No? Sinclair stood up, lifting Bertie from the bunk. He set her on her feet, then sat down where she’d been, looking splendid, na**d against the spread kilt. His cock, ramrod stiff, lifted straight out toward her. “Come here,” he said.

“Bit of a tight fit on that bunk,” Bertie answered breathlessly. “I was wondering how I’d squeeze in on me own.”

Sinclair’s smile went wide. “We’ll fit, lass, but it’s not for the prudish.” He seized Bertie by the h*ps and pulled her onto his lap, facing him. He arranged her so that her knees rested on either side of his thighs, spreading her legs wide.

Sinclair slid a few inches to the edge of the bunk, holding Bertie securely in his large hands. He eased her forward, onto him, the position sending his wonderful stiffness straight inside her. She was already wet and warm with her own moisture and that from his tongue, and he slid in with no impediment.

They were face to face, pressed as tightly to each other as two people could get. The arrangement put Bertie on level with him, where she could see his smile and look into his fine gray eyes.

The train straightened out and picked up speed, the acceleration pushing Bertie at Sinclair, and Sinclair at Bertie. He went deeper still, his smile vanishing. A fine ache rubbed her where they joined, his ministrations having made her swollen and hot, and now pleasured by the whole of him.

Sinclair thrust a little, his h*ps coming off the bunk. The rush of the train, and its unsteady speed moved Sinclair inside her, as though the train itself coaxed this coupling. They hit another bend, Sinclair holding Bertie firmly against the sway.

He got to his feet, Sinclair lifting her with him, her legs still around his hips. He turned around once with her in the tight compartment until the train bent the other way again. Sinclair gave up fighting the roll and ended up with Bertie’s back against the window.

The curtains bowed into the glass with her, the window cool through the fabric. Sinclair thrust hard, again and again, while Bertie held on to him, her head rocking against the window.

She heard her own cries, drowned by the hard clack-clack of the wheels and the whistle blowing its warning. Sinclair’s head went back, and he clenched his teeth against his own shout. “Bloody hell,” he said in a grating voice. He made a harsh ahh sound as his eyes closed, and he lost his seed into her.

The train swayed the other way, the compartment following its momentum. Sinclair lost his footing and ended up on the bunk, Bertie still around him. She kissed his face, which was wet with sweat, their bodies snug together. Sinclair kissed her back, tumbling her hair, breathing hard, Bertie laughing.

“Damn, bloody trains,” Sinclair growled, then he buried his face in her neck and held her close.

In the morning, they disembarked at Edinburgh, which was a bustling city under misty skies. Bertie couldn’t see much of it while trundling from one train platform to the next, cold rain filming her coat and new hat. In the next train, Sinclair, Bertie, and the children sat together in another first-class compartment, Macaulay and Aoife joining them, as they rolled out of Edinburgh north into the Highlands.

The rain eased back as the city dropped behind, the sun came out, and sweeping hills came into view, marching across the horizon, rising into the sky. Valleys dropped away as the train chugged over bridges. Bertie couldn’t drag herself from the windows as she watched the splendor unfold.

The train stopped at a tiny station marked Kilmorgan to let off Sinclair and family, the only ones to disembark. Macaulay and Aoife oversaw the luggage being unloaded while Bertie looked around her with interest.

The village wasn’t much, that she could see—a high street that ran from a small square to the train station. Houses and shops lined the street, with a smattering of cottages beyond, and after that . . . emptiness. Green hills rolled to the gray horizon, the higher hills dusted with snow. The stationmaster, who greeted Sinclair by name, said that snow had been thin this year so far, but they’d likely get more soon.

“Hooray!” Andrew said. “You’ll love to play in the snow here, Bertie. It’s glorious. We’ll build a fort and have a battle.”

“Not until you’re better,” Sinclair broke in sternly. “And you’ll be better when I say you are. Up you go.”

He lifted his son into his arms and followed the stationmaster through the tiny waiting room to the front of the station. The lane outside was empty, not a vehicle in sight.

“Do people live here?” Bertie asked. There was no sign of anyone, no movement on the road. All the silence made her nervous.

“They do.” Sinclair sounded amused. “The village near my own house is even smaller, Miss Frasier of the city.”

Bertie suppressed a shiver. “Well, I never,” was all she could think of to say.

Sinclair frowned at the empty street. “I hope they remembered we were coming today. I don’t want to have to tramp all the way to the castle.”

Bertie looked about for a castle perched on a hill. She expected to see a tall stone edifice with battlements poking up from the rocks—like the pictures in the books she’d been reading—but she didn’t see anything resembling that. She couldn’t see much at all beyond this tiny village with no one in it.

Bertie heard the sound of hooves quickly clopping and turned to see a conveyance come around the corner into the square. It was a landau, closed against the cold, pulled by two smart horses trotting at high speed. On the box, holding the reins, was a tall man in a kilt standing up next to the red-coated coachman.