“Yes,” she said, looking down to study her body. With a giggle, she tugged the blanket lower, revealing a fresh mark blooming on the uppermost curve of her other breast. “And in case the universe missed it, it looks as though I’ve been marked elsewhere too.”

He brushed the spot with a tentative finger, cursing himself. “Och, I’ve kissed you too hard.”

“You kissed me just right.” She snatched his finger in her hand.

The tease in her voice did nothing to ease his worry. She was so delicate, and he so brutish, the thought that his body might be too much for her was appalling. “Did I hurt you?”

“Oh, Aidan”—she cupped his cheek, turning earnest—“not at all. I didn’t feel it.” A naughty gleam lit her eyes. “Rather, I might have felt it, but I certainly didn’t mind it.”

Relief flooded him, and happiness too. He lay naked in bed with his Elspeth, and for this one stolen moment, the world felt right.

It was heaven, but time marched on, and too soon he’d have to pay the devil his due. With a sigh, he craned his head to glance at the porthole. “I curse that we’ll lose the light soon. I must take you home.”

“I won’t let you.” She tucked the blanket up over them with a snap. “I won’t go back there. I belong with you now.”

He shook his head, marveling at her conviction. He prayed that the force of her will was enough to bring truth to her words. “You do belong with me. And you shall stay with me, and soon. But not tonight.”

“You said yourself that you wanted to look at me all day. Here’s your opportunity.”

It was an opportunity they couldn’t risk. It wasn’t just that they needed to find her way out of this betrothal. It wasn’t just her narrow-minded, tightfisted old father. He’d not allow Elspeth to be ruined.

“Think on it,” he said. “Your father will realize you’re gone and scour Aberdeen looking for you. There’ll be a scandal.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “My father won’t notice I’m gone till the morning.”

What she said couldn’t possibly be true. He tried to think of another excuse, daring not to hope. “Then the scandal will come tomorrow morning.”

She rolled onto her belly, nestling deeper under the covers, as though putting the issue to rest. “We’ll simply have to come up with a plan by then.”

Her appeal was undeniable. She was adorable, lying there with her chin cradled in her hands.

“What sort of plan?” he asked, beginning to waver.

“We need something worthy of the greatest of plots.” She kicked her feet up in thought, not appearing to notice that the movement yanked the covers down, exposing her back. “Something more clever than the Trojan horse. Something more dastardly than Iago with Desdemona’s handkerchief.”

She was so precious and lovely and full of life, she sparkled with it. How nobody else noticed, he couldn’t figure. Damned Fraser saw it, but Aidan had already decided he’d simply have to blind the man.

The tip of her tongue peeked out from the corner of her mouth as she looked at him, great intent furrowing her brow. “Surely we can think of something original.”

Plotting was suddenly the furthest thing from his mind. “I have nothing original in me, excepting original sin,” he said with a wink.

“Aidan!” She nudged him with her elbow. “But we need a plan.”

“I have a plan.” He ran his hand down her elegant back, pushing the blanket down as he went, revealing her pale and perfect bottom.

Might she really stay the night? Would he really get to hold her as she slept in his arms? Would he wake, and she’d still be by his side? All the women he’d been with, and he’d never slept—actually slept—with a one of them. The notion was oddly exhilarating.

“But don’t we need to figure out what to tell everyone?”

The vision of her shoulders and back spread before him like supper on the table was more than he could bear. “I have other needs right about now.”

They had all night to figure out plots and explanations. He wanted to take her again. And once or twice more after that. Wrapping an arm around her slender waist, he kissed the back of her neck. “And I find you’re thinking too much for my tastes.”

“I have much on my mind,” she said playfully.

But he could see by the growing heat in her eyes that she’d be easy to convince. “Then I’ll kiss every last thought from your head.” He sidled her into him, kissing and rubbing her shoulders and the back of her neck. When she nestled a hip nearer, he knew she was coming around.

He caressed a hand along that beautiful back, then down farther to slide his fingers home between her legs. He inched his body closer still, leaning down to nip a shoulder blade. He was hard and ready, and pressed his cock into her, but it was no relief.

“Beth,” he whispered. He wanted her under him, over him, wanted her every which way. “I want you again.”

She began to roll over, but he clutched her bottom, stopping her. “Not yet. I’m not done looking at your back.”

“At my back?” She turned all the way onto her belly, cradling her head in her arms, the pose languorous and sultry. She hitched her hip toward him in question. “What do you propose to do with my back?”

“I could do many things.” He shifted, settling closer over her, and wrapped his hand around her hip, his fingers nestled in the soft flesh of her belly. He imagined how easy it’d be to pull her to him, to drive himself into her, and how deep.

“I could do this.” He tilted her, reaching around to knead her breast, then slid his hand lower, finding the source of her pleasure in the damp tangle between her legs. “Or this.”

She gasped and lifted her hips to him. Catching his cock on her ass, she shifted, and he slipped between her legs. “What else could you do?”

He rolled on top of her, bracing himself on elbows planted on either side of her. “I could take you on your stomach.”

“Oh yes,” she purred, grinding against him. “That sounds lovely.”

Though the lust that clouded his brain was dark, he laughed. Who was this strange and glorious woman beneath him? He should’ve guessed she’d be eager to try it all. “What did I do to deserve you?”

“The question is”—she took his hand from her breast to suck his finger into her mouth—“what will you do to keep me?”

“I’ll show you,” he growled, and they were the last words spoken before he took her, claiming her as he told her he would.

And then they slept, and Aidan held Elspeth the whole night through.

Chapter 30

After enduring fifteen minutes of pounding on his office door, Fraser finally relented and answered, only to find his fiancée’s father standing in the doorway. Moonlight backlit the old man, casting his face in darkness and turning his frizzy hair ghostly white. The fellow looked as though he’d just escaped Bedlam.

Fraser wondered if he might be making a mistake marrying into such a peculiar family. “Are you drunk, sirrah?”

“Where is she?” Elspeth’s father demanded, standing on his tiptoes to scan the darkened hallway.

Fraser stepped forward to block his view. Not that there was anything to hide—he’d deny the man simply on principle. The dinner hour had come and gone, and what sort of man went banging about Aberdeen at such a time? “What brings you here at this hour?”

Farquharson met his eyes. “Elspeth never came home. Girl said she was coming here.”

“Ah.” Fraser’s mind raced, remembering their earlier meeting. They’d fought, the chit claiming she didn’t want their marriage. Could she have run away?

He stepped back to indicate that although the man wasn’t entirely welcomed, he’d be allowed inside.

“Well?” The old man stayed his ground, and his challenging tone raised him incrementally in Fraser’s estimation. He’d not have figured her father to have spine. “Was she here or wasn’t she?”

“She was here,” Fraser said, wondering all the while if the girl had found herself another man. What else but an illicit dalliance would send her running into the night? Who else but a man would give her the courage? Rage surged in his gut like acid, but he tempered his words. “We had a bit of a disagreement. And she left.”

“A disagreement?”

“Aye, she’s a silent thing, but willful,” Fraser said tightly. Was she even still a virgin? He refused to be manipulated by an impoverished old man and his wheyfaced offspring. “I’ll certainly not take credit for her disappearance. She obviously needs a shorter rein.”

“Inconstant creature,” her father grumbled. “I wanted a son, you know. A lad wouldn’t go gadding about Aberdeen, going God knows where. A lad would know how to take care of business.”

Business. He mustn’t forget this all came down to business. Though he had to admit he’d been swept up in the thrill of the chase. She wasn’t as timid as he’d first thought, and the challenge was more exhilarating than he’d expected.

Fraser clapped her father’s shoulder, adopting an easy attitude. “Come in and we’ll discuss this as men. She seems a bit skittish about being wed. No more than that.”

Farquharson nodded, seeming to jump to some conclusion. “She’s not much experienced with men.”

“Clearly.” Though he begged to differ on that account.

Elspeth was a clever slip of a thing who clearly understood what their betrothal meant for her family’s finances. He’d wager it was an entirely different enticement that gave her cold feet—likely she’d met herself some strapping buck. But he chose to offer her father a different excuse, saying simply, “She’s young yet.”

He nodded, growing easy. “She is, at that.”

Turning his back on the man, Fraser hid a smile as he shut the door. Listening to Farquharson speak, one would think his daughter still bore the first blush of youth. In truth, the girl could’ve been married off ten years past, if only her father had two merks to rub together for a dowry.

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