Chapter 19
Laird MacNair was a formidable father-in-law to gain through marriage. The livid scar etched on one side of his face made it seem as if he was permanently scowling.
Like faither, like son. They are so similar in many ways, but I can see a lot of Lady Meria in Calvin as well.
Lady Meria was still the adventurous young lass at heart, the same girl who had ridden off to MacTavish Castle with only a bridal gown in a trunk to keep her warm in the treacherous Highland mountains. She had much to say to Ada about Lachlan.
“It is so funny, Ada! Lachlan was named ‘Wee Willie’ after his uncle William Fearguson. But when William married our weaver an’ came to be a blacksmith at MacNair Castle and Lachlan grew up, he neither wanted to be called Wee Willie nor William, for obvious reasons; it would have led to such complications.
And now we discover ye like to call our son ‘Cal,’ which makes me laugh even harder! ”
Ada wanted to know why.
Lady Meria gurgled with laughter. “Because that is what I call Laird MacNair. His name is Callum, after all, an’ we had no’ kent each other for more than a few days when I began callin’ him Cal.
I think I must have already been in love with him.
There is something significant in giving a man a private name that only ye call him that brings ye both closer together, don’ ye agree? ”
The two women laughed together.
“I got his name wrong when we first met,” Ada confessed. “I thought his clan name was Calvin, an’ then I just came around to thinking about him like that. He will always be Calvin to me, but ye may keep yer ‘Cal’ if ye like, Lady Meria.”
The pretty red-haired woman laughed again. “Nay, I ken ye’ll be callin’ me son ‘Cal’ in yer own home, Ada, which is how it should be. Ye are nae goin’ to be livin’ at MacNair Castle when all is said an’ done.”
This was true. Laird Calvin had been shattered by the revelations about the poisonings.
“I ken I’m too auld for this lairdship nonsense anymore, Calvin,” he told his grandson.
Laird Calvin was all too happy to begin calling his grandson Calvin.
“I should have kept a tighter rein on things goin’ on around me.
Now it’s time I step aside an’ let ye rule.
I can go off an’ enjoy what’s left of me life in comfort.
I dinnae want to end up like poor Eustace the Scrivener, totterin’ off me chair in the middle o’ me dinner with naught to flash through me mind except a lifetime o’ work. ”
Lady Meria gave her father a hug. Daughter and father had grown very close since he had given Meria his blessing to marry her rogue warrior. She had provided Laird Calvin with a nice lot of grandchildren to dote on, and now it was time for great-grandchildren to assure the Calvin legacy.
“Ye must come an’ live with us at the castle, Faither. Let Lachlan—I mean, let Calvin—take over the running o’ the Castle for ye.”
And so it was that while the MacNair clan fussed over the forthcoming nuptials, the new Laird Calvin set about capturing the merchant and his wench.
This necessitated many days of riding in the dreich, following every rumor and tidbit of information that came in about the couple.
Gerard Hanson was sitting in the prison cellar in the same room as Eustace Maclaren’s body had lain.
He was treated well enough for a prisoner but not so well that he did not have time to reflect on his interference.
Lachlan was seated inside an Inverness tavern. His hunt had taken him this far, his logic being that the two murderers would think Inverness and Edinburgh the easiest places to hide.
Lachlan had told his soldiers, “They are heedless—a stranger newly come to town stands out just as easily in Inverness as they do in a tiny hamlet. All we have to do is wait. The reward money is too tempting.”
He spoke the truth. A small boy came running into the tavern a few bell tolls later with the news that a wealthy individual was looking to purchase a house on the estate just south of Farmer MacDougal’s land, and aye, he had a young girl with him, throwing her weight around and telling everyone she was the man’s wife.
A pouch of gold sovereigns was given to the small boy’s mother later that day when Alasdair Farquharson and Heather Hanson were captured by the Calvin soldiers.
Heather had screamed and tried to claw the guards’ eyes out, but Alasdair Farquharson had wept and pleaded for the rope instead of the oil.
“There is nay way I will allow that poisonous pair to ruin our weddin’ day!” Lachlan had told Ada when he finally returned to the Castle.
She kissed him passionately. “Nor will it spoil our beddan…”
Lady Meria had wept when her eldest son had pledged his vows to the healer’s daughter. The feast was not as large as it might have been—the food shortage was still being felt by the Calvin clan—but it was no less merry for it. There was much dancing because the menfolk had nothing else to do.
“When is this fouterin’ shortage o’ whiskey an’ ale goin’ to end?” many men were heard to mutter to one another.
“Awa’ wi’ ye, lad!” Father Williams shouted, raising his glass of water into the air. “Ye dinnae need whiskey to toast a happy life!”
Lachlan and Ada sneaked away in the middle of the festivities.
There was no better place to capture their attention than the large bedchamber where the laird and his wife would spend at least one-third of their married life together.
When he closed the door behind him and turned around, Ada was already shaking herself out of her wedding gown.
It was a divinely pretty overgown of red velvet, and the color enhanced the long sheaf of fiery hair falling down to the back of her knees.
“Make sure the bolt is shot,” Ada ordered her husband. “I’ll no’ run the chance o’ Mither comin’ in to give me one last word o’ warning about how to keep a husband charmed an’ enslaved by placin’ a bundle o’ herbs under the mattress an’ other helpful tips.”
Lachlan cocked an eyebrow at her. “I thought ye believed in all that stuff, love potions and whatnot?”
Ada let her gown drop to the floor. “I don’ need a love potion to ensnare me husband with me charms, Cal.”
He was stunned. Ada was standing in the middle of the room, and somehow she looked more beautiful than the time he had watched her in the washroom.
The fine gauze shift she had on left nothing to the imagination; he could see much more than the outline of her body through the transparent lawn material, but it was the look on her face that had changed the most. She no longer bothered to hide the raw yearning in her eyes.
“I have wanted this for so long, Cal,” she whispered, beckoning him to come to her. “My body aches for yer touch and hard kisses. Will ye give them to me?”
She did not have to ask him twice. In one stride, he was by her side, picking her up in his arms and laying her down on the bed.
“Stay right where ye are, Wife,” he growled. “I’ll be with ye in a moment.”
She laughed. “Cal, when have I ever been the sort o’ girl to obey ye?”
But she did as he ordered, sitting in the middle of the mattress. She enjoyed watching him undress; it did not take long. It had been one of those hot summer days when all that was needed to wear was a light woolen plaid and a linen shirt.
He sat on the edge of the bed, untying his boots. “How about we have a race to see which one o’ us gets naked first?” he suggested. “If I win, ye must do as I say, an’ if ye win, ye can tell me what to do for one night an’ one night only.”
“I like those odds!” Ada said, ripping the shift gown off as fast as she could. “I win! Hurrah! I won!”
He shook his head. His shirt was already lying on the floorboards, and he was removing his belt. “Ye forgot yer stockings and garters.”
Ada was too fascinated to complain. As her husband said those last words, he let his plaid drop. All she could do was kneel on the mattress and bid him to come hither.
“In this instance, Calvin, I am happy to do whatever ye want.”
“Very well,” he said. “Ye can leave those little stockings of yers on for starters. I like the way they make yer legs look.”
He climbed onto the mattress, and she nearly fainted with excitement as he came closer.
“I ken it’s the second time we have been naked together, Cal, but there is something wonderful about no’ havin’ to stop this time.”
They kissed, small nibbles as if they were tasting each other for the first time, then the kisses became deeper as their longing increased in intensity.
Ada put out her hand to touch him, and when she felt his reaction, it only made her want him inside her even more.
How could making love have the ability to make her feel this ecstatically powerful?
She did not know what she was doing, but she was compelled to do it nonetheless.
She wanted to taste every part of his body.
The masculine scent she remembered from when she had lain on his bed the first time still had the power to leave her panting, eager to have him inside her.
But he was in charge and would not let it end too soon.
“But I want ye,” she moaned, clutching at his back with her fingers. “I want ye to make me yer wife in every way ye can, Cal…”
He moved his mouth down to her breasts, teasing the peaks into hard nubs. With every lick of his tongue, Ada felt that special place between her thighs jump as if it had been sparked by a bolt of lightning. The jolt happened every time he touched her, and soon her body was aflame for fulfillment.
“I cannae take much more o’ this,” she warned him, reaching down to her pulsing mound so that she could pleasure herself and ease her passion.
But he was having none of that. Her husband took hold of her wrists and held them above her head.
“As much as I love to hear ye beg, sweet wife,” he growled, “I need ye to open up for me a wee bit more. I dinnae wish to hurt ye.”
His hand ran down her breast and stomach, traced the outline of her hips, and then delved into the hot cleft of her thighs.
Ada gave a small scream. It was so good when he played with her like that.
No words could describe the impulse she had to reach her peak of excitement.
It was as if he could read her mind. He removed his hand and kissed her.
“Are ye ready for me? Tell me how much ye want this.”
He was teasing her unmercifully, but Ada would have said and done anything to be able to feel him inside her.
“I am so ready and willing, Husband, an’ I think I will die if ye don’ take me right now.”
He kneeled in between her knees, which made Ada almost faint from the passion surging up inside her.
She was as open as a blooming flower and received him with both pleasure and pain.
The discomfort was real, but the excitement was far more.
It only took a few slow thrusts for Ada to feel the raging heights of culmination flood over her body.
She shuddered and clutched at his back, too overwhelmed with the intensity of her own climax to pay much attention to her husband’s.
He watched her as he released into her, taking as much pleasure from her face as he did from her warm mound and the tight sheath hidden within it.
The bell tolled four times as they lay panting beside one another. Ada was lying contentedly in her husband’s arms.
“Is it only four bells after the noon? Why, we have the entire night ahead o’ us, Cal! How delightful!”
It was a remark that was guaranteed to make her husband clasp her tightly to his chest and say, “Aye lass, ye’re right. Ye need no herb charms or love potions to make me love ye more an’ more with every passin’ moment.”