An Improper Wife (20 page)

Caroline stared. Taran pushed to his knees. Pain spiked from his wound, but he grasped her hips and roughly turned her buttocks towards his pelvis. She twisted and looked at him from over her shoulder. He froze at the sight of her wide eyes.

His fingers dug into sweet, feminine flesh. He wanted—needed—to dig deep, fuck her clear to her core, but he forced a slow breath, then leant forward and gathered her into his arms. He kissed the worry from her brow. Trailing lower, he rained kisses over her cheek, then brushed his lips to hers. When he opened his mouth over her jaw, her head tilted to the side.

He gently bit her neck, then flicked his tongue against her fluttering pulse and whispered, “Trust me.”

Caroline relaxed and repositioned on her hands and knees. Taran stroked a hand over the arch in her back as he moved behind her. He caressed her hip, then palmed her arse. Slipping his fingers lower, he traced the seam of her buttocks until he reached the damp heat of her pussy. He played at her entrance until she whimpered, then he slipped in his finger into her tightened core. Caroline drew a ragged breath and pulsed against his hand. He smiled and inserted a second digit, curling into her passage. Heated honey flowed from her.

There was no doubt this was his Aphrodite. She responded to him without reservation. This wasn’t a refined lady of society. She was his lover—now his wife. Pressure squeezed his chest. She may never want to admit to her night of masked seduction, but he vowed he would draw her out, make it safe for her to love him as she had that night. He started at having thought the word love. Aye, she would love him.

In the dim firelight, with her eyes downcast to the bed, he pulled his fingers from her body and slipped them between his lips. He closed his eyes and let the tang of her arousal bring back the memory of the first time he’d tasted Aphrodite.

Raw emotion stole over him. He grasped his cock, slid between her thighs, and fucked his wife the way Aphrodite would demand.

* * * *

Caroline wrapped her arms around herself and stared out over the railing of the lady’s bedchamber balcony at the mist cloaked darkness. But for the ache in her arm, nothing—not even her wedding day—seemed real. Perhaps it was the remnants of the laudanum which had been administered a few hours ago. Even the half-moon cast an eerie light that belonged to a nether land, foreign to her world.

She closed her eyes in an effort to recall Taran’s voice as it had been in the carriage when she had been Aphrodite, the feel of his arms around her, strong, demanding. Instead, the gentle touch and whispered words of their wedding night filled her mind. She’d glimpsed the passion he shared with Aphrodite, yet his ardent kisses and fierce thrusts had revealed desire for her.
His wife.

A tear slid from her eye. With every breath she drew and every beat of her heart, she loved him. Leaving would plunge a knife through her chest. But she would survive. Caroline bowed her head. But she wouldn’t survive life
with
him once he discovered the truth—and he would. She’d glimpsed that future last night when he sent his sister away. She grasped the railing, glad for the chill of the wrought iron. Had she only known—

“What the bloody hell are you doing?”

Caroline whirled at the sound of Taran’s voice. He was halfway across the balcony. Despite the limp in his left leg, he stalked towards her as if he meant to throw her over the railing. She cast an involuntary glance at the other balcony.

“By God, I will redden your lovely bottom if you move even an inch.”

She riveted her head back in his direction. A cool breeze caught the edge of his robe, fluttering the silken fabric around his thighs. He stopped in front of her and grasped her wrist.

“My lord, your leg.” She shoved at his chest, wincing at the dull pain that throbbed in her shoulder.

“Damn the leg.” He scooped her into his arms. “I will not give you another opportunity for mischief tonight.” Taran strode across the balcony, through the anteroom, and back into his room. He laid her on the bed, then braced a knee on the mattress and flattened his palms on the bed on both sides of her head. He stared, eyes dark. “Unless of course, your mischief includes me.”

Memory of when he’d locked her and Fiona in the room, leapt to mind and she swallowed.

He brought his face to within an inch of hers. “Do not move. Stay here where you belong…in my bed.”

“Are you always out of sorts in the morning?”

Taran made a noise deep in his chest like a growl, then shimmied off the bed and limped to the hearth. He grasped the poker leaning against the brick, gingerly bent on his good knee, and pushed aside the screen. He poked the embers until they glowed red-hot, then picked up two split logs from the small pile to his right and laid them on the coals.

“A wife jumping from a balcony is enough to get any man’s ire up,” he said as if speaking to himself. A moment later, a small fire blazed. Taran looked over his shoulder at her. “Have you not spent enough time on that balcony for one night?”

“I spent little time on
that
balcony, if you recall.”

“You are a reckless woman. But that will now end.”

A strange calm settled over her. “Reckless, like your sister?”

He faced the fire and gave the coals a vicious stab. “The girl needs a good lesson. Mayhap Huntly can teach her what I could not.”

“You threatened to kill her husband. What did you expect?”

“I expected her to have sense enough to know that marriage at sixteen is a risky business.”

“Marriage at any age is risky,” Caroline said. “But business, nonetheless.”

He paused, but remained facing the fire. “You condemn me for marrying you?”

“You are not at fault for being an astute businessman.”

“It was not I who made the bargain,” he said in a quiet voice.

A sob leapt to her throat, but she bit it back. So he wouldn’t have chosen her as his wife. Did he prefer Aphrodite, or was even Aphrodite unfit to offer her inheritance on the altar of his family estate? Perhaps neither she, nor her alias, were fit to bear his children.

Caroline bowed her head. “Perhaps you regret the bargain.”

He shoved to his feet. His mouth twisted in pain.

Caroline bolted upright. “Your thigh—”

“Cease worrying about my thigh, Caroline. I have had worse.”

“As a result of other duels, no doubt,” she snapped.

He gave her a frank look. “That has been one cause.”

Despite the pounding of her heart, she didn’t drop her gaze. How many of those duels had been fought because of his rigidity? He’d called her reckless. Aphrodite had been exciting, but the goddess wasn’t supposed to be his wife.

Chapter Eighteen

Caroline glimpsed Taran turn down the street in the village. Her pulse jumped and she ducked into the tiny lane just before the town hall. Had he seen her? How had he managed to go to the village at the very same time she had? Anger flared. It was no coincidence. He was looking for her. Wasn’t she allowed a visit to the village without his permission? She whirled back towards the street, then halted at sound of his voice.

“How much, Darby?”

“Now, laird, you canna’ be thinking I would steal more cattle. You warned me.”

“Aye,” Taran replied. “But apparently I was not explicit enough. I will not have you breaking the law in
any
manner.”

“What law have I broken?”

“Extortion,” Taran replied.

“Extortion?” the man repeated.

“Extracting money in exchange for
not
stealing cattle is extortion.”

Caroline clamped a hand over her mouth, barely stifling laughter.

“I wouldna’ say extracting,” Darby said.

“I would,” Taran replied. “You know I am the law here.”

“Aye, laird, but surely—”

“Surely what?”

Caroline froze at the edge in Taran’s voice.

“Laird Blackhall,” a woman said.

Taran’s reply to the woman was whisper-quiet. Caroline strained to hear. She inched to the edge of the building and peeked around the side. Taran stood, his back to her, facing a small man she assumed was Darby, and a young woman, belly nearly bursting with the child she carried. Caroline’s breath caught. Long black hair fell across slim shoulders in thick, black waves that reached to full breasts nearly spilling over the woman’s bodice. Despite her girth—and the drab grey dress—she was stunning. Even her shy smile exuded a sensuality that would mesmerise a man like a siren’s call. Any man would throw himself on the rocks for her. She stared at Taran with an adoration that told Caroline that Taran was one of those men. Was the woman Darby’s? A lump lodged in Caroline’s throat. Or was the woman acquainted with Taran…intimately acquainted?

The woman turned her dark eyes on Taran and gave him a mischievous look that elicited a surge of jealousy so hard, Caroline’s chest tightened. She swung back and collapsed against the building. Taran had insisted on returning to Scotland. She began to tremble. She recalled his concern that Aphrodite had become with child after their night in the carriage. Could he already have children?

Caroline gave her head a shake to clear the muddle. What was wrong with her? She’d completely lost her mind, that’s what. Even after Taran had ravaged her as Aphrodite, he’d been honourable, wanting to claim a child if one should result from their union. She placed her hand over her abdomen. What if she had already conceived?

“Where have ye been, laird?” Darby asked.

Caroline hung on the words.

“You know I married,” Taran replied.

“Brought the
Sassenach
to Strathmore?”

“She is the Viscountess of Blackhall, Darby. Do not forget that. Even when I am absent.”

“Aye.”

Caroline peered around the building again.

“Darby, I will have your word.”

“Aye,” he said. “No cattle rustling, no…donations.”

“There is no need now,” Taran said. “There will be plenty to go around.”

Stubbornness appeared on the man’s face. “What you consider plenty may not be the same as me.”

“Are you hungry?” Taran asked.

“Nay,” Darby answered, his tone that of a belligerent child.

“Have you enough clothing and wood to keep you warm?”

Darby didn’t lift his eyes from where he stared at the ground. “Aye.”

“Then we are off to a good start. No more extortion. No more breaking the law. If you have need of something, come to me.”

The man’s head lifted and he studied Taran for a long moment, then nodded. Taran turned so quickly Caroline barely managed to duck back into the lane before he could see her. She hesitated, unsure whether to turn left or right, then hurried down the lane in the opposite direction.

“Caroline.”

She froze at sound of Taran’s voice echoing off the buildings. This was the second time in less than a week she’d been caught where she shouldn’t be. Determined footfalls rang on the stone lane behind her, and she turned as he reached her.

“Good afternoon, my lord.”

His brow lifted. “Spying?”

She shrugged. “I just happened to be at the right place at the right time.”

“Every spy’s defence. What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see the place I now call home.”

“What say you so far?” he asked in a soft voice.

“There is a great deal of disrepair,” she answered honestly.

He nodded and grasped her hand, slipping it into the crook of his arm as he started them in the direction she’d been headed. “Aye. My father gave little thought to the upkeep.”

“But that will change now that you have my fortune.”

He glanced at her. “Would you rather your money go to gambling and mistresses?”

No, she had to admit, she wouldn’t.

“What plans have you for bringing things up to snuff?”

He laughed, a rich, deep sound that made her want to press an ear to his chest so that she might hear the sound roll through his large frame.

“My plans for bringing things
up to snuff
begin with the supplies that will arrive within the week. Everything cannot be finished before winter, but the worst of the cottages must be made warmer before the first snow.”

They reached the end of the lane and broke out onto the street. A stable sat directly across the way with a small tavern to the right. Behind the buildings, on a hill, sat half a dozen thatched cottages, smoke puffing from their chimneys in modest chugs. To the left, an open market buzzed with business.

“How many people live in the village?” Caroline asked, surprised at the market that stretched across two or three hectares.

“Eighty-two,” Taran replied. “But this market is the only one within thirty miles.”

She looked at him. “A market like this is a huge economic asset. Why hasn’t it supported the village?”

“Because my father taxed the merchants into poverty.”

The vehemence in his voice startled then warmed her. For all his faults, he was not his father, and he would use her money for a better cause than anyone she could have chosen on her own—certainly better than John, which made her uncle’s choice of men nothing more than dumb luck.

“Would you like to see the shops?” Taran asked.

“I would,” she replied, then blushed at the delight she had shown.

He smiled, obviously pleased with her reaction, and she couldn’t help smiling back.

“You did say you would need to purchase things as a result of being rushed away from England,” he said. “You will not find a modiste, but there are some fine fabrics to be had. Choose anything you like.”

Caroline arched a brow. “Giving me permission to spend my own money?”

He grinned. “I am a generous sort. Spend to your heart’s content. Fiona can steer you to the best dress designer in the Highlands after you’ve made your purchases.”

Despite her pique, a quiver radiated through her stomach. Unlike so many husbands, he wasn’t tight-fisted and showed no signs of setting up a miserly allowance meant to keep her quiet long enough for him to deplete her fortune.

Only yesterday she hadn’t been able to imagine a life away from London. She had never been one to attend every party, staying out until dawn only to repeat the process until the season was over. But neither could she have fathomed finding contentment in country life. Yet, looking at Taran, she saw in his eyes their lives as they shared in the building up of the village his father had ruined, their children, then finally grandchildren, playing at their feet.