“Can you feel each other?” she asked through a gasp of pleasure. The idea sent a shot of pleasure straight to her core and she now knew why David had to fight so hard to control himself.
“Yes,” they both gasped at the same time.
After what felt like forever, David’s eyes flitted open and he nodded over her shoulder to Geoff, who then started to pull out. Just as she was about to complain, he pistoned forward and David pulled out. The motion was coordinated almost from the start and she felt her core starting to burn with the coming release. She threw her head back and found her mouth being pressed by Geoff’s. Then a minute later her head was down and David was claiming her mouth. All of this without once breaking stride in their rhythm.
A few more thrusts and then Anne’s world came apart. She screamed her release and was joined by Geoff less than a heartbeat later. As Geoff’s rhythm broke during his release, David tensed beneath her and surged upward, spilling his seed into her in time with the seed pumping into her other hole from Geoff.
They all collapsed onto the bed in an utterly sated and exhausted heap. Eventually someone thought to rouse the other two to actually climb beneath the covers, and that was where Anne found herself the next morning. Realizing that this was the first time she was waking up as a free woman, because of the two men who had captured her heart.
10 years later…
The happy squeals of children met Geoff’s ears as he made his way through the library to a veranda that led out to the back garden. From the pitch and cadence of the follow up squeal he could tell that Harmony had just gotten caught by “monster bear” and was being eaten. He listened for a moment longer and heard the expected thump that told him John had just rescued his younger sister from the beasts clutches.
“Up up up up!” Bradley’s shrieks of delight were not to be out done by those of his rowdy older siblings.
When the wholesome family scene came into view it was just the way he imagined it would be. David was in the middle of the lawn with Harmony in his grasp, being pummeled by a stick wielding John, and Bradley was toddling as fast as he could toward the melee being pursued by Anne. It was a vision that would never get old.
In the last ten years much had changed in their lives, but the one thing that had not was the love he, Anne and David shared. That love was now magnified by the three children they had brought into the world to bring joy and splendor to everything.
Geoff was no longer David’s valet, and in fact, was no longer known as MacAuley. In a surprising turn of events, David had sent his man of affairs to Scotland to speak with the magistrate and parish priest near Glencoe. It turned out that Geoff had never been a bastard after all. A marriage between Lord Richard Rockford and Miss Marianne MacAuley had been registered in the parish five months prior to the registered birth of Geoffrey Allen MacAuley Rockford.
When Lady Cressledown died giving birth to the young master, Lord Cressledown had been beside himself, the local magistrate had recalled. He had come to the estate expecting to find his wife near to her delivery and instead found an empty castle and a grave three weeks cold. He’d gone into the village to see her family and had discovered his wife’s mother with the wee bairn. She told him that not two days after his leaving, Marianne had gone sickly. The fever rose so high the doctor was worried she would die and take the bairn with her. So her mother made the decision to try to save the bairn by speeding the delivery.”
Geoff had been born small, but healthy, yet his mother had died before getting to hold him. It had been his grandmother’s bitterness at losing her daughter to a man who’d not even bothered sticking around for the birth that had convinced her to fight for her grandson.
Eventually, they had come to an arrangement. Lord Cressledown would allow Geoffrey to visit his Scottish kin once a year, and Geoff’s grandmother would say not one ill word about the Earl during those visits. His nanny would travel with him between estates so Lord Cressledown would never have to set foot in Glencoe again.
He’d then created a trust in Geoffrey’s name and left it in the hands of the local magistrate to give Geoffrey the Glencoe Estate and all of its entails upon Geoffrey’s twenty first birthday. Yet since Geoffrey’s grandmother had passed away and no one else in the family knew that Geoffrey was legitimate, the magistrate didn’t know where to find him when the time came to settle the estate. Apparently Geoffrey’s disappearance had caused no end of trouble for the poor man who spent a solid year trying to track the young man down before giving up at the request of Geoffrey’s older brother.
And then there was Reggie.
The current Earl of Cressledown had taken over the handling of the Glencoe Estate, promising that he would locate his younger brother and settle deed on him. Of course, Reggie had no plans on doing any such thing. It wasn’t until the Yorkshire Magistrate came knocking on the doors of Cressledown March with the Marquess of Ridgely and the Honorable Geoffrey Rockford that Reggie had caved and admitted to his lies.
Instead of pressing charges though, Geoff had simply punched Reggie in the face and told him that, though he deserved far more, his life had turned out the way it had because of Reggie’s selfishness. He then walked out of the room and met his sisters and step-mother in the foyer, catching them up in his arms and promising to have them visit when he had time to settle the business he needed to see to.
The Glencoe Estate, call Thistle Brier, had been maintained splendidly over the years and when word that the new master of Thistle Brier was to settle there as a winter home, the locals cheered grandly.
The estate, which housed a sheep farm as well as a working distillery and wool mill, produced a large enough income that Geoff never felt any longer that he was imposing on David’s kindness. In fact, some quarters of his holding actually fared better than David’s.
It wasn’t until Anne had gotten pregnant with John that the concern over property, inheritance rights, and entail started growing to be a little more than niggling. Legally, David would be the father to any children they had. When they had first come up with the idea of their combined marriage, the fact that Geoff had no property was actually a virtue. But suddenly the future of Geoff’s estate became a huge question.
That was when the Duke had once again stepped in with sage advice. “A business partnership between David and Geoffrey would be the most airtight idea. That way, should one of you die before the other, the living partner would gain control of the estates until an heir reaches his or her majority.”
The inclusion of the “her” made Geoff realize that the Duke wasn’t just looking after the heir to the Dukedom, but also the prospect that a girl could inherit any of the unentailed properties included in the partnership. It was an idea with more than just merit. It was pure genius.
The birth of Lord John Richard Stallman took the ton by storm, despite the fact that the Marquess and Marchioness rarely graced London with their presence. Two years later, Lady Harmony Marianne Stallman, was the toast of the ton without ever having to set foot there. And then Lord Bradley Michael Stallman made his debut and Geoff finally had his heir.
Though it was almost impossible to tell who had sired John and Harmony, since both favored their mother in looks, with his red hair and clear green eyes, there was no question that Bradley was very much Geoff’s son. When anyone asked about why Bradley looked so much like Geoff, David would chuckle and say that red hair seemed to run in the family and leave it at that. After all, it was no one’s business but their own.
“Welcome home, Mr. Rockford.” The footman who had been setting a luncheon on the veranda tables nodded toward the scene on the lawn. “Are you going to be joining them down there, or would you like something to eat first?”
As tempting as it was to join in the ruckus, Geoff heard his stomach answer for him. He’d been on the road from Glencoe for nearly two days. His foreman had needed some assistance with a new still that had been built, and Geoff had wanted to be on hand for the first batch. Everything had gone smo
othly, but he hated leaving things to chance.
While he’d been up there he’d made the arrangements for the Hogmany Celebration that was held at Thistle Brier every year. The village loved to come and pay their respects to the Laird and his close friends and family. And Anne loved playing hostess.
“Da!” The squeal of an over excited Harmony caught his ears before the golden haired mite jumped onto his lap and nearly knocked the scone he was trying to eat out of his hand. “Did ya bring us something?”
Geoff laughed and shook his head at his six year old daughter’s innocent yet still mercenary tendencies. “You know me so well, Har.” He kissed the top of her head and rustled her already mussed hair. “They are in my luggage. I’ll bring them out after Reynolds unpacks them.”
The novelty of having a valet still hadn’t worn off on Geoff. Though he’d spent longer with one than he had as one, he still counted his blessings every time he could relegate his shoe shining to someone else.
“Da!” This time it was John who had noticed his presence. The typically stoic eight year-old strode up the steps to the patio and nodded to him. “Welcome home.”
“Oh come here, you!” Geoff pulled John into a hug and tickled him under the arm until he had the boy giggling and begging for mercy.
“Stop, Da! Stop! I give up!”
The sound of the word “Da” still brought tears to his eyes. There had been a conversation early on about how to explain to the children who Geoff was to them. However, David had put his foot down when Geoff had offered to be “Uncle Geoff”.
“No,” a near belligerent David had argued. “You are just as much their father as I am. You may not have the legal title, but, by God, you will be acknowledged by them.”
And so it had been. Anne was Mama. David was Papa. And Geoff was Da. When John had gotten old enough to ask why he had two fathers, David had told him that since Geoff loved him just as much as David did, then shouldn’t he also be considered his father? The boy just nodded and never let the subject bother him again.
The household servants knew all about the arrangement between their Masters and Mistress, but since they were all inordinately fond of the trio, and they liked their jobs very much, no one spoke one word against them. Love after all existed in the strangest of places.
The next to welcome him home was David, shooing John and Harmony into the house to find their nurse. David bent down and kissed Geoff in greeting and then clapped him on the shoulder. “How was the trip?”
“Too long. I missed you.”
“Only him?” Anne climbed up the steps holding Bradley, who was now chanting a chorus of “Da Da Da Da”.
Geoff got up and took the squirming two year old from his mother’s arms. He then kissed Anne, to the shrill delight of the rambunctious toddler.
“No, not just him.”
“So you are home until we all leave for Christmas, then?”
Geoff looked around. Not just at the garden and park beyond. Not just at the house and land it stood on. He looked around at his life and nodded.
“Yes. I’m home.”
CHRISTINA MCGAUGHEY was born, raised, and still resides in the Pacific Northwest with her family and several crazy friends who love her enough to have adopted her as their own. When not writing or reading, she generally likes to stay busy in outdoor pursuits, whether it be hiking to waterfalls, backpacking to lakes, or camping in the more charted regions (she’s not crazy). She is also inordinately fond of games and enjoys a good game night with friends, food, and – of course – adult beverages.
I Know You Page 14