The Perfect Gift Read online

  “Yes, I will. I do.” Her mouth tightened. “But Jared, what if my father—”

  He pulled her to her feet. “Forget the bloody man. Izzy has already flown up to be on hand to watch over him in the hospital in Edinburgh. Until then, I’ve more important secrets to unravel.” He swept her into his arms.

  “But your leg—”

  “I can manage well enough,” he said hoarsely.

  They were halfway up the stairs when Morwenna Wish-well crept into the study and lit an oil lamp in an exquisite crystal holder. Light danced over the mahogany table and brushed the miniature manger of carved figures that looked very, very old. Nearby hung a simple tin angel that spun and dipped in the quiet air.

  Upstairs in the bedroom, silver candles sparkled on every table. “How did you…” Maggie smiled. “The Wish-wells, of course. Aided and abetted by Hope and Ronan. You knew about this?”

  “Not a clue.” Jared cupped her cheek. “I suppose they decided I needed all the help I could get since I was clearly making a hash of my first marriage proposal.”

  “You managed quite well, as I recall.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he skimmed the curve of her breast. “I hope you’re sure,” he said darkly. “I’m not about to give you time to change your mind.”

  “Well, I thought we could—”

  In one twisting movement, he planted her on the bed and trapped her beneath his powerful body. Even then, her concern was for him.

  “Jared, be careful. Your leg—you can’t possibly—”

  The great bed creaked. Chest to thigh, their bodies met, wooed, clung.

  Maggie’s protests fell away in a soft hiss of surprise. “I guess you can after all,” she said as he pinned her to the soft linen sheets, raining kisses over her neck and shoulders.

  Her hips moved. His thighs tensed. Jared swallowed as he looked at her flushed face and radiant eyes, then the pale length of her body. Most of his brain dissolved in that moment. He decided he’d better get used to the sensation, since it seemed to occur every time they touched.

  Fabric rustled.

  Lace fled.

  Skin to skin. Heat that goaded heat with unbearable pleasure. “Tell me again,” he said hoarsely. “Say you’ll marry me very soon.”

  “I will.”

  Her nails gently raked his naked chest. “Stop distracting me,” he muttered. “I’m trying to impress you.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Entice you,” he rasped. “Overwhelm you.”

  “In that case, you probably won’t like this.” Her palms skimmed his ribs and eased lower, wrapped around his hot, aroused length.

  “Damn it, Maggie.” He twisted, cupping her soft hips and finding the taut swell of her breast with his mouth. Stroke by stroke, he claimed her, enchanted her, until she arched against him, lost in textures of pleasure while his hands traced the perfect path of her fantasies.

  She made a soft, broken sound of pleasure.

  Oh, there. And there.

  Smiling, Jared complied.

  “Stop that,” she gasped. “It’s cheating for you to read my mind.”

  “Guilty, I’m afraid. But what man could resist?” His fingers eased deeper, coaxing waves of pleasure and intoxicating heat.

  He felt the colors rise at the same moment she did. Rich and heavy, they shuddered across to him wherever their bodies touched. Jared stiffened as her climax broke, slamming over them both in perfect synchrony.

  With a gasp, Maggie fell against him. “Jared, no. I wanted—”

  “I know, my love. And you’ll have it.” His hands tightened on her hips. Sleek skin parted as the sheets fell forgotten to the polished floor.

  She moved against him, soft and yielding. The joy shimmered and built anew, and her eyes were dazed with desire when she pulled him against her. “I do,” she whispered. “I will.” She wrapped her legs around him, torturing them both with the perfect gift of all the ways she meant to love him. “Starting right now.”

  “God help us both,” Jared muttered. He made a silent vow to share this blinding radiance with her for at least the next hundred years or so. “We MacNeills are very long-lived, I warn you.”

  Maggie sighed as his thighs flexed. He speared deep, merging his heat with hers. “Did I ever tell you—about my grandmother?”

  His mouth crooked. “Very notorious, was she?”

  Each new thrust sent Maggie’s heart spinning. “Terribly. Left her husband and ran off to join a traveling circus in France when she was a spry seventy-two. My father said she had a string of men who would have given every franc for one night with her.”

  “So Kincade women don’t like to be bored.” His eyes darkened. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “Something tells me—” she gasped as his hands sent pleasure between their locked bodies “—that boredom won’t be a problem. If I were bored, it would be hard to miss.” She shuddered. “Under the circumstances.”

  “Exquisitely hard.” Jared’s body tightened. He poured out praise in rough words of Gaelic, moving deep, so close that their very souls brushed. He wooed her, possessed her, until their skin was slick and their breathing labored.

  He groaned when he felt her tighten sleekly around him.

  Beautiful, he thought. Fearless and passionate in body, mind, and spirit. All those he had touched, and all had claimed him in equal measure.

  He blinked when she twisted with sudden determination and was surprised to find himself turned, caught beneath her sleek thighs. “You’re hurt, Commander. I think you need some help,” she said in a silky whisper.

  “Help with what?”

  She moved. The other half of his brain blew cleanly away.

  “Oh, that,” he said hoarsely.

  “You’re staring, MacNeill.”

  “Most men would.” His voice was thick as he met her sweet heat with muscles pushed beyond every endurance.

  Hold me here, she thought. Fill all of me.

  Her unspoken words were the final goad.

  Jared drove deep while pleasure coursed between them and joy bound them in blinding waves of color. He would give her diamonds, he swore. He would give her jade and pearls and laughter, along with his name.

  But first this. First the pleasure beyond any she’d ever known.

  The castle and its green hills could wait.

  Nicholas Draycott’s grand exhibition would wait.

  Now he meant to love her as no other man could. In the candlelight he gave his soul to hers, lost in worlds of platinum and silver. There old curses fell to rest, and ancient fears were healed. Home was here, he realized, anywhere that he could see Maggie’s blinding smile. The years seemed to fall away at the realization.

  The man in box 225 was finally free to walk out of years of shadows.

  He shuddered as she kissed the silver scars along his shoulders with infinite tenderness. Her mouth was sweet, but her thoughts were even sweeter.

  “Take me,” she whispered. “There’s nothing I want more.”

  No words left.

  No memories that mattered now.

  Nothing to do but follow her, down into the rippling light, down toward paradise found. Her pleasure grew, wave by dark wave, and Jared speared home, hard and deep. She moaned his name and his hands dug into her hips as pleasure raced and snapped.

  Maggie gave a broken gasp as he muttered a phrase of dark praise, then spilled his hot seed deep within her, joined now in ways neither had yet imagined or understood.

  Downstairs sparks gleamed around the crystal lamp, spinning up in flecks of gold and rippling purple. Snow hissed against Glenbrae House’s tiny leaded windows, and the whole house took up the glow, filled with a joy that had waited too many cold centuries for this night of perfect completion.

  Lochmohr House

  Lochmohr, Scotland

  Four weeks later

  IT STOOD AT THE FOOT OF STARK WOODS, A TWISTING mass of pink sandstone towers with slate turrets and eighteenth-century b
attlements, the home of generations of MacNeill warriors. History hung in every corner, from the clipped yew hedges to the narrow overhung tower windows.

  Destroyed half a dozen times by fire, rival clans, and English attack, the house was an architectural hodgepodge with three different roofs and an imposing Victorian wing. Rugged and grand, it dominated a lane of beech trees that twisted down to the loch.

  Jared stood, Maggie’s hand clasped in his as he stared at the home of his birth for the first time in almost two years. The huge oak door was well oiled and opened at a single touch. He peered into the gloom of the front hall, expecting the smell of must and mold.

  But there was none. Even without direct light, he could see that the floors were well polished. As they climbed the great turnpike stairs up the tower into sunlight, he saw that there was no hint of disuse anywhere.

  Lochmohr House had been well attended by the staff in his absence. Though Jared had turned his back on his legacy, clearly other, more sober minds had prevailed.

  At the top of the stairs sunlight spilled over parquet floors, pristine as the day Jared had left for Thailand. Beneath Jared’s arm, Max yipped sharply, pleading to be set free to explore the intriguing shadows of this new place. Jared set him carefully on his feet, smiling. “Mind you don’t go far, wretch. You might not care to meet one of my ill-tempered ancestors making his ghostly rounds.”

  “Is the house truly haunted?” Maggie demanded.

  Jared shrugged. As a boy he’d heard footsteps in empty rooms and doors close when no mortal hands were present. “I suppose that depends. My mother thought there were ghosts here. My father swore there weren’t. The jury is still out on that particular question.”

  Maggie laughed, drawing his hand through hers. “I wouldn’t mind a dashing Highlander seeking me out in some dark corridor with conquest on his mind.”

  “Good,” Jared muttered. “That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  Maggie’s eyes took on an answering gleam as he pulled her to him and cradled her face. “Bored yet?” he whispered.

  “Nowhere close.”

  “I’m vastly pleased to hear it, mo chridhe.” Sunlight spilled through the great tower, casting flecks of amber and gold through her tousled hair. She wore a simple sweater of heather gray and above it a single linked chain of beaten silver.

  The necklace, Jared thought, was almost as exquisite as her smile.

  “Are you certain you’d consider staying here?” he said uncertainly. “It’s an hour to the village and there will be no end of work to bring this place truly into the twentieth century.”

  Decidedly ironic, he thought. The job would be done when the rest of the world was entering the twenty-first century.

  “I couldn’t think of a better home.” Her voice filled with emotion. “It’s like walking back in time.” She ran a hand over the six-foot-thick stone windowsill and brushed the velvet curtains. Above her head Jared’s ancestors glared down in silent splendor from dimly lit canvases.

  Atmospheric or not, living here would have its problems. It was only proper that Jared warn her of them. “There will be no running out for milk at midnight. Everything will have to be thought through and ordered in advance. The phone service often breaks down in stormy weather, and the chimneys are inclined to smoke.”

  How bleak it sounded, enumerated that way. Perhaps it was wrong of him to even think about staying here.

  Of course, they would soon be heading off for Draycott Abbey, and after that would come the weeks of preparation for Maggie’s exhibition.

  But first would come a wedding in full splendor at the abbey’s nearest church.

  Maggie caught his face and slanted it down to hers. “As a very wise man once said to me, I’ve never wanted anything else more.” With their bodies touching, she could not hope to deceive him, and Jared read the full truth shimmering in her mind.

  Her passion, as always, left him awed.

  For an hour they rambled through the old house, beneath the Great Hall’s heavy beams, across an ocean of Oriental carpets to a drawing room that was vintage Victorian. In a different wing of the house, a weathered tower climbed up to overlook the wave-tossed sound. There Maggie stood in the sunlight, with Jared’s arms around her.

  As she looked far out to sea, the room seemed to blur.

  Images spun through her head, and the silence suddenly took on sound.

  From the cold north they came, ten men on fleet horses. Gwynna watched them atop the abbey’s granite parapets while her heart raced like thunder in her chest.

  She told herself there was no need for fear.

  The man she loved was safe at the coast by now, or even midway to France. Far too late for the Queen’s soldiers to catch him—or the jewels sewn in the lining of his rough cloak.

  Jewels that would stir a kingdom and raise an army for the north.

  But for armies and crowns, Gwynna of Draycotte cared little. ’Twas only the man she remembered as lightning clawed over the abbey walls. Only the man on his way to safety across the gray, churning sea.

  Tears streaked down her face.

  She shoved them away with knuckled hands. No tears when he was safe, carried where his duty called. No tears when she felt his gift stirring inside her, where his babe grew even now.

  “Someday,” she whispered to the stormy wind and felt the word snatched away in the same breath. In truth one day she would cross the water and bring him his child.

  Her eyes closed. She was lost in the joy of imagining when a single horse and rider pounded out of the night.

  She knew that horse.

  Equally well Gwynna of Draycotte knew that rider. ‘No,” she cried. “Not here.” Her hands closed on the cold stone. Why did he return when they bayed like hunting dogs at his heels?

  Down the abbey’s winding steps she raced, awkward in her haste. Through the shadowed marble halls, so long devoid of joy or laughter, while the house lay silent around her. She cared not for what her father wished, or even for her country. Not when her heart strained to different paces.

  His horse stood spent and sweating by the moat, and boots rang over the stone bridge. Then his arms, strong and warm. His kisses like spring rain on face and hair and neck.

  “No more could I leave than breathe,” he whispered hoarsely. “Another ship will do fair for my passage.”

  “No,” she said, desperate in her fear. “Even one more hour may be too late.”

  The shot rang out before she’d finished, smoke pluming from the musket of a soldier atop the hill. There was a burst of fire at her shoulder and a buzzing in her head.

  “Too late,” she tried to say. “Be gone.” The pain clawed into her head and became a snarling darkness. “Now.”

  Her hands reached out to broken dreams and empty air.

  The man she loved caught her as she fell.

  Fell.

  Fell.

  “Maggie? Talk to me, damn it.”

  Cursing, Jared pulled her to his chest. Her face was pale as death, her breathing nearly imperceptible. As before, she’d slipped away from him without any warning.

  He thought her eyes would never open.

  He was steeled to race for the hospital when she shuddered and blinked.

  She stared up at him, disoriented. “MacNeill?” she whispered.

  “Right here. What is it, love?”

  A breath hissed from her lungs. “A dream. Maybe something more. I’m not sure.” She gripped his broad shoulders, desperate to feel his heat instead of the clinging cold of the place where she had been lost. “Sorry,” she said raggedly. “I don’t know what happened…” She sat up awkwardly.

  Jared pulled her back against his chest. “You’ll stay right here until you catch your breath.”

  As he spoke, images churned through Maggie’s head, dim and cold. Slowly, with Jared’s arms around her, they retreated.

  Back to a past that finally closed its doors to her.

  As they touched, Jared felt th
e final ripple and sensed when her nightmare was truly gone.

  She gave a muffled laugh. “Is this how you mean to treat me? Bullying me at every possible turn?”

  Jared’s hands were still shaking as he pulled a thick tartan around her shoulders. “You’ve done too much this week. First the wedding plans and then that exhibition. I won’t have Nicholas run you ragged, friend or not.”

  She put a gentle finger on his lips. “No one runs me ragged except myself,” she said firmly.

  “You’re not sleeping half enough.”

  “I want you to be proud of me.”

  “Sweet heavens protect us, I couldn’t be prouder or I’d explode. Nor, I expect, could that beaming father of yours.” Jared glared down at her. “I don’t want you collapsing at our wedding.”

  Maggie’s lips curved in a wicked smile that made his heart skip a beat. “That would give them something to talk about, wouldn’t it? ‘Criminal’s daughter overcome by honorable offer.’ “

  “He’s no criminal. Now he’s a hero.” His fingers slid into her hair. “You’re certain you’re feeling better?”

  She nodded, her head slanted against his shoulder. “Have you noticed how beautifully everything has been kept? Someone has been taking very good care of Lochmohr House for you, my love.”

  He’d noticed, of course. He should have realized that the fact wouldn’t escape her keen eye either.

  “I think they knew you’d change your mind and return. I think they want to show you that they need you here.”

  By the time they made their way down the great turnpike stair, her color had returned. As Jared pushed open the front door he caught the scent of pipe smoke.

  A dozen hampers lined the stone steps.

  A folded pile of tartans, fresh from the process of waulking.

  A jar of preserves wrapped in red ribbons.

  A carved walking stick of preserved bog wood.

  A crate of home-smoked salmon from the loch.

  Welcome back, it all meant. Jared touched one of the plaids and nearly stumbled beneath a wave of strong, warming emotions.

  An old man sat on the stone bench beneath the beech drive, puffing at a homemade pipe. His craggy features curved in a smile as he stared at Jared and Maggie, then came slowly to his feet and said a phrase of soft Gaelic.