The Scottish Lord’s Secret Bride. Raven McAllan

her skin and her loveliness.

      ‘Wait there,’ he called abruptly as she looked upwards and her expression changed from puzzled to annoyed. ‘Please,’ he added. ‘I won’t be a second.’ Fraser didn’t wait to see if she replied or agreed, but left his room rapidly, not even bothering to put on a cravat or jacket. House shoes, a shirt and his pantaloons would do. At least he had those on and wasn’t in his birthday suit. Now he knew that his mother had indeed housed one of her guests in his sister Flora’s old rooms. Senga had omitted to tell him that tiny fact when he had changed rooms and towers.

      Fraser used the servants’ stair that led down the turret from his bathing chamber to the ground floor, passed the door into Flora’s—now Morven’s—bathing chamber and instead of going along the corridor to the outside of the castle and the waste area for slops, turned to a little-used door into the sitting room of the suite Morven occupied. He doubted Morven had noticed it. From memory the door was usually locked and he rather thought it might now be papered or panelled so it didn’t stand out. None of which was material. Fraser had learned how to pick locks at an early age, even if the key was in them. Which he’d bet in this case it wasn’t.

      He was correct. It wasn’t.

      Fraser used his lock pick, and prayed the door didn’t squeak. He should have known it wouldn’t. Flora had led quite an exciting life before she settled down and married Shettleston, and he knew she favoured the less than conventional side of life. He doubted much had been done to these rooms since she married, except the occasional dusting. After all before he had decided to move from the rooms he associated with that golden summer, to this side of the castle, this tower had been reserved for his sister and her now husband and no one else. Separately housed of course: Shettleston in the rooms Fraser now used, Flora below.

      Now he was home, it was theirs no more and Flora could like it or lump it on the few occasions she visited. He had told his mother in no uncertain terms this was now the laird’s tower and tradition be damned.

      But if she was trying to tell him to consider Murren as a bride, what on earth was Morven doing here?

      “My love, I’m waiting…” Stop thinking about those letters. It was hard. He wanted to know one thing. Why?

      Fraser let himself into the sitting room and walked over the carpet to lock the doors into the hall and the main staircase that led to the upper floors of the suite, and then made his way into the garden. Morven was still where he had last seen her. Almost. She no longer glanced around for him, or whoever she thought had addressed her, but looked at the climbing roses on the garden wall instead. Her hand no longer enclosed Adonis’s staff and instead of leaning on the statue’s groin, she sat on the plinth, and to all intents and purposes appeared like a lady enjoying the sunshine. Until you stared closely and saw how her fingers twitched and her breathing was erratic.

      Fraser cleared his throat and Morven moved her head and looked him in the eyes.

      The world stood still.

      Oh Lord. I do still love her. That visit to Stirling was becoming more imperative by the minute. Not because he didn’t want to be tied to her officially, he was becoming more and more certain he did. But so he could regularise the situation if need be. He went cold at the thought that Morven could perhaps marry someone in England, come to Scotland, be legally married there and be found to have committed bigamy. That scenario would be unthinkable.

      ‘Well, well, if it isn’t the laird. Do I curtsey?’ She raised her eyebrows but otherwise didn’t move.

      Grief, how he hated her indifferent tone. ‘If you wish,’ Fraser said pleasantly and was pleased to see her eyes narrow and her skin colour. ‘I’d prefer a kiss but a curtsey is a start.’ If she could snipe so could he.

      ‘Oh certainly, your highandmightyness.’ Morven stood up and swept him a very elaborate curtsey. ‘The kiss you can sing for; the curtsey is yours. Although I need to ask you, do you always invade the private quarters of your guests?’

      Fraser laughed. He had forgotten how often they scored points off each other. However, all those years ago they had always ended in each other’s arms. Somehow he didn’t think it would be the outcome this time. ‘Your lordship or my lord will do. And you are my mama’s guests, not mine.’ He could have bitten his tongue when she went white and closed her eyes. How terrible did that sound?

      ‘Morven, love…’

      ‘I am not your love,’ she said fiercely. ‘You left.’ She folded her arms, sat back on the plinth and turned her back on him. Adonis stared down at him, indifferent to Fraser’s plight.

      It’s all right for you; you’re made of stone. I’m bloody not. As his cock was telling him.

      ‘I had to leave,’ Fraser said in a tight, hard voice. ‘You knew that. But you had the chance to come with me. You didn’t.’ God, the anguish he’d felt all those years ago as he waited for an answer to his letter flooded through him again.

       “My love, I am waiting…”

      Morven snorted and once more stood up and walked so they were only a few inches apart. That close she had to crane to look him in the eyes. Were those tears he saw? Surely not?

      He had no chance to ask before Morven poked him hard in the stomach. ‘Says who? Defective memory, my lord. You told me we’d had fun… fun…’

      A definite sob escaped. Fraser lifted his hand to touch her cheek and dropped it again as she glared at him fiercely.

      ‘Was that all it meant to you? Fun. A quick flick of my skirts and a fumble or three? Really? Fraser, I gave myself to you, heart, body and soul. I worshipped you and would have gone with you at the drop of a coin. We exchanged vows for heaven’s sake. It might have been done in a fun manner, but I meant every word. I begged you to take me with you. I stood not far from here and begged you not to let me leave. I asked you to explain, that we were meant for each other.’

      She sniffed somewhat inelegantly. ‘You told me I was too young to make such a momentous decision. That I needed to learn the ways of the world. You intimated I was too young to know my own mind.’ She shook her head and dashed her hand over her eyes. ‘Ha, but evidently not too young to sleep with you. No.’ This time she held her hand in the air. ‘One moment, I err. There was not a lot of sleep involved was there. Let us call a spade a spade. To f…fuck,’ she stumbled over the word, ‘with you.’

      ‘If you felt like that why did you ignore my letters?’ Fraser demanded. ‘I waited and waited for your reply.’

      Morven harrumphed and stamped her slipper-shod foot on his boot-clad one. As a pain it hardly registered but he understood she meant it to indicate her annoyance. Why? What right had she to be annoyed? That surely was his privilege?

      ‘Oh do not try that old chestnut, Fraser.’ In her agitation it seemed she had forgotten his title and reverted to the way they had spoken before. ‘I got no letters.’

       What?

      ‘Morven, I assure you I sent one.’ Surely his serious tone would intimate how sincere he was? ‘In fact just to be on the safe side I sent two,’ Fraser continued, as he remembered how he’d laboured over those letters to show how serious he was. ‘One with Lachy McRae to Welland and one by the mail to London. Both before I left for Barbados. I even told you where I had left money for your journey.’

      Morven paled and swayed. Fraser grasped her arm as she leaned into him and looked up at him, her eyes large and worried in her pale face. ‘I got nothing, Fraser, I promise you. Not one word.’

      They stared at each other and he was sure her annoyance and despair was mirrored in his own expression. Why were those missives not received?

      ‘I cried. I wanted no one and nothing except you. Lord, I even railed at the fate that had ensured I was not with child. It would have been hard, but I would have had part of you. As it was I had almost nothing.’ She put her hand to her neck and then let it fall to