The Other Highland Laird

‘Robert accosted me when I was almost at Bothwell, and told me you were in a dungeon and that all I had been told about your win against your father was a lie!’

‘I trusted Wallace, little knowing he was on Robert’s side.’

‘Lainie was an unwilling participant in that whole charade,’ Marion replied. ‘Oh Brice, am I dreaming? Will I wake up and find you not here?’

He kissed her again. ‘Now tell me if that felt real.’

Marion laughed, and lady Buchane’s heart lifted at the sound of her daughter’s mirth – a sound she hadn’t heard for so long.

‘How did you leave Bothwell and come here?’ Marion asked.

‘Because I had to find you myself. I couldn’t trust that job to anyone else.’

‘And what if Bothwell has been retaken by Robert…or your father while you are gone?’

‘They are both far away. Robert is in France where his heart has always been and my father is here in England with William. And I am here only to turn around and return to Scotland – but not without you.’

‘She shall wear the gown I wore for my wedding,’ Lady Buchane said, coming out of the shadows where she had retreated to listen to them from a discreet distance.

CHAPTER VIII

There was a sense of urgency during the nuptials – a desire for the ceremony to be done with and for their life together to begin. Brice and Marion endured the rituals that took place before select members of Marion’s family, before they began the long journey back to Scotland.

They spent their first night together in the lavish room that Brice had had prepared for his bride, surrounded by exquisite drapes and tapestries, and carefully chosen furnishings. For Marion however, there was nothing in the room besides Brice, and once the sparks of nervous tension were stilled, Marion could react to the rapid pounding of her heart. Their union       was like the moment when the sun kisses the moors – when the heather trembles beneath the morning breeze, blissfully warmed by the first of the sun’s rays, and then begins to dance as a cloud rapturously drenches the hillsides; It was like a golden eagle winging up towards the heavens and then swooping down again, spiraling in an ecstatic dance with nature. Marion was swept up in Brice’s eyes, his lips, the glorious play of his fingertips on her burning skin; his rough jaw on her breast, his tongue creating ripples of desire as it took her body to new heights of ecstatic fulfillment. As her gown fell away in a swirl of lace, and her garments were eased from her body, Marion fell into Brice, in the most perfect of all union      s; their bodies now entwined, now apart, now cleaving to each other again, now rising towards a climax and then floating…gently floating…like a sun warmed leaf from a tree shuddering beneath the onslaught of the most violent, yet the sweetest of storms. And so they lay, clasped to each other, and life was new again.

Xxx