After a moment he lit the candle, then pulled the remnants of the innocent-looking white nightgown from her and cast them aside, drawing her into his arms, where she lay without protest. Her breasts still rose and fell rapidly against his chest, which was a particular torment, but one he felt he could bear if the result was witnessing such pleasure in her. For there was no doubt he had taken her to the very edge of bliss and he had taken such enjoyment in watching her learn what it felt like. He had had no idea that simply giving her pleasure would make him feel so frightfully pleased with himself. It was a startling discovery.

"What on earth did you do to me?" She sounded exhausted but recognizably like Lucy again. Her eyelids fluttered open. Her eyes were like dark stars, heavy with satiation.

"I showed you how good your body can make you feel," Robert said. He suspected that Lucy associated the physical body only with pain and danger. Her experience had colored everything for her and now it was his turn to show her that the physical, the sensual, could bring pleasure beyond belief.

A slow smile curved the corner of her mouth. "So you did. I had no notion."

Robert kissed her. Her response was different this time, open and accepting, weighted by the knowledge of pleasure. He plunged his tongue deep in her mouth, allowing his desires full rein, mimicking the movement he wanted for his body by plundering her mouth instead. She groaned deep in her throat and opened wider to him and suddenly he was within an ace of spilling his seed in his breeches, which he had not done since he was sixteen years old.

He rolled away, cursing his lack of control. They had only been married for two nights and there was not a chance in hell that he would risk frightening Lucy by exposing her to his needs. That would have to wait. She might look like a wanton angel, but she would turn back into a frightened virgin swiftly enough if he rushed his fences.

She was still lying sprawled on the bed in slumberous abandon, her hair ruffled, her eyes half-open, watching him. The candlelight gilded her skin, picking out the freckles scattered over her shoulders. She looked delectable, soft, rounded, ravished. The hunger in him was like a ravening beast howling for satisfaction. Never had he set himself so hard a task as keeping his hands from her.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

There was not a chance in hell that he was going to tell her that he was thinking of making love to her, that he wanted to spread her and take her and seal their bargain by making her his.

"I'm thinking," he said, "that nothing would give me greater pleasure than to make you cry out your pleasure again."

She looked shocked by his bluntness, and for a moment he thought he had gone too far. Her trust was so fragile, always balanced against the fear of memory. Yet she also possessed a healthy intellectual curiosity. And she was passionate through and through, and had just started to understand where that passion might take her.

He waited.

Her gaze flickered up to meet his, a little shyly. "Is that possible?" She sounded detached, rational. "I mean, is it possible to experience the same degree of pleasure over and over again-"

"Why don't we find out?" Robert said politely. He did not move. This was for her to choose, to decide how far she wanted to go.

She stared at him. He could see the pulse beating hard in her throat. Her voice was husky. "You mean you are asking me-"

"If you would like to find out. Yes."

She bit her lip, looked down. He knew it was hard for her; reality was creeping back now here in the light, as sensual bliss receded. Which was all the more reason to conjure it again. The night was still young. Downstairs the inn taproom was turning rowdy.

"Trust me a little further," he said. "Indulge your desire to learn."

She smiled at that. "I confess I have always been keen to learn new things."

He smiled too. Good. Because if he could not indulge his own pleasure tonight, then driving Lucy to the extremes of carnal lust seemed like a very fair revenge.

LUCY SAW ROBERT'S smile and wondered why on earth she had agreed. The first time she had had an excuse; she had wanted to build on the intimacy they had already established and show that she was committed to their future. She had wanted to demonstrate her trust in him. That trust had led to such sensual bliss she could not have imagined. Even now, as the tide of it lingered in her body, she was still disbelieving it could have been so good.

And now he was offering to do it all again. Differently. Which would be simple self-indulgence, but oh she wanted to indulge herself. She wanted it quite desperately. And it would be safe because he had promised that tonight was all about her pleasure. She did not have to worry about him bedding her or the dangers of consummation. She could release herself from the hold of the past and live only in the present. Robert had asked her to put herself in his hands, and really it would be an insult to refuse. Oh, she could convince herself that black was white, that silver was gold, tonight.

Yet even so she was anxious. Her heart was battering her ribs, and her tension was growing with each beat.

"Here." He had strolled across to the table by the window, struck a light for another candle and poured two glasses of wine. He brought them back and handed one to her, clinking his glass softly against hers. "Drink."

"This requires wine?" Lucy said.

He laughed. "Perhaps. You seem a little tense. The key is to have just enough wine to relax you but not too much to make you insensible."

"I'll remember," Lucy said. She took a gulp, then another, almost emptying her glass. It was a fine wine, smooth as it slipped down her throat. Robert took the glass from her hand and placed it on the dresser. A moment later she tasted wine again on his lips as he kissed her. He was right; her head spun now, deliciously, sensually, and she was not sure if it was the claret or the kiss that made her feel so faint. Warmth tingled down her spine and along her skin.

"Lie down." His soft instruction had her heart racing. She lay back on the bed, suddenly shy, wanting to shield herself from his gaze, but he spread her arms wide and sat back on his heels looking at her. Now, in the light, there was no hiding. It felt too intimate, but regardless of her old fears she made herself lie still and face it. After a moment the trapped feeling faded away.

"You are beautiful." He touched her shoulders lightly, slid his hands down her arms, stroked her breasts again with the same gentle gliding caresses he had used earlier. Lucy was starting to recognize the responses of her body now. She had been so satiated that she had thought she could not be reawakened, yet each sly drift of Robert's hands over her seemed to tighten a cord within her. She remembered how good the massage had felt and how it had made her body beg for more. He could command her response so easily.

Was there anything wrong in that? The little voice at the back of her mind reminded her that he was her husband and that tonight she did not need to be fearful. She did not need to think. She could leave that for another day.

With a sigh of surrender she allowed her body to soften and open, flagrantly exposed to him. She watched him through half-closed lids as he studied her nakedness and was surprised how fiercely she enjoyed that look of acute longing on his face. It made her feel feminine and powerful.

He lifted her, his hands strong on her waist, and kissed her so deeply her head spun. Then he dropped his lips to her breasts and the dark tight spiral of desire quickened in her. Her head fell back. She arched. She could feel his hands spread against the bare skin of her back holding her securely as his mouth plundered her with tugs and licks and kisses. Her dizziness grew, the wicked delicious pulses in her belly beating a demand of their own.

He laid her down gently on the bed and slid his palms down her thighs and she quivered. Her skin felt hot and feverish. Her whole body was alight. She felt his hands drawing her legs wider apart and the brush of his hair against the soft skin of her inner thigh. She was sufficiently shocked to half waken from her sensual haze; she rose on her elbows, but Robert placed a palm on her stomach just above her pubic bone and pressed gently down. Immediately her belly fluttered with longing and she fell back on the bed with a groan.

He held her apart. A slick lap of his tongue over her nub again had her flying, her body twisting and beating through such acute delight that she called his name in shock. The sensation built and built again as he touched his tongue to her core. She felt herself hang helpless on the edge of pleasure, waiting, desperate to fall, each stroke taking her closer and yet spinning out the feeling until she was mindless with the driving need. It was different from the feeling she had experienced earlier, sharper and crystal clear, almost too extreme to bear. She chased the sensation, wanting surcease, desperate for it, and found that the more she grasped after it the more elusive it became. She knew she was begging. She could hear her own broken words, feel too the curve of Robert's smile against the skin of her thigh.

Finally, when she was sure she could take no more, when she was twisting and writhing beneath his hands and his tongue, she felt herself gather and fall apart at last, the force of it leaving her spent and breathless.

Hot darkness pressed on her lids. Her body still twitched and jolted. It did not seem able to stop. She felt overwhelmed and yet in some odd way still aroused and wanting. It was unbearable, as though she had taken all she could and yet still snatched after more. And then she felt Robert's tongue again, pressing down on her where she still pulsed, driving her straight to the peak again. It was shocking, fast and inescapable and she came a second time, crying out, the feeling ripping through her as sharp as claws this time, painful in its intensity.

This time when she came down, the sweet sensual arousal did not fade but lingered, throbbing in every cell of her body. She felt it from the top of her head to the tips of her toes and deep inside her, where the pulse of it still beat. Robert was lying beside her now and his mouth was on her breasts, nipping and tugging at her, and each lick and slide of his tongue echoed through her down to her belly, where there was a tight knot of need. It felt indescribable, hot, tormenting, unendurable. She could not believe that he could keep her body singing like this, hanging on the edge of pleasure, replete and yet not fully satisfied, until she writhed with frustration, desperation. There was no room in her mind for thought now. No space for anything other than sensation.

He spread her thighs wider apart. Cool air kissed her core. She was so sensitive now that even that soft touch had her body jerking and shuddering.

"No more. I can't..." It was too much. It was lovely. It was intolerable. She wanted to beg him to stop. She wanted to beg for final oblivion. "I can't do it again."

"I think you can." Such a wicked whisper in her ear. "Once more. Trust me."

Trust me.

He moved. The candle wavered in the cold night air. Ripples of chill covered her body. She lay, scarcely breathing, with pleasure suspended on the tightest thread, her body screaming for release.

She felt him slide his fingers over her. She was so slick now, hot and wet. It took no more than the lightest, most gentle touch and she came for the past time in a blinding rush of light that plunged her body into abject and total surrender.

She was not sure how long it was before she opened her eyes. She felt exhausted, drained, her body aching in ways she had never known. In the mirror tilted over the dresser she saw her reflection, hair tumbled, eyes glittering, a wicked wanton sprawled on the bed in complete abandonment, limbs spread, body ravished by Robert's touch, his kisses. She felt shocked; she had not known she could look that way. She reached for the sheet to cover herself, but Robert held it out of her reach. His gaze was all over her, hot, intimate, from the pink flush of her breasts to the spread of her thighs.

"Too late for modesty," he said. His eyes glittered with possessiveness and pride.

Back in her right mind, she was horrified at her abandoned behavior, at the way she had begged for release, begged for pleasure. Robert saw her appalled expression and laughed, tumbling her into his arms, drawing her close. She allowed her hot cheek to rest against his bare shoulder and breathed in the scent of his skin, starting to feel drowsy, overcome by the sheer physical satiation of the experience.

"You're pleased," she whispered, and felt him turn his head toward her. "Pleased you could do that to me."

It had not all been entirely for her pleasure, she thought. Self-denial must have been an enormous frustration to him. Pushing her to her limits, demonstrating his mastery of her body, making her submit utterly was some small recompense.

His lips brushed her hair. She could hear the smile in his voice. "It pleased me a very great deal," he said.

"I liked it very much too."

He kissed her for the whispered confession, but already she was slipping toward sleep, exhausted, the darkness washing into her mind. And for once no nightmares stalked her dreams.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

LUCY AWOKE FEELING different, her body ripe and fulfilled and yet hungry in some way. She rolled over and reached for Robert, but the bed beside her was empty. Blinking, she saw the room was full of daylight.

She rolled onto her back and watched through half-closed lids the play of the sun and shadows across the ceiling. Such pleasure. She could scarcely believe it. Such intimacies. She was shocked, if truth be told. She was shocked by the desires of her body, desires she had never remotely guessed at. She could see now that she had kept those needs locked down, she had intellectualized them so that they were cold and passionless and were no danger to her. And now Robert had cut through all that, awakening the desire that was in her.

Yet he had not taken advantage to push matters beyond what she had been comfortable with. And she had given him nothing in return for the most blissful night she had ever experienced, which seemed rather unfair, on reflection.

She remembered that in the throes of her passion she had promised to trust Robert, to allow him to do anything to help her overcome her fears of intimacy. She had not understood then that this meant surrendering everything to him. She shivered again. Already she wondered where that promise would take her; already her perfidious body was wanting so much more. But now that she was awake she could feel the darkness nibbling at the edge of her mind again, reminding her that eventually he would want her to be his wife in more than name, that he needed an heir from her body.

She gave a little shiver, pushing the dark thoughts from her mind. The breeze from the open window was cold on her naked body. She was about to pull up the covers, but then she stopped, looking curiously at her nakedness. She had never scrutinized her body before. She had turned away from physicality because she had seen Alice die, seen her racked with pain. Now, for the first time, she thought about her body as a means of pleasure. She ran a thoughtful hand down over her breasts. They were so round and ripe, the nipples stung pink from Robert's attentions the previous night. They felt sensitive, but pleasurably so, and her skin felt curiously alive.

Her hand dropped to her belly. A hot ache was flowering there at those secret memories of pleasure. Her belly was rounded too; she was not thin like Mairi or Lachlan, but curvy. Really she was rounded all over, for her buttocks were plump, albeit tight and high from the riding, and her thighs were quite sturdy. She was no lithe and slender creature and yet she felt very desirable this morning.

Again the shard of doubt and fear snagged at her heart. This, then, was how Alice must have felt. Seduced by passion, helplessly in love, she had given everything of herself and as a consequence had lost everything. Passion was so deceptive, so dangerous. It could make someone forget all sense. It could make someone forget everything.

For the first time, though, she stopped the thought in its tracks before the cold fear could take hold of her. Alice had loved and Alice had died and that had been a tragedy, but that did not mean that the same thing would happen to her. The sliver of light in her heart strengthened a little.

There was a knock at the door and Isobel bustled in with a tray. Lucy hastily pulled the covers up to hide herself, but the landlady's smile was knowing. Lucy could see her discarded nightgown lying on the floor by the bed, see too the rumpled bedclothes that told their own story. She remembered how she had cried out when Robert had driven her to orgasm and wondered suddenly whether anyone had heard her. She had had no thought of it at the time, had not cared, and no doubt no one would think of it as anything other than proof of their laird's prowess. But still she blushed.

"Lord Methven thought you might need to rest." Isobel sounded brisk. She placed the tray on the bottom of the bed and helped Lucy into the lacy peignoir that lay over the high back of the chair. "He says to remind you that you sail for Golden Isle on the afternoon's tide, so you have a little time."

Some of Lucy's pleasure ebbed at the thought that Robert was not here to tell her his plans in person. It was like the day before, when he had vanished for the entire day, leaving her to her own devices. She remembered the wedding feast and the change that had come over him when Golden Isle was mentioned.

"Isobel-" She was raising the cup of scented hot chocolate to her lips but paused. "I know that Golden Isle is part of Lord Methven's estates, but why does he..." She stopped, chose her words with care. "Why does he dislike the mention of it?"

Isobel's expression was guarded. She started to fidget, picking up Lucy's nightgown, smoothing it between her fingers, and laying it down again. "Lord Methven has not told you?" she said.

Something in her tone caught Lucy's attention. "Not a word."

We do not know each other well....

For all the intimacies of the previous night, Lucy was suddenly all too sharply aware that there was so much she neither knew nor understood about Robert. Another shard of loneliness pierced her.

Isobel laid the nightgown over the end of the bed. Then she looked up and met Lucy's eyes.

"It was where Gregor Methven died," she said. "They say Lord Methven hates the place. He quarreled so badly with his grandfather in the aftermath of his brother's death that he took the first boat from the harbor and never set foot there again."

LUCY'S FIRST VIEW of Golden Isle was through a fog of rain and hail. It looked gray, not golden, and for the first time she had some sympathy with Robert not wishing to go there. Huge cliffs rose straight out of a boiling sea. Seabirds whirled and called like banshees. The cliffs were gray, the sea was gray and the sky was gray. It felt like the end of the world.

They had been sailing for six hours and Lucy was cold, wet, sick and miserable. All day she had been waiting for Robert to speak to her, to tell her his plans, to confide in her about Golden Isle and his feelings on returning there. But Robert was busy, preoccupied with the preparations for the voyage. When she went down to the quay to find him, he greeted her absentmindedly before going back to supervising the loading of provisions. Lucy felt excluded, with no role and nothing to do.

She had said goodbye to Mairi there on the quay at Findon, and it was only through exerting the greatest self-control that she had not broken down and begged her sister to come with them. She could imagine Mairi's reaction to her begging for company on her wedding trip; her sister would be concerned that the wedding night had been a complete disaster and would no doubt ask her all about it, loudly, tactlessly and at considerable length. So she hugged Mairi tightly instead and sent her on her way back to Edinburgh with a letter for their father and a promise that she would invite them all to Methven as soon as she returned. She watched Mairi ride off with Jack Rutherford. Naturally they were quarreling already.

At first the voyage had been smooth. A pale sun shone through milky-white clouds as the little yacht slipped out of Findon Harbor. Lucy sat in the cabin and watched Robert as he worked with the crew. He was dressed the same as they, barefoot, in rough linen breeches, open-necked shirt and leather jerkin. It was clear he had done this many times before, since he was a child perhaps. He was surefooted on the spray-dampened deck and completely at ease with the men. Once again Lucy felt lonely, very much the aristocratic lady, sitting alone in the cabin with nothing to do.

Gradually as the coastline faded from view, the wind freshened and pewter clouds started to mass on the horizon. The yacht began to buck and roll, and soon Lucy started to feel very ill indeed. She had never been to sea before and had only once set foot on a boat when they had visited Wilfred Cardross at Greenock and he had proudly shown them over his yacht. It was considerably larger than this little vessel, and the saloon had been furnished in red velvet with gold braid with the arms of Cardross prominently displayed. Lucy had thought it garish and vulgar. Now, though, she would have given much for a comfortable berth in which to lie down as the boat lurched through the waves and her stomach lurched with it.

The door of the cabin opened abruptly and Robert came in. He had been carrying a tray on which there appeared to be two bowls of broth. Just the smell of it made Lucy want to retch. He took one look at her face, placed the tray down with a bang and, grabbing her arm, dragged her out into the corridor, bundling her up the steps and out onto the deck so swiftly she almost tripped over her skirts.

"What on earth are you doing to me?" Lucy hissed. "I feel vile. Leave me alone!"

The fresh air was like a slap in the face after the staleness of the cabin below. Almost immediately her head stopped spinning and her stomach settled as she gratefully breathed in the cold, salty air. The spray was cool against her skin. She clung to the deck rail and let it settle on her like rain.

"If you watch the horizon you will not feel as sick."

Robert was beside her, his arm about her waist as he steered her to a seat in the lee of the main mast. She sat down on a coil of rope and fixed her gaze on the distant horizon where the sea rose and plunged like a dizzying ride on an unbroken horse. It was cold out here and already her gown and cloak were soaked through, but it was far preferable to being inside.

"Would you like some soup?" He was smiling at her. She wanted to slap him for being so at ease when she felt quite the reverse.

"No, thank you." Food would be a step too far.

"Then if you wish to stay here I shall fetch you a blanket to keep you warm."

"You are all consideration."

His smiled widened to a grin at her frosty tone, but he returned with two thick ship's blankets that smelled fishy but were blessedly warm.

"This part of the crossing is called the roost," he said. "It's where several currents meet. That's why it is so rough and takes so long."

Lucy did not much care as long as it stopped, but instead it got progressively worse, the rain falling like a shroud over the sea, the sails cracking overhead, the boat creaking alarmingly, battered by each wave.

Eventually, with the clock creeping around to eight in the evening, the cliffs of Golden Isle reared out of the fog and the little boat slipped into the harbor. Robert helped Lucy as she climbed stiffly ashore. There was no one to greet them. McCall, the man who had come to Findon the previous night, muttered something about letting everyone in the village know that they had arrived and disappeared into the mist. The harbormaster provided a trap, pulled by a small horse that appeared to be in a bad temper.

"It is three miles to the village," Robert said, handing Lucy up into the trap and settling her on the hard wooden seat. He had turned dour again. His face was set in harsh lines and Lucy could feel the tension in him. After so many years, to return to this godforsaken place and be greeted by nothing but the blanketing mist and the gray moors... Her heart shivered to think how he must feel.

There was silence between them for the first mile. The track was rough and the pony was singularly uncooperative, stopping frequently for no particular reason. Lucy, cold and soaked through to the skin now, huddled down on the seat as a brisk little wind whirled down from the hills. She watched Robert's hands on the reins and his set face, and thought he looked like a hard-faced stranger.

"Isobel said you had not been back to Golden Isle for many years," she ventured.

"No, I have not." His face was stubbornly uncommunicative. His tone warned her to ask nothing further. He turned up the collar of his coat, perhaps to shield himself from the rain, perhaps to hide his expression from her.

"You care so much for your estates and your people. It seems surprising to me..." Lucy faltered. She could hear the nervousness in her own voice. "It's so beautiful here," she added, hoping he could not tell that she was lying and thought it the most godforsaken place on earth.

"Aye, it is." He was staring moodily at the road as it unrolled before them. It was clear he was not going to answer any other part of her comment. She began to feel annoyed. Damn men and their inability to communicate. Or rather damn Robert's deliberate attempts to keep her out. He must know that Isobel had told her about Gregor and the quarrel with his grandfather.

But perhaps the events of the past were too painful for him to broach. She understood that. She had felt that too, after Alice had died. She had folded the pain away deep inside. And grief had no time limits.