by Lauren Smith
“What do you think? Will it do?” Brock asked, his hopeful tone so endearing that she turned to look at him, her fingertips still trailing along the dusty surface of the vanity.
“It’s perfect, but…” She felt a blush rise up in her cheeks.
“But?” He hung up on the word, worry clouding his eyes.
“But I do not share a chamber with you?” she asked. It was well known that most husbands and wives did not share bedchambers, except in rare circumstances. Those couples who were deeply in love often shared one chamber. Joanna desperately wanted that, to feel him beside her each night. She craved that quiet intimacy of two people sleeping close enough to share their dreams in the dark.
“You wish to share a chamber with me?” Brock asked uncertainly.
She nodded. “I would. That is, if you do. If you do not, I—”
He crossed the room before she could speak further, and he kissed her hard, that rush of passion exploding between them again.
She chuckled as they broke apart. “Is that a yes?”
He grinned. “It is. I didna think you would want to, so I didna think to ask.”
“Never be afraid to ask, Brock,” she said softly. “I want us to be open with each other, unafraid to speak on such things.”
He rubbed his hands up and down her back, sighing. “I’m so used to keeping my thoughts to myself. My father…” Brock’s gaze turned distant. “He never wanted to talk, and when he did, I didn’t usually wish to hear what he had to say. The man was cruel. It made for a lonely childhood, even with my brothers and my sister.”
“You were all trapped by pain. I understand that.” She and her siblings had grown up in a similar way, but at least they’d always had their mother.
“Never give up on me, lass. Don’t let me shut you out.” Brock’s voice was rough with emotion.
“I won’t,” she promised.
Then she squealed as something moved under the covers of the bed beside them.
Brock spun and grasped the edge of the coverlet, pulling the green fabric back. A gray-bodied beast the size of a small dog trundled toward them. Its face was black with a large and snowy-white stripe down the center.
“Ach, Freya! What are you doing here, wee one?” Brock picked up the creature and set her down on the ground.
“Is that…a badger?” Joanna stared down at the beast, knowing it was indeed a badger, but she couldn’t believe she was watching one inside the castle, in her bed.
“Shoo! Go on with you, Freya.” Brock nudged the badger into the corridor with his boot. The badger huffed, lifted her head, and trotted with surprising speed down the hall and out of sight.
“She is one of Aiden’s. You will find wee beasties all through the house, I’m afraid. We have owls nesting in the roof of the library, a fox in the kitchens, and at least half a dozen other creatures roaming the corridors. I hope that willna upset you.”
“No,” Joanna said with a smile. “I think it’s charming. She just frightened me. One doesn’t expect a badger in one’s bed.”
At this Brock laughed heartily. “Ach, lass, but you do have a badger in your bed. Or are you forgetting?” He snapped his teeth at her playfully like a badger, and she burst into giggles and lightly shoved his chest. He caught her by the waist.
“I love your home,” she said when she finally stopped laughing.
“Our home. ’Tis yours as well now.”
“Our home,” she echoed, her face heating again. “Why don’t you show me your room?”
“I’d be happy to.” He escorted her from the tower, and they headed toward his chambers. Joanna couldn’t stop smiling.
I suppose I do have a badger in my bed.
17
Brock held his breath as he led Joanna into his bedchamber. It was not the official room of the laird of Castle Kinkade. That had been his father’s chamber, and Brock would never sleep in that room. It was as though his father’s presence still lingered there. But this chamber, the one that had two large windows facing the lake, was his favorite. It had high vaulted ceilings and a large four-poster bed with dark-blue bed hangings. Two overstuffed armchairs faced the fireplace. Joanna moved straight to them, touching the warm fabric with a smile.
“It’s very inviting,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. Lord, he was having trouble keeping his hands off her, but he needed to. He needed to give her time to heal from the first time they were together.
“I’m glad you like it. If you ever wish to, you may sleep in the other room, although I hope you will stay here with me each night. Would you care to go riding before dinner?” he offered. If they were riding and touring the countryside, he would not be easily tempted to take her back to bed. He held out his hand to her.
“I would like that very much.” When she placed her hand in his and smiled up at him, arousal hit him hard. Perhaps he had been too hasty in his reasoning to avoid bedding her again so soon. Brusquely, he led her down to the castle courtyard, pointing out various niches of the grounds that reminded him of the better parts of his youth. He fought valiantly to resist the sweet warmth of her skin and his together as they held hands. For the first time in his life, he was viewing his lands as a means of seduction rather than a source of shame for the condition they were in. Which hedgerow could he press her into? Which garden path could he lead her to and be certain they would be alone?
Before they entered the stables, he pulled her close, slipping his other arm around her, enclosing her within his embrace so that he could kiss her soundly. The sweetness of her settled in against his soul and hummed through his blood, giving him the strength to pull away from her and guide her toward the fresh horses that had been readied for them, while their other horses rested from the journey.
“Oh, Joanna.” Brock smiled suddenly, his hands around her waist as he prepared to lift her onto her mount. “I’m afraid I dinna have a sidesaddle here, love.” And with that warning, he lifted her high and placed her gently onto the horse. The skirts of her carriage dress rode up over her knees, and she blushed as he placed a small kiss above her stocking.
“I’ll have to order new riding gowns from London or Edinburgh, I suppose,” she reasoned, eyes following Brock to his own horse. “Ones that would be suitable for riding astride.”
Brock sighed at the unfairness of hiding those knees, but he nodded. “Aye, ye will. Or you could wear breeches.”
“Breeches?” she gasped, the scandal of such an idea heating her face. “Wouldn’t you be furious? Forbid it? I cannot imagine any man would let his woman go about in a man’s clothes.”
Her husband chuckled. “Those men would be fools. I’d love nothing more than to see your bonny bottom in tight breeches.” He eyed her bottom as he said this, and a new flush of heat, this time from desire rather than embarrassment, rolled through her.
“Perhaps…perhaps I will have some breeches made.” She grinned at him.
He mounted his horse, and they rode through the bailey and under the open portcullis farther down from the main door. Then he kicked his horse’s flanks, and they raced down the sloping hill toward the still waters of the loch.
It felt good to be home, to feel the wind upon his face, to see the heather upon the hills and the sun bathing the tops of the forests with gold. He hadn’t minded Bath, but the ballrooms and townhouses were confining in a way that his castle and the hills could never be.
“Brock, this place is beautiful.” Joanna sighed wistfully, her gaze sweeping over the countryside.
“These lands have been in my family for more than four hundred years,” he told her with pride.
The breeze played with Joanna’s hair, tugging it loose, and she looked more like she belonged here than any other person he’d ever seen. She fit into the land the way a dryad would fit in the shadowed glens.
“May we see the loch?” she asked, her blue eyes bright with fire. The excitement and wonder in her voice woke a sense of longing inside him that he’d been afraid of for f
ar too long. The longer he spent with her, the more he believed he might yet fall in love with her. But could he love someone the way his mother had loved? Loved beyond all doubt, reason, and good sense? Loved through the end of his days and even longer? Did he dare to? It had done his mother no good in the end. But then, Joanna was no monster. She wouldn’t treat him the way his father had treated his mother. But the thought of letting that stone wall around his heart come down was too terrifying.
“Aye, we can.” He wanted to show her everything, and the lake was by far one of the best parts of the Kincade lands. She grinned at him, and this time he saw less of Ashton in her and more of Rafe’s mischievous temperament. That was a side he was interested in exploring. A playful wife was a happy wife, and he wanted Joanna to always be happy.
He led her down past the lake, through the forest that bordered his lands, and they stopped deep in the woods. The clearing had been made thousands of years ago by the men and women who had lived on this land before it had become Scotland. A group of gray stones formed a strange pattern that pointed to a pile of stones in the center. During the summer months, the sunlight cut through the trees in streaks of light that illuminated the patches where the stones stood, making the site even more mystical.
His mother had told him that the pile of stones was possibly a burial chamber for an ancient chieftain. Whenever Brock visited this place, he felt as though he could hear the stones of the burial chamber breathing, in that way things in nature often can. A delicate but somehow deep inhalation that went straight to the core of itself. His mother used to tell him and his siblings that magic, old magic, resided here, deep in the circle of these stones that guarded the eternal rest of an ancient chieftain who’d perished defending these lands.
“What is this place?” Joanna whispered as they slid off their horses. He took her hand again as they passed through the muted gold beams of light. They paused before one of the taller stones, which stood like a flat rectangle pointing up to the sky.
“These are the stones of Kincade, but many call these tall pieces fir bhreige, or false men.” He pulled her closer, embracing her from behind so she leaned back against him as he whispered his family’s stories in her ear.
“When the trees were younger, the stones pointed to the sun and moon. It also showed the men the way home during the seasons. They would travel far from home to hunt, and seeing these stones upon distant hilltops was the only way in which they could find their way back to their tribes.”
They walked up to the tallest stone nearest them. He placed his palm on the tall flat stone. The rock was rough. Brock swore that if he closed his eyes, he could feel the people of the past—his past—humming just beneath his fingertips, like the murmur of a thousand whispering souls.
Joanna placed her palm over his.
“It’s so peaceful here.”
“It is,” he agreed.
Scotland was a place of deep peace and beauty, a land God made to be perfect. He could never live anywhere else but here. His blood would always yearn to be on Scottish soil. He wondered if Joanna would someday feel the same. What if she changed her mind, decided she missed England, her friends and family and the life she’d had there? He wouldn’t want her to be unhappy or to force her to stay here. The thought made a sharp pain knife in his chest.
“Will you miss England?” he asked, forcing his voice to sound calm so she didn’t hear the concern in his words.
She was quiet a long moment as she circled the stones. Again he couldn’t help but picture her as a dryad, tempting a man into the woods so he might catch and kiss her, only to find she’d turned into a beautiful tree. She peered around the edge of one of the stones to look at him. The wind tugged her unbound hair playfully, the blonde strands dancing across the roughhewn rocks.
“I suppose I will, but this…I can’t quite explain it, but I feel as though I was destined to be here.” She shook her head. “I know it sounds silly.”
“No, it doesn’t.” He circled around the stone, catching her waist from behind and pulling her back against him as he breathed in the floral scent of her hair. He laced the fingers of his hands over her stomach, holding her to him. She covered his hands with hers, leaning back against him as they watched the light and shadows dance through the stones the way they had done for thousands of years. For the first time in his life, the quiet around him was a peaceful one, not an awful, foreboding one that filled him with dread. Holding his wife and standing among the stones, he felt his soul, which had been so often wounded, begin to heal. This moment with this woman was a gift he’d never fully deserve.
He brushed his lips against her ear. “Thank you for marrying me, Joanna,” he whispered. “I know you gave up everything to be here.”
She turned in his arms, her eyes filled with hope.
“I thought I was running away from England and the disappointments there, but now…” She shivered and leaned closer to him. “Now I know I was running toward something better.”
Brock leaned down, stealing a slow, sweet kiss that sent flames up the stone wall around his heart, challenging it to crumble. That aching in his chest began again as her gaze searched his for answers, and he knew before she spoke what she was about to ask, only he was too terrified to answer truthfully.
“Do you love me?” she asked.
Love? He dared not love. He slowly let go of her and stepped away, hating the distance but needing some clarity to think before he responded. It also gave him time to strengthen his defenses against her sweetness.
“I care for you, lass,” he finally replied. The look of hurt was so strong on her that it hit him as though he’d actually been punched.
“I knew it would take time for us to fall in love. I just had hoped it would be sooner.” She let out a breath and turned away from him. Not even the spell of the stones could bring her back to him. She walked away, back to where they had left their horses. She waited without a word as he joined her and helped her up in the saddle.
He wanted to take his words back, to explain himself. But what could a man say? “You’re a bonny lass and the greatest thing in my life, but I’m not capable of love, and I’m bloody terrified of it?” No, that wouldn’t go over well with her at all. Best he distract her from it instead.
“Would you like to meet some of my tenants on the land before we return to the castle?”
“If it pleases you, then I would be happy to.” Her tone was soft but also a little flat, as though she wasn’t fully paying attention to him anymore, like she’d locked herself away inside her own thoughts.
Brock frowned at her complacent, almost absent answer. He didn’t want a complacent, obedient wife. He would rather have her spitting mad as a polecat than quiet and withdrawn. He resolved that he would find a way to show her he cared, even if in the end he could not love her. He couldn’t lie to himself—if he were brave enough, he would love her like mad, but he was a coward for fearing what love would cost him.
They took the road back to the castle, and he guided her around the edges of his lands to where his tenants lived. These people raised sheep, and much of his exports were lamb-based products sent to the south of England. His father, as with some other lairds, had seen the tenants as mere cogs in a great wheel of forging a profit from the lands, but Brock refused to see his people that way. Now that they were his responsibility, he wanted things to change. He wanted to make sure they had the means to feed their families well and live in good homes. Many lairds in the Lowlands encouraged their tenants to abandon Gaelic, but Brock had removed any such restrictions after his father had passed a over a month ago.
His gaze swept the distant hills that were slowly being swallowed by the rising shadows of dusk. So much had changed in Scotland after the English had destroyed their spirit and broken their land apart by bankrupting many of the chieftains. Those men had sold their homes, their castles, all of it. His father had been one of the few men able to keep his lands intact.
Of course, now Broc
k knew the darker truth as to why, that his father had sold out his countrymen to an English spy, and he’d been rewarded for it. The thought turned Brock’s stomach and filled his mouth with a foul taste.
There had been rumors when he was growing up that his father had been a traitor. The men he’d claimed had been his closest friends from the other Scottish clans—the Campbells, the MacLeods, the Stewarts, the MacKenzies—had all lost fathers and brothers years ago in an attempted uprising. Just days before they’d planned to go to Edinburgh to rally support for their cause, they’d vanished in the night, every one of them. Only his father had survived, and finding himself alone, he soon abandoned his fight.
Brock sighed and looked out over his lands. Englishmen were happily buying up the land and building new castles. He didn’t want the Kincade lands to fall to the English like that. Better if the place were burned down than strangled by purse strings. Part of Brock’s desperation to marry had been with that in mind. He had to put the lives of his tenants first above his own interests.
But he would not force Joanna to part with her fortune, not unless she wished to do so. His hope was that once she saw his people, saw the needs they had, her heart would open and she would agree to help. Most of the Scots here lived in comparative poverty, eking out a living from the thin soil in a harsh and challenging climate.
Every day his heart weighed heavily with the duties he owed to the men and women who worked on his land. As in Ireland, potatoes were a mainstay of the diet of the less fortunate, but disease and famine were frequent and devastating when they struck. He’d seen far too many die from starvation. Last year alone, his tenants had lost wee bairns in the winter months from being unable to feed them enough. The wailing of those mothers holding their children in their arms before having to put them in wee caskets had broken Brock’s heart. He wouldn’t let that happen again, not on his lands.