Teresa Medeiros - [FairyTale 02] (32 page)

“For God’s sake, woman, you can’t marry Lachlan! He has hair sprouting from his ears.”

Gwendolyn blinked at him. “Isn’t that supposed to be a sign of virility?”

Bernard would have sworn he was done with being a beast, but he came within a heartbeat of growling at her. “Only if you’re a gorilla.”

Frowning, Gwendolyn rose and paced beside the bed. “Perhaps you’re right, sir. I fear I was on the verge of making a terrible mistake. You’ve given me much to think about.”

“Thank God for that,” he muttered.

After another minute of such pacing, she turned to face him. “Perhaps it would be best if I seek a suitor right here in London. Once I might have lacked the confidence to do so, but you were the one who convinced me I had much to offer a man. And you’re not the only one who thinks so.” She clasped her hands in front of her as if reciting out of a child’s primer. “Current fashion may dictate that a woman be as slight as a sylph, but a discerning fellow will always appreciate a healthy breeder.”

Bernard leaned forward, fully prepared to call out the scoundrel guilty of filling his wife’s head with this shocking notion. “Who told you such a thing?”

“Why, Tupper’s great-aunt Taffy, of course. She was kind enough to take us all in when Tupper’s father disowned him for marrying a penniless Scottish lass. She was so furious with the viscount that she’s decided to disinherit him. Upon her death, her entire fortune will go to Tupper.”

“Should he outlive her,” Bernard said grimly, thinking the prospect highly unlikely given his friend’s part in this ambush. Growing weary of Gwendolyn’s dancing just out of his reach, he yanked the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around his waist. “Just how do you propose to meet these prospective suitors of yours? Shall I introduce you?” He stood, sweeping the bedpost a courtly bow. “ ‘Hullo, David, old chap. This is my wife. Would you care to marry her?’ “

Gwendolyn laughed. “You’d frighten them all off with that terrible glower of yours.”

He took a step toward her. “I haven’t done a very good job of frightening
you
off, have I?”

“On the contrary, it was you who fled from me. And just why was that?” She tapped her lips, pretending to search her memory. “Oh, yes, it was ‘because you were no longer the boy I once loved.’ But you forgot to take one thing into account. I’m not a little girl anymore.” She flattened her palms against his chest, sending a shiver rippling through the taut muscles of his abdomen. “ I don’t need a boy. I need a man.”

Her boldness was irresistible. Capturing one of her wrists, Bernard slid her open hand downward over the sheet until it was molded to the fire blazing at the cradle of his thighs. “Then you’ve come to the right place.”

Her fingers tensed. She gazed up at him through her lashes, her breath coming as short and fast as his own. Drawing her into his arms, he lowered his lips to hers. Her mouth was plump and sweet and ripe for the taking, like sun-warmed strawberries drizzled with fresh cream. Bernard groaned as her tongue sought his, making him wild with urgency.

As he fell back on the bed, drawing Gwendolyn down to straddle him, all of his noble resolutions to go slow, to be gentle were replaced by one all-consuming desire.

To be inside his wife.

It took him less than three long, hot, open-mouthed kisses to work his hands beneath her petticoats. Instead of tugging her drawers down around her hips, he simply used his fingers to widen the narrow slit in the silk at the apex of her thighs. Two more kisses and he had those same fingers gliding in and out of her in a rhythm his body was aching to duplicate. She followed the pace he set, instinctively arching toward the pleasure he would give her.

Bernard shoved the sheet aside. The next time Gwendolyn sank down on top of him, it wasn’t his fingers that slid deep inside of her.

She shuddered, her tender young body squeezing
him in a vise of raw delight. She had wanted a man and he had given her every inch of one.

He reached up to stroke her flushed cheek. “We can slow down now, angel. I want you to enjoy this ride every bit as much as I intend to.”

Determined to do everything in his power to make sure she would, Bernard filled his hands with her hips and guided her into a rhythm that was just slow and sinuous enough to madden them both. The effort made a feverish sweat break out all over his body, but he knew it was worth it when flickers of rapture began to dance across her beautiful face.

He waited until her head fell back and a deep-throated moan escaped her parted lips before slipping one hand beneath her skirt. All it took to turn her moan into a wail was the teasing caress of one fingertip across her quivering flesh.

Bernard’s own control snapped. He seized her hips, no longer willing or able to contain the driving rhythm of his strokes. His desire to be inside of her had been supplanted by a need that was even more powerful and primal. He clenched his teeth against a savage roar as his seed came spilling from his loins in a blinding rush of ecstasy.

As Gwendolyn collapsed against him, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her as if he would never let her go.

W
HERE
IS
SHE?” Bernard demanded as he strode into the dining room of Taffy Tuppingham’s Mayfair mansion.

Tupper froze, a scone smeared with butter and jam halfway to his mouth. Kitty dabbed at her lips with her linen napkin, her striped poplin morning gown and lace cap making her look remarkably elegant and mature for a Highland lass who had just turned eighteen. Rather than dining at opposite ends of the table as was customary, the newlyweds sat side by side, near enough for Kitty to twine her stockinged foot around Tupper’s calf.

A nervous footman trotted into the room at Bernard’s heels. “Forgive me, sir. I tried to tell him that your aunt never rises before noon and absolutely refuses to receive callers until after two o’clock, but the gentleman would have none of it.”

Tupper nodded at the frazzled man. “That’s all right, Dobbins. He’s no gentleman.”

As the footman slunk out of the room, Bernard slammed his palms down on the polished table, feeling every inch the beast with his hair uncombed and his cravat hanging loose around his neck. “Where is she? What have you done with my wife?”

Tupper took a sip of chocolate from a delicate Wedgwood cup. “Have you misplaced her?”

“When I awoke this morning, she was gone from my bed.”

Tupper frowned. “That’s most odd. You’ve never had any trouble keeping women in your bed before.”

“I’ve never married one before either, have I? “ Bernard snapped.

Tupper shook his head. “I simply can’t have you spoiling my wife’s delicate digestion with all of this growling and baring of teeth. If you must know, Gwendolyn left for Ballybliss shortly before dawn.”

“Ballybliss?” Bernard straightened.
“Ballybliss?
I can’t believe you were fool enough to let her go!”

“And I can’t believe
you
were fool enough to abandon her in the first place,” Tupper retorted.

Bernard sank down in the chair opposite him, rubbing the back of his neck. “To be honest, neither can I. Although at least I had the common decency to leave her a note.”

Exchanging a look with her husband, Kitty drew a folded piece of vellum from the pocket of her skirt. “Before she departed, my sister asked me to give this to you.”

Bernard took the missive, recognizing his own sta
tionery. Gwendolyn must have filched it from his study before he arrived home the previous night. He wasn’t surprised to discover that her handwriting was as graceful and precise as she was.

“If you ever wish to spend another night in my company,” he read, “it will cost you more than a thousand pounds.” Bernard waved the piece of paper at Tupper. “Just what am I supposed to make of this? “

“Whatever you choose, I would imagine,” his friend replied, helping himself to a forkful of kipper.

Bernard was still gazing down at the note when Kitty gave his sleeve a tug. “Forgive my impertinence, m’laird, but I simply have to ask. Why
did
you leave my sister? “

It was hard to hold on to his anger beneath the wide-eyed sincerity of Kitty’s gaze. It was even harder to remember that she was also the daughter of the man who had destroyed his life. He couldn’t very well confess that he was afraid he would spend the rest of his life punishing Gwendolyn for their father’s sin.

He opened his mouth to lie but instead found himself uttering a truth he’d kept even from himself. “I suppose I didn’t believe I could ever be worthy of her.”

Tupper chuckled and caressed his wife’s cheek, earning an adoring glance for his trouble. “Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought. Since when has any man ever been worthy of the woman he loved? It’s only by God’s grace that they love us in spite of ourselves.”

Bernard gently folded Gwendolyn’s note and slipped it into the pocket of his waistcoat. “What if it’s too late,

Tupper? What if God doesn’t have any grace left for the likes of me? “

“There’s only one way to find out, my friend.”

Bernard sat in silence for several minutes before rising and starting for the door.

“Where are you going?” Tupper asked, coming to his feet.

Bernard turned in the doorway. “Home, Tupper. I’m going home.”

The pipes were calling him home.

As Bernard flew through the mountain passes and lonely glens, he could hear their music over the rhythmic thunder of his horse’s hooves. They no longer wailed a lament to mourn all he had lost but soared in a jubilant song to celebrate all he hoped to win.

He was finally able to put a name to the hopeless yearning that had plagued him for fifteen years— homesickness. He was homesick for the salty sting of the wind that blew off the sea, the rippling music of the burns gurgling over their rock-strewn beds, the melody of English being spoken with a lilting burr. He was even homesick for the drafty old castle that had come to symbolize the ruin of all his dreams.

The towers of Castle Weyrcraig appeared in the distance, silhouetted against the night sky. Bernard reined his horse to a halt, remembering all the times his parents had been waiting there to welcome him home. Times when his mother would scold him for lingering
too long in the damp while his father ruffled his hair and challenged him to a game of chess or a reading of some epic Gaelic poem. He’d never had the chance to bid farewell to either of them, but as he gazed over that moonlit glen to the castle beyond, it was as if he was finally free to let them go.

During all the years he’d spent plotting his return to Ballybliss, he had never once thought of it as going home because he’d believed there would be no one waiting for him once he got there.

But he’d been wrong.

A girl had been waiting for him. A girl who’d grown into a woman with a kind, brave, and constant heart. Instead of pity, she had offered him compassion. She had trembled beneath his hands yet given herself willingly into his arms. She’d taken mercy upon him when he’d had none to offer her and tempered his fury with tenderness.

He could only pray she hadn’t given up on him yet.

The village of Ballybliss slumbered peacefully in the castle’s shadow. As Bernard walked his horse through the deserted streets, he saw a single light burning in the window of the manor.

He tugged on the reins, bringing his mount to a halt. That cozy square of light seemed to mock all his noble intentions. Before he even realized what he was going to do, he was standing on the front stoop of the manor, his hand poised to knock.

Izzy swung open the door before his knuckles could touch the wood. His first instinct was to duck, but as far as he could tell, she was unarmed.

“What is it ye want, lad? If ye wait a few weeks, there’ll be no need to finish what ye started. The good Lord’ll do it for ye.”

“I just want to see him,” Bernard said.

Izzy gave him one long, hard look before stepping aside to let him pass. Taking up her basket of mending, she sank back into her rocking chair, her joints creaking. While she seemed content to darn stockings by the light of the kitchen fire, a lamp burned brightly at the bedside of the man in the next room.

Alastair Wilder was curled up on his side like a child. He had kicked off his blanket, exposing a body stripped of all but sinew and bone.

His eyes fluttered open as Bernard’s shadow fell across the bed. It took them several seconds to focus, but when they did, anger glinted in their red-rimmed depths. “That must have been some bargain ye made with the devil, Ian MacCullough. To keep yer youth and vigor while I wither away like an auld man’s cock.”

Bernard couldn’t think of a single reason to dispossess the old man of the notion that he was conversing with his long-dead friend. In truth, he felt almost as if his father were speaking through him.

“It was you, not I, Alastair Wilder, who made the bargain with the devil. You sold your soul and mine for a thousand pounds in gold.”

“And I’ve been payin’ for it every minute o’ every day since,” Wilder spat out.

“As have I,” Bernard countered.

Wilder cocked his head to the side, eyeing him with more than a trace of cunning. “So why have ye come here? To take yer revenge on a daft auld fool?”