The Beautiful Stranger (23 page)

Kerry gasped; Arthur moved his hand upward, lightly skimming the damp curls between her legs. The heat was a full, raging inferno now, and Arthur found her mouth again, thrusting his tongue into her depths as his fingers slipped into her wet folds.

Kerry squirmed against him, arching her hips against him and digging her fingers deep into his skin as he skillfully stroked her, circling around and over the pinnacle of her pleasure.

My darling, he murmured genuinely, my beautiful Scottish darling. His lips fell to her neck, kissing the curve into her shoulder. Kerrys hands moved provocatively across his nipples, down his chest, but when she boldly stroked him through his trousers, the world seemed to tilt, the pressure in him building to intolerable, but oddly weightless proportions. She freed him from the confines of the buckskins with a white-hot wave of heat down his spine. But Arthur almost imploded when her hand folded around him, squeezing gently as she swept the velvet tip with her thumb, then slowly down his shaft.

The experience was staggering-each sensation more startling than the last. This woman, this young country widow who had captivated him, was driving him over the edge of a desire he had not felt in the arms of any other woman. He was dangerously close to the edge of an emotional and physical precipice from which he knew he might never recover should he fall.

It was too late.

He had fallen days ago, and Arthur suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled it away from his cock, forcing her pale blue eyes to open and gaze up at him. Tiny tufts of black curls swirled around her face. Long, silken tresses draped her skin and the linens of the bed. Her breasts, magnificently exposed to him, gave her a beguiling softness that made his heart pound. He had never desired a woman so intently. He had never yearned to show a woman what he was feeling, to give her all the pleasure he could, to fulfill her in ways she had never before experienced.

Then Kerry reached up to tenderly touch his temple, and he saw the light in her eyes, the glimmer from somewhere deep inside her. He felt himself falling into those eyes, drowning in them. Completely immersed, he could not tear his gaze away from hers as he moved between her thighs and slowly entered her. Her lips parted with her body; her eyes fluttered closed with her long sigh, and her back arched, pushing her breasts against his chest. As he slid deeper, her body tightened provocatively around him, luring him into her depths as he began to move, her body flowing instinctively with his.

To his great surprise, a flood of unfamiliar but intense emotion was all at once crashing through him, making him feel oddly tender. Kerry seemed to sense it; she suddenly opened her eyes and smiled brilliantly. Arthur, she whispered, stroking his cheek, and he was suddenly plunging deep into the tidal pool of her longing. His strokes took on greater urgency now; one of Kerrys arms flailed above her head, clutching at the linens, while the other raked his back. She tossed her head to one side, oblivious to the dark hair that covered her face as Arthur drove into her again and again.

It was an extraordinary journey, the press of his body into hers, extraordinary feelings, vague but earnest feelings he recalled having felt as a young man so desperately in love. But this was different somehow, so bloody earthy. As with everything in her life, there was no pretense with Kerry in this bed. She moaned without self-consciousness, moved just as fiercely as he each time her body rose up to meet him, and just when he thought he could bear no more, she shoved him, pushing him onto his back and rolled on top.

Her hair fell like a curtain around them; she smiled seductively as she braced herself with her hands against his chest. Youve unleashed a beast in me, Arthur Christian, she whispered, and began to move.

Ah God, did she move. Arthur grasped her hips, pushed her down and tried to reach the heart of her. As his strokes began to quicken, she collapsed onto his chest, clinging to him, her breath hot and panting in his ear. Reach for it, Kerry, he muttered as he reached for his own.

The pressure in his groin suddenly burst into a thousand shards that poured into the warm pool of her body. In the fog of that shattering climax he heard her cry from somewhere above and felt her body convulse tightly around him, drawing the life from him. With a final, powerful thrust, a guttural moan erupted from his throat as he released the last of the life into her.

Gasping for breath, Arthur slid his arms around her body, holding her close. Neither of them spoke; it seemed to him that they were both quite simply stunned by the sweet sensation, the flame ignited between them. He stroked her hair, the silken skin of her back. It was several moments before he realized that the dampness of his shoulder was not perspiration, but her tears.

He turned his head toward her, but Kerry slid off him, burying her face in the crook of his arm.

He silently gathered her into his arms and pulled her back into his chest, wrapped his legs around her.

She said nothing, but her hand covered his that anchored her to him. They lay there for what seemed like hours to Arthur, each lost in their own thoughts, staring at the moonbeam streaming in through the window. When at last she spoke, he had to strain to hear her. You must know that I love you.

The admission hit him square in the gut. No, he said. Its just that its been a terribly long time since you She stopped him by chuckling softly. Arthur, a blind man could see how much I love you. She paused; the chuckle died in her throat. Doona say anything. Just promise me that youll go before the sunrise, will you? And and doona wake me. I canna bear to see you walk away.

No more than he could bear to walk away. He tenderly kissed the top of her head. I promise.

And once youve gone home again, youll send word, promise that too.

I promise that, too.

She sighed, a softly tortured sound that made his heart ache.

Kerry this has been an extraordinary fortnight. I shall never forget my experience here.

Then perhaps you will think of me from time to time.

Aye, lass, Ill think of you; every day Ill think of you, he murmured into her hair.

She turned in his arms then, seeking his mouth. They made love again, slowly and surely, taking their time to feel one another completely, prolong the experience. She whispered her love again just as they reached a glorious fulfillment together. Only then did they drift off to sleep, entwined in one anothers arms.

Arthur woke well before the sun had risen, unable to sleep soundly. Thankful that she was such a heavy sleeper, he carefully extracted himself from her limbs and quietly donned his clothesalthough he struggled with the restrictive waistcoat. When he was at last dressed, he picked up his boots and turned to gaze one more time at Kerry McKinnon. He stroked her long black hair, tried to brand the image of her in his minds eye, the same lovely visage he had first seen on a bed of pine needles in the Scottish forest, and one that he would carry with him all his life.

He longed to kiss her one last time, to hold her, to hear her whisper that she loved him once more, but true to his promise, he walked out of the room without waking her.

He tiptoed to the kitchen, only to have the wits startled from him by Thomass presencethe ornery Scot looked half-dead. His head hung over a bowl of coffee he gripped tightly in his hands. He frowned when Arthur sat on the bench to don his boots. Ye be leaving, he said flatly.

That I be, old chap.

Why, then? Ye seem to like it here well enough.

Arthur smiled at Thomas as he worked his second boot on his leg. McKinnon, I suspected you to be a sentimental goat all along. I like it here quite well indeed, but it is time I was about my business. Ive an appointment in Dundee that must be kept, and my family will be expecting me in London shortly.

Thomas snorted and slurped at his coffee. Yell not find such heaven on this earth as Glenbaden, mark me.

I know that, he agreed solemnly and stood, helped himself to several biscuits piled high on a plate in the middle of the table, which he stuffed into a woven sack May had given him. He turned and walked to the door and paused to glance over his shoulder one last time. You should try your hand at a little wandering yourself, Thomas. There are many treasures to behold on this earth that you will not find in Glenbaden.

Mark me, he said, and with a wave, walked out the door and into the cool early morning air.

And he kept walking, cutting through what was left of the barley field, his stride brisk and strong. He kept walking, kept forcing one foot in front of the other.

Not once did he look back, lest he crumble right there in the middle of this heaven on earth they called Glenbaden.

In hindsight, the journey to Dundee reminded Arthur of one of the bawdy burlesques that often played in Covent Garden, beginning with the stage right entrance of a little man possessing a manner highly reminiscent of the ubiquitous Richey Brothers. The troll had extracted a grand fortune from Arthurs pocket for the dubious pleasure of floating down Loch Eigg on little more than a piece of wood.

From the southern edge of Loch Eigg, Arthur walked to Perth, where he was once again subjected to an outrageous price for a less-than-desirable piece of horseflesh, which required the last few crowns Arthur had in his purse. He would have to survive on berries and tree bark, he supposed, until he could reach Dundee and the Bank of Scotland where he had, fortunately, put away a goodly sum. How the Scots normally procured their horses baffled Arthurin the two instances he had been forced to buy, the seller had reacted as if he were quite mad to want to purchase a horse. Which really should not have surprised him, seeing as how he had yet to see a horse he would deem a suitable mount. This particular one had a bowed back, clopped along at an excruciating pace, dipping and heaving, and responded so testily when Arthur pushed her forward that he had named the old nag Thomas.

The journey to Dundee seemed to take weeks instead of days. For every hill Thomas managed to climb, there was another one just behind it, rising higher than the first. Worse, the mild summer weather suddenly turned foul. Thick gray clouds hung low and a cold, steady rain seemed to have no end. His disposition was hardly improved when he asked a farmer for directions to Blairgowrie. The man stroked his red beard very slowly, pondering the request for what Arthur swore was at least a quarter of an hour, then slowly extended a bony hand and an even bonier finger to the right.

And then he proceeded to explain his pointing with an accent so heavy and so quickly spoken that Arthur had no idea what he said. Instead of asking the farmer to repeat himself, he had simply followed the bony finger in the wrong direction. A fact, naturally, he did not realize until he entered the same hamlet he had left just that morningfrom the opposite end.

In the daylight hourswhen he was in fact able to distinguish them from the nighthe encountered a passel

of odd people that convinced him he had ridden straight into the middle of a fairy tale. There was the young man he encountered digging a hole next to the road. He paused so that Thomas might have one of her seven daily meals and watched the young man. He in turn ignored Arthur completely, never broke his rhythm in digging and attended it so fervently that Arthur finally asked, What, are you digging through to the Orient? And he chuckled at his own jest.

The man hardly paused in his work. No.

A well, then? he asked, more seriously.

The man flicked his gaze over Arthur, but kept digging. No, he answered again.

The couple Arthur encountered near Lundie eclipsed that young mans odd behavior, however. He had stopped to water Thomas, naturallythe old hag could not walk more than forty feet without needing some sort of sustenanceand asked if he might let his horse drink of their stream. Upon hearing his accent, the woman clapped her hands and the man flashed a toothless grin at Arthur. They eagerly invited him to let his mount drink her fill, and just as eagerly urged him to come into their little cottage for a bit of stew while she did. At last, Arthur thought, a pair of Scots who actually liked the English. They had seemed perfectly normal, and he had gladly climbed down from Thomas, had walked into the cottage, expecting to find something as neat and cheery as Mays cozy rooms, but stopped dead in his tracks. The main room of the cottage was filled with the presence of an enormous cow, steadily chewing from a pile of hay.

With the exception of that batty pair, who seemed to think nothing unusual about having a cow in their cottage, everyone he encountered greeted him with a thinly veiled disdain every time he opened his mouth. A Sassenach was not welcome in these parts, that was made sufficiently clear to him. The more miles he traveled, the more he came to understand that the universal contempt of the English had less to do with history and more to do with the perception that the English were behind the wholesale push of the Highlanders from their glens in favor of sheep. The Highlanders that could, eked out a living selling kelp from grossly overharvested seas. But when the coasts became too crowded to support them all, many were forced to sell everything for passage to America.

Arthur had no idea if it were truly only English investors behind the sweeping agrarian change, but by the time he reached Dundee, he was beginning to dislike the English, too.

However, in Dundee, any sympathetic feelings he might have had for the Scots rapidly evaporated.

First and foremost, Mr. Jamie Regis, Esquire, had not deigned to keep his appointment, which irritated Arthur to no end. If there was one thing he could not abide, it was for a man to give his word and renege.

Jamie Regis had done exactly that in Arthurs opinion, and twice if he were to count his negligence in performing the eviction.

He did not, however, count the eviction. Secondly, he could not find suitable lodging in the town. There was no grand hotel, no coaching inn where people of the Quality might reside for a time. The Wallace Arms, the best Dundee apparently had to offer, was a dilapidated old building in which he would not have housed even his mount. In the days he spent waiting for the stout little solicitor, he moved from public house to public houseDundee seemed to have an ample supply of themin search of a room where he might sleep without having to listen to boisterous laughter and song all through the night.