Page 54 of To Love a Scottish Lord (Highland Lords #4)

His mind cataloged all the places they might go.

Florence, first of all, where he would commission the finest Italian leather case for the medicines Mary would begin to collect again.

Then to Rome, perhaps. Anywhere but India.

Not that the country had a monopoly on cruelty.

There were too many other places in the world where the recent British incursion had angered the natives, making them want to rebel as fiercely as the Atavasi.

He would never put his wife in danger.

His wife. Words that held a tinge of justifiable possessiveness.

He knew so much more about her now, and her allure had only deepened.

He’d thought to want only one thing from this woman, and discovered that loving her physically was not enough.

He wanted to plumb her mind and test the dimensions of her soul.

Her smile always possessed an edge of sadness, and her eyes, sometimes sparkling with mischief, sometimes sober and intent, had always seemed a little weary of the world. He’d known of her ability to heal, but now suspected that she did so as a way to fight loneliness.

Sitting in the courtroom today, he’d finally pieced it together, understanding that what he saw in her was what he’d also felt in himself, an apartness, an aloofness that separated him from other people. He recognized a kindred soul in her.

The woman he’d bedded had merged with the woman who fascinated him.

The two became one, an amalgam of charm, physical grace, intelligence, and more.

He found himself wanting to know why she thought certain things, what her childhood had been like.

What her dreams were, her favorite color, all answers he might have known if he’d courted her properly.

Once, he might have been a proper suitor, but he’d returned from India a different man, the idea of indulging in courtship far from his mind. Yet somehow, Fate or Providence had brought Mary into his life. A reward, perhaps, for his stoic refusal to die?

His mind wandered to those days in the desert. For months, he’d not wanted to think about Thompson. Hamish found himself reliving the scene as if he were not simply involved in it, but as if he also stood apart, watching the man he’d been.

His clothes were in tatters and his skin burned to blisters by the sun. His lips were white with sores as he knelt beside Thompson.

“Get up,” he’d commanded, his throat feeling as if he’d swallowed burning hot sand. Months of screams had cracked his voice. “Get up, damn you.”

Thompson hadn’t moved for a long while. Finally, he’d opened his eyes, staring full-faced into the sun. “Susan? Is that you? Oh, my dearest girl, I’ve dreamed of you.”

“Get up, Thompson.”

The other man shivered, burying himself deeper into the sand until only his chest and head showed. “It’s cold in Surrey in winter,” he said to no one in particular.

Hamish stood, his reserves nearly gone. It would be so easy to simply join him, lie down in the sand and pretend himself home.

He shook himself and stared off toward the far horizon.

Only a day more. He repeated that to Thompson, but the man didn’t answer.

“Damn it!” he shouted. “Do you want to die?”

Again, no response.

“Susan, close the window, it’s cold in the room.”

Thompson crossed his arms over his chest as his body bowed, his entire frame shaking. He, like Hamish, had lost so much weight over the past months that it wasn’t difficult to imagine his skull through the thin layer of flesh and muscle. His grin wasn’t humor but a muscle spasm.

“Thompson!”

The longer he stood there, fatigue leaching the last of his resolve, the more the sun seared into him. Thompson was dying, just as Hamish would if he didn’t find shelter.

He looked toward the far horizon once more before bending and picking up Thompson’s water jug. He poured half of it into his own container, and tried once more to rouse him. When Thompson didn’t answer, Hamish turned and staggered toward the horizon. If he found help, he’d come back for the man.

When the search party found him, Thompson was dead, looking so utterly peaceful that he might have fallen asleep in his bed in Surrey.

Hamish found himself now uttering a profound and fervent silent plea for forgiveness to Thompson. In his vision, the other man opened his eyes, looking at him directly as if he saw the future Hamish. Then he simply smiled and disappeared.

Suddenly, that time at Castle Gloom seemed foolish, the act of a man mired in pity for himself. Up until this moment, he’d not realized the extent of his self absorption. In addition to learning to forgive the Atavasi, he needed to forgive himself. If he could.

Perhaps the way he lived his life from this point forward was the only way he could make reparations for his past actions.

He could be a better son to his parents, a better brother.

In time, he would be a good father, the pattern for his behavior already laid down by his own father, Ian MacRae. Above all, he would be a good husband.

Those attributes might help to balance out his sins.

How odd that his past evaporated and his future began in that instant. How strange, too, that in this shadowed and chilled carriage, Hamish experienced the first hope and exhilaration he’d felt in years.

Mary stirred restlessly in her sleep, and he reached out with his hand to smooth the hair back from her cheek. Her hand reached up and cupped his knee, patting him gently in her sleep as if he were a pillow.

He shouldn’t have felt a surge of lust. The position reminded him of other times, when she teased him with her mouth and hands. Predictably, he grew hard, a not uncommon occurrence around Mary.

Burrowing his right hand beneath her skirts, he allowed his fingers to trail up one stockinged leg and flatten against her hip.

Beneath the shift her skin was warm, enticing.

A moment later, she sighed again, moving a little.

He let his fingers smooth against her delectably curved bottom.

Her hand cupped his knee, slid down his calf and then upward again. Not the actions of a sleeper, unaware.

Glancing down, he caught the edge of her moonlight-dusted smile.

He moved his hand slowly up one thigh, to slip between her legs. Three fingers found her heat, gently pressing against soft folds even now moistening.

Her face was a monochrome in the moonlight. Passing beneath the trees gave the night a lacy pattern. Her fingers brushed against her own lips, and she moved again, separating her legs to give him greater access.

He slipped a finger into her slowly, penetrating her with great delicacy.

She made a sound in the back of her throat, one of welcome or yearning, he thought.

He knew she was no longer asleep, but experiencing the feeling of gentle arousal.

Tenderly, he pressed his remaining fingers against her, feeling the rhythm of the wheels against the surface of the road, and wondering if the sensation added to her pleasure.

She pressed back against his hand, answering the question. He removed his finger slowly, and her movement stopped. A moment later, he inserted his finger again, mimicking his possession of her in the actions of his hand.

He wanted to tongue her nipples, kiss her neck, and stroke that spot just above her knees where she was especially sensitive.

But he restrained himself. Anyone, seeing them, would think they presented an idyllic picture.

She, innocent and demure, asleep on his lap.

He, awake and watchful, the guardian of her rest. No one would know, to look at them, that his finger was buried deep inside her or that she was heated and trembling.

Her fingernail scratched against his breeches, and he smiled.

“You’ve always been a demanding lover,” he said tenderly.

She blinked open her eyes, gave him a soft and sleepy smile. “I was asleep,” she said. “Dreaming of you.”

“Were you?” He moved his finger just the slightest bit, and she closed her eyes again, making a sound deep in her throat.

He moved the tip of one finger slightly forward, stroking it up and then down through her swollen folds.

When he went faster, she shivered. Slower, and she made that sound again.

He deliberately lengthened the movement, and when her hand cupped his knee, her wrist half shielding her face from view, he deepened the penetration.

There was no hurry. No one to see them, no one to know. Feeling her was an aphrodisiac, touching her was a wish granted. He could stroke her for hours, keeping himself on a pinnacle of need and want, making the times he was satiated all the more wondrous.

Or would he ever get his fill of her?

She moaned softly, arching her hips to the side, and pressing against his hand. He closed his eyes as he felt her erupt around him, tiny little tremors milking his finger and making a mockery of his restraint.

He hoped to God that they’d reach an inn soon.

Mary didn’t look at him when she exited the coach. She couldn’t. Her body was still trembling inside, and her clothes felt rough, abrasive to her skin. Without truly try ing, he could make her forget circumstances and place. He always had been able to do so.

How delightful and delicious to be married to such a conjurer.

She waited while he made arrangements with the owner, and followed a young girl up the stairs.

“It’s our best room,” she was saying. “I put the bed warmer between the sheets just an hour ago.” She opened the door. “I put a little bouquet of flowers there,” she said, pointing to the circular table on the other side of the room.

Mary glanced to where she indicated. Sitting in a milk vase in the middle of the table was a profusion of greenery, small flowers branching off a network of tiny vines, looking like clusters of stars.

“It’s too late in the year for flowers, of course, but the white blooms have a scent of their own, something spicy that tickles the nose.”