The Captive Heart (27 page)

“You would have been wed to some wealthy merchant’s son,” he decided with a grin. “And you would get fat with his children and good cheese.”

Alix laughed. “Now I will get fat with your babes. What is it you call them?”

“Bairns,” he replied. “You will get fat with my bairns. And I intend plowing a deep furrow with you tonight, lambkin, and every night thereafter until you bloom with my bairn.” The laird found her lips again and kissed her hungrily. “I did not like sleeping in a sleeping space at Ravenscraig while you lay alone in a tower chamber.”

“I was not alone, my lord,” Alix reminded him breathlessly. “I had Fiona with me, but for a wee lass she takes a great deal of space, and she kicks. I am quite bruised.”

“I shall kiss those bruises away tonight,” he promised her.

“Come to the board,” Fenella said, and they realized that the hall was filling up with the men-at-arms and the servants.

And to Alix’s delight the meal was a hearty venison stew filled with chunks of meat, carrots, and onions all swimming in an herbed brown gravy. There was crusty bread, butter, and cheese as well as baked apples with cinnamon that had burst their skins and oozed into the serving dish surrounded by thick yellow cream. The wine in their goblets was heady. Fiona fell asleep at the table. She was quite exhausted from her journey. Alix picked the little girl up and took her to her chamber, where she undressed her, tucking her into bed. Kissing Fiona’s head Alix went to her own bedchamber.

To her surprise, Fenella was there overseeing some of the men as they brought hot water to fill a tall oak tub. “I thought you would like a bath,” the housekeeper said.

“I could certainly use one,” Alix admitted. “I have not had a proper wash since we left Dunglais almost a month ago. And I am surprised I do not have nits in my hair.”

“While you bathe more than most,” Fenella said, “I will admit a good bath tonight will not harm you. Downwind you do bring the flavor of the court.”

“Where is the laird?” Alix asked her.

Fenella smiled. “Still in the hall,” she said.

“I think he might use a bath too,” Alix murmured.

The serving men had filled the tub and departed.

“Give me your clothing for the laundress,” Fenella said.

“Where is Jeannie?” Alix wanted to know.

“Her mother is ill. She’s been at her cottage caring for her and her brothers. I’ll send for her on the morrow,” Fenella replied.

Alix removed her traveling garments and left them for Fenella to sort through as she climbed into her tub. The water was blissfully hot. She washed her long honey-colored hair first, then took up a cloth and washed herself. She could almost feel the layers of dirt sloughing off as she scrubbed herself. Fenella had disappeared with her clothing. Briefly Alix enjoyed her solitude, and then the laird came into her bedchamber through the door that connected to his.

“Fenella says you think I need a bath,” he said.

“You do!” Alix told him. “I’m through.”

“Do not move from that tub, lambkin,” he growled. “I expect you to wash me.” He quickly pulled off his boots and his clothing. Then he climbed in with her. The water was dangerously near the top of the oak tub. He smiled a wicked smile. “Bathe me,” he said.

And when she did so most efficiently, he was surprised. She washed his hair, and then she washed his face, his neck, his shoulders. “In olden days,” Alix explained, “it was the castle chatelaine’s duty to bathe her important guests. My mother told me that it was a custom still practiced in more rural areas of Anjou. She said bathing a man was like bathing a baby, except everything was bigger on a man.”

“Much bigger,” he agreed, taking her hand and drawing it beneath the water to where his long thick cock bobbed.

Alix’s fingers closed about him. She fondled him, her hand moving up and down the turgid manhood. She leaned forward and kissed his mouth with her open mouth. Her tongue traced a path about his lips. “Is such a thing possible?” Alix asked him, and he knew exactly to what she referred. “We mustn’t spill water on the floor.”

“It is indeed quite possible,” he told her. “And if we are careful we will not spill a drop of this water. And you have made the act a necessity with your wicked fingers, lambkin.” Reaching down, he clasped the delightfully plump cheeks of her bottom as Alix wrapped her arms about him. He raised her up, carefully impaling her slowly on his eager cock. Her legs had clasped him about the torso with primitive instinct. Slowly he backed her against the tall sides of the wooden tub.

Alix had gasped with unadulterated pleasure as he filled her. She wanted it to be just like this for the rest of her life. The one small interlude they had enjoyed a few days ago had but whetted her appetite for him. “Fuck me, my lord!” she whispered in his ear, licking the flesh, nipping at the lobe. Then she gasped again as he began to comply. Alix could feel every inch of him as he delved into her depths. She sensed his high lust as his manhood grew even firmer within her wet heat. The beast throbbed, and it quivered with its desire. Alix could hardly breathe now, so great was her own excitement.

“Yes! Yes!” she hissed in his ear.

“Tell me when, my sweet lambkin!” he groaned back.

“Not yet! Not yet!”
She trembled in his arms as he vigorously used her, and then she screamed softly,
“Now, my lord! Now!”

He felt the tremors racking her as his manhood satisfied itself, and she collapsed, sighing, on his neck. “There will be more tonight, lambkin,” he told her as her legs fell away and his hands released her buttocks. “I have a new delight to teach you soon.”

They exited the tub and dried each other before climbing into bed. The servants would remove the tub in the morning. Malcolm Scott drew Alix into his arms and kissed her forehead. “Whatever happens,” he told her, “you are mine, lambkin. I will not allow this Sir Udolf to have you. I will kill him first.”

Alix snuggled happily against her lover. For the first time in months she felt really and truly safe. Whatever the church said, she would not marry the English baron. But perhaps it would never come to that if he did not find her. How likely was it that Sir Udolf Watteson would come to Dunglais? And certainly when he learned she was the laird’s mistress, perhaps even when or if that time came, his wife, he would give up. Wulfborn was a fine estate. Now that Hayle was gone there had to be some good family with a daughter Sir Udolf could marry and get children upon. But she would not be that woman. “What is it that you would teach me?” she asked the laird.

“To suck my cock,” he told her. “And when you have mastered that talent, I shall reward you in kind,” he promised her. “But not tonight. We have traveled long and I will admit to needed sleep now, lambkin.”

“I am content,” Alix told him. Their water sport had been vigorous, and she was sleepy too. She was glad to rest. And then in the gray of very early morning she awoke to find him stroking her body with gentle hands. Alix sighed and stretched herself, almost purring. He said nothing as his hands fondled her breasts. Spoke not a word as his lips brushed the nape of her neck. She could feel him harden as he pressed against her. Alix turned, her round naked breasts pushing against his smooth warm chest. Their bellies and thighs meeting, flesh upon flesh.

Then he was kissing her, and their tongues were dancing between the cavern of his mouth and the warm cave of hers. Their mouths fused against each other. One kiss melted into another, and another, and another until Alix found herself dizzy. And still no word had been spoken between them even as he put her onto her back, mounted her, and thrust into the welcoming heat of her eager and ready sheath.

And then he groaned. “Ahhh, lambkin, God help me, but I love you!” He thrust deep and he thrust hard over and over and over again as if he could not obtain enough of her. There was almost a desperation in his action. His lips found hers again.

Alix melted with pleasure as he rode her. His words! His lips! How could she have been so fortunate as to have found such bliss? She had not believed it possible. “Colm! Colm!” she half sobbed his name. “I love you!
I love you!
” Her head spun. Her body burned with what seemed an unquenchable fire for his passion. She seemed to soar high and higher until she teetered upon the brink of . . . of . . . there was no name for it! And then she was overwhelmed with a wave of incredible pleasure that sent her hurtling into a warm darkness that seemed to leap up to enfold her. Alix cried aloud, and it was a sound both mournful and joyous at the same time.

He shuddered hard and shouted her name as his own passion crested and burst.
“Alix! My love!”
And then his love juices exploded, thundering into her secret garden, shattering him, leaving him weak but sated. The scent of her skin intoxicated him as he lay still half atop her, gasping, struggling to gain enough energy to roll away so he would not crush her.

She had surely died, Alix thought, and then she realized that she was still alive. She sighed deeply and, reaching out, stroked the dark head that now lay on her breasts. His hair was soft for a man’s, she thought. Happiness overwhelmed her. She was loved, and she loved in return. This was the kind of passion her parents had felt for each other. That elusive something she had never believed she would be fortunate enough to attain, and especially after her brief marriage to Hayle Watteson. “I love you, Colm,” she whispered to him, and then smiled when she heard the tiny snore. He had fallen asleep. Alix drew the coverlet back over them and let herself sleep again.

From that moment on it became apparent to all within the keep that the laird had fallen in love and that he was loved in return.

“You see!” Fenella crowed to Iver.

“There’s no marriage yet,” Iver replied, but he was actually as pleased as Fenella was. Still, he enjoyed teasing her. “I’ll believe it for certain when he marries her.”

“He will!” Fenella responded.

“Who will?” asked Fiona, who had wandered into the hall. “Who will what?”

“ ’Tis not our place to say, small mistress,” Iver told the little girl.

“What do you want more than anything else in the whole wide world?” Fenella asked Fiona.

“Fenella!” the steward cautioned.

“A mother,” Fiona replied. Then her bright blue eyes grew wide. “Oh, Fenella!”

“I’ve said naught,” Fenella spoke quickly. “Just wait, my bairn. Be patient and wait. Who knows what will happen. You might have a new mam soon.”

“But I want Da to marry Alix!” Fiona told the housekeeper. “Did the queen call him to court to give him a new wife? I will hate her! I want Alix for my mother!”

“Hush, child,” Fenella cautioned.

Fiona burst into tears. “I w-w-want Alix for my mother!” she wailed. “I don’t want some stranger! I w-wa-want Alix!”

“Now you’ve done it,” Iver scolded the housekeeper.

“Alix! Alix!”
Fiona howled, her small face red and wet with her tears.

Both the laird and Alix came into the hall at the same time. They ran to the little girl, and Malcolm Scott picked his daughter up in his arms to comfort her.

“Fiona, what is it?” he wanted to know.

“I want Alix!” Fiona sobbed.

“I am here,
ma petite
,” Alix assured her, reaching up to wipe away the tears streaming down the child’s face.

“I don’t want a strange mother!” Fiona wept. “I want Alix!”

“God’s foot!” the laird swore. “What is the bairn talking about?”

“I’m sorry, my lord, I may have spoken out of turn,” Fenella began.

“ALIX!”
Fiona sobbed loudly as she held out her arms to her companion. “I want Alix!”

“Give her to me, my lord,” Alix said, and took the weeping child from him.

“What the hell did you say to her?” Malcolm Scott demanded of Fenella.

Iver gave the housekeeper an
I told you so
look.

“Well, my lord, we were speaking on what Fiona desires more than anything else in the world,” Fenella began, attempting to explain the situation.

“I want Alix for my mother!” Fiona sniffled, now comforted by the warm arms holding her. “I don’t want some poxy woman from the queen’s court.
I want Alix!
”

“Very well,” the laird said in an agreeable tone. “You shall have her.”

Suddenly Fiona’s tears ceased. A smile broke out upon her face. “Really, Da?
Really?
I can have Alix for my mother?”

“If she will accept me for her husband,” Malcolm Scott said, a small smile upon his lips. “It’s actually all up to Alix, Fiona.”

Iver’s mouth fell open. Fenella grinned triumphantly.

“Will you be my mother, Alix?” Fiona asked. “Please!”

“If your father will ask me properly,” Alix said, “I will give you both an answer.” Her heart was soaring with her joy. She had lost her family only to gain another one. And she was loved! Loved by the laird and loved by this little girl in her arms.

“I thought I had asked you,” the laird said, his gray eyes twinkling.

“Not properly,” Alix replied mischievously.

The Laird of Dunglais knelt before her, and taking a hand in his, said, “Alix Margot Givet, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Alix tilted her head first to one side and then the other. “Hmmmm,” she pondered as if seriously considering the matter.

“Say yes!” Fiona whispered excitedly in her ear. “Say yes!”

“Do you really think I should?” Alix teased the child.

Fiona nodded her head vigorously.

“Very well, my lord,” Alix told him, and the smile she gave was for him alone. “I will gladly be your wife and mother to this wonderful little girl.”

“Hoo Ray!” Fiona cheered. “I have gotten my birthday present early.”

Alix set her down upon the floor. “Do you feel better now?” she asked.

“Aye!” Fiona responded. “Can I call you Mama now?”