Page 84 of Taming the Heiress
Gasping deeply, she threaded her fingers into his thick hair and writhed under his mouth, his deft fingers. The fine golden chain around her neck shifted, and she felt the slight weight of the gold locket against her throat, a reminder.
She must stop, she told herself hazily, stop this and deny herself what she wanted so very much. What remained unsaid between them still burned in her. Honest, he had called her once. Earnest and pure.
She had to tell him. But his hands, his lips coaxed her to wait. Just one more kiss, once more to touch him like this, like that, as she explored his body with more boldness. Her fingers found him, shaped him, caressed, and he groaned against her lips. Slipping her hand under wool, under linen, she took him in her hands, warm velvet over heated steel, and he sucked in a breath.
And then she could not stop, not then, for he had found her, too, discovered the tender places that only he had touched, that honeyed slick for him. Tearing at his clothing, rolling and shifting with him on the silken carpet, she surged against him, moved with him like the sea, merging and seeking, soaring and arching, and then, through some sparkling natural magic, vanishing into him as he poured into her.
* * *
"This way," she whispered, tugging at his hand. Her skirt and crinoline, restored to her, rustled and swung gently against his trousered legs as he followed her into the room.
She took him into a small study off the spacious library, a cozy room with dark, gleaming wood paneling and a large mahogany desk, leather armchairs the color of sherry, carpets of red and gold. The walls were crammed with books from floor to ceiling. The fireplace was cold and dark now, but there was more than enough fire and spirit in the masculine elegance of the room.
"This was my grandfather's study," she said. "He preferred this small room to all the others, in all the houses he owned."
She went to a small japanned cabinet of black and gold and opened a door to take out a box of inlaid wood. The exotic smell of sandalwood wafted from it as she set it on the desk and opened it, removing two thick bundles of letters tied with white ribbon.
"When I first inherited and came to live at Strathlin," she said, "Mr. Hamilton and I were exploring this study looking for some important documents. I found this."
"To be stored there," Dougal said, "they must be from someone special."
"They are all from me," she said, "to him. I wrote to him for years. I visited him every winter for several weeks and spent most of that time with tutors. My grandfather was already a widower, and his sons were grown. My mother, his only daughter, would bring me here to visit."
He recalled what little she had said of her parents. "I thought Lord Strathlin did not approve of her marriage to her Hebridean fisherman."
"He did not, but she remained loyal and still came here to visit, bringing me with her. After she was gone, I came to Strathlin myself every winter until my grandfather died. And I wrote to him often."
She lifted a packet of letters, fanning the edges without opening the ribbons. "I told him about Caransay," she went on. "I described the island and the flowers on the machair, the shells on the beach, the birds and seals on Sgeir Caran. I told him about sailing and fishing with Grandfather Norrie and about how I played on the beaches and swam in the sea, climbed the hills and the headland. And I would make drawings for him, lots of drawings." She touched the bundle. "They are all here."
Dougal felt a sense of amazement, realizing the importance of that for her. "Your journals started with these letters," he said, "when you were a child."
She nodded. "He never wrote back to me. Except for a yearly invitation to come to Strathlin Castle for tutoring and for the fitting of a new wardrobe, he never wrote, never even mentioned the letters I sent. But I sent them, one after the other."
"He must have appreciated your loyalty," Dougal said. "He must have been glad to know you were fond of him."
She nodded. "Gruff as he was, I loved him. And I felt sorry for him," she added. "I thought he was lonely here. I did not realize how busy he was, building a shipping and banking empire. I was a child, and I scarcely knew about Matheson Bank then."
She walked around the great mahogany desk, fingers trailing. "He would sit here working, ignoring me when I stayed at the castle. When I was small, my mother would bring me in to talk to him, and I would tell him about our puppies on Caransay or show him my drawings. He would write or read, and I would chatter on. And then he would tell me to go."
She shrugged. "I thought he did not love me, that he tolerated me as an obligation, especially after my mother's death."
"But then he left everything to you. His sons were gone. There were no others in line for it?"
She shook her head. "Only cousins after us. And he designated me his heir—I did not even know about it. But when I came here to live, after his death, I discovered this box."
Dougal nodded. "He kept your letters."
"Every one I ever wrote. Every drawing I sent."
"He loved you very much. Perhaps he simply did not know how to express it at the time, and so he left you all he had."
She nodded as she put the letters back in the box and shut it away in the cabinet. "Nearly two million pounds, they told me, when the will was first read out, along with title and properties and ownership, though not authority, over the bank."
"Astonishing," he murmured.
"Incomprehensible to me. I did not want it. I railed against it, cried, refused at first. I wanted to stay on Caransay, for that was my home. But the will was ironclad. I had no choice, or the estate would go into the bank's control, and this beautiful house, all the others, would be locked to Lord Strathlin's descendants. I was to inherit it all, the title as well, which could be done easily enough in Scotland. I had so much to learn in the first years after the inheritance. Fortunately, Mrs. Shaw became my tutor and companion, as did Mrs. Berry, who had been my governess whenever I stayed here at Strathlin."
"Ah, Mrs. Berry. The lady who is fond of swimming." He grinned a little.
