Page 99 of When the Laird Conquers

She frowned up at him. “Sorry? What on earth for?”

“I wanted ye to come at least three or four times first,” he explained with a chuckle. “But I couldnae help meself. ”

She raised an eyebrow. “Three or four times?”

“Och aye.” He grinned. “I suppose I keep forgettin’ that we have the rest of our lives… and the rest of the night.”

He kissed her then, a slow, almost lazy kiss that made her heart swell.

“We do, my love,” she murmured. “We do have the rest of our lives. We have forever.”

He smiled against her mouth. “I love ye, Sunshine.”

She pulled back for just a moment. “I love you too, Gloomy.”

“Gloomy?” He barked a laugh.

“You’ll have to earn a different nickname,” she teased, enjoying his laughter as much as she enjoyed his kiss, his embrace.

“That’s fair,” he relented, his hand cupping her cheek, his thumb brushing across her skin. “As me first bit of penance, I think I ought to see what I can do about that third conclusion.”

He kissed her neck and began to move down the length of her body, his lips tracing a map over her breasts, her stomach, when indignant scratching and yelping brought him to a sudden halt. A moment later, Lizzy began to cry.

Lifting his head, Gordon exchanged an amused look with Agnes, the two of them pulling apart and scrambling out of the bed together. Agnes grabbed her nightrobe—Gordon didn’t even bother to cover himself—and the happy couple went straight to the nursery.

“I’ll see to the cub,” Gordon said.

“I’ll see to my niece,” Agnes laughed softly.

It was perhaps not the most conventional start to a marriage, but as she lifted Lizzy out of her cradle and rocked her gently, she glanced over at her husband, chuckling as she watched him do the same to the fox cub, swaying the disgruntled creature in the crook of his arm.

Conventional or not, she knew she would not have had it any other way.

This was her family. And this was exactly how it was supposed to be, for here was the man who had vowed to protect her, the man who had her heart, and the man who had promised to treat Lizzy as his own. Indeed, as he met her eyes and grinned, she was more certain than ever that choosing him from her almanac of Scottish Lairds was the luckiest thing she had ever done.

I love ye, he mouthed.

Smiling so wide her cheeks ached, she mouthed back, I love you more.

EPILOGUE

One Year Later

“It is lovely to actually get to enjoy this one,” Agnes quipped, digging a playful elbow into Gordon’s ribs.

He quirked an eyebrow. “There was nothin’ stoppin’ ye from enjoyin’ the last one, other than yer willingness to follow strange Englishmen into the hallway.”

“How dare you!” she cried, laughing. “I shall have you know that that strange Englishman is a very pleasant man.”

Gordon pulled a face. “Aye, I suppose he’s nae so bad.”

At that very moment, Samson was whirling around the dance floor with Lizzy in his arms, jigging a merry reel with her while she shrieked in absolute joy.

The cèilidh itself was to celebrate the first anniversary of Agnes and Gordon’s wedding, though she preferred to think of it as recompense for their absence at last year’s cèilidh.

Everyone was in attendance, thoroughly enjoying themselves, from the village women to the lairds and ladies of neighboring clans, as well as a few from further afield. Agnes’s fellow English wives were there, and though she would not say she had made friends yet, they certainly seemed open to friendship.

Her father was also in attendance, chattering merrily to Iona and Marcus, whom he had come to know well in his frequent visits to the Highlands.