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Chapter Eighteen
“For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger.”
—Puck, Act 3,A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Castle Mar, Scottish Highlands. Three months later.
Brigid landed on the gigantic, marital bed with two bounces and a laughing shriek.
She could afford to be loud, now that all of their wedding guests had gone back to whence they came. They’d also released the servants for the next few days.
Paid annual leave, as it were.
She and Sai had the entire castle and grounds, generously gifted to them both by the Rathbournes as part of Brigid’s dowry, to themselves.
Before this, they certainly hadn’t kept their hands to themselves as a well-behaved betrothed couple ought to do. But they had to be very sneaky and quiet, with which Brigid had admittedly some trouble. Even in their dreams, she couldn’t help the physical manifestations and vocalizations of those life-altering, mind-bending orgasms that Sai treated her to without fail.
When she came, she couldn’t keep her voice down. She was a bit of a wildcat in bed, to put it mildly.
And in closed carriages.
And in open ones, for that matter, tucked within the leafy curtains of a giant willow tree, or a shadowed grove. Brigid was gaining significant experience with clandestine rendezvous.
Sai, on the other hand, was sneaky and quiet personified.
The man was all smooth grace and low, resonant rumbles and purrs. When he came, one might think a lovely summer thunderstorm was approaching. One might wish to be drenched in its sweet, shimmering rain.
Sai’s thunderstorms were oh so sweet indeed, Brigid could attest. Sometimes tumultuous, sometimes lazy and light. Always passionate.
Addictive ecstasy.
“That look in your eyes,” she squeaked breathlessly, pedaling backwards with her feet until her back was against the headboard.
“I’m not sure I like it. What are you planning to do to me, my lord?”
He wasn’t really a Lord, or even a Prince. But that didn’t stop everyone who met him from addressing him by all sorts of honorifics. From Your Grace to Your Excellence.
She blamed it on his mesmerizing masculine beauty and aura. And since he could shift his outer trappings to look any way he wanted, he was always attired exquisitely. Even more so than the royals. And yet, distinctly simple and elegant. Almost austere. But that only served to accentuate his true beauty. Like the brightest, boldest diamond in all kinds of light.
Even when all he wore were shirtsleeves unbuttoned scandalously to reveal his throat, and form-fitting trousers tucked into black riding boots, he stopped traffic. He was never fashionable, in the sense of the current trend. Rather, he defied and set trends.
And because he was a sea dragon with an unfathomable wealth of buried treasures, she supposed hecouldbe a prince, or a king, or a minor deity if he wanted.
Gratifyingly, all he wanted was to behers.
However, in order to seek her hand in marriage, Sai undertook official routes like any other mortal. But his approach was all his own. Brigid only learned this after the fact.
The first thing Sai did was to gain the Queen’s notice.
This was no difficult task. He merely discovered her routines, and during one of her open-carriage rides with Prince Albert through Hyde Park, Sai decided to take a ride as well, upon a majestic speckled gray stallion.
Brigid didn’t ask how he acquired such accessories, for he was an obscenely wealthy sea dragon, as aforementioned, and terribly resourceful besides. Suffice it to say that the young royal couple immediately took notice (how could they not?), and even exchanged a few words with the fantastically handsome stranger.
Within the week, Sai was invited to tea at the Palace. No telling what tales he wove as to his origins, but all was forgotten when he presented his gift to the Queen: the Sea of Light, he called it.
It was the largest diamond ever to be seen, at over one hundred carats.
Well, what was a young, star-struck Queen to do but show her gratitude by bequeathing the title of Marquess upon Sai, along with a few thousand acres of land in the Highlands (his choice, because he knew how much Brigid loved it here), and even asked if he had a preference what the rest of his title ought to be. Sai, put on the spot like this, decided on the first thing that came to mind.
