Highland Lover: Book 3 Scottish Knights Trilogy (33 page)

“Did you feel so after you saw me slumped against that wall?”

“I felt shaken; that’s all. A more dismaying thing happened today, though.”

“Whilst we talked with Wardlaw, aye,” he said, remembering. “It felt to me as if you left us for a moment. It was brief, though, no more than an eye-blink.”

Alyson stared at him. “Truly? It seemed longer to me. It happened after I asked him how long it would take to ransom Henry and Jamie. The air began to quiver. Then I saw an opulent chamber and Jamie changing from a child to a man.”

“You
have
been worried about him and fretting over his capture.”

“Aye, and I still felt a bit dizzy, too. I did not say anything to you, but when we stepped onto the shore my legs felt like someone else’s. I’d put a foot down, and the land would surge up to meet it. Or else the ground would seem to fall away just as I thought I’d put my foot down far enough to touch it.”

He smiled and shook his head. “You had not got your land legs back yet. I feel that way, too, lass. All sailors do,
but we recover quickly. Folks who are unaccustomed to boats take longer, just as they take longer to get their sea legs.”

“I thought being dizzy might have stirred my imagination to produce that image,” she explained. “But it is still clear in my head. Surely, the King of England would not dare to hold Jamie for so long.”

“How could he, lass?” Jake asked. “If heads of state take captives but do not honor the customary methods of ransom and return, how could they trust their counterparts to honor them in turn? Moreover, James will be King of Scots long before he is grown. His grace’s health has steadily declined since the Queen’s death. If he lasts another year, he’ll surprise everyone who knows him.”

“But it is Albany, not his grace, who will negotiate Jamie’s return,” she reminded him. “And Albany is unlikely to press hard for it.”

“You are right,” he said. “He just wants to bring his son Murdoch home. In troth, I become more convinced each day that Jamie’s capture was Albany’s way of paying English Harry to release Murdoch. If his grace dies, and Harry keeps Jamie, Albany will also expect to continue ruling Scotland as Governor.”

Alyson sighed. Sadly, his words reinforced her belief in her “dream.” Collecting herself, she said, “You said that Bishop Wardlaw had commanded you to speak to me. Surely, it was not to talk of Jamie, so what were you to say to me?”

“The Papal Legate says I must marry you,” he said. “Wardlaw agrees.”

She stared again but blindly this time, her emotions suspended.

Jake had been thinking that the way the moonlight touched her eyes made them look like jewels—and like expensive jewels, at that. To forestall further such thoughts, he had spoken more bluntly than he’d intended.

Now her eyes looked glazed, expressionless. But she recovered swiftly.

“You must be teasing, and that is unkind,” she said. “You know I cannot marry again unless I can prove that I’m a widow.
They
must know that, as well.”

“I thought the same thing, lass. But I did something—revealed something—that I fear will vex you sorely. In troth, that’s why I knew I’d not sleep unless I came and talked to you straightaway.”

“But what have you done? I don’t believe you’d do or say aught to harm me.”

“Not harm you, no.” He drew a breath, let it out, and said, “I told Wardlaw more than I should have about your marriage to Clyne. By my troth, though, he gave me little choice in the matter and said I should think of it as confession.”

A frown disturbed the smoothness of her brow. She said, “My marriage was no secret. So you must mean that you told him of our conversation when I asked you about things Lizzie said to me.”

“Aye, and I would
not
have told him. But he had been describing to me how your kinsmen will likely view our journey here together. He even invoked the image of your uncle, Shaw MacGillivray, as war leader of Clan Chattan.”

“Uncle Shaw is Ivor’s father, so I warrant you’ve heard
much of him before now. I doubt that he would blame you for rescuing me. Nor would Ivor.”

“In troth, lass, they do not worry me. But I do agree with Wardlaw that, as a woman ignorant of whether her husband is dead or alive, your life would be unpleasant. That is not all I said to him, however.”

“What else?”

“I told him that Clyne failed to consummate your marriage. To my astonishment, he said that that alone gives you cause to request an annulment.”

“Mercy, how can that be? A priest married us. There are marriage settlements, agreements, a proper marriage record!”

“Wardlaw said that no man who fails to consummate his union in three months of marriage
is
married in the eyes of the Kirk.”

“But if, by a miracle of God, Niall
is
alive and
does
come back…”

“Even then…” He paused to consider his next words. Then he said gently, “Allie, the fact that he failed to consummate his marriage with you, a beautiful woman he had known from her girlhood, tells me that he… that he was…”

“That I did not appeal to him,” she said sadly when he paused. “That he felt none of the feelings for me that Lizzie described or…” Pausing, she looked away.

“That is true, aye,” Jake said, forcing away the fury he felt again toward Clyne. “The man was daft. I swear to you, lass, your beauty and spirit would stir feelings in any real man. But tell me this. Did Clyne stir
your
feelings?”

The moonlight was bright enough to reveal the color that flooded her cheeks. She nibbled her lower lip in the
way that made Jake want to order her to stop lest she stir his feelings more than was safe for either of them. But he held his tongue and ignored other, more urgent parts of his body, even when she looked away again.

Then she turned back, and to his surprise her gaze revealed wistful humor. “You do not deserve that I should tell you this, sir. But you like candor, so I will be honest. Niall never made me feel what you can make me feel just by looking at me. As for when you smile at me, or tease me, or touch me—”

“Stop, lass, have mercy! You do answer me, but this is serious. Whilst I would be fain to test your words, we must sort this out before that can be.”

“There is naught to sort. I
am
married. Even if I wanted an annulment—”

“There
is
a way if you will agree,” he interjected. “You have more cause to do so than you may think, too, if you will just let me explain.”

“I will listen to whatever you want to say to me.”

“Sithee, what I am trying to say is that if a woman marries a man who lacks interest in coupling with her, she risks never becoming a mother. I have seen you with Will, lass, and I’ve heard how you talk about Jamie. You would be hard pressed to persuade me that you do
not
want bairns of your own.”

“But Niall said that he wants them, too.”

“Words,” Jake said scornfully. “I thought he was daft to leave you alone so much, because if you were my—” He stopped short, amazed at what he had nearly, and so easily, said to her.

Her head came up sharply. “Sakes,
don’t
tell me that you would not be away as much as he was, Jake Maxwell!
You’ve told me too often how much you value your freedom to ply the seas. You would always prefer shipboard life to life ashore, you said. You have said it so often, in fact, that Will now says it, too!”

“I have, aye,” he said, wondering why those words tasted like ashes in his mouth as he said them. His sentiments about life ashore were unchanged. Of that he was sure. He would need only a few days away from the
Sea Wolf
to be aching for the sea. Rallying, he said, “Even so, lass, many women spend months at a time without their husbands at home, especially if the men are knights, warriors, or men of the sea. Giff MacLennan’s lady wife is one such. You would like her, I trow.”

“Mayhap I would,” she said evenly. “But…”

Seizing on the pause, he said, “You do want children, don’t you?”

“Aye, sure,” she said. “But we can think more about this, because—”

“Nay, we cannot,” Jake interjected. “Sithee, Father Antonio wants to protect you as much as he can from the gossips. He and Wardlaw both say you have good cause to annul your marriage at once. As soon as it is done, you can marry again.”

“At once? But how can that be? One must send all the way to Rome, to gain the Pope’s permission for an annulment.”

“Not when we have a papal legate right here,” Jake said. “Father Antonio wields all of the Pope’s powers, including the right to annul marriages and perform them. Wardlaw told me that we can attend to it all in the morning.”

Alyson’s mouth dropped open, and the color fled from her cheeks.

Chapter 16

A
lyson turned back toward the open window. She dared not speak, fearing that anything she might say would break the spell that had engulfed the pair of them in that magical room so ablaze with moonlight.

Looking out, she saw the moon, brightly white, spilling its light not in a pathway but over a vast silvery sea. Waves rolled in wearing crests of white lace. The water glistened and seemed to go on eastward forever.

How that water must beckon to Jake!

Another thought stirred, chilling her. Without turning toward him, she said, “You told me that the legate said we
must
marry. Did you tell him about me, too?”

When he did not answer at once, she bit her lip, remembered what he’d said about biting it, and drew a deep breath. Then she said flatly, “You did tell him.”

“Nay, lass. But he will know by morning, because Wardlaw said that he should know and I agreed. The rules of the confessional forbid either priest to repeat what he knows to anyone else.”

“So the bishop would not be telling Father Antonio had you not agreed to it.”

“He would not. And if you object to his knowing, I’ll
sit outside the bishop’s door until he emerges in the morning and tell him I’ve changed my mind.”

Somehow, the fact that he could so quickly agree to do that depressed her as much as it reassured her.

“Before I do, though,” he added, “I want you to look at me and tell me that you dislike the very notion of a marriage between us.”

“It is not what I want that concerns me,” she said, turning and looking him in the eye. “It is whether
you
could ever want any marriage at all.”

“I know what I’ve said in the past, Allie. And I know how I feel about you. I cannot promise that I’ll make you the best of husbands, but I will promise to try. Forbye, I’m sure that I’ll be a better one than Clyne. By my troth, lass, I
can
tell you that I want you… more, I think, than I have ever wanted anything in my life.”

With that, he put gentle hands to her shoulders, drew her closer, and when she continued to gaze at him, he kissed her softly on the lips.

Heat rushed through her, and her arms slid around him, drawing him tightly to her. She felt his body stir against hers. Then one of his hands clutched her hair, lacing fingers through it and cradling her head while he kissed her thoroughly.

Without thought on her part, her mouth opened to his, although Niall had never kissed her so. When Jake’s tongue darted inside, hers welcomed it, delighting her and sending shockwaves of pleasure through her.

His free hand moved confidently over her body, exploring its curves and cupping her bottom cheeks, pressing her closer, letting her feel again the urgent movement of his body against hers.

Her hands had moved, too, although she was unaware of that at first. She placed one daringly on his backside to see if he’d allow it. When he made a sound deep in his throat, she pressed harder and smiled against his mouth.

He stopped kissing to look at her. Then he smiled, too. “That is enough of that,” he said. “If we continue much longer, you will not be able to look Father Antonio in the eye and declare yourself a maiden. But when you return to bed, lass, think about what I’ve said to you. I do want to marry you if you’ll agree to it, and I’ll do my best to make you a good husband.”

She could ask no more of him than that. She was as sure as she could be, though, that he would not give up his beloved freedom for any wife. If she saw him more than a few weeks out of a year, she supposed she would be lucky.