Roughly, Fraser flipped her over. She felt his hands and fingers roam across her buttocks and dip lower into the moisture of her opening. His fingers rubbed her repeatedly, causing hot waves of passion to crash and break over her. All the while, his lips nipped her shoulder and then up the slender length of her neck. She felt him fumble with his kilt to free himself of its folds. He gripped her hips hard and rubbed the head of his cock between her buttocks. Martha jerked insistently against him, and his hard shaft slid into her slippery wetness. Immediately, he began to thrust wildly. It was like having raw steel pumped into her body, fast and furiously, and Martha pushed back in time with his unrelenting rhythm. She clawed at the sheets, crying out. For more, not for mercy.

“More, is it?” Fraser’s voice was hoarse. “Aye, I can gi’ ye that.”

He pinned her in place beneath him, moving, gliding, slowing down so that she wanted to scream at him to stop tormenting her. In an effort to regain control, she squeezed her buttocks together, making it tighter for him as he shoved inch after rock-hard inch in and out of her. At the same time, she concentrated on keeping her thigh muscles clenched to hold herself in position. Their hips moved in time. Her whole world became heat and moisture, and then she felt everything give way as her body broke apart under the sweet torture.

“Don’t stop, Fraser. I don’t want you to ever stop,” she begged, before crying out and arching beneath him one final time, riding the waves of her orgasm as his cock pumped his own hot release deep inside her.

Together they lay silent, panting and spent. Gradually, Fraser eased himself out of her. “Took my pleasure of my lady with my boots on,” he murmured, turning his head so that he could kiss her lips long and sweetly. “You certainly know how to send your man into a stramash with a smile on his face, my crabbit one.”

He was gone before she had fully regained her breath, and it was only much later that she allowed herself a brief, poignant second to reflect. He had come to find her, seeking comfort in her arms, before he left. The words he used sent a little thrill through her. He thought of me. Then, after they were both spent, he had called her “his lady” and himself “her man”. Oh, they were only throwaway phrases he had used in the aftermath of passion, but how sweet it had been to hear them from his lips.

Martha spent that whole night curled up on the window seat in the library, watching the approach to the castle with eyes that ached from straining far into the darkness. Dawn was streaking the sky with silvery fingers when a small cavalcade of horses clattered up to the drawbridge, and her heart clenched in relief as she recognised the tall figure at their head. It was very well to tell herself she was content to remain in the background, to share his bed when he needed her. That didn’t help when all she wanted to do now was dash down the stairs and hurl herself into Fraser’s arms as he dismounted from his horse.

Chapter Sixteen

The news Fraser and his party of men brought back with them was not good. The royal army was camped at Nairn, some fourteen miles away from Culloden House. As Fraser had predicted, the prince’s intelligence was flawed. The Duke of Cumberland’s army greatly outnumbered the Jacobite forces. What Fraser didn’t know, and couldn’t begin to predict, was how the prince would use this new information.

Alone on the battlements high above the day-to-day noise of the castle, Fraser swung his claymore back and forth in a high arc. A brisk wind lifted the russet strands of his hair and plastered his loose linen shirt against his sweat-soaked flesh. He focused his mind on nothing except his footing, timing and balance. Each movement was powerful and practised. The blade hissed as it cut through the air around him. Finally, when the ache in his shoulder muscles and forearms became too much to bear, he lowered the mighty sword and leaned on the ramparts, gazing out across the loch. His gaze took in the treetops, the vast mountains that bordered the Great Glen and the silent, enigmatic water. His Scotland was a beautiful land, full of mystery and promise.

For so long his heart had refused to function. Now, at last, it was working perfectly once more. But was it too late? As much as Fraser wished the Hanoverian princes would return to their mountain schloss and leave Scotland in peace, so too did he now wish Bonnie Prince Charlie would go back to his wandering exile. Lachlan needed a master…and a mistress. Politics and warfare had no part to play in the future of his beloved, fragile highland home.

Angus, the young clansman who had derided and enraged Fraser during the highland games, had been right. All Fraser could think of was his Englishwoman. Even on the ride to Cumberland’s camp, Martha’s face had been before his eyes. He saw, with absolute clarity now, the reason why he had been so angry when she slipped away from the clan gathering. It wasn’t because she had defied him. It was because he wanted her at his side all the time. At the laird’s right hand at his table. There would be no giggling pack of wenches chasing him if his lady was on his arm. And he wanted no more of sneaking up the stairs to her chamber when the castle was suitably quiet. He wanted her in the laird’s bed. Where she belonged. His heart began to beat a little faster, and he swung restlessly on his heel, intent on seeking her out.

Jack’s voice intruded on his thoughts. “The prince has sent for us.”

Fraser was tempted to condemn the prince to the pit of hell. Grudgingly, he followed Jack down to the stables, and the two men rode away from Lachlan once more toward Culloden House. On their arrival, they imparted the information they had gleaned the night before to the prince and his generals. There followed a lengthy, and often acrimonious, discussion. Eventually an agreement was reached. There would be an attack that very night upon the king’s troops. When they returned to Lachlan, Fraser and Jack imparted the details of this plan to their men.

“Today is the Duke of Cumberland’s twenty-fifth birthday, and each of his men will be provided with a generous ration of spirits in celebration. Given that the prince can now be in no doubt of the superiority of the Hanoverian army, the Jacobite generals have come up with this plan to surprise the royal troops as they sleep off their excesses. Their camp lies some twelve miles distant on the western edge of the ridge above Nairn. The terrain is not good, and we undertake this campaign in darkness. Since we had no sleep last night, the plan now is for all of us to get some rest this afternoon before the long march.”

The castle had been silent all afternoon. Clad in her nightgown, with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, Martha sat by the window of her bedchamber. She had not slept. Staring out into the enveloping darkness of early evening, she reflected on how much her life had changed since a marauding highlander had forced his way into the old dower house a few short months ago. Restless and horribly afraid of what the coming hours would bring, she knew she must see Fraser once more before he left. Pausing in the corridor, she darted back into the shadows as Rosie stepped out of her own room. Glancing quickly around her, Rosie knocked on the door of Jack’s bedchamber. The door clicked open, and without a word, Jack gathered Rosie into his arms.

“You should not be here. You know you should not,” he said.

There was despair in his voice that echoed that in Martha’s heart. Martha watched as he drew Rosie inside. She was failing in her duty as Rosie’s chaperone, but this was no ordinary night. How can I stand in their way this night, when their world, as well as mine, may come to an end on the morrow?

She continued on her way to the laird’s room, knocking then entering when he called out. He was standing by the window, looking out over the darkening loch just as she had been. When he saw who it was, he held his arms wide and Martha walked into them.