Page 58 of Wed to the Highlander
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered breathlessly. “Missed this. You feel so good inside me.”
“You feel perfect,”he rasped, closinghis eyes against the rush of heat and emotion. “I’ll never stop wanting you. Or loving you. Through it all—your fire, your fury, your softness, your strength. I’ll love you until I’m eighty and cock up my toes.”
“Make it ninety,” she murmured. “You’re older than me.”
He chuckled, so grateful her humor had returned.
He cupped her chin, turning her head to claim her lips, their mouths melding as their bodies moved in rhythm, less about urgency, more about rediscovery after too long apart. When she came, it was with a soft cry, her hand clutching his at her middle. He followed soon after, groaning her name into her hair as he spilled deep inside her.
Afterward, he stayed curled around her, one hand cupping her breast, the other spread protectively over the life growing between them.
He would keep them safe here. Even if it meant not telling her just how badly High Glen needed him. Not yet.
Chapter 19
The French doors to the rear garden stood open. Maggie sat angled toward them, willing a stray breeze to find her. None did. Instead, a trickle of sweat slipped between her breasts, dampening the fine muslin of her morning gown.
Her embroidery lay in her lap, needle idle, thread trailing, a tangle she hadn’t bothered to fix. She was thinking less about stitches and more about the long, hot weeks behind her and the uncertain ones ahead.
It was high summer in London. The city had settled into a languid rhythm, the streets quieter now that the season was no more than a memory. The days stretched long and airless, the evenings warm enough to keep the windows open well into the night.
Maggie wondered if she should ask Duncan about going home again. Would it even matter? Every attempt so far had been met with the same evasions. Not yet. Soon. And the dreaded—in due time.
The rhythm of London suited her; the comforts, notwithstanding the heat, were real. She had been and would be content staying, but Duncan could never be. His mind and heart were in the Highlands. She saw it in the quiet that followed each letter from his kin. She wanted to be his peace, not the reason he stayed away from it.
As the earl of Rothbury, he had English tenant affairs to settle, investment accounts to review, and committees to serve on in the Lords. He didn’t vote by proxy now; he appeared in person. He left the house each day, a striking figure in his Highland-cut coat. The swath of MacPherson plaid served as a reminder of his heritage and the life waiting for their return.
It was the end of August. Parliament had adjourned weeks ago. She hadn’t been sick in months, and nothing—at least nothing she knew of—kept them here.
Despite his denials, she knew all was not well at home. She would catch him at the drawing room windows, gaze distant, shoulders taut. Whatever weighed on the stubborn man, he bore it alone.
“When is this bloody summer going to end? Being in the family way in this heat ought to be a crime,” Cici declared, fanning herself furiously as she entered without ceremony and without restraint, considering the duchess’ language. Spotting Maggie by the doors, she waddled over—her shorter frame making her look months further along than she was. A fact she lamented often.
She plucked the embroidery hoop from Maggie’s hands and examined the tangled mess.
“Hopeless,” she declared, tossing it onto a table.
Maggie gave a prim little shrug. “Idle hands, as the saying goes.”
“There are better ways to keep them occupied,” she said with a smirk.
Cici hadn’t been shy about one of the unspoken side effects of pregnancy, an overactive libido. Maggie had experienced it too, much to Duncan’s delight, but she usually didn’t engage in tit for tat with the challenges of pregnancy, not when Cici’statinvolved her brother.
A subject change was in order, fast.
“I’ve been thinking of going back to High Glen.”
Cici’s brows shot up as she lowered herself into a chair. “This is sudden, isn’t it?”
“No. I’ve been considering it for some time.”
She hiked her skirt up above her calves in a very un-duchess-like manner, but she had long since stopped caring in the persistent summer heat. Then she resumed fanning herself. “Aren’t you worried about the ghost of Lady Anne? And the very alive Isla?”
Maggie had shared everything. After having a sister, her blood kin, try to murder her more than once out of envy, Cici believed anything could happen.
“As long as I’m not weakened by sickness, I think I can handle what they throw at me.”
“So, when do you leave?”
