Chapter Twenty-Nine

Twenty-nine

S ebastian stood over her, shirtless, his legs braced apart and one eye narrowed down the long black barrel of the pistol.

Prudence threw up her hands. "Don't shoot me. I'll never cook again. I swear it."

Sebastian's smoldering gaze raked her from head to toe. She rested on her elbows, her night rail dipped between splayed knees. Her unbound hair tumbled down her back in soft disarray. He slowly lowered the weapon, although his ragged breathing did not steady as he had hoped.

Sheepishly, he offered her a hand.

She accepted it, her hand as cool and trembling as a captive bird in his palm. He laced his fingers through hers and drew her up. She glanced at the worn blanket laid over the hard stones at the foot of the stairs.

"This is where you sleep?" she asked.

"Aye. What of it?" he said brusquely. A light flush burned his cheekbones as he laid the pistol next to a wicked-looking dirk and a blunt-ended cudgel.

Prudence swallowed hard. "What were you going to do? Bludgeon me if I tried to escape?"

He frowned at her. "Just where were you going in such haste? You looked as if a banshee was wailing at your heels."

It was Prudence's turn to look sheepish. Away from the heart of the storm, the thunder faded to an angry rumble, and the rain tapered to a peaceful beat against the wooden door. Surrounded by the soft flicker of firelight, with Sebastian's muscular presence so near, she saw her terror as only a childish fright. How could she tell him she had been fleeing a fanciful apparition of his own father?

"I wanted a drink of water," she said defiantly.

"Indeed." He lifted an eyebrow. "You could have opened your window and caught a bucket of it if you so desired."

She looked away to escape his mocking gaze. The remnants of her ruined feast were gone. The floor had been swept clean of broken shards; the cranberry satin was draped neatly over the back of a chair.

"Wouldn't you be more comfortable sleeping by the fire?" she asked.

Sebastian opened his mouth to tell her where he'd be most comfortable sleeping, but closed it again.

He sank down on the third step and ran a hand through his hair. "And if D'Artan's men should come while I'm ‘comfortable'? We Scots learned long ago that comfortable men get their throats slit while they sleep."

Prudence's brow puckered. So Sebastian had lain here each night, wrapped in a coarse blanket on the cold stone floor, a one-man arsenal stretched across the bottom of the stairs, while she'd nestled on her heather pillow like a princess. The realization gave her a queer feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She sank down beside him in the shadow of the stairs, close enough for their thighs to brush. As they listened to the patter of the rain, the storm wrapped them in a cozy web of intimacy. Prudence realized this was the first time they had been utterly alone. There was no Old Fish sneering down his nose at them, no bandits snoring in the courtyard, no Jamie to pop out of the wainscoting. She felt like a child left alone at home to bounce on the feather mattresses.

"Do you think D'Artan's men will come?" she asked.

"They might. If our portrait of domestic bliss isn't convincing enough."

"They wouldn't have found it very convincing tonight." There was no reproach in her voice, only a musical humor that made Sebastian ache to reach out to her.

He took her hand in his. The shock of his warm fingers against her skin sent a tremor through Prudence.

He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. "Have you come to tell me I behaved like a barbarous Highlander?"

She laughed lightly, trying to hide the shattering effect his touch had on her. "I preferred the barbarous Highlander to the brooding Scot. At least you looked at me instead of through me."

He was looking at her now, though shadows veiled his expression. "Oh, I look at you." He unfolded her hand and brought it to his lips. With each breath, he pressed a tender kiss to her tingling palm. "I look at you every night while you sleep. With your long legs tangled in the blankets, your lips parted, your face flushed like a babe's." He rubbed his nose against the very calluses he had denounced earlier that night.

Prudence pressed her eyes shut, stirred again by the power of words not printed on a page, but whispered in a husky burr as soft as morning mist against her skin. They sang like a hymn through her lonely soul.

"You could sleep with me." She blurted out the words before she realized she was going to say them. A slow heat burned in her cheeks. She drew her hand from his grasp, knotting it into a protective fist, unable to bear his steady scrutiny. "I am your wife. At least for now. I'm not oblivious to the fact that husbands have certain…needs," she finished lamely.

Sebastian rose and paced to the hearth. She closed her eyes again, then opened them, fortified by the overwhelming need to say what she must, even if it came out all wrong. Even if he laughed.

He spread his palms against the stones of the hearth and braced his weight against them. "I fear it's not as simple as your father's books or Tricia's lurid lectures," he said, a desperate humor tinging his words. "We've already taken one too many chances. Most judges would have difficulty believing your marriage unconsummated if you waddled into the courtroom plump with some thieving Scot's babe."

"You once told me you knew of ways to prevent that," she whispered.

He pivoted slowly, his eyes wide with fearful wonder. "Do you know what you're saying, Prudence?"

She leaned her elbows on the step behind her and parted her knees, fully aware of the provocative way her night rail clung to the curves and hollows of her body. "What's wrong, Sebastian? Would making love to your own wife be too tame for a rogue like you?"

Sebastian's mouth went dry and his palms wet. Could this enticing creature with the throaty purr be his shy, demure Prudence? He drifted toward her like a sleepwalker dazed by a brilliant light. Surely at any moment he would roll over on his pistol and be jolted awake, finding himself alone and shivering on the cold, hard floor. He reached for her, expecting her to melt at his touch. His fingers closed like a golden bracelet around her slim ankle, and he cherished the substance of the delicate bone beneath. She shuddered at his touch.

His shadow covered her on the stairs. "I've never made love to a wife before. At least not one that was mine."

His mouth brushed hers, and Prudence moaned. Why did he have to be so beautiful? Words that would have sounded crass from any other man emerged from his sculpted lips like scripture from the mouth of a fallen angel.

Her palms kneaded his chest with kittenish delight. "I thought you didn't want me," she whispered.

Her shy confession sent an arrow of shame deep into Sebastian's heart. He should have realized how Prudence would misconstrue his silences, his brooding tensions. She'd had years of Tricia's diligent tutoring to assure her no man would want her. If only he had a lifetime to prove her wrong! But all he might have was tonight.

He buried his hands in the rich velvet of her hair. "I thought I'd die for wanting you."

A shuddering sigh escaped her. Her thumbs stroked his hardened nipples, then swept lower, tracing the line of tawny hair to the waistband of his breeches. He gazed at the shimmering crown of her head, bewitched by her sweetness, her generosity, the helpless murmurs of need that caught at the back of her throat. As her seeking lips flowered against his belly, he caught her hand and pressed it hard to the cradle of his thighs.

He tilted her face to his and gazed deep into her eyes. "Let me be a part of you."

His hoarse plea sent a shiver of longing through Prudence. He would always be a part of her. She knew that now. If MacKay came tomorrow and Sebastian sent her away forever, he would still be as much a part of her as the whisper of her own breath or the swing of her hair against her shoulders. She would never marry another man. She couldn't settle for an empty shell of what she knew love could be.

She adored Sebastian. She had adored him from the first. Even as she blushed at the swollen heat of his arousal against her palm, she knew neither shyness nor pride would stop her from proving it tonight.

He caressed her temple with his lips. "You've nothing to be ashamed of, lass. Before both God and the law, I'm your husband."

His gaze sought out the shadows at the top of the stairs, then he turned. She trembled with relief as he led her across the hall to the warmth of the hearth. Neither of them was quite prepared to face the ghosts of the tower. He spread out his own blankets, then laid across them the length of cranberry satin. Prudence sank to her knees in the shimmering pool.

As Sebastian drew off his breeches, the leaping flames bathed his skin in bronze. She had never seen him look quite so shy. Here in the ruins of his boyhood, he was stripped of all the masks he'd spent his life crafting. He was neither highwayman nor gentleman nor rogue. He was only a man, rendered both potent and vulnerable by his blatant need for her.

And for tonight—he was her man. As he lowered his body to her own, she reached for him, drank of him, hungered to draw him deep inside her. Her fingers trailed the throbbing length of him like cool ribbons of silk.

Sebastian was helpless to resist her whimpered pleas. All of his determination to go slow, to seek her pleasure before his own, melted as her slender thighs fell apart in dark and feminine invitation, tempting him to tumble her with no more grace than a green lad faced with the shattering miracle of his first woman. He pushed her night rail up with shaking hands.

"You're so damned pretty." His guttural words were both prayer and confession as he reached for her breasts beneath the night rail and entered her, plundering her sleek core with his savage heat.

Sebastian's possession of her was a storm all its own—a magical thunder and lightning roaring out of control. Tonight Prudence would ride the storm, unfettered by shame or fear of the future. She would draw its wildness into her without trying to trap or tame. Her hips moved in rhythm to his, sheathing him deep in the most loving, most private corner of her life, as she was lost completely in the miracle of holding him inside her. She dared to run her hands down his back, savoring the way his muscles bunched, his body tautened, as his thrusts deepened and quickened. Her moans were lost in the rumble of his thunder.

Sebastian felt his pleasure building to intolerable levels too quickly. Some rational part of his mind hesitated, knowing what he was about to do wasn't as safe as he had promised. But it was too late to stop. So little he had done in his life had been free of the stain of guilt. Why should loving Prudence be any different? A gleeful voice in his head urged him to stay deep inside her, to spill his seed in her and bind her forever with his child. But a child had not bound his mother. The sun had caressed the curve of her swollen belly as she stepped off that ledge and disappeared from his life forever.

With a hoarse cry of agony and pleasure, he shoved himself away from Prudence. She reached for him as he collapsed against her, her fragrant strands of hair catching like silken chains on his lips.

Sebastian propped himself on one elbow and watched Prudence sleep. She lay half on her stomach, the lithe curve of her back pressed to his belly, her hands folded like wings beneath her chin. Even in sleep she was irresistible.

He reached around and drew her hair away from her face. A light flush bathed her cheekbones. Dark lashes fanned against the faint shadows beneath her eyes. Lips still full from his kisses were parted against the blankets.

She slept the enchanted sleep of a woman sated and exhausted by lovemaking. His body gave a wicked stir at the thought. His greediness was an untamed beast when it came to her. He pressed himself to the warm, unsuspecting curves of her rump, savoring a moment of selfish pleasure. She stirred, moaning softly. Was she dreaming of him? He wished he could possess her thoughts, her dreams, all of her. But for now he would have to settle for what was within reach.

Like the natural born thief he was, he came at her from behind, touching and exploring until she began to make small noises deep in her throat. With a delicacy he had never used picking pockets or slipping rings from ladies' fingers, he eased himself into her. Being a thief had never held such joy. This gem was more precious than any he had stolen—succulent and infinitely sweeter. He lay still for a long moment, bathed in the miracle of her quivering warmth. Her fingers kneaded the blanket. She arched against him with a muted whimper.

He pressed his lips to her ear. "Hush, lass," he whispered. "'Tis only the Dreadful Scot Bandit Kirkpatrick ravishin' ye."

He held himself in check with a control he would have once thought impossible. Reaching around her, he tenderly stroked her until her body was racked with delicate shudders. A tremendous sigh escaped him as he withdrew. He hoped she would awaken wondering if this was real or yet another bewitching dream.

As the deepening chill of the hall sank into his fuzzy brain, he tucked a blanket around her shoulders. With Tricia, he had used any excuse to bolt after their practiced liaisons. The thought of leaving Prudence was like a hand clawing at his heart.

He half hoped MacKay would be denied his pardon. Then he would have an excuse for keeping her at Dunkirk. But without a pardon, what kind of life could he offer her? His face was plastered all over Edinburgh and Glasgow. There was nowhere they could run, nowhere to hide. Even burrowed in the wilderness of Strathnaver, it was only a matter of time before the law caught up with him. Or D'Artan. Jamie had reported that his grandfather's men grew more restless with each passing day.

Prudence nuzzled against his hip in a search for warmth. He should never have taken her to his bed, he thought. He should have sent her back to England and left her to the homely wooing of Arlo Tugbert or some other smitten young man. A man who could offer her a proper home and an honorable name.

A man like Killian MacKay.

He raked his fingers through his hair. Sweet Christ. He was beginning to think like her uncle again.

Sighing, he reached under his blankets for a cheroot. It was the last remnant from his life at Lindentree and he had been saving it for a special occasion. Such as right before he was hanged. He drew the cigar beneath his nose. The aromatic blend of tobacco and fine paper seemed as out of place in this drafty old hall as Prudence.

Settling his shoulders against the hearth, he lit the slender cigar and watched the smoke curl wistfully into the darkness.