Highlander's Reckoning (The Sinclair Brothers #3) (19 page)

He eased out and thrust forward again. He wanted to
make this last, but her wetness and tightness threatened to undo him in a
matter of seconds. He buried himself inside her and circled his hips, grinding
into her.

She dug her fingers into the bedding in pleasurable
agony.

“More,” she whispered. “Please, Daniel, more. Take
me.”

It was too much. Her words sent him to another plane
of desire. He jerked back from her and faster than a flash of lightning, he
grabbed her hips and flipped her over on the bed so that she was lying on her
stomach. Again, he gripped her hips and lifted her so that she came up onto her
hands and knees.

Without waiting, he thrust into her once again. She
inhaled sharply at the new sensation of him entering her from behind. She
pressed back into him encouragingly. He grasped one of her hips, but let his
other hand slide down to the top of her sex to find that spot of pleasure
again.

He thrust in and out, moving his fingers over her
sex with one hand while the other grasped her supple bottom. His urgent, rough
motion was bringing them both tantalizingly close to the edge of release.

A few more thrusts and strokes with his fingers, and
he felt her shudder and quicken around him as she came undone. She cried out
her pleasure. It was enough to send him careening over the edge and into
paradise after her.

She pulsed around him as they both came back down to
earth, breathing hard. He eased out of her and sank onto the bed, completely
spent. She turned on her side so that she could rest her hand over his still-hammering
heart.

A few minutes of bliss-induced silence stretched
between them.

“You like to be in charge, don’t you?” she finally
asked with a small smile.

He smiled back and closed his eyes for a moment,
savoring what they’d just shared.

“Aye, I do. Though I’m not so much of a despot that
I don’t enjoy ceding power either.”

He cast a suggestive look at her, and she exhaled,
likely remembering their encounter in the study again.

“I suppose I could get used to ceding power
occasionally, too,” she breathed, holding his gaze. But then her face darkened
slightly. “Do you…do you wish me to be more…yielding outside our bedchamber
also?”

He sat up and propped himself on his elbow. “Nay,
Rona, I don’t.”

She broke their gaze, so he gently took her chin in
his hand, bringing her eyes back to his.

“I mean it, Rona. Sometimes your stubbornness and
willfulness drive me crazy, but I don’t want you to be any different. You’re
smart and strong and capable. I count myself the luckiest man in the world to
be your husband.”

She blushed and the corners of her mouth tugged up.

“I know I can be…difficult sometimes—”

“As can I,” he interjected.

“—But I’m glad you accept me, temper and
stubbornness and everything else. After all,” she said, lifting one eyebrow
suggestively, “I do enjoy getting a rise out of you.”

To make her double entendre even clearer, her eyes
took on a wicked light and she let her gaze flick down to his manhood.

He scooped her up in his arms and tickled her for
her petulance. Once she was squealing and breathless, he stopped his
feather-light attack, but instead of releasing her, he pulled her onto his
chest. Within minutes, she was fast asleep. He felt the pull of tiredness, but
before it claimed him, he thanked the heavens for his good fortune. They were
finally on their way to the kind of marriage he’d never before let himself hope
was possible.

For what felt like the hundredth time, Rona pricked
her finger with the needle she held. Barely suppressing a foul curse, she
sighed and raised her head from the needlework in her lap. She glanced over at
Alwin, who sat serenely working the needle. Both Meredith and Jossalyn also had
their heads bent over their own work. Little Jane lay sleeping at Alwin’s side,
the model of serenity and contentedness.

Rona stood and just managed not to fling her
needlework across the chamber. Instead, she set it down in her chair and walked
to the window. The women were gathered in her old bedchamber because the light
was better here than in the other rooms. The furs on the window were pulled
back, and gray morning light poured in.

The week since the wedding celebration had flown by
happily enough. The men spent most of their time training in the yard or locked
away in Daniel’s study, no doubt planning their siege on Dunbraes. The ladies
had busied themselves with indoor pursuits, as the weather had been
temperamental and wet. It gave them all ample opportunity to talk and get to
know one another, which was a joy. Never before had Rona had female
companionship aside from old Agnes.

But Rona had suffered through about as much tidying,
needlework, and meal planning as she could stand. As she stood at the window,
longing tugged at her heart. She glanced up at the sky. Though the clouds were
still thick overhead, they were breaking up to the west, revealing patches of
faint blue.

“What is on your mind, Rona?” Alwin said, not
glancing up from her needlework.

“I was thinking of flinging myself out this window
if it would save me from having to pick up that cursed needle again,” she
replied bluntly.

All the women burst into gales of laughter, and Rona
couldn’t help but smile.

“You’ve carried on nobly this past week,” Alwin said
once she caught her breath again. “You fooled me into thinking that you merely
disliked
the duties of the lady of the keep, not that you’d rather die than set another
stitch!”

They shared another round of chuckles, but Rona’s
heart sank slightly at Alwin’s words.

“I know I should be better at all this,” she waved
her hand around the chamber to indicate a lady’s responsibilities in running a
castle. “I just…never took to it.”

She returned to her chair and slumped into it, not
even bothering to move her needlework.

Jossalyn fixed her with a knowing look. “Even though
I was supposed to run the keep of the man to whom my brother was going to marry
me off, he never saw to my training. I don’t take to it either. The only reason
I’m any good at this,” she said, holding up her perfect embroidery, “is because
it’s like stitching up a wound!”

Meredith gasped, and a grin settled on Alwin’s face.

Rona considered Jossalyn for a moment. This past
week, she’d lumped the three other women together in her mind, telling herself
that they were all proper ladies while she was inept at sewing, didn’t give a
fig about meal planning, and hadn’t ever cracked open the castle’s ledgers to
make sure all was running smoothly. But these women were more like her than she
initially thought. They had all been flung into unusual circumstances, had
found a way to overcome, and had made the life they wanted.

Unconsciously, she glanced out the window again.

“We all make do with our situation and our
strengths,” Alwin said warmly to Jossalyn, though Rona suspected the words were
directed at her. “I happen to love running Roslin Castle, but I had to fight
Robert for the control and freedom to do it.”

“Really? You and Robert fight for control? I would
have never guessed,” Meredith said evenly, though a smile played at the corners
of her mouth.

“Indeed,” Alwin said with a roll of her eyes. “I can
only hope that Burke’s good temper and easygoing nature will rub off on Robert
during this visit.”

That sent Meredith into a fit of laughter.

“So Jossalyn can embroider a man back to health,”
Alwin said, a knowing smile on her face. “Meredith maintains a harmonious
household by having Burke wrapped around her little finger. And Robert is no
match for my skill at outmaneuvering him when it comes to running Roslin. What
is your secret gift, Rona?”

Suddenly the room grew quiet and three sets of eyes
gazed at her. She swallowed, and her eyes fluttered to the window once more. Of
course she couldn’t tell them about Bhreaca or her love of falconry. Was that
her special skill, her secret gift as Alwin had called it?

“Perhaps the answer lies outside that window, beyond
the castle,” Alwin said quietly. The woman had an eye sharper than Bhreaca’s,
Rona was sure of it.

The room settled into a congenial silence as the
women returned to their needlework. Rona again stood and strode to the window.
The patches of blue to the west were growing larger. She felt her heart tug
toward the southwest, where Bhreaca waited for her, where Ian and Mairi would
hug her warmly, where she would fly in her mind’s eye with her falcon.

So lost in thought was she that she didn’t hear
Meredith move to her side.

“I’ve grown accustomed to taking walks around Brora
Tower almost every day, even in the winter,” Meredith said quietly as she gazed
out the window. “I grow restless being cooped up indoors like this.”

Meredith’s sweet, unassuming presence had been a
balm to Rona from the moment she met her. Now she felt her kinship with the
quiet woman grow deeper.

“You must enjoy being outdoors greatly then. I hear
you’ve had a hard winter in the north.”

“Aye, we have. But I got out nevertheless. It’s my
time to see the animals,” Meredith said with a smile.

Alwin and Jossalyn had begun chatting, which covered
their conversation, but Rona lowered her voice nonetheless.

“Animals? What do you mean?”

Meredith leaned in conspiratorially. “I go walking
for hours sometimes just to watch a doe eating or two young foxes playing
together. I even draw them when I can.”

Rona’s eyes widened. “Really? Why?”

Meredith shrugged. “It makes me happy.”

Rona’s mind flew to Bhreaca. The falcon made her
happy. It was as simple as that. And she hadn’t been to the Fergusons’ cottage
in over a week.

Meredith would understand. She had a kindred love of
wild creatures.

“Do you also enjoy watching birds?” Rona asked
cautiously.

“Oh, yes! Linnets and sandpipers and—and golden
eagles! I’ve sketched them a dozen times, but it’s so hard to capture them in
motion.”

Rona’s heart surged. “I have something to show you
then.”

“What is it?” Meredith asked quietly, though her
voice was filled with anticipation.

“It will be a surprise. But bring parchment and a
quill. I must speak with Daniel first, but can you be ready in an hour?”

Meredith nodded, her cheeks flushed with excitement.
She hurried out of the chamber and toward her own room.

Rona followed, feeling Alwin and Jossalyn’s curious
gazes on her. She shot a quick glance over her shoulder and caught Alwin’s
knowing grin before she closed the chamber door behind her.

She took the stairs two at a time as she made her
way to the study. Without bothering to knock, she pushed open the door.

“But with the tower keep built in the northeast
corner—”

All four of the men in the study snapped their heads
up at the sound of the door banging open. Garrick immediately moved so that his
large frame blocked the view of the map spread on Daniel’s desk.

Daniel relaxed slightly when he saw that it was
Rona, though the study was still taut with tension, both from their planning and
from the intrusion.

“What is it, Rona?” Daniel said tightly.

Daniel watched as Rona’s mood suddenly shifted from
eager giddiness to sour annoyance. Her smile slipped and she crossed her arms
defensively.

“Forgive me for the interruption. I suppose you all
are up to something that must be kept secret from me again?” she said tartly.

Garrick raised a dark eyebrow at her tone, Burke
coughed, and Robert actually quirked a smile.

Daniel sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with
one hand.

“Nay, wife, it’s not a secret—at least not one we’re
keeping from you.”

Garrick turned his hard, quizzical look on his
younger brother, but Daniel went on.

“We’ve been poring over this map of Dunbraes
Jossalyn made for us, but we’ve yet to find a suitable point of attack.”

“Will your siege start so soon?” she asked
cautiously, taking a step forward. She dropped her crossed arms from her chest,
which Daniel was learning was a good sign.

“We got word from the Bruce this morning that he and
his army are about a week’s march north of Loch Doon,” Daniel said. “We want to
be ready to start the siege shortly after that.”

Rona frowned and took another step forward. Garrick
still blocked her view of the map on the desk.

“And what will the Bruce be bringing in the way of
siege weapons?”

“Besides a few hundred men, nothing,” Robert
replied. “Unlike the English, the Bruce hasn’t had the luxury or time to build
siege engines, so we won’t have the use of trebuchets or catapults. We may be
able to starve them out, but from what Jossalyn has told us, Warren keeps the
castle well-supplied. Besides, the Bruce can’t spare his army for months on
end.”

Rona now stood in front of Garrick, who hadn’t
budged. She crossed her arms over her chest again and leveled him with a look
of annoyance. To Daniel’s surprise, Garrick gave her a lopsided grin and
stepped aside, giving her a view of the map again.

“No moat…” she said as she assessed the map. Her
wild red hair spilled over her shoulders as she leaned over the desk.

“Aye, that’s a blessing,” Burke said, returning his
attention to the map as well. “But Jossalyn tells us the castle is situated on
high, rocky ground above the village.” He pointed to the bottom of the map.

“What about tunneling?” Rona asked.

“What does a Kennedy lass like you know about
sieging a castle?” Garrick said coolly before anyone could answer her.

Rona straightened her spine under Garrick’s
question.

“You’ll recall that my father was once in charge of
protecting this castle from attack by the English. When Warren first threatened
us shortly after we took charge of the castle, my father spent many nights in
discussions with the captain of the castle’s soldiers to try to figure out how
to protect Loch Doon.” She shrugged. “I helped.”

That had several more eyebrows lifting at her, including
Daniel’s. This woman never ceased to surprise and impress him, he thought with
a surge of pride. She ignored their incredulous looks and turned back to the
map.

“Of course, we didn’t have to worry about
tunneling—Loch Doon’s position on an island takes care of that, and even if it
were on land, the eleven-sided curtain wall would make tunneling a fool’s
errand. Unfortunately, it looks like whoever built Dunbraes had the same idea.”

She traced the many-sided curtain wall sketched on
the map with her finger.

“Aye, tunneling under the wall would be arduous and
potentially fruitless,” Daniel said. “But it’s our best approach. Jossalyn says
that both the main gate and the postern gate have portcullises, making a
battering ram useless. And ladders would be too exposed and dangerous.”

Rona’s bright blue eyes drifted from the map for a
moment. A private smile softened her face.

“What is it?” Daniel said from the other side of the
desk, watching her closely.

Startled, she blinked and focused her eyes on him.
“Oh, I was just…remembering my own little siege on Loch Doon.”

“Your…siege?” Robert said skeptically.

“Well, not a siege exactly,” she said quickly, “but
I did manage to escape the curtain wall one night when the gates had already
been closed. And I snuck back over the wall in the wee hours of the morning
without being detected.”

Garrick gave a low whistle through his teeth and
shook his head ruefully. “She’s a keeper, little brother.”

Rona shot him a scowl, but there was no heat in it.

“How did you manage that?” Burke said, impressed.

“I…borrowed a fisherman’s hook and tied a rope to
it. Then I tossed the hook over the wall and climbed up using my feet against
the wall. I did the same on the way back into the castle.”

“Dare I ask what inspired such action?” Burke said
with a grin.

Rona shifted, somewhat uncomfortable as the center
of his family’s attention.

“My father forbade me from going to see…to see some
friends who live in the woods nearby,” she said, her eyes flickering to Daniel.

She must have wanted to fly Bhreaca with Ian and
Mairi, and her father refused.

“Cursed be the man who tries to control you, lass!”
Garrick said merrily, clapping Daniel on the back.