Delight and Desire Read online

  Delight and Desire

  Joanna Maitland

  Scotland, 1800

  Major Robert Anstruther has returned home to find a suitable bride. Instead, he stumbles upon a beautiful woman dancing on the battlements of his favorite castle. She is like a nymph of legend, a vision no man could resist. Soon, Robert has her in his arms, longing to claim the woman as his own….

  But Robert’s nymph is no apparition—she is Isobel Lang Ritchie, daughter of his family’s mortal enemy! Their families’ feud forbids their union. But will duty triumph over desire once their magical passion has ignited?

  I’m delighted to introduce Delight and Desire, my very first prequel. It tells the love story of Robert and Isobel, who feature in my full-length story Bride of the Solway (also published this month in the USA and Canada).

  The Robert and Isobel I already knew were fifteen years older, a married couple still deeply in love but facing new and difficult problems. How had they come together in the first place? The answer, of course, was to ask them. What they told me was this: “Think of an ancient feud between families. Think of star-crossed lovers battling against their natural loyalties to find each other. Follow them into the twilight and that’s where you’ll find our story.”

  I did, and here it is.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Scotland, Spring 1800

  The light and the place were magical, as ever. As was the silence. Soon the twilight would come, to make everything perfect.

  Major Robert Anstruther tethered his horse and started towards the castle. Here, at Caerlaverock, he could be alone, to reflect on his future in the enfolding tranquillity of the moated ruin. He paused a moment to gaze up at the castle’s stout gate towers, their red colour deepening in the first rays of the setting sun. How many marauding armies had been repulsed from here, in the centuries when Scotland and England were separate, warring kingdoms? Nowadays, the kingdoms were joined and at peace, at least with one another. Wars were fought overseas.

  As if to remind him of his own role in those wars, a sharp twinge of pain lanced through his injured leg. He muttered an oath and shifted his weight. He had expected to be fully fit again by now, and able to rejoin his regiment, but it would take some time yet. He grimaced. His army career must take second place for now, since his poor father could not survive much longer after that last seizure. Robert, as the only son, had had to promise to set about finding himself a wife.

  In the gathering dusk, the mist was rising from the moat, starting to shroud Caerlaverock as if to hide it from prying eyes, like some fairy-tale castle. Such a magic and mysterious place should be home to the ghosts of ancient warriors, cut down in bloody battle, or perhaps to nymphs and naiads, rising from the watery depths, their golden curls glistening. Robert began to stroll towards the gate, musing on those strange thoughts. In all the years he had been coming here, in the twilight of dawn or dusk, he had never once met another human being. Nor a spirit, either. If they were here, they kept themselves well hidden.

  Perhaps things had changed since his last visit, years ago? He had been out of the country a long time. He fancied that Caerlaverock was eternal, though. Its serene beauty never changed.

  He had just crossed the moat on the rickety makeshift bridge and was going down into the dark narrows between the gate towers when he heard it—a silvery, tinkling laugh, floating on the drift of mist rising from the rushes. Some nymph was here, it seemed. And she had awakened just in time for the twilight that Robert so loved.

  Intrigued, Robert crept down the stone passage, straining eyes and ears for any clue to where his nymph might be. Logic told him that he had imagined the sound, that there could not possibly be any fairy woman here, no matter how magical these ruins might seem. And yet he found himself putting one foot softly and warily in front of the other, in case a crunch of gravel should scare her away. If she was here, he wanted to see her, to touch her, before she melted back into the silent waters of the moat.

  Another sound, carried on the mist. Not a laugh this time, but a song, a female voice humming a low, mysterious melody. It spoke wordlessly of lost love and heartbreak. Local legend said a water nymph would always mourn the love she could not have. But if an earthly man could kiss her, the nymph would be anchored to the human world for ever, and in thrall to the man who had shown her what human love could be.

  Robert shook his head against his own fanciful imaginings, but he still crept silently forward to reach the open courtyard, beyond the gloom of the passage. He had to know.

  She was there! High up on the battlements, on top of the tower, surrounded by mist, she seemed to be dancing on the air. It was difficult to see her clearly against the rays of the setting sun, but he had an impression of naked limbs clad in a damply clinging gown of filmy white, and a mane of red-gold hair hanging in loose curls around bare shoulders, glinting as it caught the dying light. She was dancing back and forth, weightless and floating, her naked arms raised towards the sunset.

  She could not be real! But even so, no man could see such a vision without wishing to possess it. That seductive voice was luring him on, catching at all his senses. She must not be allowed to dissolve back into the mist. A water maiden’s kiss must surely be worth any risk? Kissing her, embracing her—would it be like trying to catch flowing water, impossible to hold, and as elusive as quicksilver?

  Keeping to the shadows, he circled the courtyard until he came to the tower. He could hear her still, but she was hidden from him now by the vast bulk of the stonework. He crept up the spiral stairs, his eyes wide against the gloom, his ears attuned to the floating notes of her melody. The pain of his injury was pushed aside in his heart-thumping eagerness to reach the top, to snatch his prize. When he emerged, would she be gone? No, he could still hear her voice, drifting on the mist-laden air in long watery notes, sometimes so soft they might be no more than a breeze from the estuary and the sea beyond. But there was no breeze. The evening was totally still. Only the rising mist was moving, to protect the ruin from mortal eyes while its queen, this beautiful nymph, ascended her battlement throne. If he could capture her…

  The light was just above him. He was about to emerge. He pressed his body against the wall of the staircase and stopped to listen. She sounded very near. He risked a rapid glance round the stonework and only just managed to swallow the gasp that rose in his throat. She was there! A beautiful illusion, perhaps, but almost near enough to touch.

  She was smiling rather wistfully, humming still, and her eyes were closed. Her face was lifted towards the west. In the low sunshine, her curls were glowing like a fiery halo around her head. She seemed to be dancing with some invisible cavalier, holding out one long slim arm as if waiting for her partner to take it and kiss her hand. It was an invitation no man could resist. Robert stepped out into the light, clasped her outstretched fingers and pulled her into his arms, eager yet dreading the inevitable moment of loss when she faded into chilly, watery nothingness.

  But she was not cold. Nor was she light as thistledown, like the fairies of his childhood tales. His nymph was cool and almost alive, as if she were already half-way to the earthly reality that he could offer her with his kiss, and with his body. He drew her closer and stroked a hand over her flowing hair, letting its silken strands caress his palm. Her magic was already possessing him totally. And he must possess her in turn.

  His pulse was racing. His whole body was a mass of surging heat and desire. Yet his first kiss was gentle, hesitant, the merest
touch on a mouth that was cool and unresponsive. Nymph-like, she was not ready to yield. But neither did she pull away.

  It was enough. Now he began to kiss her in earnest, with only one insistent thought hammering through the raging chaos of his mind. If he could make his nymph respond to him, she would be earth-bound, and his, for ever! As the kiss continued, less gently now, he felt slim arms glide round his neck, touching his skin, his hair. He was making her ever more real. He would make her his! If he wanted to hold her, he must make love to her. But not by force. She could still flee, still melt into the mist. She must be made to want him, to long for him as he was now longing for her.

  Greatly daring, he touched the very tip of his tongue to the middle of her lower lip. He felt the sweet breath of her sigh against his skin as she opened to him. It was a magical sound, as if all the notes of her fairy song had been combined in a single radiant chord. It was an invitation. And a promise.

  Gently at first, he began running his tongue along the length of her lips, touching and withdrawing, then kissing teasingly at the corners of her mouth, challenging her to respond. He was not mistaken in her. She drew him closer and pulled his head down towards her so that she could begin to kiss him back, following his every move. She touched her tongue to his lower lip, just as he had done, waiting for his answering sigh. She caressed his lips, as he had done, and touched a featherlight kiss to each corner of his mouth. It seemed that she could follow, and willingly, but she would not lead.

  With a groan he could not suppress, Robert began to deepen their magical kiss. His nymph was weaving an enchantment around him, capturing him as he had hoped to capture her. He did not care. Every fibre of his being longed for her.

  He drew her closer still and touched his tongue to the tip of hers, tasting the honeyed sweetness of her mouth. In an instant, she was responding, their tongues twining, demanding, seeking each other in an ancient dance of love. One light hand moved to touch his cheek, stroking down to his jaw, then lifted again to thread itself into his hair.

  He held her now. She would truly be his. He slid his fingers down the length of her upraised arm, caressing her bare shoulder, her neck, the silky skin of her upper back. He could feel the edge of her gown, so light and thin that it seemed to be made of gossamer. She ought to have wings, but she did not. And soon she would be truly earthbound.

  He stroked the back of his fingers down the side of her neck, across her throat to the curve of her upper breast. So beautiful, so tempting. For a second, he cupped one breast in his hand, delighting in its weight. She was almost real, almost human now. He could feel her nipple rising against his palm. He deepened the kiss yet more and began to push aside her flimsy bodice.

  ‘No!’

  A single word, full of fear. It struck him like a lightning bolt.

  In that same instant, Robert stepped away from her. His illusion shimmered and shredded and was gone. He looked. What madness had been upon him? How could he ever have thought this living, breathing girl was anything but real? And he had been about to—!

  Self-loathing filled him. He could not look her in the face. He must be bright scarlet, or ashen. And she—?

  Isobel spun away from him, her hands to her burning cheeks. She had— Oh, heavens, she had let herself be kissed by a complete stranger, and she had melted into him, returning his embraces as if she knew him, and trusted him, and wanted him… It was shameless, even more shameless than indulging the last dream of her girlhood by dancing here, alone in the sunset, in a borrowed, forbidden gown. She shivered. Was that the dampened muslin clinging to her skin? Or was it his presence, this unknown man who had walked into her dream as if he belonged there, as if he were meant to share it?

  Behind her, there was no sound. No movement. If he was simply a character in her fantasy, he must surely have vanished into the mist? Yet his scent lingered around her still—wool, and leather, and living, breathing man. That alone should be enough to terrify a vulnerable woman.

  But it did not. Her body was glowing, inside and out. It wanted to return to his embrace as if they belonged together.

  The silence lengthened. The mist was thickening more quickly now, starting to block out the last rays of the darkening sun. Soon it would drop below the horizon and the twilight proper would come, the magical twilight that so enchanted these ruins. Would he still be there, reaching out to her, if she turned to him in the gathering dusk? Or had she imagined it all?

  She forced her hands to her sides, took a deep breath and turned.

  He was still there.

  ‘You are real,’ she whispered hoarsely.

  His gaze was fixed on her face. His mouth twisted slowly into a half-smile. ‘And so are you.’

  He had not moved even an inch. It was as if her spoken refusal of him had turned his tall, lean frame to marble. It seemed that only his mouth could move. It was a mouth made for smiling, and for kissing…

  She dropped her gaze. Her heart was pounding all over again, and even faster now. Surely he could hear it? She took a deep breath and raised her chin a little, though her gaze remained fixed on the stones at her feet. ‘Sir, I—’

  ‘Miss Isobel! Where are you?’

  Isobel gasped in horror at the sound of that distant voice. ‘My maid! She has returned to fetch me.’ She glanced down at her borrowed gown, seeing it now as he must have seen it—damp, flimsy, revealing the body beneath as if she were naked. ‘She must not see me dressed in this!’

  ‘She must not see you alone with me, either.’

  His tone was such an odd mixture of grave concern and suppressed humour that she risked a glance up into his face. His mouth was stern, but she was certain—almost certain—that there was a hint of mischief in his hooded eyes. The desire that had sparked between them seemed to have melted away like Caerlaverock mist.

  For now.

  ‘Where are your clothes?’ His voice had turned sharp, and commanding.

  She realised, for the first time, that he was a military man, dressed in full regimentals. She pointed a shaky finger to the heap of clothing by the wall, the heavy gown she had discarded in order to discover, just once, how it would feel to be clad in the skimpy muslins that were forbidden to her. Indecent, her father called them. And, wearing them, her behaviour had been indecent, too.

  ‘I will go down the stairs so that you may change in private. Make haste!’ He started for the dark entrance to the staircase.

  ‘No, do not go down! She must not see you!’

  He turned back, smiling reassuringly. ‘She will not. I shall go down only far enough to ensure your modesty. When you are ready, and presentable again, you may come down by yourself. There will be room to pass. I promise—on my honour—that I will not attack you again.’ His smile disappeared when he spoke those words and he shook his head, as if trying to be rid of an unwelcome thought.

  He was an honourable man. She knew that, in spite of the madness that had possessed them both. And now he was behaving with more restraint than Isobel deserved.

  ‘Miss Isobel?’ It was Annie’s worried voice.

  Isobel crossed to the battlement where it overlooked the courtyard. She leant over, allowing only her head to show. ‘I am up here on the tower, Annie, watching the sunset. Gather up my painting things and take them out to the carriage, if you please. I shall be down in a few moments.’

  From the shadow of the doorway, he smiled and nodded approvingly at her. He was about to leave. They would pass just once more in the darkness, in silence, and she would never see him again.

  She started to reach out a hand, but then let it drop to her side. ‘Sir, I— You must allow me to thank you, and to explain…’ Her voice, never more than a whisper at best, faltered into nothing. She felt lost.

  His smile widened the merest fraction. ‘I will come again tomorrow, at dusk, in hopes of seeing an enchanting vision once more. Tomorrow, and every day after, just in case…’ He let the promise hang in the air. Then, without another word, he disappeared into th
e darkness.

  He took two steps down, stopping to lean his forehead against the cold stone wall, waiting for his heart to slow and for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. Behind him, on the stone platform, he could hear the sound of clothing being shaken out, and quick nervous breathing as she grappled with tapes and pins. He must not stay here, picturing her transformation from nymph to earthbound lady. He did not want to be seduced by that. He wanted to remember her as he had first seen her—ethereal, floating, fairylike.

  He moved a little further from the light. He was beginning to see the shapes of walls and steps now. And he was almost back in control. It was safe to move. He started down the staircase, resolutely ignoring the ache in his leg. It had returned to remind him of his mortality. And, indirectly, of hers. He must not dwell on that. More important to concentrate on muffling the sound of his leather boots on the stones. The abigail below must hear nothing.

  Half-way down, Robert stopped and shrank back against the wall at the narrow end of the steps so that there would be room enough for her to pass without touching him. He was in the darkest part of the staircase, too dark to see her in her everyday garb. Would she know he was there? He was resolved not to betray his presence by word or movement. It must be as if he had become part of these cold blank stones.

  He heard a step then, far above. She was wearing quite heavy shoes, or perhaps even boots. On the battlements, he had fancied her feet were bare.

  He strained his ears, listening for her approach. For a moment there was nothing. She was probably waiting, as he had done, until she could see her way in the darkness. Then he heard light steps on the stairs, coming ever closer, and the soft shush of heavy fabric brushing across the edges of the stones. He held his breath, waiting. She was very close now.

  It was the scent that reached him first. Lavender, he was sure of it. And yet he had smelled no lavender when he held her in his arms. A heavy skirt brushed against his thigh, and the scent wafted up around him. It was not unpleasant, and yet it was not her. His nymph had smelled of watery magic, and then of desire, not of the lavender of common clothes presses.