Waking the Princess (32 page)

But now what she felt for Aedan, she was sure, felt wider, deeper. It did not matter how long she had known him. She loved him. The surprising certainty of it filled her, stunned her. She felt, for a moment, as if she been born loving him and had needed only to find him.

But he did not share that, and she felt foolish, glancing away. Yet she was reluctant to go into her room and leave him.

"Aedan," she began.

"Aye?" His quiet voice in that close space was gentle.

"Are you still impervious, as you said before? When we touch—is it just the moment, nothing more?" Her heart pounded with the question she wanted to ask.
Do you love me as I love you, or am I a fool again?

He sighed, set the candle in a wall niche. She watched him, feeling need and uncertainty overtake her.

"Come here." He held out his arms. She gasped and looped her arms around his neck as his mouth sought hers.

Strong, hot, giving, one kiss bloomed into another, his lips sure over hers. She was grateful for the buttress of his arms.

Then he lifted her, clearing her feet from the stone, and she felt the kisses deepen, wordless language between, easily understood through touch. Floating in his arms, she sensed the dizzy fall of the stairs below, their soaring rise above, and Aedan was her anchor point. She wanted to be that for him too.

Slipping her fingers through his soft, glossy, raven-dark hair, she touched his cheek, whiskers like sand beneath her fingertips, and kissed him again. He set her on her feet and slid his hands over her back, around her waist, up over her breasts. Through fabric, she felt the startling tingle, and her breathy moan echoed in the stairwell.

The silken gown was just a thin layer between her body and his, and she arched and pressed against him, seeking more, wishing no more barriers between them. She knew what she wanted—what she wanted to give him. Consequences would come later, but she could not think. She could only feel, and move, and open herself to him. She loved him, all in secret, and would let this express that, for she could not admit to more.

And selfishly, she wanted a memory to take with her into her lonely future, where Aedan would not be.

They were isolated here—the awareness of that privacy gave her a wild sense of freedom, urged her onward. As his hand traced her breast gently, she leaned to that, letting him know what she wanted his touch there, anywhere. His breath, his heart, raced as fast as hers.

Tracing his bristly jaw, finding the shell of his ear, she kissed him there, breathed, and he groaned low, framing her head in his hands, kissing her more deeply, tasting her as she tasted him. When he braced her shoulders and back against the door, she tilted her head, sighing as he kissed her jaw, the arch of her throat, teased over her breastbone. His breath warmed her breasts, filled the silk with heat, swept her toward a sort of madness and need. She sighed out as his hands took her shoulders, her arms, then shaped her breasts under his fingers.

Marvelous, that touch, and she felt graceful, beautiful, cherished—she felt wanton and free, and as his hands explored, slipped inside her gown, sending lightning sparks through her, the echo of her gasp whirled into the stairwell. Now his hand was on her hip, her thigh, floating the silk upward, so that she felt the wool of his kilt against her tender skin, felt his touch seeking, pausing—

He broke away, flattened his hand against the door where she leaned. He was breathing hard, as she was. "Christina, I cannot—"

She touched a finger to his lips. "I want to, and so do you."

Aedan groaned, took her mouth deeply, pulled away again, like a man fighting for air. "This is madness, what I feel for you. But I will not disgrace you."

"This is not disgrace," she whispered against his cheek. "I have lived through that. This is—joy, the only real passion I have...
ever
known," she breathed.

He shook his head. "You do not understand," he said, his voice ragged.

"I do understand. Please, love—" She could not say it.

He moaned low, murmured something, took her lips with his fiercely then, catching her to him with one arm, capturing her breast with the other, kneading, teasing, firing something inside her so that she ached, budded, cried out with the craving.

He bunched the silken gown and delved beneath cotton and lace, his fingers caging her freed breasts, one and the other, and she gasped at the current that sang through her. She moved against him, felt his woolen kilt slip, his thigh pressed to hers.

As he kissed her again, as his fingers explored, slipped lightly up and down, then lower, she moaned in a whisper, swayed, sought more of his caressing touch. All the while she explored his body, the firm muscles, wide shoulders, long back and arms, sinewed and strong, her touch and his kind and knowing on each other. She pulled at his shirt, felt the rock-hard flat abdomen, seeking him as he sought her.

His fingers were sure now, cupping, slipping upward where she ached for his touch, and as she moved with the gentle strokes, she arched, wanted to weep at the exquisite feeling. And she found him then, velvet hard and taut, sleeved her hand there, pleaded with her body against his. With spanned, careful hands he lifted her, pushed soft fabrics away, skin meeting skin, and with a breath and a gasp, slipped within—and suddenly this felt so right, so good and necessary as she moved in unison with him, whispered soft, ragged sounds, passion drunk, letting thought go. Hidden here in the turning stair, no rules, no doubts, all trust and secret freedoms—here, she loved and was loved.

Out there, she had no such certainty.

He kissed her, drew away, wrapped her in his arms, his breath fast, soft. He began to whisper an apology.

She shushed him, kissed him, unlatched the door behind her and slipped away.

On the other side of the door, she pressed her head against the wood, trembling. She knew he stayed there for a long moment. She could feel the tug of his presence.

Then he was gone, and she felt that, too.

Chapter 21

After smoothing her dark green skirt and putting a hand to the thick knot of her dark hair, Christina flexed her trembling hands. She hurried along the upstairs hall, certain that Aedan would be at breakfast at this early hour, as usual. Smiling to herself, she thought of intimacies and wondrous secrets last night, and did not regret a moment of it. What they had done would be considered wrong and shocking if it were ever discovered, but she knew that loving him could never be a shameful act.

Last night, when she finally drifted to sleep, she had dreamed that Aedan came to her as the prince, and she was Liadan. They wore archaic tunics, but this time the garments were not costumes. Everything in the dream had a strangely precise authenticity, as if she and Aedan were those long-ago lovers.

Inside a stone tower, in the moonlit darkness of a fur-lined bed, Aedan had made such tender love to her that she had awakened beneath her quilts whispering his name, her hands flexing to hold him. That yearning still lingered like a deep ache.

She would see him soon. Blushing, she opened the door of the breakfast room. Morning light poured through tall windows, enhancing the cheerfulness of flowered chintz and golden oak.

But Aedan was not there. Without his presence, the room seemed suddenly less bright. She looked around and saw Mrs. Gunn and MacGregor standing near the window.

"Mrs. Blackburn, dearie, good morning," the housekeeper said. The butler bowed slightly, murmuring in soft Gaelic.

Christina greeted them and took a plate, serving herself from the warming dishes and salvers on the buffet, as was the casual custom at Dundrennan in the mornings.

"Looks like sun all day, and none o' them thunner-plumps we've had lately," Mrs. Gunn said, pausing by the window. "Will ye go to the hill again? Tam took Sir Aedan oot in the carriage, but if ye'd like the gig, MacGregor will send for a groom."

"Oh, no, thank you. I'd enjoy walking on such a fine day." Christina took her seat with MacGregor's silent assistance. He poured coffee for her and set down a little pot of the thick cream that she liked. Then he put within reach a plate of her favorite currant muffins and a bowl of fresh berries.

She smiled at him, grateful for the gestures that made her feel as if she belonged at Dundrennan. "Has Sir Aedan left for his work site?" she asked Mrs. Gunn, as MacGregor left the room.

"Oh, no, he's gone wi' Miss MacDonald and her grandmother to the train station in Glasgow and from there to Edinburgh. Lady Strathlin and Mr. Stewart went with them. They all have business in the city today," Mrs. Gunn said.

"He's gone?" She hid her plummeting disappointment. "I knew that Lady Strathlin and Mr. Stewart were leaving, for they bid me farewell yesterday... but I did not know Sir Aedan was also taking the train this morning."

"Aye, he's gone for just a few days," the housekeeper replied.

"And... did you say the laundresses went with him?" She found that surprising and puzzling.

"Och, aye, he's great friends with them, wi' being engaged to t'other Miss MacDonald and all."

Her stomach flipped. She had forgotten about his previous engagement. "The other Miss MacDonald? Oh yes, I believe something was mentioned of that," she said casually.

"Aye, Dora's cousin Elspeth, and a bonny lass she was. I thought he'd die o' the grief after she passed so quicklike. And what a shock 'twas, so soon after Sir Neil was lost in the war. Miss MacDonald were nae suitable wife for a laird and baronet mebbe, but she was a sonsie lass, and we all loved her well."

"I see." Christina sat very still, her fingers resting on her cup, the heat searing her through the fine china.

"Sir Aedan wasna the heir then, and he could marry as he liked. Aye, that were so sad." Mrs. Gunn sighed as she checked the dishes in the warmers. "We hoped he might wed Miss Stewart someday," she confided. "But I think that willna happen."

"Oh?" Christina said carefully.

"Aye well, the laird doesna bother anyone wi' his troubles. All I know is that Miss Stewart says Sir Aedan is a braw lad, but a dullie, and she likes him better for a cousin. Cut him free, she has, to set her sights elsewhere."

Christina blinked at Mrs. Gunn over her coffee cup. "Oh?"

"Well, she's a sonsie lass herself—isn't she?—and does wha' she pleases. Too much the wee lark for his broody hawk, do ye ask me. 'Tis better this way. He may never marry, our laird," Mrs. Gunn said, shaking her head. "Ye'll have heard o' that naughty curse."

"Yes," she said quietly. "I've heard."

"Well," Mrs. Gunn said, clearing her throat as MacGregor came back into the room. "Enough o' that. Sir Aedan says ye've made good progress on that wee hill, Mrs. Blackburn, and he says he hopes ye'll finish the rest quicklike."

"Finish quickly? Oh... I suppose... I shall."

Mrs. Gunn smiled, her round face and vivid blue eyes kind. Christina knew the housekeeper was oblivious to the blow she had just delivered. So he hoped she would finish quicklike, indeed—and be gone from Dundrennan.

Dear God, she had been wrong, so foolish, so very naive. He had dallied and tasted and satisfied his hunger, and now it seemed he was done with her. No wonder he wanted her gone from his house quickly.

Steaming temper rose in her.
Fine,
she thought. She would happily arrange to leave. Let Sir Edgar take over the excavation. Her work on Cairn Drishan was almost done, after all. She would pack her things and leave, wishing only that she could go before Aedan returned. And may it please him no end, she thought.

"Mrs. Blackburn, dearie, will ye return for luncheon, or shall I have Cook pack a basket and send a gillie to the hill wi' it?" Mrs. Gunn asked.

She scarcely heard. Aedan had left without a word to her, and Mrs. Gunn's remarks revealed that he regarded Christina as someone who had overstayed her welcome.

Despite wild, wonderful kisses, despite his passionate response when he had made love to her, it had been lust, after all. Only that.

Loving him, she had prepared herself to accept even that from him, but the truth cut too deeply. Her cheeks burned with mortification. She had behaved indiscreetly once again. Would she ever learn to trust her head and not listen to her heart?

When she saw him again, she would put a good face on it and show him only dignity and aloofness. She would not hide, as she had done years before. She would not feel ashamed of doing what she had done out of love.