Take the gift meant for her future. Meant forhim.
She was his. Forever.
His beguiling, bonny lass.
He scooped her into his arms, her bereft moan protesting the action. Regardless, he’d be damned if he took her for the first time on the kitchen table. They’d have time enough to explore every piece of furniture in the house. First, he’d have her in a blasted bed.
He carried her back to the bed and dropped her on top of it. In short order, he shed his shoes, trousers, and small clothes before climbing over her and between her welcoming thighs. Connor settled there, determined to be gentle, but lust—along with the urgent grip of her long legs around his hips—spurred him on. Without pause, he drove into her with a passionate shout of his own.
“My God, Piper,” he gasped into her hair, trying to regain his breath. His rational thought. Hot, tight, her body begged him to ravish her. “Tell me I dinnae hurt ye, lass.”
“I’ll hurt you if you don’t carry on,” she whispered in his ear, wringing a chuckle from him.
He began to move, Piper clinging to him with a gasp of her own. “Oh, Connor. This is so…I cannot…more.”
“Aye. More.”
All he had to give. All he was.
Cupping her bottom in his hands, he lifted her hips and took her with long, powerful strokes. She clenched him tight, held him. She was paradise. Her soft hands glided down his back to clutch his arse as she strained against him. Searching, Seeking. He showed her the way, searing friction spiraling then coiling. Her legs quivered. She tensed, body bowed as she threw her head back with a throaty cry.
Connor thrust hard one last time and let go his savage desire, an eruption of body and soul taking all that he had. She convulsed around him, hugging his hard length. Collapsing on top of her, he kissed her damp neck. Her cheeks were wet with tears, proving she’d been as shaken by their union as he. He kissed them away, sharing a smile with her.
“Tha mi gu bràth na mo bheatha,mo chridhe,” he told her in a harsh whisper. The ancient language of the Scots carried a promise she might not yet accept. She was his. His heart. Forever. “Sleep now.”
Chapter 19
I must escape this ghastly insanity. I have just two more days until my choices may no longer be up to Harry. Or me.
~ from the diary of Piper Brudenall, January 1893
Midmorning had come and gone before Connor left his room. Normally, he was an early riser. This morning he was wrung out and too tired even to rouse his head from his pillow when someone knocked on his door. He’d earned his rest, he thought with a grin.
After a short nap, he and Piper had stayed up most of the night. They’d sat cross-legged on the worktable in the kitchen sharing the rest of the meat pie and scones, along with another bottle of wine. Talking about nothing in particular for hours. Light banter punctuated by moments of serious conversation. They’d made love there and another time in bed before he’d left her at dawn, well-sated and blissfully asleep.
He loved her smiles, from mild to the fullest when her dimple would appear. She’d mentioned not having smiled thus as long as she could remember. Such a sorrowful admission to his ears, and he determined to keep her face wreathed in them for the rest of her days.
The rest oftheirdays.
To begin immediately. He’d allow a day for her to pack her things and say her goodbyes. On the morrow, they would depart Dinton Grange and leave her troubled past behind for good. Donning his work clothes—he did have a project to finish, after all—he left his room and strode down the hall, eager to see her before he joined the others in the field.
The wool runner muted the steps of his sturdy boots. The merry tune he whistled echoed through the wide hall. He trailed his fingers along the rail midway up the walnut paneling, raising them when the rhythm broke for the periodic door.
They entire hall went that way. Dark walls interrupted by a door, a sconce, then a series of paintings, another sconce. A door. The symmetrical rhythm of it had become hypnotic as his days here passed. Door. Again a sconce, a succession of paintings punctuated by another sconce.
The song on his lips slowed and went off tune. He slowed, then stopped, staring ahead. With a shake of his head, he paced backward several steps. Turning, he frowned at one particular painting cozied among a series of five between two sconces. He backed up some more, taking in a painting of a man and woman. Given their age and dress, it was a wedding portrait.
A step forward once more. The second painting portrayed the same couple some years later with a young lad by their side. The boy had the look of the father, dark-haired, light eyes. A hint of cocky caprice Connor was all too familiar with. Harry Brudenall. His sister’s husband. He measured off a slow pace to the next portrait. Harry as a young man on a horse. The next…
The girl portrayed there couldn’t have been more than ten years old. Black hair in ringlets, dressed in layers of poufy lace. In the background, a horse grazed while a puppy dozed at her feet. His gaze returned to the wee lass’s face. Bright blue eyes, an impish smile.
Rocking back a step, he reconsidered Harry’s painting, then reverted to the one of the lass. The same coloring, same smile. They were clearly related…
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath, then louder, “Son of a buggering bitch!”
A footman appeared at the head of the stairs, panting as if he’d run up them, perhaps he had at Connor’s shout.
“M’lord? Can I be of assistance?”
