The Lass Initiated the Laird - Erotic Novella (Explosive Highlander 3.5) Read online

  Harriet came in on his father’s arm dressed in a demure cream satin frock, flowers in her hands. She was the most beautiful bride in the entire universe. His eyes lit at the sight of her joy written all over her flawless face.

  “May you be very happy, Lady McDougal,” one of Samuel’s kin wished her afterwards. Harriet almost turned to Aileen before it hit her the woman was talking to her. Lady McDougal she had become not an hour ago. It would take a while for her to get used to it.

  On her husband’s arm she made her way to the wedding breakfast. “You look very impressive in your Scottish attire,” she praised him under her breath.

  “Thanks, wife,” he replied and smiled sheepish. “It proves extremely practical in certain…circumstances.”

  The provocation made steam escape from every single pore of her. He had made it a point to inform her that Scots wore no underwear. Darn it! That made…everything so much simpler!

  “Behave yourself, husband,” she admonished with an amused glint in her eyes.

  “Only until tonight,” he insisted in answering.

  But when tonight finally came, they barely had time to enter Samuel’s chambers, crazed with want. He made her lie on the bed, rucked her skirts up, rucked his tented tartan up to display a full, dripping erection that he dipped in her impatient channel unceremoniously.

  “Bluidy hell, Harriet!” he rasped, panting. “You’re so wet, so hot,” he thrust deep. “And you’re gripping me like doomsday!” he became frantic. “What did you do?”

  She had no answer, but when he yanked her bodice down to gobble her breasts, they were so tender she fell off the edge with his mere caressing them. Perhaps she was about to bleed, her body became more sensitive in those days.

  Well, if she was about to bleed, it seemed a strange one, she mused next day as she sat with Taran and Aileen at breakfast; having left an extremely exhausted Samuel to sleep a little more as he had not tired of taking her the whole night.

  The simple smell of eggs made her stomach roil. She had no choice but excuse herself to rush to her dressing room. After she had composed herself, she opened the door, nearly stumbling on Aileen.

  The other woman inspected her from head to toe. “How late are you?”

  All kinds of blush surfaced on her skin while her head made hurried calculations. Wide eyes, mouth agape, she looked at the Scottish woman. “Two weeks!” What the blazes had happened, she had not even realised it?

  Disguised mirth suffused on her friend’s face. “Well, the two of you did work fast!”

  “Good grief!” was all she could blurt. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Practical as usual, Aileen replied. “First, I’ll make a mix of herbs for you to take with you so you won’t feel so sick,” she started. “Right now, I’ll make you tea with them, and we’ll meet the men.”

  Just like that, The Lady McDougal took matters in her capable hands.

  As they resumed breakfast, Samuel sat down with a sated, relaxed stance by Harriet. Aileen had just brought the tea and Harriet’s stomach seemed to settle.

  “I believe the new Lady McDougal has something to share with us,” the other woman prompted.

  The men’s eyes focused on her and she could not prevent the renewed wave of crimson that dominated her skin. “I—” her throat cleared. “I believe I am…I am…with child.”

  Two pairs of green eyes widened on her. The Laird’s smug, Samuel’s overjoyed. Her husband lost his tongue, but stood to hug her tight, emotion overflowing him.

  “Well-done, son.”

  “As if he did it by himself,” defied his wife.

  “I did not know what I was saying when I stated I was the happiest man alive,” Samuel managed. “Only now do I get the full meaning of it.”

  “Congratulations to both,” The Laird amended.

  “She wants to keep her position until the babe is due,” Samuel told his father while they walked to the waiting carriage that would take them back to Oxford.

  “We seem to have a penchant for single-minded women,” he answered, a hand on his son’s shoulders.

  Sam smiled, admiration for his wife on his face. “It will be good for her because I’ll be busy with my appointments at the university.”

  “And looking for a bigger place to live.” His father completed.

  The younger man agreed. With a child on the way, they would need more room. “That shouldn’t be too difficult, the freshmen will arrive only mid-August, there will be many places to let until then.”

  “I would be happy if this child grew up here,” his father expressed.

  “It’s our plan,” Sam replied. “But I need time to organise my work so I can do it mostly by correspondence.”

  Taran nodded.

  Roy and Errol ran to the entrance followed by Harriet and Aileen walking arm in arm.

  “They became fast friends those two.” The Laird pointed out.

  “I’m glad they did,” it was soothing to see his family in harmony.

  The boys fussed, the women exchanged last words, the men added up plans. And soon the carriage was on its way.

  Inside, Sam held his wife, a hand splayed on her middle protectively. Turning a radiant face to him, she smiled and kissed his firm lips.

  They arrived in Oxford a day before the professor. The Hayleys invited him for dinner, and Sam thought it an opportune time to apprise them of the latest developments. Despite their utter surprise, they cheered the newlyweds and proved accommodating in the couple’s arrangements for the foreseeable future.

  The day after that, Sam came to pick Harriet up to take her home after work as the professor sat in his study with Trent. Mrs Marsh directed him there. Inside, he found his wife, the nobleman and his mentor.

  “Mrs Stratham?” the older man showed surprise.

  “Yes, professor,” Michael was saying. “I believe there seems to be, say, improper things going on involving your governess.”

  So Trent would follow up on his earlier design to cause Harriet’s dismissal. So he could prey on her misfortune and offer a ‘salvation’ as his mistress.

  The loathe that surfaced in Sam’s guts would be enough to disintegrate his former friend.

  Firmly, he closed the door behind him when the Londoner turned to see him and took a pause.

  Harriet sat stiff, seemingly disgusted with the wastrel’s words.

  “I don’t like the way you’re talking about my wife.” Sam angrily strode to the other man’s chair, legs braced, hands on his waist.

  Trent sprang from his seat. “Wife?” Ridicule suffused over his paunchy frame. “You married a nobody?”

  Harriet came beside him as both closed ranks.

  “She’s not a nobody. She is Lady McDougal to you.” His green gaze met the other man’s steadily.

  Trent’s face reddened as he eyed one and the other with spiteful intent. “She must have muddled your mind!” he accused.

  “No, she didn’t,” Sam answered stonily. “You are the one muddled by a wasteful life.”

  “I recommend marriage, Lord Trent,” came the lady’s amused comment. “It would do you a well of good.”

  “No doubt,” the professor agreed.

  Trent neared her with such rage in his eyes that Sam put his arm around her. “Careful, Trent. She’s carrying my child.”

  That seemed to punch him right in his fat middle. “Damned you are, McDougal.”

  “I don’t allow foul language in the presence of delicate ears.” Interjected the professor. “I’d say you are done here, my lord.”

  Without a word, the lordling swung to leave.

  “Trent,” Sam called. The man turned in clipped movements. “You forgot to bow to the lady.”

  In utter distaste, he bowed as if he would cast up his accounts. Then he opened the door and disappeared.

  That night, they lay cosily in their bed, and Sam was so hard he would barely keep still. He moulded his lea
n body to his wife’s, buried his contained-by-his-undergarment hardness in her back and tried to breathe in deep puffs.

  Fuck! She was carrying his child and he could think of nothing but…

  “Harriet,” he rasped in her ear, dipping his face in her hair, dragging his mouth down her throat, pulling her flush to him. All of which she participated in with active enthusiasm. “I’m afraid I have to sleep somewhere else.” Having just discovered this carnal pleasure with her, waiting nine months to go back to it felt like being thrown in the remotest dungeon.

  Her delicious person turned to him. “Why?” delicate brows pleated in the firelight. “Are you upset with something?” a cool hand rested right over one of his nipple. He inhaled, closed his eyes, and tried to be strong.

  “No, it’s not that,” he replied, as her fingers slid down his abs.

  He was discovering he was not so strong.

  “What is it then?” Her nails lightly grazed below his navel.

  Strong was overrated anyway.

  He wanted to pull those nails where he needed, and he must run from them, from this bed. “I cannot possibly—” he lost his voice when she undid the strings at his waist.

  “Possibly?” she coaxed as her fingertips played with the ginger hair she found there.

  “You’re with chi—" Her palm covered his rampant cock. “Bluidy hell!” And caressed him.

  Strong be damned!

  He flattened her on the mattress in a swift move and dived to her mouth. He kissed her with excruciating hunger. “I have to respect your condition,” he drawled after he came up for air.

  By then, she cradled him between her flexed knees. “Aileen said it’s alright.”

  “You talked about this with her?” Embarrassed astonishment smothered his expression.

  “No, she helped me to understand.” She brought his palm over her breast.

  “I see,” he answered hoarsely. And she used the opportunity to lower his underwear.

  As good news went, this was the best since they arrived back in Oxford.

  “Now, can you, please, take me before I die with need?” she suggested.

  Sam plunged in her with a moan. “Damn! I won’t last a minute.” And caressed her tender breasts.

  With her spine arched, she made a sound of her own. “I’ll be there in three seconds.”

  He thrust one more time, and she dissolved.

  This thing of his wife being with child was really interesting, he celebrated before he too got engulfed in the delights of her.

  EPILOGUE

  Two years later

  Errol, four, had taken Jamie, one and something, under his wings. Proof of that was the careful way he helped the younger child go about the lawn in those rare sunny spring days in the Highlands.

  The four adults sat on a blanket under a tree in the garden while Roy, eight now, led the other boys in his make-believe games.

  Sam and Harriet moved up north a year ago when she and the baby were strong enough to traipse the roads. Jamie thought nothing of it, though, and endured the week in the carriage as if he had been born to it. To tell the truth, he turned out to be a veritable McDougal. His dark hair and green eyes matched a temper very similar to his grand-father’s, at which the Laird puffed with extreme pride.

  His beautiful wife had offered to help the children in the schoolroom with Aileen’s immediate approval. They loved Harriet as their teacher, and she loved them in return. While she went about it, Sam dedicated time to his botanical studies and joined his father in many tasks on the estate. Sam liked to be involved because he valued his heritage.

  Harriet and he believed it better to live in a nearby cottage for everyone’s privacy’s sake. The arrangement suited them fine even though they all got together at every opportunity.

  Jamie stopped playing to seek his mother and sleepily came to nestle in her lap. Sam looked at his family as deep contentment invaded him. He was grateful for them every minute of the day.

  Taking a break from their running around, Roy and Errol sat by Sam as the oldest brother wrapped each with one arm.

  “Will you let us live here when we grow up?” Roy asked, already understanding the law of primogeniture.

  Sam lowered his gaze to his brother, moved by the boy’s fretting. “We’re all going to take care of this land,” he said solemn. “It’s our duty to preserve it for the future generations. And I’m counting on both of you to help me.”

  Aileen could not hide the bright moisture of her eyes, and Harriet looked at her husband with melting adoration.

  “I knew I did a good job when I made you,” Taran boasted unashamed.

  “I’ll help you,” promised Roy to his older brother.

  After luncheon, Sam took a sleeping Jamie in one arm and laced his wife with the other while they strolled to their cottage.

  When the toddler was tucked in his cot, Sam turned to Harriet, his big hands on her radiant face. “I love you,” he said eyes boring in hers.

  “I love you, too,” she covered his hands with hers.

  “When our children grow up, I’ll tell them you are forever the only woman in my life.”

  And he kissed a Harriet on the verge of tears.

  The End

  ***

  Continue reading on to a preview of The Lass Abducted the Laird

  PREVIEW OF THE LASS ABDUCTED THE LAIRD

  The Highlands, 1813

  Moira Darroch hid behind a tree by the dusty road, heart thrashing so frantic in her ribcage that the fast air she gulped did not satisfy her lungs.

  She was about to commit a crime.

  A smirk came to her full lips as she looked down at the rifle in her hands. She was already committing a crime. Scots were forbidden to carry guns, a prohibition put down by the English after Culloden.

  She was about to commit her second crime then.

  Considering both would happen in the same breath, her outlaw status would be quick to draw.

  The second one would be triple serious because it involved a McKendrick, one of the most powerful clans in Scotland. But what choice did she have? Alright, so everyone had a choice. Her other choice was to let her clan fall into a usurper’s hand.

  As choices went, she did not think the latter worth contemplating.

  A late April’s cool breeze blew one riotous chocolate curl, and she wiped it from her brow impatient. The movement reminded her of her brother, who used to tease her calling her Lamb because of her curls.

  Her poor, deceased brother, Malcom, she grieved at his memory. He had been gone for a year, the certainty that he had been poisoned, murdered engraved in her chest.

  Moira must do this. Found no other solution to the predicament Clan Darroch faced at this moment. Her uncle—uncle by marriage—manoeuvred to take over the clan’s leadership. She must not allow it to happen.

  Which meant she needed a husband, one from a clan important enough to tilt the scales, and strengthen her position to thwart Hamish’s ambitions.

  The only candidate she could think of being Lachlan McKendrick, the very useless and very womaniser youngest brother of the four siblings in the family. That was how she regarded him, at least. Granted, he might not be that useless since…

  A movement in the distance made her freeze. Inhaling insufficient air, she turned to peek through the foliage. Two hundred yards ahead, a horseman appeared. Lachlan McKendrick used to ride by this road in Darroch lands to reach one of his favourite lochs for fishing. How she knew it? Not that she would confess to any soul dead or alive, but she would steal a glance at him when he rode by, the path cutting right below the study window where she learned to update the ledgers in the last year.

  She strived to learn and do so many duties in this time. It felt as if she lived ten years in one. And matured decades by her twenty-fifth birthday.

  Her delicate, petite frame swivelled back into hiding, in wait for the exact moment to act. Though she looked del
icate, she discovered she was anything but. In these last months, she summoned a strength she never imagined she possessed. Facing up to the odds of her people regarding her as the leader, dodging her uncle’s malice, struggling to keep her clan’s welfare on a daily basis. It had been like killing a lion a day.

  Now she would have to kill another. Or marry one, in this case.

  Marriage to a womaniser sounded like a lousy bargain to waste her life on, by the way. For her clan she would do anything though.

  Her hazel eyes turned back to the road. A hundred yards. Wait a moment more, she told herself. She took the time to try to even her breath and her heart rate. To no avail.

  Check again. Twenty yards. Her hands firmed on the rifle as she turned and posted herself in the middle of the road, aiming it.

  “Stop right there, McKendrick,” she issued in what she hoped to be an assertive tone, tightening her fingers on the cold metal to stop their trembling.

  “Darroch?” he said in that smooth voice of his as he halted his horse. He used to call her by her clan’s name when they chanced on each other.

  And then she must lift her gaze to him.

  The man had always been a weapon in himself. In mere seconds, the sight of him sent every nerve ending to a meltdown. He was perfect, just perfect, there was not another word for it. At about six feet four, the view of him reminded her of the statue of Apollo Belvedere she saw once reproduced in a book. The face, that is, because the rest of him she did not even want to contemplate, lest she display a ninny swooning she utterly despised.

  “You’re trespassing Darroch’s lands.” She blurted to cover up her reaction.

  With nowhere else to look, she absorbed him. The locks of dark brown hair, the straight brows, the deep-set brown eyes fringed by sooty lashes. Then she studied his fine, straight nose, those lips designed to induce unlawful thoughts, the square jaw including a cleft on his male chin. The strong, masculine body suggested by his green, black and white tartan clamoured for exploring hands.