Keir still hadn’t said a word, only stalked around the confines of the bedroom.
“I wish you’d stop pacing like that,” Merritt commented uneasily. “If we could sit and talk—”
“No’ when my birse is up,” Keir muttered.
“Birse?”
“Like a brush made from a wild boar.”
“Oh, bristle; you mean you’re bristling. But . . . you’re not blaming me for being barren, are you?” She stared at him, stricken. “That’s not fair, Keir.”
Looking outraged, he reached her in two strides and took her by the shoulders, as if he wanted to shake her. But he didn’t. He only held her, opened his mouth to say something, snapped it shut, and tried again. “Why would I give a damn if you’re barren?” he burst out. “Who do you think you’re bluidy talking to? My parents loved me as much as they would a blood-born son. They took no less pride in me for all that I was brought to them a bastard. From the moment they took me in, I was theirs, and they were mine. Are you saying that wasn’t real? That we were no’ a true family?”
“No, I would never say that. You know I wouldn’t! But most men want sons to carry on the family name and bloodline.”
“I’m no’ one of them,” Keir snapped.
He wasn’t shouting, precisely, but his intensity unnerved Merritt. She hesitated, unsure how to reply.
“I’m sorry,” she said humbly. “I assumed you would feel strongly about having children of your own blood—and I’ll never be able to give that to you.”
“I dinna need a broodmare, I need a wife.”
At the sight of her woebegone face, Keir’s impatience vanished. With a soft groan, he pulled her into the tough, warm haven of his embrace. He smoothed her hair and pressed her head to his shoulder. “Blood is no’ what binds a family. Love is.” His warm breath filtered down to her scalp. “How many bairns do you want? We could have a dozen if it pleases you. ’Tis the same as loving any other child. And you’d be such a fine, good mither—the beating heart of the family.” His fingers slid beneath her chin to angle it upward. “As for your late husband,” he continued, “I liked the man, and I dinna wish to speak ill of someone who can’t defend himself. But I’ll say what I would have told him while he was still living: It was no’ the time to be leaving you when he did. His loss was no greater than yours. You were the one who most needed comforting.”
“I had family and friends for that. Joshua knew they would help me through it.”
“It was a husband’s place to help you through it as well.”
“You don’t know what you would have done, if you’d been in his place.”
“I do,” Keir said firmly. “I would have stayed with my wife.”
“Even knowing there was nothing you could have done for me?”
His gaze didn’t move from hers. “Staying there doing nothing would have been doing something.”
Merritt felt her face contorting as she struggled to control her emotions. “Sometimes . . .” She had to pause and clear her throat before continuing. “. . . I find myself wishing he’d married another woman who could have given him children. Then he’d still be alive.”
“Lass, you dinna know that. He might have taken the same ship, on that same day, for a different reason. Or he might have married a woman who could have given him bairns but made his life a misery.” Keir cupped her cheek in his hand. “If he could, I think he’d tell you what a joy you were to him, and ask you no’ to remember him with guilt.” His blue eyes, the lightest color of sky, stared into her watering ones. “Ah, love,” he said gently, “I’d die in his place, if bringing him back would stop you from blaming yourself.”
She stiffened in horror at the thought. “Don’t say that.”
His thumb eased over the tiny, tense muscles of her jaw in gentle circles. “Soft, now,” he murmured. “None of it was your fault. Promise me you’ll be as kind to yourself as you’d be to someone else.”
Closing her eyes, she nudged her cheek into his palm and nodded.
“Say it,” he prompted.
“I promise to try,” Merritt said, and let out a wavering sigh. “But what’s to be done now?”
“About us? We’ll come to the right decision, you and I. Later. For now . . . let’s go to bed.”
Her eyes flew open. She gave him a dumbfounded look. “Here? Now?”
“My arms ache to hold you,” he said. “No’ just for a little while. For a long time.”
“Oh, I don’t think . . .” Floundering, Merritt lowered her forehead to his shoulder. “It wouldn’t solve any problems.”
He made a sound of amusement in his throat. “It would solve at least one of mine.” His lips slid lightly over the outer edge of her ear. “I’ll do some begging, if that would sway you.”
“Keir, it was a mistake the first time we did it.”
“Aye, and I’m after making it again.”
She drew her head back to give him a scandalized glance. “In the middle of the afternoon?”
There was a dance of mischief in his eyes. “There’ll be no one to hear us. Thursday is when the servants polish the silver downstairs in the dining room.”
“They’ll still know,” Merritt said, wincing at the thought. “With all the commotion we’ve made, it’s hardly a secret that we’re alone in my bedroom.”
“Merry, honey-love . . . I want you too badly to give a damn who knows.” Keir smiled down at her with a charm that cast sunspots across her vision. “Come to bed with me, my heart. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.”
It would have taken a woman made of far sterner stuff to resist him.
Merritt went to lock the door and turned to find Keir undressing beside the bed. Her heartbeats tumbled together like a row of ninepins as she watched him unbutton the half placket of his shirt. He lifted the garment over his head, revealing a torso that was sleek and layered with muscle, his chest covered with a light mat of glinting hair. She was amazed by how beautiful he was. But as she saw him wince while lowering his arms, she frowned in concern.
“You’re still healing,” she said. “Is it too soon for this?”
“No.”
“I think it’s too soon.”
His eyes glinted with mockery. “Maybe you should go fetch Dr. Kent’s book and see what it says.”
That drew a reluctant grin from her. “I don’t recall seeing a chapter on this particular subject.”
“Just as well.” Keir reached out with one arm and pulled her against his brawny chest. “You might have brought the stopwatch as well, and I dinna want to be rushed.”
Her chuckle was caught between their lips as he kissed her soundly. Dressed only in trousers, he padded barefoot to a chair where he had set his clothes. To Merritt’s amusement, he folded the shirt carefully before setting it on top of the neat stack of garments.
Seeing her quizzical gaze, he explained, “It makes Culpepper crabbit if I wrinkle the clothes after he’s worked hard to press them.”
“You’re on better terms with him now?”
“Aye. He and I talk a bit every morning, when he gives me a shave.” Keir came back to her and turned her to face away from him, and a ripple of excitement chased down her spine as she felt him unfastening the back of her dress.
“Why do you let him keep shaving you?” she asked. “I thought you would have started growing the beard back right away.”
Keir sounded slightly sheepish as he replied. “There’s always an ackwart stage of growing a beard, when the stubble grows longer but the rest hasn’t filled in. ’Tis patchy like a pasture after the goats have grazed it.”
“And you didn’t want Uncle Sebastian making comments?”
“No, I dinna give a damn about that—he couldn’t say anything worse than the lads back on Islay. There’s no mercy when one of us is growing a beard—we’ll call him a ‘duck in molt,’ or . . . no, the rest isn’t fit for your ears.”
“If you weren’t worried about Uncle Sebastian’s opinion, then what was it?”
“I dinna want you to remember me with a beard that looked to be trimmed with a hand mower.”
“You stayed clean-shaven for me?” A smile spread across Merritt’s face, and she turned around to face him. “Whatever stage of beard you happen to be in, you’re irresistible.” She leaned close to brush her nose, lips, and chin through the luxuriant fluff of his chest hair.
One of his hands slipped into the open back of her dress and found her bare upper shoulder. “I’ll have to shave from now on,” he said. “Your skin is as soft as a petal. After a night with me, you were scoured from head to toe.”
“Not scoured,” Merritt said, blushing. “You don’t have to give up your beard for my sake.”
“As often as I plan to bed you, milady, I think I’d better.”
She sent him a flirtatious glance. “That’s rather presumptuous, don’t you think?”
Keir shook his head, smiling. “Only hopeful.”
By the time he’d undressed them both, the yolk-colored light of deep afternoon had pushed through the partially closed wooden blinds, and slid across the bed in a row of golden ribbons. They reclined on the bed, and Keir stretched out on his side with Merritt in the crook of his arm. His mouth worked slowly on hers, tasting, softly tugging, then sealing tight and sending his tongue deep.
“I have an idea,” Merritt said breathlessly, when he began to kiss his way down her throat. “Let’s try to make this as mediocre as possible. We’ll cure ourselves of each other. We’ll be dull and clumsy and inconsiderate, and then we’ll never want to do this again. What do you think?”
His soft laugh collected in the deep valley between her breasts. “I think there’s nothing you could do to cure me of you.”
Merritt ran her fingers through the heavy locks of his hair, savoring the rich feel of it. “I’m going to lie still and be very boring,” she said. “That will be sure to ruin your fun.”
“The only way you could ruin it,” came his muffled voice, “is by making me sneeze.”
A giggle burst from her lips, and then she fell silent as his free hand wandered over her, kneading gently, stroking, teasing tenderly. She was too vulnerable. He knew too much about her now. A shock of pleasure went through her as his mouth captured the tip of her breast, nibbling and sucking. Her closed thighs spread easily at his touch, as if her body had decided to follow his commands instead of her own.
Through the mad pounding of the heartbeat in her ears, she heard his quiet murmurs as he kissed and licked all down her front. “The feel of you . . . so sweet . . . I never want to stop . . . every night, I need this from you . . .”
The air was cool against the thin hot skin of her vulva. It was embarrassing to be swollen and wet before he’d even touched her there. His hands were so strong, but his fingertips traced the intricate shape of her with unbelievable delicacy. She whimpered as he played with her. Such tantalizing caresses, parting the dark curls, spreading the tender lips. If he touched the peak, with just the slightest graze of his fingers, she would climax harder than she ever had in her life.
But he didn’t. His fingertips glided lightly between the humid folds, down to circle the wet entrance of her body, then tickled their way up to the tight little pearl, circling tenderly without touching it. Oh, God, she remembered how he liked to make it last a long time. He couldn’t do that tonight; she couldn’t endure it. Her face and body were hot, she was sweltering, she would die without relief soon.
“Keir . . . we shouldn’t draw this out. Your ribs . . . too much exertion . . . you’ll hurt yourself.”
He lifted his head, his blue eyes laughing at her as he said gently, “We’ve only been at it for five minutes.”
“It’s been longer than that,” she said, squirming. “I’m sure it has.”
“Dinna worry about my ribs. We’ll try this and that, and find out what’s best.” He bent to kiss her stomach, so low that his chin brushed the triangle of curls. The tip of his tongue touched her skin, painting a delicate pattern. Her hips undulated, trying in vain to coax him lower, her entire body begging, Please down there down there. She felt as helpless as a jointed doll.
Different parts of her were quivering, tensing, trembling, while her insides closed frantically on emptiness.
He changed their positions with a quiet grunt of discomfort, until they were both lying on their sides, his head toward her feet. She felt him pull her top leg up and across, and then he relaxed with what sounded like a purr. As she felt him breathing between her thighs, she moaned, panted, licked her dry lips, wanting to say his name but afraid she might scream it. She tensed at the touch of his fingers, stroking lightly across the wet entrance of her body.
All her consciousness focused on what he was doing, the fingertip that dipped very slightly into the pulsing cove. A teasing finger slid all the way inside and began to thrust in the slowest, gentlest rhythm possible, while her intimate muscles clenched and squeezed at the invasion, and her belly writhed. His breath rushed against the hard, tender bud of her clitoris in feathery tickles. It was heaven. It was torture. She wanted to kill him. He was the meanest, wickedest man who’d ever lived, the devil himself, and she would have told him so if she’d had the breath to spare.
He added another finger, and a deep glow began at her core. The feeling spread through every limb and swept upward, until it burned in her face and throat, even at the lobes of her ears. It was beneath her arms, between her toes, at the backs of her knees, a radiant heat that kept climbing. His fingers curved gently inside and held her like that, and then, finally, she felt his mouth at her sex, his tongue stroking in catlike laps. It sent her into a climax unlike anything she’d ever felt, pure ecstasy without a precise beginning or end, a long open spasm that went on and on.
A new surge of wetness emerged when his fingers finally withdrew. His tongue was strong and eager as he hunted for the taste of her, making her writhe. Her head came to rest close to his groin, her cheek brushing the satiny skin of his aroused flesh. Languidly she rubbed her parted lips along the rigid length, making him jolt as if he’d received an electric shock.
Encouraged by his response, she took hold of the shaft with one hand and drew her tongue along it. When she reached the tip, she fastened her lips over the silkiness and salt taste, and sucked lightly. He groaned between her thighs. With his fingers, he spread her furrow wider, and nibbled at the taut, full center, flicked at it. She moaned, the sound vibrating around the head of his shaft.
Keir pulled away suddenly, gasping and laughing unsteadily. “No’ yet . . . ahh . . . wait, Merry . . . I want more of you.” He climbed from the bed and pulled her to the edge of the mattress, arranging her until she was bent over with her feet on the floor. He widened the spread of her thighs and stood between them.
Merritt turned red, her hands clenching into the bedding. She felt exposed, maybe slightly ridiculous, presenting to him like this, in a posture reminiscent of the farmyard. Uneasily she wondered what it meant that he would ask this of her, or what it would mean for her to allow it.
A gentle palm ran down her tense spine. “Easy, my heart. Do you no’ prefer it like this?”
“It’s . . . I’ve never tried it.”
“Do you want to?”
Merritt considered that, relaxing slightly under his soothing hand. The fact that he was sensitive to her discomfort, that the choice was entirely hers, eased her worries.
“Yes,” she said, and let out a wobbly laugh. “Although I’ve never felt so undignified.”
Keir leaned over her, his forearms braced outside of hers, the warm fur of his chest brushing the sensitive skin of her back. It felt good, as if he were protecting her from something. She heard the trace of a smile in his voice.
“There’s no dignity in any of this,” he said, “for either of us. That’s the fun of it.”
It was, she realized. Here was a man, a lover, with whom she could have true intimacy, and share a deeply private act without shame. She relaxed even more.
Keir kissed the back of her shoulder. “If you dinna like it,” he said, “you’ll tell me right away, aye?”
“Yes.”
His weight lifted, and his hand reached between her thighs, stroking and opening her. She felt a nudge, an adjustment as he aligned himself, then steady pressure at her entrance. He was so hard, his flesh like steel, but he was gentle and controlled, taking his time. She gasped as her muscles gave way and the broad tip pushed inside, stretching her, keeping her open. He held still, his hands stroking her hips and bottom.
All her nerves tingled and sparked in anticipation, knowing how good it was going to be. She pressed back against him, and he sheathed himself in a slow, wet plunge, all the way inside, deeper than she’d ever been filled before. He went in at just the right angle, pressing where she most wanted. Her body gripped him, or tried to, except the invasion was so thick, her muscles only fluttered and throbbed instead of clenching down. She felt almost as if she were at the brink of release. And to her astonishment . . . she was. She was about to tip over into a sea of mind-dissolving pleasure.
“Wait,” she heard Keir say through the clamor of her heartbeat. His hands were on her hips, keeping her close and tight. For some reason it aroused her intolerably, knowing he was trying to stop her from climaxing. She tried to drive herself back on the hard shaft inside her, unable to get enough of it even though she was stretched to the limit. Raising up on her forearms, she writhed and pushed desperately against him.
Keir’s husky laugh caressed her ears as he leaned over her. He held her hips snugly against his, allowing only a sense of motion, a subtle grinding that wasn’t nearly enough. Very gently, he closed his teeth on the side of her neck and soothed it with his tongue. “Tell me how good it feels,” he whispered.
Merritt fought for the breath to reply. “It feels too good. I want to come . . . I want to spend . . . oh, please, Keir . . .”
“Spend,” he repeated, and smiled against her shoulder. “I like that word for it.” He withdrew just an inch, and rolled his hips upward. “Aye, I want your pleasure. Spend it all on me.”
She sobbed and squirmed, able to feel the motion of him deep in her belly, but it wasn’t enough. “Harder. Please.”
The rhythmic drives grew longer, more aggressive. “No one else could ever feel this good to me,” he said. “No other woman in the world. Only you.” He reached beneath her to cup the round weights of her breasts, and began to pinch and tug at her nipples. Not sharply but not softly, the little flashes of discomfort somehow magnifying her pleasure. His hand slid down her front and between her thighs, finding the taut peak of her sex. The gently massaging fingers, the steady pumping, set off an explosion of pleasure that spread to every part of her body and kept unfolding and renewing itself. The release was so powerful, it left her dazed and too weak to move. She was only vaguely aware of Keir’s climax, the quiet growl he pressed against her skin, the rough shudders that ran through him.
His sweetness afterward was almost better than the lovemaking, as he kissed up and down her body, praising and caressing her. Eventually he lit a lamp near the bedside and went to the washstand. He returned with a glass of cool water and a damp cloth. Merritt drank thirstily, and lay back as he washed her intimately. She could have done it herself, but it was delicious to be taken care of, and she felt utterly limp, as if all her bones had been soaked in honey.
After seeing to his own needs, Keir got into bed and tucked Merritt against his good side. She snuggled into the crook of his arm and frowned in curiosity as she saw a small envelope in his hand.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Someone slipped it beneath the door.”
“We’ve been found out,” Merritt said, seeing that his name had been written on the envelope, even though it had been delivered to her room. An embarrassed chuckle escaped her, and she hid her face on his chest. “But how? We’ve been so discreet.”
With a snort of amusement, Keir opened the letter. “It’s from Kingston,” he said, and fell silent as he read.
Merritt lifted her head. “What does it say?” she asked, unable to interpret his expression.
“The duchess, Seraphina, and Ivo arrived from Paris this afternoon.”
“They came back early? I wonder why.”
“It doesn’t say. But it seems they’re tired from the journey and will have an informal supper in the family parlor—leaving us to our own devices.”
“Thank heaven,” Merritt said gratefully. “I couldn’t have gone down to dinner. I’ll ask for a tray to be brought to the room.” She winced a little as she brought herself to ask, “Did Uncle Sebastian write anything about . . . this?”
“No, he only asks that I come to breakfast tomorrow morning. He wants to introduce me to the duchess.”
Merritt let her hand wander lightly over his chest and toyed with the fine steel chain. “Are you dreading it?” she dared to ask.
“Partly,” he admitted. “But I’m also curious. Whatever else you can say about Kingston, ’tis obvious he puts a store by his wife.”
“He does. And she’s a dear, kind woman. There’ll be no unpleasantness with her, I promise.”
His chest rose and fell in a measured sigh.
“You’re worrying what the coming days will bring,” Merritt guessed.
Keir took her hand and kissed the backs of her fingers, and drew them along the edge of his jaw. “I’m no’ giving any of it a thought tonight,” he replied, and set the letter aside. “No’ with you in my arms. ’Tis all that matters to me.”
“Keir. Keir, wake up now.” Merritt sat up and leaned over him and shook him gently, and patted his cheek with an urgent flutter of her hand. “We’ve slept late. The sun is up, and—oh dear, it must be almost ten o’clock. No one came to stir the grate or bring tea. I suppose they didn’t know what to do, since you’re—and I didn’t—”
“Wait,” he said groggily, reaching up to touch her lips with his fingers. “Too early. Too many words.”
“But it’s not early. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You should be going down to breakfast now. I’m sure Culpepper has already gone to shave you and found only an empty bedroom. This is all very mortifying. I’m not sure what to—what are you doing?”
His long arm curled around her, and he pulled her down into an embrace of heat and hardness and hairy limbs. “How bonnie you are, all tuzzled and soft wi’ sleep.”
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
“I’ve never known such a night,” he murmured, kissing her throat and cupping one of her naked breasts. “You put me to hard use, lass. ’Tis a wonder I survived.”
“You were the one who kept waking me up,” she reminded him, and gasped as she felt the scrape of his unshaven bristle against the tip of her breast.
“Poor flower,” Keir said contritely, and covered the chafed spot with his mouth. The wet velvety tug sent a shot of pleasure down to her toes. “You shouldn’t tempt me so.”
Merritt slid her fingertips lightly across his injured ribs. “Are you sore?”
“A wee bit,” he admitted, pressing light kisses to the curve of her breast. “’Tis only to be expected, after all your wildness.”
“My wildness?”
“I was ridden like a stolen horse,” he claimed, and grinned as she wiggled beneath him.
“Let me out of bed,” she exclaimed, trying not to laugh. “Your version of morning-after talk is appalling.”
Keir pinned her beneath him and settled between her thighs. “Lass, I’m a whisky distiller. If you wanted pretty words, you should have slept with a poet.”
Her eyes widened as she felt the hot, aroused length of him against her belly. “Again?”
“’Tis a persistent ailment,” he told her.
“Apparently incurable.” She slid her arms around him and kissed his shoulder. “Keir . . . we have to get out of bed. It’s so terribly late.”
He rested his head on the pillow and whispered near her ear. “How could it be late, when you’re the sunrise? There’s no morning sky or lark-song before you appear. No butterfly would dare unfold its wings. The day waits on you, my heart, just as the harvest waits the reaper.”
As Merritt considered revising her opinion of his morning-after talk, he widened the spread of her legs and nudged against her in the suggestion of a thrust. A tingling pleasurable ache began deep inside.
“Give me one more seeing-to,” he coaxed.
“Don’t start that,” she protested. “There’s no time.”
“Fifteen minutes.”
Thinking of his usual leisurely pace, she gave him a skeptical glance. “You need to shave, and wash, and dress . . .” As she squirmed beneath him, her pulse quickened and her temperature rose. It was impossible to resist the allure of a hot, hard, virile male who happened to be naked in bed with her. “Would it really take only fifteen minutes?” she asked weakly, and saw his quick grin.
“Where’s your stopwatch? You can time me.” He reached down between their bodies, and she felt the smooth head of his shaft stroke up and down between her thighs, parting her dampening flesh, while the silky-coarse hair of his chest teased her breasts, and suddenly nothing in the world mattered except having this feeling go on. She wanted his naked body forever against hers, his scent and weight, the way he flexed and moved.
Holding on to his shoulders, she gave a little satisfied moan as he began to enter her, gently working inside the pliant opening, stretching her slowly. Her senses were so occupied with him and what he was doing, she was slow to register the brisk tap at the door.
The door opened with a startling burst, and Keir reacted swiftly, pulling Merritt farther beneath him and guiding her face to his chest. A hiss of discomfort escaped him at the sudden motion.
“Merritt, darling,” she heard a familiar voice exclaim. “I know this is a surprise but—Oh.”
Blinking in bewilderment, Merritt peeked out from within Keir’s embrace. “Mama?”
