Morganna (The Brocade Collection, Book 4) (24 page)

He frowned. “I doona’ know. Perhaps because what I have planned for you isna’ for the ears of the church.”

“Oh.”

She should have known, she told herself. She was doing exactly what
she’d said she wouldn’t. She was whoring with a FitzHugh, and receiving
payment from his brother. No wonder he didn’t wish to speak of it on sanctified
ground.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Zander’s plan worked perfectly. Of course, Morgan decided, when she was on the opposite side of his door and doing her best to portray Sally Bess’
s bulk, it would. The man had a flair for exactly what all the clansmen grouped about everywhere would enjoy, poke each other in the ribs over, and discuss,
until her cheeks burned.

Zander had simply said he wanted to see what Sally Bess had to keep
young Squire Morgan interested, and everyone had laughed. Morgan, on the other hand, had to loudly proclaim that she was seeking the lass, Sheila’s
bed. Once there, Sally Bess re-dressed and padded
Morgan to the correct width, put a huge cloak over the whole, cautioned Morgan
about bending her knees to keep her the proper height, and shoved her out the
door.

What she had to listen to, the pinching she had to endure and the fondling
of her extra-padded rear, while drunken males tried to steal a kiss and a free
fondle, was beyond her experience. She was made to feel every inch the filth of
what she’d become.

Then, she was at Zander’s door, knocking loudly and swaying her
buttocks, and his laughter when he saw her, would have made her toss all her
dirks into him, if she still had them.

‘‘Well, well...look who’s here, lads!
’Tis the wench, Sally Bess. Squire
Morgan’s Sally Bess. Come in, come in, darling. I’ve been waiting for you. Lads? I’ll na’ need you tonight.” Zander put every bit of that orator’s voice into
every word, and everyone through every hall could probably hear. “I may not
need you tomorrow, either! Come here, my large lovely! Show me what you
show young Squire Morgan, and I’ll show you what a real man is!”

Laughter was going through the halls when Morgan shut the door. Then she was pulling the dragon blade to slam it into the footstool before she had to
vent more anger. Zander looked at it with surprise, then he looked up.

“Doo
na’ ever do that to me again, FitzHugh!” she cried, tossing off the
cloak and spitting the words at him.

“
Why Sally Bess, you vixen!” Zander shouted, rising to his feet, and
plucking the dragon blade from where it had landed between his legs. “If I dinna’
know better, I’d swear you’d never seen the like. Come here, my night-time love. Goodness, Sally Bess! Where did you learn that?”

He put a finger to his lips and listened at the door. She held her breath
and heard it, too. Voices. Talking. Chortling.

“M
y darling, I’d give anything to have this different. To have you at my
side, without resorting to such. I love you, Morganna, unto my dying breath.”
He was whispering in her ear, one hand beneath her chin, the other lifting her hair,
and Morgan stood mesmerized. “I
have searched years for you. I would do anything for you. I will even pretend a passion for a fat, lazy, over-used whore
to have you, and listen to insults from my clan over my choice.”

“If
you could hear what I had to go through, you’d not feel so put-upon. The things I had said to me! The fondling I had to endure!”

Zander’s eyes flared and his jaw tightened. “Tell me the man, I’ll put a
stop to it.”

“All of them, Zander. You canna’ stop all of
them.”

Tears sparkled in her eyes, and he kissed the side of one.
“Forgive me,
my love. I should na’ have done this. I should ha’ had more restraint. I should
not want your body so badly that I will do this to you. Forgive me.”

“
Why could I not stay as your squire?”

“B
ecause no man bolts the door with his squire inside with him, and I would never ha’ been able to keep my hands from you, and then a clansman
would have seen, and everything The Bruce gained would have been for naught. C
ome away from the door, darling. I doona’ know how well they hear.”

“I
should na’ be here, Zander.”

He sighed, pulling her toward the fire, and undoing her dress as he did so.
“Nay, you should na’. You should be at my house, your belly full of a bairn, and
your life filled with nothing save how much pleasure I can give you.”

She flushed. “I should na’ be there, either.”

Zander had the dress undone and it fell off as she walked. Then, he
started on the first of the four more she had on beneath. That one fell off easily,
too, and Zander had his eyebrows rising as he saw the wadded shift that was tied
on to make fake breasts to fill the gown. He was trying hard not to smile.

“Oh aye, you should. It will come to pass, too. Scotland’s future will be
her own, my sons and daughters will be born free, and my life will be complete.
Morganna, what is this, now?”

He was looking at the basket that had been tied to her back, to make her
waddle sufficiently.

“Doo
na’ say a word, FitzHugh, or I will take my dragon blade to you and
I will na’ miss an important part.”

“
We’re going to need that part, though, Morganna. Have na’ you been
listening to me? I want sons. I want daughters. I want lots of both. I want you
to give them to me. You, and only you. I want to start now. Jesu’! How many
layers did they strap onto you?”

“
We canna’ create a life now, Zander.”

“
Why na’? I’m capable. You’re capable. I’m willing. Are you na’
willing, too?”

He had too many weapons at his disposal, and none that didn’t pain, clear
to the center of her. His breath was a weapon, as he wielded it on her neck, her
shoulders, the space between her breasts once he got closer to the chemise she was wearing beneath it all. His touch was another one, as he slid his fingers up her arms, and back down, then along her back as he undid each gown, shoved it
to the floor and started anew. His hands were a terrible weapon, too, as he
untied the basket, tossed it aside and cradled the real flesh through her final
gown, lifting her against him and holding her there.

His eyes were a vicious weapon, too, perhaps his best. Morgan realized it as she looked up, caught that midnight
-blue gaze and ceased to think clearly.

“D
arling, this Sally Bess act is na’ forever. This is only what I can arrange tonight to have you with me, close to me, filled with me. I want to give you a bairn. I would give a year of my life to give you a bairn tonight. I doona’
know why. I only know ’tis important.”

“But...why?”

“Because I love you. I have never loved another. I will never love
another. I loved you when I thought you a lad, I love you now. It grows all about me until I canna’ think. I canna’ move. I watch how you are with all my countrymen, and I want to worship at your feet. I know I canna’ exist unless I
know you’re at my side, loving me in return. I want to give you my seed. I want
to create life with you. I have to. I doona’ bother with the why. I only know that
’tis.”

His voice was probably his most vicious weapon, she thought as he
continued wielding it, sucking on her earlobe as he whispered his continual
stream of honeyed words into it.

And his kiss was the most fatal weapon of all. Morgan had her arms
about his neck when she received it, although he waited until all Sally Bess’s
clothing was off her body and kicked aside, leaving her own flimsy chemise.
Then, he took her face in his hands, turned her head slightly, and
brought her lips upward to his.

Morgan danced about him on her tip-toes, catching all of his groan as he begged her with his lips to open hers. When she did, he only flicked his tongue about before sucking hers into his mouth. Morgan melted, sagging back onto her
feet while he released her. Then, he moved a fraction from her and waited for
her to open her eyes.

“I love you, Morganna,” he whispered.

“Oh, Zander,” she replied, and her eyes filled with tears.

“And that is how my lovely Morganna says, ‘I love you, too, Zander
’,” he
mimicked, before touching his lips to her chin, her neck, to the tops of her
chemise. Then, he was sucking on her nipples through the weave of her chemise,
and pulling away so he could blow on them. That was making her so wild with
how it felt, her cries probably did rival those Sally Bess would have made.

“Are you prepared to see a full grown man, yet?” he teased, when she had
lost the ambition necessary to stand up on her own and was lying across the
footstool, where he’d placed her.

The way he had posed her had a wantonness to it
that she’d never experienced. He’d put her in an arch, her shoulders holding to one side of the furniture piece, while her buttocks had to hold her on the other. And the erotica
he’d raised with her breasts was making every breath more tormenting and
grasping and needy than the next.

“Zander?” she whispered.

He unhooked his brooch and dropped it on the table, then he flipped the
back shawl piece of his tartan to the front, preparing to unwrap it. His
hands didn’t stop while his eyes devoured her. Morgan’s body writhed, with a
snake-like motion, and she watched his eyes half-lid while a shudder ran his body.

“Zander?” she whispered again.

The
feile-breacan
dropped to the floor. Then, he was standing at her head, l
owering himself to his knees, while his hands moved to her shoulders,
cradling her head against his shoulder as he ran both hands over her breasts, her
ribcage, the muscles in her abdomen, until he reached the part of her she’d barely
discovered existed. Morgan stiffened and then every part of her was crying, starting loud and keening and then ending on a wrenching sob of pleasure. Her head was rocked back onto Zander’s shoulder, and she lolled there for a bit,
watching the high beams of Argylle’s ceiling and thinking of absolutely nothing.

There w
ere no incessant thoughts of clan violence or vengeance, or death.
No ghosts, no past...she was absolutely free of every part of it, and for the
smallest minute of time, she let herself experience joy.

“
Morganna?” Zander whispered at her neck.

“
I think...I might have died,” she replied, although it sounded strange
with his lips suctioned onto her throat, and teasing the pathway her voice needed.

He chuckled. “Oh no, love. You’ll not die. You’re going to live.
You’re going to bring life into the world. You already are. You just doona’ see
it.”

His fingers were rolling the chemise straps into snakes of ribbon down her
arms, and she lifted her hands out of each when he got them down that far. Zander didn’t finish it, though, he had his hands cupped over her breasts, using
his palms in a rotating fashion until she was screaming at him to either cease it, or
finish it.

“B
ut, I’m testing my sensitivity,” he replied. “And I do believe my left palm has the most.”

She swung a fist up to hit him, but instead wrapped it about his head and
forced him to suckle her, and when he was, the footstool became less a hard
object and more a slippery slope of warm water, sliding her right off, and into his
lap.

Zander lifted his head, his lips seeking for and finding her own, and now it
wasn’t he that was the aggressor, but her. Morgan sucked the breath from him,
and gave her own in return, her hands found and lifted the hem of her chemise,
placing the garment about her middle. Then, she was pushing his shirt and under-tunic up, and off his chest, not even waiting for him to get them off the shoulders
she pushed them to, before she lowered herself onto him, expecting pain, but receiving only absolute and complete pulses of ecstasy.

The effect on Zander was immediate as his lips escaped hers, and he groaned, curving himself to lay on his back in order to arch more fully into her.
Morgan’s hands fell to his chest, and she pulled her knees up, that movement
making him grunt each time she shoved against him, and she roved her fingers about his chest before splaying her hands all about the hard flesh.

Zander’s heartbeat filled her right palm,
equaling her own in stridency, and she rocked upward before coming back down, her eyes wide with the
surprise and the anticipation, and the small amount of fear. Then, there was
nothing but the pure rivulets of pleasure.