Page 21 of Laird of Sighs (His Highland Heart #5)

CHAPTER 21

A ilsa waited in her chamber for her husband to arrive. Siobhan and Maesie had helped her prepare, taking down her hip-length hair from the braids and pins they’d put in it for the wedding and brushing it out until it shone and rippled like silk. Siobhan had gifted her with a beautiful gown of lavender silk that she’d embroidered in green leaves and deep purple flowers. Ailsa had wanted to cry over it but Siobhan warned her not to redden her eyes. So, she’d hugged them both and sent them on their way.

Anders had gone outside some time ago to see his brother off. She wasn’t clear on why Stellan was determined to leave so early, but Anders’ explanation that he was eager to return to his wife and son rang true, if incomplete. She expected to learn more about the twins’ relationship and about their family when Anders took her home to Sutherland. In two days! She couldn’t believe her life was about to make such a drastic change. And so quickly. Drastic but welcome. No more being ignored by her father in favor of her brother. No more fears about being bartered away to a Norse prince and living far to the north, unable to visit her friends, and they to visit her. No more risk of her da being forced to punish her for releasing the captive Sutherlands.

Sutherland wasn’t all that close, but it was an easy sail down the coast—in good weather. She expected their marriage to strengthen ties between the clans and to help keep her brother from ruining relations with every clan around Sinclair.

Anders thought they would do exactly that. She hoped he was right.

In the meantime, sitting in her bed, dressed in the lovely gown Siobhan created for her and her new husband to enjoy on their wedding night, she was becoming impatient. She wasn’t nervous. Both her mother and Maighread had long ago taught her what would happen and what she needed to know. She wanted to get on with it. With Anders. She had never expected to be an eager bride, but she found herself avidly awaiting his arrival.

Finally, she heard male voices and laughter along with heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Anders must have been waylaid by his clansmen and hers. No doubt they expected to bring him to bed.

The door opened and Anders backed in, shoving at the men outside. “Go on with ye. I dinna need yer help.” Raucous laughter greeted his comment as he slammed the door on them, turned the lock, and clearly not trusting that to be enough, wedged the claymore he had slung over his back through the brackets meant to hold a thick wooden bar.

“Where did ye get the sword?” Ailsa asked, amazed that he could have entered the keep with it.

“The lads out there thought it made a good jest. One I’d rather no’ explain. They’ll no’ be getting it back, so the jest is on them.”

Ailsa clapped and snickered. “Well played, Husband.”

He stood with his back to the door, his gaze fixed on her. “Ye are the most beautiful lass I’ve ever seen,” he told her.

“So, still having memory problems, are ye?” Ailsa didn’t mean to sound prickly, but she always had something smart to say when she was nervous, and right now, her belly was full of birds flitting from side to side and top to bottom, and they flew faster the more Anders stared at her. Maighread had tended his cuts and bruises, so his face did not appear quite as battered as when Boden’s men finished with him. His eyes had gone dark enough to get lost in. His breathing sounded deep and rhythmical, as though he was preparing for a battle to begin.

“Nary a one,” he answered, ignoring her jibe. “But looking at ye, I can attest that I’ve happily forgotten every other lass I’ve ever met. Are ye certain ye are no’ of the seelie, lass, like the fae I read about in yer book? Beautiful and kind, they are, like ye.”

His adoring smile heated her blood, but she suddenly regretted her jest. The weeks of not knowing himself were not something to laugh about. “I dreamed ye might be a selkie. Strong and handsome as a seal as ye are as a man. Ye came to me from the sea. Perhaps ye left yer seal skin somewhere in the woods below the castle, intending to explore the land or visit us and leave again. But something happened, and ye were touched by the fae, robbing ye of yer memory.”

“Perhaps, lass, we both read too much of yer book,” Anders said and grinned. “I’m nay more a selkie than ye are a seelie. We are man and wife. I wouldna change that for anything.”

She threw the covers aside and quit the bed. As she stood, Anders sucked in even more air. His chest expanded and his shoulders, already impossibly broad, seemed to grow broader, stronger, and more alluring. She marched up to him, eager to put her hands on them. “Have ye never?—?”

“Of course I have. I’m admiring my wife, and looking forward to making ye my bride in truth.” He pulled her to him and wrapped his strong, loving arms around her. “This will be different than any … encounter … I’ve yet had.”

“Nay wives before me?” She looked up at him and grinned, breaking her own vow not to jest about his unreliable memory of his past, but at the serious set to his mouth, she lost any nuance of humor in the subject.

“Nor after, Love. There will only be ye, with me, for as long as we both live. The life we make together is all I want. And after us our bairns to carry on with Sutherland and Sinclair blood in their veins, stronger for the melding we create with our love.”

“Anders …” She found herself transfixed by the future he painted with his words. “I want that, too, Husband. With ye. Only ye.”

“Ye shall have what ye desire, Wife,” he told her. With gentle care, he picked her up and carried her to their bed. When she reached for him, he held up a hand. “I have waited and searched my entire life for ye. I willna rush this moment. ’Tis too important for both of us.”

She nodded, her emotions making it impossible to speak, and pulled him down beside her. The feelings he aroused in her were new and unfamiliar, but sweet. So sweet. Her heart seemed too large for her chest. She couldn’t wait any longer to touch him, so she gripped his upper arm, marveling at the tightly leashed strength she found there. He would never hurt her. “Ye make me love ye more every moment, Anders. Ye have been naught but kind and honorable. Now, ye may be loving. That is what I desire in this moment and for all the moments we shall have.”

He traced the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. “So beautiful ye are. I canna believe ye are mine.” His gaze traveled over her face, then settled on her eyes. “And that ye love me.”

“I do love ye, Husband. Now, make love to me.”

“With pleasure, my lady wife. With pleasure.” He traced his fingertips from her brow down her cheek to her jaw, leaving a trail of tingles that spread down her throat, then he bent to take her lips with his.

She opened to him on a moan that came from depths she’d never known she had within her.

He plundered her mouth and drew a trail of fire to the mounds of her breasts with his fingertips, tightening her nipples.

Ailsa arched into his hand, lost in the way he touched her. Strong, yet gentle, determined to please her. “More, Anders, more.”

“Patience, my love,” he murmured. “Ye will have all of me when ye are ready, and nay before then.”

He followed the trail of his fingers with his mouth, pulling aside the embroidered bodice of her gown to reveal the hard peaks of her nipples. He brushed his thumb lightly over one while he teased the other with his tongue. Then he lifted his head. “Ye must let me undress ye, Love, or I will have to tear yer gown.”

“Ye first,” she replied with a challenging lift to her lips. “I wish to see all of ye.”

“Ye have. When I was ill.”

“No’ quite all. And ’tis no’ the same. Ye were ill and weak. Now ye are healthy and strong. Stand, Husband. I will help ye.”

She didn’t have to ask him twice. He grinned and sat up, kicked off his boots and stood, awaiting her pleasure.

Ailsa stood, too, undid the pin at his shoulder, set it aside, and unbuckled his belt. She held it in place for a moment while she gazed up at him. “Are ye ready?”

“More than ready, my love.”

She dropped the belt and pulled the wool from his shoulder, letting his great kilt unravel and fall from his body to pool around his feet and over hers. She looked him up and down, grasped the hem of his léine and lifted it. He took it from her and pulled it over his head to drop on the floor behind him. Now he stood before her naked and rampant.

“Ye can see how hungry for ye I am,” he told her.

She wondered for a moment how they could ever make this work. He’d once told her he was a big man everywhere. She saw the truth of that. After a nervous swallow, she looked up at him, reassured by the smile he gave her. “I ken ye willna hurt me,” she said, partly for him but mostly for herself. But the bruises on his body told her his determination to protect her might cause him pain. “Ye must take care of yerself as well.”

“Dinna fash about me,” he told her. “Now, ’tis my turn,” he added softly as he looked at her, his gaze roving from her bright hair to her feet and back, lingering on the swell of her hips and breasts. He grasped the silky fabric of her gown and pulled it slowly over her head, as though determined to draw out the moment, and to give her time to object. Once the garment cleared her head, he slid it down the length of her hair before letting it fall to the floor, leaving her standing proudly bare before him.

She smiled. “Look yer fill, my love. All that I am is yers.”

“And all that I am is yers.” He shook his head, admiration in his eyes. “I havena the words to describe how beautiful ye are to me,” he told her, unable to take his gaze from her. “When I first saw ye, yer hair fascinated me.” He brushed an errant lock off her cheek. “’Tis like the dawn, gold with a touch of blush to warm it. But now, seeing all of ye … I could never have imagined the beauty that awaited me.”

She stepped closer to him, lifted her arms and wrapped her hands around his neck. The sensation of his body pressed against her sent waves of heat rolling through hers. He picked her up, and she wrapped her legs around his hips. His manhood teased her yearning center. But he reined in his desire, though from the way his jaw clenched and sweat beaded his forehead, it took all the strength he had.

A heady sense of power roared through her. He was bigger and stronger, but she could drive him to his knees.

Instead he walked to the bed and laid her on it, then knelt with her legs over his shoulders and kissed his way up her thighs.

“Anders …”

The plea in her voice encouraged him to taste and suckle her until she arched up and cried out his name. While her body danced in joyful spasms, he used his finger to stretch her and extend her peak. When she stilled, he stood and slid her more fully onto the bed, knelt over her and paused. “’Tis time, Love. If ye are ready?”

“I am, Husband,” she answered with an eager smile as she opened her eyes to his handsome face. How she wanted him! Her body cried out for his touch, for him to fill the emptiness within her. “Make me yers.”

Anders gazed at his bride with love and amazement. She was far from his first, but she was different from all the others. She reached into his soul and made him feel things he’d thought himself incapable of feeling. The bond between them was deeper than any he’d experienced before her, and after this night, it would be unbreakable. He’d once despaired of ever finding a love like his twin shared with his bride, but in Ailsa, Anders had everything he had hoped for, and more. She had cared for him when he didn’t even know himself. She had fought for him against her father and laird. And she had saved him and his men. His was a bride worthy of Sutherland. Worthy to be the wife of a laird. Worthy to give him bairns and a future he had only dreamt of.

He could barely breathe with wanting her. Her skin under his fingertips was softer and smoother than the finest French velvet. Her breath warmed his skin and her scent made him crave her taste all the more. He needed to touch her, to press her body against his and take her mouth. The thought was sweet torture. His pulse pounded in his throat like the slap of oars on deep water. He wanted more, but he didn’t dare move too fast. “I will take care with ye, Love, and never hurt ye, save this once. Do ye ken?”

“I do. All of it. And I ken ye will always take care of me, Anders.”

“As ye have taken care of me, Love. I owe my life to ye several times over.”

“I will happily spend mine with ye,” she said.

His member prodded at her entrance and she slipped her legs apart in invitation. He pushed inside, slowly, gently, until he met a barrier. “Now, Love,” he breathed to warn her. At her nod, he pushed all the way in, breaching her maidenhead. Even though she said she expected it, her gasp made him regret the harm he’d done.

After a moment, she assured him, “I’m well, Anders. ’Twas a surprise the way it felt, ’tis all.”

“Take as long as ye need, lass, to accustom yerself to me. I ken ’tis strange.”

“Aye, ’tis. And wonderful. We are joined as one. I am truly yers now, and ye are mine. ’Tis time, Husband. I want more.”

“Ye shall have more.” He pulled most of the way out, then slid gently back in, letting her set his pace by her reactions, how she moved, how she gripped him with her sheath. When she lifted her hips to take him deeper, he answered her demand, increasing his pace until she cried out his name and shuddered with the pleasure he gave her. Then, he surrendered to the desire he’d fought for weeks. She was his! His climax took him under, rolling him as though he was caught in a heated undertow, until he broke the surface and saw stars—bright, beautiful stars. All while his seed filled her and she cried out his name yet again. “I love ye, Ailsa,” he told her when he could speak again. “I always will.”

It took all of two days to prepare Ailsa’s belongings for the move to Sutherland. Her mother wisely made an event of what could have been a sad chore, letting her friends Siobhan and Maesie and others help her pack her belongings and choose mementos of Sinclair to take with her, many of which were gifts from her friends and admirers. She had not expected so many, or such expressions of sorrow at her impending departure, but she accepted them with grace, grateful to realize she had more friends in Sinclair than had ever made their feelings known.

The wedding gift from her parents, a heavy gold chain from which hung a rare bright blue topaz gemstone framed in more gold, she wore under her clothes.

She thought she was nearing the end of her packing when Siobhan knocked on her door. “I just finished these,” Siobhan told her, arms full of dresses as she entered the chamber.

“What have ye done?” Ailsa hugged her and after Siobhan put down her burdens on the bed, smoothed and admired them. Siobhan had made her wedding dress and nightgown, but now also gave her three new dresses. “Yer parents asked for these, for ye to wear at Sutherland. I also made several nightgowns yer parents ken naught about.”

“When did ye have time?” Ailsa asked, amazed at her friend’s skill as she admired the dresses. Two were everyday, serviceable woolen kirtles, and the last was meant for special occasions, made of a pale, clear green that would complement her coloring, embroidered in the same shade along the neckline. “I will make Anders proud, wearing these,” she said. “Thank ye. They are beautiful.” She set them aside and admired the three nightgowns Siobhan made for her. One was made of ivory silk, another in a blue that nearly matched the stone in the necklace her parents gave her, another in a warm, pale peach. “These are exquisite. The silks. The needlework!” The more she studied them, the more excited she became. “Siobhan, how can I ever thank ye. They’re wonderful. I love them. Anders will, too,” she added and grinned, then pulled her friend into a hug.

“I was only going to make one, but I worried that he might tear it in his … enthusiasm. So, I made two more.”

Ailsa laughed as she held one up to herself and twirled around. “He’d best no’ damage them if he kens what’s good for him.” She looked forward to Anders’ expression when he saw her in them.

Then she sobered. “I will miss ye, my friend.”

“I’ll miss ye, too. But ye will visit. And bring yer bairns.”

“Ye must visit Sutherland, as well. We’ve yet to find ye a husband, and there may be several good men for ye to meet there.”

“Mayhap I should travel with ye,” Siobhan quipped, grinned, and left her to her packing.

As Ailsa finished, Maesie, Cook and Maighread arrived with their gift. “We collaborated on a notebook about plants, their care, and harvesting instructions, along with packets of seeds,” Maighread explained, “in case Sutherland lacked anything ye were accustomed to having, from food and herbs to flowers.”

Ailsa’s mouth dropped open. “I dinna ken what to say. This is true wealth,” she told them, so grateful she could barely speak. Her eyes glimmered with unshed tears. “Thank ye all for yer thoughtfulness, for all ye have taught me, and for all ye did to help Anders. I love ye all.”

“We’ll miss ye, lass, and that big, handsome husband of yers, too,” Cook told her.

“But ye will visit,” Maesie insisted, “or we’ll go to Sutherland and find ye.”

“I understand,” Ailsa said, her heart in her throat. “I have even more friends here than I kenned. I’ll miss ye all.”

Anders returned in time for the evening meal. He had little to pack, but he had been busy with his father and his men from the birlinn, who were making preparations of their own and tearing down the siege camp.

“Will Sinclair keep the birlinn ?” Ailsa asked that evening once they returned to their chamber. She couldn’t believe Sutherland would agree to leaving it behind, but perhaps in the interest of the improved relations between the clans, he counted its sacrifice to be worthwhile.

“My father and yers have inspected it , ” he told her. “ Because of damage it might have taken in that storm, Sinclair declared it should not be trusted to be seaworthy without a more thorough inspection and repairs, which his men will do. After the animosity of the siege, ’tis a generous gesture. Even my da appreciates it.”

“We willna sail south?” She wasn’t sure how she felt about traveling for several days with so many men. And a cart full of her belongings, including two trunks of clothes and all the gifts bestowed on her and Anders. She’d assumed everything would be loaded onto the birlinn for a swifter trip to Anders’ home.

“We must ride. Sutherland and our allies brought sufficient horses for everyone. Ye will be in nay danger. I will be by yer side the entire time. We have tonight here,” he reminded her, “and if all goes well, only tomorrow night on the way. We’ll spend the rest of our lives together when we return to Sutherland.”

“I can do that, easily,” Ailsa promised, hoping she was speaking the truth. She’d never traveled overland so far from home. But Anders would be with her, and they would have an army of Sutherlands and allies around them.

Anders cupped her cheek and kissed her. “If ye tire of riding, I will hold ye in my arms, or ye can rest in the cart. I ken this is a time of joy, but also of sorrow and uncertainty, my love. I promise ye, all will be well.”

Ailsa knew he was right, but her worries still plagued her. Would she be happy at Sutherland? Would the people there accept her as Anders’ bride? Would she find any friends or have to depend on her husband and Stellan for everything? She would know the answers to those questions in a very few days.

“I would like ye to practice a wee before we make the trip,” Ailsa told him.

“Practice?”

“Aye, holding me in yer arms,” she answered and gave him her best wide-eyed, entreating look.

“I can do that,” Anders said with a smile and pulled her to him, lifted her into his arms and sank onto a chair by their hearth. “Any time ye wish, milady, I’ll be happy to hold ye.”

She snuggled into his warmth, content for a moment. “And kiss me?”

“Aye,” he said and did so until she was breathless. “Anything else?”

Ailsa smiled up at him. She treasured the many ways Anders showed his love for her. “Keep doing what ye are doing, my love, and ye’ll find out.”