Chapter 7
Chapter seven
ELSPIT
She had wept most of the night after Ewen left her.
Her heart was broken, and it felt more broken than it had been ten years ago.
The way he had held her and loved her last night had brought to the fore everything she had once dreamed was possible between them, only to have her face rubbed in reality again.
He wanted her at his wedding. What else did he want from her? To fill his bed when his new wife wasn’t inclined?
Elspit could not be the other woman. She might love Ewen but she knew that in such circumstances she would come to despise herself, and him. There was no happiness to be had by being his dirty secret.
He must let her go.
She only hoped that once Ewen was married he would realise how unfair he was being and send her north, just as she had begged him to do. Then at least she could hide herself away and be miserable in peace.
There was a sound outside her window.
The scrape of a boot against the old stone of the tower. She stared at the window. No, it couldn’t be. No one had climbed to her room since … With a cry she ran to hang over the sill.
Dark blond hair cut short to his head, hands clinging to the niches in the stonework, his kilt swinging as he lifted one strong thigh and rammed his boot toe into a cleft between the stones.
“Ewen!” she cried, strangling it into a whisper in case he fell. “What are you doing?”
He looked up, his eyes blazing blue, and grinned. Just for a moment it was as if the past was juxtaposed with the present, the old and the new. And then his fingers slipped and for a moment he scrabbled for a grip.
Elspit pushed her own fingers into her mouth, wanting to scream. He would fall. He would never survive such a long drop. She would lose him forever this time.
But he didn’t fall. He grabbed hold of a corner and hauled himself up further, frowning now, focussed on each move upward. A moment later his hands were on the sill and he dragged himself into her room.
He lay on the floor, panting, so big and alive, the colours of his kilt brilliant in the gloom.
“You fool,” she said, her voice shaking. “You could have fallen. What did you think you were doing?”
He rolled onto his back and looked up at her. Sweat had stuck his hair to his skull and made his handsome face shiny, but nothing could dim the gleam in those eyes.
“I wanted to prove to you that I love you. That I will risk everything for you, even my life. I wanted you to know that I didn’t want to leave you ten years ago. I have regretted it every day since.”
“I know you didn’t want to leave me,” she whispered. “I have never held that against you, Ewen.”
He searched her face and then nodded in relief, as if that satisfied him. He reached up a hand, catching hers, and suddenly pulled her down. She fell across him with a soft cry, and he cupped her face, his mouth on hers in a short, hard kiss.
“Marry me,” he said. “That was what I should have said last night. What I should have said the moment you came to me in the great hall. Marry me, Elspit. The chapel is prepared; it only awaits us to make our vows.”
“But …” she began, confused.
“I was never marrying Mistress Stewart,” he sighed. “It was always going to be you.”
“Your squire Robbie … that is, the rumours—”
“Yes, I heard those same rumours,” he said with a grimace. “I heard you were marrying Lord Cameron, and that was why you were determined to go north.”
She blinked. “No,” she gasped. “I wanted to go north because you were marrying the Stewart woman.”
He groaned. “I thought you’d know it was you I wanted.”
“How could I know?” she grumbled, but there was a flush in her cheeks, and heat danced in her chest as her heart caught fire with happiness.
“Marry me?”
“And you climbed the tower to ask me that? Risked your life?” her voice broke.
“Yes, and I would do it again. I wanted to prove to you how much I love you.”
“Ewen,” she whispered, and ran her hands over his face, his scratchy jaw, his muscular neck.
“You are my man, my everything. I love you and I could not bear that you were marrying someone else. Now I know you are not,” she put her palm over his lips as he went to protest. “I will happily marry you. Yes, Ewen. Yes, please.”
He kissed her palm, and then her lips. He kept kissing her and it was some time before the knocking on their door attracted their attention.
Rosina was outside, Dugald behind her, and her lady in waiting’s eyes filled with tears when she saw the two of them.
Her voice however was as bossy as always.
“Come, my lady,” she said. “You must make ready. You are to be married, or so I hear?” She cocked her head to the side, awaiting Elspit’s answer.
“I am,” Elspit said. “I am marrying the man I love. The man I have longed for these many years.”
He grinned up at her, and climbed to his feet. “Hurry then,” he said, “I can’t wait any longer. I have already waited long enough for you, my love.”
“It’s true,” Dugald pretended to whisper. “Ten years he’s been without a woman. Take pity on him, please, Elspit.”
She laughed and then her eyes widened when they met Ewen’s and realised it wasn’t a joke. “It cannot be true,” she burst out.
“It is,” he retorted with a note of pride. “I wanted you to be the one and only woman I made love to. You have no idea how much I have learned over those ten years, how many hours I spent discussing the best way to please you with other women.”
Elspit felt her heart swell to bursting and she went into his arms, held close to against his strong body. “I was married though, Ewen. He took me to his bed. I didn’t want to, but he …”
“Hush, love. That was not your fault, I understand that. You did not have a choice. But I had a choice and I made it.”
She shook her head. “It was nothing like you and me,” she said. “I did not even know he had started, or finished. I lay there and thought of you all the time. Sometimes it’s as if it never happened.”
He stroked her hair and kissed her face. “We are beginning our lives anew now. Together. Hurry, love, and prepare yourself for our wedding.”
The service was heartfelt, and there was not a dry eye in the great hall when it was over. Then Ewen took his wife out into the castle yard and held her hand up high in his, and when he cried out, “My wife!” the cheers were deafening.
***
A month later
“Ewen,” she moaned softly. She was on her hands and knees in the walled garden, and although they were trying to be quiet on this fine summer evening, it was not easy when he knew exactly how to pleasure her.
Ewen had waited a long time to fulfil every fantasy he had about his Elspit. He may have been a virgin, but his brain was overflowing with enough knowledge to keep his wife happy for the rest of their lives.
Just now, when he had ridden in with his men at dusk, after a patrol of the surrounding district, and seen his wife kneeling in her garden, he hadn’t been able to resist. He’d sent the men on to the castle for their supper, and taken Elspit in his arms. One thing had soon led to another.
His heavy chest lay across her back, his thick thighs grasping hers, and his cock was deep inside her. Her peak was so close but he teased her, withdrawing when he felt the clench of her body around him, the hitch in her breath and other tell-tale signs he knew meant that she was about to climax.
“My one and only love.” His mouth was close to her ear, and his warm breath stirred her hair, his tongue lapping at the skin of her neck. He thrust again, deep. He always went so deep.
“I can’t believe …” she caught her breath, “that you kept yourself for me. All this time.”
“There was never another woman I wanted like you. And now that I have you, I’m making up for lost time.” He grunted, with another twist of his hips, hitting the spot that made everything inside her begin to quiver.
“How did you … know we would be … together again?”
“Every day I worked toward it. Every day I was one moment closer to you.”
Since they had wed things had been almost perfect.
Her father’s people, so mistreated by their former laird, loved Ewen, and there had been no trouble from the surrounding clans.
Hamish Campbell and his twin sons, Finlay and Callum, had gone back to his lands, while Dugald had stayed with Ewen.
Elspit suspected Dugald remained because of Rosina, but neither of them would discuss it.
Ewen’s hands cupped her breasts, fingers pulling at her hard nipples, making her whimper with pleasure. “I love you,” he huffed against her skin. “Always and forever.”
“And I you,” she whispered. “Forever and always.”
She felt him grin, and a moment later he finally reached down over her belly to the needy bud between her legs, and sent her spinning over the edge.
His thrusts became uneven, his pleasure almost too great to bear without shouting it to the skies.
Finally the ripples began to ease and he groaned and lay down on his side with Elspit tucked into him, their bodies still joined.
The scent of herbs rose around them. The gardener would be asking tomorrow why the rosemary had been so abused, but Elspit didn’t care.
She was so happy she could hardly believe it.
Ten years might have gone by but now every day she and Ewen counted their blessings.
They were married and he swore to her that never again would they be apart.
Life at Castle Tighe was good and it could only get better.