The Scottish Lord’s Secret Bride (18 page)

Murren, presumably not yet in a companionable frame of mind, was still in her room, and had asked for a tray to be sent up.

‘Then—’ Fraser stripped off his gloves and put them on the entrance hall table ‘—it will be you and I. Shall we dress informally and eat in the small dining room in an hour? Then we’ll have time for a stroll before we get company.’

Morven curtsied very properly and his eyes widened as he chuckled.

‘I rather like that.’

She tapped her lips. ‘Don’t get too used to it, my lord. It’s reserved for special occasions.’

‘And special people?’

‘Well of course. Now if I have to be presentable within an hour, informally dressed or not, I need to dash. Excuse me, please.’ Morven checked the hall hastily to make sure no servants were present, lifted her skirts and took the stairs two at a time. She chuckled to herself and shook her head as a long low whistle floated up after her.

He was incorrigible, and if she were honest she loved it, Morven decided as she washed and donned a pretty tea gown of pink and cream stripes, and caught up a shawl in the same shades. Peggy, the maid who was helping her twisted Morven’s long hair into a simple knot at the back of her head and nodded with approval. ‘You look perfect, my lady.’

Morven twisted from side to side in front of the cheval mirror. ‘Hmm I’ll pass muster anyway. You have dressed my hair beautifully, Peggy.’ The young maid blushed with pleasure.

‘’Twern’t hard, m’lady. It’s lovely hair you have. I’m hoping one day I’ll be a proper dresser, so all the practice I get is good for me,’ Peggy said earnestly.

‘I foresee you will be besieged with offers,’ Morven replied sincerely. If she didn’t have a personal maid at Welland she’d be tempted to ask Peggy to return south with her when she departed. ‘Now I best go or I’ll be late. You need not wait up for me. Off you go and enjoy your evening.’ The maid curtsied and Morven sighed in relief. She would not have been able to dismiss her maid at home as easily. There she would have been told that she would need help and help was what she would get. Mavis had been her nursemaid and would always speak with the familiarity of someone who had changed her, fed her, scolded her and cuddled her. She’d been due to accompany them until a bad toothache had laid her low and Morven insisted she stopped at Welland and had the tooth drawn.

Peggy scurried out and after one last critical look at herself in the mirror, Morven tweaked a few strands of hair from the knot to rest tantalisingly close to her bosom, where the dress was cut low and teasing. It could be made demure with the insertion of a lace fichu. She hadn’t bothered to use that. Not that night. Tonight she wanted to tease Fraser, to watch his reactions and see how she responded. There might not be many more chances before she learned their fate. Whatever that was, it seemed inevitable things would change.

With a row of tiny buttons and silk ribbons down the front—the sort Fraser said all those years ago, teased and delayed anything and everything—Morven didn’t deny the dress was not easy to get out of. But just in case she was escorted to her room, she intended to ensure no one else was around to see who her helper was.

Fraser stood at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the newel post. He was the epitome of a gentleman of leisure in starched linen, grey striped waistcoat under a darker grey jacket, immaculate pantaloons and exquisite house shoes. To her gratification his eyes widened and an expression of what she decided was appreciation mixed with lust spread over his face.

‘I do hope I haven’t kept you waiting,’ Morven said demurely, and then spilled her ladylike attitude with a giggle. ‘I did rush, but these buttons you know.’

He looked her up and down, slowly, and lingered on the three closest to the neckline of the gown. ‘Those buttons,’ Fraser repeated, ‘should be banned. Or cut off. Hell, woman, fumbling with the ties is hard enough, but threading those tiny things through a gap designed to make the nimblest-fingered man swear is a bloody nightmare. If it wasn’t for the thought of the feast at the end, I’d be a gibbering wretch.’ He tugged on the end of one pink silk ribbon until it almost, but not quite untied. Did she imagine it, or did her breast swell as his finger only just touched the soft mound of skin?

Morven raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh you think you will attend to them then?’

‘I know I will,’ Fraser said frankly as he held his arm out to her. Was he talking about breasts or ribbons? She hardly knew but the end result was the same.

An intention that he would attend to them.

‘After food. I think I may need plenty of stamina. Shall we? Or I fear the supper in the dining room will have to wait whilst I sup elsewhere.’ His expression told her exactly what he meant by that. Her tummy rumbled and Fraser sighed. ‘Food for the body first, for the soul will have to wait.’

****

‘So what shall we do today?’ Murren asked as they sat at the breakfast table. She seemed to have forgotten her bad mood and Morven decided it best not to bring it up.

‘Do? You mean Mama has not got our day mapped out?’ Morven sipped her chocolate and regarded her sister over the rim of her cup. If she had her way, she would sit in the rose garden and dream about the previous night when Fraser had once more visited her room and demonstrated all the ways they could please each other. Now she ached in the most unusual places, in the nicest way possible, and had had to choose her gown carefully so no telltale red marks on her soft skin were on view. Even the thought of how he had settled her on her knees and entered her from behind made her body tighten and her nipples harden. To say nothing of the way he had shown her how to take him in her mouth and arouse him.

‘Mama and Lady Napier are supervising jam making I believe.’ Murren wrinkled her nose as she spread some of the previous year’s offerings over warm bread, and brought Morven’s mind back from the antics of the bedchamber into the breakfast room.

‘Early rhubarb I think.’ Murren shook her head. ‘I swear Mama would do no such thing at home.’

Morven grasped the topic gratefully. Her mind wouldn’t focus properly on anything except Fraser and…
Stop it.
‘Yes she would,’ she said with a grin. ‘However, there it would be called interfering.’

Murren giggled. ‘I suppose so. Therefore what shall we do? According to his mama, Fraser will be out all day, so it is only us.’

Again? Was fate—or parents—conspiring to keep them apart? Because if so, it—or they—were only partly succeeding. The throbbing between her legs increased and she shuffled on the chair. This was ridiculous; she had to snap out of it.

‘Morven, I said shall we go for a walk to the river?’ Murren poked her in the side. ‘Hello, are you listening?’

‘Pardon? Oh.’ Morven had been so involved in her thoughts she’d missed her sister’s question. She dragged her mind back to the present. ‘Why not?’

‘And skim stones.’

Morven laughed. Murren’s propensity for the innocent pastime was well known in their family, and frowned upon by their parent. ‘It’s as well Mama won’t be with us then. Wear some older clothes.’

‘I have none with me,’ Murren said worriedly. ‘What should I do?’

Morven patted her hand. ‘Not worry for a start. You will after you’ve been messing about by the river for any length of time.’

Which turned out to be true.

The banks were slippery, and after one slide too many where only Morven’s grip saved her sister from disaster, Morven called a halt. ‘I think we better just walk away from the edge. Your skimming crown is safe. Perhaps it would be best to go across the field to the road and back to the castle that way.’

Murren looked at the track, her boots and finally at Morven. Her expression was one of worry, and she sighed gusty enough to move the reeds at the side of the river.

‘It might be as well,’ she said. ‘I really do not want to annoy Mama any more. I wish she would realise I’m not outgoing like you. I don’t want to be influential, or run a large household. I want a quiet life, with someone who loves me as me. If I’m blessed with children I want to see them growing up, be part of their lives all the time, not just for half an hour each day.’ Her face was full of misery. Morven hugged her and Murren returned the embrace. ‘Is it too much to ask for?’

‘No it isn’t,’ Morven replied firmly.
I want that as well.
‘We deserve more than society thinks we should be satisfied with.’ She chuckled. ‘Good Lord, I sound like Mary Wollstonecraft. It’s as well Mama isn’t around to hear me, she’d lock me in my room on bread and water until I mended my ways. Come on, let’s go over the stile and head for the castle.’

They walked along in companionable silence, each, Morven assumed, absorbed by their own thoughts, until Murren clutched Morven’s arm and brought her out of her reverie. ‘Morven, who is that coming towards us?’

A tall stately lady with long black hair, even darker than Morven’s, that flowed around her shoulders and to her waist walked briskly towards them and stopped a few feet away. Her dress of reds and golds glittered in the sunlight, and swirled around her bare feet.

‘My ladies, you were looking for me.’ It wasn’t couched as a question.

‘Were we?’ Morven asked as Murren took a step back. Really, Morven thought with exasperation, Murren might be shy, but that is ridiculous. She’d need to speak firmly to her sister about it before long. So much seemed put on. However, not at that moment. The unknown woman was looking at her quizzically.

‘I don’t think so, thank you,’ Morven said composedly.

The woman’s eyes crinkled and she smiled in a way that conveyed secrets. ‘Oh but I know so, Lady Morven, so come with me.’ Her eyes, darker than the night sky, seemed to bore into Morven. It should have made her wary, but instead to her surprise it made her settled, warm and safe. A strange feeling and one she’d rarely experienced except in Fraser’s arms.

‘Should we?’ Murren whispered worriedly. ‘How does she know your name?’

Morven shrugged. She couldn’t feel anything untoward, and she seemed to have a sense that shouted “beware” when necessary, or she thought with a jolt, she did up here, in Scotland. Now she realised she had no such thing south of the border. For almost eight years that itch to warn her to be on her guard had been absent, and not she decided because it was not needed. There had been many a time it would have come in handy.

Now though? Nothing. So they might as well see what happened. After all if the woman led them in a direction they didn’t want to go, there were two of them and one of her. A quick turnabout would be easy. ‘Why not.’

‘It will be in your best interests,’ the woman said, as they left the track and walked towards some buildings a few hundred yards ahead. ‘Both of you. The young lassie? She’s troubled by different things than you, my lady Morven. Come and sit.’ She gestured to a low stone wall surrounding a cottage. ‘Let me explain.’

Murren went white. Morven squeezed her hand. There was nothing she could do except sit outside the building and wait to hear what the lady had to impart.

‘We’re listening,’ she said as the lady settled on the ground in front of them, her skirts spread around her. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Jessie; that’s all you need to know.’ She dipped her head and Morven noticed a streak of white hair, no more than a finger’s width in the dark depths. ‘I’ve waited long for you to return, my lady. To have your sister with you is a bonus.’ She looked intently at Morven. ‘Are you ready to open your mind?’

‘What do I have to lose?’ Morven asked wryly. ‘As long as you accept I might still not take heed.’

Jessie laughed. ‘I expect nothing less. And you?’ She turned to Murren. ‘Will you trust your sister, and listen to what I have to tell you?’

Morven waited.
Come on, Murren, show some backbone.

Murren looked at Morven. She sighed.
Don’t make me say it.

‘Then, yes, if it seems all right to Morven, I will listen.’

Chapter Ten

‘Five nights,’ Morven muttered to herself as she paced her bedchamber whilst the sun rose and the household stirred. ‘Five bloody nights since we spent more than five minutes together. What on earth is going on?’ Her head ached, her heart ached and her jaw ached from holding back what she really wanted to say and knew she must not. The brief note on her pillow,
will speak as soon as we can
, was not enough to calm her fears.

The evening after the meeting with Jessie, the ladies had dined alone. Their mama had been chatty, Lady Napier less so, but much to Morven’s amazement, no one had touched on anything remotely controversial and conversation had flowed easily. The only mention of Fraser was that he was busy elsewhere. And the only mention of their day came from Morven, who said they’d had a gentle stroll to the river and back.

Murren flashed her a grateful look, and changed the subject to ask Lady Napier how to make a decorative knot in her embroidery.

Lady Napier replied with a sewing lesson, and the duchess chimed in every so often. Morven was content to sit back, sip her whisky and let the conversation flow over her. She had a lot to think about.

By the time she reached her chamber, Jessie’s words seemed engraved on her heart.
Your past is your future, my lady. You need to listen and take heed.
If only she could talk it all over with Fraser. However, he was nowhere around, and Murren after hearing that her destiny awaited her, and she’d discover it before three moons faded, had gone white and refused to discuss it at all.

Morven let Peggy help her into her night-rail and sat in the chair by the fire to wait, hopeful that Fraser would appear. She woke alone three hours later, cold and stiff, the fire out, the candle fluttering on the last half-inch of wax, and no sign of Fraser. Sighing she took herself off to bed, and tossed and turned the rest of the night as she strained—unsuccessfully—to listen for footsteps.

The next day passed comparatively quickly. Fraser appeared briefly mid morning as she sat in the library turning the pages of a book, and proceeded to kiss her thoroughly, before saying he was going up the glen to see a farmer who wanted to make changes to his crops. He also added he hoped to hear news about Tam Curtin.