The Scottish Lord’s Secret Bride Read online

  ‘More, love, let it go and show me.’ He held her in place as she began to shudder and then he bit down on her nether lips and she exploded into tiny bits. Stars danced in front of her eyes, bells rang in her ears and she screamed as her climax overwhelmed her. Somewhere she thought she heard Fraser’s voice telling her how proud he was, how amazing she looked and to let herself be cosseted.

  She might have answered him, but in truth Morven had no idea. She floated.

  ****

  Fraser deposited his precious bundle on the bed, pulled her dress off and left her in her chemise and tenderly pulled the blankets over her. Morven muttered something and patted the bed. She didn’t open her eyes as she frowned.

  ‘Dreams,’ she muttered. ‘Always dreams.’

  Leith 1810

  “My love I dream of you, ache to feel you next to me once more. Will you come to me? Forgive me for watching you drive away?”

  Did that mean she’d hoped it had been real, and wondered where he was? Fraser sat on the edge of the bed and bent his head to her ear. ‘Do you want me there with you, Morven? To hold you and caress you and keep you safe?’

  ‘Well of course I do…’ she grumbled. ‘Why would you think otherwise? But dreams don’t talk like that, they go and…’ Her eyelids fluttered open and she gasped. ‘Fraser?’

  Her blush covered all of her that he could see. Which, as he’d tried to remove himself from temptation, wasn’t much.

  ‘Did we? Did you? Oh my, oh goodness oh…’ She dived under the bedclothes.

  ‘Amazing,’ he said firmly, and kissed the only bit of her he could see. The top of her head. ‘It has been my most ardent desire to hold you and see you splinter once more. It was…’ He stopped abruptly. Dare he open up and be frank?

  I have nothing to lose.

  ‘It was?’ she asked as she lowered the covers a few inches.

  Fraser took a deep breath. ‘Something I remembered and thought about whilst I was away. Something I used to help me gain my release during the long lonely nights. And something I hoped and prayed I would be privileged to see and hear again one day.’

  Morven sat up and the sheets fell away exposing her rosy chest. Her nipples, Fraser noted, were still hard and proud.

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he confirmed. ‘More times than I cared to admit. Oh I was no monk; sometimes the need for warm flesh had to be met. But more often than not I have pleasured myself with you as my guide.’

  ‘Ah then.’ Morven knelt up beside him and pulled at his shirt. ‘Perhaps we better see if your imagination lived up to reality.’ She moved the hem of his shirt up and over his shoulders and dropped the garment onto the floor.

  ‘So let me see. Is this as good?’ She bent her lips to his nipples and sucked each in turn before she grazed them with her teeth and pulled the areolae into her mouth.

  ‘Argh, love.’ His senses swam. God he would come there and then if he wasn’t careful. ‘Love, I’m on a knife edge here,’ he warned her. ‘I could spill now.’

  Morven punched him lightly on the shoulder and rolled her eyes and let go of him with a gentle plop. ‘No you couldn’t—not yet. You have the strongest control I know. There’s so much more surely?’

  ‘Are you certain you want to do this?’ He had to ask. ‘It’s not pity or…’

  Morven narrowed her eyes and glared. ‘Or nothing. If naught else you should remember I do not do pity. I want you. You, my laird, and only you. It’s been as long for me as it had for you.’ She bit her lips and shrugged. ‘Longer because I have only had my hand and no warm body.’ She blushed. ‘And, er, my darning mushroom.’

  He’d have to ask her about that, later but not now. ‘Then,’ Fraser said fervently, ‘let me get my pantaloons off and we can show each other what we have been missing.’

  Morven reached for his waistband. ‘Let me do it for you?’

  Fraser put his hands over hers and moved them to her sides. ‘Not if you want me to come inside you.’ He paused. ‘Not literally, I will spill on a towel.’

  She rolled her eyes again and fell back onto the mattress. ‘Then get the bloody towel and enjoy me for as long as you can. She shut her eyes for a second, and when she opened them they were dark as night and her expression was serious. ‘I’m empty without you, Fraser.’ Morven whispered the words. ‘I have spent almost eight years wondering what was wrong with me, with my life. Only one thing was wrong.’ She paused and smiled at him through the tears that slid down her face. ‘Happy tears,’ she said when he brushed one away with his thumb. ‘Very happy tears. So what was missing? Why did my life appear arid? Why did no one interest me? Because the one person I needed wasn’t there. You were missing. Make love with me, please.’

  He needed no more bidding.

  ****

  Contented and snuggled in Fraser’s arms, Morven promised herself she would enjoy her position and rest just for a moment. Until her brain was back into full working order. It might take a while. They had, she thought smugly, fallen on each other like ravenous beasts: rolling, snarling and neither one giving any quarter. She had been as bold and as forward as Fraser and he’d let her. Encouraged her even.

  It had been a fierce coupling, and she had loved every second. As he shook and shuddered it had taken all of her resolve to let him withdraw and spill on the towel and not hold him tight inside her. Then her own climax had sent her into oblivion for several seconds, and her mind had taken its time to recover. Now she remembered with a jolt she still hadn’t told Fraser about her eavesdropping.

  ‘Fraser?’ Beside her Fraser stretched, spooned in behind her and kissed the nape of her neck.

  ‘Two minutes and we will talk,’ he said in a slurred voice as the clock chimed two. ‘I just need to hold you for a while to enable me to savour what we did and become coherent once more.’

  Morven could understand that. ‘Sounds perfect.’ She closed her eyes and let his warmth surround her. When she opened them again it was to hear the clock strike four.

  Four? Morven squinted at the grey light, which seeped around the edge of the shutters—they hadn’t bothered to close the curtains. She poked Fraser in the ribs.

  He grunted. ‘Wass…’ One eye was opened. ‘Morven. Thank goodness it wasn’t a dream.’

  ‘Yes well it might become a nightmare if you don’t wake up,’ she replied in a breathless voice. Was that his staff tickling her rear? ‘It’s past four in the morning. What time do the servants stir?’

  Fraser rolled over onto his back and pulled her with him to lie prone on his body. There was no two ways about it; it had been his cock touching her back because now it stroked her front.

  ‘Not until five. We have plenty of time for this.’ He rolled them over again so that he was above her, bent his head and kissed his way down her throat, as he used his hands to find her channel. ‘Ah.’ He burrowed one then two fingers deep inside her. ‘Oh yes.’ He purred the words. ‘Oh, love, so wet, so very ready for me.’

  Morven couldn’t deny that. All protestation left her mind as he nudged her legs apart and she welcomed him inside her. He didn’t have to ask her to entwine said legs around his neck, she did it automatically as her hands found his nipples and caressed them.

  Fraser groaned and increased his steady thrusts. ‘I was going to be slow,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Wring every last emotion out of you, but hell, love, I can’t hold back.’

  ‘Good.’ Morven clenched her muscles around his staff, released and clenched hard again.

  He shuddered, renewed his pace and shouted. Morven shook, as he pinched her nub and with a scream to match his, she once more fell into the void of sated completion. Her heartbeat thundered unevenly in her ears and her skin stung as if hundreds of bees had kissed it. Fraser slumped onto her and panted, his breath warm on her cheek as one hand rhythmically stroked her hair.

  The clock sounded five.

  Five? ‘Oh grief, get up,’ Morven said as she pushed frantically at the prone figu
re on top of her who grunted. ‘Fraser, for the love of all you hold dear, move. It’s all very well us enjoying ourselves, but our mamas would have a fit… Hold on.’ She remembered what she had overheard. ‘Or would they? We need to talk. Wake up.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ he grumbled and slid to one side of her and stretched out face down next to her on the sheet. ‘But I was comfortable.’ He raised one arm and dropped it over her waist.

  Morven groaned. His touch was much too arousing, and aroused was the last thing she needed to be at that moment. ‘Good, so was I. But the clock has just struck five. Servants, parents, scandal,’ she hissed. ‘And I have things to tell you. Things that could be important.’

  Outside someone clattered along the corridor and they both froze.

  Fraser rolled over and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. ‘Later,’ he said reluctantly. ‘We will escape later and go somewhere we can talk in private. Just follow my lead.’ He dressed rapidly and as his skin disappeared Morven had more than one pang of regret. She could only pray that wasn’t the last time she saw him naked.

  ‘When have I ever not done as you directed?’ Morven found her night-rail and slipped it over her head. ‘Now go or we will be in the mire.’

  He grinned, took up his shoes, and walked over to the secret door, unlocked it and swung it open. ‘Breakfast at ten. Don’t be late.’

  He disappeared through the aperture and closed it behind him. He didn’t, Morven noted, lock it. She sat on the edge of the bed, put her hand to her breast and sought comfort with her fingers.

  Comfort was not there. Her chain and its precious contents had gone.

  ****

  Fraser whistled as he stripped, washed and began to dress in clothes suited to a day out on the estate. He hadn’t the foggiest idea how he could get Morven alone for the second day running but hopefully an opportunity would present itself. A cryptic message from Brogan saying good luck and wish it for me as well, did nothing to help his chary mood. Meanwhile he had his pig man to talk to, and his gamekeeper wanted his opinion about where to site the traps for the wild cats that occasionally attacked the pheasant poults. If only they would stick to rabbits, he’d be a happy man. As it was, his gamekeeper thought he was crazy when he decided on setting the cats free on his other estate, a hundred or so miles to the north.

  He picked up his hairbrushes to try and tidy his unruly curls. He’d need to get a haircut before long, or he would be tying it back in the manner of his forebears. One brush hit something tangled at the back of his head and he winced. Fraser dropped the brush to use his fingers to try and tease whatever it was out. Three minutes later and minus several hairs he turned a cheap copper ring with a tiny piece of blue glass in it over and over in his hands. Anyone who wore it for long would be green-fingered and rue the day.

  Fraser harrumphed. He’d seen it before many years ago. Though then it had been on a finger and signified the end of what had been a perfect day. It was oh so easy to remember that last hour before they’d made their way back to the castle.

  That day, Beshlie had accosted them with a wicked grin and drawn them to the stall of garish trinkets. ‘You need to get your lady a token, Master Fraser,’ she had said in her husky voice. ‘To remember this for ever.’

  Fraser lifted the ring to rest it against his cheek as he remembered Morven’s laughing disclaimer and the way Beshlie’s eyes had dared him to defy her. In the end he’d picked up the ring, and slid it onto Morven’s right hand. ‘A token of friendship to remember a happy day,’ he had said.

  Morven had kissed him and grinned. ‘A perfect day,’ she had declared and curled her finger around the band.

  So she still had it all these years later? How on earth did it end up in his hair though? Fraser racked his brain and had a thought. Hadn’t he seen a thin silver chain around her neck? Could this have been on the chain? They had rolled around somewhat and he reckoned the links could easily have broken if one of them had caught on his hair.

  He slipped the ring into his pocket, determined to let Morven know he had it as soon as he could. Even though it was not a wedding ring—they hadn’t married as far as they knew—it had been given in love, and obviously meant something to Morven. He guessed she would be worried about where it was. A cheap copper ring wasn’t something you could easily explain away to parents. He took one last cursory look at himself in the mirror and left the room, to take the stairs two at a time and walk briskly along the corridor to his destination.

  The breakfast room was empty when he entered, with no sign that any of the occupants of the house had already eaten. Chalmers, one of the footmen, placed eggs and haggis on the appropriate chafing dishes and bowed. ‘The black pudding is on its way, my lord. Do you require anything else?’

  Fraser shook his head. Chalmers was old before his time. He’d admitted his ambition was to take over as major domo when the time arrived, and he seemed to think a stiff and dignified manner was needed. As Fraser had never stood on ceremony unduly with his staff, he wasn’t sure where Chalmers found that idea. Nevertheless the man was efficient and might well be a good replacement when his present major domo decided to retire to the cottage earmarked for him.

  ‘I’m fine, Chalmers, thank you. Is anyone else up and about?’ He helped himself to coffee and sniffed the deep welcome aroma. Perfect.

  ‘Not to my knowledge, my lord. Her ladyship, the duchess and Lady Murren intimated they would break their fasts in their rooms. Lady Morven gave no indication of what she intended to do.’

  Fraser nodded. ‘Thank you. That’s all then.’ He waited until the man left him and stood up to fill his plate with food. As he sat down the long case clock in the hallway chimed the hour and the door opened to let Morven squeeze through the gap.

  She looked around the room and gave a sigh of relief. ‘Only us?’

  ‘So it seems. The others are breakfasting in their rooms.’

  ‘Then can we eat and escape?’ Morven poured a mug of chocolate and selected some fruit. ‘I’m twitchy.’

  ‘You are? Why?’ Fraser took her plate from her and put it in front of the seat next to his. He waited until she sat before he collected his own food and made himself comfortable at the head of the table. Even shortened for the family in the morning it would still seat a dozen with ease, and he was damned if he was going to shout down its length to converse.

  ‘Oh several things.’ Morven sliced into an apple and crunched a segment before she cleared her throat. ‘I’ve lost something precious, snapped something precious, and overheard something worrying.’

  ‘Is this what you lost?’ He fished in his pocket and took out the ring. Morven’s eyes widened and she pounced on it.

  ‘You have it. How?’

  ‘It tangled in my hair. Sadly not the chain as well.’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ she laughed helplessly. ‘I was scared what might have happened to it. The loss of the chain I can accept, but the ring was all I had of us.’

  ‘Then you shall have it again, along with everything else. May I keep it for a while and get you a new chain?’

  She bit her lip. ‘I feel naked without it.’

  Fraser smiled. ‘I like the idea of naked.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Stop it, I can’t help how it has comforted me.’

  He’d had nothing, except his memories. ‘I’ll find a chain today. I have one in my room.’

  ‘Then yes, please.’ Morven nibbled the end of a fingernail and nodded as if she’d made her mind up about something. ‘So, I wondered, when are your sisters and brother due to return?’

  ‘Eh? Not until the end of the month I believe. Why?’ His appetite deserted him as he looked at Morven’s troubled face. ‘Tell me all.’

  ‘Because whatever is to happen, will occur before then. Last night I went down to the dining room to get a drink and I overheard your mama and my sister talking.’

  The door from the kitchen corridor opened and they both jumped as Chalmers entered and picked up the empt
y dishes.

  ‘Not the place,’ Fraser muttered. He swallowed his food, and smiled at Chalmers. ‘We need nothing else now. The room can be cleared in a few minutes I believe.’

  Chalmers departed as silently as he had appeared. Fraser looked at the food still left on the sideboard and wrapped some bread and cheese in a napkin. He had a feeling they might want it later. He held out his hand to Morven who put down her empty mug and wiped her mouth on her napkin.

  ‘I’m amply sufficed, thank you.’

  Fraser doubted it. She’d managed an apple and a mug of chocolate. At least he’d eaten solid food. He opened the door and Morven let him escort her out of the room. Once they were in the corridor she looked up at him in enquiry.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘First my study. We won’t be disturbed there.’

  Morven followed him into the opposite wing of the castle where, he explained, the offices were.

  ‘What about your staff? Don’t they come to see you there?’

  Fraser smiled as he unlocked the heavy studded door that led out of the entrance hall and into another narrower corridor than the one they had left. This one was chilly and the windows little more than narrow slits. They were obviously not places for light to come in or for an occupant to enjoy the view. Morven shivered. Fraser touched her arm in sympathy and she smiled.

  ‘Not even a goose walking over my grave. Good, honest cold.’

  ‘I should have warned you, this is the oldest part and the walls are thick,’ he said dismayed at his lack of forethought. ‘Whatever we do this corridor is never warm. The offices are better. And to answer your question, with regards my staff, not until after noon, unless there is a fire or a raid by foreign invaders. I have always kept the mornings free whenever possible.’

  She cleared her throat. ‘Not the afternoons?’

  Fraser chuckled. ‘Definitely not. That is when my mama entertains. There might not be a lot of eligible young ladies around here, but she always seems to get those who are to come for afternoon tea.’