C. HAMPTON JONES

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A LOVE SO BLIND

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Wellington’s Heroes Series Book 1

HamptonJones Books, The Netherlands

MMXVII-IX

Published in 2017, August.

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Editor: Alex Blackburn

ISBN/EAN: 9789492397270

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Copyright/all author’s rights/publishing-rights/201 7

C. Hampton Jones, HamptonJones Books,  The

Netherlands

C. Hampton Jones’ right to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents

Act 1988

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are fictitious, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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For my loving husband Jan Herman

who made all those years of writing possible.

Chapter 1:  JOHN MONTGOMERY'S PROLOGUE

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"I apologize, Lord John, but the  Duke insists that you

leave the dogs outside her Grace's apartments."

Lord John Montgomery, the  Duke of Rothford's

second son and ‘spare,’ looked inquiringly at the

dignified butler and then down at his two hunting

spaniels.

"Mother always allows Boris and Bastet in, Tubby!"

Mr. Tubbington sent the young lord an exasperated

look.

"Did Mr. Powell not warn you, my lord, that the  situation warrants some, ah... decorum, this time? Why  don't you wait  in the antechamber so that I can call your  valet to change your coat and socks, and wash your  hands and face?"

"Wash?" John asked with a frown.

One washed in the morning after a night of rest

soured one's mouth, and one bathed in the evening when  invited  to the ducal dinner table. His valet Smithy would  dunk him in a bath after a particular fall from a horse  into a mess, or when he smelled...

The butler only nodded and opened the door to the  small waiting room next to the entrance of the Duchess'  apartments.

"Take Lord John's dogs to the kennels, Mordecai,"

Mr. Tubbington ordered the burly footman who seemed  to have been standing watch at his mother's door

forever, "I'll send a message to Smithy myself about  Lord John's requirements."

He looked back to see the  Duke's twelve year old son  seating himself hesitantly on one of the straight-backed  wooden chairs in the waiting room. He nodded in  approval while straightening his face immediately back  into a bland sort of severity.  Then Tubby flicked two  fingers at a young under-footman who had been  standing motionless in the hallway, and sent him on his  errand after an urgent whis-pered conversation.

John heaved an impatient sigh. He was not used to  being asked to wait, but looking at his dirty hands, he  agreed with Tubby that he might need some of his  valet's ministrations.

He had been in the stables, taking care of his new hunter, a birthday gift from his elder brother Randolph.  His father, Jonathan Montgomery,  Duke of Rothford, had always taught him that true warriors in the Middle  Ages always took care of their own horseflesh and that was exactly what John had been doing this afternoon.

Somebody shrieked in the room next to the ante-chamber.

John listened intently. He knew that shriek too well. It was doubtle ssly his mother, the Duchess.

"You will do as I ask, Jonathan!" her harsh voice threatened.

Ah, yes, threats! His mother had always been a master at threats. John had been on the receiving end of them countless times.

John never understood his mother's  urge to always assert herself in that fashion. She did not need to use

threats: everybody in the inside and outside of their  extensive household always ran to indulge his mother’s  many wishes, however reasonable or unreasonable they

were.

He heard his father mumble something inaudible.  That was nothing new either; his mother seemed to possess all the available power over everybody who lived in their London household.  Even over his father, despite the fact that his father was an acclaimed war hero from the  long gone days when he was the colonel of his own regiment, and despite the fact that now that he was the  Duke of Rothford, one of the most powerful

men in the Realm.

"A tit for tat!" his mother yelled, "I'll curse you on my  deathbed if you ignore my wishes, Jonathan  Montgomery!"

His father's answer was muffled, but John could hear  it anyway; his mother should not take things so hard, the  girl had been just a fling when he was in the North...

John shifted his chair so that he sat closer to the wall

behind which his parents quarreled.

A girl? His father had been seeing a girl in the North?

Ah, yes, was mother talking about that very beautiful  blond woman John once met when he and his father  were taking a ride all the way from the castle in Stirling  to a 'strong house' near Bannockburn?

He was only four then and was riding his favorite pony Leslie. It was one of the longest rides he had ever made with his father.

Father was unusually distracted until he’d seen the woman standing in front of that house with a five-year-old boy taking a protective stance next to her. Even at the very young age of four, John had noticed the woman’s ethereal beauty.

A different beauty when compared to his mother's.  The Duchess was always elaborately dressed and coiffed. She was never seen without her cosmetics, her white mask of rice powder, her painted blushes and her kohl-accentuated eyes.

John was not able to tell the true color of his mother's hair, as he had never seen her real hair; it was always tucked under the huge colorful elaborate wigs she wore.  His mother's dresses were more than enormous; they were like battleships enfolding her entire figure, giving her an unreal doll-like appearance.

He did not doubt that she would receive him in the full regalia of her position.  She might even wear an enormous hat while she was stretched out on one of her

gilded chaises-lounges.

The girl from the North had been wearing a simple  grey dress with a squared apron. Instead of dainty high- heeled shoes, she had worn sturdy leather clogs. She had  long blond hair in one big braid that fell all the way to  her very shapely rear, which was not hidden behind the  frame of whalebone or horsehair.

He had watched her with big, round, amazed eyes, looking longingly at the sweet mobile features in the most beautiful face he had ever seen. Her voice sounded

animated and musical and her laugh was melodious

because of its dark richness, which was so different from

the haughty pouts and titters he was accustomed to

hearing, coming from the languorous ari stocratic ladies

that would clog the ducal residences.

Since knowing this woman he had secretly frowned

upon the artificiality of court dress, the wooden corsets,

the unseemly low décolletages and the harsh make-up

that made the women look like puppets on a string and

move in a similar wooden manner.

His father and the woman had talked for some time.

His father had seemed urgent about something and the woman had shaken her head and pointed at him and the boy, whom he later heard was called Lochiel.

In the end, the woman gave in to his father's urgings and told the boy Lochiel to take care of the little Lord  John.

Lochiel admired John's pony and John magnanimously told him he could ride Leslie if he wished. Lochiel had shaken his head. He had his own

pony but they surely were not allowed to ride their  ponies on their own, so they took John's pony and his  father’s horse to the stable behind the house instead.  They had played there almost until the evening when his  father hurried out of the house at last, a  bit flushed with  his clothes looking as if he had put them on without the  help of his valet.

"You must agree that our John must have the same  chances to be happily married as we had, my darling,"  the  Duke was pleading.

The Duchess started to say something  but she got  stuck in a coughing fit. The  Duke urged her not to upset  herself so much.

Then John heard his father agree.

"If you think this is so terribly important, I'll sign the  papers for the betrothal, Elisabeth."

His mother cried between racking coughs , still  accusing the  Duke of 'damned betrayal.'

Half an hour later, wearing clean clothes and the scent  of expensive lemon soap, Lord John Montgomery heard  that he was to be betrothed to a girl called Lizzie  Campbell, obviously the 'tit for tat' his mother had  shouted about before he came to her bedchamber, and  that he was sup-posed to marry her when the girl would  reach the age of sixteen.

Quick calculations told Lord John that he would be  twenty-four by the time the girl was marriageable, so he  decided not to worry about this arranged marriage with a  little chit nobody knew a thing about, apart from his  hysterical mother.

As he had expected, she had been lying fully dressed  on a chaise, sporting a three -foot peruke with a large  cartwheel hat on top. When she sneezed, she lost a  chunk of maquillage from her cheek which fell  unnoticed into her high, white powdered, corseted  bosom. She wore lace gloves, which he kissed once  carefully, after making her an  obligatory deep leg.

He remembered acutely how the girl from the North had drawn him against a soft bosom which smelled of woman, lilac soap and, strangely, a bit like his father.

She had kissed him goodbye with gusto and a smile.  He imagined sometimes he could still feel those soft lips on both his cheeks and in his dreams as a boy, who was waking up to  sensuality; they tended to turn into something very exciting.  Since that day he always seemed to remember the smell of her lingering arms and her wondrous blond hair.

He only understood Tubby's remark about 'decorum' in the evening, when his father told him that the  Duchess, his mother, had sadly passed away.

Father looked unhappy  enough, but Lord John thought he’d noticed something of relief as well, which no doubt was due to the fact that his mother was now free of the ailments from which she had been suffering since Lord John's birth.

John felt regret that his mother had passed  from one world into another, which he could not reach, but was not surprised when tears would not fall. He had been closer to his nurses and his nannies, rather than to the doll who had been a duchess and maybe even once a mother because the doll had birthed him more than

twelve years into the past.

Without knowing it, he was betrothed at his mother's  death-bed at the respectable age of twelve, when he had  only been wondering if his mother had ever had blond  hair in a braid that touched her rear.

When the date of his arranged marriage came closer,

Lord John started to balk.

He was by then more or less in love with the refugee  Russian Countess Maria Katrina Oblinsky, whose white-blond hair reached her hips when it was down and who liked to walk around in the clinging dresses of the pre- Regency days which were so fashionable at the court of the upstart self-proclaimed emperor Napoleon Bona-parte in Paris.

His father had sent him twice to a small village near  Glasgow to court the little chit he was betrothed  to, but in view of his love for Maria Oblinsky he had hated every minute with her, not willing to agree that his future bride was actually exquisitely beautiful and a very proper virginal fiancée. Maria could not lay claim to any of those characteristics;  she was about twice  Lizzie's age and was experienced in things that had to do with whips, shackles and silk bed sheets.

In the end, the  Duke had to promise that Lord John would become the Marques of Lorna and Kintyre, instead of his brother Randolph, upon  the  Duke's demise.

Randolph did not mind handing over that title 'in advance' to his little brother, because he would become the new  Duke of Rothford, which was a more elevated title anyway. The title of Marques of Lorna and Kintyre was only a courtesy title, normally given to the heir. So  Lord John, by that time a spoiled cad with a bad reputation and the worst sexual appetites, prepared to go to Edinburgh to marry the Right Honorable Elisabeth

Campbell, a chit without a dowry or any ancestry of note, in  exchange for being Marques one day.

John would be happy to be titled at last. His debts were piling sky high and he feared he could not hold out much longer on the credit of being the  Duke of

Rothford's spare son.

He hated Lizzie Campbell more because  she stood between him and the chances of marrying an heiress who could get him out of his self-inflicted dire straits.

The only thing Lizzie Campbell would bring him was her body, which generated him nothing but obligations he did not care for.

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Chapter 2:  LOCHIEL’ S PROLOGUE

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The woman threw off his hands when he tried to grab her by the waist.

"Piss off, Lochiel Cameron," she hissed, "I told you to get lost before!"

She turned and pushed him hard against his chest.

He stumbled backwards on the ancient flagstones of their farm, landing on his butt.

"But Catriona..."

She hovered over him, her hands on her hips.

"Why can't you get it into your stupid head, Lochiel?

I don't want you here anymore! I don't need you here anymore! I've got those four sons to take care of and the last thing I want is for you to disturb my rest at night."

He slowly scrambled up from his humble position.

"What do you mean, Cat? They are my children as well!"

She sneered at him, her changing face showing him a glimpse of her  true age.

"Sure they are yours, Lochiel," she answered with contempt, "and I don't need another one, nor do I need another child like you in the house. Go back to  Edinburgh to play the soldier for that despicable  Sassenach that calls himself our  Duke !"

She turned and marched into the kitchen.

He put on the coat of his lieutenant's uniform.

"If that's what you truly want..."

He heard despair in his own voice. The wife that was almost ten years his senior really wanted him gone?

She reappeared in the doorway and knocked a hand against her head.

He stared at her in bitter disappointment.

Hard headed? His wife accused him of having a skull too hard to understand what she was saying?

"What about us, Cat?" he almost whispered.

"You knew there was not an ounce of love between the two of us! The only thing you always wanted was to rut! I allowed that. I needed bairns for the Clan, as father told me. Now you can go away. Just send your money for the boys and go fight a war somewhere, Lochiel."

"What about the farm?" he asked, ice sliding down his spine.

The farm had been bought with his mother's money.

"I'll take care of the farm. You go and earn your sons' education. Now go!"

She pointed to the front door.

"My mam’s inheritance paid for this farm, Cat! Why would I leave? Everything's mine by right."

Catriona stepped closer to him. He could smell her

breath. It had become stale in the five years they had

been married.

“‘Coz you're a lousy farmer, Lochiel, that's why!  You're not worth shit here! And don't start whining  about your mam. Everybody knows she earned her  money on her back, fucking bloody Sassenachs!"

Blood rose high in Lochiel's cheeks.

"My mother married a Scott who protected me and  fed me, Cat MacGregor, and don't you forget it!"

"That old Cameron was not your father, you idiot!

She married him for his money and then killed him, I  swear to God! Now, go away, leave us in peace here! Go  back to your whores in that God forsaken town!"

Lochiel looked at her with desperation. He knew they  were ill-matched, but just to go away and leave his little  boys again?

Cat suddenly seemed to remember something;  Lochiel's protective streak that had made him agree to  this ridiculous marriage.

"Just go, Lochiel," she said almost pleadingly, "you  know there's nothing for you here. I'll take care of our  bairns. I am sure I'm doing this right.  Is é Dia amháin a  thab-harfaidh breithiúnas orm!"

He looked wide-eyed at her when she pleaded with  him in his mother's language. It had been their love- language for God’s sake!  Only God would judge her  here?

"Come back for the boys when you can find the time;  on Sundays. Now just go, there is a world waiting for  you out there."

Lochiel left, looking back longingly at the small win- dows of the bedrooms where the boys were sleeping in  their snug cots.

He was not welcome anymore in his own house.

He shook his head. Catriona MacGregor got him by  the balls! She had married him and  made him buy the  farm the MacDuff's, her nephews, had put up for sale,

before leaving for the Americas with the money he had

inherited from his mother.

Catriona had birthed four sons in almost as many years, not a small feat at thirty years and up. Now she had sent her husband off to make the extra money she needed for herself, the boys and her bloody clan, with-out the benefits a husband earned for his efforts; a place in her bed when he came home.

He clenched his jaws together.

She was thirty-five against his twenty-five. God, if a man ever could be rewarded for being used, he'd earn the first prize!

He looked back once more at the house that was

rightfully his, tears of rage burning in his eyes.

His horse was tethered to a gatepost. Lochiel looked  up to the sky. There was no way he would be able to  reach Edinburgh today but the weather was probably  good enough to sleep under the sky, although there  seemed to be frost in the air.

He swung onto his horse that blew a greeting softly  through its nose.

He turned back to see if Catriona would be standing  in front of a window to wave goodbye, but there was no  one to witness his shameful retreat.

Off to Edinburgh, he thought sourly, and if possible, a

new life.

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Chapter 3: LADY SOPHIA'S HAVEN

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He stirred when she  entered the bedroom.

She put down the tray and bent to kiss him on his wiry hair. It was grey as the color of the clouds over  London.

She smiled when he opened his eyes reaching for her and pulling her into the sumptuous bed. She giggled and kissed his  mouth, feeling the bristles of his upcoming beard.

"Hm," he murmured, "where have you been, my love? I missed you when I woke up."

She snuggled her head between the apex of his neck and shoulder, inhaling his beloved scent.

"I don't believe for a moment you were awake earlier," she accused him with amusement in her voice.

He grinned in her hair.

"But I was, my love. Can't you see I raked the fire?"

She leant her head back to watch the big fireplace in the bedroom.

"How sweet of you," she said laughingly, "the house is damn cold, you know. There are just enough servants to see to our needs. How well organized you are, Jon!"

He shifted on his pillow, taking her shoulders with him.

"Whitesands," she whispered, "I love the house. Is it yours?"

"Do I smell coffee?"

He sniffed profusely.

She hastily untangled herself from him.

"Coffee and honeyed scones," she confirmed,  grabbing a big porcelain cup by the ear.

"Drink it quickly, before it gets cold. That kitchen is  miles away from this room."

She sat up against  the headboard. He followed her  example and scrambled up from the big pillow, pushing  it behind his back before he took the cup from her.

"Is there a scone without honey?" he asked, "That  damn tooth is playing up again when I eat sweet stuff."

She nodded and smiled, then dangled a scone without  sugary confections before his eyes. He grabbed it and bit  into it with vigor.

She closed her eyes and leant against the headboard,  sipping the black coffee with relish. She had already  eaten a scone, while she was waiting for the cook to  finish the tray for her, and had decided that one was  enough. She had put on weight these last years and even  when Jon told her that he thought her beautiful the way  she was, she still felt the need to be a bit trimmer.

He kissed her neck, wafting a scent of coffee and  early-morning odors toward her. She bent to kiss his  head.

"It's Sophia's."

"What?"

She shook herself out of her reveries on getting

slimmer and more beautiful.

“Whitesands!" he nodded, swallowing the last of his

scone,  "Richard gave it to her after a bit of a nudge."

His nudge, no doubt, she mused.

"Why? Sophia does not need a dowry. She swore  never to marry after, well after, you know?"

"Groathill? Yes. That does not mean she does not

need a place of her own. Anyway, I  had the impression  that Celia wanted her out of the house in London, now  that she has conceived again. I don't think that Sophia  and Celia get along well at all. Richard always adored  his sister and that does not sit well with his wife."

She nodded distractedly. After the rape of Sophia  Grey, a  Duke's daughter, the  Duke of Lindley Richard  Grey's inte-rest for his sister seemed to have tripled. He  had been very protective towards her, setting other evil  whispers into motion.

His young spoilt wife did not like Lady Sophia at all.

That she could understand; a young bride always  wanted everything concerning her marriage for herself,  including her husband. Sophia had definitely stood  between Celia Grey's wishes and her  Duke. On the other  hand, Celia Grey was a wimp. Her father, the Earl of  Cornwell, and his atrocious wife had spoilt her rotten.

Audrey had mourned Richard Grey's decision to  marry the ninny, but at twenty- six, no young man of the  Quality could be considered wise. She had hoped  however that Richard would have chosen a girl like his  older sister; Sophia was extremely beautiful, intelligent  and forceful. She ruled the extensive ducal households  since she was a slip of a girl of fourteen. Richard and  Sophia’s father William Grey,  Duke of Lindley, had died  of a liver disease when Richard had been less than three  years old.

"It is a beautiful place, Jon. Does your stepdaughter  know we are borrowing it from her?"

Jonathan Montgomery,  Duke of Rothford, shrugged.

"There is not much that slips through the mazes of her  net of intelligence. Of course she knows about us,  Audrey."

He felt her breath choke and reached out to pat her  hand. It felt dry and slightly brittle.

"Don't you ever worry about my stepchildren,

dearest! They are on my side, remember. I have  been  their surrogate father for almost thirty years."

She could only nod.

It did not bear thinking about the rumors of her

liaison with Jon Rothford reaching the ears of her  vengeful husband. Even when he was far away on his  estates in Scottish Loghaire,  she feared his wrath. They  had not slept together since she conceived Hengist, their  second son, as she could not abide his touch. Her  husband had been fast enough to find his release and  consolation with an endless string of lovers and  mistresses. There were enough Scottish girls who would  gladly share his bed for an extra meal and some coin.

Still, he would not take her unfaithfulness lightly.

Men like Loghaire would never feel comfortable

wearing the horns.

She watched her lover from under her lashes,

drinking the last of her coffee.

She wondered if Jonathan even suspected that he had

been the hero of her dreams for the best part of thirty

years. She had seen him for the first time when she was

invited along with her husband to his marriage to the  beautiful widowed Elisabeth Belding, then Elisabeth  Grey,  Duchess of Lindley.

Agnew had almost left her at home because she was  huge with their first child and he despised the look of  her, but she had insisted she wanted to come to the  wedding.

She had never set eyes on Jon before.  Agnew hated to  entertain "Sassenachs," the Gaelic word of mockery for  the English.  When she had her come-out in Lon-don,  Jonathan was governing his duchy in the North together  with his ailing father.

She had hated the new future Duchess of Rothford on  sight, understanding very well that it was the green beast  of jealousy instigating her dislike; how had such a low- born woman been able to catch a  Duke and a future  Duke in a row? Elisabeth Grey had been a lowly  colonel's daughter, with a doubtful possession in Ireland  that would probably make him some sort of a squire at  best. Her mother was rumored to have been an actress,  but nobody could tell for certain, as she was originally  Irish-born with a hoity-toity name, of which  one

doubted it was truly hers to carry. It had all been quite  lowering, although Jonathan Montgomery was elated to  have Elisabeth as his wife at last.

Audrey knew he had almost dueled with old Lindley  over her in earlier days, but when he left the country for  one of the wars against the French, Lindley had seen his  chances and secured her for his bed with a wedding ring

around one of her grabbing fingers, something Jonathan  had not been willing to gift her with at the time.

Jonathan had hardly been able to await her year of  mourning before tearing  her to the altar after William  Lindley’s death during her  fifth year of marriage.

At twenty-two Elisabeth Belding had been more  beautiful than ever.  She had borne Lindley two children:  Sophia and Richard, who got the most wonderful  stepfather in the kingdom, when she married Jonathan  Mont-gomery.

How ugly Audrey had thought herself to be at that  wedding!

She had never been known for her beauty and  Agnew had only married her for her money, bragging to his  friends that he would take her from behind, so that he  would not have to see her ugly face. To hear that rumor  had hurt her deeply, but then she had already been  pregnant with their first-born, Philip, and it had taken  the future Earl about a year to come back to her bed. He  had not bedded her the way he had bragged to his  friends that he would.  In fact, he was quite amorous,  strangely enough, until she ended that by telling him  there was a new child on the way. Since then she had  locked her door to him. He had tried to approach her a  few more times after  Hengist was born, but she had  denied his rapprochement, suspecting that he did not  have any of his disgusted lovers available and therefore  turned to her as some last resort.

She had felt such a relief not to have to share his bed  anymore!

Audrey was the  Duke of Lindley's niece, twice re-moved. Her father was one of the  Duke's many  cousins;her mother had been a Wharton of the rich branch from that illustrious family, bringing in a lot of money and a good dowry for her ugly-duck daughter.

Loghaire, then only Andrew Agnew, had pounced upon the dowry and as he was mostly in Rothford's  Scottish camp instead of Lindley's, her parents had agreed to the marriage: Loghaire was needed for the balance between the two Scottish  Dukedoms and when the future Earl of Loghaire had a Lindley in his bed, they figured that the balance would be even.

Jon took her in his arms the moment she finished her

coffee.

"Jonathan, we have to leave!"

She squirmed in his still strong arms.

He kissed her on the top of her nose, smiling that

dashing smile at her.

"Just one more time, my beauty. I will have to go to

Edinburgh for John's wedding and I doubt we will be

able to see each other there in this lovely fashion."

My beauty. He had said it again.

"Why do you call me that, Jon?" she  whispered.

"Beauty?"

His eyes started to gleam. "Because you are beautiful,

Audrey, look at yourself!"

"You know I am not. I could never hold a candle to

your wife..."

She felt him stiffen the moment she mentioned his

long dead wife.

Then he kissed her firmly on her lips.

"Elisabeth was a passion from the time I was a young foolish buck. True,  I married  her in haste  after Lindley died and if I may believe the stories, it was better than a fairy-tale."

"What do you mean? As far as I know it was the most

romantic love tale of the century," she protested.

He pulled a face, holding her close.

"It took me a while to find out that she was a  manipulative shrew. Shrew as in shrewd. I don't think  she was capable of love. The older she got, the more the  beautiful, golden apple turned out to be rotten on the  inside. She could play the part of the loving wife and  'grand amour' extremely well, but in the end, I knew her  for the self-centered and spoilt woman that she really  was. She had no heart, Audrey. Proof of that is that on  her deathbed she forced John to marry that little chit,  Lizzie Campbell. John was only twelve, for God's sake  and Lizzie probably not even four years old. Do you  know why?"

Audrey shook her head slowly. Like everybody else  in the kingdom, she had  always wondered about that  strange deathbed-wish.

“The little girl was her father's granddaughter. He had  begot-ten a son by some girl of the Scottish gentry, but  he was already married to Elisabeth’s mother. The  Campbells of Ayre adopted the  boy; I guess they were  the girl’s aunt and uncle. Elisabeth would go to all sorts  of lengths to improve the lot of her own family. She  didn't care that John, as a  Duke's son, should marry a

high social flyer with money to boot, not some poor  nobody from a Scottish village, but I cannot come back  on that promise. Not even for John’s sake. He hates the  chit, of course. He’s twenty-four and in love with some  terrible Russian countess."

She smiled bashfully.

"I am sorry, Jon," she whispered, "but still that does

not make me beautiful..."

"But you are!" he said urgently before kissing her

again.

Audrey blushed, pondering that she had not yet

cleaned her teeth with mint water.

He only continued after a long lingering kiss.

"You have the most beautiful heart in the world! I

always admired your softness and calmness. My God,  Audrey do you know how much a man can crave peace  and quiet when he lives next to a termagant? Do you  know she actually blackmailed me into complying with  her so-called deathbed wish?"

"You, Jonathan?" Audrey exclaimed with a shocked  voice, "How could she ever... You are the most powerful  among the  Dukes of the Realm!"

He grinned at her, suddenly finding again the sense of  humor that she admired so much in him.

"After she had Randolph she stayed in London. The  Queen wanted her as a Lady of her court. That suited her  damn well. She needed the admiration of the courtiers,  the Queen and the King more than she needed my  company. When I was back in Stirling, I saw Maighread

again.  There were precious few S cottish girls who could  compare with her beauty..."

He quickly kissed Audrey's cheek when he saw her  eyes darken.

"I knew of Maighread since she was thirteen years  old. She was Stirling's miracle girl. Her old father, a  MacDonald sired her when he was in  his sixties and her  mother had already passed by her fiftieth birthday. Her  beauty was absolutely blinding. When I came back to  Stirling she was nineteen years old and I managed to  seduce her. Our son was born before Elisabeth had  John."

Audrey's eyes widened.

"You have a bastard son in Stirling?"

Jon shrugged.

"As far as I know he is in Edinburgh now. I got him a commission with the Black Watch, because that was his heart's desire. He does not know about me, though.  When Maighread was pregnant I had to marry her to one of her old cousins who was on the brink of death. I bought her a house outside Bannockburn. Her so-called husband died within the year. Elisabeth never forgave me the faux pas. She brought it up into our relationship whenever she felt like being spiteful. She would only forgive me on her deathbed if I married John to Lizzie  Campbell. That's how it all came about. A 'tit for tat' she called it. I could never tell John what was lying underneath this situation of his marriage, though."

"Do John and Randolph know about this half-bro-ther?"

He shook his head.

"Another one of the promises you made to

Elisabeth?" she asked incredulously.

"I can only tell them when I lie on my own death-bed."

"Oh, Jon,” she exclaimed, "you cannot be serious!

What if  you die far away from them, or very suddenly?

You must tell them or leave them a note in your will!"

His grin suddenly appeared again.

"Now that I told you my story, you owe me a big fat swive, Ma'am!"

She watched him closely, her green eyes turning from

tender-ness to lust.

He grabbed her around her waist, reaching for a firm buttock. She had passed her fiftieth birthday some time ago, but for him she was like the sun and the moon together in the sky. He had known willowy beauties in his life, but as he had told Audrey already, he preferred the friendship of a woman he could talk to, whose beauty shone from within, to the quickly fading beauty of spiteful and spoilt women. She had become his haven in a rapidly changing world, Audrey Agnew, Countess of  Loghaire.

She sighed when his hand opened her robe, reaching for the apex of her thighs.

Jonathan Montgomery had been her lover for the last two years. They had met again at the court of George III.  She could not believe her luck when the most handsome  Duke of the kingdom started stalking her. When she had given in to his wish to share a bed with her, she had

been amazed. Bedding Jonathan had been so very  different from her husband's rough attentions. She had  never known what lovemaking could mean to a woman,

and Jonathan, perceptive to the core, had taught her

what it could be like. She now feared that she was  addicted to him, hardly believing her luck and her  fortune of being chosen as his mistress.

He had asked her to meet him at Sophia Grey's lovely  mansion. She understood now that Sophia tried to be at  White-sands whenever she could, but the affairs of the  Lindley properties often prevented her from living there.

Poor Sophia, with her self-induced spinsterhood,  because a rake had not taken 'no' for an answer at a party  in the country, where the Crown Prince was present. Her  mother had decided to 'cover the situation up.' The man  who had dared to rape her daughter was too ineligible to  become her husband. He had only been one of the  Prince’s ‘low-life cronies.’

Elisabeth Rothford had never liked complications.

She had shushed Sophia, saying that nobody would  notice the fact that she had lost her maidenhead if  nobody knew about it, conveniently forgetting that the  case of Sophia's maidenhead had been food for  the  sniggering court for a month.

Audrey decided to pay Sophia a visit in London the  next day to bring her a big bouquet of flowers. Within a  few days, she would leave for the North for John  Montgomery's wedding as well. Whether she would add  her company to Jonathan's was still undecided, but if he  would ask her, she knew she would come gladly.

She sighed when he rolled her on her back.

"Jon," she murmured, "at your age you should  wobblegrandchildren on your knee, instead of attacking honorable women!"

He  cracked a laugh.

"Audrey, any man will tell you that they will always prefer a good swive over dandling children. Just start moaning, will you? I love it when you moan!"

"I love it when you make me moan, Jonathan," she

mum-bled, after which he groused about women always  wanting the last word and not knowing when to shut up  and enjoy themselves.

*

*

*

Chapter 4: LOCHIELS SLIGHT PREDICAMENT

*

The sergeant scratched his head when he looked down on the young lieutenant.

Gads, but the man had really superseded himself to-night!

He was stretched out on the flagstones of the small tavern, lying in a pool of blood and vomit. The stench rose to high heaven and he wondered where he could best take hold of the man to drag him away without having to cope with blood and vomit on his hands and uniform.

There was nothing for it. Taking him by the legs would lift the short battle kilt the lieutenant was wearing and give all and sundry the sight that should normally be reserved to wives and lovers. He just could not do that to the lieutenant: Lochiel Cameron was known to be as prudish as a virgin. He might be lying passed out in a tavern of bad repute but he would never touch the women there. As far as Sergeant Burns knew, he was

still a fervent believer in his wedding vows even after  his wife had liberated him from them by refusing him  access to his own farm and marital bed.

"Stupid sod!" the burly sergeant muttered.

Like everybody else in the regiment he had heard  about the young  man's mishap with his wife and had felt  sorry for him, but then he had always deemed the whole  situation idiotic.

No young man in his right mind should marry a  woman ten years his senior! And just look where it had

got him! Passed out in his own vomit and blood, and  God only knows what else, on that dirty floor!

"I bet you'd welcome some help," a low voice rum- bled behind him, "we'd better get him to my mother's  house, Colin. There's no way we can get him back to the  barracks in that state."

Sergeant Colin Burns turned to the big youth standing  behind him. He had to duck as the tavern was low and

he hardly fit between ceiling and floor.

"Lieutenant Agnew!" Colin said in delighted surprise,  "I'm truly glad to see you, sir! I asked Morty to get me  some help,  but I didn't think there was a hope in hell that  you would come to the rescue."

"I’d just arrived from Stirling when your man came  racing to the barracks. We'll bring him to the Countess'  residence. I have it on good authority that she's in  London, so she  cannot cluck about him or tell me what  bad company I keep nowadays. Right, you lift him

under his right arm and I'll take his left. Prepare yourself  for a long haul; my mother's house is on the outskirts."

Colin nodded eagerly. Lieutenant Agnew was only

twenty-three years old, but like Lochiel Cameron he was  already a legend within the Scottish regiment.

Everybody knew that he was the Earl of Loghaire's  spare son who had refused to go to some Sassenach city  to study and disappear into the life of the London  Quality. He had joined the Scottish regiment of the 42nd Black Watch instead, receiving his training in Stirling,  away from his father's influence, and became a first  lieutenant without paying for his commission.

"You'll be staying in Edinburgh for some  time,  Lieutenant?” Burns asked the impressive man who had  taken Lochiel's left shoulder.

Hengist Agnew turned his face away from Lochiel and swore.

"Damnation, what has he been drinking? He smells like a pile of shit!"

Burns laughed.

"He's out cold with  it. Damn, the man is heavy! He must weigh twenty stone, sir."

"We'll take him between us, Sergeant.  That will be easier. We'll put him on my horse even if the poor beast will probably balk at his smell. You'll have to come inside the house as well; there  is enough staff to clean us all up. I understand my brother came to the house for the wedding already. My mother insisted and lo and behold, he listened. She has the house entirely staffed now to tend to Philip’s specific needs and her own when she’s back. "

Hengist put his foot against the door to open it, as nobody in the tavern seemed inclined to give them a hand at all.

"The wedding, sir?" the sergeant inquired.

“Lord John Montgomery is to be shackled to a girl of  Ayre, a baron’s daughter. The problem is that he does  not want to be shackled to anyone, let alone to that girl.  If ever, he needs to marry an heiress.”

"Like this one should have done," Sergeant Burns  nodded with his head into Lochiel's direction, "but he's

been married for five years now and has four kids, all  sons. He's been busy, you know."

Hengist rasped a laugh.

"I know. I’ve known him for years, since the happy  days when he hadn't yet taken it upon himself to provide  the MacGregors with a bunch of boys for their clan. I  heard she threw him out of the house. His house. Never  marry a hag, Sergeant, they get to you and you’ll have to  turn in whatever you possess, and then you'll find  yourself out on the cobbles."

Sergeant Burns peered sharply at the Earl's son. He  had heard rumors about the lieutenant stalking the  beautiful Marguerite Ross, who was said to be very  recently betrothed to one of the richest men in the  Realm. She was to marry Fat Alexander within a year.

He had only heard about the girl's beauty, as he had  never set eyes on her. Her mother and stepfather, Lord  and Lady Mac-Kenna, took care that she only went to  church and the lending library, places Sergeant Burns  never chose to visit, not even to lay eyes on the most  beautiful girl in Scotland.

On the other hand, it had not stopped the lieutenant  from flirting with other women. The lieutenant had  definitely been under Meighen Guthrie's skirts. When he  had stopped seeing the girl, her wails had been heard all  over the Firth.

A boy was holding Lieutenant Agnew's horse on  Mona Street. The Black hated Lochiel's smell as Hengist  predicted, but the lieutenant just threw the man over the  saddle, bottom up, took the horse by the bridle and

walked the long way home, an eager Sergeant Burns  following him, excited by the prospect of entering the  residence of the Earl and Countess of Loghaire.

-

Lochiel woke up with a blinding headache.

He brought his hand to his head and  touched a cotton cloth bandage. He felt his stomach heave and managed only by sheer iron will not to puke on the laced sheets.

Laced sheets?

He squinted at the fancy bedding through his blistering pain. He was lying in a huge bed with soft feather mattresses. His head was resting on a large pillow.

He groaned, not comprehending why he was not lying on his hard and rough bunk in the rented room he recently shared with his  army  friend Peter Wallace,  in the vicinity of the Edinburgh barracks.

Somebody close to the bed heard him stir and groan, and hurried out the door of the sumptuous room.

Lochiel closed his eyes again, feeling sick with the worst kind of hangover he’d ever experienced in his life.

He heard a man bark a short laugh. He whimpered and slowly opened one eye, which made the man next to his  bed laugh even louder.

"I asked my father's valet to prepare you something for that hangover,” the man said, coming slowly into  Lochiel's focus. "A little hair of the dog won't do you any harm, I'd say."

Lochiel opened both his eyes wide.

"Hengist?"

He noticed his voice was only a croak.

The man pulled a chair close to the bed.

"Don't move, Lochiel. I don't know how you did it, but you managed to almost split your head on the floor of that tavern. Gads, I am afraid I cannot admire your taste for drink-houses nowadays. Thank God I ran into the boy who had been sent by Sergeant Burns to let us know that you were in trouble. I'd never have been able to find you otherwise."

He turned to somebody Lochiel could not see.

"Here, my friend," Hengist said, holding a  glass with a straw close to Lochiel's mouth.

"That's Derrick's special cure against hangovers as big  as a Bengal tiger. The doctor told me you would need to  lie down for a few days. You may have a bad  concussion."

Lochiel's eyes squinted after he had drunk the potion  Hengist fed him.

"No heaving!" Hengist warned and nodded in

approval when he saw Lochiel choking back the impulse  to feed the special cure to the rugs.

Lochiel swallowed and then gasped.

"Can't stay,” he groaned, "I need to pick up Mont- gomery' s chit in Ayre. Nairn told me to get it done as  soon as possible."

Hengist's look darkened.

"Is John not going to pick up his own bride?"

Lochiel dared to shake his head.

"He'll be arriving nigh on the night before the  nuptials. He won't spend one more hour here than  needed."

"Why you?" Hengist asked.

Lochiel sighed.

"I'm known as a notorious married man, remember?  She's considered safe with me, I guess. The whole  family over there will join us anyway."

"Well, you can't go today or tomorrow and that  wedding is still two weeks away. Let me tell Nairn you  are badly hurt. Maybe he'll send someone else."

Lochiel looked almost cross-eyed at his friend.

"No use talking to you now," Hengist grumbled,  rising from the chair. "Let me get a message to Nairn  and we'll  see, al-right?"

There was no answer. Lochiel was asleep again.

Hengist shrugged and walked out of the room.

*

*

*

Chapter 5: AN ESCORT FOR LIZZIE CAMPBELL

*

"So, he is on his way at last?"

Bernadette Warleigh sat down on a chaise, looking at  a distracted Lizzie, who was fumbling with a bow on her  dress.

"Do you think it is improper to wear this dress,  Detty?" she asked, studying herself in the mirror.

Without waiting for Detty's answer, she scoffed:  "Mother says it's quite improper, but what does she  know? She's only an Irish squire's daughter. I heard  décolletages in London are a lot lower than this one."

Detty looked confused at her friend, who was also  supposed to be her cousin thrice removed.

Lizzie was the most beautiful girl in the world,

everybody claimed, with her dark curly hair, her eyes

the color of cornflowers and her rosebud mouth.  Contrary to the dumpling Detty, her figure was dainty  and her waist slim, emphasizing the broad hips. Even at  sixteen, her white breasts almost over-flowed the  deep  cleavage of her dress.

It was a pity that Lizzie knew all about her lovely  assets, though. The fact that she had been betrothed to a

Duke's son since she was four years old had not helped her to develop a sweet character. She might have been an adorable child, if her father had not taught her that she was very special, with the best marriage prospects in the whole of Scotland.  Inevitably, that had made her arrogant and haughty  as a young  girl, and almost unbearable for the girls of her age at fifteen . The only

one who was able to cope with her was Bernadette  Warleigh, daughter of an impoverished squire, because  she simply did not care about Lizzie's self-centered  nature. She did not listen to Lizzie's babbling and self- importance; she just sat and nodded, dreaming about the  heroes from the gothic novels she devoured every day.  Bernadette was not truly down-to-earth; she was just  floating on some cloud where most people could not  reach her feelings, or her sensitivity for things un-fair or  untrue.

Detty was still turning Lizzie's remark in her mind.

Why did Lizzie say that her mother was only a squire's daughter? Lizzie's father, Barry Campbell, had only become a baron since Lizzie's betrothal to Lord  John, now twelve years ago. Before that  he had been  a squire as well and not a wealthy one either.

"There was a messenger saying that your escort is on its way at last, Lizzie. Aren't you happy?"

Lizzie turned around to glare at her friend on the pink embroidered chaise. It was by far the most beautiful piece of furniture in her sumptuous bedroom. Her bed and furniture were made of rosewood, true, and her curtains were of expensive pink satin, but according to her maid Mattie a chaise like that did not exist anywhere else. It had been hand-embroidered in very little stitches.  Lizzie did not like to ponder on the fact that it had taken her mother months of needlework to finish the piece of furniture designed especially for her beloved only daughter's room.

Since her father had become Baron of Ayre, more or

le ss a courtesy title because it was newly created, there  had been entitlements; the manor itself and monies  coming from six sheep farms, and the land that stretched  along the wide river.

Lizzie was not able to recall what her former house  looked like before they came to live at Sweet Stream  Manor. Mother had wanted to take her there one day but  she had always refused to see it. She had insisted that  Sweet Stream Manor was her house and not some  grubby old place.

Her mother had looked at her with sad eyes,  but then  Lizzie did not remember when her mother had ever

seemed happy. She did not understand her mother's  attitude at all. It was true that her mother was not able to  hold a candle to Lizzie's beauty and of course all the  good assets Lizzie possessed had come from Lizzie's  father.

At the age of forty-one Barry Campbell was still a big  handsome man. Lizzie had inherited his black wavy

hair, although his eyes were of a more greyish than blue  hue. He had tall muscled limbs because he liked to be at

his farms and rode his horse every day for hours.

Lizzie loved her father to distraction, but it was  generally known that although her father liked his  daughter a lot, he had always mourned the fact that his  wife had not been able to birth him a son. There had  been other babes after Lizzie was born, but they had  died either within a few weeks of their birth or  months  before they had been due. Barry’s relationship with his

wife had deteriorated after the local doctor had told  Sarah Campbell that a new pregnancy might well cost  the  Baroness' health or her life, while the chances that  she would bring a babe to term were  probably  non- existent.

The time came that Sarah Campbell heard of her  husband's infidelities and the fact that a few lowly maids  had been able to bring the birth of his bastard children to  a successful completion had sunken her into a deep  depression. Although Sarah had hoped to find some  consolation in her beautiful daughter, that hope proved  futile when Lizzie became an adolescent. By then,

Lizzie did not see any reason to become a comfort to her

ever-saddened mother; she preferred the company of her  father, who only rewarded his daughter's adoration by  staying away from the manor for whole days in a row.  Barry hated it when women started clinging to  him.

It had been Mattie who had warned Lizzie that the  Baron preferred to find his delights somewhere else,  presumably as far as Glasgow, where the women were  willing and less prudish than in the county of Ayre.  Lizzie had been hurt. She could not imagine  why her  father had to go after 'willing' women when he had his  beautiful daughter at home.

Now at sixteen she was happy to go away into the  world.  The marriage to Lord John suddenly looked a lot  more appealing than one year ago.

When Lord John had visited her, at the  Duke's  urgings, he had been arrogant and unfriendly, but  everybody around Lizzie had consoled her with the fact

that Lord John was rather young to contemplate  marriage and could not be expected to be overjoyed  about his coming nuptials.

Sarah Campbell had been aghast at his bad manners,  but by that time, nobody but Mattie took any notice of  the  Baroness ’ feelings. Lord John had even pointed out  to the  Baroness that he was not remotely interested in  his future bride and her Irish-born mother, which carved  the insults even deeper into the  Baroness' mind. When  she had dared to complain to the Baron about the young  man who was to become their son-in-law the Baron had  been irritated.

Of course the young spare was less than nice; the marriage was an arranged one, wasn't it? The Baron did not doubt however that Lord John would make an about-turn about Lizzie as soon as he had bedded her. She was a beautiful girl and everything would be fine as soon as  Lord John had 'broken her in.’ The  Baroness was aware that her husband used a terminology that was rather apt for horses but not for humans, let alone her daughter, but did not know how she could make her husband see things differently.

Lizzie seemed blessedly unaware of Lord John's bad temper and arrogance: she had fallen in love with his startling handsomeness and thought nothing less of him than that he was to be her knight in shining armor, coming soon to ride her into a golden sunrise. On the contrary, her mother's worries irritated her to no end.

At least it had not helped Lord John at all to be so rude; there had not been a cancellation of the betrothal.

In March, the  Duke of Rothford wrote a long letter to  Lizzie's parents arranging the nuptials for May the 27th, exactly twelve years after his sweet wife's sad demise.

Barry Campbell had only shrugged his shoulders, leaving his wife and daughter in a state of vast excitement over the preparations for the wedding.

Lizzie would marry in Edinburgh in the chapel of the ancient Edinburgh Castle, where Kings and Queens had been wed through the ages.

Lizzie had little experience with men or boys, as everybody had known that she carried the stamp of  'reserved for a  Duke's son,' which meant that not one young man in the neighborhood had dared to approach her or tried to court her.

She had some knowledge of what happened between two wedded persons.

She had entered the stables a few times when two horses had been brought together for breeding purposes and Detty had provided her with some naughty books, which always ended with the heroine kissing the hero.  Also, she had witnessed the carnal love between a milkmaid and a stable -lad, unwitting at first and afterward with unmitigated interest. Watching with climbing excitement, she had felt pangs of delicious thrills somewhere in her underbelly and had found out that if she rubbed that place somewhere between her legs, she could bring herself to unexpected ecstasy.

She started to stalk the couple on their quests for privacy, amazed at the fact that people could enjoy such crude acts so very much. She started to dream about the

couple's fumbling and couplings at night and had found  the secret joy of self-induced orgasms. Soon enough  Lord John had replaced the stable- lad in her erotic  dreams, so now that she was  to marry her  Duke's son at  last, she felt more elation than dread of spending the  wedding night with him.

"I think the dress is lovely, although a bit daring..."  Detty answered her question at last.

Lizzie pouted when she thought she heard some  criticism  in Detty's judgment.

"I think Lord John will love it!" she countered, "The  last time he was here, mother dressed me as if I were a

ten-year- old little chit. He will see the change in me and

adore me for it..."

Detty nodded hastily. It would not do to counter her friend and make her angry. She was to marry that very handsome  Duke's son after all, and Detty was not going to annoy Lizzie so as to prevent her taking her to  Edinburgh as a bride's maid.

The miracle was that Detty had been invited to accompany Lizzie all the way to Edinburgh as her closest friend. Detty's parents had not been so fortunate as to receive an invitation as Squire Warleigh and his wife had not been socially elevated enough to be able to mix with the illustrious wedding company that would await Lizzie in Edinburgh. Lizzie's parents had been forced to pay for Detty's bridesmaid’s dress as there was no way that the Warleigh family would be able to afford such a luxurious frock to be worn for one occasion only.

Lizzie had chosen the color and design of Detty's

dress so that it would enhance her friend’s countenance.

She had admitted that Detty was far from enticing: the girl had mouse-grey hair, a rather plain face, and she was a bit chubby due to her fondness of sweetmeats. It was not in Lizzie’s best interest to haul about an ugly bridesmaid, so for the first time in her life she had tried to make Detty look more  beautiful.

Detty was elated to see the peach-collared silk and the matching lace trimmings of her dress. She was to wear fake silken orange-blossoms in her hair and a small mother-of-pearl necklace that would be Lizzie's bridal gift to her, or more exact: the  Baroness' choice of gift for the faithful friend.

Lizzie's dress was a cloud of pearly-white silk, embroidered with pearls. The  pearls had been Lizzie's choice. She had rejected the crystal bangles that the modiste in Glasgow thought suitable, stating that if one married a  Duke's son one should be wearing real jewelry and not fake ones.

Her mother had been shocked by Lizzie's choice. In her book pearls were similar to teardrops and only worn at funerals. Lizzie had not given a jot about her mother’s opinion, of course.

"I want to talk to Samantha today," Lizzie suddenly stated.

She rose hastily from her chair in front of the mirror, calling for Mattie.

"Samantha?" Detty asked wide-eyed.

Everybody knew that Samantha was a witch who

lived in the woods with all sorts of animals.

"Mattie, Detty and I are going for a ride in the buggy. Get me my shawl just in case. Do you want to come  with us? Then we don't have to take a stable boy to drive  us there."

Mattie looked askance at her little mistress. She was  only twenty-three years old, but had lived with the  family since she was thirteen. When Lizzie had turned  fourteen the  Baroness had thought it wise to ask Mattie  to take care of Lizzie's wardrobe and bodily needs; she  would need her own ladies' maid anyway when she was  to go to Lord John's household.

Mattie had always liked to take the ribbons after one  of the grooms had taught her to handle horses and carts.  Lizzie had more than once used her skill to drive her to  places her parents would not approve of.

Lizzie abhorred driving anything. She had been

taught well how to ride a horse, which she did with a  firm hand and a straight seat due to her father's lessons.  His praise had been more important to her than her  initial fright of horses. Still, steering a contraption  through a crowd was akin to doing a servant's work, in  her opinion, and that of course could not be expected of  a young woman who was to marry a  Duke's son.

Mattie had balanced her role as a ladies' maid

between the  Baroness and Lizzie and it had been clear  from the start which was the more demanding of the

two.

She was very  fond of the poor  Baroness, who had her own bedroom in the house since the Baron had decided

to openly stray from the marriage bed.

Mattie's fondness for the  Baroness was reciprocated:  when the Baron had been drunk and tried to lay his  hands on Mattie while she made Lizzie's bed (Mattie  was the epitome of a healthy and busty country girl) she  had cracked a bedpan on his head, earning her the  Baron's disgust and the  Baroness' delight.

Mattie was born on one of the tenant's farms and had  always had a healthy outlook on life. There had been a  nice man once whom she went steady with, but he had  left for the soldier's ranks of the Scottish Stirling  regiment and his homecomings had been far and few.

Mattie had given up on him after he had not  reappeared for more than a year.  Now she hoped she  would be able to find somebody in Edinburgh or  London; wherever life would take her with her young  mistress, as the boys in Ayre were not much to her  critical liking.

Mattie was a down-to-earth girl with a good eye for  character. She had not liked Lord John one bit for his

arrogance and sarcasm. She had watched her little  mistress' growing feelings for the cad with a sinking  heart, as she did not suppose any good would come from  that union. Although she thought Lizzie rather  spoiled  and naive, there was room enough in her heart to love  her. Strangely enough, Lizzie tended to forget her self- indulgences when Mattie was around, un- characteristically treating her like an older sister.

"Do you think you should go there today? What if  Lord John arrives and you're not there?"

Lizzie put up her chin.

“Samantha's only a half an hour's ride, I'm certain we  will be back in time. I need to consult her on some  matters."

Mattie knew exactly on what matters Lizzie wanted to  consult Samantha  Ferrer.

She decided that it would be wiser to go with her  charge. Lizzie might need her after the consultation.  Mattie did not have a lot of confidence in what was  going to happen to Lizzie's future and if Lizzie wanted  Samantha to look into her cards to  tell her what the  future would be holding for her, she'd better be there to  do damage control.

-

"Are you certain you want to know what the cards are  saying?"

Samantha Ferrer looked at Lizzie with some concern.

Samantha Ferrer was a stunning redhead of  nearly  twenty-five years who had been widowed since she was  twenty-one, when her husband and babe had died in the  fire at their farm.

She had preferred to sell the Ferrer property and to live in a small cottage in the woods of the Ayre district.

She had some goats, chickens and sheep and nurtured  anherbal garden.

People had started to look at her in strange ways when she had started to sell potions and lotions, which earned her the reputation of being a witch. Her red hair

did not help that reputation either, nor the fact that some  gypsy woman had taught her to tell people's fortunes by  reading her playing cards for them. The fortune telling  had become her best paying sidekick since the time she  lived in her cottage.

Barry Campbell had not hesitated to give her his  protection though, bartering his help and protection  against the use of her very delectable body.

Mattie had noticed at once that Samantha was  breeding, although she hid the fact well under her wide

apron.

Mattie had no doubts there was a new illegitimate

Campbell on the way and  she looked at Samantha withdisapproval, although she also sensed some envy. Barry  Campbell was too handsome of a man for his own good.  She had slapped him more than once when he'd made some obvious advances at her, but she had done that for her poor mistress' sake. The  Baroness suffered under  Barry's shenanigans with all the willing girls in Ayre and  Mattie was wise enough not to start anything with the  Baron under Sarah Campbell's nose.

On the other hand, Barry Campbell was food for any girl's fantasies and if Mattie had lived far away in some cottage in the woods instead of at the Campbell's residence, she wasn't so certain that she would not have succumbed to Barry Campbell's charms. Apart from the fact that Barry Campbell had become Ayre's most notorious stud, he also had a reputation as a great lover.  Mattie had indulged with her soldier in some  hurried

lovemaking and honestly, she would not have minded  matching her experience with the good-looking Baron.

"Why else would I be here?" Lizzie asked with a  pout.

"Because the cards may not always tell you what you  would like to know," Samantha explained patiently.

"I have laid them now on the table and something  tells me there are a few things in there that you may not  like to hear at all, Miss Lizzie."

Lizzie looked adamant.

"Just start, Samantha. I'm paying you for it, remem- ber?"

Samantha sent a worried look at Mattie who just shrugged.

"Oh, well,” Samantha peered down at the cards again,  "I see that you will be leaving s oon for a town near big water..."

"Everybody knows I'm to leave for Edinburgh!"  Lizzie scoffed, "Tell me something I don't know yet!"

Samantha sent Lizzie an exasperated look.

"Fine," she mumbled, “so you will be leaving for a new life. It will not at all  turn out the way you expect, though. I see here a Jack of Hearts who will interfere in the life you think you have got all worked out. There is a  Jack of Diamonds here who will show himself very shortly in your life and then he will go on a faraway quest.  That quest involves a woman, see, the Queen of  Spades here."

Lizzie frowned.

"What do you mean with all those Jacks? I don't  understand a thing you are saying."

Samantha shook her head.

"Patience, Miss Lizzie, let me explain a few things.  Look, the Jack of Diamonds is probably your husband to  be, as you are the Queen of Diamonds. Matching court cards are mostly couples. You have a short bonding with  this Jack of Diamonds, but he will disappear from your  life for a long stretch of time. See, he is on your left  which means he is only shortly with you and the card  between you and him is the seven of spades which  means separation. Left stands for past. You will be sad  because you and the Jack of Diamonds are surrounded  by clubs. Clubs mean, in this case, tears and sadness. On  the other hand, there is this rapidly approaching Jack of  Hearts on your right. There are many hearts involved  with you and the Jack of Hearts which means, ah, love  of the body more than the mind."

"Don't you think the Jack of Hearts is my husband-to- be?" Lizzie interrupted.

Samantha shook her head.

"Jack of Hearts is almost always the lover. He's

known to appear as a lover in any deck."

"What about my marriage?" Lizzie asked, now a little  bit panicky.

"You'll marry, alright," Samantha continued, staring at  the cards before her, “and there will be children. But I  see a lot of secrets here. Sorrow and loneliness, Miss  Lizzie. There is also... bodily harm, for yourself and the  persons around you, and..."

Samantha suddenly stopped. She stared at  the King of  Clubs, who was a bit removed from the Queen of Clubs.

"There is this couple," she whispered, "they are estranged and the man, the husband..."

"Well?" Lizzie asked sharply.

"There may be an accident. They... Their..."

"Does it have anything to do with me?"

Lizzie stamped her foot. The reading had not at all gone the way she had expected.

Samantha hesitated. She passed her apron alongside her eyes as if wiping away a tear.

"Ah, by the time things proceed you will be far away from this couple, Miss Lizzie."

Lizzie nodded.

"It does not have anything to do with me, then?

Anything else I need to know?"

Samantha sniffed, rubbing her belly unconsciously.

"No. Except that you will not want for anything, in a

material way, ever. "

Lizzie gave Samantha a shilling and sent Mattie a

look of disgust.

"We're finished here !"

"I'd like Samantha to read my cards as well," Detty  objected.

Lizzie sat down on a simple wooden chair,  impatiently tapping her foot.

Samantha was already shuffling the cards for Detty.

"I see this husband for you, Miss Detty," Samantha  said, "but he is far away, maybe even as many as seven  years, because he is at the brink of the frame. You will

marry him and he will obtain a very elevated position in  life, although it won't seem so in the beginning of your  marriage. You will give your love, however, to  somebody else. Somebody you will meet soon and will  know for years. He will be the one to give you your  heart's desire in some way. Your life will be quite  balanced in the beginning. See: the diamonds neutralize  the hearts and the spades are neutralizing the clubs. You  will only find true love when you... when you go for it."

Detty looked confused and then elated.

"So I'll marry a man in an elevated position and I will find true love?"

Samantha smiled at her.

"That's the gist of it, Miss Detty."

She mused that in the end all the women who wanted her to read the cards wanted to know the same thing: will I find true love and will I marry.

"Can we go now?" Lizzie asked  impatiently, rising from the chair, "Lord John may be arriving any minute."

Detty gave Samantha  some coins and thanked her profusely. Then she had to race after Mattie and Lizzie who were already getting into the buggy.

"Oh, darn!" Lizzie exclaimed, "I forgot my shawl inside. Will you get it for me Mattie? Just fasten the reigns to the knob on the side!"

Mattie hurried out of the cabriolet, at the same time preventing Detty from entering it.

Something shot from under the brushes, followed by a big hound.

The horse in front of the buggy lifted its legs and

screamed.

It balked at the two noisy creatures and started to run with the buggy swinging from left to right behind it.

Lizzie, who had just wanted to sit down, shrieked with terror and fell backwards onto her seat.

Mattie and Detty cried out simultaneously when they saw the buggy catch up speed as the horse jumped into a fast gallop, disappearing into the direction of the road to  Ayre.

-

Lochiel looked morosely behind him.

When he had left Edinburgh four days ago, he had been in a black mood and for some reason that mood

had not lifted.

He looked up at the sky and swore under his breath.  This May had been a very wet month and looking up at  the sky told him that they had not had the last of the rain  yet.

He grimaced at Sergeant Burns who was heading the  half-platoon of the Highlanders of the 42nd.

Yesterday they had travelled between Castle Stirling  and Glasgow and the rain coming from the North had  proven to be unrelenting and cold. Their stay in  Glasgow had been short and  uncomfortable : the inn  where they stayed only had room for them in and above  the stables. The badly maintained roof leaked and made  their short sleeping time  miserable and wet.

Sergeant Burns had laughingly told Lochiel that he  had been spoilt during his stay at the barracks in

Edinburgh, and Lochiel supposed that he was right. Also the featherbed that he had occupied while in Hengist's mother's house had been too soft and luxurious; making him quickly forget what the life of a soldier was really about. Not that he truly knew of a soldier's life. Being stationed in Edinburgh was hardly a punishment for a man. The barracks were not badly appointed and the room he rented along with his new friend,  Lieutenant Peter Wallace, was big and agreeable. They were lucky enough to find a batman whom they both paid for, and who also took care of their 'bodily needs' such as clothing, laundering, feeding and taking care of their horses and weapons.

Lochiel looked down at his horse; a hefty black stallion with a pedigree better than that of an earl. He could not believe it when Colonel Nairn told him that  Captain Rutherford, who had died from a bad, festering leg-wound he received when he was on a mission somewhere up North, had given him the horse in his will. He had hardly known Rutherford, although it was true that he had done him a few favors when they were both at Stirling Castle during Lochiel's training.

Stirling. His face soured again.

He had done his utmost to arrive as early as possible with his men in Castle Stirling so that he could ride all the way back to Bannockburn to visit his boys. The ride had been for naught. His wife had left for her father's farm in Dumbarton and had taken the boys with her. The only p ersons he had found there taking care of his farm

were two of his wife's cousins who were indifferent and

close-mouthed.

When he passed by his mother's great-house he had

not bothered to visit.

The Camerons who lived in it were virtual strangers to him.  Catriona was the one to claim the rent for the house every month and he knew that the new tenants were gruff and unfriendly.

Not that he cared. His mother had been dead for almost twenty years and he had been dragged from one  Cameron family to another.

When he was fourteen years old he received the unexpected and merciful news that he was to be trained as an ensign at Stirling.

He gazed up at the sky again, hoping that they would reach Ayre before the rain would start to fall.

When he heard the screaming he looked with confusion at his sergeant, who pointed to some com-motion on a parallel road near the curb.

"What the...!"

"Buggy stampede!” his sergeant cried out.

A horse stormed onto the road, dragging an open carriage.

Lochiel's eyes widened when he  saw a female figure holding on for dear life in the dangerously tilting vehicle.

Lochiel touched his horse with his spurs and it sprang immediately into a wide gallop.

"I'll get to the woman, you take that horse, Colin!" he cried to the sergeant.

The sergeant signaled to the half-platoon to continue on the road and spurred his horse as well, heading quickly towards the wildly meandering vehicle.

Lochiel had to pass the run-away carriage on the left in order to be able to reach the screaming girl, who was grabbing the left side of the fast moving buggy.

He stood heavily in his right stirrup to lean over the side of the buggy, which suddenly and mercifully followed a straighter track due to Sergeant Burns having forced the runaway horse into a straight line.

"Try to stand up!" he hollered at the girl.

She looked at him with uncomprehending eyes, her mouth wide open in a shriek.

"I'll catch you!" he shouted at her, "Just stand up so that I can reach for you!"

He kept one eye on Colin Burns who rode next to the frightened horse, trying to slow it down.

"Keep her straight, Colin!" he shouted.

The girl only leant against the left side of the buggy, still grasping at the side.

"Now!"

Lochiel leaned as much sideways as he could on his fast moving horse.

The girl saw his hand coming and rose to an almost standing position.

He grabbed her by the waist, hoping that his horse would continue to run in a straight line, even if he was poking it with his right spur.

"Jump!" he ordered the girl urgently.

She jumped up, enough to give him a firm grip

around her waist. She clung onto his right arm while he

threw her  inelegantly in front of his saddle. She ended  there on her stomach, wildly waving her arms, seeking  for something to hold. She managed to grab his left  upper arm and he swung away from the fast moving  vehicle. He heard her cry out and brought his horse to a  slow trot.

"Don't be afraid," he reassured her, still gasping with  his efforts.

He grasped her around her stomach and slid her in  front of him.

God, but the girl was a lightweight! Her long black curly hair had come loose and some of it waved against the side of his face. It smelled clean and feminine.

Something below his kilt started to stir and he bit his lip in exasperation. He could not get horny just because he held some child in his arms! How old was she?

He peered down her long neck and saw two beautiful white globes that were resting in a slightly askew low bodice.

Damn, not a child exactly, but a very young woman!

He felt his groin tighten and shifted her away from him. It was safe enough. Akbar had slowed down to a light trot and would soon start to step.

The girl started to sniff and he leaned a bit forward to hold her tight. He noticed his arm was circling her waist right under her delectable breasts.

"I thank you, sir," she said stiffly, swallowing her tears. She obviously felt embarrassed. Lochiel wanted to

let go of his armful of this small woman, but was not  certain if she would be able to keep herself upright on  his big horse. Not all women were used to the height of  a horse.

In the meantime, Colin had taken hold of the bit of the spooked horse. It slowed down in an instant.

"I'll have Rigby take over and drive the buggy, sir!"  Colin called to Lochiel.

The soldiers had followed them  in a fast trot and were almost upon them.

Corporal Rigby jumped from his horse, throwing the reins to a nearby rider. He walked to the buggy that had come to a standstill now. The spooked horse was breathing heavily and Rigby took her by the nose, softly

speaking reassuring words.

"You can go back into the buggy, Miss, if you wish,”  Lochiel said softly to his armful.

She turned around to him, shoving her firm behind  into his kilt with the movement.

Lochiel almost began to pray in despair.

For the journey he had pushed his sporran to his side  on its belt and nothing separated him from the little lady  except for the wool of his kilt and the flimsy cloth of her  enticing dress.

She shook her head, staring at him with the bluest  eyes this side of the Realm.

"No, no!" her rosebud mouth pleaded, "I can't go back  in that thing!"

"You cannot be very comfortable on my horse's  shoulders, ma'am," he drawled.

Christ in heaven, but the little lady was a beauty!

He was not used to sheer beauty. Catriona was in a way handsome enough, but her rough ways and equally rough life had prevented her from becoming even remotely beautiful. There had been only one sheer beauty in his life but she had died eighteen years ago.

"I'll lean against you, sir," she said imperiously, "I'm used to riding, so the height of your horse does not frighten me."

Lochiel opened his mouth to protest the idea. The last thing he wanted was to feel that  feminine firm butt in the hollow of his thighs, but she just wriggled her backside between his legs and leaned back against him.

He pressed his lips together. One more movement like that and he would shame himself and stain his kilt!

At least the little lady was  not aware of his predicament. She pushed her head under his chin and re-laxed against him.

Lochiel secretly peered at Sergeant Burns who was obviously trying not to laugh uproariously.

Damn! The man had noticed his precarious ‘position’, and near panic, and deemed it very funny!

"We'll take the buggy to your place, ma'am, wherever that is," Lochiel rasped, "you just sit tight."

-

Lochiel woke up with a shout on his lips.

He sat up and looked around the strange room. The small window of the room was opened wide to let in a cool breeze. The sky was coloring a dusky grey through the slits of the thin curtain that lifted on the  light wind.

He swore softly and lay back on his pillow.  He turned his nose in the pillow, inhaling the scent of the handkerchief that peeped from its hiding place where he had shoved it close to the headboard. Damnation, to be a married man and to revert to the ways that had only occurred in his boyhood! He could not remember the last time he had to ejaculate into a handkerchief after having been plagued by an unwelcome but persistent hard-on!

The girl he had rescued from the stampeding buggy and horse had turned out to be the same person he had to guide back to Edinburgh; Lord John Montgomery's bride!  She had sat against his underbelly, which had simply been on fire all the way, while she had ordered the half-platoon to the small cottage of a devastating beautiful, but pregnant woman. Two more women were waiting there for the buggy's return: a girl with mousy hair but quite a remarkable bosom who was called Detty, and a girl in servant's garb, who turned out to be Miss  Lizzie's waiting woman and an acquaintance of a stammering Sergeant Burns.

The whole damned cavalcade had ridden to the manor

of Baron B entham Campbell of Ayre. The two women  had sat in the buggy, of which Rigby had stoically taken  the reins, while Miss Lizzie sat between Lochiel's legs,  obviously innocently leaning against his rock hard dick,  which had refused to go down and become limp as it  should be.

Before Lochiel jumped down from his horse, he  allowed a snickering Sergeant Burns to lift Miss Lizzie

from her unknowingly indecent place on the horse,  giving him the time to turn his sporran back in front of  his belly.  The chit had waited for him to clamber down  from his horse. Lochiel blessed the fact that he had worn

thin, short underwear; he never enjoyed the shifting and  shoving of his bare bum and unmentionables on a

horse's saddle, thank you very much, so his genitals had  some sort of restraint under his short battle kilt. The  sporran had hidden his condition, thank God, but that  was about all the blessing he would get that day.

The Baron was at home to receive them, after a stay  for a few nights in Glasgow. The servants whispered that  he had just ridden in before the cavalcade arrived.

For some reason, the Baron took a liking to Lochiel  and remained close to him for the longer part of the day.  Lochiel was even invited to take his supper with the  family in their sumptuous dining room.

At least the  Baroness had given  Lochiel a small single  bedroom in the house as his sleeping quarters. His  twenty men escort,  Sergeant  Burns, and  Corporal  Rigby  were staying in the servant's quarters and in the rooms  near the stables.

Lochiel was  glad to have a room all by himself. It

took him only a few jerks to relieve the unwelcome  erection he had been forced to nurture since he had  thrown Miss Lizzie in front of his saddle.

He felt humiliated and ashamed. He was a married  man, by God, with four boys to his name and such  immature behavior made a dent in his pride. Yet every  thought, scent or word from Miss Lizzie sent him

reeling back into the unwelcome state of his straining

nether regions. He hated himself for it. She was only

sixteen years old compared to his almost twenty-five.

He was supposed to prefer older women, at least older

than himself. Here he was slavering after a girl who

would normally not yet be deemed out of the

schoolroom and, if she had been destined to be a proper

miss, heading for her first curtsey to the Queen at

eighteen.

God, if she had not pushed her amazing butt against

his crotch he would never have been in this state! Or

would he? He wondered if he even liked her. She was

impervious, snide and self-absorbed. He had quickly

made that assessment after she came home.

He straightened his sheet and blanket over his big body, trying to ignore the fact that he was hardening again. He could  have a lie-in for sure: they had arrived at their destination and his men were going to enjoy a day of rest, whatever that would  entail in a Baron's household.

After several tries to get back to sleep, he sighed and reached for his handkerchief again.

-

“He's very handsome, isn't he?"

Detty put her chin on her knees. She was in Lizzie's  bedroom where they shared a tray as Lizzie had refused  to go down  to the morning room  for breakfast.

Lizzie looked mulishly into the mirror. Her mood had  not improved since she'd found out that Lord John had  not bothered to come to accompany her to their wedding

in Edinburgh himself, but had sent all those soldiers

instead.

Soldiers! It had been a big blow to her self-esteem.  She did not know how to behave after that telling insult  Lord John had dealt her. For once, she had the impression that the staff in the house were gloating at her and did not  feel a bit of compassion for her. That had been another blow. She had always been convinced that absolutely everybody in the house adored her and wanted the best for her, but that idea had collapsed completely after the arrival of the lieutenant and his

soldiers.

"Do you think he's of the gentry?" Detty wondered,  “A Cameron, they say. Camerons can be anything, al- though I'm not sure if there is an aristocratic Cameron  now..."

"Will you never shut up?" Lizzie growled.

Since Detty had put her eyes on the  lieutenant, when  the half-platoon had gone to pick her and Mattie up at  Samantha Ferrer's cottage, she had not been able to

think of anyone or anything else. At least Detty had felt  obliged to commiserate with Lizzie, although in her own  airy fashion.

Lizzie still blushed profusely when she thought how  that lieutenant had thrown her over his horse's shanks.  She must have been some sight for all those rough men!

She refused to regret that she had come home sitting  in front of the lieutenant's saddle, although her mother  had gasped with shock at the indecency of it. Worse, her  mother had shrugged when she had complained about

Lord John's insult for not coming to escort his own bride.

When Lizzie complained to her father, he just squeezed her against his big  chest, saying that in those elevated aristocratic circles one possibly did not concern oneself with the logistics of getting a bride to town. In any event, her parents were to take her there. He assured her that he had never seen anybody with an escort of twenty military men before, especially when they only had to go to Edinburgh. He reassured her by saying that only the Queen would have a force like that catering to her travelling needs.

Lizzie listened to his words and heard, probably for the first time in her life, the telling things that were not being said aloud; Lord John had not cared a jot about how she got to Edinburgh.

She gnashed her teeth. Oh, but that cad was going to pay for the insult! She suddenly knew exactly how!

"According to Mattie the  lieutenant is married!" Detty gasped, holding her hand to her heart in a dramatic fashion.

Lizzie frowned.

"How would Mattie know that, Detty?"

"That Sergeant Burns used to live around here as a

lad, Lizzie. It seems she's on specific terms with him,

but I don't know how specific. Oh well, my father would

not take a mere lieutenant as a son-in-law lightly

anyway."

Lizzie watched her friend closely and smiled wanly.

How Detty could run away with her thoughts!

Did she care that the lieutenant was married? She bit her lip. No, of course not. It was actually great news, for what she had recently cooked up. She was going to have an affair with the handsome lieutenant! She was not going to 'save' herself for that arrogant cad that was supposed to become her husband! All the better that the lieutenant was married, so she could never be in a position to have to marry him instead, if she was found out.

She put her mouth in a grim line, wondering how difficult it would be to have the lieutenant delightfully compromise  her. She suddenly saw the lieutenant in the place of that stable boy and felt a pang of desire race through her body. Ah, but he would be perfect! But how? How?

*

*

*

Chapter 6: THE SEDUCTION OF LOCHIEL

CAMERON

*

"Your soldier friend said that the lieutenant liked me,

Mat-tie?"

Lizzie posed innocently on her chaise in a fashion she thought would become the future wife of a  Duke's spare

son.

Mattie frowned while she folded Lizzie's laundered nightshift into a drawer.

Lizzie looked far too smug to her taste of late, especially after the blow to her pride from Lord John not showing up at Ayre to fetch her. She had expected Lizzie to explode in one tantrum after another and now that she had done nothing close to those dramatics it occurred to her that Lizzie might be up to some severe mischief!

She blushed when she thought about Lochiel  Cameron. Colin Burns had been rather explicit about  Lochiel's attraction to Lizzie, as Colin had been a wit-ness himself to Lochiel's 'elevated' state of mind and body when Lizzie had been sitting innocently in his lap.  It had been cause for crude amusement for the whole

group of soldiers and it was just as well that Lizzie did

not have a clue about their bawdy comments about her

rescue from the spooked buggy.

Colin Burns had lived close to Ayre in Green Stream

when Mattie's parents were tenants there. Colin was

already in his thirties and Mattie had known of him, but

never had much contact with him. Colin had  remembered her boyfriend Malcolm Beam, as he had been

in Stirling  when Malcolm was training there. According  to Colin, Malcolm had left for the Americas with the  first of the 74th Regiment and was hunting red skins or  Revolutionaries.

Mattie had been disappointed that Malcolm had never writ-ten to her about his  whereabouts but then he probably did not know his letters anyway, so she told herself to stop thinking of him. She really had started to like Colin Burns a lot. Colin had been married years ago but his wife had died and he had not bothered to find himself  a new one.

Colin was quite handsome in his own way. He was stockily built with bulging muscles, favoring his blondish  hair short and curly. He was respected amongst his men, and as a regimental sergeant he was the highest ranking in the class of common soldiers.

Colin had known Lochiel Cameron for a couple of years now. They both had their first training in Stirling,  Colin as a soldier and Lochiel as a very young ensign.  They had become friends when they were both sent to  Edinburgh about four years ago, when Lochiel had become a second lieutenant and Colin had gotten his chevrons, first as a sergeant and within three years as a regimental sergeant.

Lochiel was already married, to everybody's disgust or amusement, at the time he went to Edinburgh. Colin had told Mattie about the recent developments in  Lochiel's marriage, shaking his head for the 'puir laddies' sake. ’

Mattie tried to imagine how anybody could throw a handsome specimen like Lochiel on the cobbles, just like that, but on the other hand, she could under stand how hard it would be for a woman approaching her forties to be harassed by another baby in her belly. Her mother had told her that babies at a certain age could be like a bomb or a blessing. Mrs. Cameron must have realized that and probably made the  hard choice of keeping Lochiel out of her bed.

Mattie could not help but wonder what it would be like to be tenderly loved by the likes of Lochiel  Cameron in the snugness of a marital bed.

She started when Lizzie repeated her question  impa-tiently.

"The men are teasing him with it, Miss Lizzie," she admitted, "although rather in a good humor, says the sergeant. When  Mr. Cameron is in a foul temper, he knocks them over single-handed. Sergeant says he can be quite a handful, but seems to get away with a lot. The men say he is protected, whatever that means."

Lizzie started to curl a lock of hair with her fingers.

"How would I know that a man likes me, Mattie?"

Mattie looked helplessly down on the clothes she was folding. How was one to tell, indeed?

"They blush when the girl of their dreams is near them, I guess,” she offered, "I'm truly not certain. Men are such different creatures than us women, Miss Lizzie.  Some are  quite clear about it, others never seem to show anything. "

There she started to think again of the Baron's very blatant advances. It had involved him pushing his erected flesh against her bottom when she was working in a bedroom. She shuddered at the thought of it, but admittedly not  entirely  in disgust.

Maybe if Colin...

"Detty says that a man will show you his interest when you are close to him, but I would not know how to get close to him. At dinner I'm placed between Mama and Papa and the lieutenant is all the way at the other end of the table."

"Why would you want to invoke the lieutenant'sinterest, Miss Lizzie?"

Mattie leant against the chest of drawers. Unlike  Detty and Lizzie , who were lingering about, she was kept on her toes by the  two  demanding young ladies and their mother. They would leave for Edinburgh within two days and Mattie was tired to the bone as the packing, cleaning and sewing of the three ladies' wardrobes was solely her responsibility.

Lizzie stuck out her chin.

"I happen to like the lieutenant, Mattie. He saved my life, remember?"

"You're to be married in about ten days," Mattie said evenly, "why don't you prepare for it to become Lord  John's true wedded wife?"

"For that cad?" Lizzie asked angrily, "I'd rather drown myself!"

Mattie shook her head, just hoping that Lizzie was in one of her mulish moods and that she had not decided to

start to play with that handsome lieutenant's feelings.

The man deserved better than that.

-

"Detty, I'm of a mind to seduce the lieutenant!"  Lizzie  announced.

Detty had been reading one of the  Baroness' books.  The manor had a small library  and perusing it, Detty had  found a gothic novel, which took her breath away  because of its daring contents.

She looked up non-plussed.

Lizzie stamped her foot.

"I need your help with it, Detty. I'm going to his room  tonight, but you must stay in my bedroom when I close  it with the key so that no one can enter it and see that

I'm not there. I'll put the key under the door, so that  which one of us needs it can get it."

"What?" Detty looked wide -eyed at her friend, "You  cannot just walk into his room and present yourself,  Lizzie. You are marrying in less than ten days’ time."

Lizzie put her nose in the air.

"Don't patronize me, Detty! That's exactly why I want  to do it. I don't want that cad to get what is a woman's  most precious thing to give, to quote my mother. I'm not  even certain that Lord John is going to marry me, but if  he does I'll take care he gets a tainted bride. Now, you'll  have to help me.  The lieutenant drinks sparingly at  dinner, but we need  him in a bit of a deluded mood.  I  will suggest to Cook  to organize a little party for the  soldiers in the barn as we will all be on our way the day

after tomorrow. Dad would no doubt love to be there as  well, so we will not tell Mother."

"Can we go as well, Lizzie?" Detty asked eagerly.

Lizzie stamped her foot again.

"Don't be such a goose, Detty! You're a seventeen- year-old unmarried virgin. You can't feast in a barn with  lowly soldiers!"

"If I'm to believe Samantha, I'll be unwed for another  seven years at least," Detty argued. "This could be my  only chance at fun, Lizzie. Your mum will be on top of  us when we leave for Edinburgh, there is no way we will  be on our own for even a minute or so. And when I get  home again..."

Detty swallowed thinking of the boring and strict  household she  had to  spent her days in . Her father and  mother were sticklers for propriety. They had seven  children of which three were daughters to be married off  and they guarded the girls like hawks. At least one  should be able to make a good match with a baron or a  squire or someone else of the lower gentry.

They would not risk any scandal in their family.

It was a public secret that the elevation of Detty’s  father into a Baron was solely due to the fact that her  parents had adopted a boy, notably their fourth son, who  was the Earl of Loghaire’s bastard by his wife’s lady’s  maid.

What Detty also knew was that this boy, Peter  Wallace, was responsible for a very much desired raise  in the household income as the Countess of Loghaire  paid handsomely for his ‘upkeep.’

Detty actually adored Peter and saw with much regret how her three brothers liked to abuse and humiliate him.

All this and more made living at home an ordeal for  Detty, the ugly  chubby  duckling that would probably never change into a beautiful swan.

Lizzie shrugged.

"I will not be going of course, but do whatever you please. Just watch out that my father does not notice you. There will be hell to pay if he does. And don't get drunk on whatever Cook will serve them. You will be useless to me when you are in your cups."

She hesitated when a thought came to her mind.

"I better ask Cook to start the party at teatime, and then all the servant girls will be taken when the lieutenant comes to the party at nine after dinner. He may only have the option to drink and go to bed at his usual time. I'll have to ask Mattie to steer away all the girls from him when he comes in."

She smiled wickedly.

Detty shook her head in admiration.

"How will you go about it, Lizzie? It's not as if you have any experience with this..."

Lizzie flashed her teeth  in a glum smile. She thought of all the times she had spied on the amorous couple in the stable and haystacks.

She  did have an inkling what it was about. More than she was prepared to tell Detty.

-

Detty looked quickly around her and skipped behind a

bale of hay.

After the dinner at the house had been finished, she had darted to Mattie's room, taking a serviceable dress, a servant's bonnet and a petticoat out of the servant’s closet. She had discarded her corset to dress hastily into  Mattie's extra gear.  She knew Mattie's dress would fit her, as Mattie was almost as voluptuous as she was.

She plucked at the bosom of the dress. Darn, she had the udders of a cow! Although the dress looked decent enough on Mattie, Detty's bosom seemed to overflow the neckline.

She should really stop eating all those sweets, she mused; nobody would want a wife with breasts like udders!

It had not been hard to slip into the badly illuminated barn.  Although there were only two lanterns hanging at the doorposts of the main entrance spreading an eerie light, she had taken a back door that gave entrance to the tack room and the alley to the stables.

They had constructed a large table in the middle. A huge keg of beer was placed next to it on a pedestal and people were busily using it.

Detty sniffed and smiled: the beer was the sort that was heady and heavy. Leave it to Lizzie that no one would escape a bad hangover in the morning!

She noticed that the baron and the lieutenant were sitting together on a makeshift bench. The baron was drinking beer but Lochiel was sipping at a glass of wine.  Ah, prudent man! He must  know that drinking that sort of beer on top of the wine he had at dinner would be a strong inducement into instant drunkenness.

She almost squeaked when something underneath her

moved.

"Hi, love," a male voice slurred, "where there's room  for two, there can be room for three!"

A female voice giggled from under a tangle of  clothes.

Detty jumped backwards and blushed. The man had  moved to sit up and Detty had the full view of naked  legs  and hips and all that was in between.

"T...thank you, I'm looking for somebody..."

The man ogled her neckline with apparent gusto.

"Must surely be me..." he muttered.

He suddenly fell backwards, as the woman who had  entangled him had given him a push.

"Piss off, fat cow," the woman hissed,” this one's  mine for tonight!"

Detty swallowed and nodded. She stepped back and  almost tripped over another couple that was stretched  out against the wall. Darn, she had obviously walked  into a real Sodom and Gomorrah!

She peered at the two men at the makeshift table.  They were still talking, while the baron seemed to drink deeply.

The couple she had almost stumbled on had continued their amorous business.  Detty tried to distinguish their faces but the couple did not strike her as familiar.

She started to feel something like a panic. There should have been about forty people at the impromptu feast but she saw only a few and they consisted mainly of couples in one state or another of 'fraternizing.'

The entrance door closest to her opened and closed and from behind a sturdy wooden pillar, she saw Mattie who had just entered the barn. The sergeant was right behind her and Detty wondered if they had been at some spot behind the stables doing the same thing almost everybody se emed intent on in the barn. Mattie stood on her toes to kiss the sergeant who then went to the makeshift table. Mattie disappeared again through the back door.

Detty hesitated.

She wondered if she could follow Mattie and ask her if it all was going to plan. On the other hand, she was not certain if Lizzie had told Mattie about the real

reason for this 'feast' and in that case she should let

sleeping dogs lie. Mattie could be a stickler for propriety  anyway and send her back to the house.

In the end, she decided to bolt for the backdoor that  had just opened to let a woman inside.

The light of the outside lantern fell on the front of  Detty's dress and she stood stock-still when she saw that  her bosom was almost entirely exposed and the paleness  of her chest  almost functioned as a guide-light. She  looked around her in rising panic and saw that the baron  was watching her from his plot at the table, which was  less than seven yards away.

Detty decided to flee and ran through the small door,  almost careening into a very drunken soldier who was  obviously following the woman who had just come  inside. The man, who was in uniform, grinned  lopsidedly at her and held out his arms to stop her. Detty

took up her skirt and raced away from him. She ended  up in a dark corner somewhere behind the stables and  stopped, breathing heavily.

Suddenly a hand grabbed her by the waist and turned  her swiftly against a broad chest.

"Ah, but you are not leaving this exciting party, are  ye?" a voice said huskily.

She recognized the voice immediately.

The man did not wait for her answer but took her into  a clinging embrace,  rubbing a very hard part of him  against her belly. Detty tried to push the man away, but  he forestalled her.

"Come on now, love," he muttered. "You’re a new

one here, are you? God, but you have a nice pair of  knockers in there!"

To Detty's horror, he put his hands in her neckline.  The buttons on her bodice sprang away and she found  herself helplessly staring at his hands that lifted her  breasts out of her dress and started to fondle them.

Her knees weakened and she  feared she was going to  faint.

Oh my God, to fall into the hands of the baron in such  a fashion? What if he recognized her?

The man pushed her against a trough and lifted her on  top of it. She sat  rigidly  on the brink of it, afraid that she  would fall backwards into the drinking water.

His mouth had left her lips and went directly for a  nipple that had hardened involuntarily. He moaned and  bit her softly in one breast while he kneaded the other.  She had to hold on to his upper arms as she did not

know whether she would faint or fall backwards into the

through. He suckled a breast and she  was certain she

was going to swoon with the feeling.

Then his hand reached for the hem of her skirt and he

went straight away to the apex of her legs, where her

pantalets were slit for convenience's sake.

His mouth went back to hers while he stroked the

unclothed part of her underbelly.

Detty never had a man touching her in any sort of

intimate fashion.

Her sexual experience was lamentably limited; her

parents never allowed her close to anybody, let alone a

real man.

She had learned to touch her own body in the loneliness of her own bed, but having a man do to her what she had guiltily done to herself was another thing entirely. The baron was  known as  a very experienced man and the fact that he was playing this game with her made her quake in her shoes. She had always admired the baron for his dashing handsomeness and to be the subject of his amorous treatment was strangely elating.

She felt very feminine when he started to whisper naughty things about her chest. His one hand kept on searching within her pantalets and she involuntarily opened her legs wide to give him all the access he wanted.

His mouth went to her nipple again while he seemed to lean away from her. He had withdrawn his hands and she soon found out where they were: they were opening the plaque of his breeches.

The light was very dim in the corner where they found themselves, but when he rose to stand straight, she saw that his breeches were down on his knees and

from under his shirt jutted something very big and erect  from a black hairy nest. Her eyes widened and she bit  her lips not to embarrass herself by shrieking in shock.

"Come on, baby," he growled, taking his erection in a  hand and rubbing alongside his shaft, "let's open those  nice legs wide!"

Detty was hypnotized with the view of the baron  coming to stand before her.

He shuffled very close to her, prying her legs wider  apart. He put the head of his shaft in front of her  entrance and pushed, burying himself almost to the hilt  in her.

She blooded her lip with her bite in order not to cry  out in pain. He was stretching her to her limit and along  the way, something gave...

"Christ," he  murmured, "you're nice and tight and  slick!"

He started to move inside her, dragging his erection  out and then pulling it back in with harsh strokes. Detty  stiffened at the pain he caused, and when she moaned,

he just went faster.

"Almost there, sweet thing," he mumbled.

He loomed over her, making those pumping move - ments, and she wondered when he was going to stop because everything started to burn inside her.

"Ah, Gods," he groaned, stiffened and then  he  relaxed  against her.

He withdrew and made fast work of drawing his breeches up again.

"Here," he said gruffly.

He fished a guinea from his pocket, the gold shining in the spare moonlight, and put it into her slack hand. He turned around and left, leaving Detty sitting on the through, her legs wide and her eyes unbelieving.

It took her a long time to do her clothes up so that she could enter the house without seeming  notably indecent.  Tears were rolling along her cheeks. Detty did not know if it was because of the pain she had suffered under the  Baron's  rough ministrations or the humiliation of it.  Something dripped alongside her pantalets. Detty was certain it was the blood caused by the piercing of her maidenhead. Later she would dis-cover it was mixed with his seed that he had so negligently spent into her body.

She knew she would never be the same again.

-

It took only a few minutes for Lochiel to fall asleep: the moment he put his head on his pillow.

At the feast in the barn he had been drinking with  Colin for the bigger part of an hour after the baron had suddenly left. Lochiel had followed the man's gaze, when a girl with a decidedly full neckline had shown herself in the light of the door that led to the stables.

At that time, Lochiel had had about six glasses of wine: enough to feel very comfortable with himself but still far from being inebriated.

He had felt a familiar spark underneath his kilt when he ogled the big-breasted girl: the baron was a lucky sod that he had his girls waiting for him for a ride!

He had taken a deep breath and Colin had looked at him in a strange way.

"How was your evening?" he asked Colin innocently, as if he had not seen the kiss the servant girl had bestowed on his sergeant.

"Not over yet," Colin said with expectations glowing in his eyes. "She had to go back to help the ladies undress. I'm sleeping in the tack room tonight, I played  Bradley for it."

Lochiel sniggered, feeling the wine going slowly to his head.

"I could have helped her with that undressing."

"I bet you could," Colin teased, "especially Lord  John's  little harridan!"

Lochiel frowned.

"Yeah, that one especially. I have a bit of unfinished  business with her."

He felt himself growing hard further, just mentioning  the girl and imagining her in a definite state of undress.

Colin looked sideways at him.  Lochiel Cameron was  a man who kept to himself, so it was probably the drink  talking now. It had only been a few weeks or so ago that  he had to drag him from that disgusting hovel where he  had been drinking himself into a stupor. At least Lochiel  did not seem to be in a twist about Catriona anymore,  now that he was talking about Lord John's little witch  lady.

"Who was the girl the baron was after?" Lochiel  asked wanting to change the subject.

Colin laughed.

"Beats me, I was only staring at her tits like every- body else around here!"

Lochiel just nodded. He was more a man for nice  bums than big tits. Catriona had always been rather thin  with small breasts, but she had a great butt.

He sighed. Maybe it was time he tried to catch up  with his sex life with one of the available wenches here,  but he saw none around him that were not somewhere  else, already occupied.

He turned to the stone bottle that contained a few

more glasses of wine and shrugged. He had never really  been somebody for the rough professional women,  although there had been enough of those in Stirling  before he married Catriona. On the other hand, he could  still not believe that he was actually hankering after a  diminutive, doll-like, sixteen-year-old girl, who all his  men considered a little spoiled hag.

"Drink it up, Lieutenant!" the sergeant urged, "It will  all be gone tomorrow, you know!"

Lochiel nodded again. Wine was as good as anything  to drown his longing for a child-woman he would never  have.

-

Lizzie tiptoed from her room. She closed the do or and put the key underneath the ledge, hiding it from the light of the candle that was lit in the hallway on a small table.

She was wearing her nicest shift under a silk wrapper

that was lined with lace from Flanders. She had taken

them earlier out of one of the chests that were sup-posed  to contain her trousseau just like the adorable slippers  that were on her feet.

She looked around in exasperation: Detty had never  showed up to take her place in her bed. It was now past  midnight and she did not expect her friend to come to  her rescue anymore. She bit her lip angrily, wondering if  Detty had been imbibing at the party and lost track of  time.

There was nothing for it now, she was on her own.

She crept silently past her parents' bedrooms. She had  heard them go to bed; her mother early as ever, her  father earlier than normal and probably quite drunk, if  she judged by his unsteady footsteps and his off-tune  humming.

Lochiel's bedroom was one of the 'lesser' bedrooms in  the West wing of the house, close to the servants’ stairs  that led to the kitchens, two stories down.

Lizzie's bedroom was situated at the beginning of the  East wing looking out on the front lawn just like her  parent's bedrooms and the guest rooms for the more  important guests. Lochiel had been deemed important  enough to have the right to his own bedroom in the  house, as he was an officer in the King's army, but  because he was not of the gentry, her mother had  decided on a bedroom that was hardly more than the  small governess' room near the old nursery.

It was a bit of a walk, but as Lizzie's small porcelain clock had already struck the midnight hour she was certain that nobody would be about.

She hesitated in front of Lochiel's bedroom door, wondering how long his seduction would take. It coul d not possibly be more than half an hour she figured, remembering the groom’s jaunts. On the other hand, she understood she was going to undertake something

momen-tous and she felt a moment of hesitation.

She started when the door opened with a loud click under her trembling hand.

The lieutenant had forgotten to shut the curtains.

The moon was shedding bluish light into the room  and Lizzie could clearly see him lying on the bed. He  must have been in some state of inebriation because his  kilt and boots were thrown down on the floor in a heap  while his white shirt hung askew on the back of a chair.

He was lying stark naked on his back, a sheet partly  thrown over his waist, leaving his long hairy legs bare.

She listened a moment to his breathing and decided  that he had not just restrained himself to the few glasses  of wine that he had drunk at their dinner table. He was

not exactly snoring, but breathed the way her father  would after a rather heavy drinking bout.

She stared at him, undecided what to do next.

The stable lad and his eager girlfriend probably  always had agreed on seeing each other somewhere for  their secret amorous rendezvous. At least the seduction  had obviously been a mutual thing.  With Lochiel  Cameron, she was not even sure if he was attracted to

her.  His demeanor towards her had always been a little  bit gruff after she had been sitting almost in his lap.

Lizzie knew he had more than eight years on her and  had been married for about five.

It suddenly seemed to her that they were worlds apart.  He was a man of the world with all his marital experience. Mattie had told her that he had no less than four sons and that he was deemed rich in the eyes of all the soldiers because he owned a farm and  a big house in  Bannockburn.

She wavered and thought about aborting her bold idea of seducing him when he mumbled something in his sleep and put a hand underneath the sheet.

Her eyes widened in shock when she noticed that he was stroking his shaft, that now started to tent the sheet.

Lizzie quickly dispatched her wrapper and slippers.

When she stood before the bed she decided to take off her nightshift as well, frowning about the fact that the choice of her delicate nightwear proved to be for naught.

The lieutenant was lying in the middle of the bed, but there was enough room for her to lie next to him on her side. She entangled herself around his length.

He was warm and smelled of wine and male.

His hand crept from under the sheet and he rolled on his side, putting his muscled arm around her naked back.

Then his eyes opened slowly.

Lochiel was still dreaming.

He was dreaming of a lovely and beautiful girl, that was way out of his league. He was dreaming about her

soft skin and wonderful round breasts. In his dream, he  caressed her and smelled her. He put his nose into her  black long hair that was held up in a ponytail. Oh, but  she smelled like heaven!

His mouth went to her long white neck and he pressed a long kiss on it, trailing it all the way to a very fine, hardened nipple.

He moaned when he put his mouth on it and he thought he heard his moan echoed in somebody else's.

His hand reached for the apex of her exquisite legs, stroking the small nubbin after he had opened her folds.

She was wet and willing, so he pushed aside the sheet he was wrapped in and rolled her on her back.

It was only a matter of seconds before he entered her, slowly, groaning when he felt her slick and narrow sheath receiving his rock hard shaft.

He remotely felt that something gave way when he pushed his arousal deeper inside her. He felt his dream-girl stiffen for a second and apologetically kissed a delectable ear. Then there was nothing for it but to answer this sp ecific call of nature. He pulled in and out of her and could not help the incredible elation building

up.

He came with a shout and almost fell on her body that

lay now stretched out on his bed, her legs very wide to

accommodate his muscled hips.

He wondered why his dream had not ended there.

The girl started to push against his chest.

"You're stifling me!" she complained.

He did not know how fast he sat up, blinking his eyes.

The dream girl was still there in the moonlight: all delightful nakedness and a  halo of black ringlets around her head, despite the ponytail.

He grabbed for the candle next to his bed and lighted it with one of his fast sulphur matches. When the light started to glow and became a flame, he looked at her with amazement and exasperation.

"Tell me I'm still dreaming!" he mumbled.

She just looked at him showing her white teeth in a tiny smile.

He sat back against the headboard, looking confused and very vulnerable. He suddenly did not seem so old anymore or so remote to Lizzie.

"Why?" It  was said in a whisper.

"You would never have touched me otherwise."

Although her answer sounded adamant, he noticed that she was looking  frightened.

He stuck out his hand and grabbed her by a shoulder, hoisting her next to him.

"Why?" he asked again, his  voice sounding hoarse,  "Do you understand what we have just done? You made me take something that was not for me to take. You are to marry Lord John in about a sennight’s time!"

Her shoulder felt very soft at the touch and he could not help his eyes roaming her delectable body.

Oh, my God, but she was exquisite!

He saw tears filling her eyes and to their mutual astonishment bent to kiss them away.

"I wanted you to be the first," she suddenly sobbed, "I hate Lord John for not coming to fetch me! I know he

does not want me, but I know you did! I..., you... you... I  felt your desire when I sat in front of you on that horse."

Lochiel groaned.

So she had noticed his arousal, the little chit! He had  hoped she had been too innocent to understand his  supreme interest in her.

“I thought I was dreaming! I spent into you for god’s  sakes! I breached you and what if my seed takes root in  you?"

For a moment, she looked at him with a startled  expression.

"Lord John will never know it was you..." she said  hesitantly.

He slapped his head with his hand.

"Lizzie, I cannot cuckold the son of my ducal  employer!  Lord John’s father, the  Duke of Rothford, is  the highest commander of my regiment."

She turned halfway and kissed his broad chin, already  feeling the bristle of his upcoming beard.

"Is that all you are worried about?" she asked  mockingly.

His expression changed to something that looked  almost like shame.

"Are you bleeding? Did I hurt you? Damn, Lizzie, it

should never have been like this for you for the first

time. You were a virgin! I drove you hard!"

His hand moved to the apex of her legs again, as if he

was softly stroking her.

His hand came back covered in blood and he swore.

He looked her straight in her eyes. He had never had a virgin before in his life and the look of her blood was devastating him.

"Are you still hurting?" his voice had become soft

now.

Lizzie shrugged. It had hurt of course, but not as bad as she had anticipated. She looked down and saw the reddish liquid slowly drip onto the sheet beneath her.

Lochiel had followed her stare.

He jumped out of the bed and almost ran to his washbasin which was still filled with clean water. He remembered guiltily that he had not bothered to wash when he entered his room, half-drunk with the wine he had been gulping last night.

He wetted the washcloth and came back to the bed.

"Open your legs, Lizzie," he urged her quietly, "I'll clean you..."

Lizzie only nodded and let him go about his business.

She suddenly felt very tired. She rested her head against the headboard.

She hardly heard his panicked voice when he whis-pered: "Don't fall asleep here, Lizzie!"

There was nothing to it; she slept.

Lochiel looked at her with exasperation. He had an idea where her bedroom was, but he could hardly carry her all the way back there. He moved her into a lying position, blew out the candle, lay down next to her, tugging the sheet about them both. He knew he should feel remorse for what he did to her while he was in an almost unconscious state, but he felt an elation he'd

never experienced before. God help him, but the girl had

given herself to him!

*

*

*

Chapter 7: TRAVELLING TO EDINBURGH