Epilogue

“ H ow many more miles must we trek to get to yer home, Bruce?” Esme sat astride her little pony as the small train of riders crossed the mountain pass. Her pony was a palfrey, the easiest horse breed to ride because of its steady gait.

She was hardly recognizable as the former slave girl from the island. Esme’s clothes were very fine and gave her a mature, elegant air. Her tunic was made of thin blue silk and hugged her curves in a very attractive way. She had a thick gold girdle around her waist and soft leather slippers on her feet. The hood of her cape hid her hair, as was proper, but underneath it, her long braids hung down, for Esme’s husband had begged her not to change her hair for his sake.

“A league or so by me estimation,” Bruce rode his horse to be closer to Esme’s. “How is yer sweet arse holding up against the saddle?”

Esme blushed, looking around her to see if any of the other riders had heard him. “It is holding up well, thank ye. The new velvet saddle makes all the difference.”

She had never ridden a horse before. Never worn fine clothing or shoes. All of her clothes had been hand-me-downs until Bruce had begun leaving her gifts and money by the wreckage of the boat on the island. Even now, there were stark differences in what they had each experienced during their separate lives.

The skin and nails on Esme’s hand were still hard and brown from years of helping the fishermen gut and smoke their fish. She could only eat her porridge with salt and water and would laugh when Bruce insisted that eating it with cream and honey tastes nicer. She would sometimes wake up screaming in their bed, only stopping when her husband would wrap his strong arms around her to soothe her nightmaresrm.

But day by day, her smiles became more frequent than her frowns as she struggled to conquer the bitterness that had ruled her life for so long.

Her husband would tell her his story, and she would repay the favor by telling him her own as they shared the long years of searching until true love came along.

Bruce looked at his wife fondly. “Ye remind me of those fables aboot the gorgeous, exotic flowers that manage to thrive and flourish, even though they are growing in the dark inside a pile o’ dung.”

Esme wrinkled her nose. “Hie! That is nae very romantic, Husband! Can I nae have grown in something else?”

Bruce shrugged his broad shoulders. “I dinnae ken. How would ye describe the island?” After thinking hard, Esme had to agree with him. “That’s the thing aboot unpleasant circumstances—there is always good to be found amongst the bad.”

They had crested the mountain by this time. A wide rift valley opened up in front of them, crisscrossed with many small creeks and burns flowing into a black loch. “This is what I have always dreamed of,” Esme sighed, “a place where there is nay sound or sight o’ the sea.”

For the first time, when she closed her eyes and listened, Esme could not hear the sound of gulls crying or the lapping of waves slapping on the wet sand of the beach. She could not smell brine in the air or taste salt when she breathed in.

Looking over at her husband, she smiled, leaning her head back to stare at the gray sky so that the hood of her cape fell off. “It is perfect. I want us to make oor home here.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, wife,” Bruce grinned, “because that castle doon there next to the loch is oor home.”

“Forever and ever?” she had to be sure before she allowed herself to enjoy the feeling.

“For as long as we both shall live,” the Highlander made her the promise.

That night, Bruce had to drag Esme away from helping the servants unpack the trunks and set the furniture in the correct rooms. “Ye are their lady noo, sweetheart. The servants will think it strange if ye try to do their work for them.”

But she was worried all the same. “What if they think I am lazy for nae helping oot, Bruce? What if they are sick or tired and feel scared to tell me they are hurting?”

Her husband took her to sit on his lap. He stroked her long braids, playing with the ends of her hair with a thoughtful expression on his face. “Oor home must be comfortable for all who stay here, sweetheart, and I promise ye that any servant who feels poorly will come to ye and ask ye to fix it. Ye’re the castle chatelaine, the mistress o’ the house—it is yer duty to care for those who live here.”

“Ye mean they are nae afraid o’ me?”

Bruce laughed, moving to kiss her fears away. “No’ for the wages I pay them!”

Snuggling against his chest, Esme said in a small voice. “I keep forgetting that they are servants. I find it hard to forget me past as a slave.”

His voice grew gruff. “Ye are the mistress of everything ye see around ye, Esme. It is me who is the slave!”

She gasped. “Nay, Bruce! How can that be?”

Pulling her close, he growled. “I have been a slave for yer love since the first time I saw yer beautiful face watching over me, Esme. And I have never been happier since I admitted it!”

Picking her up, he carried her to the bedchamber. This was where they spent a large portion of their married lives now, catching up on all the long nights they had been segregated from one another on the island.

Sometimes they made love gently, taking their time to bring one another to fulfillment at a leisurely pace. Other times, their passion for one another would overtake them in the middle of a task or event. Then they would duck into the cellar or corner of the courtyard and join their bodies together with frantic urgency, with Esme leaning over a table as Bruce hitched up her skirts to find that part of her that tempted him the most.

He was not a selfish lover. Esme was completely satisfied by the way Bruce would use his fingers and mouth to pleasure her, and it was this that encouraged her to try different things when they were in the mood for it.

But most nights, they would make love face to face, and heart to heart. She adored watching his face as it contorted whenever the rapture of ecstasy overtook him. She loved to stroke his dark hair afterward as he collapsed against her neck. Esme would sometimes have a silent, secret climax during these times, rocking her hips against him once his hard thrusts had subsided.

Always at ease with one another, because Esme’s social standing had never given her stiff manners or rigid etiquette, the two lovers treated each other as equals in and out of the bedchamber. If she had demanded, she would let him know. Maybe this night would be the night she requested something exotic from him. Their conjugal bliss knew no boundaries.

“Stand there for a wee while, Bruce,” Esme murmured from her perch against the bolster. “I want to take me pleasure from seeing yer body.”

“Which part?” he grinned, happy enough to fulfill her every wish. If it was at all possible, Bruce found himself falling more in love with her every day.

He was wearing his usual black plaid feileadh-mor belted around his slim waist. A homespun shirt covered his chest, but he had kicked off his boots and left them in the dressing room with the stocks. Raising his arms above his head, Bruce turned slowly around, allowing Esme to see the back of the feileadh-mor hanging down over the belt behind him. “Ye must start to collect dyes so that we can create oor own plaid, sweetheart,” he reminded her, “something to reflect the colors of the loch and the gray rocks o’ the mountains.”

“Wheesht!” Esme ordered him. “How can I prepare me body for love-making with ye wittering on aboot plaid?”

That got his attention. “Och, so it’s a good foutering ye’re after, is it? I am happy to oblige, milady.”

She giggled but soon got serious again. “Take off yer clothes for me slowly, Bruce. As if I am the master and ye have to obey me lustful wishes.”

“Ye wicked wench,” Bruce played along with her fantasy, “and me a poor stable hand just trying to make an honest wage.”

“Do as I command ye!” Esme’s eyes sparkled with merriment as she loosened the ribbons holding her transparent lawn chemise around her neck.

Lifting the shirt out of his belt, he pulled the garment over his head and let it drop on the floor. Esme licked her lips with relish as the tight muscles of his stomach were revealed. She adored the taut V-shape on each side of his flat belly, created by the perfectly etched brawn. His body was rock hard, with not an inch of spare flesh to be seen. How she longed to run her hands over the proud chest muscles, following the line of dark hair downwards…

Making a circular motion with her finger, she told him to turn around. The smooth skin of his back rippled with knotted tendons. Bruce flexed his shoulders, rolling his neck and shoulder blades to make the muscles rise and spread. His manly body had that highly desirable triangle shape, with broad shoulders tapering down to a slim waist and lean hips.

“Mm, I like that,” Esme told him in an approving tone, “It reminds me of the cocks when they preen themselves for the hens in the coop.”

He laughed, spinning around to face her. “Ye have a remarkably descriptive way with words, lass! But I can promise ye that I will be doing more to ye tonight than just mounting ye like they do in the farmyards!”

“Dinnae break the spell, Bruce!” Esme complained, “Ye still have to do what I order.”

“And what is yer next command, milady?” He smiled at her, but she could see the danger in his eyes. Esme knew that when he dropped the plaid from his waist, she would find him hugely aroused. It no longer had the power to frighten her, but his gorgeous body never failed to excite her.

Her body was almost melting with desire under her chemise. If he did not come and cover her soon, she might have to take herself in hand. Suddenly, the thought of pleasuring herself while her husband watched her gave Esme a thrill.

Caressing her breasts and teasing the nipples into hard points with a gentle pinch of her fingers, Esme licked her lips. “Very well then, stable hand, drop yer kilt! I order ye to obey me!”

Bruce did not need to be told twice. The two newlyweds were as hot for each other now as they had been that first time in the brewery. And when her husband casually unburdened the plaid from his waist, he revealed her favorite part of his braw body.

There was no way she could hold back now. “Very well, ye common servant, come and pleasure yer mistress right noo!”

Crawling onto the bed like the dangerous predator animal he had once been, Bruce growled. “Yer wish is me command, Milady.”

He pounced on her in the same way a hungry man might pounce on a delicious meal. Esme giggled and cried out as he pretended to bite her neck. His touch excited her more than words could say, bringing her to a peak of anticipation very quickly.

Biting her lower lip, Esme moaned softly as she reached for that rampant part of him to guide him inside her. “Give yerself to me, Highlander,” she whispered, “make me believe that I am the only woman ye have ever craved.”

He was her willing slave from the moment they joined their bodies. He loved the way she wrapped her legs around him as if to push him deeper inside her. He was smitten with the lustful words she would mutter in his ear to make him pound into her harder and faster. It was like they were connected in a special way, where she ended where he began, and the other way around too.

Their kisses were ardent, sometimes with mouths open and hungry for penetration and then sometimes happy with short, sweet kisses of love.

He told her he was close, which was information he knew would turn Esme into a frenzy as she abandoned herself to receive his essence. Grinding himself deep inside her, Bruce felt her body contracting with pleasure as her screams of euphoria echoed around them.

And then they fell back, spent and exhausted.

After a while, he moved to slip his arm underneath her neck so that she could sleep in its crook. “Why d’ye call me ‘Highlander’, Esme?” he wanted to know. “As me wife, ye should ken that is what ye are too.”

She answered him in a sleepy voice. “Aye, I suppose, but I will always be an islander in me heart, because that is where me clan is.”

“The Islander and the Highlander,” Bruce chuckled, “It sounds like the first line of a ballad.”

“And this castle is the bridge between those two places,” Esme whispered softly.

He pulled her closer to his chest to hug her. “I would cross the ocean that flows around the world if it meant that I can call ye me wife, Esme. I love ye.”

These were the most perfect words the little slave girl who had saved the great bear warrior from the sea could ever hope to hear.

Thank you so much for reading my book!