Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Unwed and Unrepentant\Return of the Prodigal Gilvry\A Traitor's Touch (23 page)

‘I love you.' Cordelia threw her arms around him. ‘I love you so much, Iain Hunter, and if you'd just let me speak I'd have told you that five minutes ago. I wasn't packing to run away from you but to run to you. I am done with running away, and I never want to be more than this much apart from you for the rest of my life.'

‘Cordelia, do you mean it?'

She laughed. She closed the tiny gap there was between them. And then she kissed him.

He kissed her back, with a hunger that matched her own. His hands slid down her shoulders, wrapping her tightly to him. He tasted of sand and sweat. ‘You rode across the desert for me,' she said, panting. ‘Just like a prince from
One Thousand and One Nights.
'

‘Cordelia, I'd have gone to the moon to get you, if that's what it took.'

He kissed her again. Her hands roamed over his back, his shoulders, his arms. She could not quite believe he was here. ‘I thought you meant me,' she said. ‘When you said that about one-sided love. I thought you had guessed how I felt.'

‘And I thought you had guessed how I felt. What a pair of numpties we are.'

‘I have no idea what that means, but...'

‘Idiots. Does this thing have buttons?'

‘Here.' She turned around for him, so that he could unfasten her tunic. He kissed her nape. She curved her bottom into his thighs, relishing the hard ridge of his erection. He gasped, then slid his hands around under her tunic to cup her breasts, and it was her turn to gasp. ‘Iain, I never loved any of them, those men.'

‘I know.'

‘Did you— Have you ever...?'

‘No. Never. I thought that was obvious.'

She wriggled against him. His fingers stroked her nipples. ‘It was,' she said. ‘Only I just wanted to hear it.'

He laughed, a soft growl in her ear. ‘You're the first, last and only love, my ain wee darling.'

She turned around in his arms. ‘And you are my first, last and only love, my ain, most decidedly and deliciously large darling,' she said, pulling him towards the divan.

* * *

He wanted to relish it, to take it slowly, to make every moment last, the first time he made love to the woman he loved and who loved him back, but it was quite beyond him. Cordelia lay under him, hot, flushed and every bit as aroused as he, and all he wanted was to be inside her. She kissed him as if she were starving, and he was every bit as starving as she. Her hands touched, stroked, cupped, tugged, and her body arched into his, and her legs curled around his, and they would have all their lives to relish and to make every moment last, and so he surrendered. When he entered her, it was as if he was always meant to be there. She clung to him, thrusting up under him, and he could feel himself thickening, pulsing, already painfully close.

He held her still, kissing her, gazing deep into her eyes. ‘I love you so much,' he said.

‘Then show me,' she replied. With one of those wicked looks of hers, that nearly sent him over the edge. ‘Show me now, Iain,' she said, digging her heels into his buttocks. ‘Now!'

So he did. He laughed, he kissed her and he thrust. And she laughed too, wildly, and he thought he'd never felt such unadulterated joy in his life as he thrust again, and felt her tighten, and thrust just once more, and felt her pulsing around him, and he stayed there, inside her, kissing her, eyes wide open, heart wide open, and he'd never felt so exposed and so completely possessed and so utterly happy in his life.

* * *

‘Iain?' Cordelia lay draped across his chest, her arm around his waist. Their legs were tangled together. Her heart had almost returned to normal.

‘Mmm?'

‘Are you sleeping?'

‘Recovering,' he said with a grin.

‘We cannot—not again. Not yet. Celia will be wondering where we are.'

‘Celia, my wee love, is most likely doing exactly what we are doing right now. I doubt very much that she cares where we are.'

‘Iain! That's my sister you are talking about. And she's been married to Ramiz for nearly twenty years.'

‘I hope we're still like that in twenty years.'

Cordelia propped her head on her elbow, the better to see his face. ‘Do you think we will be?'

‘Do you want an honest answer?'

‘I never want anything else from you.'

He frowned. ‘We're bound to argue. We're both far too independent-minded not to.'

‘You've thought about this.'

‘Cordelia, I've thought of little else.' Iain sat up, pulling her with him. ‘This love thing, it's only a ball and chain if it's unequal. That's what I was so ineptly trying to say when I told you about my mother.'

‘I know. I just— Goodness, Iain, you will never believe what Celia told me. My mother did not die in childbirth, she ran off with her lover.'

He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Another of the skeletons your Aunt Sophia was talking about. You're quite a family for them. Speaking of which—listen, there's one thing I didn't tell you. I gave you the impression— The fact is, my mother isn't actually dead. She's alive and as far as I know, for she certainly gets through the substantial allowance I give her, she's still kicking, though I haven't seen her in years. My own skeleton she is, and I was thinking...'

‘Good heavens, yes!'

‘I haven't asked you yet.'

‘Yes, I would like to meet her.' She kissed his cheek. ‘Yes, I think it's a good idea that you make your peace.' She kissed his other cheek. ‘Yes, I'll support you if you decide when you've seen her that once was enough.' She kissed the tip of his nose. ‘Yes,' she said and kissed him on the mouth. ‘I can't believe this. Darling Iain, isn't it wonderful being in love? Do you think I might even learn to love my father?'

‘I don't think you've ever stopped loving him. As to liking—honestly, my darling, no.'

Cordelia giggled. ‘Celia cannot abide him, and she is practically a saint. I can't tell you how much better that made me feel. Though nothing can compare with how you make me feel.'

‘And nothing will ever compare to you. When I said that, do you remember that night on the dhow? That's what made me realise I was falling in love with you.'

‘Iain, are you sure? I don't mean are you sure you love me, but—I don't know, I have been on my own for so long, I am not at all sure I can adapt to being part of someone else.'

Iain smoothed her hair away from her face. ‘I don't expect you to be anything other than yourself, which is why I think we're bound to argue. I don't expect you do my bidding, or to think that what you want is less important than what I want.'

‘But there will be times when one of us must compromise, won't there?'

‘And times when it falls to the other. You will be accountable to me, just as I will be to you, but that's a small price to pay, is it not, for having someone always on your side?' Iain said. ‘I want you to love me as much as I love you, Cordelia. I want you to be on my side, as I'll always be on yours. I want to be first with you, as you'll always be with me. I want you to always be yourself. That's all, and I don't know what I've said to make you cry.'

She blinked rapidly. ‘I'm not.'

He wiped her eyes with his fingers. ‘Of course you're not.'

‘It's probably sand from your hair. You have half the desert on you.'

‘It's a magical place, the desert at night. I should like to be in it with you. How do you fancy spending our honeymoon there?'

‘Our honeymoon?'

Iain laughed again, pulling her tight against him. ‘Oh, aye, I forgot that comes first. Will you marry me, Lady Cordelia Armstrong?'

‘Just as soon as it can be arranged, Mr Iain Hunter. That is—if we are married here, will it be recognised in England—or Scotland?'

‘I've no idea, and I don't really care, if it means getting married once, twice or three times. In fact, I quite like the idea of three honeymoons.'

Cordelia wriggled against him provocatively. ‘I do believe you are recovered enough to practise for our first honeymoon right now.'

Iain rolled her on to her back, trapping her between his legs. ‘I do believe I am,' he said, and kissed her.

* * * * *

Historical Note

I
'm indebted to Alistair Deayton and Iain Quinn's book,
200 Years of Clyde Paddle Steamers,
for the details of any ships and yards I've named. With one exception—the
Eilidh,
which I named for one of my nieces—all of the paddle steamers named are real, and if you want a description of Napier's steeple engine you'll find it detailed in that book. The Broomilaw in Glasgow, where Iain and Cordelia meet, is now the site of, among other things, the Science Centre, the Armadillo and several of the new-built Commonwealth Games auditoriums, but the paddle steamer
Waverley
still berths there.

I've tried to be true to the time scales in terms of the development of paddle steamers and their various engines—and I could probably bore for Scotland on the subject. For those of you interested in the detail, I first came across Robert Napier when visiting my grandparents' graves in the tiny churchyard of Kilmun. Coincidentally, it's where the Dukes of Argyll were traditionally buried, and Robert Napier was their blacksmith—though actually he's the brother of the engineer Napier in my story—with the same name—who owned the Millwall Iron Works.

As to paddle steamers in the Red Sea—well, this I
did
make up, although at the time of Iain's visit to Arabia the British were indeed eyeing up the port of Aden with a view to establishing a fast steam-powered link to India. My thanks to my cousin Mhairi for telling me about Robert Moresby and the team of surveyors who made the first detailed maps of the Red Sea, which Iain has managed to get his hands on. On a point of detail, at the time Iain and Cordelia arrive in the Red Sea Captain Haines of the HMS
Palinurus
really was continuing with the survey.

The route of Iain and Cordelia's journey to Arabia follows, more or less, the route taken by Lady Hester Stanhope. At the time, the now notorious holiday island of Zante was under British protectorate. I've never been to Zante, but I lived on Cyprus for four years, and I've tried to evoke the spirit of that island in my descriptions of Zante's scenery. HMS
Pique,
the frigate on which Iain and Cordelia travel, was a real Royal Navy ship, though her journey through the Mediterranean to Syria was in 1840—a few years later than theirs.

And finally, a note on dialogue. I have absolutely no idea how a Glaswegian would have spoken in 1837—no more, really, than I can know how Cordelia would have sounded. I did want to make a distinction between Iain and Cordelia's language though, so I've taken the liberty of using some modern-day Glaswegian—
eejit
and
numpty
spring to mind. Not historically correct, I know, but I do hope it's more effective than any attempt at an accent.

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ISBN-13: 9781460331644

UNWED AND UNREPENTANT

Copyright © 2014 by Marguerite Kaye

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