Chapter Twenty-One
“What’s troubling that stubborn Scottish head of yours?”
Adrian’s voice rumbled against Cecilia’s ear, morning light filtering pale and grey through the library windows. They lay tangled together on the carpet where they’d fallen asleep, neither having made it to an actual bed. His arm was heavy across her waist, possessive even in half-sleep.
Cecilia turned to face him, finding his black eyes already alert despite the early hour.
“You’ll have to leave soon,” she said quietly.
“Cecilia.” He caught her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Last night wasn’t some temporary madness. I meant every word I said to you.”
“Did you?”
“I have duties, yes. But you—” His thumb traced her lower lip. “You are not negotiable anymore. Understood?”
Before she could answer, someone cleared their throat from the doorway.
“Milady.” Velma’s voice carried that particular Scottish blend of disapproval and amusement. “There’s a note. Slipped under yer chamber door sometime in the night.”
Cecilia’s stomach dropped. Adrian sat up immediately, reaching for his discarded shirt whilst she fumbled for her chemise. Velma entered just far enough to extend a folded paper, her expression troubled.
“I dinnae like the look of it, milady.”
The handwriting was familiar now—that same cramped script from all the previous threats. But the message was different:
Want to know who’s been tormenting you? Come to the stables tonight at midnight. Alone.
“He’s trying to isolate you. To harm you.”
“Or it’s someone trying to expose Henry.” Cecilia’s pulse quickened despite her attempt at calm.
“By luring you to an isolated location at midnight?” His expression turned thunderous.
She lifted her chin with that stubborn pride he both loved and wanted to shake from her. “If it’s Henry setting a trap, then you can follow me and catch him in the act. If it’s genuinely someone trying to help, we learn something useful. Either way—”
“Either way, you’re not going.”
“That’s not your decision to make, Your Grace.”
The formal address landed like a slap. Adrian’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “The hell it isn’t.”
They argued through breakfast—Adrian forbidding, Cecilia refusing to be forbidden, each growing more entrenched.
At eleven that night, Cecilia made her way over to the stables.
The walk felt interminable. Every shadow seemed to hold a threat, every creak of branches overhead made her pulse spike.
Cecilia kept to the edges of the path, her breath misting in the cold air.
Above, the moon hung fat and silver, casting the stable yard in shades of grey and black that made everything look strange and unfamiliar.
The stables loomed ahead—dark, silent, wrong somehow.
No lanterns burned in their usual brackets. No sounds came from within, not even the usual shifting and stamping of horses settling for the night. The building seemed to crouch in the darkness, waiting.
Cecilia’s steps slowed as she approached the main entrance. The massive door stood slightly ajar—just enough to reveal a slice of deeper darkness within. Her instincts screamed at her to turn back, to run, but she’d come this far.
She needed answers. Needed to end this constant fear that had her looking over her shoulder in her own home.
She slipped through the gap in the door.
The interior was pitch black save for thin streams of moonlight filtering through gaps in the roof boards. The familiar smell of hay and horse and leather surrounded her, but everything felt off—too quiet, too still, like the building itself was holding its breath.
“Hello?” Her voice came out smaller than intended, swallowed by the darkness. “I received your note. I’m here. Alone, as you asked.”
Silence answered her. Thick, oppressive silence that pressed against her eardrums until they ached.
Then—behind her—the main door slammed shut with a bang that made her heart leap into her throat.
Cecilia spun, reaching for the door handle, but her fingers found only smooth wood. The handle had been removed from the inside. Trapped.
“No!” She pushed against the door, threw her weight against it, but it didn’t budge. “Let me out!”
Footsteps echoed somewhere in the darkness above her—slow, deliberate, calculated to terrify. Someone was in the hayloft. Watching her panic.
“Who’s there?” Her voice shook despite her best efforts to steady it. “Show yourself!”
A creaking sound answered—the groan of old rope under sudden tension. Cecilia looked up just as something massive shifted in the darkness above. A stack of hay bales, precariously balanced on the loft edge, teetered for one suspended heartbeat.
Then fell.
Cecilia threw herself sideways, hitting the ground hard as several hundred pounds of hay crashed down exactly where she’d been standing. Dust and chaff exploded into the air, making her cough and gag. Her hip throbbed where she’d landed, her palms scraped raw against rough floorboards.
The footsteps above moved again—faster now, more purposeful. Descending the loft ladder with unhurried certainty.
“Stay back!” Cecilia scrambled to her feet, backing toward where she hoped another door might be, her hands outstretched in the darkness. “I swear, if you touch me—”
The main door exploded inward with splintering force.
Adrian filled the doorway like an avenging angel, his face a mask of cold fury barely containing something more volatile beneath. His eyes found her immediately—scanning for injury with desperate intensity—and what she saw in his expression made her breath catch.
“He’s over there!” she cried, pointing towards where she’d heard the footsteps.
Adrian darted forward at once, into the darkness. For several minutes, she heard him searching the stables. She even heard him climb the ladder to check above, where the hay bale had fallen. When he returned, he shook his head.
“He’s gone,” he murmured. Then his eyes widened as he took in the way she was clutching her hip. “You’re hurt.” He was at her side in three strides, hands running over her arms, her shoulders, checking for injury with barely controlled desperation. “Did he touch you? Did he—”
“Just scraped palms. Bruised pride.” She tried for a smile that wobbled dangerously. “You followed me.”
“Of course I bloody followed you.” The words came out harsh, shaking.
“Did you think for one moment I’d let you walk into an obvious trap alone?
Did you honestly believe—” He stopped, breathing hard, then pulled her against his chest with enough force to drive the air from her lungs. “You could have died, Cecilia!”
“That’s a wee bit dramatic.” She wrapped her arms around him, feeling the tremor running through his frame. “And you came. Just as I knew you would.”
“Don’t.” He pulled back just enough to grip her face between his hands, his touch almost bruising. “Don’t make this sound like some clever plan. You terrified me, Cecilia.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“No.” His thumb pressed against her lips, silencing her. “You’re going to promise me. Right now. No more secrets. No more running headlong into danger without telling me everything. No more—”
She kissed him.
Desperate, grateful, still shaking with adrenaline and fear and relief. He made a sound low in his throat—something between a groan and a growl—and kissed her back with bruising intensity, weeks of terror and love and fury pouring into the press of his mouth against hers.
“Promise me.” He broke the kiss only to trail his lips along her jaw, her throat, breathing the words against her skin like prayer. “Swear it, Cecilia.”
“I promise.” The words came out breathless, her fingers fisting in his coat. “No more secrets. No more hiding. I swear it.”
“Good.” His hands found the fastening of her cloak, fumbling it open with shaking fingers. “Because I’m going to make certain you understand exactly what you mean to me. Exactly how much I ache for you.”
His hands were already pushing the cloak from her shoulders, already pulling her toward a pile of clean hay in the corner—away from the fallen bales, away from danger, into shadows that felt suddenly safe.
“Here?” She glanced around the dark stable, heart still hammering. “Now?”
“Yes.” He backed her toward the hay with controlled urgency, his body covering hers, shielding her from everything. “Right here. Right now.”
He bore her down into the hay with hands that shook—from fear or desire or both, she couldn’t tell. His mouth found hers again, hungry and possessive, whilst his hands mapped her body through her gown with desperate thoroughness.
“Adrian…” She gasped as his lips found the pulse point at her throat.
“Say it.” His teeth scraped against her skin.
“Yours.” The word escaped before she could stop it. “I’m yours, Adrian. Always.”
He captured her mouth in a possessive kiss, his hands finding the fastenings of her gown with single-minded purpose.
Cool air hit her skin as he peeled the fabric away, but Adrian’s hands were there immediately—warm, reverent. When his mouth followed the path of his hands, trailing kisses down her throat, Cecilia arched into him with a sound she’d never made before.
“You have no idea what you do to me.” His voice had gone guttural, stripped of refinement. “How much I want to devour every inch of you.”
His mouth descended on her breast through the chemise—no gentleness now, just raw hunger. Teeth scraped fabric and flesh both, making her cry out and arch off the hay. When his hand gripped her thigh hard enough to leave marks, Cecilia welcomed the bite of it, the proof that this was real.
“Please—” She was shaking, desperate, clawing at his shoulders. “Adrian, please, I need—”
“What?” He bit down on the curve of her breast, soothing it with his tongue before moving lower, dragging her chemise up with rough hands. “Use your words, wife.”
“You. Inside me. Now.” The demand came out fierce, shameless. “Stop making me wait.”
His laugh was dark, pleased. “There’s my brave Scottish lass.”
He rid himself of coat and shirt with shaking hands, returning to her with single-minded intensity. When he positioned himself between her thighs, letting her feel the hard evidence of his desire. Cecilia rolled her hips instinctively, seeking friction, seeking more.
“You drive me wild, Cecilia.” His voice had gone guttural, control fraying at the edges. “The way you move, the sounds you make—”
She gasped as the head of his manhood finally pressed against her folds, finding her wet and wanting.
Adrian pressed forward in one hard thrust, and Cecilia dug her nails into his shoulders, pulling him deeper. “Oh God… yes!”
“That’s it.” His voice was rough velvet against her ear. “Take what you need. Take all of me.”
She did. Moving with him, learning the rhythm he needed, the angle that made him groan her name like blasphemy. And when he whispered filthy praise against her throat—telling her how perfect she felt, how tight, how made for him—Cecilia shattered with a cry that echoed off the rafters.
He drove into her harder now, the act becoming something raw and primal. Cecilia met him thrust for thrust with fierce demands of her own. When his hand fisted in her hair, pulling her head back to expose her throat, she dug her nails into his back hard enough to draw blood.
Adrian broke entirely, her name torn from his throat whilst she convulsed around him, pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain.
When the world stopped spinning, he collapsed half atop her, both of them gasping for air. The hay pricked her back. Her thighs ached. She’d never felt more alive.
He lifted his head, meeting her gaze with such raw honesty it made her throat tight. “I love you, Cecilia. I love you more than pride, more than reason, more than the careful control I’ve spent years perfecting. You’ve completely and entirely undone me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I love you too.” The words felt inevitable, like breathing. “Even when you’re being an insufferably controlling arse.”
A huff of laughter escaped him—surprised and genuine. “Noted.”
Outside, the moon sailed higher, casting silver light through the gaps in the stable roof. Somewhere out there in the darkness, danger still lurked. Henry plotted his next move. Threats remained unanswered.
But wrapped in Adrian’s arms with his heart beating steady against her ribs, Cecilia allowed herself to believe that perhaps—just perhaps—they could face whatever came next.
Together.