The Laird’s Runaway Bride (Charmed by the Sassenachs #1)

Chapter 6

6

As Arran watched Amelia lift her skirts and make her way into the Keep for the first time, he was struck once again by how reckless his actions had been in bringing her here.

He was never a man of impulse. He left such pursuits to Gregory, focusing instead on maintaining and cultivating the land and the people who relied on him. He’d never in his life, not even as a young lad, jumped into anything without first considering the implications of it, but now, here, with her…

He found himself too intrigued to let her go. And he had seen the way she looked at her father, the fear in her eyes when he had tried to force her into doing as he pleased. She would have been married to that ancient old fool if he hadn’t stepped in, expected to perform her marital duties for a man who could have been her grandfather. At least she would no longer have to face that fate.

No, the only marital duties she’d be expected to perform were in his own bed. The thought struck him, a tantalizing and enticing prospect, but he brushed them aside. She was not yet his wife, and it’d be impure of him to have such thoughts of her before he had wedded her.

She glanced around the main hall of the Keep. It was lit by a handful of candles placed in brass and iron brackets around the walls, casting the place with a low, dark glow. A large wooden table, carved with an ornate pattern of ivy and flowers along the center, filled most of the room, a handful of chairs lined up on either side where his men had no doubt eaten after their hunt. He himself was hungry, but not for food; for something else, something darker, something more insistent. Something that would be far harder to sate.

Amelia stood in the entrance, her arms wrapped around herself protectively. She could hardly bring herself to lift her head, but he made his way towards her, and slid his hand beneath her chin.

“Carry yerself with some confidence, lass,” he told her, his fingertips skimming along her chin for a moment. Her skin was strikingly soft, like the pelt of a doe, freshly shed at the start of summer. Her cheeks flushed slightly at the sensation, and she locked eyes with him.

“Where am I going to stay? In your quarters?”

He cocked an eyebrow. Much as he was tempted to begin their marital bliss then and there, he was a man of tradition, and he’d not take her to his bed before she was his wife.

“I’ll have one of the maids make up a room for you,” he replied at once, and he glanced around. Sure enough, Mairead, one of the maids who had worked for him at the Keep longest, was already waiting in the doorway that led to the kitchen, ready to attend to his every whim. With her graying hair and kind eyes, he knew she would take good care of Amelia.

“Mairead, will ye find Amelia a room and draw her a bath?” he called to her, and Mairead nodded at once. Her eyes darted over towards the new arrival, clearly trying to make sense of why she was there at all, but she passed no comment on the matter, moving towards Amelia and taking her arm.

“With me, dear,” she remarked, and Amelia followed her, her eyes flicking once more towards Arran before she vanished. He could read little of how she truly felt in the way she looked, but he knew she’d need to rest and eat before they could start discussing the details of their wedding.

A wedding. He could scarcely believe it. He was sure Gregory would howl with laughter when he told him—until he realized it was the truth. How would everyone else take the news that he was due to be wed—to an Englishwoman, no less?

He brushed that aside. They’d have to find a way to accept it. He was their Laird, and what he said, went. Though, in that moment, he was exhausted by the mere thought of trying to fight them on that, and decided instead to retire to his room to rest.

And hope that thoughts of her didn’t keep him up too long tonight.

“This way, lass,” the woman, who had introduced herself as Mairead, insisted as they headed down the corridor. Though tired from the journey, Amelia did her best to keep up, hurrying behind her as the sound of her footsteps echoed through the corridor.

The Keep was enormous. It seemed as though these corridors went on forever, as though they would never find the end of them, but the warm voice and gentle tone of the maid who was helping her took the edge off the worst of her fears. Though she had little idea of what to make of Arran, she felt as though she could at least relax if she knew there were people here she could trust.

“Here we go,” Mairead remarked, as she pushed open the door to the room that Amelia supposed would be hers. For how long? She was surprised that he hadn’t insisted on her sharing a bed with him. Perhaps there was a part of her, too, that was a little disappointed. She brushed aside the thought at once. Don’t be ridiculous…

“Let me get you something to eat while I draw you a bath,” she remarked, fussing over Amelia as she hurried her inside. The room was decorated with dark burgundy and crimson, wallpaper that looked as though it had been drenched in blood covering the stone walls. She remembered, all too clearly, the sight of Arran with blood spattered over his face, and she couldn’t stop herself shivering at the memory. Was this place meant to look like it was bloody? A warning to all who stayed there?

Mairead, with an expert hand, stoked a small fire in the hearth and used it to begin warming up some water for her; true to her word, she brought her some food; a few pieces of fresh bread and a lentil broth that warmed her right through to her bones. She stared into the flickering flames before her as she ate, her exhaustion almost getting the better of her as her head drooped down to her chest.

“There ye go,” Mairead remarked, as she straightened up from over the large metal tub. “That should be enough for ye. Do you need help bathing, or?—"

“I’m fine,” Amelia shot back quickly, her cheeks darkening once more as she imagined letting this woman see her naked. Mairead chuckled.

“Have it yer way,” she replied. “But I’ve seen far worse than a few naked girls in my time. I’ll leave a nightdress outside your door for when ye’re clean.”

She bustled off once more, and Mairead glanced over to the bath. The thought of stripping down inside this place seemed, all of a sudden, too vulnerable for her to consider, but she was aching from the ride over, and she knew she needed to scrub the last couple of days off her body. At least it would make a welcome difference from the cold of the river…

She shrugged out of her worn dress, pulling off her underthings and slipping swiftly below the water. The warmth shrouded her body at once, and she closed her eyes, trying to allow herself to relax, but she couldn’t even imagine the state she was in.

She was in the Keep of a man who intended to marry her. A man who, as he had made very clear, would not settle for anything less than what he wanted. Amelia could already tell that it wouldn’t do her any good to try and protest anything he threw at her, and she would be smart to keep her mouth shut around him as much as possible.

She sank a little lower beneath the water. She could still remember, very well, how his arms had felt around her while they’d ridden. How he had held her, with a sturdy certainty that seemed to throb up through every inch of her body. She had never been that close to a man before in her life, so she didn’t know if the heat that had throbbed through her system was something she’d have felt with anyone.

No, she did know the answer to that question. Much as she might have wanted to deny it, it was him. Arran. He who made her feel the way she did. When she had looked at the man her father had picked out for her to marry, she’d felt nothing of the sort, none of the warmth that flooded down her, getting the better of her. A strange and twisted desire that she knew didn’t belong with a man as wild as him, but that she felt anyway—right down to her bones, to some secret place inside of her that she had spent a long time trying to pretend didn’t exist at all.

Finishing up with her bath, she heard Mairead outside the door. Sure enough, when she checked, she found a clean nightdress waiting there for her. She breathed a sigh of relief, and grabbed it, pulling the door shut before anyone could see her. She hardly knew if her arrival was common knowledge among the Keep yet, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the judgements and gossip that would be shared about her when it was.

She slipped the garment on over her freshly washed body, her damp hair clinging to the back of her neck. She wished there was some kind of mirror she could look into, something she could use to help ground herself in the face of all that was happening—she could hardly parse the enormity of it, what it would mean for her to be a man’s wife. Let alone wife to a man like him…

A noise sounded at her door, and she sucked in a sharp breath, her head flashing around in a panic.

The door opened, and there he was, as though she had summoned him from the sheer intensity of her thoughts, Arran stood in the doorway, one arm raised to rest against the frame, his eyes pinned on her.

Her arms darted to her body at once, as though she was still undressed. She knew she was covered, but the nightdress was flimsy, and she was still damp from the bath. Though he would see much more of her when the two of them were wed, she wasn’t ready to show him everything yet.

“What are you doing here?”

“Mairead took good care of you, aye?” he asked, taking a step into the room. Her breath hitched in her throat.

“Aye, she did,” she replied, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible. She didn’t want him to know what kind of effect he had on her; she was sure that he was aware, anyway. She didn’t want to gift him that kind of power, though she didn’t know how best to hide from it.

“Good.”

He moved another step towards her. She could feel her knees trembling slightly, but she stood her ground. She couldn’t give him an inch, not without risking more than she was willing to.

“We’ll be married this weekend,” he told her, matter-of-factly. She bit her lip.

“That soon?”

He eyed her for a long moment. She could smell the scent of him in the air; damp earth, musk, something deep and woody and masculine that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. And maybe, underneath it all, a hint of blood, like the blood she had seen spattered on his hands before, like the deep red of the walls around them, the walls that seemed to press them closer together than they had ever been before.

“Aye,” he replied. He spoke simply, clearly, leaving no room for her to argue. Would she have argued, even if she could? She wasn’t sure. When he looked at her like that, it was hard to muster up any word of protest, though she knew she perhaps should have tried to.

His gaze dropped from her eyes, and began to inch down her body. She was suddenly even more distinctly aware of how little she was wearing. She crossed her arms over her stomach, but she was sure he could make out the nut-brown of her breasts beneath the fabric.

His lips parted for a moment, as though there was something he wanted to say. Instead, his hand slid to her waist, his fingers, for a second, digging into her flesh with a surprising strength, as though he was marking her as his.

She looked up at him again. Those dark eyes, behind his dark hair, blazing back at her. And then, before she could get out another word, he pulled her towards him, and sank his mouth against hers.

The heat that had been building in her belly roiled to boiling point within her, as his mouth moved against hers. She could feel the roughness of his stubble on her skin, the strength of his body through his shirt. Without thinking, she moved a hand to his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heartbeat through the fabric, growing more and more intense with every passing moment. His mouth parted, and she could feel the low vibration of a groan emitting from his lips. She gasped, a throb of pleasure building in her faster than she could control it. And she knew in that moment that she would have done anything that he asked her, anything he wanted her to. She couldn’t have denied him for anything, no matter if it was before her wedding night, no matter if she barely knew him.

And then, all at once, he pulled back. His hand remained on her waist for a long moment, still gripping her tight, before he dropped it to his side once more. He was breathing hard, and he avoided her gaze for a moment, as though looking at her might break whatever composure he had managed to find.

She couldn’t take her eyes off of him, half of her craving more, half of her terrified by the fiery want that even a kiss had brought up inside of her. Was that how it felt to kiss a man? Why had she waited so long?

Because she had never met a man like him. And now, a man who kissed her like that—hard, with a passion she’d never felt before in her life—was going to be her husband.

And that kiss was only going to be the start of everything they would share together.

“You’ll be a good wife to me,” he murmured, as he finally met her gaze once more. She nodded at once. She would have agreed to anything that he’d say to her, if it meant he might touch her again like that. A tingling consumed her, pooling between her legs, her mouth still on fire from the feel of his lips against hers.

“Good.”

With that, he left, turning on his heel and making for the door. She found her lips parting, wishing she could call after him and get him to stay. Instead, she sank back towards the bed behind her, brushing her fingertips across her lips once more.

The next time she saw him, she supposed, they would be married. And when they were married, he would not leave her bedchambers after kissing her like that.

She could hardly wait to find out how it felt to go further with that strange, wild man.