The Lady Most Willing . . . (32 page)

Her mouth dropped open. “
What?
”

“You must leave,” he said. “Because I do not want anyone in this castle saying you were forced to marry me because I’d seduced you.”

“
You
seduced
me
?” she echoed. She scrambled around in his embrace until she sat straddling his lap, her hands flat against his chest. “No one who’d seen the concerted effort you have put into avoiding me these past four days would even consider the possibility.”

He stared at her, apparently having a hard time coming up with a response. She felt the hard evidence of his arousal, and heat rose and flowed up her chest and neck into her cheeks. It was beyond arousing. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and his eyes narrowed, his gaze falling raptly on her mouth.

“No, indeed,” she said, breathless and exultant. “ ’Tis I who’ve seduced you, and everyone here knows it. Besides,” she said, “I have discovered I do not care what others think.”

He groaned, his eyes slipping shut and ground out, “And I have discovered that I do. At least where you are concerned.”

She frowned, leaning forward, and pressed a soft, clinging kiss against his lips. He shuddered.

“What matter?” she murmured. “We are to be wed anyway, are we not?”

His arms slipped around her, crushing her to him. “Yes. Yes. And yes,” he said, giving in to the irresistible temptation of her mouth before tearing his mouth free. “But,” he said, “and I cannot believe I am about to say this—truly, if Byron were dead I would swear I’d been possessed by his stiff-rumped spirit—
but
I want you speaking your vows at the altar knowing that you do so only because you love me, not because you were compelled by a rash decision made in a moment of passionate excess and are afraid you might be pregnant.”

“I would very much like to experience your passionate excess.” She sighed, leaning forward for another kiss.

He pulled her close and bent her over his arm, his mouth plundering hers for long, erotic moments before, with a groan, he lifted his head. “You have no concept of what you are doing to me, or the effort I am exercising. But I swear soon enough you shall.

“There will be a better time and better place for these things, my love,” he said, his dark eyes narrowed but unable to hide the hunger burning within them. “Long, passionate nights followed by languid days when we will be undisturbed while we teach each other about desire and pleasure.” He dipped his head, once more sipping a kiss from her lips before jerking his head back, breathing hard.

“I want to explore every nuance of lovemaking with you. Enjoy every taste of you.” He nibbled the tender flesh at the base of her neck, traced the tip of his tongue beneath her chin to the corner of her mouth. She arched into it, her eyes closing in a swoon of pleasure.

With a low, strained chuckle, he pulled her upright, catching her face between his hands and gazing deeply into her eyes. “I will not hurry one second of that maiden exploration, my beloved. Because I have never been in love, you see, and when we do make love, my darling, my wondrous Cecily, I do not want anything interfering.”

She burrowed her hands beneath his shirt, astonished and aroused by the satiny smooth texture of his skin stretched taut across the hard pectoral muscles. “What would interfere?” she asked, breathing hard, riveted by the idea of knowing him, this man she loved, in every sense.

“Well . . .” He hissed with pleasure as she raked her teeth lightly along his jawline.

“Well?” she echoed. He tasted subtly of soap and smoke.

“Taran,” he gulped. “He might pop in for a nightcap. Then I’d have to kill him.”

She froze.

“Dear God, what a hideous notion,” she said, her ardor momentarily doused. “I counted you a great seducer, but I see now you can kill passion as easily as you engender it.”

But then his arms came round her once more, pulling her back into his embrace, and ardor burst into flame anew. She wrapped her arms around his neck, whispering, “But for now we can still practice a bit, yes?”

“Oh yes,” he said, laughing as his mouth settled over hers. “Oh yes . . .”

Epilogue

A
mid hollered threats, imprecations, and vows to unman any men they found near their daughters, the rescuers leaped from their horses and barreled into Finovair, heedless of the fact that no one barred their way and that, in fact, Hamish held the castle’s ancient portal open for them.

Finnian Burns led the charge, him having only the one bairn, and thus feeling both the insult and the fear the greatest. Jamie Chisholm was close at his heels, bellowing for his Marilla, while at his side strode the Earl of Maycott, looking justly grim, as everyone knew how much he doted on his eldest daughter, Cecily. Behind them crowded half the men of Kilkarnity, ostensibly to see that justice was finally done to that old brigand Taran Ferguson, but in actuality because nothing near so exciting had happened in the parish in thirty years and they wanted a front-row seat.

The small horde swept down Finovair’s high, empty hall, wrenching open the doors to every hidey-hole, cupboard, and room, one after the other as they hunted down their quarry until finally, they stood before the last door in the corridor, the one leading into the dilapidated family chapel.

“They’ll be no sanctuary in there for you, Taran Ferguson!” Chisholm cried out, and kicked the heavy oak door with all his might.

Unfortunately for Chisholm, the door had not been latched and the violence of his kick sent him flying in and sprawling face-first on the chapel floor. Burns and Maycott, who’d endured four days of Chisholm’s bombast and bluster, and had both come to conclusion that those four interminable days might well lead the list of their grievances against Taran, stepped over him and into the chapel, followed close by the men of Kilkarnity.

Whereupon they all stopped in their tracks.

Standing with their backs to them, facing the altar, stood eight people, four tall men and four ladies in evening attire, while at the foot of the altar stood Father Munro, still wearing the greatcoat Hamish had tossed over the old priest long before daybreak this morning when he’d kidnapped the man from his cozy bed, dragged him up onto a saddle in front of him, and galloped all the way from Kilkarnity to Finovair.

Now, all eight turned around to look at them, variously reflecting amusement, cool appraisal, and steely resolve, yet, oddly enough, also in each face a full measure of indisputable happiness, the happiest of all looking to be the old reprobate Taran, who might as well have been rubbing his hands together, his gloating was that evident.

“What the devil is going on here?” Chisholm, who’d picked himself up from the stone floor, bellowed.

With terrifying hauteur, the Duke of Bretton lifted one dark brow and intoned, “We are having a wedding. Sir.”

At which the handsome, black-haired devil standing beside Lady Cecily added, “Rather to say, we have
had
a wedding. Sir.”

“Whose wedding?” Finnian Burns demanded.

“Mine,” said Duke of Bretton. “To Catriona.” He smiled broadly. “Father-in-law.”

Burns reeled back under this pronouncement as if he’d been kicked in the chest by a mule, falling into the waiting arms of the Kilkarnity men behind him, more than one of whom had the sense to whisper to their fallen comrade, “A duke, Fin. A bloody rich duke!”

“And mine, also,” the darkly handsome man said before Burns had recovered, “to the Lady Cecily”—words that set Earl of Maycott starting forward in alarm, for now he recognized the man holding his daughter’s hand and remembered his reputation. But Maycott’s steps faltered to a halt when he saw the beatific expression on his daughter’s face.

He opened his mouth to speak, but whatever objection or comment he might have made was forever lost when the icily handsome Earl of Oakley spoke.

“And mine,” he announced, his gaze never straying from the face of Kilkarnity’s most famous romp, Fiona Chisholm. “To the Countess of Oakley, my own Fiona.”

“Fiona?” squawked her own father, dumbfounded. “Not Marilla? Are ye mad?”

“Quiet, Jamie,” one of the Kilkarnity men hissed, “ye have a son-in-law what’s an earl,” while behind them, the much recovered Finnian Burns beamed with paternal pride at his new son-in-law, the duke, until Maycott turned to him and in voice heavy with irony said, “Don’t think this means you’re shut the cost of a proper English ceremony, Burns. That’ll come later.”

To which Burns, who was known far and wide to have deep pockets and short arms, shot back smugly, “Unless a bairn comes first.” Meanwhile Chisholm, heedless of proffered advice, burst out, “But what of Marilla?”

At which point Taran, the instigator and author of all this fascinating drama, stepped forward—though later reports claimed he wisely kept his muscular nephews Lords Oakley and Rocheforte between him and Chisholm—and said, “Well, Jamie, since ye’re of a mind to know, I’m glad to be telling you—”

But Marilla, who had no patience with, well, anything, burst out with obvious glee, “I am wed, too, Father! I won’t have to leave Scotland and I shall have my very own castle!” She grabbed Taran’s arm. “So come and kiss your new son,” she crowed.

Chisholm’s eyes grew as wide as saucers, and all about the room, everyone fell dead silent. Then, with a roar such as hadn’t been heard since Braveheart’s time, Chisholm launched himself at Taran, going straight through the laird’s nephews—well, not truly through, as both men stepped neatly aside—aiming for Taran’s neck and . . .

. . . And all merry hell broke loose.

Witnesses at the pub that night all agreed that Taran made a fair show and acquitted himself well for a man of his years. The laird wasn’t there to dispute it, since he was dancing the bedtime waltz with the prettiest girl in the county, even as her da sat gazing into a glass of whiskey and shaking his head.

Those who believed in fairies and suchlike—and since the Scots aren’t fools, they know right well that magic has its place—well, those folks said later that a strange moon shone over Finovair Castle that December, a lovers’ moon, a blue moon, a spoonin’ moon. Other said the Seelie Court had come riding in on that winter storm, their steeds as white as snow itself, and their laughter falling like blessings down Finovair’s old chimneys and turrets.

Whatever magic took hold of Finovair castle that December of 1819, the four couples who fell in love there never thought of that storm without a leap of the heart.

More to the point—and sure evidence of the magic if ever there was—some nine months later five new bairns squalled their way into the light of day. That would be one each for the noble parents, and a set of red-faced, lusty twins for the laird.

Beautiful, those babes were. And strong. And—or so their parents said—canny. And—so the Ferguson oft proudly said—loud.

But mostly, they were blessed . . . as is every child born to a couple who love each other with the kind of passion that only grows deeper with time. Neither the laird nor his male guests were the sort to babble much poetry, but there wasn’t a one of them that didn’t, now and then, drop a kiss on his wife’s sweet mouth and make her a promise: “And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a’ the seas gang dry.”

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

About the Authors

A
New York Times
bestselling author of twenty-two novels for Avon Books, J
ULIA
Q
UINN
is a graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest. She can be found on the web at www.juliaquinn.com.

New York Times
bestselling author E
LOISA
J
AMES
is a professor of English literature who lives with her family in New York but can sometimes be found in Italy. Please visit her at www.eloisajames.com.

C
ONNIE
B
ROCKWAY
, the
New York Times
bestselling author of twenty-two books, is an eight-time finalist and two-time winner of the RITA® Award. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and two spoiled mutts. Her website is www.conniebrockway.com.

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