Page 65 of Highlander’s Haunted Past

“Welcome to Dounie, Lady Kenna.”

“Right,” she said, a bit impatiently, as she reached up and pulled him down to her, their mouths once again opening to each other so that their tongues could swirl and spar.

Rob’s fingers, though still stiff from the cold morning ride, managed to find and loosen the laces of her bodice, pulling the thin strings aside until her chest was bare.

Rob pulled from their kiss and moved his mouth lower, sinking into the valley between her breasts before traveling from peak to peak, dropping soft kisses and nibbles that made Kenna moan and squirm beneath him.

His patience nearly worn thin, he was about to pull up her skirts when a few loud pounds on the door made them both jump.

“Laird Rob? Yer father has requested yer presence in his solar, and I was told to prepare a bath fer yer… Fer yer wife?” a maid called through the door, her voice a mixture of nervousness and confusion.

“Ignore her,” Rob whispered, and Kenna just nodded, her fingers entangling in his hair and pulling him back down to her lips.

The pounding carried on for a bit longer, then paused, and was then renewed with new fervor.

“Rob, yer wife has things to do, and I need ye and yer brother in my solar! Winter is not going to wait fer ye, even if ye can be quick.”

Rob groaned at the sound of his father’s voice. The words had been laced with humor, but Rob could also not mistake the warning in his tone.

“Ignore him?” Kenna asked hesitantly, the look on her face revealing that she already knew the answer.

“I’ll be back soon,” Rob said, giving her one last kiss and doing his best to ignore the breasts that he had just so meticulously freed from their bindings. “And ye ken that I will be expecting to pick up where this was left off.”

The Laird Lovat, barely able to conceal his laughter when Rob emerged red-faced and covering his lower half with his plaid, was quick to send him out of the castle and into the cold.

And so began one of the longest weeks that Rob had ever known.

First, he and Hugh had ridden north to repair a fence that, according to the castle’s steward, would not survive the first snowfall. When that was done, they had ridden east to inspect the mill, ensuring that all was ready for a deep winter freeze. Then they had ridden west, passing so closely to Dounie that the scents from its ovens made each of them pull up their horses and debate the consequences of not returning home for the evening. In the end, they had continued to ride east, arriving at a small manor house that was struggling to raise a barn before the ground froze—the last barn having been burned to ash mere days before by a pair of foolish lovers who hadn’t set their lantern far enough away from their flailing limbs. Rob and Hugh drove the posts into the partially frozen earth, working into the night until they were allowed to ride home, their first list of chores completed.

In all, they were gone from the castle for eight days, arriving back in the middle of the afternoon. The castle’s yard was humming with people working and children playing, but neither brother paid anyone any mind, though Rob heard a few shouts congratulating him on his recent marriage. Each brother instead leaped from their horse and strode swiftly to the castle, matching each other stride for stride as they made their way to their individual chambers

“Shouldn’t ye, the next laird, run off to tell father that we are back home?” Hugh said breathlessly over his shoulder.

Rob scoffed; like hell he was going to tell Father they were home and be robbed of a few hours of rest and, well, “less restful activities”.

Hugh, naturally, arrived first. When he swung his door open, Rob heard Ellen gasp before her chair ground on the stone floor as she stood to go and greet him. A pulse of anticipation raced through him, wondering if Kenna would finally confess to missing him or if she would keep playing coy with him. Either option made his blood stir.

Any thought of Kenna made his blood stir.

However, when Rob threw open the door, charging in expectantly, Kenna was nowhere to be found. Before Rob left the room to search for her, he caught a sight that was both familiar and unusual out of the corner of his eye. The mantle, once bare save for a couple of small trinkets that his mother had forced him to display, was now looking more handsomely decorated. Intermixed with his own things were a few trinkets that he unclearly remembered from Kenna’s room in Inverness Castle, like a little carved jewelry box and a framed portrait of a young girl that must have been Elizabeth. The mantel was not the only thing that had changed about the room; there were new trunks tucked up against the wall, a Gordon-green and blue quilt draped across the foot of the bed, and a few hair ribbons left haphazardly on the table beside a tray that now held two cups rather than one.

Rob left the room, a strange feeling blooming in his chest, and started his search.

Florence’s room was just as empty, as was the Great Hall. Rob was about to check the kitchens when he nearly ran headlong into the castle’s steward.

“Ah, Laird Rob, I was looking fer ye and yer brother. Yer father heard ye had returned and he wishes to see ye in his solar.”

“Tell him to shove it.”

“I’m sorry?”

Rob sighed, feeling a sinking sense of uselessness at any attempt to try and stay in the castle that night. “Nothing, let’s go.”

“Did ye find Hugh, then?” Rob asked as he followed the steward through the halls.

“Ach, not yet, Laird Rob. He wasna in his room.”

Rob raised an eyebrow. Since when had Hugh become clever?