The revelry began at the wedding breakfast and lasted all day and into the night. Sinclair told Bertie the festivities would go until morning.
Fiddlers and drummers came from the village to play lively Scottish tunes, and the company danced. Bertie didn’t know the dances, but Sinclair pulled her into them, teaching her as they went. Daniel also helped, his exuberance nearly knocking Bertie off her feet.
She danced with almost all the gentlemen—Elliot, Steven, even Patrick, Cameron, Mac, Daniel again. Hart never joined in, they told her, although Bertie caught him with Eleanor in the hall, the two circling around each other in their own private waltz. Ian didn’t dance either, but he watched Beth and his children take part, the look on his face one of pure love.
Bertie sat out with Ian when she was exhausted, Sinclair walking Ainsley into another circle. Ian’s gaze rested on Beth as she danced with Daniel, Beth laughing, her cheeks pink, as Danny swung her around.
“I did what you told me,” Bertie said to Ian over the music. “I stayed.”
Ian glanced at her, taking in her ivory gown, minus the veil now. Bertie thought he’d speak, but he turned back to his wife and the dancers.
“You might not remember,” Bertie went on. “You took me aside when Andrew got hurt and told me I should stay with them. It was good advice. I took it to heart.”
“I remember.” Ian’s words broke through hers.
Bertie waited, but Ian was finished. “I understand now,” Bertie said. “I know you meant that they needed me to look after them, but I need them too. It goes both ways.”
Ian glanced at her, as though he had no idea why she kept speaking to him. The matter was closed.
“I just wanted to say thanks,” Bertie said. “You made me think. I’m grateful, is all.”
“You love them.” The statement was bald, flat, brooking no argument.
Bertie’s gaze went to Sinclair, his light hair glinting in the lamplight, as blond as his sister’s. He was graceful for a large man, his kilt swaying enticingly as he danced.
“You’re right about that,” Bertie said. “I love them with all my might.”
Ian waited a long moment before he spoke again. “A few years ago, I would have asked how you knew you loved them. Now, I don’t have to.” His gaze went to Beth again, and Bertie saw his world adjust.
Bertie felt the same adjustment when she looked at Sinclair. Her world had been chaotic, sometimes frightening, but always uncertain. Sinclair was certainty, but not dullness. Never that.
Sinclair caught her eye as he spun Ainsley by the waist and joined the main circle again, and he grinned at her. It was a smile of gratitude and love, as well as one of sinful promise. They hadn’t had much time to be alone since they’d arrived, although late last night, Sinclair had entered Bertie’s bedroom and made swift and silent love to her. They’d had to be quiet, as the house around them was filled, but the heat of the encounter was still with her.
The dance ended. Ian immediately left the corner to find Beth. Sinclair led Ainsley back to her husband, who was deep in conversation with Elliot, and came for Bertie.
“There’s a Scottish tradition of the clan waiting outside the bedroom door for the groom to deflower his bride,” he said to her. “With much drinking and shouting to go with it.”
Bertie faltered. “Oh, dear.”
“I told my brothers and the clan Mackenzie they’d better not try it. So they’ll want to cheer us to our bedroom, unless we can get away before they notice.”
“Yes, let’s.” Bertie’s face burned. “Please.”
Sinclair gave her a quick kiss on the lips, which elicited a shout from the dancers. They were certainly being watched. “You go first. Make an excuse to anyone who sees you. I’ll join you. Be casual.”
“Oh, you know I’m very good at slipping away.” Bertie winked at him. “Raised to it, I was.”
Sinclair laughed. “You are so beautiful.”
Bertie warmed. “Flatterer.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Until then.”
Sinclair drifted off, allowing himself to be caught by his friends and brothers-in-law. Bertie talked and laughed with the ladies a few minutes, then excused herself to go to the necessary. She declined any company, saying she could find her way in her own house.
Once she’d left the ballroom, she ducked into a side passage and nipped up a set of stairs. The bedroom she’d share with Sinclair was on the first floor, a suite that took up one corner of the house. A lovely place with a view of the loch.
The hall was dim but the sitting room outside the bedroom was lit, as was the bedroom itself. Bertie shut the door and stood for a moment in the middle of the chamber, letting out her breath. Her body hummed—all the dancing, laughter, and tiredness catching up to her.
She was married. Mrs. Sinclair McBride. She could scarce believe it. Cat and Andrew would be her own children. A ready-made family.
Bertie sat down, running her hands along the finery of her ivory skirt. The Mackenzie and McBride ladies had once again enjoyed themselves transforming Bertie from her plain governess attire to a Cinderella gown. Bertie lifted the layers of silk and tulle and the petticoats beneath, stripping off her stockings while she waited for her Prince Charming.
He came in not long later, closing and locking the bedroom door. He leaned against it, letting out a breath of relief.
“Thought I’d never get away. The Mackenzie and McBride men are all madly in love with their wives—you’d think they’d let me be alone with mine.”
“They love to tease, your family does.”
“They’re your family now too,” Sinclair said darkly. “I’m not sure whether to congratulate you or express sympathy.”
“I don’t mind. I’ve always wanted a big family.” Bertie rose, took hold of his broad hand, and placed it on her lower abdomen. “Which will become bigger soon.”
Sinclair gazed down at her in no surprise at all, his palm warm through the fabric. “I wondered when you would tell me.”
Bertie scowled. “Oh, blast you, I was hoping you’d fall down in a dead faint. Who told ya?”
“No one.” Sinclair’s shrug was maddening. “I’m good at observing people—I know what it means when a woman is ill in the mornings then eats like a horse the rest of the day.”
“A horse?” Bertie planted her hands on her hips. “What do you mean, a horse?” She deflated. “You’re probably right; I’m always hungry now. I’m going to be enormous.”
“I hope so. I want you and our son or daughter healthy.” Sinclair lost his smile and stepped close to her. “I’d forgotten what it was to be happy, Bertie. Truly happy all the way through. Thank you for putting the laughter back into my life.”
Bertie rested her hand on his chest, feeling his heart beating beneath. No flutters as when he couldn’t breathe, no strange pounding as when he’d been fevered. “When I first saw you,” she said, “I wanted more than anything to make you smile.”
Sinclair rewarded her with one now. “And you’ve been doing it ever since.”
Bertie let her hand stray down his abdomen to his kilt. “Looks like you’re doing more than smiling.”
“You think I can help it?” Sinclair rested his hands on her shoulders, fingers gripping. “I’m with my beautiful wife, in her wedding dress, on my wedding night. I’m drunk and happy, but not insensible.”
Bertie squeezed the very hard thing beneath his kilt. “I can see that. Feel it, rather.”
“No more talking.” Sinclair leaned close. “I make my living talking. Tonight, I just want . . . you.”
“You have me,” Bertie whispered. “Forever. Love you, Sinclair.”
“That you can say, over and over again.” He nuzzled her. “I love you too, Bertie.”
Bertie again told Sinclair she loved him as he slowly stripped off first he
r beautiful clothes then his. She said it when he lifted her to the bed and knelt in front of her to kiss his way down her body. And again as he leaned forward and drank her, firelight kissing his bare back and the gold of his hair.
Sinclair laid her on the bed, rising over her, his cock hard against her thigh, while he took her breast in his mouth, licking, suckling. Bertie said I love you when he slid himself inside her, his eyes intent on hers, and she said it once more when he began the rocking motion that sealed them together.
She cried it when ecstasy lifted her higher than had the dancing and the fact that she was his wife. Bertie murmured it in a low voice when Sinclair collapsed onto her, gathering her against his sweat-sheened body. He kissed her face, her hair, her throat, and Bertie whispered it to him.
“I love you too, Bertie,” Sinclair answered every time. “I love you.”
They lay together, curled into each other, one.
Complete.
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed Sinclair and Bertie’s story! They were a wonderful couple to write.
The Mackenzies’ family saga continues: Watch for the next novel, The Stolen Mackenzie Bride, and another novella in 2015, as well as print versions of the novellas bundled into paperback form. I will be exploring the Mackenzie family past, present, and future in the stories coming up.
Meanwhile, please enjoy a peek at the very first novel of the Mackenzies series, The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie, where it all began! Meet Ian Mackenzie, a man the world believes is “mad,” and Beth Ackerley, a young widow who sees that there is far more to him than anyone understands.
Thank you, and all my best wishes,
Jennifer Ashley
LONDON, 1881
“I find that a Ming bowl is like a woman’s breast,” Sir Lyndon Mather said to Ian Mackenzie, who held the bowl in question between his fingertips. “The swelling curve, the creamy pallor. Don’t you agree?”
Ian couldn’t think of a woman who would be flattered to have her breast compared to a bowl, so he didn’t bother to nod.
The delicate vessel was from the early Ming period, the porcelain barely flushed with green, the sides so thin Ian could see light through them. Three gray-green dragons chased one another across the outside, and four chrysanthemums seemed to float across the bottom.
The little vessel might just cup a small rounded breast, but that was as far as Ian was willing to go.
“One thousand guineas,” he said.
Mather’s smile turned sickly. “Now, my lord, I thought we were friends.”
Ian wondered where Mather had got that idea. “The bowl is worth one thousand guineas.” He fingered the slightly chipped rim, the base worn from centuries of handling.
Mather looked taken aback, blue eyes glittering in his overly handsome face.
“I paid fifteen hundred for it. Explain yourself.”
There was nothing to explain. Ian’s rapidly calculating mind had taken in every asset and flaw in ten seconds flat. If Mather couldn’t tell the value of his pieces, he had no business collecting porcelain. There were at least five fakes in the glass case on the other side of Mather’s collection room, and Ian wagered Mather had no idea.
Ian put his nose to the glaze, liking the clean scent that had survived the heavy cigar smoke of Mather’s house. The bowl was genuine, it was beautiful, and he wanted it.
“At least give me what I paid for it,” Mather said in a panicked voice. “The man told me I had it at a bargain.”
“One thousand guineas,” Ian repeated.
“Damn it, man, I’m getting married.”
Ian recalled the announcement in the Times—verbatim, because he recalled everything verbatim: Sir Lyndon Mather of St. Aubrey’s, Suffolk, announces his betrothal to Mrs. Thomas Ackerley, a widow. The wedding to be held on the twenty-seventh of June of this year in St. Aubrey’s at ten o’clock in the morning.
“My felicitations,” Ian said.
“I wish to buy my beloved a gift with what I get for the bowl.”
Ian kept his gaze on the vessel. “Why not give her the bowl itself?”
Mather’s hearty laugh filled the room. “My dear fellow, women don’t know the first thing about porcelain. She’ll want a carriage and a matched team and a string of servants to carry all the fripperies she buys. I’ll give her that. She’s a fine-looking woman, daughter of some froggie aristo, for all she’s long in the tooth and a widow.”
Ian didn’t answer. He touched the tip of his tongue to the bowl, reflecting that it was far better than ten carriages with matched teams. Any woman who didn’t see the poetry in it was a fool.
Mather wrinkled his nose as Ian tasted the bowl, but Ian had learned to test the genuineness of the glaze that way. Mather wouldn’t be able to tell a genuine glaze if someone painted him with it.
“She’s got a bloody fortune of her own,” Mather went on, “inherited from that Barrington woman, a rich old lady who didn’t keep her opinions to herself. Mrs. Ackerley, her quiet companion, copped the lot.”
Then why is she marrying you? Ian turned the bowl over in his hands as he speculated, but if Mrs. Ackerley wanted to make her bed with Lyndon Mather, she could lie in it. Of course, she might find the bed a little crowded. Mather kept a secret house for his mistress and several other women to cater to his needs, which he loved to boast about to Ian’s brothers. I’m as decadent as you lot, he was trying to say. But in Ian’s opinion, Mather understood pleasures of the flesh about as well as he understood Ming porcelain.
“Bet you’re surprised a dedicated bachelor like myself is for the chop, eh?” Mather went on. “If you’re wondering whether I’m giving up my bit of the other, the answer is no. You are welcome to come ’round and join in anytime, you know. I’ve extended the invitation to you, and your brothers as well.”
Ian had met Mather’s ladies, vacant-eyed women willing to put up with Mather’s proclivities for the money he gave them.
Mather reached for a cigar. “I say, we’re at Covent Garden Opera tonight. Come meet my fiancée. I’d like your opinion. Everyone knows you have as exquisite taste in females as you do in porcelain.” He chuckled.
Ian didn’t answer. He had to rescue the bowl from this philistine. “One thousand guineas.”
“You’re a hard man, Mackenzie.”
“One thousand guineas, and I’ll see you at the opera.”
“Oh, very well, though you’re ruining me.”
He’d ruined himself. “Your widow has a fortune. You’ll recover.”
Mather laughed, his handsome face lighting. Ian had seen women of every age blush or flutter fans when Mather smiled. Mather was the master of the double life.
“True, and she’s lovely to boot. I’m a lucky man.”
Mather rang for his butler and Ian’s valet, Curry. Curry produced a wooden box lined with straw, into which Ian carefully placed the dragon bowl.
Ian hated to cover up such beauty. He touched it one last time, his gaze fixed on it until Curry broke his concentration by placing the lid on the box.
He looked up to find that Mather had ordered the butler to pour brandy. Ian accepted a glass and sat down in front of the bankbook Curry had placed on Mather’s desk for him.
Ian set aside the brandy and dipped his pen in the ink. He bent down to write and caught sight of the droplet of black ink hanging on the nib in a perfect, round sphere.
He stared at the droplet, something inside him singing at the perfection of the ball of ink, the glistening viscosity that held it suspended from the nib. The sphere was perfect, shining, a wonder.
He wished he could savor its perfection forever, but he knew that in a second it would fall from the pen and be lost. If his brother Mac could paint something this exquisite, this beautiful, Ian would treasure it.
He had no idea how long he’d sat there studying the
droplet of ink until he heard Mather say, “Damnation, he really is mad, isn’t he?”
The droplet fell down, down, down to splash on the page, gone to its death in a splatter of black ink.
“I’ll write it out for you, then, m’lord?”
Ian looked into the homely face of his manservant, a young Cockney who’d spent his boyhood pickpocketing his way across London.
Ian nodded and relinquished the pen. Curry turned the bankbook toward him and wrote the draft in careful capitals. He dipped the pen again and handed it back to Ian, holding the nib down so Ian wouldn’t see the ink.
Ian signed his name painstakingly, feeling the weight of Mather’s stare.
“Does he do that often?” Mather asked as Ian rose, leaving Curry to blot the paper.
Curry’s cheekbones stained red. “No ’arm done, sir.”
Ian lifted his glass and swiftly drank down the brandy, then took up the box. “I will see you at the opera.”
He didn’t shake hands on his way out. Mather frowned, but gave Ian a nod. Lord Ian Mackenzie, brother to the Duke of Kilmorgan, socially outranked him, and Mather was acutely aware of social rank.
Once in his carriage, Ian set the box beside him. He could feel the bowl inside, round and perfect, filling a niche in himself.
“I know it ain’t me place to say,” Curry said from the opposite seat as the carriage jerked forward into the rainy streets. “But the man’s a right bastard. Not fit for you to wipe your boots on. Why even have truck with him?”
Ian caressed the box. “I wanted this piece.”
“You do have a way of getting what you want, no mistake, m’lord. Are we really meeting him at the opera?”
“I’ll sit in Hart’s box.” Ian flicked his gaze over Curry’s baby-innocent face and focused safely on the carriage’s velvet wall. “Find out everything you can about a Mrs. Ackerley, a widow now betrothed to Sir Lyndon Mather. Tell me about it tonight.”
“Oh, aye? Why are we so interested in the right bastard’s fiancée?”
Ian ran his fingertips lightly over the box again. “I want to know if she’s exquisite porcelain or a fake.”