door. She was wearing another crimson gown, this one patterned with large blowsy roses. Silk, it was, of the finest quality, Cameron reckoned, and yards of it too, in the tiny pleats that formed the skirt which swished provocatively as she walked. The bodice, in contrast, was tightly fitting and low-cut, showing off the creamy perfection of her bosom and the long line of her neck. She never wore jewellery. He’d noticed that before. Her clothes were her one extravagance.

  ‘I have
news,’ she said, helping herself to a sherry.

  Her words pushed all thoughts of the future to the back of his mind. His heart leapt. ‘Someone is prepared to talk?’

  ‘None of the people I contacted have stuck their head above the parapet. But that doesn’t matter. Look at this.’

  She handed him a newspaper. He studied the paragraph which had been circled, announcing the coming out ball of Lady Beatrice, the eldest daughter of the Earl and Countess of Crieff. A name had been underlined twice.

  ‘“The Right Honourable Griffith Griffiths, His Majesty’s special envoy, who has lately been in Lisbon on business of the greatest import, will be granted the honour of partnering the debutante in the opening dance.”’ Cameron gave a snort of laughter. ‘His parents seem to have been singularly lacking in imagination when they named him. Presumably he has been earmarked as a prospective son-in-law. How can you be so certain that this Griffith Griffiths will be willing to help us?’

  Kirstin beamed. ‘Don’t ask me to explain, but I will ensure that he does. Now all we have to do is find a way to gain access to Lady Beatrice’s coming out ball. How do you feel about playing a second cousin twice removed, come all the way from the Highlands?’

  Dinner arrived at that moment. Cameron waited impatiently as the waiter set out the various covered dishes, fussing over their placement on the table. Then there was the wine to be opened, decanted, tasted. And then he was distracted, as usual, by Kirstin’s careful pondering over each dish, the way she studied everything first before making a small selection and arranging it carefully on her plate. She opted for the fish tonight, and a helping of her favourite winter greens. An odd combination. He had a bet with himself that she’d go back for the veal pie.

  ‘Well?’ she prompted, once Cameron had filled his own plate with a large slice of pie. ‘Do you fancy playing a Highlander?’