Tempted (28 page)

“Hold!” she ordered, withdrawing her knife from its sheath and aiming it directly at his heart. His eyes widened in horror as he saw her draw back her arm and fling it toward him. The gold pieces he’d given her hit him in the chest and rolled merrily across the carpet, while miraculously the deadly blade never left her fingers. She sheathed it and threw back her head with laughter. “I’ll fuck you for free, Hotspur!” She stepped before the mirror to admire herself.

He was inflamed to madness and knew that was her intent. He grasped her about the waist and lifted her ceiling-ward until she screamed. “Ye look at yer tits the way I look at my cock,” he said huskily, tossing her upon the bed while he tore off his clothes. “Ye enjoy playing the wild little bitch,” he said, biting her neck, then running his tongue around her ear.

“I enjoy matching you in sensuality,” she admitted. His eyes were black with passion as he straddled her.

“Match this,” he challenged, then proceeded to lick and suck and tongue her throat, her breasts, and her belly with a mouth ravenous with hunger for her. Ram lifted his head
to watch her lips part and moan with breathless pleasure. Her eyes grew languid with the loving, and he was thrilled with her physical and vocal response.

Golden devils danced in her eyes as she crooked a finger and beckoned him closer. How could he come closer to her? Unless, praise God, she wanted him to bring his sex closer. With his knees still on either side of her body, he slowly moved up until the tip of his phallus almost touched her chin. Very delicately, like a cat licking its paw, the tip of her tongue touched the velvet head, and it turned carmine as it engorged with blood. She found the ridge and placed her lips just beneath it, then swirled her tongue around, tantalizing, teasing, tempting, tasting.

Ram arched his neck and back and cried out at the exquisite sensations her tongue provoked. “Stop love—I’ll spill,” he warned.

She lifted her mouth, but murmured against his tip with her lips, “I don’t mind”

Black Ram Douglas had to take the aggressive role in sex. He was simply made that way. He put all his weight upon his hands and levered his body downward so that he covered her completely Her thighs opened of their own volition, welcoming his savage thrusts, while her lips parted beneath his hot mouth to welcome his tongue as it delved deeply.

She could not wait for him, she lost control as he carried her over the edge, and her body pulsed to the rhythm of the wild Gypsy music. Ram ignored her cries. A serpent had coiled in his brain, its fangs pumping the poison of doubt. Who had taught her these things? The king? The Gypsy? Patrick Hamilton? He knew he had taken her virginity, but she could have been experienced in other ways. His imagination nearly sent him berserk.

He took complete control of her body, arousing her again, this time to a frenzy. It was as if he wanted to brand her as his, to mark her forever as his woman, to make every other man pale by comparison. Whenever she
thought of lovemaking for the rest of her life, this was the time she was going to remember. It went on forever. She yielded to his every demand as he endlessly took.

In that moment she would have given him everything— her body, her mind, her soul, her life. Everything except her love. She shuddered with the bliss of it all, yet unbelievably his shudder was ten times more violent than hers. Finally he withdrew and rolled his weight from her, and as she gazed down in wonder at where their bodies had been joined, she saw her thighs were covered with drops of what looked like melted pearls gleaming in the fireshine.

His voice was ragged as he demanded fiercely, “Who taught ye tae love a man with yer mouth?”

“Ada,” she whispered.

“Ada?” he roared.

“I—I told her you tasted me, and she asked if I didn’t want to do the same to you. Tonight I did want to.”

He laughed with pure relief and pulled her to him. “Lord God, how ye make me quiver. Ye are my torment and my delight.” He kissed her long and hard. “I love the way you smell. I love the way
we
smell.” It was the most intimate, private thing he’d ever said to her.

Castle Douglas was so quiet and subdued after Ram and his borderers left that Tina felt almost bereft. It was as if the sun had disappeared. She was as restless as a tigress, and after two days she felt cooped up, almost smothered by the stone walls of the massive fortalice.

Mr. Burque packed her a sumptuous picnic lunch, and she and Colin rode out upon the moors. He was more cognizant of the dangers than Valentina, since he’d seen the wounds the men had sustained, and so he insisted they have castle guards ride out with them. The men could hunt in the vicinity while Colin made his sketches, and that way Tina would not feel hemmed in and watched over. She wore a vivid jade-green riding dress and long, dangling jade earrings. Her magnificent hair fell to her waist, and
Colin seemed amused that she had such definite ideas about how she wished to be painted. She shrugged a delicate shoulder, knowing better than any other how she looked her best. What was the point of false modesty?

Colin asked her to hold the pose while he captured it. She had ridden Indigo, and the dark purple coat against her jade-green velvet made such a rich contrast that Colin made some sketches of her leaning her copper head against the Barbary’s satin neck.

They sat down among the wildflowers to eat the food they had brought, and Colin wafted away the wasps that gathered. They had crusty bread and goose pâté spiced with herbs. There was a jar of pickled mushrooms and pine nuts. There was also smoked salmon with capers and savory pasties filled with minced lamb and scallions. To wash it all down, there was blackberry wine, and tucked in the corners of the basket were russet apples and damson plums.

“Let me capture ye sitting among the clover and the Queen’s Lace…. Ram will be delighted.”

“Colin,” she said bluntly, “you appear to harbor no animosity toward Ram.”

“Why should I?” he asked.

“Because of the unfairness of his inheriting the title of Lord Douglas when your brother Alex died.”

He shrugged. “I was illegitimate, though I never knew it. Ramsay had known for years, but out of kindness he protected me from the knowledge.” He sketched in silence for a few minutes, then said, “I was away from home when the tragedy happened, and before the week was out, I sustained these crippling injuries in a border skirmish. I came so close to death, I had more pressing problems than the succession to worry about.”

Tina frowned. So Ram had known that if anything befell Alex, he, not Colin, would become Lord Douglas. “You hinted once that Ram was in love with Damaris,” she said lightly.

“She was so lovely, we were all in love wi’ her.” He smiled wistfully.

“So it was no more than a boy’s infatuation?”

“I hope not,” Colin said quietly.

Tina knew she would get no more out of him. What a closed-mouthed, tight-lipped clan these Douglases were.

At the end of the day Tina expected to be shown the sketches, but Colin was adamant—the sketches were his Not all of them were good enough to display. He would select the best, and she was most welcome to see her portrait when he had painted it, and not before.

She tried to tease him into a more generous mood, but try as she might, her feminine wiles were useless against the stubborn determination of Colin Douglas.

Drummond Douglas, on orders from Ram, took his crew to Scotland’s east coast where the
Caprice
was anchored. They painted the merchant vessel gray and renamed it
Revenge
, exactly as Ram had done with the
Valentina.
They began systematic raids down England’s eastern coast, from Berwick to Tynemouth.

Ram himself alternated between land raids and sea raids. Word soon flew to Henry Tudor’s Court that a scourge by the name of Lord Vengeance was playing merry hell with England’s ships, and rumors abounded that he had been seen on both coasts, which was a virtual impossibility. At the same time, wherever Lord Dacre had mounted a raid into Scotland, borderers had swept down into England taking not only revenge but everything of value they could lay their hands upon.

Writs of protest were immediately sent from the young King of England to the King of Scotland, and a warrant for the arrest of “Lord Vengeance” was dispatched by a royal courier.

James Stewart ignored the writs and warrants. He was delighted that one of his nobles had the reckless courage to hit back at the English, and hit back hard. He speculated
upon who it could be but he did not really want to know, for then he would be honor-bound to deal with the renegade who was breaking Scotland’s solemn treaties with England. James had many wild clansmen to choose from. It could be a Hamilton under his admiral, the Earl of Arran, or it could be a hard-bitten borderer like Lord Home, Lord Douglas, or the Earl of Bothwell. It may even be his own cousin, Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox, or that uncivilized, fierce Highlander Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll.

Whenever time or distance permitted, Hotspur rode home to Castle Douglas, usually arriving in the middle of the night. Valentina had become his lodestone, drawing him as irresistibly as a lunar tide. He would arrive depleted and depart again shortly, fully restored.

Sometimes his mood would be so black, Tina had to drain all his savage violence. Yet sometimes, like tonight, his infinite tenderness almost melted her heart toward him. He had started his lovemaking very slowly, gently taking off her nightgown, spreading her hair across the pillows, then caressing every curve, every warm hollow of her body with reverent hands. Then he had spread her legs apart to examine every detail. He took each delicate layer of pink flesh, touched, stroked, separated, and kissed. His touch was as light as a butterfly’s wings. Hours later, she lay in his arms limp and surfeited as he traced a pattern of ecstasy upon her face with his lips. He half lifted her against him. “Honeypot … my honeypot!” He only ever used this term in the privacy of their bed. “Tina, when I make love tae ye, it feels so right. I’ve never felt this way before. Ye make me feel warm, quiet, still. Ye make me feel whole— complete. I think I am in love wi’ ye.”

Her heart missed a beat, and she tried for a light note. “Where’s your hard evidence?” she demanded bawdily.

He ignored her taunt. “I’ve decided tae marry ye.”

The words hung in the darkness, and she was aghast.
“Nay, we have an agreement of one year! We’ll decide then.”

“Tae lowest hell wi’ the agreement. I’ve decided now,” he said firmly.

“I’m not with child,” she pointed out

“How do ye know? Ye might be,” he said firmly

Blood of God, that could be true enough, the way he made love to her. Tina pulled out of his arms. “You arrogant swine, Douglas! You think you just have to snap your fingers, and I’ll do your bidding.”

“Dammit, Firebrand, listen tae me! If I waited until ye were pregnant, ye’d think I was marrying ye because of my heir. I want tae marry ye because I love ye!”

She put her hands over her ears to block out his voice and the sound of the raindrops pelting against the windows She decided to take the guard from her rapier and hissed, “I don’t want to wed you. Douglas men poison their wives!”

“Only when they’re unfaithful,” he jested cruelly, but Tina was not joking—she was deadly serious “My answer is no, and that’s final,” she declared.

He threw back the furs and quit the bed. He lit the candles and began to throw on his clothes. She could see and feel his anger He meant to leave, even though it was the middle of the night and he’d been home less than three hours.

In the candle glow her hair was an aureole of flame. Her hands brought the fur up to her throat as if she could protect herself with it. He dragged her from the bed with one powerful hand. “I’m not asking, I’m telling ye.” He towered above her, then suddenly his magnificent, weatherbeaten face, so brutally handsome, laughed down at her. He bent her backward in his arms. “I am your destiny. When I come next, I’ll fetch the priest.”

The chamber was suddenly very cold after he had left, as if he had taken all the warmth with him. Tina climbed back into bed and huddled beneath the fur. The wind and rain made her shiver, although he was the one riding out into it. It would take more than inclement weather to stop Black Ram Douglas. Curse him! Curse him!

Was it possible that he loved her? Perhaps she could take her revenge sooner than she had thought. Nay, he hated her, and she him, yet somewhere at some point love and hate must meet, just as Heaven and Hell were but two sides of the same coin.

Her mind dashed about like quicksilver going over her alternatives. She would leave. She would go home to her father. The thought of her mother and Beth made her search elsewhere. Donal and Meggie were at Castle Kennedy, not much more than thirty miles off, on the coast. Then she thought better of it. She had seen Black Ram Douglas in a temper and didn’t envy the man who stood in his way. Poor Donal had been no match for him before.

Suddenly she stopped shivering. She knew exactly where she would go: the Haugh of Urr. She would do it with panache!

As Ram rode deep into the borders with his men, he ignored their curses and grumbling at being routed out of
bed hours before dawn. He never noticed the sheep huddled together for comfort against the drenching rain. He was too deep in his own thoughts. Bloody females! To a woman, kindness meant weakness, and they despise you for it and put a knife in your back. A clout round the ear wouldn’t be amiss. Nay, an inner voice rose up. ‘Tis you who are at fault. Do ye ever bring her a bauble, a jewel? Do ye ever pay her a compliment, or thank her for the shirts she embroiders? Do ye ever praise her for the meals she has her Mr. Burque prepare special? Do ye ever play a game of chess or dice with her, or talk with her? Do ye ever share yer fears or yer victories with her? Do ye ever tell her how much she means tae ye, except in the throes of passion?

He treasured the memories of the afternoon they’d spent fishing. He wanted someone to share his life with, and he knew he had found her. He longed to share everything—the laughter, the tears, the wild moments, and the quiet ones. Blood of God, did she really fear him? Fear he’d poison her? It was untenable. The mere thought of aught happening to her knotted his gut.

He’d turn back now and beg her to wed him, not issue his orders. He sighed. He knew he was far too blood-proud ever to beg for anything in this world. He wanted her to be the mother of his children. What splendid sons and beautiful daughters they’d make together! A fear rose up. He’d never had a child. Other men scattered their bastards to the wind, but no lass had ever come to him in tears because she was in trouble He mastered the fear. Valentina would bear him children—he knew it as well as he knew the sun would rise and set.

Once they reached the sea, Ramsay was kept too busy for introspection. They took the horses aboard the
Revenge
, then slowly patrolled the coast of the counties of Kirkcudbright and Dumfries all the way up the Solway Firth to the point where Scotland joined England. They ate
aboardship, then disembarked to patrol the borders of Roxburgh.

They found the lairdship of Armstrong burned out and most of them fled north. There was little they could do, so they pressed on, hoping to catch the English raiders red-handed. At Rowanburn they got their wish—only some of the animals had been rustled, and a dozen men, drunk with bloodlust, were raping women and girls upon the ground beside the bodies of their dead fathers and husbands. Not one of them escaped the wrath of Douglas!

The thing that infuriated Ram was the fact that they were soldiers in uniform. Once his men had dispatched the raiders, they wasted no time. Without hesitation Ram Douglas led the way across the border deep into Liddlesdale. When four men herding a large flock of sheep saw the Scots borderers in pursuit, they abandoned the animals and rode hell for leather over valley and dale The terrain was treacherous with rock and bog. English army horses were no match for the sturdy, sure-footed garrons.

The borderers herded the four men together as if they were sheep, totally surrounding them so there was no chance for escape. The look of sheer panic on their faces showed clearly they feared they would get their necks stretched, which was the penalty for rustling.

If they had known what was in store for them, they would have begged to be hanged. The dark eyes of the Scots sought those of their leader as every moss-trooper reached for his dirk. Lord Vengeance nodded imperceptibly, and they closed in on their prey, pulling them to the ground for what was known as a “prinking” It was an age-old Scots tradition for a detested enemy. Each borderer took his turn, stabbing with his dirk. Each wound was superficial though cruelly painful. However, by the time seventy such wounds had been inflicted upon every part of the body, the unfortunate victim had usually bled to death, screaming in agony and begging to be dispatched. The fourth and last man babbled everything Douglas wished to
know before he received the merciful coup de grace. The information confirmed Ram’s suspicions: The English garrison was in Carlisle. The commanding officer Lord Dacre.

They rode back into Scotland, and Ram called a meeting of all Scots border wardens. They met at the Earl of Both-well’s impregnable Hermitage Castle. Any other than a borderer would never have found it, let alone gained entrance across the hazardous bogs. The Hermitage was a massive pile of gray, forbidding stone, its great hall so large, it took two walk-in fireplaces to heat the place. As the Homes of Wedderburn rubbed shoulders with the Hamiltons, Bruces, Kerrs, and Elliots, Bothwell filled their trenchers with roast oxen and their leather horns with October ale.

The wardens of the east marches, Lindsay and Hay, told sickening tales of the English crossing the Tweed, not merely to loot and pillage but to destroy Scottish shipping and impress their crews and to commit atrocities against women and children. They had discovered a large garrison of soldiers at Berwick. They all knew formal protests had been made by the King of Scotland to the King of England, who had paid lip-service to the treaties by promising to suppress border banditry or restore the prizes taken by pirates. But now the border lords had proof that it was not bandits or pirates but Henry Tudor’s army and navy that harried their land and their people.

Bothwell spoke. “The fuckin’ whoreson is nobbut a greedy bairn, no’ yet twenty-one, but he’s set his voracious sights on Scotland an’ willna be satisfied until it’s all-out war.”

“The first thing James should do is send that bloody traitor Howard packing back tae England,” said Patrick Hamilton.

Ram swept him with a look of contempt but kept his peace. Ram could afford to be generous—Tina was his.

Home of Wedderburn, however, quipped, “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”

Kerr, who knew naught of Patrick’s affair with the Howard girl, said, “Hamilton’s right, and while James is ridding himself of vermin like Howard, he should pack his whore of a queen back tae her brother.”

Before the meeting broke up, two things were decided. The English garrisons in Carlisle and Berwick would be raided to learn their strength and numbers, and one of them would have to inform the King in Edinburgh that the borders were already at war. They were unanimous in their choice: Douglas was the one who had James Stewart’s ear.

On the voyage home an English vessel made the mistake of firing on the
Revenge
Ramsay thought it a waste to sink the tall, unwieldy ship when he could easily outmaneuver and capture it. Why waste cannonballs when they could board her, claim the cargo, then sell the vessel? Some of the crew was still alive when Hotspur stood in command on the quarterdeck, and he leniently put them ashore at Silloth on condition they report that they owed their miserable hides to Lord Vengeance.

Ram was in high good humor when he sailed into the mouth of the Dee and stopped to pick up the priest from Kirkcudbright. He fancied taking his new wife to Edinburgh to show her off to the court. His mind was full of plans They could sail up to Ayr, where he could sell the six vessels he’d taken as prizes. He’d take Valentina home to Doon so she could tell her family of their marriage, then they could sail up the Clyde to Glasgow and ride to Edinburgh. It would be a honeymoon trip, far more romantic than a hard ride overland of more than a hundred miles.

He put the priest in the capable hands of his steward, then went straight to the bathhouse in the barracks, whistling his head off. The castle servants looked at him askance, keeping a wise silence. News of Tina’s departure two days since had swept Castle Douglas like banefire, and they dreaded the explosion they feared might be strong enough to blow them all to kingdom come.

Ram was starved for a glimpse of her and went upstairs
to seek her out. He was disappointed to find the large, master bedchamber empty and went out upon the high parapet walk to see if he could see her below. He had become so accustomed to returning home to her, it felt like a part of himself was missing when her golden eyes and flaming hair were nowhere to be seen.

He was about to go in search of her when his eye fell upon a note upon his pillow. A cold finger touched him, for suddenly, without reading it, he knew she was not there. As he unfolded the letter, he thought she’d probably gone off for a visit to Castle Kennedy with her new sister-in-law Meggie, and a wave of disappointment swept over him When he began to read the letter, however, his feelings underwent a drastic change. He blinked in disbelief as his anger blurred the words upon the page, and he had to read it again to credit what she had written.

“Douglas, it’s over, I’ve gone. Please see that Ada and Mr. Burque have safe return to Doon.” She had signed the missive Flaming Tina Kennedy.

“The little bitch! Just like that—no explanation, no nothing.” A filthy word dropped from his lips. “It’s over,’” he quoted. “By Christ, it’s over when I say it’s over, and not before!” She had had the audacity to sign it Flaming Tina Kennedy. He’d drag her back by her flaming hair, then tan her arse till she couldn’t sit fer a week! If she set her will against his, he’d show her who was master. She would learn to obey him if he had to put her under lock and key!

The logs were neatly stacked by the fireplace, and he aimed a vicious kick at them with the toe of his boot. One hit the beautiful pink granite so sharply, a large chip flew off. Curse her! Curse her!

He flung open the chamber door, bellowing for Ada at the top of his lungs. He entered her room without knocking, and the little maid, Nell, screamed and hid herself in a wardrobe. Ram brandished the letter in Ada’s face.
“Where is she? When did she leave? Ill kill her!” he ground out.

Ada’s face was pale, but her lips were firm and her voice steady as she confronted him. “My Lord Douglas, it will avail you naught to browbeat me.”

“Browbeat ye? I’ll flay ye alive!” he growled, grabbing her shoulders most ungently.

“I told her how angered you would be, but it was like waving a red flag at a bull—it only made her more determined to leave.”

“Where is she? ‘Tis obvious she didna go home tae Doon, or she wouldha taken ye with her. Has she gone to Donal?”

“I don’t know where she is,” lied Ada.

Ram’s hands tightened painfully upon her.

“Lord Douglas, if you strike me dead upon the spot, it will not restore her to you.”

Her cool reasoning penetrated his fury. He flung her from him. “How long has she been gone?” he demanded.

“Two days,” she said quietly.

“Two days?” He cursed, his gut knotting. “The goddamned Frenchman will tell me where she is. I’ll truss him on one of his bloody spits and roast him alive!”

“If she wouldn’t tell me where she was going, you don’t really believe she’d confide in her chef, do you?” she reasoned.

“Why in the name of Christ didn’t Colin mount a search when she hadn’t returned by nightfall?”

“Likely because he has more intelligence than to interfere between you and one of your women,” she dared to reply.

“One of my women? Is that what ye think Tina is?” he asked incredulously. “I’ve dragged the bloody priest here from Kirkcudbright tae wed us!” he shouted.

“That’s why she left,” Ada explained.

The logic of it all eluded him. “I must be thick in the bloody head. I don’t get it.”

“She is Lady Valentina Kennedy Have you no notion of the enormity of the insult when you offered her only a hand-fasting rather than marriage? Added to that was the fact that Rob Kennedy had to pay you to take her A woman with her pride and spirit was bound to avenge such humiliation”

As her words hit home, he felt as if he’d received a blow to the crotch.

“This is her woman’s revenge,” Ada explained.

Ram Douglas was in turmoil. He was unused to explaining himself to a woman He knew he could extract Tina’s whereabouts from Ada, but at what cost? If he behaved brutally to her servant, it would not advance him in her eyes, nor his own.