Heartbreak and Honor (26 page)

Lord Devaux-Rousset gave a short nod. “
Oui.
I must wait to see Needham in any event.”

Seonaid sent a martyred look ceiling-ward as they filed from the room.

Alexa would have that tale from her friend someday.

Lucan closed the door behind them.

“How long do you think it will take for the authorities to find and arrest Minerva and Harrison?” Alexa stood before the fire warming her hands. An emotionally and physically numbing chill engulfed her.

Lucan encircled her from behind and dropped a kiss on her crown. “Knowing Palmer, today.”

She angled her head to meet his eyes. “That soon? Is there enough evidence to convict them?”

“With Shona’s testimony, more than enough.” He grinned and kissed her nose. He was always doing that. “She has pluck.”

“Do you think she’s truly Steafan’s offspring?” Facing the crackling fire once more, Alexa leaned into his embrace, relishing his touch.

“I think he was a decent man who worried for a young girl’s future once he discovered how corrupt her mother was, and that’s why he claimed her as his.” He rested his chin atop her head. “However, I’m positive he never expected Shona to receive the title. I believe he intended to expose Minerva, if not while alive, then certainly after his death.” He pressed his lips to her crown. “Will you contest the title now?”

“No. It’s all Shona has left.” Alexa covered his hands encircling her waist, entwining their fingers. Remorse tempered her speech. “I would like to have known my father, yet, I wouldn’t have met Balcomb and the others, never have lived as a traveller. I cannot regret that.”

“I don’t regret it for an instant. I’d never have met the gypsy termagant intent on skewering me.” He brushed aside the curls at her nape and gently bit the flesh.

Alexa shuddered, but not from cold. She wanted this man, wanted him in her bed, to father her children, to hold her hand as they ran across the heather-covered moors, to see his face first thing upon wakening every morning and last thing at night until the end of her days.

Life without him? Utterly unbearable.

A smile played around the edges of her mouth as she unfastened her spencer. The Lord made her a Scottish Highland traveller. She could endure everything else. For him, she’d learn to host
haut ton
gatherings, ignore snobbish set downs, try to be a wife, a duchess, he would be proud of.

“Lucan,” She lifted her hand, turning it this way and that, the purple gem flashing in the fire’s light. “I never thanked you for the ring.”

Lucan’s pulse quickened in anticipation, and he rotated Alexa in his arms, searching her eyes. The golden shards shimmered with something he’d not seen before.

“Dare I hope you intend to accept it? Me?”

Her sweet mouth crept upward. “Well, you did have the ring designed especially for me, and the gem is my favorite.”

Lucan spanned her narrow ribs with his hands, brushing her lips with his. “Are you saying yes?”

Nothing ever mattered as much as her answer.

“Promise you’ll have no regrets?” Biting her lower lip, she trailed a finger across the seam of his mouth.

Raining feather-light kisses over her face and alabaster neck, he pulled her tight against him. “Not now, or in a month, or a decade, or fifty years.”

“Not if a half-century passes, and I’ve grown fat and wrinkled? And toothless and bald?” Alexa skimmed her fingertips across his forehead before sliding her hand into the hair above his ear.

He chuckled as he palmed her cheek, his nose touching hers. “Not if time ceases.”

“What if I prove a bumbling, inadequate duchess?”

Rubbing his thumb along her fine jawbone, he whispered fervently, “None of those things matters a whit. Having you at my side until I draw my final breath is what I care about.”

She touched the tip of her pink tongue to her upper lip. “And you love me?”

“Yes, my gypsy witch. Now hush and kiss me.” Lucan gave her a fierce squeeze, earning him a breathless giggle.

Alexa’s mouth parted, and he plundered the sweet cavern. Their breath mingled as they kissed, tongues thrusting, retreating, and plunging again and again, a tantalizing dance of sensation and exploration.

He poured his love into the simple act, binding her to him— his Highland-Gypsy-turned-lady—across eternity and beyond. Lucan pressed his mouth to the mole gracing her mouth then the pulse throbbing at the juncture of her throat.

Alexa arched her neck, her breasts thrusting upward with the movement, and her fingers biting into his shoulders.

Theirs would be no tame joining.

His groin surged with lustful expectancy, and he sucked her lower lip. How soon might they wed?

Lucan crushed her to him. “I love you.”

A siren’s smile curved her mouth as she reached for the buttons of his falls. “Why don’t you show me how much?”

“Now?” Dashing a fervent glance to the closed door, he wavered. “I cannot take the time I’d like to—”

“We can go slowly next time.” Alexa shrugged off her spencer as she folded to the floor. Reclining upon the carpet, she drew her skirts up her shapely thighs before bunching the fabric round her waist.

Mother of God
.

A saint couldn’t have resisted the luscious display. Firelight glinted over her satiny flesh, and the raven curls nested between her thighs beckoned.

Dropping to his knees, Lucan freed his rigid member. “I don’t want to hurt you, but we haven’t time for me to properly prepare you.”

Alexa spread her legs and raised her arms. “Silly man. I’ve been wet with want for weeks.”

Nipping her collarbone, Lucan positioned himself between her legs, his penis teasing her moist entrance.

Arching, she urged him to her.

“Hungry little thing, aren’t you, darling?”

“Uh hum.” She opened her mouth and gyrated her hips in invitation. “Hurry.”

Plunging his tongue into her sweet mouth, the same instant he sank home, breaking through her maidenhead, he fought to keep from exploding into her tightness.

He needn’t have worried.

Alexa’s violet eyes widened and an incredulous expression swept her face. “Lucan. Oh, God, Lucan.”

Clutching his shoulders, she wrapped her legs around his waist and surged against him, convulsing so violently, he burst.

Gripping her full buttocks, Lucan threw his head back and let bliss carry him away. When he could think coherently again, he rocked against her, still ensconced within her honeyed depths. “Kitten, you didn’t answer.”

Breathless, her eyes passion-glazed, Alexa whispered, “Can we marry before my family sails?”

Praise God and hallelujah.

“Yes. I already have a special license.” He’d acquired it the day after his grandaunt admonished him to marry Alexa, post haste.

Alexa chuckled. “Confident I’d change my mind, were you?”

“No, desperately hopeful you would.” He nuzzled her neck, and she slanted her head to give him better access. “I would have been a miserable, cranky, old curmudgeon for the next fifty years if I hadn’t been successful.”

Alexa grew pensive, doubt dimming her vibrant eyes. “Lucan, is our love enough to make our union work? Strong enough to last and persevere? We are very different, you and I.”

His father’s stern visage hovered before his face for an instant. If his sire loved Mother the way Lucan adored Alexa, no seductress’s wiles would have tempted him to abandon his vows.

“Love is why our union will work and be joyous beyond our greatest dreams. If we’re committed to the end, no matter what providence sends our way, we can endure anything together.” He pressed a kiss to her nose. “All else matters naught. I give you my pledge, as long as life’s blood flows through my veins, I will love you above everything else, upon my honor.”

The smile Alexa bestowed upon him surely came straight from heaven, for his soul shouted for joy as it recognized the answering love shining from her radiant face.

“Then, my answer is yes.”

Epilogue

Chattsworth Park House

24 December, 1818

Alexa tucked her toes farther beneath her nightgown as she wrapped the quilt tighter about her shoulders. This far from the hearth, the room retained a stubborn chill. Yet, she’d been unable to resist watching the snow fall. As a child she’d been captivated by the mystery, and as an adult, the phenomenon’s majesty and tranquility mesmerized her still.

She’d awoken a bit ago to the mysterious silence foretelling a thick blanket of white. Slipping from Lucan’s warm embrace, she snatched a covering from the bed and now lay curled onto the window seat. Intoxicated with happiness unlike anything she’d ever conceived, she hummed a Scottish lullaby and rotated her wedding ring.

Mere weeks ago she’d become Her Grace, the Duchess of Harcourt, and tomorrow, she’d experience the British’s holiest of holidays with Lucan’s charming family. Scots didn’t observe Christmastide, but Hogmanay? That was a different tale entirely.

The Scottish celebrated with merriment and gusto only a Highlander fully appreciated. The Dowager Duchess of Harcourt, sweet lady, expressed delight when Alexa suggested they plan a Hogmanay New Year’s, and she wanted to introduce Alexa to Boxing Day too.

Goodness, so many festivities.

Though frail, and tiring easily, Lucan’s mother’s health hadn’t worsened. The dowager hinted, often, that she’d like to live long enough to see Lucan’s son.

His brother’s reaction upon spotting the beagle pup they’d brought him made Alexa chuckle softly again. Nothing, this side of heaven, ever shined more joyfully than Jeremy’s face. He’d fallen to his knees weeping, and Baron—Jeremy’s name for the four-legged, needle-toothed terror—scampered onto the man-child’s thighs and proceeded to lick Jeremy’s face until he collapsed in a fit of giggles.

Minerva and Harrison maintained their innocence, but with the overwhelming evidence against them, as well as Shona’s testimony, their trials had been pathetically brief. Their deportation sentence, rather than hanging, was attributed to the Hintons’ generous greasing of a few palms. Alexa last saw them dragged from the courtroom, spewing curses and damning Alexa and Shona to hell.

God help her, but Alexa couldn’t extend them a jot of compassion, and the injustice, that they should be extended mercy when they’d been ruthless, rankled.

The Needhams graciously took Shona into their fold, and she was far better for it. She would receive the love and acceptance she’d lacked most of her life.

Alexa’s parting with her Highland family had been bittersweet. The New World offered them opportunities they’d never have as black tinkers. With a promise to visit in the next couple of years, she’d tearfully bid them farewell.

“Come back to bed, duchess. I’m cold without you beside me.” Grogginess weighted Lucan’s deep baritone as he rested on one elbow. He stared at her hungrily, the bedcoverings gathered at his waist, revealing his sculpted torso lightly covered in hair.

“
Och,
that’s what I’m good for, keeping you warm?” Alexa swung her feet to the floor and shivered as icy tendrils snaked up her calf. Scampering to the bed, she jumped onto the mattress, only to have her husband pin her beneath his muscular frame.

“No, lass, I can think of a thing or two more you are especially good for.” He dipped his fair head and suckled her breast through the fabric of her gown.

Pleasure speared to her core, and she raised her hips in invitation.

He reared upward. “Off with this.”

In one deft movement, he peeled the gown over her head.

“Brr, Lucan, it’s freezing.” Alexa burrowed under the covers then giggled when he pounced atop her again, this time flesh to flesh, his sinewy hardness against her rounded softness.

“Let me warm you.” His hands everywhere, caressing and arousing her, he lathered hot kisses across her breasts and collarbone, his penis nudging the apex of her thighs.

Reaching between them, she curled her hand around his thick length, grinning when he issued a guttural groan. She stroked him, reveling in how her touch affected him.

He groaned again and grasped her hand. “Careful or the deed will be done before we start.”

“We cannot have that. I won’t be cheated.” Spreading her legs, Alexa guided him to her center, moaning when he slid home.

As the snow blanketed the earth outside, the wonder of their joining worked its mystical magic until as one, they crested ecstasy’s peak.

Later, satiated and drowsy with contentment, she lay cradled in Lucan’s arms, his strong thigh wrapped around her legs. She skimmed her nails along his forearm. “Tell me again when you knew you loved me.”

He rocked his hips into her buttocks, and nipped her shoulder. “When you looked back at me at Dounnich House, my heart became yours.”

Lucan lifted her thigh and eased into her warmth once more. “When did you know you loved me?”

Alexa arched into his thrust. “When I looked back at you at Dounnich House.”