Page 14 of The Duchess’s Absolutely Delightful Dream (The Notorious Briarwoods #14)

But better to be in a farce than a tragedy!

And with that thought, he strode off. And as soon as he had set off, he couldn’t tear his eyes off his fiery Scot.

She’d paused, turned to look back, and stood with her hands on her hips.

Her hair was whipping about her face like cinnamon flames, and she looked as if she had stepped out of some old tale of sword-wielding maidens.

And he loved it. Dear God, he did. For better or worse, to his detriment or blessing, his spirits soared as he followed her, like a ship to a lighthouse.

There was something about her fiery nature that lifted him up. He was so used to ladies who waited to be picked, who waited to have things done for them. Not ladies of his own family, of course.

But in this? She was organizing everything and telling him what he should be doing. He’d given so many orders that it shocked him to find that he quite liked someone taking charge of him a little bit. It made him feel as if he could, for once in more than a decade, relax ever so slightly.

Once he was ascending the incline and nearing her, Elspeth smiled a smile so large she could have lit the whole Scottish night with it. His heart slammed in his chest.

She was light. Pure. Perfect. Beautiful. And with a way of moving that made him leap to attention, Ellie started charging across the heather and winding up towards the peaks.

A blissful sigh escaped his lips as he climbed after her. She was right. This was rest. Real rest for his soul.

This was exactly what he needed. He did not need to lay about a house, staring up at the ceiling. He did not need to sit in a chair in the corner of some room, moldering.

No, he needed this.

Clouds danced across the Scottish sky, but the sun was shining mightily through those clouds, dappling the land in golden hues. It was breathtaking, and with each step they went higher and higher into the wild land that looked so primal he felt his soul ache with it.

Up and up they went, farther and farther, until they stood in a hidden nook of land, nestled amongst the peaks. It was a jewel of a little glen, tucked back away from the great loch.

He stopped and pulled out a ceramic bottle from the bag he’d lugged, pulled the stopper out, and then he offered it to her.

She lifted the mouth of the bottle to her lips and drank. Her eyes closed with bliss and that look, and her lips about the bottle, caused his body to crackle with need for her.

She passed him the bottle then, their fingers skimming as their eyes locked for a second.

He then took a drink and ecstasy, after the climb, danced though him as the tart, zesty taste of lemonade slid over his tongue.

He drank and drank.

“Like it, do you?” she teased.

At last, he lowered the bottle and recorked it. “Your cook really does make the best lemonade. You must promise not to tell Grandmama, for she adores her cook, though she already likely knows.”

She smiled at him. “I like your grandmother.”

“Most people do,” he said. “Those who don’t? They’re sad about their own lives and have no idea how to go about living. In my opinion, that’s why they don’t like her.”

She frowned. “Isn’t it terrible?” she asked. “So many people trapped in their own lives, who can’t end their own suffering, and they miss all of this.”

She swept her hand out towards the beautiful landscape, and she was right.

“Is this what you’ve come to show me?” he queried as he gazed out over the landscape.

“No.” She smiled. “Follow me.”

Slowly, they made their way through the small glen until they came to a series of stone cottages with their roofs overgrown with weeds.

“What are those?” he asked, drinking in the sight of the old buildings.

“Many, many years ago, our people lived on these lands and dwelt up here away from the world. They were protected from the rest of the world, able to live in harmony. They tended their cattle, raised sheep, wove their wool, and lived bonny lives.”

“What happened to them?” he breathed.

“Change.”

He blinked as he tried to envision the people who had lived in the cottages.

For a moment, he could have sworn he heard the laughter of children in the glen and the sound of a woman’s song on the wind, but it was just a trick of his very imaginative mind.

An imagination that most Briarwoods possessed.

“I thought you might like to see them. Our history,” she said. “Whenever I’m feeling a little bit amiss, I come here to remember that things always change, and yet they somehow also stay the same.”

“Are you feeling a bit amiss now?” he queried.

“Not at all,” she returned, placing her hand on one of the stones in the wall of the first cottage. “I feel more at peace right now than I have in a very long time, but I know that you… Your own life, is…”

“Yes?” he prompted, feeling rather strange about it.

“You can’t feel very much at ease with war constantly going on.”

He frowned and then stepped forward and traced his hands over the carved stone. In the corner, there was a circular mark carved into the stone. Clearly done by someone. “What is this?” he asked.

“It’s a charm,” she said softly. “For protection.”

And he thought how remarkable it was that many, many years ago, some enterprising soul had marked this stone to protect their house and family and left it here for Ellie to look upon, for him to touch.

As he traced the mark, he suddenly felt a part of something. A part of Scotland. A part of a story.

“Actually,” he said softly, “I’ve come to terms with war. In many ways, I think that is the most dangerous part of it.”

She closed the distance between them and placed a hand over his. “You mean you’ve accepted that it’s your reality?”

He nodded. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get out of it,” he said softly.

“Do you want to?” she whispered.

He lifted his gaze from their hands together to her eyes. “I don’t know.”

And somehow, he knew that she could see inside him then and that sent a shock of terror through him.

She could see his fear. Not of the war itself, but that he might not know how to live without it. That he had lived as a warrior for so long, as a man of battle and blade and gunpowder, that he did not know if he could ever be a man of peace.

Did he even trust himself to try? He had made war on so many men, charged across so many fields, and taken the lives of so many enemies that he did not know if he could imagine dancing peacefully through a ballroom for the rest of his life or tilling soil or…

“You know the great warriors of old used to run about these glens,” she said.

“Sometimes, I feel like I can feel their echoes, and it’s haunting.

They’re gone forever now. The last great war for Scotland killed them.

Once they filled these cottages, but war took away an entire way of living.

I think that we must understand that nothing is permanent.

Even if it has been here for one hundred years. Even stones,” she whispered.

She bit her lower lip, staring at the cottage.

“Eventually, the wind will wear these walls down, and the weeds will rot the roof. Then every trace of humanity will be gone from here. One day, the glen will reclaim this land, and the foibles of humans will be forgotten. This mountain and these glens where the warriors of my clan and the clans of others used to charge and roam? They too will fade into history.”

Her words caused the most impossible ache in his heart.

“This season of war in your life? It will also fade away. For nothing ever stays the same,” she said.

His throat tightened. “Do you think so?”

She nodded.

Panic welled up in him. He had his family. It was true. But the life of a warrior? That had been his primary purpose for so long now. “But what if it…”

And then she lifted her fingers to his lips and touched them gently. There was no need for what ifs. So, she took his hand and did not say another word.

They wandered through the hills above the castle, taking their time, and he followed her eagerly, discovering the world she knew.

How Ellie loved that he had allowed her to lead, to show him the land she loved so well. So many men insisted on striking out, despite their own ignorance, determined to be masters in all things.

But not Octavian.

Still, there was one thing in which she desperately wished him to take the lead, for she had no idea how to truly begin.

As they came upon a single tree growing in a small green clearing, it was as if he knew, as if he was one with her.

Because he took her hand, twined their fingers, then pulled her back towards him.

“I want you,” he groaned against her neck, as his hard sex pressed through her skirts and into the curve of her bottom.

“As I do you,” she breathed, hardly daring to believe this was happening. That her dream of passion was about to be achieved.

With a possessive groan, he whipped her around to face him.

It seemed something about the Highlands had ripped away all his proper English veneer, and he slid his hands into her hair and kissed her.

Her body yielded to his and she melted into him.

He devoured her then. And she wished to be devoured. How she did!

That mouth of his took hers with a tender wildness that did something to her heart, and she knew she’d never be the same after this.

Closing her eyes, she gave herself over to sensation as he lowered them to the cool ground, surrounded by wildflowers and blooming heather.

The wild herbs of the Highlands filled the air with the most delicious aromas as she eased back.

And as he laid down beside her, he paused. “Tell me yes.”

“Och…I’ll tell you aye, Octavian.”

“Even better,” he whispered before he took her mouth again.

Then passionately, devotedly, he brought her body to the precipice of pleasure with slow, skilled strokes.

And as he slid her skirts up her legs and slid between them, she sucked in a sharp breath of surprise as he kissed her there as he had kissed her lips just moments before.

She grabbed fistfuls of grass and stared up at the branches of the tree and its bright green leaves.

As he kissed and teased her with his tongue, it felt was if she was being transported to another world as the light pierced through the arms of the ancient oak that had survived so much over the centuries.

There, she felt connected. Connected to Octavian, to herself, to the romantic passion of this place. It was like coming home to herself, to him, to a myth that had laced through men and women for all time.

She never wanted it to end.

Just as she thought she could bear no more, she cascaded into a river of pure pleasure. It tumbled over her, its piercing, delicious rapids a delight she’d never imagined.

Then he was unbuttoning his breeches, and she pulled at his hips, eager for him to join her in languid bliss.

He took his sex into his hand and rubbed it along her slick core.

His face was a map of need as he thrust deep, and she let out a yelp of pain.

He stilled, shock transforming his face. “Ellie?” he gasped.

“Don’t stop,” she gritted, trying to take him.

“Have you ever done this?” he rasped.

She shook her head.

He sucked in a sharp breath, then managed, “I should stop.”

“Why? It’s you I want.”

His gaze searched hers and the hesitation vanished, replaced by something else. Something that reminded her of pride—pride that he was her first.

And when he began to rock against her, it was as if he was determined that she would never forget this. Forget him. Or the pleasure he could bring her.

And before she knew it, she was crashing into ecstasy, and as she peaked, pure pleasure washed over his face as he thrust home.

They both clung to each other, dragging in ragged breaths.

And as he pulled her into his arms, it took him several moments before he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That I hadn’t—”

“Yes,” he broke in softly.

“I don’t know.” And she didn’t. It wasn’t exactly as if ladies were encouraged to discuss their virginity or lack thereof.

“I’m honored,” he said softly, holding her as if she was a treasure.

His treasure.

She smiled, at ease with him.

And there, under the arms of the tree, in Octavian’s embrace, she knew… She’d found exactly what she had been looking for.