Epilogue
Gordain
With excitement holding me tight in its grip, I trundled our car along the road, going slow to drag out the suspense, breathless with anticipation of what was to come.
We eased around the corner.
Castle Braithar shone ahead, beautiful and lit by sunlight.
Ella gave a yip of happiness. In the past year of waiting for legal work and for Lachlan to finally move out, we’d visited often, but this was different.
Today, the place was ours.
I sped the remaining distance, and we almost fell from the car, rounding the bonnet to clutch hold of each other.
“We did it! We’re home!” Ella cried.
I lifted her in my arms, bride-style. Just like I’d done at the hotel room after our wedding. Just like I’d done the day my leg cast came off and we’d returned from the hospital to Belvedere.
We’d stayed at Castle McRae periodically, when needing to be in the Highlands, but the last couple of months we’d been at the Peak District. I’d miss living there and seeing James, Beth, and Sebastian every day, but nothing could beat being back in the mountains.
Owning the place I’d dreamed about as a boy.
“You made my wish come true.” I kissed Ella’s cheek and carried her over the threshold. My kilt flapped against my legs—it had been a symbolic choice, wearing McRae tartan the day I took ownership of a McRae castle, but I liked the freedom.
And how my wife eyed me when I put it on.
I’d wear it often.
“You are my dream come true,” she returned. “I guess that makes us even.”
Inside the airy and bright great hall, I clung on to her for a moment longer. “This is it for me. My life is complete.” Then I kissed her. “Happy birthday, love.”
Ella turned twenty today. In a few days, we were throwing a big moving in and birthday party. Then we’d start on changing the place to suit us. Adding a recording studio. Putting up housing for a heli I’d keep on site.
The commute to work had never looked better.
“Hello!” Ella called out, her voice echoing to the rafters. “Is anyone here?”
We knew Lachlan and Marianne had already left and, though they kept a housekeeper and several groundskeepers who we’d employ, all had the week off.
No returning shouts came.
Ella slid out of my arms and walked backwards, her gaze claiming mine. “When we first came here, I sat at the dining table and watched you. I admired your strong forearms, your easy manner in this home.”
I stalked her. “Aye.”
“Do you know what I wanted to do?” She entered the dining room then hopped up onto the table.
“Likely something tamer than what I’m about to do to ye now.”
Kicking the door closed behind me, I stepped between her legs, pushing them wide around me.
Ella hooked her finger in my waistband. “I didn’t even have the imagination for it. But now I do.”
In easy movements, she lifted the kilt, freeing my already hard cock.
I slid my hands up her thighs, pushing her summer dress out of the way. “Fuck. No underwear?”
She lay back, baring herself. “What was the point? I’d only have lost them now.”
“True.” I dropped to my knees and buried my face in the apex of her thighs, having her shouting in minutes before I reared up and plunged deep inside her.
“Gonna fuck you in every room,” I managed, tipping my head back, the sensation so great. It always was between us.
Except here, at home, this was something new.
“Plan.” Ella pushed up on her elbows and exhaled hard. “Pick me up.”
“Huh?”
“Up!”
I complied, and she giggled as she adjusted herself, her legs tight around my waist and my cock hard inside her.
She blew a lock of hair from her eyes. “Where next? The great hall? Let’s go.”
“Do you know how many rooms this place has?”
Carrying her, I left the dining room but walked down a private hallway to a study, my need to fuck impeding my ability to move fast. There, I placed her on a leather couch and climbed on top, working myself in a nice slide. “We’ll get through them, but right now? Hold on tight.”
Ella’s laughs soon turned to moans, and I joined her, shouting my happiness to our new castle home.
Afew bliss-filled days later, Callum paid us a visit, Wasp at his side. In the last year, the twins had taken different paths, their adult lives separating them more and more. Wasp had gone to university in Edinburgh, while Ally stayed at the castle, working for Callum.
Both men hugged me.
“How are you settling in? We’ve gave ye some time, but you know the hordes are about to descend.” Callum planted his hands on his hips and gazed around the great hall, his typical stern expression in place.
We’d created a stir, Ella and I, and our party on the weekend was now an open invite, the villagers and estate folk for miles around notified.
Lachlan had often thrown large parties here. Ella and I planned to do the same.
Wasp spied my wife across the hall. “Gotta chat with Els. See ye later.” He darted over, and they disappeared out of the hall.
“Life is grand.” I raised my eyebrows at my brother. “It’s good to be home.”
“Aye, I imagine. This place always was more of a home to you.” He paused and stared at me. “Ye should have been laird. I’ve been thinking about it more and more over the last year. Now Lachlan is gone and I’m chief, I’m going to hand the title of Laird of McRae to ye.”
My jaw dropped. “Don’t joke.”
“When have ye ever known me to joke?” He reared back, outraged. “We’ll announce it at your party, unless you’d prefer not to.”
Laird. I’d be Laird Gordain McRae. The title Da used to taunt me with.
“I don’t know how to feel about it.”
Callum palmed my shoulder. “I know, but I’m fixing a wrong. It’s in my gift to name you my heir and pass it on. Ye can use it or not. It’s your choice.”
Our bearhug followed naturally.
Emotion swallowed me whole. “I can almost hear Da’s horror from here.”
“Aye, so stick it to him. Let the fucker see how happy ye are.” Callum thumped my shoulders and released me.
Not even I could see the extent of that. It was all encompassing.
Ella
Wasp leaned a solid shoulder against the doorframe of my makeshift recording studio.
Always the quieter of the twins, it was strange seeing him without Ally.
His twin spoke first, always. Wasp saw life through his camera.
He seemed to pace himself, taking the measure of an idea before he acted on it.
It had served him well at university, and he’d won awards for his landscape shots of the Highlands. But it didn’t work quite so well when he had something specific to say.
Like now.
He’d made a couple of enquiries about the party, and I knew he was leading up to something.
“Would it be easier if I guess your next question, or are you going to tell me yourself?” I cocked an eyebrow at him.
He pursed his lips but didn’t speak. Carrying muscle tone like Gordain’s, and the same height now at six-three, he wore a stubborn set to his jaw that was all Callum.
“Is it about the catering?”
He shook his head, a little smile blossoming.
I swiped imaginary dust off my violin stand. “Maybe you’d care to check out the guest list?”
Wasp exhaled, losing his humour. “Aye, I’ll take a peek.”
“I’ll save you the trouble. Taylor’s coming. She’ll be late, though. She’ll miss the ceremony.” The secret ceremony that Gordain didn’t know about.
Wasp’s eyes flared, but he didn’t say anything more.
Whatever had happened between Taylor and Wasp, I’d never forgotten the despair in her voice as she’d told me how she wished she could fall in love with someone like him.
But that was impossible. My gorgeous, quiet brother-in-law was a year younger than her and had nothing to his name.
Taylor’s father was advancing his bid for the political seat he coveted.
After the debacle with my brother, he’d told her outright that she had to stay single and professional, or marry a high-profile American citizen. One of his choosing.
They had no chance.
“Dinna think too much about it, Els. I’m only asking.” Wasp shook off his serious look and summoned a smirk. “Now, everything is planned and underway. All ye need to do is make sure Gordain leaves for Castle McRae at the right time. We’ll do the rest.”
Before the party, with just our closest friends and family attending, I had a certain gift to give Gordain. I hadn’t forgotten my promise to get him his own ring, and I’d had one made out of a piece of gold mined in Scotland.
We’d missed out on having a wedding like our brothers had had, with promises made before our loved ones, so it was time we did it right.
And if the McRae brothers had plans for Gordain ahead of that, that was nothing to do with me.
An hour before the secret ceremony, Gordain lay on our bed in his now-familiar kilt.
Skye sat on his chest, and Lennox and Sebastian jumped around him.
Babies no more, the three toddlers were a little gang, as cute as they were devious.
At eighteen months old, Sebastian could run.
The moment Lennox had seen him do it, he’d needed to keep up, an infant rivalry in the making.
“Gee Gee. Fly!” Skye commanded her uncle, and he picked her up and flew her over his head, making helicopter noises while she squealed in delight.
I loved this. I loved our life, our families, and our happiness. “I love you,” I said softly to him.
“Love you,” Skye repeated.
“You you!” the boys crowed and descended into fits of laughter.
Gordain’s phone buzzed on the bedside table. “I’m not getting that.” He kept up his game with the babies.
I feigned worry. “What if it’s important? I don’t want anything to go wrong today. Please check it.”
Kissing Skye on the nose, Gordain swung his legs off the bed and collected his phone. He frowned at the screen, reading.
“Oh, for fu— I mean, for heck’s sake.”
“Problem?”
“Aye. I need to head over to see Callum. The new boiler exploded, and he needs another pair of hands to help fix it. I swear I won’t be long.”
“There’s plenty of time. I hope everything is okay.” I offered my cheek, earning a kiss as he passed, then my husband was gone.
And I had a ceremony to prepare.
Gordain