Page 22 of Wild Wicked Scot
“For you,leannan,” he said smoothly, and reached around her, pushing the vellum under a pair of gloves.
“That’s absurd.”
“Who else?” he asked easily, and pried the necklace from her hand. He’d actually taken it in trade for a pistol.
“Maybe the girl who was sitting in your lap when I arrived,” she said curtly, her brows dipping into a vee.
He frowned at her attempt to appear jealous and casually laid his hand across her throat. “Would I have loved you as I did tonight if this gold was for that wee strumpet?” He turned Margot about, pushed her mane of hair out of his way and draped the necklace around her throat. He bent his head to kiss her neck. He was aroused again and pushed his erection into her hips. “It’s yours now.”
“I don’t want it,” she said, but made no move to remove it.
Arran reached around her abdomen, grabbed the linen and yanked it free of her body. Margot didn’t resist; she leaned back against him, her hands sliding down his thighs. She was different than before. Now she seemed to understand the power she wielded over him.
He took her by the wrist and pulled her back to the bed with him, falling onto it and dragging her along to straddle him.
Margot sighed and dug her fingers into his chest. “You’re insatiable,” she said, and began to move on him, sliding against his erection.
“Mmm.” He’d not argue. He had strong appetites for life. He stroked her cheek with his knuckle.
Margot gave him a cool, sultry smile and turned her head, kissing his hand. That was the sort of smile that could inflame a man’s blood.Pleasant, Jock had said. What a ridiculous word. Ah, but it hurt him to look at her now, Arran thought, as he lifted her hips and guided her onto him.
She sighed, closed her eyes and let her head fall back as she sank down onto him.
This beauty was a liar and was here for some reason he would have to ferret out. But in his heart, fool that he was, he wished she had come back for him. He wished it was true that she wanted to rekindle their marriage. In spite of their differences, he was a loyal man, a man of his word, and he had come to care for his timid, naive wife, in spite of their rocky beginning.
But she hadn’t come back for him. She did not want to rekindle their marriage and likely never would. Worse, it was up to him to discover what she was about.
At present, however, she had begun to move on his cock, her eyes the color of a warm summer sea now. She leaned over him and said, “Do you find me haughty now?”
“Uist,”he said, silencing her, and began to move more earnestly inside her. He watched her face this time. She’d seen the naked truth in him the first time they’d come together tonight, and this time, he was looking for something, anything, to inform him. But Arran was soon swept under by the ecstasy of her body, of the pleasure of a woman’s touch, of the desire that had been buried for three years. In the midst of it, when her hair formed a curtain around them, in the low light of the hearth, he saw an unexpected glimmer in her eyes.
He saw sorrow.Sorrow.
For him? For their marriage? For herself?
Their lovemaking had at last exhausted them both, and he fell asleep, wondering.
Early in the morning, Arran had to extract himself from her limbs—she’d rolled into him, tangling herself around him.
It was not yet dawn, so he washed with the cold water of the basin in an adjoining room and dressed. When he returned to the bedchamber, Margot hadn’t moved. She was sound asleep, her face deceivingly angelic. He glanced around the clutter of his chamber. Margot had brought nothing other than her clothes last night. He’d send her maid to dress her.
He walked to his chest, retrieved the vellum from beneath his gloves, tucked it into his waistcoat and then stepped out of the room.
There was a sleeping, slack-jawed lad sprawled just outside his door on a cloak. Jock had put him there, probably fearing Margot intended to cut his laird’s throat. Arran couldn’t help but smile at that—Jock trusted the English and women even less than he. He nudged the lad with his boot, and the young man came up like a shot, his eyes wide with sleep and fear.
“Milord,” he said.
“Go to your bed now. The lady is sleeping.”
The lad picked up his cloak and stumbled clumsily down the hall.
Arran walked down the hall to his study. It was a small room, the original purpose lost. He liked that it adjoined his dressing room. He sat himself at a desk stacked with papers and books, shipping ledgers and the household accounts. He’d been hard at work of late, preparing for a voyage that would take him to France to trade wool for cloth and wine, which he would then ferry to Ireland to sell or trade for leather goods.
Fergus appeared at the door of his study, looking bleary-eyed, his thinning hair in complete disarray. “Will you break your fast, laird?”
“Aye,” he said. “I’ll have it here. Send Jock to me when he comes.”
Jock joined him a quarter of an hour later. Unlike Fergus, Jock looked as fresh as a spring daffodil. He arched a thick, dark brow above a smug smile. “And how does the morning find you, laird?” he asked with much jocularity. “I expected you to be abed this morning.”
