Taken by the Laird (13 page)

“My mother had some distant relations there. They…they took me in, one family after another,” she said with a false brightness to her voice. She looked down, and a muscle in her jaw contracted. “I was one more mouth to feed—certainly an unwelcome one.”

Hugh felt a wave of irritation for her father, who might well have been a gentleman to have sired a daughter like Bridget. A very lax gentleman, who had not planned better for his child. Frowning, he asked, “Did your father not provide for you before he died?”

“Yes, of course he did,” she said quietly. “But I was very young, and those who had control over my fate were only too happy to leave me to my own devices.”

Hugh felt his own jaw clench, and he made a point of relaxing it. He wanted to know more, to know everything. But she was not exactly forthcoming. She would not say the name of the employer who had tried to accost her, and she did not seem eager to tell him of her early years.

“Which accounts for it, then,” he said more lightly than he felt.

“For what?”

“Your independence. You’ve had no one to rely upon but yourself, have you?”

“I had my aunt…” she said.

“But you had to seek employment for your keep.” He leaned forward and cupped her cheek in his hand. “She must not have had the means to support you.”

She shrugged, clearly disinclined to discuss the matter any further. Obviously, neither her father nor her aunt had possessed the wealth to keep her, and so she’d been required to hire herself out as a governess.

Her situation was not at all unusual. Many young women were respectably employed in households all over Britain. But when Hugh and Bridget parted, he intended to settle enough money on her that she need not seek employment ever again. He did not believe he could stand to think of her wrestling away from yet another insufferable employer in her future.

“You are not a careful player, I see,” said Hugh, leaning forward to study the chessboard. Brianna had enjoyed modest success at chess, simply because her play was rash and unpredictable. Her opponents never knew what to expect from her.

“Are you saying I’m reckless?”

“Sometimes ’tis best to have a strategy in mind before you take action.” He’d clasped his hands loosely together, and they hung between his knees. They were strong, as were the muscles in his arms and shoulders. Last night, he’d carried as many barrels of brandy as the burliest hands.

“But sometimes ’tis necessary to act quickly,” she said.

“And hope for the best? Hmmm…”

Brianna smiled wryly at the undercurrent of meaning. He was chastising her once again for her rash flight from Glenloch as he moved his bishop, giving her access to his king.

Brianna’s docile smile turned into a broad grin when she placed his king in check.

“You needn’t look so happy about it,” he growled, pondering his next move.

“Oh, but I do.” She laughed. “I have a feeling ’tis not often that the Earl of Newbury, Laird Glenloch, is bested at anything.”

“I’m not beaten yet,” he said, moving his queen. “Check.”

When he looked up and smiled at her, Bree’s heart seemed to stop, and not because of the game. Her mouth went dry and her throat closed.

“Try to maneuver out of this one,” he said.

She didn’t know if she could.
’Tis lust, pure and simple,
she told herself a little bit desperately. Her heart was not involved in the least. It couldn’t be. It was merely the strength of his personality and the powerful attraction raging between them that confused her senses. He was a master of flirtation and seduction, and Bree knew this game was only a prelude to the lovemaking they would soon share.

The only question was where. Would he seduce her in the library? Or take her back upstairs to his big, comfortable bed?

He moved suddenly and took her hand, drawing her up to her feet. “Where is your coat?”

“In the scullery,” she said, glad of the distraction.

Keeping hold of her hand, he led her to the back kitchen, where they located their coats hanging on hooks on the wall. He took hers down and draped it over her shoulders, then shoved his arms into the sleeves of his own.

“Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Following an impulse,” he replied. “You should know about those.”

“I nearly won.”

“Aye. Nearly.” He laughed and took her outside, through a door that was far from the buttery where they’d hidden his smuggled brandy.

The sky was still full of thick, dark clouds, but the snowfall had slowed to a few wispy flakes. Brianna lifted her hem and walked toward the sea, noting that the snow came up well above her ankles. Her recently dried boots became wet again, but she did not care.

She turned and saw Hugh bend down and pick up a handful of snow. He walked toward her, forming it into a ball.

“No!” She laughed. “You don’t intend…”

But he did. She quickly recognized the wicked gleam in his eyes and reached down for her own handful while making a run for it. She saw the remnants of a low stone wall emerging from the deep snow, and darted for it, crouching behind it as she formed her own missile.

“Throw yours, and it’ll mean war!” she cried in good humor.

“I’m counting on it,” he said, his voice coming closer.

Bree stood and ducked, just as his snowball came at her. She quickly threw hers, hitting him square in the chest.

He kept coming toward her, and Bree squealed and ran through the snow, her speed hampered by her wet boots and her voluminous skirts. “ ’Tis not fair! I should have changed clothes first!”

She felt a ball of snow hit her back. It was obvious he was holding back, for it was not a vicious hit. “I’ll get you for that!”

“Try!”

She grabbed another handful and formed it into a ball as she ran, then turned and pelted him with it. But she lost her footing and fell, landing on her bottom in the soft snow.

Laughing, she started to scramble away, but he caught up to her, turned her onto her back, and pinned her down. He dipped his head close, his lips only an inch from hers. “You’re not cold, are you, lass?”

She gazed into his eyes and saw the heat of desire in their depths.

“No!” she said, shoving him off her and rising to her feet. The game was on. She ran as fast as she could, skidding past snowdrifts, dodging and throwing snowballs at him, and laughing until tears filled her eyes.

She felt him close on her heels and knew he would soon catch up to her. Bree looked forward to it, but not
too soon. Their merry chase invigorated her and dispelled the disturbing inklings of her heart. She did not want to think about what Hugh was coming to mean to her, or of her imminent departure from Glenloch. This was pure fun, with nary a troubling thought to vex her.

She rounded the corner of the castle and flattened her body against the wall, waiting silently for him to follow. When he did, she let him pass, then crouched down to make another snow missile. He turned before she was finished, and grinned as he lunged at her, missing her as she darted away.

She squealed when he caught an edge of her coat and struggled against his capture.

“You are all mine, wench!” He lowered one shoulder and tossed her over it, holding on to her legs as her head dangled down his back. “It’s time to go inside.”

T
hey did not make it past the scullery the first time Hugh made love to her. But he managed to get her up to his bedchamber for their second go. And their third.

She dozed now, curled against his chest, where she belonged. A wisp of her hair tickled Hugh’s chin and he smoothed it away, much too content and satisfied to consider her intention to leave as soon as the weather cleared.

He did not want her to go.

And why should she be so anxious to go into hiding at Dundee, without any of her belongings, when she could stay at Glenloch, with him?

Hugh had not yet suggested that she stay, although his actions surely spoke volumes. She could not possibly mistake his desire for her.

He intended to remain at Glenloch at least a month, and he could think of no better way to pass his leisure time there than with Bridget MacLaren. He wanted to
make love with this woman in every room of the castle, and sleep every night through with her in his arms.

Her chess game was a reflection of her personality, he thought. Intelligent but daring, deliberate and delightfully impetuous. She charmed him with her resilience during their short tenure in the primitive croft, intrigued him by her sudden appearance and assistance the previous night, unloading the boats, and captivated him with her playfulness in the snow. She renewed him.

It occurred to him that if Amelia had been half as hardy and amenable as Bridget MacLaren, their marriage might have succeeded.

The thought of it took his breath away. Hugh’s opinion on marriage had been very clear since long before Amelia’s death. He wanted naught to do with it ever again.

Bridget sighed against his chest, and Hugh reflected on what she’d told him about herself. She’d been vague about her father and the lack of arrangements he’d made for her upon his death. She had said the bare minimum about her employment, and he still didn’t actually know if she’d been a governess or a lady’s maid. He hadn’t learned the name of her employer, or whether she had any connections in Dundee. In spite of the lack of information, he realized how completely entwined they were, so much that he could hardly tell where he ended and she began.

He extricated himself slightly and decided her reticence was perfectly satisfactory. It helped to keep an appropriate distance between them. With limits and no expectations. If he could convince her to stay at Glen
loch all winter, they would enjoy each other for a time, and part ways when he tired of her.

Or she tired of him.

He felt disgruntled at that unwelcome notion. Looking down at her sleeping face, he recognized that she was unlike any of his previous mistresses. She was no practiced flirt, angling for attention and gifts. Bridget MacLaren was unspoiled and unpredictable. If she’d been a nobleman’s daughter, she’d have been presented at court and to society. And they would have deemed her an Original.

Hugh deemed her ideal—for his purposes. Where an Original would have been sought after by the young wife-hunting bucks of the ton, Hugh did not intend to do anything more than slake his lust with her.

The dress Brianna had hemmed was definitely worse for the wear. If only she’d understood Hugh’s plans when they’d gone out into the snow, she might have changed into her groom’s clothes. Now, she would have to remain in his bed, allowing the gown she’d taken from Amelia’s room to dry, or put on the old trews.

Hugh must have laid the gown out by the fire before he left, but the lower half had been well-saturated by their snow games. It would be some time before it would be ready to wear.

She lay back and gazed absently at the shadows on the ceiling, caused by the fire in the grate. There was a pleasant soreness in her shoulders and legs, as though she’d spent hours riding her favorite mare through the countryside.

And yet it had been just a man.

She thought of the wedding she’d abandoned and wondered why a woman was not allowed to wed a man of her own choosing, one who appealed to her. A man who made her laugh and caused her knees to quake with his heated glances. A man who made her heart clench in her breast at his intimate touch.

A man like the Laird of Glenloch.

Brianna closed her eyes and put her foolish thoughts aside.

She managed not to sigh as she climbed out of his bed and found her chemise draped on a chair. She drew it over her head, then pulled on her coat and stepped out of Hugh’s bedchamber. There were plenty more gowns in Amelia’s room across the hall. Bree went inside and saw the familiar ghostly form the instant she opened the door. Its filmy shape hovered beside the bed, and signaled for Brianna to join her there.

Bree let the door close behind her and went toward the hazy light that seemed to move aside when she came near. “What is it?”

The wavering light flickered near the head of the bed, then drifted toward the wall. Bree followed what seemed to be insistent gestures, but they meant nothing to her. Her inability to understand what the Glenloch Ghost wanted frustrated her, for it had a truly urgent air about its movements.

“Who is the man in the locket?” she asked.

Her question went unanswered. Likely the ghost was not Amelia and did not know who he was, or maybe the pendant was only part of what the ghost wanted her to
understand. The miniature in the locket seemed a clear indication that Amelia had been involved with a man other than her own husband.

Brianna wondered if Hugh had known. By his own admission, he and his wife had not been close. Many fashionable couples did not reside together. Brianna certainly would not have lived in the same house with Lord Roddington if their marriage had taken place. She could not fathom the depth of Amelia’s unhappiness with Hugh and wondered if she’d chosen her moment to jump from the parapet
because
he’d been nearby and she could punish him that way.

If that was the case, ’twas no wonder he’d made a very public vow never to wed again.

It was freezing in Amelia’s chamber, so Bree quickly chose another gown and hurried back to Hugh’s room. If the apparition had something more to tell her, it would have to do it in the warmth of Hugh’s bedchamber.

She added more peat to the fire, then covered her legs with her shawl and sat down near the fireplace with a needle and thread.

The ghost did not reappear, and Bree wondered if there were limits to where it could wander. The servants did not seem to fear its presence on the lower levels, but only in the upper rooms and galleries. Amelia’s possessions were intact, and Bree was sure the locket had not been found because the servants wanted no contact with the dead woman’s things.

And yet Brianna felt no uneasiness in Amelia’s room or any other part of the castle. Glenloch had become her refuge when every other aspect of her life had failed
her, and she was going to find it difficult to leave when the weather finally cleared.

The castle might be her safe haven, but Hugh had become her sanctuary. He could have no idea how consoling it was to lie in his arms, to feel his sheltering strength around her. As lovely as these moments together were, Brianna was quite aware that her respite at Glenloch was temporary. And she knew she would never again feel the same contentment. Or the same desire.

She could not imagine any other man attracting her the way Hugh Christie did, with his dark, brooding looks and his mischievous streak.

As though her thoughts could make him materialize, he arrived at the door.

“You’re awake,” he said.

She nodded. “I found another dress to wear.”

“I shouldn’t have caused you to ruin the other one.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Entirely.”

“No.” He grinned. “Like hell it wasn’t.” He crouched next to her chair. “I shouldn’t have caused you more work.”

“Oh. This. ’Tis nothing.”

His eyes glittered darkly in the firelight, and she followed her impulse to lean over and kiss him.

He cupped her chin in his big hand and Bree closed her eyes, enjoying his warmth and his show of affection. His touch did not portend an intention to take her to bed, or to draw her into a discussion or game. ’Twas just a simple moment in time, a touching of lips with warmth and affection, and the promise of more to come.

Brianna had never known anyone like him. He
seemed a rake clear to the tips of his boots, and yet he’d shown kindness to Mrs. Ramsay’s grandson, and actually taken part in the unloading of his smuggled goods. He’d risked his life to rescue her, a stranger, from her sinking boat, and become the most generous lover she could ever have imagined. He possessed a depth that Brianna did not understand.

Nor would she, after she left Glenloch as she planned.

“Do you know you always turn your back to your father’s portraits?” Bridget asked as she sat opposite him in his study. It was well past dark, and she had heated the fish stew left by the servants while he’d sliced the bread. They carried their bowls into the small, intimate room to eat.

Hugh had never thought of his study as intimate before, but it seemed that intimacy occurred everywhere Bridget happened to be. He did not want to speak of his father, not with Bridget, who was so fresh and open. Jasper had been a liar and a lecher, and Hugh was glad Bridget had never had occasion to encounter him.

The bastard would have done his utmost to corrupt her, as he’d tried with every other woman he perceived as vulnerable. His style had featured the seduction of innocents—not opera dancers or lusty widows who understood a rake’s motives and would have known how to get what they wanted from him.

But Jasper had never played fair.

“I don’t care to face him, ever again,” he said simply. “We were oil and water.”

She frowned. “Why don’t you take down his portraits, then? There are so many.”

Hugh wasn’t normally a superstitious man, but some small part of him felt that if he kept the paintings on the walls, Jasper’s ghost would stay away. It didn’t hurt anything to keep them there. “I don’t spend a lot of time at Glenloch, so it doesn’t matter much.”

“Are you in London when you’re not here at Glenloch?” she asked. Her hair was loose, and fell in soft waves down her back. Her eyes seemed darker somehow, though the glimmer of the firelight reflected brightly in them.

“Aye, I live in London most of the time, but I have a number of other estates,” he replied. “And you? Who was your employer in Stonehaven? Or Aberdeen?”

She bent to her bowl and resumed eating instead of answering.

Hugh changed seats, moving his own bowl and sitting beside her on the cushioned settee. At the moment, he didn’t give a damn where Jasper’s eyes were focused. “Why do you want to protect him?”

She did not look up. “There’s naught to be done about him. I’ve moved on.”

“To Glenloch.”

She stopped chewing and put down her spoon. “Only for now.”

So she still meant to leave. “Why did you choose Dundee?”

“ ’Tis closer than Edinburgh, so I’ll be able to walk the distance. And it’s big enough that I should be able to disappear there.”

He didn’t like to think of Bridget alone in Dundee, with no family, no friends. “That’s what you mean to do? Hide for the rest of your life?”

“No, only until…” She gave a quick shake of her head. “Just for the time being.”

There was a tiny bread crumb on her lower lip. Hugh touched it with one finger, then put his finger into his mouth. “Stay.”

Her eyes flared beneath her puzzled brow.

“Stay at Glenloch with me.” It surprised him, how much he wanted to spend every evening like this one, sequestered here with her against the harsh winter weather of the eastern coast, playing chess in the afternoons, slaking their hot, passionate lust with each other every night, and making sweet, lazy love every morning.

She looked away. “Laird, I’m not…”

He hooked a finger under her chin and turned her to face him. “ ’Tis good between us, is it not?” he asked, lowering his head to kiss her.

She swallowed hard just before he touched her lips with his own. The kiss started slow, but she slipped her fingers into the hair at his nape and pulled him closer, inviting him in when his tongue invaded her mouth. He deepened the kiss, tasting her and wanting more.

Her hands were small, but the sensations she created at the back of his neck made his cock huge. He drew her onto his lap and she turned to face him, shoving her skirts away to straddle him. A deep, harsh sound came from his throat when his erection met her heat,
and he broke their kiss to catch his breath, pressing his forehead against hers. Slowing down.

He wanted to be inside her so much it hurt.

She opened his shirt and tugged it over his head, then feathered light kisses on his neck and throat, soon moving down to his chest. Showing an ardor that matched his own, she teased his nipples with her fingers, and then bent to torture them with her tongue. He managed to loosen her bodice and lower it, baring her beautiful breasts with their hard, pale pink tips. Brianna straightened, and Hugh pressed his face to the cleft between them.

She gave out a thoroughly erotic sigh, and Hugh delighted in her pure, feminine reaction to his ministrations. He groaned at the sensual bounce of her full globes as she pushed her bodice down to her waist and touched her nipples with her own fingertips.

He watched her pleasure herself, her hair curling wildly about her face as her eyes closed in bliss.

“Ahhh, lass. You make me mad with desire.” He reached down and opened his trews, but she was the one who drew out his hard length, caressing him, curling her fingers around him.

“Oh, aye, Laird. I don’t want to wait,” she whispered, raising her hips and moving her skirts. Sliding down onto him.

He nearly exploded. “Jesus, God.”

Slowly, she drew him deep inside, clearly enjoying the torture she made him suffer. Hugh held back, letting her take the lead, allowing her to move at her own pace, seeing to her own pleasure. She put her hands
on his shoulders and leaned forward, clearly demanding that he give his attention to her breasts. Her pretty nipples stood out as hard peaks, and he groaned as he took one into his mouth, and stretched out his legs to force himself to slow his own arousal. He wanted her to do the moving, sliding as she would, pleasuring him as she pleased herself.