Page 97 of My Scot, My Surrender
“Your love for life. Your courage.”
She tilted her chin toward him, and Brandt took her lips in a soft, sweet kiss. “They’ll be loved, won’t they? Any children of ours?”
“Without a single doubt. And even if we didn’t have this tremendous extended family of ours placing wagers on my manly prowess as we speak, any child would be cherished and adored by the two of us.” She laughed, and he stroked her cheek. “I love you, Sorcha, and I will treasure any child made out of that love.”
“I love you, too.”
Brandt held her close as sounds of the revelry from belowstairs drifted up to them. But there was no other place he preferred to be. Montgomery was a place. Worthington Abbey had been a place. The circle of his wife’s arms would always be his home, he knew that now. And for the first time in all his five and twenty years, Brandt’s sense of restlessness eased.
Sorcha shifted in his arms, turning to face him. “I forgot to tell you about my dowry. My father brought the documents turning the land over to you.”
“I don’t need any land.”
“You’ll want this one,” she said. “It’s rich in a vein of cairngorm crystals, remember? Scottish topaz. It was why Malvern wanted his hands on it so badly.”
It could have been chock full of diamonds for all Brandt cared. Mesmerized by the feel of her velvet skin, he stroked his fingers along her arm, dipping to the curve of her waist and the sensual rise of her hip. “I already have the most precious gem of Maclaren lands in my possession, albeit it’s one in the rough.”
Sorcha poked him in the shoulder with a mock scowl, but her voice was small when she spoke. “It’s true I am rough around the edges. I’ll never be like Lady Bradburne. She’s so refined and elegant. I feel like a fumbling lummox beside her. Are you sure this…I’m…what you want?”
“Too late to change your mind now, Your Grace,” he said with a wolfish grin. “And only a true Highland lass will do. Ye and yer horse.”
She pouted prettily. “Ah, I see. This is about Lockie. I should have known.”
“Aye, he’s mine.” His grin widened. “And ye’re mine, ye ken?”
“I ken,” she said smiling at his play.
“And I happen tolikeyour edges.” To make his point, he dragged a slow finger up over her hip bone. “These and these,” he said, moving to the point of her elbow and up each rib before filling his palm with her scarred breast. Her nipple tautened to a tight peak between his thumb and forefinger. “And especially these.”
“Brandt—” Her voice was a breathy moan.
“The real question is,” he said, “whether you’re willing to bemylady.”
She threw one limber thigh over his and dragged her fingernails lightly over his chest. “What does that entail?”
“A certain amount of compliance.”
Sorcha licked at her lips. “You mean submission?”
“More like surrender.” Brandt shifted to crawl over his wife’s body. Lifting his weight upon his elbows, he hovered over her, his hips poised over hers. He circled lightly, eliciting a delicious sound from her lips as his unyielding hardness met her pliant softness. “Of the most pleasurable kind.”
His wife grinned and wrapped her long, strong legs around him before thrusting her hips upward and over to flip him on his back. “I’ll surrender to anything as long as you’re here by my side.” Her wicked laughter filled the room—and his heart. “Or beneath me as the case may be.”
They’d been her words the first time they’d made love, but now they were his.
“I am yours.”
Epilogue
Three years later, September 1822
Worthington Abbey, Essex
Screams of bloody murder filled the gardens at Worthington Abbey, making every last hair on Brandt’s body stand on end. Good Lord, half a dozen children could make a bloody racket. The Duke of Bradburne’s estate grounds had been awash with chaos the last week, ever since the house party had gotten under way. Five days, to be exact. Five long, strained days. Brandt sat back in his chair in the gardens and rubbed his temple, a snifter of whiskey gripped in his other hand as he caught sight of his son, Rabbie, and the Bradburne heir, Brandon—Brandt’s godson and namesake—toddling along on matching chubby legs while being chased by their hapless nannies.
It wasn’t that he was not overjoyed to be in Essex again. It was only his second time returning to his childhood home since he’d become the Montgomery laird and Duke of Glenross. The first had been to arrange for the transfer of his stables. Lockie, as he’d imagined, had made a fine addition, taking well to Rosefire, the mare he’d had in mind for breeding. He and Sorcha were well on their way with a third foal…a colt who had the makings of a champion.
His precious horses aside, he’d also had much to oversee the last few years in the Highlands, helping to turn the settlements and farms Rodric had long neglected into profitable livelihoods again and earning the respect and trust of his clansmen. Despite his true Scottish roots, he was still a Sassenach to many—mostly because of his clipped English accent—but he hadn’t made an enemy yet, and Sorcha assured him it would take only another decade or two before they started to admit they liked him.
