Bruce downed his glass in one swallow and held it out for another. “He bloody hell almost did.” He motioned to Lachlan’s glass. “Ye might want tae down that before ah begin my tale.”
Lachlan tossed the contents of his glass back and looked directly at his uncle. Sebastian, as much as he felt like an intruder, same as when they traveled with Bradbury, knew wild horses couldn’t drag him away from what was about to be said.
“Ian came in the dead of night with a ragged bunch of mon. They were nae Murray mon, that is for certain. Or at least ah pray they were nae. He visited Paw’s room first and slashed his throat as he slept. Ill-fated on our part that Fergus and ah were visiting at the time, which made it easy for Ian tae kill all three of us in the same night.” He took a sip of whiskey. “For some reason ah couldnae sleep that night and was warming myself by the fire when my door was broken down and ah faced Ian and his mon. He told me my sister was dead. As ah processed that terrible news, ah was shot several times. I think each body bastard took a shot at me. The bullet that grazed my head made me forget who ah was for a spell. Hence, why it has taken me so long tae venture out.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “When ah finally come tae, ah was told Paw and Fergus were both dead, and that Paw’s steward sent mon looking for ye and Teagan tae no avail. Until now.”
Lachlan topped off his uncle’s glass. “The duke wouldnae let us send word about Maw’s death. He said he wouldnae have her relatives in his home for her burial.”
“Bloody bastard,” Bruce growled out.
For the next half hour Lachlan retold the series of events that brought them to this moment in time. Including how they met Bradbury and how he was murdered in cold blood by Ian.
“Ah’m sorry, lad. It shouldnae ever have come tae this.”
“Nae yer fault. But we need yer help. Teagan hasnae left her bedchamber since we arrived here. Sebastian and ah are worried sick over her. As is the rest of the staff.”
“Ah’ll go tae her now,” Bruce said as he stood, leaning heavily on his cane. “Bloody arse, Ian shot me in the thigh and ah will forever need this cane.”
“But you live,” Sebastian said.
“Aye, ah live. And ah thank the good Lord every day for it.”
***
Resting in bed, again for another day, Teagan couldn’t seem to get her body to move. Nor her brain to tell it to. She ached in parts of her body she didn’t know existed. And her head, it felt three times the size and as though it was used as an anvil by the blacksmith.
She wanted to get up, truly she did. She hated worrying Lachlan and Sebastian. But she just couldn’t face anyone yet. Nor did she know how many days she lay here, although she knew the numbers were climbing alarming high.
Last night, in the dead of darkness, she promised herself she would venture outside her bedchamber today. A promise she’d made many times over to no avail. Somehow, when the morning came each day, she couldn’t do it. No matter how much she chastised herself for wallowing in self-pity, she could not leave her room. She barely left her bed long enough to take care of her business and change into clean clothing.
So here she lounged in bed once again, a tray across her lap, with her now cold breakfast when a knock sounded at her door.
“Will they never give up?” She huffed believing it to be either Lachlan or Sebastian.
“Go away.”
“‘Tis yer Uncle Bruce, lass, can ah come in please?”
“Uncle Bruce,” she cried as she swung her legs off the bed and stood only to sit back down again as the room spun and her legs gave way. “Come in.”
Tears pooled in her eyes when she saw her uncle. He’d aged since she last saw him. Then again it had been several years since her mother took them for a visit. Yet somehow she believed the events of the past months had to do with his aging.
“Teagan, my lass,” Uncle Bruce said as he bent down and kissed her cheek. “Ye are a sight for my sore and tired eyes. Ah believed ah would find ye both dead when ah arrived this morning.”
Teagan looked at the door, hoping with all her heart her grandfather and uncle Fergus would walk through the door any moment. Her heart weighed heavy inside her chest when they did not.
“What about Grandpaw and Uncle Fergus?”
Resting on the edge of her bed, she listened to the nightmare Uncle Bruce told. Several times, if she hadn’t been sitting down, she would have fallen.
“So, what is this ah hear ye refuse to leave yer rooms. Lachlan is beside himself with worry. And ah dinnae have tae tell you, lass, he has had enough tae concern himself with. And a certain Englishmon who cares for ye deeply is even more worried.”
“Perhaps today.”
“Nay perhaps about it. Ye will leave this room. Ah give ye an hour before ah expect ye in the drawing room.”
After her uncle left, all the emotions she’d been suppressing bombarded her, and she lay back on her bed in a heap of sobs that shook her entire body. Feeling...hurt too much. How was she expected to deal with so much loss of life and anger and hatred toward Ian and the man who raised her?
“Ah will nae let Ian win? He willnae ruin my life,” Teagan said as she pulled herself together and rang the bell for her maid.
After a soothing warm bath scented with sprigs of lavender, she dressed in a lovely peach day dress and ventured down the stairs to the family drawing room. Upon entering, she almost turned and ran out. Three sets of eyes stared at her. Her eyes swept over Lachlan’s and her uncle’s to finally settle on Sebastian’s. The blue of his eyes penetrated deep within her soul, and she wondered how she could have been so selfish.
“Lachlan, Sebastian, ah owe ye both an apology. It was never my intentions tae worry ye both. Please forgive me.”
Lachlan came forward first and hugged her close. “Nothing tae forgive. Just dinnae do that tae me ever again. Ah was worried for ye.”
“Ah ken.”
Then Sebastian approached and bowed. “I’m glad to see you up and about.”
“Nay need tae be so formal, Sebastian, after all we have been through,” Lachlan said.
Sebastian’s eyes locked with hers and she nodded her head, suddenly unable to speak. Had he given up on her? Was he just waiting for her to recover her wits to go back home to London? The tremors started in her hands and spread quickly throughout her body. Unable to breathe from uncertainty, she moved forward just as he reached for her and engulfed her in his strong arms.
“Ah’m so sorry ah pushed ye away.”
“Nonsense.” He pulled back and cradled her face in his hands. The love shining from his eyes melted her bones. “I will never leave you. I love you and with Lachlan and your uncle’s permission, I would like to marry you.”
“Sebastian,” she whispered right before he kissed her. That kiss conveyed all the unspoken words that were never said between them, and never needed to be said.
He pulled back and smiled. “I take that as a yes.”
“Aye, Sebastian Seabrook, ah will marry ye.”
Late that night, as Teagan lay in bed, her heart pounded inside her chest as she anticipated Sebastian sneaking into her bedchamber at any moment. She’d trusted her maid with a note inviting him to her room. Too much had happened, and she didn’t want to wait until their wedding in a month’s time to become intimate. She wanted to become Sebastian’s and him hers, in every sense of the word—this very night.
When she heard the creak of the door opening, her hand flew to her stomach and tried to calm the family of butterflies making a home there. It wasn’t so much nerves but anticipation for what would come.
“Sebastian,” she whispered, suddenly afraid it may be someone else.
“Yes.”
She breathed a sigh of relief because for a moment she’d panicked and was thrown back in time.
He strolled to her bedside without saying a word. He didn’t need to as his eyes, glowing in the candlelight, expressed all. As he began undressing, her eyes were riveted to
his large hands as they unbuttoned his waistcoat. It slid to the ground, soon followed by his shirt, which left him in his breeches and boots. His weight sunk the bed as he sat and removed first one boot then the other. Standing again, he stared deeply into her eyes and goose flesh broke out on her skin and she trembled. His fingers made quick work on the front buttons of his breeches. They slid down his muscular thighs, leaving him naked and powerfully aroused before her.
Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of his manhood thrusting out large and hard from between his thighs. “Is that...”
He grinned a wickedly. “Do not fret, I will prepare you and yes, God created it so it will fit. I believe it will fit you to perfection.”
She swallowed. “If ye say so.”
“Come,” he said with his hand out.
Hesitating for only a second, she crawled to the edge of the bed and stood in front of him on wobbly knees, her arms down by her side and her eyes locked on his face.
“Ah have come.”
He chuckled. “Not yet you haven’t. But you will.”
“Ah will...” Before she could utter another word, he had divested her of her night rail and she stood equally naked and self-conscious while his eyes slid up and down her body from head to toe and back.
“You are beautiful.”
Her arms covered her breasts and he gently tugged them aside.
“I will be your husband in a month, no need to be bashful with me.”
She went to drop her arms to her side then thought better of it and placed them on his warm, muscular chest instead. Her head tilted up, she licked her lips, and waited for Sebastian to kiss her.
And kiss her he did. He lowered his head and took her mouth with in fierce, savage need. Sebastian devoured her mouth, and then moved on to her neck and lower. All the air escaped her lungs when his hot mouth sucked in her nipple, causing liquid heat to pool between her thighs.
Then he scooped her up into his strong arms, dropped her down on the bed, and covered her body with his.
“What did I ever do to deserve you?” Sebastian murmured as he placed kisses down her stomach while one hand slid up her calf, over her knee to the inside of her thigh—to there.
The moment his hand found her, she arched her back and her body trembled.
“You’re ready for me. Had you been thinking about what we had done before while you were waiting for me to come to your bed tonight?”
“Aye.”
He positioned his body over hers, nudged her legs open with his knee, and his manhood pushed against her. She didn’t want to tense, tried to keep her body relaxed, but it had other ideas at the invasion.
“Relax, my love.” Sebastian’s mouth covered hers in a kiss that caused the room to twirl. His tongue swirled with hers, he bit her lip with his teeth all the while he pushed more and more inside of her until a piercing pain had her gasping and Sebastian froze.
“I’m sorry.”
“Dinnae be. ‘tis part of becoming a woman, a lover, and wife.”
“Which you will be all of those things to me.”
Slowly, he swirled his hips and the pain was replaced with a need to move against him. To feel all that she knew she could now that their bodies were joined.
She met each thrust of his hips with her own and soon they were both gasping as their lungs heaved. Her insides tightened. It started in her stomach and spread below until her insides contracted. She closed her eyes, clenched the sheets with her hands, and let herself fly into the midnight sky.
***
When Sebastian first entered Teagan’s room, he expected her to say she changed her mind and wanted to wait until their wedding night. When she didn’t, his insides shook with such a need it took all his self-control to go slow. He undressed first, letting her get a good look at his naked form, hoping to ease her worry. He’d been wrong. It increased her anxiety.
Never in his life had he been with a virgin, so he had to rely on instinct. There would be pain, it was unavoidable. But he would do everything in his power to lessen her discomfort. The truth of it was he would rather cut off his right arm than cause her agony of any kind.
Unfortunately, breaking through her maidenhead could not be avoided. Once he had her on her back and he positioned himself he tried to go slow. He did go slowly until she wrapped her legs around his waist and pushed her hips up into his repeatedly. When her insides clamped down around his cock, he thought he’d died and gone to heaven. The pleasure she brought him spiraled through his body and settled deep inside his heart.
After he collapsed on her, and his breathing returned somewhat back to normal, he rolled off, taking her with him so she was tucked against his side. “I didn’t know it could be like this.”
She tilted her head up, smiled, and his heart stopped at the love he saw radiating from the depths of her green eyes. “Me neither. But ah thought...”
“Yes. I have been with other women. But let me assure you, never, ever was it like what we just experienced. Being in the arms of someone you love and who loves you in return makes all the difference in the world.”
“Good.”
He nuzzled her neck. “Good what?”
She sighed and her body curled around his. “Good ye have never experienced such a thing with anyone else but me. Ah want tae be yer everything.”
“Haven’t you figured it out by now that you are?”
Chapter Eighteen
A month later at Stony Cross Manor, Teagan prepared for her wedding. Since they had decided to make their home in London, they purchased a lovely townhouse not far from the Seabrook family home. Both she and Sebastian had accepted a gracious offer from Emma and Wentworth to hold their wedding at the small chapel on the grounds of their country estate. A chapel she was happy to learn was the place where Emma and Wentworth, Amelia and Bridgton, and Bella and Myles spoke their wedding vows. She could not think of a better place to pledge her love to Sebastian.
Teagan had chosen a lovely pale, yellow silk gown for her wedding dress. Her hair was swept up high on her head with curls cascading over one shoulder. Tiny yellow roses from the manor’s rose garden were tucked here and there into her hair making her look like a garden fairie. The butterflies making their home in the rose garden were also present inside her stomach as she anticipated the day to come. Finally, she would marry the man she loved. Become part of his family, which she could naught ever ask for a better family to belong to.
The only sadness she experienced today was tomorrow morning Lachlan and her uncle would travel back to Scotland. She worried overmuch for Lachlan, but Uncle Bruce eased her concerns by stating he would be staying at Murray Castle for an extended period of time. She suspected he didn’t relish hurrying back to the Lothian coast since Grandfather and Uncle Fergus were dead. Bruce had never taken a wife. So besides Fergus’s wife, their two sons, and several grand-nieces and nephews, he had no family left except for Lachlan and her.
Deep down inside, she was ecstatic Uncle Bruce would be staying with Lachlan. She would still worry overmuch for him, but at least he would not be alone. And perhaps soon he would take a wife. They had already discussed it with him that if by the upcoming London Season, he had not met anyone suitable to become his duchess, he would travel to London. Surely there would be some young debutant to catch his eye. Perhaps even Uncle Bruce might find himself a nice widow and marry. Now that she’d found love, she wanted Lachlan and Bruce to find it as well. Nothing made you more alive and intuitive to your surroundings than love. Colors were more vivid, flowers fragrances more aromatic, birds chirping more melodious. Everything changed for the better.
“Are you ready, my dear,” the dowager said as she entered the room and smiled brightly. “You look lovely. I believe my son will lose the ability to speak when his eyes fall upon you.”
“Thank ye. And aye, ah’m ready.”
“Lachlan is outside ready to escort you to the chapel. Besides Wentworth, Emma and I, everyone else has left.”
True to the dowager’s word, her brother stood outside her chamber looking pale.
“Is all well with ye?”
“Aye, why do ye ask?”
“Ye look pale.”
“Just anxious, happy and sad at the same time,” he replied with a crooked grin.
“Has something happened?” Her insides knotted up tight.
“Nay. Well, actually, there is something. Ah hate tae tell ye this on yer wedding day, but ye need tae ken.”
“Ken what?” More knots.
“Ian is dead. He died in Newgate in his cell awaiting trial.”
“Oh.” She moved a hand to her stomach and waited to decipher how she felt about his death. Sad, glad, but mostly sad and angry. The man who raised them made Ian into the monster he had become and for that she was angry. Sad because he never had a chance to be a good man, like his brother Lachlan.
“Half of me wants tae yell with joy and the other half wants tae fall tae my knees and cry for the little boy who dinnae have a prayer in the world of being a good mon, thanks tae that mon.”
“Ah ken. Ah feel the same way. But also ah feel guilty for being the elder brother and nae doing something tae help him be a better mon.”
“Ye did try, many times ah heard ye trying.”
“Aye, ah did.
“Let us nae think of Ian again on this day of my wedding. Ah want today tae be a happy occasion as ah wed the mon ah love.”
“Agreed. Now ah’ll finish what ah started tae say earlier. Ah could nae have asked for a better husband for ye than Sebastian. But ah’m sad because ah’m going tae miss ye.”
“Ah promise tae visit often.”
“Ye better. Now let us be off before yer intended thinks ye deserted him.”
***
As Teagan made her way down the narrow, short chapel aisle on her brother’s arm, she could not take her eyes off her husband-to-be. Dressed in black formal wear, he stood staring back at her with love shining from his eyes and a smile on his lips. Her insides quivered and her knees weakened. “Look at him,” she whispered to Lachlan. “Is he nae the most beautiful mon ye have ever seen?”
Lord Sebastian and the Scottish Lass Page 16