Winnifred gave a muffled whimper as her core pulsed around his fingers. He drew out her tremors as long as he could, but she made no further sounds. No cries of pleasure, no sighs of content.
Winnifred released her iron-grip on the sheets and opened her eyes. Aside from a wariness she couldn’t hide, they were as placid as ever. “Thank you. That was nice.”
Sin’s gut clenched. Nice? Bloody nice? The first time she’d come to crisis and nice was how she described it? He’d just about spent in his trousers like a school boy from the experience, without one hand, mouth, or tongue touching his poor Thomas and she acted as though the episode were on par with a pleasant afternoon tea.
His erection flagged and he rolled away from her, flopping onto his back. From the corner of his vision, he saw her tug her chemise down over her thighs.
Well, damn. He wasn’t sure exactly how he’d wanted their first intimacies to end, but that hadn’t been it. He felt … unfulfilled, and not because he hadn’t had his orgasm.
For the first time since the wedding, a trickle of unease slid down his spine.
Was Summerset right? Was a marriage between such different people doomed to fail?
Chapter Five
Sin stretched in his stirrups. The days in the saddle were taking their toll. Their arrival in Scotland couldn’t come too soon, for his arse’s sake if nothing else.
His driver, Gregor, pushed his cap back on his head. Although the driver’s seat of the carriage was higher than Sin’s horse, the smaller man’s face was even with Sinclair’s as he rode next to him. “We’re getting close, milord. We might not ‘ave crossed the border, but it feels like Scotland jus’ the same.”
Sin inhaled deeply. Yes. There was nothing distinctly different between the green hills of England or Scotland, but there was something in the air that he only noticed when he was home. Trees were few and far between along this road, and the landscape held a loneliness that continued up to the rolling mountain range of the Southern Lowlands.
“Glad to be getting back home, are you?” Most of his London servants remained in England when he traveled to Kenmore, but a few were always eager to return north. Gregor and Dugald, Sin’s valet, currently perched next to the coachman and gripping the brim of his hat, would kick up a fuss if Sin ever dared to leave them behind.
“Too right.” The man tilted his head back and breathed deep.
Sin smirked. There really must be something in the air.
“I only wish summer were here to greet us instead of this constant winter.” Sin rubbed his lower back. “I would like my bride to see the sun shining on her new home at some point.” And for his farmers to be able to harvest their crops. But mother nature was one opponent he couldn’t battle.
Dugald took off his hat and patted his face with a handkerchief. “Ach, we Scots can survive a bit of dark. We’ve survived worse before; we’ll survive a bad growing season.”
The carriage took a curve in the road, bending around a small hill. “If only the rest of Scotland believed the same,” Sin muttered.
“Whoa.” Gregor pulled back on the reins, bringing the horses to a sudden stop.
Sin walked his horse forward, examining the large oak tree that crossed the road, barring their path. Its branches reached in all directions, its trunk a solid two feet in diameter.
A light breeze rippled its leaves, and the horses leading the carriage pawed the earth. The hairs on the back of Sin’s neck rose.
“Why have we stopped?” Winnifred poked her head out the carriage window. “Is there a problem?”
“Get back inside,” he yelled.
Irritation flickered across her face, so quickly he almost missed it, before she nodded and disappeared back into the coach’s depths.
“Milord?” the driver asked.
Sin’s horse danced sideways. “Can you turn the carriage around?” His gaze flew back to the trunk of the fallen tree, with its neat network of axe marks scoring the base.
The driver blew out his cheeks. “Can’t turn on this road. We’ll have to unhitch the horses and back it up—”
“Ye can back it up after we’ve gone.” A man with a kerchief around his nose and mouth stepped out from behind the hill, a similarly dressed highwayman at his side. Both men leveled pistols in their direction. “First, we’ll have all yer blunt and gee-gaws.”
“Gee-gaws?” Sin gripped his reins. He refused to be robbed by an idiot.
“Yer buttons, yer pocketwatch.” The thief narrowed his eyes over the white face covering. “Yer gee-gaws.”
The second man elbowed his friend. “Would ye look at the crest on that carriage. We got ourselves some prime pickens’ here.”
