Chapter 24
Mary’s heart thumped in confusion. “But how can we . . .”
Malcolm touched his fingers to her lips. “This is a sacred place—can ye not tell? Or at any rate, a beautiful one. A fitting chapel.”
He was playing with her again. Although . . . a look into his eyes showed her a stillness, a waiting.
Mary gave him a nod. “Yes. It is.” She caught his hand and twined her fingers through his. “All right.”
The lines around Mal’s eyes tightened, then released. He squeezed her hand. “Tell me your second name, love. And any others if ye have them.”
Mary cleared her throat. Malcolm was mad, but the madness was reaching out and tangling her. “Mary Elizabeth Sophia,” she said in a clear voice.
“Oh, that’s lovely, that is. So many names there for our daughters.” Mal turned her to face him. The wind pushed at them, her skirts fluttering and his kilt meeting them, but they were fixed in this place, a part of the land, a part of each other.
Malcolm looked straight into her eyes. “I, Malcolm Daniel Mackenzie, take thee, Mary Elizabeth Sophia Lennox, as my wife. To have and to hold, from this day forward . . . And thereto I plight thee my troth.”
Mary had heard the marriage service many times in the last few years, as her childhood friends, one after the other, married. Mal had skipped over a good chunk of it, but she’d never heard a groom speak the words so sincerely as he did now.
“I . . .” Mary’s voice clogged, and she cleared her throat. “I, Mary Elizabeth Sophia, take thee, Malcolm Daniel Mackenzie, as my husband. To have and to hold from this day forward . . . and thereto I plight thee my troth.”
Malcolm, with that same waiting look in his eyes, tugged her closer. He peeled the glove from her left hand, his fingers warm despite the wind. He slid a gold ring from his broad finger and placed it on her slender one.
“With this ring, I thee wed,” Mal said, his voice quiet. “With my body, I thee worship. With all my worldly goods, I thee endow.”
The ring was cool and heavy on Mary’s finger. Malcolm held her hand tightly, his gaze hard upon hers, as though he expected any moment for her to laugh, say it was a silly game, walk away from him.
Mary pressed her lips to the ring, then to his rough, wind-burned hand. “Amen,” she whispered.
Malcolm gathered her closer. “Well, then, Mary.”
Mary felt the length of his body, the warm wool of his kilt as the wind wrapped a fold of it around her. “Well, then,” she said back.
He tilted her chin up, sealing their bargain with a kiss that burned. Mal’s great kilt had come loose from his shoulders, and he drew it around her, enclosing them in a snug cocoon.
“’Tis a bit warmer under the trees,” he said.
He wouldn’t ask. He wouldn’t demand. Mal’s eyes held the gleam of the hunger she’d seen in him, the one he’d awakened in her. But he wouldn’t coerce. This had to be Mary’s decision, her choice to plight him her troth.
“Yes,” Mary said.
Malcolm led her from the rock. He helped her down the tiny stone path that led to it, and back under the stand of thick firs that lined the hillside. The ponies, grazing, watched them without much interest, then went back to cropping whatever grass they could find.
Mal had been right about the trees. They cut the wind, and here, under their shelter, the early October air was soft.
Malcolm unpinned and unwrapped the folds of his kilt, emerging, unashamed, in only his shirt and boots. He spread the kilt upon the ground, then made short work of the rest of his clothes, standing naked, as the natives of this land must have eons ago.
He didn’t wait. Malcolm came to her, and with deft hands unbuttoned and pulled off her bodice, then her small corset, and unfastened her skirt. He caught her breasts in his hands as they came free, and paused to press a long kiss to her mouth. The roughness of his palms against Mary’s bare flesh had her melting into his kiss, rising on tiptoes to seek more.
Mal eased back after a time, his breath hot on her lips. “Mary, ye taste so sweet.”
Mary licked the hollow of his throat. “So do you.”
“Wicked lass.” Mal’s smile was slow. He leaned to kiss the hollow of her throat, the rough silk of his hair brushing her chin.
Malcolm lowered himself to his knees on the plaid, and now he was kissing her abdomen, hands warm on her waist. He glanced up at her, amber eyes glinting in the half light, then licked the undersides of her breasts.
Heat whipped through her. “Mal.”
“Not long now,” he said. “And all this fire inside ye can come out.” Mal slid the edge of his hand up between her breasts, just as he had the day in Lady Brancroft’s sitting room when he’d said he saw her fire.
She was burning with it. Mal kissed her abdomen again, then popped open the buttons of her breeches.
The leather came away easily, slipping from her legs. Here she was, bare, outdoors, while this untamed Highlander knelt before her.
When his lips brushed between her thighs, Mary let out a cry and took an instinctive step backward. Mal caught her with strong arms and tugged her to him again.
“Fire,” he said, his own eyes full of it. “Now you’ll see.”
He swept his tongue over the most intimate part of her, the one Mary didn’t even know the name for, not the proper one anyway.
It knew what to do even if she didn’t. Mary’s feet slid apart, opening her for him. Mal made a satisfied noise in his throat, pressed himself closer, and licked her again.
He did magic with his tongue. Mal rubbed her opening with it, the friction of that white hot. He encouraged her legs to part even more, then put his mouth over the hottest place of her and suckled.
The world spun away. Mary floated alone in darkness, nothing real but Mal’s mouth on her, his arms a band of strength across her hips. She was aware only of the spark igniting beneath his mouth, the incredible power that shot through her body.
She cried out with it. The trees echoed the sound, and then the wind swept it away.
“Malcolm!”
Mary had no idea what was happening to her. Her skin burned, but from the inside, her heart skipped and pounded. She couldn’t see, or hear—only feel, as though she’d lost all sensations but one.
Her cries grew frantic, wordless, mad, and then Malcolm lifted his mouth away.
The world came splintering back, and it hurt. Mary bit back a sob.
Mal came up to her, arms going around her. He laid her down on the ground, his plaid their bed, then he was on top of her, his warm, bare weight comforting.
One strong hand parted her legs, and the next new sensation was Malcolm sliding into her, the full length of him that she’d seen and touched in the bath in Edinburgh.
Mary tightened in panic. She couldn’t do this. Every warning her aunt had given her, every terrible story about how brutish men could be in bed, flitted through her head.
But she wasn’t with a brutish man. She was with Malcolm.
Her body wrested control from her, and Mary’s fears vanished, along with every sensible, practical thought. All she wanted was now, this—her existence stripped to nothing but the hardness of Malcolm inside her, his body on hers.
This wasn’t duty, or penance, or breeding. It was basic . . . and splendid.
Mal groaned softly as he thrust. He brushed a lock of hair from Mary’s face and smiled into her eyes. “Ah, Mary, you’re the most beautiful lass I ever did see.”
Mary tried to answer, but no words came. She was nothing . . . and everything. The two of them were one, and the wind, the sky, the trees, the ground.
They twined together as Malcolm thrust, each movement sending him deeper. He raised himself on his fists, the round of his backside moving, brushed by sunlight that reached through the thick boughs. Mary’s hips rose to meet his, the coming together more wonderful with every stroke.
“Love,” Malcolm breathed. “What have ye done t’ me?”
Mary could only touch him, finding no words for answering.
“Ye took me, and turned everything around. And now there’s no relieving it but this.” Malcolm thrust again, harder. “Inside my hot, sweet Mary. There’s only you for me now. Nothing but you.”
His voice broke off, harsh sound taking the place of words. Mary’s body rocked beneath his, his kilt, the symbol of him, cradling her, warming her, keeping her safe.
“Aw, damnation.” Mal’s face twisted into a sudden, furious scowl. At the same time, his thrusts built, and built, until he slammed once more into her, and she felt sudden, liquid heat.
Malcolm’s seed, carried inside her by their hunger for each other. Mary tightened her body, drawing it in and holding it gladly.
Malcolm gave one last, long thrust, and then collapsed, as though all the strength had gone from him. A lassitude stole over them, the woods quieting, as Mary stroked his hair.
“Blast and damn,” Malcolm murmured. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her lips. “I wanted to go on the rest of th’ day.”
“So did I,” Mary said, smoothing his whisker-roughened jaw. He’d shaved since last night, but his beard grew quickly. “Cats and crumpets, I did.”
Malcolm’s body shook with quiet laughter. He lifted his head, and she saw, for the first time in his eyes, peace.
“Why d’ye say things like that? Bolts and bodkins. Crockery and cobwebs. Ye make me laugh, ye do.”
Mary shrugged. “Ladies aren’t allowed to swear. But I have to express my feelings somehow, don’t I? So I make up my own phrases.”
“So, when ye feel something strongly, out it comes?”
“Yes. I never quite know what it will be each time.”
“I will think on that.” Mal’s smile deepened. “What ye mean now is that you really do want to go on like this all day.”
Mary laced her arms around Mal’s neck. She felt clean, free, more profoundly herself than she ever had in her life.
“Oh, yes,” she said.
“Well.” Malcolm slid his hand between her legs, his palm pressed right where she wanted it most. “I think we can manage it.”
Mal and Mary did not reach the castle again until darkness was falling. Mary worried that their long absence would be met with disapproval, but no one appeared to notice. Duncan had returned, declaring he had found more Mackenzies ready to rise and follow Charles than his father supposed. Lord Forbes, from Inverness, had been preaching as loudly on the side of King George, and Duncan and the men he’d recruited had already had a tussle with them, Duncan receiving a deep sword cut in his arm.
Despite the duke’s declaration he never wanted to see Duncan home again, he had the household scrambling to help him. Swearing loudly at his son the whole time, of course.
The shouting and carrying on over Duncan and his wound eclipsed Mary riding in with Malcolm, both of them flushed and tousled, as darkness fell.
Mary believed so, that is, until Captain Ellis steered her aside when she came downstairs again after washing and changing into an afternoon gown. Ellis towed her into a small chamber—leaving the door open, like the gentleman he was—and spoke to her in a low voice.
“Now that Lord Malcolm has gotten what he wanted,” Captain Ellis said, his words clipped, “what do you suppose he’ll do?”
“Do?” Mary sought refuge in hauteur. “Explain what you mean, sir.”
“Do not become the disdainful aristocrat, my lady. I know when a woman’s been with a man—you have a look, and so does he. Lord Malcolm took you out today to have you. Has he mentioned marriage? Settlements? A betrothal?”
No, he hadn’t. But they had married—in their hearts. Mary thought of the ceremony they’d shared on the cliff overlooking the sea. That had been real, far more real than any of the weddings she’d witnessed at St. George’s, Hanover Square. In the eyes of the Church of England and English law, of course, it meant nothing.
“No,” she had to admit. “He hasn’t.”
“If he does not soon, I shall shoot him.” Captain Ellis had dark blue eyes, and those eyes held deep anger as well as concern for Mary. “These Highlanders are not like us, Lady Mary. They’re a law unto themselves. Lord Malcolm could keep you here, calling you his ‘wife’ and giving you little recourse to dispute it. What the laird or the clan chief declares is law, is.”
“I’ve never seen that kind of harshness in Malcolm,” Mary said. She’d watched him treat his servants with benevolence, and people like Rabbie and the smuggler called Gair with generosity and trust.
“Not yet you haven’t,” Captain Ellis said. “You’ve only just arrived here, in his world, which is different from the streets of Edinburgh. If it becomes necessary, I would be honored to have you as my wife.”
“Oh.” Mary came out of her thoughts of Malcolm with a thump. “That’s very kind of you, but—”
“Not kind.” Captain Ellis reached a hand toward her, but at the last moment, pulled it back. “I do it to preserve your honor. In this world, a woman has very little that is purely hers, but her honor is hers alone. Let me help you keep it.”
He was sincere. He was offering her a rock to rest on, a support against the world. Her choice was to take Captain Ellis’s offer of safety, or to trust in Malcolm.
“I thank you,” Mary said. “Truly. You are a noble man. But I have decided I want more out of any marriage than duty and honor.”
Captain Ellis’s eyes flickered, anger and disappointment flaring for a brief instant. He felt this deeply, she realized.
Then he slid his polite mask into place and gave her a bow. “The offer stands, in case you need it. But if he makes things so you do need it, Lady Mary, I promise you, I will shoot him.”
Mary believed him. She returned Captain Ellis’s bow with a polite curtsy, and he walked out of the room, his tread even.
October was always glorious at Kilmorgan, and this one was tinted rosy red. Malcolm spent every waking minute he could with Mary, inside the castle and out of it. He took her to their bower on the hill in good weather, and there they learned each other, amid laughter, touching, loving.
Malcolm had every intention of marrying her once he could talk around both his father and hers. Not for Mary a scandalous elopement. He wanted to have the banns read, to have the world watch her stand up with him at an altar and show them she’d made her choice.
In his romantic moments, he did consider them already married, in the eyes of nature and God. Mary was the only woman for him, for whom he’d forsake all others.
First, though, he needed to stop this bloody uprising interfering with his plans. Forbes and his men came from Inverness a few times, looking for Duncan, who was busy stirring up trouble. Duncan, it seemed, had gone so far as to lead raid-and-run attacks against British military forts.
The duke, while he snarled that his son was no friend to him anymore, would never tell Forbes where Duncan had gone. Malcolm knew his father probably knew very well where Duncan was, but the duke wasn’t about to give up his son to Hanoverian loyalists.
Lord Wilfort remarked on this when Forbes was sent away empty-handed yet again.
The two fathers had moved from cold hostility to grudging respect. The duke discovered that Lord Wilfort had a mutual interest in the game of chess, and started inviting him to play.
The play reflected the personalities of each man, Malcolm decided—the duke, ruthless and aggressive; the earl, quietly cunning.
“You soundly rail against the Jacobites,” Wilfort observed in his dry way as he captured one of the duke’s bishops. “Yet you send away the soldiers who would put them down.”
“I’ve no love for German George either,” the duke returned. “The sooner all soldiers, on either side, are out of my glens, the better. Highlanders are ruled by their chiefs, not kings so foreign they can’t even speak the native tongue. We rule ourselves.”
“That’s not the way of the world anymore,” Wilfort said.
“Untrue,” the duke growled. “You stand up in English Parliament, stealing more and more power from your king and putting it in the hands of people like yourself. It’s the same damn thing.”
Wilfort looked thoughtful. “You could have a point. But I don’t have the power of life and death over my family.”
“Neither do I, if ye’ve noticed,” the duke said. “You see my sons terrified of me? No, they defy me, like the devil’s get they are. And you’re a magistrate, aren’t you, in your little corner of the world? You dispense local justice, because it’s too far to drag everyone off to London for every transgression.”
Wilfort conceded. “Another point. But while you’ve argued, I’ve captured your queen.”
“Worth the sacrifice,” the duke said, and shoved his rook across the board. “Checkmate.”
Not long later, Alec came home.
Malcolm, from the castle’s hill, saw his brother riding in. He’d taken Mary to the sunny side of the craggy castle to warm themselves and hold hands, when she shaded her eyes and peered down to the road.
“Who is that?” she asked, pointing. “Another soldier looking for Duncan?”
Mal followed her gaze, and his heart leapt with gladness. He’d recognize that casual slouch on horseback anywhere.
“It’s Alec!” he shouted, and was running down the narrow path before the words died away.