Tempted (26 page)

Tina moved forward to the prow while Ram shouted his orders. He stood between Jock and Gavin at the wheel. Jock said, “She’ll need cannon.”

“Where do we buy cannon?” asked Gavin.

Ram’s eyebrows went up. “Buy? Are we not reivers? We lift cannon the same way we lift cattle. Tomorrow the first order of business is tae capture an English vessel. We’ll pick our mark today. Keep yer eyes open.”

Tina watched as the topsails broke from the yards, tumbled loose, and were sheeted home. How she would love to have been a man! To shout orders from the quarterdeck, to own a fine sailing ship such as the
Valentina
and every man
jack aboard! She leaned against the rail and watched the sea and the sky and listened to the shrill screams of the seabirds that seemed so fierce and so free. When she tired of watching the sea, her eyes sought out Ram Douglas.

She watched him as he spoke with every single one of his men. She noticed that when he spoke with a man he gave him his full attention and listened intently to what that man said back to him. Before he moved on to the next man, he always put a hand on the shoulder or a slap on the back. Women didn’t have that one-for-all and all-for-one camaraderie that men shared. Two women could be close friends like Ada and herself, but a large group would be more like enemies than friends.

Thinking of Ada reminded her of her advice. She had made a tactical mistake today to allow her anger and hatred to show through, making her tongue sharp and her behavior outrageous. She should have waited until they were abed to ask Ram Douglas for the
Valentina.
She shivered. He was a dangerous man—she must never let him know that what she did now was so that she could wreak revenge later.

In the late afternoon he joined her at the rail and slipped a possessive arm about her as the red balloon of the sun dropped down the sky to be swallowed by the black sea. “I hope all this fresh air has worked up an appetite.”

“I’m starving,” she said, leaning against him, all soft compliance.

“Good! A couple of the lads have prepared a veritable feast. Mind ye, they aren’t quite on the same level as yer Mr Burque, but there’s oysters, scallops, and big prawns. We’re all going to eat it here on deck, if yer game?”

It suited her to a tee She loved nothing more than being treated like one of the lads, and she and Ram sat cross-legged with the men on the deck, held the platters of shellfish on their knees, and washed it down with tankards of ale.

The wind dropped as they sailed into the mouth of the
River Dee. The
Valentina’s
sails were furled, and she went up river on the evening tide. Ram wanted to know just how close he could get the midsize vessel to Castle Douglas. “Let’s stay aboard tonight?” he implored her. “Tomorrow I’m back patrolling that damned border, and God knows how often I’ll get tae spend the night with ye, since most raids take place at night.”

Since he wanted it so much, she fulfilled his desire. She would deny him nothing. In the small cabin she allowed him to undress her, making sure both her stockings were removed. Then his hands were on his own clothes, flinging them off with all possible speed.

As she stood in the golden glow of the ship’s lantern, he beckoned her to the berth. “There is something between my legs that needs yer ministrations,” he told her, unable to mask the laughter in his dark eyes. He handed her his sharp dirk and opened his thighs.

She looked at him blankly for a moment, not comprehending the savage gamp he wanted to play. “Take out yer stitches,” he explained, “Lord, woman, what did ye think I wanted ye tae do?”

“Foolish Douglas to trust a Kennedy with a knife,” she taunted him, touching the point to the taut skin of his belly. I could ruin the arrogant bastard, she thought. Of course she’d be dead, but he’d be castrated. But then she thought of the pleasure he gave her and knew she’d never do it.

She moved the lantern closer, and its light spilled across his groin, making deep shadows in the dark pelt and highlighting his phallus, which rose up like a tree trunk from a forest. His eyes licked over her like a candle flame, scorching her mouth, the tips of her breasts, and her mons. All the while the ship rocked gently, lulling them with its rhythmic undulations

She forced her eyes away from his man’s center and examined the long gash she had stitched. He had healed amazingly well in such a short time, and she felt a pang of
regret that he had not suffered more. Carefully she began to cut the silken threads and pick out the stitches, proud that her handiwork would leave no permanent scar.

With her hands upon him, his shaft began to buck. “Be still,” she murmured.

“I’m not making it do that—ye are,” he explained.

“That is a lie, Douglas. ‘Tis your own impure thoughts make you like a ram in rutting season.”

“My god, vixen, you kneel before me naked, tormenting my flesh until I know not if ye are angel or devil then accuse me of impure thoughts. They’re not impure, they’re profligate!”

“Degenerate Douglas,” she purred, the tip of her tongue between her teeth as she almost reached the end of the stitches.

He grabbed for her, dragging her between his thighs, his mouth taking hers prisoner, capturing the delicious tip of her tongue. The point of the dirk went in and spurt blood, but he was oblivious to anything save the fiery temptress who aroused him to madness. His hot mouth moved down her throat, kissing, sucking, licking. He lifted her body higher so that his mouth was on her delicate breasts, tasting, biting, stroking her silken curves with his tongue, curling it about the hard little fruits that thrust so impudently into the hot wetness of his mouth.

He tongued her dimpled navel and ran his lips down the gentle curve of her belly, making her cry out with the intensity of his mouth on her golden flesh. He turned with her and laid her back upon the berth, spreading her copper tresses across the pillows, then when he had gazed his fill, he knew he must taste her honeypot or go mad.

He threaded his fingers through the curls on her triangle of fire, and she arched into his hand, longing to be filled. He dipped his dark head and kissed the soft flesh on the inside of her knees, then ran his tongue along the silken insides of her thighs.

Tina’s hands could not resist his midnight black hair and
the long tendrils curled about her fingers in thick spirals. His kisses lingered on her upper thighs, then suddenly she knew where his lips would go next. She cried her shocked protest, her cheeks aflame, her blushes reaching all the way to her breasts. Her cries changed to low moans as he opened the delicate folds between her legs with his thumbs and ran the tip of his tongue around her tiny bud. It became erect and swollen as he toyed with it, licking and tasting and caressing the very center of her womanhood.

Her fingers clutched his hair as the feelings and sensations intensified. The intimate thing he did to her was so exquisite, she could not tell him to stop. When she thought she could bear no more, when she felt her bud must surely explode into a dark blossom, he thrust his tongue inside her like a searing spear. She screamed his name, “Ram!”

It was the first time she’d said it, and it brought his mouth up to hers to taste it upon her lips. Tina tasted herself upon his lips, and it was the most intimate, private thing she had ever experienced. He braced himself above her, and she held her breath as she saw the stark, compelling, obsessive look upon his face. One second before he boldly plunged down, she saw his blood spurt onto her.

With the stormy urgency that was becoming familiar to her, he began to move his powerful body into hers. At first his blood ran onto her thigh, but as his thrusts became more powerful, it spurt upon her belly. To her great surprise it aroused her unbearably, and she knew the meaning of bloodlust. She arched her neck and reached her mouth up to his, kissing him deeply, all her body clinging to him, moving with him. Together they stepped off the precipice into infinite space. They knew not if it was the chant of life or the dance of death, and they cared not at all.

After a long time, when they could again think coherently, Tina said, “You are bleeding again—the sheets will look like a battlefield.”

“And so they are,” he murmured, drawing her close. “Ye only nicked me, it will heal by morning.”

“What if it infects?” she asked seriously.

“It won’t. Wounds heal well at sea and never infect.” He searched her face with wondering eyes. “Ye are concerned over my least scratch. It is most novel for me tae have someone who cares.”

Her conscience pricked her sorely. She pretended to care about his minor wounds so that he would leave himself vulnerable enough for her to inflict a mortal wound.

He gestured toward a decanter. “Fetch me the whisky.”

As she turned back to the bed with the decanter in her hand, she caught his look of unguarded vulnerability. He masked it immediately and reached for the liquor. She shook her head playfully. “Allow me—I enjoy inflicting pain upon you.”

She splashed the whisky into the open cut and he yelped in mock agony. She surveyed the bunk in dismay. The well-used sheets were covered in blood and whisky. “My God, we’ll have to burn the sheets before anyone sees them. They look and smell like we had a drunken orgy.”

“And what do ye know of orgies, my honeypot?” he asked, stretching out full length with his arms behind his head.

“Not half as much as you, I warrant,” she challenged, reaching out a finger to touch his male flesh. His shaft began to grow. She experienced the delicious feeling of her power over him. “‘Tis a most curious weapon. I’m abysmally ignorant, Douglas.”

“Call me Ram as ye did before,” he commanded.

“I never, ever called you that.”

“You did,” he insisted, “in the throes of passion.”

“Rubbish! I don’t recall saying it,” she lied.

He had her on her back in a flash, spreading her legs. “I recall exactly what it takes tae make ye cry Ram,” and he proceded to show her most graphically.

“Ram, Ram,” she cried, “not again!”

“Yes, again,” he insisted, and she was lost.

When she opened her eyes in the gray dawn to find
herself sprawled on top of his magnificent body in the far too narrow berth, she told herself that she had done it all for revenge.

When they were dressed and had broken their fast, he took her up on deck. “We are only three or four miles from Castle Douglas,” he said. “Colin will take ye home. He’s gone tae fetch the horses. I’ll be back tonight or tomorrow at the latest. Angus will likely come with the fifty Douglases I requested.”

His face was closed this morning, and she had the distinct impression that he had already withdrawn from her. When Colin arrived she left Ram standing on the deck. Before she mounted, she spoke softly to Indigo and stroked her velvet nose. She told herself she wouldn’t look back. She did, of course, when she had ridden about a hundred yards, and she received quite a shock. The ship was no longer glistening white and gold. It had been repainted a shadowy gray in the night. It no longer bore the name
Valentina
, either. In place of her name was the word
Revenge

She stared in horror. Did he guess she was out for revenge? Or was he too playing a deadly game? Perhaps he would never forgive her being forced upon him and he would have his revenge in his own time and his own way. She thought of her Aunt Damaris and felt chilled to the bone.

“Now that I have a supply o’ oil paints, I can capture ye on canvas,” Colin said to break the silence as they rode to Castle Douglas with a packhorse holding the things they had brought from the
Antigone.

“Yes,” she replied absently, her mind on other things.

“Tina, watch for badger holes,” he warned.

“I’m sorry,” she replied. “I was a million miles away. Forgive my rudeness. How do you go about painting a portrait?”

“We’ll ride out one afternoon. I’ll take my sketchbook. I try tae capture many different poses wi’ charcoal, then I select the best sketch an’ paint it from that.”

“That eliminates the necessity of having to pose for hours on end, I suppose?”

He nodded. “I have a retentive mind an’ an eye fer detail, which helps.”

She promised, “We’ll ride out soon before autumn sets in. Already the purple heather on the hills is turning to russet, and the ferns are turning to bracken.”

“The borders are beautiful at this time of year. Castle Douglas is just over the next rise.”

Before they got to the castle gates, Valentina’s quick eye saw a red paper flower upon a bush, and she recognized the sign instantly. They were made by the Gypsies, and she knew it had been put there by Heath. She dropped her riding glove, and when she dismounted to retrieve it, she snatched up the flower. The message read, “Haugh of Urr.”

In the bailey she instructed a young squire to carry
the bolt of cloth and the tapestry to Ada, and she took the spices herself to Mr. Burque. By the time she reached the master bedchamber, Ada had ordered her a bath and was just unwinding the bolt of cloth. Tucked inside was the perfume, and Tina put a few drops in the hot water.

“This emerald velvet is the finest I’ve ever seen,” said Ada. “It must be from Veere.”

“Ada, you know everything. I hope there’s enough for a cloak as well as a gown.”

Ada eyed her as she stepped into the water. “I don’t know everything, but one thing I do know—you look like a sleek cat.”

“That’s because I’m filled with cream,” she said wickedly, sinking down with a sigh of appreciation.

Ada smiled. “When a woman becomes aware of her sensuality, even bathwater feels erotic.”

“Mmm, you are wise in the ways of woman, my prophetess!”

As a tingling sensation grew between her legs, Tina said shyly, “Ada, there’s something I’d like to ask you about, but—I … you may think it somewhat indecent.”

“If it’s something Black Ram Douglas did to you, I don’t doubt it,” she teased.

“Ada … he—put his mouth … down there.”

“I envy you,” said Ada bluntly.

Tina’s cheeks flooded with color. “I—I enjoyed it, but my God, how could he?”

“Some men do. The rare ones. You mustn’t worry that you don’t taste nice down there—you are young and tender and sweet. If you are worried, slip in the tip of your finger and taste yourself, just to be sure.”

“My God, Ada, I couldn’t do that!” she protested.

“A sensual woman can do anything. You usually taste of whatever you’ve been eating. Drink a lot of fruit juice, then taste yourself.”

Tina climbed from the scallop shell and rubbed herself vigorously with a towel.

Ada gave her a sidelong glance. “Have you never wanted to put your mouth on him?”

For a moment, Tina didn’t take her meaning, but when she did, the idea shocked her to the soul. She immediately changed the subject. “Did you get around to dividing one of my riding skirts?”

“Yes, I did a couple of them so you can ride astride. Are you going out again?”

“Yes, the Gypsies are camped a couple of miles east on the flat ground by the River Urr.”

Tina took only her Kennedy groom as she rode off to visit Heath—she wanted no tales carried back to Ram Douglas. Her eyes soon picked out the tall figure she adored as she rode pell-mell into the Gypsy camp. “Heath! Heath!,” she cried happily as he picked her up, swung her around, and kissed her. He set her feet back to earth and searched her face for long minutes. “I’ve been worried about you, love. Are the Douglases treating you well?”

Heath had been furious when he learned she’d been forced to a hand-fasting with Black Ram Douglas. He wanted to hear from her own lips that she wasn’t being mistreated, or he knew he would have to commit murder.

“You can see for yourself that I do very well, thank you.”

“I can see the outside. What I want to know is how you feel on the inside,” he said low. They sat on the steps of his caravan and shared a coney he had roasted on a spit over a fire.

“Are you sure this isn’t a hedgehog?” she teased.

He looked at her with open tenderness, and she knew she must share her inner feelings with him as she always had. She shook her head. “I thought I had everything so well planned. I was almost at the altar with Patrick Hamilton, until Fate took a hand.”

“The marriage with Nan Howard didn’t take place. We were in Edinburgh. Old Meg provided her with an aborti-facient.”

Tina looked at him oddly. She did not question his
knowledge of court affairs. “So … Patrick is still free to marry?”

Heath nodded. “But you are not.”

“I
am
free!” she said passionately. “I
will be
free,” she amended. “I’ll never marry Douglas!”

“What if there’s a child? He has pledged to marry you.”

“That’s my revenge—my revenge for everything. They took Davie prisoner and burned him terribly. Then when I freed him, Black Ram Douglas came to Doon and wrought vengeance upon all of us. It was the most humiliating, humbling experience for the Kennedys, but that wasn’t the end of it. When the king ordered a blood bond between our clans, my father had to
pay
Hotspur to take me. Even then he wouldn’t wed me. Humiliation is a burn that never comes out.”

“Valentina, the game you play is too dangerous. Old Meg told me she provided the poison that was used on Damaris all those years ago. She also told me in whose hands she placed that poison.”

Tina stopped breathing. She wanted to scream a denial of the knowledge he was about to impart. Finally she whispered, “Ramsay?”

Heath nodded.

She flung the bone away and ran down to the river. Mad Malcolm’s words echoed in her brain “It
was the other young swine”

Heath slowly followed her. “Tina, there’s something else I must warn you about. The borders are unsafe. We traveled from Edinburgh to Berwick following the route we’ve always taken, then along the border through the Cheviot Hills. The English have been mounting raids in the east and middle marches.”

She shrugged a shapely shoulder. “Border raids and cattle lifting are a way of life”

“Nay, these are no cattle raids The English are committing the most heinous crimes. They are pillaging and burning,
raping and murdering Promise me you’ll not ride out alone again like this?”

She remembered the raid shortly after they arrived at Castle Douglas. Ram had told her very little, but he had certainly been in a vicious swordfight. “Promise me that you too will take care,” she begged him.

“We usually winter in England, but this year we may not. We’ll stay around Dumfries at least through the autumn.”

“I suppose I must get back before dusk,” she said wistfully.

“Come on, I’ll ride back with you.”

“Wherever did my groom get to?”

“I’ll find him,” Heath offered, knowing the young Kennedy would be paying Zara for her favors.

That evening, Tina ate dinner with Ada and told her the gossip about Nan Howard. She also repeated what Heath had told her about the English raids. She did not, however, repeat the things he had said about Ram Douglas. After dinner, Ada helped her hang the tapestry depicting the tawny lynx above the wide bed. It complemented superbly the luxurious fur that spilled to the floor.

When she retired, Tina stretched out in the big bed, recalling how impossibly narrow the berth had been last night. She was restless, her mind like quicksilver running over the events since that fateful night when her brothers had gone to Douglas on a raid. She tossed and turned, refusing to acknowledge to herself that the empty bed felt lonely.

At first she was too cold, then too hot, until finally she threw off her nightgown, sighed deeply, and settled into a light sleep Somewhere between the hour of three and four, when the human spirit is at its lowest ebb, Ram Douglas undressed in the pitch dark and slipped quietly into bed He was shaking with fatigue He had driven himself to the limit of his endurance that day, capturing an English vessel with an unarmed ship, literally carrying the heavy cannons from one deck to the other. He had put the
captured crew ashore on the Isle of Man, then towed the English ship with the
Revenge. A
storm had blown up in the Irish Sea that he had fought for over three hours. It had been no easy task to bring the two ships safely into the Solway Firth. As soon as darkness fell, he had seen the beacon fires signaling a raid as they sailed past Gretna. It was in the territory Douglas patrolled, and he knew he had been derelict in his duty. They had to disembark, take the horses from the hold, and beat back a sizable raid that had been launched from Liddlesdale, England, up into Nithsdale, Scotland.

Once again, they were far outnumbered, but the fury with which Ram and his moss-troopers had attacked the enemy eventually made the raiders turn tail and flee back across the border. He had slaughtered many, perhaps a score, but two of his own men lay dead and one was mortally wounded. What they had found at Eaglesfield was too much for even the hardest-bitten of his men. The women and children had taken refuge in the church, but the English had committed the atrocity of putting it to the torch. The little charred corpses lay piled behind the stone altar.

Back at Castle Douglas, in the bathhouse close by the knights’ quarters, the water had run red with blood. By the time all the wounds had been tended, Ram staggered on his feet, but he still found the strength to climb the stairs to his chamber—to his woman. Though he was physically and emotionally drained, his mind was overactive, alive with scenes he could not blot out. Death’s skull grinned at him. He had provided the gravediggers with employment this night. His eternal soul was damned, anyway. He’d done an obscene amount of killing in the king’s Highland campaigns, and then there had been the part he’d played in the death of Damaris.

Tina stirred in her sleep, and Ram’s mind mercifully became centered upon her. He turned on his side, reached out his arms, and drew her against him. She too was naked, and the feel of her was so comforting, it gave him solace.
She awoke with the feel of his lips feathering kisses on her brow into her hair. She could hardly believe this was the same Ram Douglas who made love like a storm.

His kisses were so sweet, so gentle, so breathtakingly tender, her heart skipped a beat, then quickened its pace. As her arms went about him, she was shocked to feel him shaking “Hold me,” he said huskily. The need in his voice was palpable. In this vulnerable moment, she knew he would allow her to draw closer to him than he had ever allowed before. She slid against the hard length of him and tightened her arms. He sighed, and she felt the great slabs of muscle in his back relax. “Hold me,” he repeated low, and incredibly she knew what he wanted.

She arched her mons and lifted herself upon his marble manroot. He eased up inside her until she sheathed the entire length of him, then he buried his lips in the warm hollow of her throat and drifted in and out of blissful repose It was as if he had found sanctuary.

It was early morning when Tina awoke. They still embraced each other, but Ram was now in a heavy sleep. As she eased her body from his, he mumbled an unintelligible protest, but did not awaken. She noted that his jet black hair had blood caked in it and he had a two-day heavy growth of beard, yet in his sleep he looked younger than his thirty-two years. If he hadn’t been born a Douglas, if part of him hadn’t been blackened by hatred and killing since boyhood, who knows what might have been?

She sighed and slipped a bedgown over her nakedness, then went next door to Ada’s room. “Have the servants heat water for a bath, and then would you be an angel and ask Mr Burque to prepare a special breakfast for two? He knows I cannot eat oatmeal without a jug of syrup and another of cream. I want some sort of fruit and a fillet of tenderloin beef—no mutton, I pray you.”

The best part of an hour elapsed before Tina carried the breakfast tray to the bed. The irresistible aroma of the food caused Ram to open his eyes and sit up. Tina climbed
onto the bed and perched cross-legged with the tray before them. He looked amused. It was a novelty for him to eat in bed. “What are ye doing?” he asked curiously.

“You were exhausted last night. I am restoring you to your normal state of vigor. I’m going to feed you.”

He picked up the jug of syrup, stuck in his finger, then licked it. She slapped his hand, took the jug away from him, and poured a thick layer of it onto the steaming porridge. Then she drenched it with cream and lifted a spoonful to his mouth. “Open up!” she commanded.

Miraculously, he obeyed. They devoured the pears filled with red currant jelly, and the beefsteak was so tender, she was able to cut it with the edge of the fork.