The Chieftain's Daughter Page 8

  She stared, couldn’t take her eyes off the view he presented. All the saliva disappeared frae her mouth as her breathing grew fast and shallow and her thoughts scattered. “If I knew how to sew, I would make ye one, but I never learned. It’s been but a few days. There’s been nae time, to make plans or even talk since my father gathered us up and swept us away. But know this, I’m not looking for a prince, I might even have turned one down, for over the years the McArthur has paraded all sorts afore me. Not a one of them made my heart race the way ye do—the way yer touch does.” She paused, drew a much needed breath then continued, “In the short time since we met, ye know more of the real me than any suitor, even the prince,” she jested. “But I don’t scare ye and as far as I can make out, ye don’t find me lacking, at least ye haven’t acted as if ye do,” she finished, running out of breath.

  “Nae, Maggie, ye don’t frighten me. Why would ye? And aye, I like to touch ye. Yer kiss makes me hard. God’s teeth the scent of yer hair makes me want to roll around on it, particularly when it’s flowing across yer breasts.” He gave a rueful shake of his head. “Wonderful as that would be, we can’t spend all our days in bed and apart frae a lot of loving I’ve naught else to give ye.”

  The way he said, ‘loving’ made her heart lose a beat. Did he feel as she did?

  “Dhugal, I don’t need a man to support me—I mean I suppose the McArthur does—though I have a dowry of sorts. The truth is, I want a partnership, to be equal. We could have that.” She paused to look at him, to read his expression and felt encouraged by the hint of a smile in his eyes. “I know ye were simply being gallant, rescuing me—Shug looked like a wildman. Ye weren’t to know it wasnae necessary.”

  Now there was a surprise. Did she really not recognise the heat and lust in Shug’s eyes when he watched her? Dhugal considered saying something, warning her, then he imagined the light in her eyes dimming. Frae where he stood he was surprised she hadn’t experience something of the like afore. She was the bonniest lass he had ever seen, nae matter that her and a kirtle were strangers. One glimpse and he saw all the promise that life at Cragenlaw had blinded her to. Mayhap because she excelled with a shield, the perfect compliment for the way she wielded a sword.

  The McArthur had taught her well, her mother less so for why else did she carry her naivety around with her as she did her shield.

  As all yon thoughts ran through his mind, Maggie put her own notions to the test, saying, “I’m strong, and we have a year to see how much of me ye can bear. I can work alongside ye, at Skene. We can make yer dream come true together.”

  It was an offer that hit him like a blow to the heart. He couldn’t imagine any other lass of her stature being willing to give up all this—give up Cragenlaw—for dreams that might never come true. He realised she was only aware of his dreams through his sharing of them as he showed her around Skene, as if he was indeed the laird instead of a broken man.

  “Who knows what the future might bring? There’s naught we can do about it tonight, the land at least will always be there, but we’ll never have this moment again. Come here lass, come into my arms and let me show ye the adventures we can have together in this bed.”

  She didn’t hesitate, simply let him enfold her. Still mindful of him, she asked, “Yer shoulder?” Aye she might dress like a man and like naught better than a contest of skill with the sword, but here, now, in his arms she was all generous woman.

  “I think I can guarantee that very shortly neither of us will be feeling any pain,” he said, taking her face betwixt his hands he leant in closer to kiss her. As he had assured, all thoughts of pain were soon forgotten as they fell into each other, rolling round the bed, touching, exploring, sharing their heat. Her breasts were the perfect fit for his fingers, curving against them, piercing the centre of his palms with the hot tight centre. Hot and tasty, a treat for tongue and lips as he sucked each in turn deep into his mouth.

  “More,” she groaned against his neck, scoring the taut cord with her teeth. “I want all of ye, Dhugal … all.”

  Her legs were restless against him as he slid one hand lower, slowly. Aye, he was nervous. Whatever he did next could have a bearing on each time they came together, and he didn’t want it to be with fear of being hurt. The damp he felt as he curved his fingers over her mons meant her honeyed heat would help their coming together feel like a welcome instead of an intrusion.

  The sensation of his touch inside her was all she hoped for and naught to be scared of, and nae wonder; there was delight in his touch and amazement, then need as she felt the urge to push against him. “Please, Dhugal, please…” the last lost into his mouth as chest heaving, he took hers with his.

  “I don’t want to hurt ye,” he told her, lifting his head and their breaths mingled, but she would have none of that.

  “I’m ready, Dhugal, please don’t make me wait.” Her hips rose seeking the unknown—anxious that it was beyond her reach. Each time Dhugal’s fingers rubbed against the feminine heart of her, she pushed against their length.

  “Soon, lass,” he whispered kneeling betwixt her thighs. “Soon,” he ground out, his voice strained, tense as if he was holding back what she wanted.

  Her breath left her lungs in a swoosh as she felt his heat, hard against her softness nudging for entry, opening her, smoothly in a way his fingers hadn’t touched, and so slowly she wanted to cry out to hurry.

  Dhugal wanted to be careful, didn’t want this first time to break her, bodily or spiritually. Maggie, however decided to take matters into her own hands. The lass had said she was strong and she proved it by wrapping her legs around his hips and pushing her slick folds on to his aching prick. He sucked in a breath, holding it, sharpening his control, determined not to let it end there and then.

  He laid hands on both her shoulders, careful not to squeeze, “Be still, lass, just for a bit, yer so tight ye will need a moment or two to adjust.”

  He breathed through his nose, and afore she had time to protest he kissed her. She tasted like honey, sweet, golden, unforgettable, and Maggie kissed him back. He was lost in her, caught up in the wonder of the sensations the two of them wrought together. Suddenly Maggie relaxed around him, and they moved simultaneously, single-mindedly striving toward the same end, chests heaving, hands clinging. Her heels dug into his arse, pulling him in closer, tighter, closer.

  Maggie had lost track of where Dhugal ended and she began. She held her breath as though swimming underwater, swimming through a deep blue world. In the distance she saw a light shining through the surface—the sun—she needed to reach it.

  Heat suffused her body and she cried out as lights flared behind her eyelids, “Dhugal.”

  “I have ye lass, I have ye,” he groaned as his own release took him. His seed spilled into her heat, and as the strength finally left his wounded side, he collapsed atop her as if dead, but not without realising he hadn’t protected her as he had intended as he let exhaustion take him.

  Had he been asleep, crushing her? Her legs nae longer clung but his weight must have been heavy on her lighter frame. Dhugal rolled onto his healthy side, wrapping his other arm about her to keep her close and looked into her face. “Did I hurt ye, Maggie?”

  Her lips curled in a small secret smile, and her response was more breath than sound, “Nae, I’m not hurt. To tell the truth, I never felt this wonderful in all my life.”

  She was so hard to resist. He leaned forward and placed a kiss on her forehead, held his lips there and let the tenderness inside his chest build until it was almost more pain than emotion, more pleasure than he ever knew existed. He drew back a little, the better to see her. “Maggie, lass, it’s yerself that’s wonderful, the purest most sweet lass in all of Scotland, and I’ve a mind to keep ye in my arms so long yer father will send out another search party.”

  “And I’ve a mind to let ye.” Her face grew serious, her nose crinkled and her brows pulled together. “Is it always like this?”

  He shook his head in
denial, “Nae, it’s seldom as grand as this,” he said truthfully, at least never in his lifetime. Sighing, he wrapped her up in his arms and tucked her head into the hollow of his neck and shoulder, determined to keep her there for the night at least and avoid all notions of love and forever. If her father didn’t kill him first, he would have her for a year, but he would have laid odds that nae matter what he did, the McArthur would win.

  Chapter 10

  Dhugal awoke early, unused to the sound of waves smashing on the cliffs below Maggie’s chamber—their chamber. Nae, he couldn’t imagine the day when he’d feel comfortable laying claim to that, not even in that dream world he had inhabited the night afore.

  Heaven.

  How in all levels of purgatory had he managed to reach there, when all he recognised now was hell’s maw opening wide, waiting to catch him? Aye, he had dived head first into a deal of trouble that could only end badly. His snort of derision clattered against the granite walls following the winding stairs, and mocked him.

  He’d only to think back a few hours to remember how and why he’d found that place.

  Maggie.

  Her image popped into his mind, making a warm salacious smile curl around his lips.

  “Wipe that smile off yer face,” Euan McArthur blocked his way, brought him up short with the growl in his tone, never mind his bulk. “I’ve nae wish to imagine what yer thinking about, especially as I’m sure it concerns my daughter.”

  Frae one step higher, Dhugal could almost say he looked down on Maggie’s father, but in truth their eyes were level. “I take it that means ye want me gone?” he muttered grinding the words with his back teeth. It was one thing for the notion to have crossed his mind—all for Maggie’s good—and another for the McArthur to suggest it.

  Though it didn’t explain the challenge he read in the eyes of the man facing him. “Too late to get rid of ye now. I’ve spent my daughter’s whole life protecting her frae hurt, I have nae interest in causing her pain.”

  “What can I say…“ Dhugal’s pressed his lips against his teeth, trying not to let Maggie down by letting the McArthur think that after one night he could simply walk away nae matter that the notion had entered his mind; it wasnae humanly possible. “Maggie’s too guid for me, I think that’s obvious on many levels. Hurting her wasnae my intention.”

  That the McArthur wasnae ready to believe his assertion was made apparent by the narrow glance he shot at him. Turning, he began to descend, throwing a command over his shoulder that there was nae refusing, “I’m about to cast an eye over the men training in the lower Bailey, come with me.”

  Without comment he followed, past the entrance to the Great Hall where boards were being erected for yon castle inhabitants who wanted to break their fast, and he was one stair behind the McArthur as he stepped down onto the cobbles, hesitating until Dhugal drew level.

  The power Maggie’s father wielded came neither frae his size or the lands and castle he owned. Nae, it was in the way he held himself, the gleam in his eye and the unspoken message in the curl of his lips. The McArthur had a presence his uncle had never aspired to, though he had a vague remembrance that his father might have reached this stature given half a chance, but that was forgotten the moment Euan McArthur said, “While we walk why don’t ye explain how ye became hand-fasted to my daughter after less than two days?”

  Aware this wasnae a moment for aught but the truth, nae matter what it cost him, he began. By the time they entered the lower Bailey, Shug entered the tale and the McArthur listened without interruption and, as luck would have it, Shug proved to have got over the travails his search for Maggie had wrought, and was one of those training. The housecarl’s sword never faltered as he used it to punish the man training with him, though if looks could kill, Dhugal was the one who would have died.

  “And that’s when both of ye swore to being hand-fasted afore witnesses?” A frown marking his brow, Euan looked frae Shug to Dhugal. “To save Maggie frae him?” he asked with a nod towards Shug.

  “He looked like a madman, and I just couldn’t let him steal her frae me. I had my sword, but I couldn’t guarantee that my ankle and shoulder wouldnae let me down,” he said, making light of his feelings, of the way that first kiss had made him feel as it turned his thoughts upside down like a man who had hit the ground with his head.

  “And having admitted all this, ye still spent last night in my daughter’s bed?”

  Dhugal sucked in a long breath. “In all that I told ye, did ye ever hear me claiming to being a saint? Maggie, “ he threw his arms wide, admitting, “the first time I saw her.” Even as he said it Dhugal relived that experience, but he felt rueful, not ashamed, so he straightened his shoulders, though it tugged at the wound Maggie had made there. “I’m not worthy of her, I have naught to bring her; the crown took it all.”

  “That’s as may be; however, circumstances change. Waiting for that change to occur while doing naught is mere avoidance. How many years have ye spent frightening folk away frae Skene and have ye managed to affect change?” Euan lifted his eyebrows above the nose he used to look down at him in a way that required nae reply. “Morag was but fourteen when we met, and what did I do? I thought she would be safer if naebody in Northumbria—her father in particular—were to discover she had saved me, a Scot, had loved me.” His voice roughened as he made that confession. “So I did naught, I left her without imagining the consequences she might face—did face. It meant I never knew Rob until he had been on this earth for eleven years and even then didn’t realise he was my son until much later.”

  He paused and Dhugal saw he was biting the inside of his cheek. “That’s not what I want for Maggie.”

  His answer left a bitter taste in his mouth, but Dhugal couldn’t hold the words back, “So ye want me to bide here and become yer pensioner? I’m my own man, broken or not and one day Skene will be mine again, but it will be through my efforts not through any patronage or finagling with yer connections.”

  A warm smile was the amount of response Dhugal’s outburst gained, as if his vehemence were but a jest, meant to amuse. “I think we should begin this needed change by having Morag arrange a wedding. We’re famous for our weddings here at Cragenlaw. Mayhap Maggie’s marriage to ye will be different, less bloody.”

  Dhugal could do naught but stare as the McArthur walked away and began bellowing at the men training to mind what they were about, including Shug who, frae the look he shot at Dhugal, was casting the blame for their bawling out at him.

  Was it contrary of Maggie to wish Dhugal had acted the gallant and actually asked if she would marry him instead of her mother performing the task? This was the McArthur’s doing, she knew it straight away, and when she would have jumped in and stood up for herself, fought tooth and nail, her mother hushed her with a few words, “He loves ye, that’s why.”

  Maggie’s heart leapt, “Dhugal said that?”

  “I’m talking about yer father. Euan loves ye and I love ye,” Morag’s voice was soothing, it was the voice she remembered frae childhood that could make everything all right. “We both know ye suffered frae us not being able to marry earlier, when ye were a bairn.”

  She leaned across and placed her hand on her mother’s, her voice husky, “I never doubted yer love, and what a selfish wee toad I would have been to put my legitimacy ahead of yer life, but this? He can’t force Dhugal to marry me. I won’t have it.”

  “Why would he need to force him? It was Dhugal’s notion to become hand-fasted was it not? I’m sure he agrees with yer father that Dhugal does for yer bairns what Euan wasnae able to do for his.” And that as far as her mother was concerned appeared to be that.

  Only time would take care of the rest. “Father has never denied me anything, but I must make sure that it’s what Dhugal wants as well.”

  “During the evening meal, we’ll speak about weddings,” Morag told her, and Maggie had to be content with that until supper.

  ***

  Rowena wa
s smiling when she left Ghillie in the belly of the Hall and came back to sit beside Nhaimeth at the high board, saying, “The lad’s feeling guid about all this. For some reason he feels a connection to Dhugal.”

  With a nod, Nhaimeth acknowledged his son’s contribution and received a beaming smile for his effort. It still amazed him that he and Rowena had produced such a braw fine lad betwixt them. Around him the conversation had turned to weddings.

  Rob was saying to Euan, “Ye have to admit that out of all the weddings held at Cragenlaw Morag’s and yer own was the best.”

  “And what about when ye wed, Melinda? There was nae bloodshed that day,” Jamie added his measure to the discussion.

  “Except for St Clair, her father’s man turning up uninvited.” Rob snorted. “Nae, the worst two were Jamie and Nhaimeth’s”.

  He glanced at Dhugal, “Aren’t ye lucky both of ye have led relatively blameless lives, there will be nae one holding a grudge at yer wedding as Hadron Buchan did at Jamie’s and my father-in-law, Henry Lamont did at Nhaimeth’s. This will be one wedding we can really look forward to,” he said, but Nhaimeth knew him well enough to recognise the devilment in his eye as he finished, “And because of that, I think we should invite Alexander to come visit. Blair Gowrie’s not so far away.”

  The sound coming out of Dhugal’s throat made some pretence to being a strangled cat and even Maggie drew a quick gasp. In this midst of all that was happening, Nhaimeth felt Rowena’s hand on his knee, gently rubbing as she whispered, “That’s what Ghillie wanted to tell me he saw.”

  Nhaimeth contributed next to naught to the talk, nor did he want to at this point in time. Only he and his wife were cognizant that the gifts of seeing their son Ghillie had inherited frae Rowena were growing more powerful the aulder he became. They worried that someone might try to take advantage of the lad. But that was for the future. For now Nhaimeth was content to let things happen in the certain knowledge that his wife and son believed everything would turn out all right.