Page 30 of Wed to the Highlander (Impromptu Brides #2)

They rode double on Flint. Duncan’s strong, sure-footed gelding carried them easily. Maggie nestled against her husband’s chest, his arms steady around her as they climbed the winding path. He picked his way carefully, hooves squelching in the softened earth.

The warm day of a week ago had turned into a winter thaw in the middle of February. Taking advantage of it while they could, Duncan had ordered a picnic, just as he’d done all those months ago.

They crested the rise, which opened into a high meadow. It was still too early for primrose and narcissus, but crocuses dotted the field, violet and white, pushing through last season’s decay.

“This is a perfect spot for a private picnic,” Duncan said as he reined in.

“And no aspens,” she replied, harkening back to the long-ago day.

“Why do you think I picked this spot?” he said as he dismounted and lifted her down.

“That seems like a lifetime ago.”

“Does being married to me drag on so?”

It was a year to the day since they’d taken their wedding vows. “I don’t mind time dragging when I get to spend it with you.”

He smiled in the midst of spreading out the blanket. “Fine answer, mo chridhe . Do you ken that today marks seven weeks since Jamie made us three?” Brushing a hand over the fabric to smooth it, he stretched out and patted the space next to him invitingly.

“I remember something happening around that time—vaguely.” When he grabbed her hand and pulled her down, Maggie laughed softly, the sound catching in the breeze. She curled her legs beneath her, close but not quite touching. “It feels longer. And shorter. All at once.”

“You’re confused, which comes with lack of sleep.”

“Not so much since Lillie is helping care for Jamie.” Lillie, a housemaid, had come as part of her mother’s entourage months ago. But Duncan’s cousin, Callum, a kind, steady, robust Macpherson, caught her eye, and she married him before Christmas. “Thank you for that suggestion. Jamie loves her.”

“It was purely selfish,” Duncan said as he unpacked the basket’s simple fare: cheese, oatcakes, lemon tarts. “I was becoming jealous of my own son monopolizing your time.”

Maggie poured two cups of the elderflower cordial Lillie had tucked in, with a wink, her fingers brushing his as she handed him one.

When the food was gone and the sun had dipped low enough to cast golden light across the meadow, Duncan leaned back on his elbows, watching her.

“You look braw,” he said. “And rested.”

She arched a brow. “Braw?”

“Aye. Healthy. Strong. As if you could knock me flat if I said the wrong thing.”

She laughed again, but her gaze softened. “That’s from lugging a MacPherson bairn around. But I do feel…more myself today. As though I’ve returned to my body.”

He reached for her hand, thumb stroking the inside of her wrist. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed me, too,” she said then added, quieter, “and you.”

There was no rush. No urgency. Just the slow, deliberate leaning toward each other, the kind that came from years of knowing and weeks of waiting.

His kiss was gentle at first, becoming hungry as her fingers curled into his shirt, grounding herself in the familiar shape of him.

When he tumbled her onto her back on the blanket, she stiffened slightly.

“What is it?” he asked, noticing.

She hesitated then admitted, “I’m not who I was. Not exactly.”

“You’re a mother now.”

“Yes, and my body has changed,” she admitted. “I’m softer. My hips…wider. I don’t know if you’ll still—”

“Find you beautiful?” he interrupted, voice low. “I’ve got eyes, lass. You’re lovelier than ever. I see every curve, every change, and I thank God for them. You’ve become the woman you were meant to be—and I’m honored to call you mine.”

Her breath caught and she believed every word, drawn in by the earnest, desirous gleam in his eyes.

Duncan kissed her, slow and deep, his hand cradling her jaw gently. She responded with a desire that surprised her, a need that had simmered beneath exhaustion and healing. His touch was patient, coaxing, rediscovering. Her body responded with warmth, with longing, with the ache of recognition.

They didn’t undress fully, opening buttons, pushing aside, and peeling down fabric to bare the parts the other craved.

“You’re perfect,” Duncan whispered, the heat of his breath making her nipple peak. “Every inch,” he said before he took it into his mouth. More sensitive than ever before, she cried out, arching toward him, her fingers sinking into his hair to hold him to her.

He worshipped her with his hands, his mouth, his whispered praise.

When they joined, he sank into her with tender care.

Watching for the slightest twinge. But she wrapped a leg around his hips, urging him into a rhythm born of familiarity and rediscovery.

It was glorious, her soaring into the bliss of him inside her much too soon.

But it had been so long, he quickly followed her into a shuddering release.

Afterward, they lay tangled together, the breeze lifting strands of hair and rustling the crocuses. Duncan’s hand rested on her waist, thumb stroking absentmindedly.

“I wish we could stay,” Maggie sighed. “But Jamie will be wanting his supper.”

He bent and kissed her belly, each breast, then her lips. “We’ll come back,” he promised.

The wind shifted, cooler than before. Gray clouds gathered on the horizon.

Duncan sat up, squinting. “The weather’s about to change.”

“Didn’t our last picnic end something like this?” Maggie asked, as her fingers did up the buttons of her blouse. She rose, moving off the blanket as Duncan stowed everything in the basket. Then she froze, her gaze fixed on the parapets of the castle visible in the distance.

“What is it?” Duncan asked, tucking his shirt into his trews.

She pointed. “Is that…smoke?”

His gaze followed hers, tensing with alarm when he saw a plume, darker than the sky, curling upward.

“We need to go. Now.”

They scrambled to dress as they ran toward Flint. Duncan lifted her hurriedly into the saddle then swung up behind her, urgency in every movement.

The gelding’s hooves pounded the softened trail as they raced toward home—toward whatever waited beyond the rising smoke, toward their infant son.

Thunder rolled in the distance, low and ominous. As they reached the castle gates, a groom came sprinting up the path, panting hard.

“My lord! The stables—there’s fire!”

“What happened?”

“We think maybe a lightning strike! The hay caught. Flames leapt tae the roof.”

Duncan jumped down, taking Maggie with him. As soon as her feet touched down, he hurried off, issuing orders. “Summon every available man and start the bucket line.”

As men and women rushed around her on their way to pitch in, Maggie didn’t attempt to follow. Unlike the peat fire, she had another priority—Jamie and making sure he was safe.

She hurried up the steps, the wind clawing at her skirts. It would make fighting the blaze more difficult, and she prayed for a downpour.

Upstairs in the nursery, on the other side of the dressing room—a door adjoining the rooms made at her request by Duncan—she found Lillie seated with Jamie, rocking him by lamplight.

He began squalling when she took him in her arms but calmed as soon as she put him to her breast to nurse. She took Lillie’s vacated chair, rocking and cooing to him as she tried not to worry about his father battling yet another crisis.

A flicker of unease stirred within her. “Please don’t let this be the start of another spring filled with trouble.”

After Jamie was fed and changed, sleeping again now that he had a full belly, she pressed a kiss to his forehead and whispered, “Sleep well, mo chridhe ,” before laying him gently in the cradle.

“I’m going to wash,” she told Lillie. “I’ll only be a minute.”

“Yes, lady. Is the fire bad? Did they rescue the horses?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll find out after I refresh myself.”

In the dressing room, she filled a basin of warm water and quickly washed away the stickiness from nursing and the meadow then slipped into a clean gown, one of the MacPherson plaid dresses she’d taken to wearing lately, for warmth and clan pride.

She ran a brush through her hair and grabbed her woolen shawl, calling softly through the nursery door she’d left ajar. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

There was no answer. She paused and turned.

Something felt…off.

“Lillie,” she called louder.

Still no reply.

She moved quickly through the dressing room and pulled the door open wider. Maggie gasped. The girl was slumped in the corner, unmoving. Blood trickled down her cheek from her temple. The cradle next to her was empty.

“No,” Maggie whispered. “No—no—no!”

She ran to the corridor, shouting. “Someone help! Lillie is hurt, and Jamie is gone!”

Footsteps thundered. Voices called out.

Maggie was torn between helping Lillie or going after her son. But where and who had taken him?

A flicker of white at the end of the corridor caught her eye. Peering closer in the dim hall, she realized it was a woman in flowing skirts, red hair streaming behind her. Not solid. Not quite real.

She knew in a flash who it was—Anne MacPherson.

Maggie’s stomach dropped, knees threatening to buckle as the apparition raised one hand, beckoning her forward.

A whisper brushed her ear, though the ghostly figure’s lips never moved. This way.

The young mother who’d locked herself in the north wing, convinced her husband meant her harm. Whose child had vanished. Whose diary had revealed a mind unraveling—but whose grief had never been laid to rest.

The whisper came again, more urgent. Hurry. If you are to save him.

Maggie didn’t think; she ran.