Page 62 of My Scot, My Surrender
Diah, what he did to her was beyond sinful.
Exhaling somewhat shakily, she concentrated on rubbing her thumbs into the base of his neck and working them in slow circular strokes. She aimed for safer ground with serious conversation. “Do you think your Monty could have been the man Lady Glenross spoke of? The one she knew as Pherson?”
A muscle jumped reflexively against her thumbs before settling down again.
“It’s possible,” he answered. She’d put him at ease enough to speak to her about it, at least.
“She spoke well of him,” Sorcha added.
“Yes,” Brandt replied, his voice hitching lower. “It did sound as if she’d been fond of him.”
Sorcha heard the suspicion on his tone, and the knots in his neck suddenly became harder to massage. She lowered her lips to his ear. “Tell me something about him. A memory.”
Anything to direct his mind along a different path.
He sighed, and she breathed in the warmed spice of his skin. This man drove her desire like nothing she’d ever imagined possible. Just the deeply masculine scent of him made her want to touch her tongue to his ear, press it against his neck, and feel his pulse leap. But she restrained herself. He needed more than one kind of release; Brandt needed to talk.
“A memory,” he repeated, again turning pliable beneath her constant ministrations. “I was young. Maybe eight, and my stepmother, Anne, had just passed,” he started, his lashes having fluttered shut. “We didn’t make it a habit to celebrate birthdays, but that year, Monty attempted to bake muffins. He burned them to crisps.”
Brandt chuckled, the sound reverberating up through Sorcha’s hands and into the small bones of her arms. “I managed to choke down two before he insisted we give the rest to the hogs. But even they refused to eat them, and hogs eat anything. He was a terrible cook.”
She smiled at the lightness of his voice. “He sounds like he was a good man.”
He opened his eyes, and from her vantage point, she thought she could see a flicker of doubt. But then he spoke, and the admiration he held for Montgomery Pierce, or Pherson Montgomery, was indisputable. “He cared for me, and I cared for him.”
She stilled her hands. “Then why is it you sound so sad?”
Surely, he missed his father, but from what she recalled, it had been many years since his death. Sorcha also couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t used the wordlove. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one he was running from.
“Because he never told me the truth,” he answered. “Though I think he might have tried. Near the end. I can’t be sure, the words were muddled, and he never finished his sentence. At the time, I thought was trying to reassure me that being a bastard shouldn’t matter. But now, after Lady Glenross insisted I wasn’t bastard born…”
“What do you think he wanted to tell you?” she asked.
Brandt shrugged. “That I belonged somewhere. That I had a home with kin and people who shared my blood. But blood doesn’t necessarily mean family.” He paused as if thinking through his words. “Family is in the heart.”
“Then why did you want to come here?”
He went quiet for a long time, though his body remained calm. He shifted, digging into his pocket to retrieve the ring he’d tucked in there earlier. They both stared at it, cupped in his palm. The Montgomery colors seemed to burn brighter, the thread of gold shimmering through the blue and green crest on its surface.
“You could show her, you know,” Sorcha said softly. “Rings like these are heirlooms for a laird’s family.”
He twisted the ring in between his thumb and forefinger. “Which was why I thought it was one of the laird’s sisters. But now I’m not so certain.” His voice broke slightly upon his whispered confession. “We have the same eyes, Sorcha. Lady Glenross and I.”
Sorcha stilled. She’d been sitting on the duchess’s left and the woman had never once looked at her directly. Her mind tumbled over itself. There was little resemblance between them, if any at all. She was fair-haired and slight, while his looks and build favored the laird. What did he mean they had thesameeyes? Did Brandt think he was her son? With Monty, or the late duke? If it were the latter, then that would make him…Diah…the Montgomery heir.
“Brandt, do you think theduchessis your mother?”
His entire body stiffened at the hushed incredulity in her tone. “I’m not entirely sure what to think.”
A new rush of tension coiled underneath his skin, and Sorcha wanted only to soothe it away. Her attempts to get him to talk had worked, but besides the memory of those birthday muffins, thoughts of his father—or the identity of his mother—only seemed to make Brandt more upset. She wanted him to unwind, to bask in the soothing sensation of her fingers, as she always did his. Even now, she worshipped the feel of his body. She wanted more, though. More than just touch. And she wanted to givehimmore.
Blushing at what she was about to do, Sorcha forced her fears away. He was her husband…at least for this moment. She might not know much about marital accord, but she knew he wanted her. And want was a powerful motivator.
She leaned forward, over his shoulder, pushing her hands lower under his shirt, across his front. Her palms filled with his hard pectorals, his muscles leaping at her touch. Her fingertips brushed over each nipple, and she saw him shift his hips, readjusting his seat in the chair. His body went tense, but it was a different kind of tension. This one made his pulse speed up, his heartbeat quickening beneath her fingertips. Primal satisfaction curled through her.
“What are you doing?” His voice was a dark rasp that scraped along her senses.
“Touching you.”
