Captured by a Laird (21 page)

He had called her beautiful, but by the heavens, he was the beautiful one. Her gaze slid over his muscular shoulders and chest, traveled down over his rippled stomach, and came to a halt on his huge erection. When he lifted her chin with his finger, she realized he had caught her staring at his manly parts and flushed.

“You’ve nothing to fear from me,” he said, his green gaze locked on her face. “I promise I won’t hurt ye.”

“I know ye won’t.” She rested her palms against his chest. “I trust ye.”

***

David swallowed. She trusted him not to hurt her when, despite his promise and his best intentions, he did not fully trust himself. The storm of passion brewing inside him felt too dangerous to unleash.

But then Alison rose on her toes and brushed her lips against his, and the sweetness of her kiss calmed the wild beast in him just enough. He would be the gentle lover she needed him to be.

Even if it killed him.

CHAPTER 26

Alison expected David to accomplish the act with quick determination, now that she had finally agreed. Instead, he touched her in all the ways he’d done before when he was trying to persuade her. Long before he was poised over her, prepared to complete their marriage, her anxiety had burned to ashes in the flames of their passion.

“Are ye ready?” David asked, his gaze fixed on her face as if watching for any sign of distress.

“Oh, aye.”

She sank her teeth into her bottom lip as he eased inside her, inch by inch, with excruciating slowness.
Oh
.

“I didn’t know…” she said between unsteady breaths, “it would feel…this good.”

David pressed more deeply inside her.
Oh my.

The muscles of his face and neck strained as he pulled out most of the way and then slowly thrust inside her again.
Oh my, oh my.

She forgot to breathe as she focused on the sensation. She wanted to hold David’s gaze, to stay lost in those deep green pools, but as he increased the rhythm, her eyes closed and little high-pitched sounds came from her throat.

Of their own accord, her hips lifted to meet his thrusts. She dug her fingers into his shoulders as the now-familiar tension rose inside her. She wrapped her legs more tightly around him, and yet he seemed to be deliberately holding back, keeping her on the edge.

“Harder” and “faster” escaped her lips. He groaned and kissed her deeply, then he did as she asked.

Aye, aye, aye.
Sparks crossed her vision. Their bodies strained against each other and yet they were as one.

“You’re mine,” he said, holding her face between his hands as he moved inside her.

She could no longer tell where he ended and she began.

She cried out as spasms of pleasure pulsed through her body.

“Alison,” he called her name.

His body answered hers, thrusting more deeply still, and she fell into a liquid fire with him.

As the storm of sensations subsided, she held on to David as if he were all that kept her afloat in an endless sea. She surreptitiously wiped away the tears streaming down her face. Her emotions were raw and jumbled and far too strong to contain.

When he started to move off her, she resisted.

“I’m too heavy,” he said, though he held most of his weight on his elbows. “I fear I’ll crush ye.”

“Not yet.” She wanted to keep him inside her, to stay as one with him as long as she could.

He brushed her hair back from her face and looked at her with an expression she could not read. Had he felt the same wonder, the extraordinary closeness that she had?

“You’re mine now,” he said again, his green eyes intent on hers. “Now and always.”

“I am,” she said.

But are ye mine, David Hume?

***

David stared up into the darkness and tried to make sense of what had happened to him.

He listened to Alison’s soft breathing as she slept in his arms, amazed at how it felt as if she had always belonged there. When she sighed in her sleep, a rush of tenderness overwhelmed him.

She was
his wife
. He was caught by surprise by the feelings that stirred in him. He wanted to protect her from every harm, to keep her beside him no matter what came, to see her belly grow with his child. He knew to the depths of his soul that so long as he could have her he would never want another woman.

He had believed that making love to Alison would slacken the lust that had tortured him from the moment he met her, but nothing more. They had given each other sexual release in other ways before. Why had this been so different?

When he was inside her, he felt as if he had found a home for his lost soul, an answer to his longing.

And that worried the hell out of him.

***

“I was this close to catching Wedderburn and his brother,” Patrick Blackadder said, holding his finger and thumb an inch apart for his father to see.

Time and time again, he caught their trail, despite the black, rainy night, and despite all the tricks his prey employed, from crisscrossing burns to backtracking. But always, Patrick was one step behind Wedderburn and missed him.

All night long he had imagined dumping the bodies of Wedderburn and his brother before the gates of Blackadder Castle and demanding entry. If he had succeeded, he would have possession of the castle and Alison this very night. He’d be bedding her now.

“Wedderburn led ye on a merry chase, did he?” Patrick’s father said with that smug look on his face. “And there were only three of them to your thirty?”

“If he’d had more, I would have caught him,” Patrick said. “’Tis easier to hide with three.”

His father snorted. “If I were a younger man—”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Patrick said. “Wedderburn would have lost ye in the first hour.”

“Mind how ye speak to me,” his father said, slamming down his cup. “You’ve much to learn. ’Tis fortunate I’ll be laird for a good long while yet.”

“At least I attempted to kill Wedderburn and right the wrong he’s done us.” Instead of sitting on my fat arse boring everyone with tales from my youth.

“I want vengeance as much as you, and I promise we shall have it.”

Patrick ground his teeth as his father patted his shoulder, as if he were a lad of twelve.

“While ye were roaming about the countryside on your fool’s errand, I set a plan in motion,” his father said.

After listening to his father’s plan, Patrick had his doubts, but his father was set on it.

“’Tis all arranged,” his father said. “Just do as I told ye.”

“I’ll do my part,” Patrick snapped.

“Good.” His father touched his cup to Patrick’s. “Blackadder Castle, Lady Alison, and those wee heiresses will be ours verra soon.”

“Until the day Alison’s daughters are wed to men in our family, they pose a threat to our claim to Blackadder Castle,” Patrick said. “Given how long before they are of age to marry, keeping them alive creates an unnecessary risk.”

“They’re our kin and innocent bairns,” his father said. “Once we have them in our hands, they’ll be no threat.”

How dare his father speak to him in that insufferable self-righteous tone, when they both knew the other, darker reason his father wanted those two lassies alive.

As soon as his father left him, Patrick sent for Walter, the former captain of the guard at Blackadder Castle.

He looked the big black-haired warrior up and down. Walter was utterly ruthless and had been spouting venom against Wedderburn since he arrived. He was the perfect choice for the task.

“Walter,” Patrick said, leaning back in his chair, “how would ye like to wreak some vengeance on the Humes?”

CHAPTER 27

Alison was astonished by how quickly and unexpectedly her life had changed. Every meal with Blackadder had been a misery, fraught with opportunities for him to criticize her before the household. But sitting between David and her daughters at supper now, she felt giddy.

Dare she trust this happiness?

David squeezed her thigh beneath the table. When their eyes met, the heat in his made it hard to breathe. She never would have guessed a man could give her such intense physical pleasure.

“I thought this meal would never end,” he said in her ear, and brought her hand to his lap to feel his erection. “I’m dying to get ye upstairs.”

“Beatrix, Margaret, time for bed,” she said, and sprang to her feet. “Come, Flora and I will take ye upstairs.”

David caught Alison’s arm and said, “I’ll join ye shortly.”

She felt her cheeks turn pink with a mix of pleasure and embarrassment. For an astute man, David seemed oblivious to the fact that the conversation in the hall dropped to a low hum as every person in the room paused to watch their laird. She was well aware that his men were amused by their early retirement each night and frequent disappearances at odd times during the day.

As she entered the stairwell, she looked over her shoulder and caught David watching her. She smiled to herself, assured that he would follow soon.

Still, she was grateful to have a little time alone after bidding her daughters goodnight and leaving them in Flora’s care.
She looked at the bed and imagined David lying on it, unselfconscious of his nakedness, his powerful body and hard features reminiscent of the ancient warriors of legend.

Sometimes when he made love to her, he was all need and passion. Other times he was so tender that she could almost believe he cared for her. But the feeling never lasted. Most of the time outside of bed, he was that other man—the hard, relentless laird.

The physical pleasure they shared was a gift. She should be satisfied with that. Instead, the strong feelings he evoked when they made love only seemed to make her long for something more.

She did not want to love her new husband.

But she feared that, whether he wanted it or not, David would steal her heart.

***

Alison awoke at dawn with a sense of foreboding, and her hand went to the pendant at her throat. Whether the black stone was magical or no, it reminded her of her mother and gave her comfort.

“I saw ye send Brian off yesterday,” she said when she saw that David was awake. “Has something happened?”

She had waited to ask, hoping David would tell her on his own. Brian was David’s most trusted man, so the errand must be important. Still, she did not care where or why he’d sent Brian so much as she cared that David share it with her.

“Nothing to trouble yourself about,” David said, and kissed the tender spot below her ear.

“I know your responsibilities weigh on ye,” she said. “My mother always said that sharing your troubles makes them lighter.”

He leaned down and circled her nipple with his tongue. If he was trying to distract her, he succeeded.

“Tell me the tale behind this,” he said, running his finger over the smooth black stone that lay between her breasts.

Though she was disappointed he would not tell her about Brian’s errand, at least he was showing an interest in her beyond her breasts.

“How do ye know there’s a tale?” she asked.

“The stone is unusual and ye always wear it.” He paused. “Was it Blackadder who gave it to ye?”

“Nay.” Ach, she wanted to gag at the thought. She wished she could burn everything of hers that Blackadder had ever touched.

“Who gave it to ye, then?” He raised an eyebrow. “One of your admirers?”

“I was far too young before I wed to have admirers.”

“Beautiful women have admirers,” he said, “married or no.”

He'd managed to give her a compliment and an insult all at once.

“My mother gave the pendant to me,” she said. “She had one made for me and each of my sisters from a single stone that she believed had protective powers.”

“So there
is
a tale,” David said.

“Aye, one of royal politics, love, and murder.”

“Ach, the best kind,” he said with a glint in his eye.

This was the unexpected, playful side of David that made her defenses melt like butter in a hot pan.

“When our late king was a young man, everyone knew that he must marry a foreign princess to make an alliance for Scotland,” she began. “The only question was whether the princess would be French or English.”

***

David should get an early start on the day. And yet he found himself entranced by Alison's melodic voice and the faraway look in her eyes as she recited what he guessed was an oft-told story in her family.

“A royal mistress, however, could bring lucrative posts and other favors to her family,” she continued. “So all the Scottish nobles paraded their bonny daughters before the young royal in the hope that one of their own would catch his eye.”

No doubt David’s family had played in that game, though the thought disgusted him.

“The Drummond sisters, my mother included, were renowned beauties,” she said. “The king fell deeply in love with my mother's sister Margaret and made her his mistress. That in itself did not endanger her.”

Something nagged at David's memory about a tragedy in the Drummond family.

“The king installed my aunt in Stirling Castle and lived openly with her as if she were his queen,” she said. “Rumors began to fly that the king wished to make her his wife.”

David did not need to be told that this would have upset every powerful faction in Scotland, not to mention the kings of France and England.

“What did your grandfather Drummond do to protect his daughter?” David asked.

“Protect her?” Alison gave a short, humorless laugh. “He imagined his grandchild with a crown his head and persuaded our besotted young monarch that a king could do as he pleased.”

“What happened to your Aunt Margaret?” he asked, knowing it could not have ended well.

“The four Drummond sisters were all visiting their father at Drummond Castle when the tragedy occurred,” she said. “Though it could never be proven, we believe my mother’s sisters were poisoned at breakfast. In any event, all three fell ill and were dead by supper.”