“Shouldn’t you wait until your father answers your letter?” Penelope said.
“No,” Callum replied gruffly. “I have told him what I am doing, and if he doesn’t like it then too bad.”
Angus snorted a laugh. “You sound just like him,” he said. Then, “I remember when the MacKenzies returned to Bonnyrigg to fulfil their promise to the old duke. Callum here decided he didn’t like his new life and ran away. Maxwell found him after several days of searching. The boy had made his home in a tree.”
There was laughter, but Callum remembered it painfully well. “I didn’t want to be a duke,” he said. “I wondered why I had to. Why I couldn’t do what I wanted, which was to live in a tree.”
Angus continued the story. “And Maxwell said, ‘Because you can’t!’”
Callum smiled. “And I insisted, ‘Why?’ and I was almost in tears. I was fourteen but still a wee boy inside.”
“Aye, you had a gentle heart,” Angus said fondly. “You were also verra stubborn.”
“And my father sighed and said, ‘I made a promise to return to Bonnyrigg. It was part of the deal when I married your mother, and I wanted to marry her above all else, Callum. You will understand one day, when you love a woman so much that you will sacrifice everything to be with her.’”
When he finished, there was silence, and he smiled at Penelope. “I understand now. And I understand that it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice because you are what I want, with or without Bonnyrigg.”
*
When the timefor Callum and Penelope’s marriage arrived, there was still no reply from Maxwell, nor any sign of one. Callum could only assume his father was extremely disappointed and displeased and would inform him of it when he saw him. It did not matter. Well, it did, but he would not allow it to spoil his wedding day.
Aunt Jennie had arranged for a small gathering after the ceremony, and everyone was very merry. She reminisced about the old days at Bonnyrigg and they drank a toast to the days to come.
Afterward, in his bedchamber, Callum held Penelope in his arms. They had waited until this day to lie together again, and the waiting had been agony. His desire for her had not gone away, and judging by her eagerness to get him undressed, neither had hers.
They were to set off in the morning, with Angus and Selina, for the long journey north. Callum was looking forward to it, but he suspected Penelope was developing a bad case of nerves. She was sacrificing more than he was, he understood that, and he was very grateful, but if his father did not welcome them, then he had already decided they would ride on immediately to Inverness and take lodgings there.
Penelope seemed to think it was Callum who was worrying. “I wish you would stop frowning,” she said, and leaned over to kiss him. “Whatever happens, we will make our own happiness.”
“Of course we will.” He kissed her back, gently, and then with more passion.
She groaned and pressed against him. “You are like my favorite dessert, and I want a second helping. Or a third.”
He grinned in delight. “Raspberry syllabub?”
“Exactly. When you spilled it on your shirt, and then licked it off your chest. For goodness sake, Callum, I wanted to join in.”
He kissed her again, feeling himself already hard at the thought. He had planned several trysts around the estate at Bonnyrigg, and in various corners of the castle where they would not be discovered.
She pushed against his chest and, when he rolled over, climbed upon him like a naked goddess. He cupped her breasts, tweaking at her nipples, and helped her to arrange herself overhim. As she pressed down, and he filled her, Callum said some words it was just as well she did not understand. She would not approve, but he could not help it, because it was so good. It was always so good.
She scraped her nails across his belly and he groaned again, arching up. “Temptress,” he said.
“But you are so tempting,” she whispered.
He met her eyes and suddenly it was as if the moment went on forever, as if they were under a spell. He remembered again the stories his father had told, of the fairies who lured travelers to their magical abode and kept them there forever.
And then she was riding him and he forgot everything else in the exquisite pleasure. How could he have been so lucky as to marry this woman? Who would have thought, when he rode south to London, that he would be going to meet his destiny in the shape of a petite beauty with silver eyes and moonlight hair? A woman with a sharp tongue that made him ache to claim her, and hold onto her forevermore.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The journey fromLondon to Scotland was long. There was no doubt Penelope had left behind the mellow countryside of her home and entered a far wilder and less civilized realm, and with every day that passed, she felt her fears grow. Callum was attentive, ensuring they had the most comfortable rooms in the most comfortable inns, and she tried her best to hide her anxiety. She had made her bed now, as the saying went, and must lie in it. And lying in bed with Callum was one of her favorite things. The closer they got to his home, the more her husband spoke of it and his family, and Penelope was in no doubt of his love for both. She did not want to come between them, and she did not want him to have to choose.
“Dinna fash, my love,” he whispered to her the final night before their arrival at the castle. “We will muddle through it.”
“Yes,” she agreed with a confidence she wasn’t feeling. “Of course we will.”
Penelope had been expecting Bonnyrigg to be grand, but it was more than that. A castle fit for a duke, set in one of the wilder parts of Scotland. Mountains rose to the rear of the turreted building, their snow caps seeming close enough to touch, while the forest cradled the castle on three sides. There was something very untamed about it that spoke to her despite her growing worries about her reception.
