revenge.
Surely she owed him that.
Sensing Dougald's abstraction, the stallion reached out with the bit. Dougald reined him in, controlling him with his knees and his gloved hands. The people on the estate expected the lord of Raeburn to ride like a damned centaur, and he hadn't disappointed them. In fact, he suspected he had exceeded their expectations, thank God. They'd already had enough shocks, with the last lord taking a tumble down the stairs and the one before that found at the bottom of a sea cliff.
Poor buggers. Couldn't hold their liquor, either one of them.
Anyway, a mere horse could not challenge Dougald's authority; for nine long years no one had challenged his authority. Grimly, Dougald lifted his gaze toward the black-velvet sky. Everyone knew him to be his wife's murderer, so they would never tell him nay for fear he would exact a dreadful retribution on them.
Only Hannah didn't cower from him. If she realized how carefully he planned her retrieval, how thoroughly he plotted his revenge, how the years had chilled his rage, she would cower.
Instead she kissed him.
His groin tightened at the memory. After all the hell she had put him through, and she dared to kiss him.
Dougald wanted to bellow. But that was no longer his way. Instead, he gave the stallion his head, and they galloped along the curving road toward the sea. The air cleared his head, the exercise brought his blood surging in his veins, but the demons that had driven him for so many years traveled with him. Always they were with him.
When he crested the hill above the Atlantic, he brought the horse back to a walk and rode the path that wound among the rocks on the beach and then back up into the meadows and windblown trees.
In his youth, the demons had held sway. He learned to fight in those years. He drank, he whored, he almost died.
But it wasn't him who died, it was his father.
Dougald had never again allowed his demons to be free.
Yet tonight Hannah, with her full breasts and upright figure and provocative poise, threatened to cut them loose. Damn her, it wasn't supposed to be this way.
His grandmother had picked her out, told him she would do well as his wife, and he had accepted that. Hannah had been but a girl, then. What difference had it made to him, when at the same time he was trying to learn his father's business and save it from the rivals who would have wrested it from him?
By the time Hannah was old enough to wed, he was used to the idea. He saw nothing wrong with the arrangement and, in fact, liked that he would have a wife who elicited no response from him except indifference. He thought, fool that he was, that Hannah would see the advantages to their union and accept it meekly.
Instead, she had challenged him.
My God, could he ever forget the first time she'd fled from him? Even better was what came after…
"You've never been kissed," Dougald told her. He didn't wonder, he knew. He could tell by Hannah's amazement, by the way her large brown eyes glanced about the train car as if she could find answers there.
"I don't think that matters." She wet her lips. "I should sit up now."
Carefully, lovingly, as he smoothed his hands down her arms. She was such an innocent, politely suggesting that she be allowed to sit up when she should have been squalling like a banshee. She didn't understand that by running away she had brought herself to his attention and challenged his possessiveness. By the time she realized it, it would be far too late for her. "But I want to kiss you. I want to be the first." He slid his lips across both her eyes to close them. "You will let me do that, at least."
She shook her head no.
His lips crested her cheekbone and pressed one corner of her mouth, feathering light touches on and about her lips, teasing her, enticing her. She had skin like velvet, softer than any he'd ever touched, and he relished the sensation. Slanting his face, he pressed his lips to hers. He kept it tender, gentle, and
Surely she owed him that.
Sensing Dougald's abstraction, the stallion reached out with the bit. Dougald reined him in, controlling him with his knees and his gloved hands. The people on the estate expected the lord of Raeburn to ride like a damned centaur, and he hadn't disappointed them. In fact, he suspected he had exceeded their expectations, thank God. They'd already had enough shocks, with the last lord taking a tumble down the stairs and the one before that found at the bottom of a sea cliff.
Poor buggers. Couldn't hold their liquor, either one of them.
Anyway, a mere horse could not challenge Dougald's authority; for nine long years no one had challenged his authority. Grimly, Dougald lifted his gaze toward the black-velvet sky. Everyone knew him to be his wife's murderer, so they would never tell him nay for fear he would exact a dreadful retribution on them.
Only Hannah didn't cower from him. If she realized how carefully he planned her retrieval, how thoroughly he plotted his revenge, how the years had chilled his rage, she would cower.
Instead she kissed him.
His groin tightened at the memory. After all the hell she had put him through, and she dared to kiss him.
Dougald wanted to bellow. But that was no longer his way. Instead, he gave the stallion his head, and they galloped along the curving road toward the sea. The air cleared his head, the exercise brought his blood surging in his veins, but the demons that had driven him for so many years traveled with him. Always they were with him.
When he crested the hill above the Atlantic, he brought the horse back to a walk and rode the path that wound among the rocks on the beach and then back up into the meadows and windblown trees.
In his youth, the demons had held sway. He learned to fight in those years. He drank, he whored, he almost died.
But it wasn't him who died, it was his father.
Dougald had never again allowed his demons to be free.
Yet tonight Hannah, with her full breasts and upright figure and provocative poise, threatened to cut them loose. Damn her, it wasn't supposed to be this way.
His grandmother had picked her out, told him she would do well as his wife, and he had accepted that. Hannah had been but a girl, then. What difference had it made to him, when at the same time he was trying to learn his father's business and save it from the rivals who would have wrested it from him?
By the time Hannah was old enough to wed, he was used to the idea. He saw nothing wrong with the arrangement and, in fact, liked that he would have a wife who elicited no response from him except indifference. He thought, fool that he was, that Hannah would see the advantages to their union and accept it meekly.
Instead, she had challenged him.
My God, could he ever forget the first time she'd fled from him? Even better was what came after…
"You've never been kissed," Dougald told her. He didn't wonder, he knew. He could tell by Hannah's amazement, by the way her large brown eyes glanced about the train car as if she could find answers there.
"I don't think that matters." She wet her lips. "I should sit up now."
Carefully, lovingly, as he smoothed his hands down her arms. She was such an innocent, politely suggesting that she be allowed to sit up when she should have been squalling like a banshee. She didn't understand that by running away she had brought herself to his attention and challenged his possessiveness. By the time she realized it, it would be far too late for her. "But I want to kiss you. I want to be the first." He slid his lips across both her eyes to close them. "You will let me do that, at least."
She shook her head no.
His lips crested her cheekbone and pressed one corner of her mouth, feathering light touches on and about her lips, teasing her, enticing her. She had skin like velvet, softer than any he'd ever touched, and he relished the sensation. Slanting his face, he pressed his lips to hers. He kept it tender, gentle, and
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