Highland Surrender (34 page)
Read Highland Surrender Online
Authors: Dawn Halliday
He scraped a calloused thumb over her cheekbone. “You bear your troubles better than anyone I’ve ever known.”
She just shook her head. “I want to be yours.”
“You will be mine. Whenever we are alone together, whenever we are in this room. I won’t have it any other way.”
“Can you accept that?” she asked. “Part of me rather than the whole?” He seemed like the kind of man who’d demand every bit of a woman, body and soul, and who wouldn’t share.
A muscle bulged in his jaw. “I must accept it,” he said tightly, but agony sifted into his eyes, lightening them. “I’ve no other choice.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
C
am leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, looking first at Elizabeth, who sat on the sofa across from him, her head bent over a book, and then to Rob, who sat in Charles’s place at the desk beside him.
am leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, looking first at Elizabeth, who sat on the sofa across from him, her head bent over a book, and then to Rob, who sat in Charles’s place at the desk beside him.
They made a handsome couple.
Cam flinched at the thought, but he couldn’t deny it. Elizabeth’s honeyed hair, held up today by a pearl-encrusted filigree comb, complemented Rob’s darker brown locks. Rob’s hair wasn’t pulled into a queue today. It was longer than Cam’s, and it brushed his shoulders in loose waves.
When Rob had first walked into the room an hour earlier, the shock on both his and Elizabeth’s faces was palpable. Nearly painful. Both had recovered, however, remarkably quickly. Cam had communicated the plan he’d formed in Rob’s apartments last night: Elizabeth and Rob would join him here in the afternoons from now on. He desired to spend more time with his betrothed, so Elizabeth was to engage in whatever quiet pursuit she preferred, while Rob was to study Cam’s ledgers and plans for his improvements to Camdonn lands.
Unsurprisingly, they both had looked wary. Cam had instructed Rob to close the door, and when the man turned to do his bidding, he said to Elizabeth, “I’ve learned something that interests me greatly.”
“What . . .” She paused, and her pupils dilated, the subtlest evidence of her panic. “What is that?”
“I’ve discovered my stable master is my half brother.”
Elizabeth’s azure gaze flickered to Rob and then back to Cam. “Oh.”
Cam had taken a seat. “I’m hoping to teach him about the running of my estate.”
“I see,” Elizabeth had murmured.
They had all settled to their respective tasks, though Cam hadn’t accomplished anything in terms of working, and he doubted if they had either. He’d scribbled away, but the words he scrawled were nonsensical. Every sense was attuned to the man and woman sitting on either side of him.
Cam cleared his throat. “Shall I call for some refreshment?”
Elizabeth glanced at Rob as if to defer to him, and the stable master looked up from his ledger. “Aye. Thank you.”
Cam rang for a footman and, when the man entered, he gave his instructions and then relaxed back into his chair.
A contented feeling settled in him as he watched them pretend to return to their work.
His reaction to seeing them together was unnatural. Hell, he should have run Rob through that night a week ago. And every night since then, for he knew, he
knew
she’d been going to him.
knew
she’d been going to him.
What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he conjure up the requisite anger?
The truth stared him in the face. It was clear as day, crisp as an autumn breeze.
He liked Elizabeth, but he felt no ownership over her. He didn’t love her.
He was in love—desperately, irrevocably in love—with Ceana MacNab.
“There, now,” Ceana murmured to Merry MacDonald, a widow who’d come complaining of stomach pains. Ceana believed it was a temporary affliction and had prescribed a tonic to soothe the gut. “You’ll be healed in a few days’ time.”
“Thank ye, Ceana.”
She waved her hand. “It is nothing.”
“I’ve brought a bag of barley, if it’ll suit ye.”
“You know it will.” She took the small sack of grain the woman handed her. The last time she’d been paid in money was at Aberdeen. None of the Highlanders of the Glen possessed much silver, and Ceana didn’t covet what little they had. Barley was far more edible than silver.
“I’ve some vegetables near ready for harvesting, and with your barley, I’ll make a fine pot of soup. Come back next week and try it.” She’d also check to make sure the woman’s stomach pains had passed.
Merry clucked and nodded as Ceana walked her out and watched her hobble away until she turned the bend in the path, bent over from her pain and clutching the tonic to her chest.
The sun had disappeared, and the late-spring gloaming lingered. The air was warm and still, heavy with moisture. Ceana breathed it in. She loved the birth and rebirth of late spring. It soothed her healer’s spirit.
She walked to the bucket of water she’d fetched earlier from the burn and bent down, taking a handful of the liquid in her palms and splashing her face. The water was cool and crisp, invigorating. She remained crouched for a moment, then stood, wiping her hands on the wool of her skirts.
Hands descended on her shoulders, and she stiffened, but then the voice whispered through her, melting her muscles like butter. “Ceana.”
She turned—she couldn’t stop herself—and sank into Cam’s arms. Had it been only a week since she’d seen him last? It seemed like a thousand years had passed.
“I missed you.” Her voice was a near groan. She stiffened all over again when she heard it emerge. She sounded desperate for him.
“Who was that woman?” he asked. “She’s a MacDonald, isn’t she?”
“Aye. Merry MacDonald.”
“A patient?”
“Aye.”
“What is wrong with her?”
“Nothing, I hope. Just some passing discomfort. She should be well in a few days’ time.” She sensed him looking past her in the direction Merry had gone. “How did you know she’s a MacDonald?”
His chest rose beneath her cheek as he sucked in a breath. “Despite her malady, she looked . . . content. Happier than my tenants.”
“Alan takes care of his own.”
“Are you saying I do not?” he asked quietly.
“You haven’t been here, Cam.”
“I’m here now. I . . . I’m working on it. It isn’t easy. The people are resistant to change. They’re resistant to me.”
“I’ve no doubt you’ll prevail.” Already the common sentiment toward him had improved. In the village yesterday, someone had complimented his strict stance against thievery. Before he’d returned from England, she’d never heard him mentioned without the speaker spitting on the ground afterward.
“Do you think so?” he asked.
“Aye. They will love you.”
He gave a cynical chuckle. “Nobody loves me.”
I do.
Swallowing those words, she looked up at him. “Why are you here?”
“I . . .” He reached up to trace her brow with his fingertip. “I missed you too.”
The blood heated in her veins, and her skin prickled. Oh, this was so dangerous. So very dangerous. Already, she felt as strongly for him as she’d once felt for Brian . . . and Brian was dead because of her, sure as if she’d killed him with her own hand.
She swallowed her panic and took a deep breath. “Will you come inside?”
Rob and Elizabeth lay facing each other, Elizabeth’s shoulders tingling pleasantly from the flogger. It was the first time he’d used it since that night a week ago, and equally as arousing.
She’d risked coming to him three times. Latching the inside bolt so no one could come into her bedchamber, she slipped down the secret passageway and sneaked across the courtyard.
The chances of someone discovering her absence from her bed were slim to none. The most dangerous part of the venture was crossing the courtyard. She always came very late, when most of the castle residents slept, and she wore her dark cloak with the hood covering her hair. If someone chanced to see her, they likely wouldn’t recognize her.
Though she took every precaution she could, she still worried that Uncle Walter would find out about her nighttime escapes to Rob. Yet she couldn’t stop herself from going to him. Even as her mind argued against the folly of taking such a risk, she couldn’t prevent her feet from carrying her down those secret old steps or from rushing across the courtyard to the stables.
She needed this. She needed Rob. He’d taken the crumbling pieces of her soul and begun to rebuild them.
Stroking his fingertip over her cheek, Rob smiled. She loved how his smiles came more frequently, more easily now.
“I want you again. Once more before you go.”
He slid his hand over her waist and over her thigh, lifting her leg over his hip. Positioning himself at her entrance, he slid into her. She sighed in pleasure as he took her in a slow, gentle glide. She didn’t take her eyes from his face, nor did he break his gaze from hers.
They rocked together, smoothly connected in body and spirit. Their connection filled her with contentment, wiped away all the feelings of emptiness that had pervaded her soul since her family died.
His hands roamed her skin, stroking her lips, circling her neck, grazing over her nipples, and raising the fine hairs on her arms. She explored him too, his solid chest, the tight male nipples, the shadow of coarse hair covering his jaw.
Finally, he caught her wrist in his hand, jerking her gaze back to his face.
“Turn over,” he rasped, his eyes dark in the dim glow of the fire.
Without releasing their intimate connection, he guided her to turn onto her side, away from him, simultaneously tugging her buttocks to his pelvis, locking her against him. She groaned softly as he glided through her wet, willing flesh. The angle of penetration made him press over the most sensitive places inside her, and sweet, sharp sparks of pleasure resonated through her.
His hands scraped over her the area of skin still sensitive from the flogger, and then cupped over the hot flesh of her shoulders.
“You’re so tight,” he whispered. “So tight all around me.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes, glorying in how her muscles clenched over him. Separate from her control, her body squeezed him, as if to grasp him and keep him there forever.
“Elizabeth,” he whispered. “Elizabeth.”
She came in a shuddering onslaught of emotion, her body shaking against his. He held her tightly through it, keeping them solidly connected, keeping her safe as she flew out of control.
Before she settled back to earth, he groaned long and low. “I can’t . . . I can’t stop it.”
He pulled out of her, pressing his shaft between their bodies. He drew her back against his hot, hard chest and shuddered his release.
There they remained for several long moments, until their breath evened. Then he released her. “Go now.”
She knew he wanted her to go about as much as she wished to leave him—not at all. She sighed, but when his arm lifted from her waist, she heaved herself from the bed and dressed.
At least she’d take the evidence with her. His seed, now partly dried, still covered her body, front and back. It represented his possession, and she gloried in that. She wouldn’t wash it from her skin until just before she came to him tomorrow.
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