Knight In My Bed (26 page)

Aye, she'd supped well.

But she hadn't been kissed like a knight kisses.

With a deep sigh, she pushed to her feet. For the hundredth time that night, she crossed the bedchamber, opened the door, and stole a glance down the long, shadow-filled hall.

The long, shadow-filled, empty hall.

Her hands clenching to fists, she vowed to have words with Niels and Rory first thing on the morrow. Neither of the good men had deigned to tell her why the MacLean hadn't been brought to her.

Furious at herself for caring, she shut the door again, and leaned her back against its solidness. A hard, unbending firmness that instantly reminded her of the hard, well-muscled plane of Donall the Bold's broad chest.

"Bats' wings and frogs' toenails!" She borrowed one of the
cailleach's
pet curses, and leaped away from the door.

Foolish twaddle or nay, uttering the crone's oath made her feel good.

Faith and mercy, she'd even painted her nipples for the arrogant Lord Good-Kisser!

Heat flooding her cheeks -- and other unnamed places as well -- she snatched up the little pot of blush of rose and glared at it. Had she truly thought to stand before Donall the Bold wearing the see-through camise Evelina had foisted upon her, her nipples red-tinted and thrusting at him through the gown's shimmering bodice?

Aye, she had.

And the admission sent her sailing around the chamber, following the circular track her constant pacing had worn in the freshly-strewn floor rushes. Bodo watched her from his bed, his head resting on his forepaws, his eyes puzzled.

Sympathetic.

Only she didn't crave sympathy.

Not even from her wee Bodo.

A dark scowl, worthy of the magnificent Donall the Bold himself, pulled her brows together and her lips downward.

Lips that ached to be kissed.

Her circuitous route took her past the bedpost.

His bedpost
.

Unable to help herself, she paused long enough to trail her fingers down its intricately carved length.

Smooth, hard, and cool oaken wood ... perfection.

Like him.

Her fingers curled tighter around the pot of vermilion. Its earthen coolness in her palm restored her wits. It was the man's coolness, too, upon which she must dwell. Not his bonnie smiles and the occasional warmth in his liquid brown eyes.

And most especially not the mastery of his touch.

His kiss.

' Twas she who meant to seduce.

And would.

She need only cling to his one imperfection ... the cold stain of Lileas's blood. A great, wracking shudder ...
shame
... washed over her. Even that damning thought couldn't quite dispel the desire she felt for him, the need he'd awakened in her.

Feeling utterly defeated, she released a long, deep sigh. The little pot of blush of rose slipped from her fingers. She almost bent to retrieve it, but a great weariness propelled her toward her bed instead.

With shaking fingers, she grasped the heavy bed curtains and eased them farther aside before she slowly divested herself of her black mourning gown and Evelina's scant slip of an under-tunic.

She'd scrub the paint from her nipples on the morrow. One last time, she let her fingertips glide down the carved swirls of her bedpost.

The
bedpost.

His bedpost
.

Then, before her feet carried her to the door for yet another fruitless peep into the silent corridor, she doused the candle stumps, and climbed into the dark recess of her empty bed.

Not that she expected to sleep.

Nay, she'd likely spend the remainder of the night doing what she was already doing: lying on her back, fully unclothed save the vermilion staining the peaks of her breasts, the many layers of coverlets pulled to her chin, staring at the bed's canopy, and wishing her evening had been filled with knightly kisses.

In a dark and quiet corner of Dunmuir, a
hidden
corner where naught but the damp scent of rain and the earthy musk of spent lust could intrude, Evelina breathed a soft sigh of pleasure, and allowed herself to be pulled more snugly into her old knight's arms.

Sated and content, she toyed idly with the smattering of gray hair on his broad chest, and pressed sweet kisses into the warm hollow where his neck joined his shoulders.

The age-worn warrior gave a well-satisfied moan of his own, and smoothed his callused hand down the curve of her hip. "Ne'er have I known more contentment than holding you," he vowed, skimming his fingers along her thigh before letting them brush lightly over her damp intimate curls, toying with them in the same lazy manner she moved her own fingers over his chest hair.

"And now that you've spent yourself once, you mean to be content with merely holding me?" Evelina purred, parting her thighs to invite a more thorough exploration.

Her lover obliged, dipping his hand deeper between her legs, no longer gently, but firn and demanding, palming her dampness with a rough, circular motion until she arched her hips, pressing herself against his hand, opening her thighs even wider in unrestrained need.

"Taste me," she urged him, the words a command, but cushioned on a breathy sigh no man could possibly deny.

Her once-time knight didn't even think to. With a ragged moan, and an agility that belied his age but paid fine tribute to long years of physical training, he eased her onto her back, and settled himself at the core of her sweetness, gladly partaking of all she offered him.

And he didn't lift his gray-shot, thick-maned head until he'd coaxed every sigh, every sweet shiver out of her. Sighs, shivers, and the most thunderous release he could give her.

With a deep, satiated sigh of his own, the old knight stretched out beside her on the simple pallet and drew her back into the circle of his arms. "You are my life, Evelina," he said, and she stiffened.

"You must not speak such foolery," she warned, a tremor rippling down her back.

A tremor she hoped he'd mistake for the last, lingering vestiges of her release.

"
Foolery
?" He lifted up on his elbow to peer down at her, and the fire in his eyes made her wince. Snatching the end of the worn plaid, he swirled it over her lush curves, protecting her from the chill damp of their trysting place. "You dare call my feelings for you thus?" he demanded, smoothing the blanket in place.

She sighed and gave him a wistful smile. "Not your feelings, dear heart," she said, smoothing a lock of coarse, brown-gray hair off his damp forehead. "Never your feelings."

"Then what, by God?" His voice came deep and harsh against the gentle patter of rain and the low, rhythmic snores of those sleeping on their pallets not far away, blessedly ignorant of the two lovers nestled in a dark, secluded niche tucked in a corner of the slumbering hall.

"Leave be," she pleaded, touching her fingers to his lips. "It will serve no purpose to rile yourself."

"Then dinna rile me!"
The aged knight grasped her hand in his, bringing the soft underside of her wrist to his lips for a scorchingly possessive kiss. "If you would not see me vexed, then have done with your fool notions and wed me."

Evelina sighed. "Do not make me regret I stayed the night here, my love."

"I would harry you with regrets to the gates of purgatory and back if it would help my cause," her lover vowed, his agitation thrumming in his voice, crackling in the chill, damp air between them. "I love you, Evelina. I am a man of honor, and would see you where you belong ... as my lady wife, at my side."

Evelina's heart twisted. "It is
because
you are a man of honor, I will not marry you," she breathed, pulling on her own long years of "training" to cloak the pain it cost her to refuse him. "I will not see you scorned."

"Think you I care a whit what the tongue-waggers might say?"

"I am full aware you do not care," Evelina said, closing her eyes against the hurt she knew she was putting into his. "'Tis I who care. Now, pray, be silent before all and sundry hear you ranting and discover us."

"Mayhap they should!" the old knight swore, his frustration palpable.

"Please, my love, be still, and let us glory in what we do have." Evelina slipped her hand beneath the blanket and began making slow, gentle circles on his heaving chest.

Soothing circles ... she hoped.

"Becalm yourself, and let us sleep." She pressed a gentle kiss on his shoulder. "We have had a full night together. Our first. Let that be enough."

"It will never be enough," her lover murmured, but already his breathing slowed, and soon his quiet snores joined those of his sleeping kinsmen.

Only Evelina didn't sleep.

She simply awaited the dawn as she did on countless other sleepless nights.

Staring into the darkness, listening to the gentle fall of the rain and the soft sigh of the wind.

And, every once in a while, wiping the dampness from her eyes.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Early The Next morning, Isolde sat stiffly in her chair at the high table, her straight back pressed firmly against the elaborately carved seat of honor, the laird's chair that had once been her father's. The defiant angle of her chin her only concession to the emotions warring within her, she listened to her uncle Struan expound on Lorne's intervention in the treatment of Donall MacLean.

Intervention he dubbed a gross erring in judgment.

An intervention that explained why she hadn't received further tutelage in the fine and noble art of knightly kissing.

Bodo's cold nose nudged her ankle, and she reached down to stroke him, gladful of the comfort his presence afforded her. Grateful, too, for any excuse to turn aside, thus hiding the warmth blossoming on her cheeks.

A blush brought on by the mere thought of Donall the Bold's irrefutable kissing skills.

"Lorne, you have overstepped your authority." Struan's booming voice rose to the smoke-blackened rafters and echoed off the great hall's weapon-hung walls.

"And I say you overstep yours," Lorne countered, his own voice every bit as commanding as the war leader's. "We've already broken the code of hospitality, let us not further shame ourselves by disregarding the rights of --"

"
Rights
?" Struan half rose from his chair. "Have you grown so high-minded you think to confer
rights
on the blackguard?"

"He is a knight." Ailbert's thin voice chimed in. "Laird of Baldoon."

"Laird of Baldoon, " Struan mimicked the white-haired elder before he sank back onto his chair. "He is a murderer who forfeited all vested rights granted to his class the moment our Lileas drowned on the Lady Rock."

"We cannot be certain the MacLeans did the deed." Isolde's pronouncement rang strange in her own ears, the statement surprising her as much as it had her council.

To a man, they gaped at her, slack-mouthed.

All save Niels and Rory.

Standing a short distance away, near the hearth fire, Niels averted his gaze. Rory showed no such discretion. He narrowed his eyes at her, his face dark, his hand on the hilt of his sword as if Donall the Bold and his army of stout-armed MacLean warriors might charge into the hall any moment, blades drawn, and tempers high.

A thrill of excitement shot through her at the thought of seeing the MacLean exercise his sword arm. If his mastery with a blade was aught near his skill at kissing, it'd be a fine sight to behold.

Her heart began a slow, hard thumping. The stirring image almost lulled her into the soothing fog of a pleasant daydream, and would have, did her uncle not call her name.

Blinking, she tore her gaze from Rory's sword. "Aye?"

Her uncle was staring at her. "Who do you think did?"

"Did what?" She blinked again, trying to rid herself of
 
the image of a bare-chested MacLean swinging his sword, his glossy black hair swirling just above his powerful shoulders, his magnificent form sweat-sheened and glorious.

“Where are your thoughts, girl?" Struan stared at her, his gaze laden with reproach. "If not the MacLeans, I would know who you think is responsible? One of the selkie people?"

A bark of laughter rose from the far end of the table. "The selkies? We'll have to ask Gavin MacFie about that. 'Tis said his people hale from a selkie woman!"

Struan silenced the upstart with a stern glance. To Isolde, he said, "Well, lass, who do you think did the deed if not Ian MacLean?'

“I know not," she admitted, her voice wooden. "Certainly not the seal people."

Near as disturbed by her sudden desire to believe Donall the Bold had naught to do with Lileas's death, as o'er the tragedy itself, she added, "I only know it couldn't have been MacKinnons. We would have seen them pass through our waters."

"But we did not, did we?" Struan lowered his voice for the first time since he'd upbraided Lorne. "We have lookouts watching MacKinnons' Isle every hour of the day and night." His hawkish eyes glowed with an inner fire. "Yet nary a galley of theirs -- not even a single hide-covered coracle -- has plied the sea in months."