Enlightened (2 page)

“You’re limping,” Murdo observed unnecessarily.

“I overdid it, but I’ll be all right,” David replied. “I just need to rest my leg for a bit.”

Murdo let out a noisy sigh. “You’re as stubborn as a mule. I only hope you haven’t set yourself back with this.”

There were three steps up to the front door of the house, and David took them slowly, gritting his teeth against the pain that knifed through his knee with each step. He didn’t look at Murdo, but he felt the other man’s eyes on him, watching his slow progress and scrutinising his profile for evidence of how bad the pain was.

They stepped into the hallway together, Murdo closing the front door behind them. Since the hall was empty of servants, David allowed Murdo to help him off with his greatcoat. Then he glanced up the long flight of steps that led to his bedchamber on the first floor and suppressed a moan. Girding himself, he placed his foot on the first step.

“Don’t even think about it,” Murdo said behind him.

Before David could protest, Murdo was sliding one arm round David’s back and the other under his knees, sweeping his feet out from under him. David hissed a curse as Murdo lifted him, but Murdo just shifted David’s weight to balance himself and began to quickly mount the stairs.

“Christ, Murdo,” David said testily. “Let me down, will you?” It had been a few weeks since he’d had to submit to this particular indignity. He hated being carried like this—it unmanned him.

Murdo ignored him, and after the first few stairs, despite his mortification, David didn’t bother protesting any further. The truth was, he couldn’t get up these stairs without Murdo’s help.

By the time they reached the top, Murdo’s breath was coming hard, but he still didn’t let David down. He carried him another dozen steps to David’s bedchamber door before setting his feet back on the ground. Even then he wasn’t done. Steering David into his room, he guided him firmly to the featherbed David had been dreaming of for the last half hour, then went back to close the bedchamber door, turning the key in the lock. Returning to the bed, mouth set in a firm, determined line, he bent to remove David’s boots. This time David didn’t say anything. It would do no good, and anyway, he was bloody exhausted. So he let Murdo ease the tight leather from his calves, then slowly strip away the rest of his clothing, piece by piece.

“Do you want me to ring for a bath?” Murdo asked as he peeled away David’s trousers, easing the fabric carefully down his legs so as not to jar him.

“I doubt I could climb in right now,” David admitted.

“A rubdown with some liniment, then?”

David couldn’t suppress the groan that emerged from his chest at that suggestion. “Please.”

“Lie back, then. I’ll strip down too.”

David did as instructed, passively watching as Murdo removed his elegant clothing, then crossed the room, naked, to fetch the jar of liniment from the armoire, his tall, powerful body beautiful in the late afternoon light that seeped into the room round the edges of the drapes.

Murdo knelt beside David on the bed and regarded his leg. “Let’s see what you’ve done to yourself.”

Weary to the bone, David let his eyes close. Moments later, the drifting scents of rosemary and camphor heralded the opening of the liniment. It was a scent with which David was very familiar—his mother had been making the stuff for years, ever since his father had taken a tumble off the roof of the barn at home and injured his shoulder. The smell of it now brought with it the promise of imminent relief.

The brisk noise of Murdo rubbing the stuff between his palms brought the scent forth again, more intensely, as it warmed on Murdo’s skin. And when Murdo laid his hands on David, every remaining thought in David’s head vanished. Murdo’s hands were strong and warm, their firm course eased by waxy lanolin and camphor oil as they broke into the knotted agony in David’s leg and straightened him out again.

David could barely keep his eyes open by the time Murdo was finished. He felt languorous and done in, like he could sleep the rest of the day and night away. Somehow, though, he managed to crack open his eyelids and smile at Murdo, who was kneeling at his side, watching him.

“Thank you,” David said softly.

“Better?” Murdo’s smile was tender.

“Much.”

“You look tired.”

“Not
too
tired,” David replied.

Murdo grinned and crawled over to lie beside David. He bent his head, capturing David’s lips in a soft kiss that slowly deepened, while his hand drifted in light, teasing caresses, pausing for an instant to pinch at the tight bud of David’s left nipple, making him moan his pleasure into the kiss.

“Careful,” he murmured as David turned onto his side, worming his way closer

“I’ll be fine so long as I keep the weight off this leg,” David replied, swooping in for another kiss. He drove his tongue deep into Murdo’s mouth and let his own hands wander, loving the way Murdo’s body shuddered and rolled under his fingers, loving the hitches of breath and low moans that came from Murdo’s lips.

Much as he wanted this to last, his blood was up, and it seemed Murdo’s was too. They began the familiar drag and thrust, the grinding circle of hips and dizzying friction of skin on skin. After a minute, Murdo broke their kiss and dropped his mouth to David’s neck, sucking at the tender flesh there, grazing David with his sharp teeth. David’s head went back in surrender, and he groaned loudly.

“Yes. God, that’s good,” he hissed.

It could only have been seconds later when he felt the surge of his climax. It churned in his balls, then splattered in thick, hot pulses between them, coating their bellies, and an instant later, Murdo toppled too, his semen mingling with David’s own.

They lay there kissing for long minutes after, warm and contented, stickily soiled. Despite the pain of his hard-won recuperation, these last months had been the best of David’s life, and at times like these, lying in Murdo’s arms, he still felt a dizzying sort of disbelief, both at his own happiness and at Murdo’s.

After a while, Murdo slipped out of bed to clean himself up. He poured water into the ewer, yelping at the coldness of the washcloth on his warm belly, making David chuckle, then laugh harder when the other man advanced on him with the cold, damp cloth in his hand and a wicked grin on his face. David tried to squirm away, and they tussled briefly, laughing and kissing, till they were both clean and Murdo finally tossed the cloth aside and drew the blankets snugly around them.

“So,” he said. “Did McNally accept the offer?”

David chuckled; he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to tell Murdo about his triumph.

“He made a show of reluctance, but I could tell from the moment I mentioned settling things that he wanted to see the back of the case.” David sent Murdo a challenging look. “I’m fairly sure he’d have come around without paying any costs to him.”

“You still don’t think I should have offered him any money,” Murdo observed, seeming amused.

David considered that. “No,” he said at last, relenting. “You were right. I think he’d have taken the offer without the money, but this way you showed yourself to be a fair and generous man—everything that Sir Hamish wasn’t—and I suppose twenty-five pounds isn’t so very much to pay for restoring relations with your nearest neighbour. Not for you anyway.”

Murdo grinned. “You admit I was right, then?”

David rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t go that far. Let’s just say I can understand your reasoning.”

Murdo laughed softly and brushed a kiss over David’s lips. He gave a sigh of contentment, a happy sound that made David’s heart feel full and tender.

“Dr. Logan’s coming up from Perth on Friday,” Murdo murmured. “Make sure you tell him about what happened today.”

David sighed. “It’s not necessary to keep bringing him here every month. Not anymore. I’m nearly fully recovered. In fact—”

“You’re far from fully recovered,” Murdo interrupted. “As you’ve proved very well today.”

“
In fact
,” David repeated, his light tone belying the heavy dread in his gut, “I’m probably well enough to go home.” After a pause, he added, “To Edinburgh,” as though Murdo might not understand precisely where he meant.

It was a topic that had been brewing for a while now—the last few weeks at least.

Murdo’s lips thinned into a grim line. “Let’s not talk about that now.”

“When, then?”

There was a long silence, then Murdo said, his tone grudging, “After the physician’s been.”

Friday.

David sighed. Perhaps to Murdo it sounded like impatience. In truth, it was pure relief. Relief that this had been put off for another few days.

“All right,” he agreed, resting his head on Murdo’s broad shoulder. “Friday.”

Chapter Two

By Thursday, David’s leg still didn’t feel much better, and it worried him. Had he damaged himself irreparably? Dr. Logan had been pleased with David’s progress on his last visit, and, for the first time, David had allowed himself to hope that he might actually make a full recovery from his accident. The thought that he might have thrown that away, and through his own stupidity, ate at him.

To take his mind off it, he turned to work. Work had always been a refuge for him, and at Laverock House, there was plenty to be done. Over the last few months, bit by bit, Murdo had divulged to David his various and many business interests. He owned a coal mine in South Lanarkshire and a half share of a cotton mill in Sheffield. He had investments in canals and factories. He underwrote insurance arrangements and financed merchant ships. And there were always new opportunities being offered to him. It was well known that his support for a venture would draw more investors. His name was associated with success and security, and it lured others.

David was fascinated by it all—intrigued by the legal arrangements, appalled by the risks, amazed by the rewards. His involvement had begun with no more than mere dinner conversation, when he asked Murdo what kept him holed up in his study for so long. Soon, though, curiosity piqued, he was asking to look over the contracts and proposals Murdo was working on, and then, as he questioned Murdo about the workings of the schemes he was involved in, he found himself making notations, suggesting revisals and innovations. At first, his suggestions were tentative, but when Murdo showed interest in what he was saying and even grew excited by his ideas, David’s confidence grew.

It wasn’t long before Murdo raised the topic of money. When David balked at the idea of a salary, Murdo decided that a commission would be a better form of remuneration in any event. Four percent of returns, he’d decided, unilaterally. That way David could rest assured that his rewards would be commensurate with the success of the venture.

Once that had been sorted, Murdo really began to draw David in, giving David access to all his business correspondence and setting up a second desk in the study of Laverock House. Their working arrangements, which till now had been somewhat loose and sporadic, settled into a steady pattern of several hours most days, though the work was done at all different times of day, depending on what other commitments Murdo had.

Today, Murdo had business to attend to in Perth, so they agreed to spend an hour or two going through Murdo’s bulging correspondence tray first thing, before taking a late, hearty breakfast, which would sustain Murdo till his return.

They started early, at seven, a pot of coffee on the desk between them as they pored over documents and letters in companionable silence.

“What does this say?” Murdo asked David after a while, showing him a scratched notation David had made in the margin of a fairly advanced proposal.

David took the paper he held out and peered at his own handwriting for a moment before the light dawned. “Oh, it says ‘consider trust’. I was thinking that if the proceeds of sale were placed directly in trust, the trustees could be left to deal with ascertaining the dividends and paying them out to the investors. I thought that may alleviate your concerns about the funds being tied up if the Healey brothers start arguing amongst themselves again. The trustees will be able to release your share, and the Healeys can waste their shares on lawyers if they wish.”

Murdo grinned, his left cheek dimpling and his eyes dancing with humour. “A neat solution,” he agreed. “I shouldn’t like to miss out on what promises to be a profitable venture, merely because the two principals argue like cat and dog.”

David couldn’t help but grin back, caught fast by that rare smile. It touched him, oddly, to see Murdo like this. So engaged and interested in what he was doing. When David first met Murdo, he hadn’t seen this side of him. He’d seen only a supercilious aristocrat with a perpetual expression of cool amusement on his face, as though everyone he looked at was slightly below his notice. It had taken a while for the mask to crack, and even now, these moments of unreserved excitement were rare enough that they made David’s heart beat a little quicker.

Murdo got like this about the estate too. His plans for the home farm at Laverock covered a three-year period, with every detail costed to the shilling. And he’d been systematically reviewing his tenants’ properties since last winter, making notes of changes and improvements to be brought about. All this and wooing the neighbours too. Business was the man’s element. He had a gift for it, a nose for profit and a mind like a trap.