Until the Knight Comes (21 page)

Even forgiveness from those he’d caused immeasurable hurt.

Including Kenneth.

And now, since coming to Cuidrach, he no longer hurt over Maili, either.

He only had difficulty accepting
why
he no longer hurt!

The possibilities made his head ache and his mouth go dry. He crossed his arms and peered out at the Bastard Stone again, his heart recognizing the parallels even when his wits told him to ignore them.

Unlike Cormac, Kenneth had given his youthful heart to a common-bred lass who’d let greed and ambition taint their love. Or what he’d thought had been love. The cowherd, the first true Keeper of Cuidrach, if only in spirit, had won the heart of a noble’s daughter.

A maid who, by all accounting, had loved him in return.

And now Kenneth wore similar shoes—and found himself afraid to walk in them.

The reason stood staring at him now, her green eyes narrowed, demanding an answer.

Melting his heart.

“Dinna tell me you do not ache. I think every inch of you hurts,” she fired at him, her expression daring him to deny it. “Save perhaps . . .
certain
inches,” she added, her gaze slipping low. “’Tis well I know you suffer no lackings . . . there.”

Kenneth blew out a breath, glanced at the ceiling.

“Ach, lass, I ne’er spoke more true words.” He gentled his knuckles along her jaw. “But I will speak more plain ones now. See you, if seeing Maili for the first time was like the sun breaking through mist, meeting
you
was like having the light of a thousand sunbursts illuminate the darkest winter night.”

He peeled her fingers from his arm, and lifted her hand to his lips. “Indeed, the whole of a dark winter!” he added, kissing her fingertips.

“Yet you would see me wedded and bedded by this . . . Duncan Strongbow?”

“He is a . . . possible option to consider, aye,” Kenneth hedged, the words stale ash on his tongue. “For the now.”

Until he could banish the concerns sitting so heavily on his shoulders.

“And later?” She tipped her head, peered at him. “Come spring, will you hasten me into another man’s safekeeping? His arms?”

Kenneth flushed, heat snaking up his neck.

Now he knew why he so hated lies.

Deceptions.

He stiffened, looking round for inspiration, his gaze lighting on the row of aumbries set into the far wall.

Not one, but four well-secured wall cupboards, two on either side of the hearth. Each one masoned into the thickness of the walling, their placement in the bedchamber proving Ranald the Redoubtable’s faith in Cuidrach’s strength, the braw men patrolling the bastard keep’s formidable ramparts.

Formidable in that one’s day, he silently corrected, his blood chilling at the thought of the holding’s present gap-fraught walls.

Unthinkable, should they face an attack before Cuidrach could be fully refurbished

In especial, with women in the keep.

And him, knightly title or no, more adept at robbing seabird nests than fending off sword-swinging assailants.

Frowning, he heaved a sigh.

Galling or no, she would be better off wedded and bedded by one Duncan Strongbow.

Better yet, a real man of such ilk.

But he’d be damned if he’d relinquish her.

Not now.

He’d simply have to face his demons, prove himself worthy once and for all time.

Something his gut told him he’d soon have the chance to do.

“You long devil,”
Gunna of the Glen purred some nights later as she smoothed her hand over Jamie the Small’s groin. She looked at him through lowered lashes, her breath quickening, her dark eyes heated. “I was not told to expect such . . .
pleasure
.”

Jamie flushed.

Words failed him. And even if he could think of something bold to say, with the whole length of him trembling and his tongue tied in knots, anything he could get past his lips would’ve been an unintelligible mumble.

A gruff
hurrumph
at best.

So he blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Someone shoulda warned you—there are times I doona fit.”

But the widow only smiled. “Ahhh, Jamie, I have yet to see a sword I cannot sheathe.” She pressed her palm against him and stepped closer so the hardened peaks of her breasts rubbed against his equally naked chest.

“Nor have I ever run from the push of a . . . pike staff,” she added, and brushed the honeyed warmth of her lips across his mouth. “You will glide in just fine. And to the hilt, I promise you.”

But Jamie had his doubts.

Even if Gunna of the Glen showed no signs of concern.

He
could scarce breathe. Ne’er had he been so hard and tight.

In especial when she seized his hands and brought them to her breasts, clamping his fingers on her nipples—hard-swollen teats he soon found himself squeezing and pulling on, even as his chest constricted to a painful degree and, saints help him, his toes began to curl!

She
busied herself nuzzling her silky, dark head against his chest hair and squeezing him
down there,
her deft fingers making him crazy, the heady scent of attar of roses rising up from the black skeins of her hair to intoxicate him and further befuddle his already scattered wits.

“O-o-oh, Saints Maria and Joseph!” he moaned, half-torn by the urge to rip off the rest of his clothes and yank the hot-eyed widow even tighter against him, taking her right against the smoke-blackened wall of her cottage, yet equally compelled to hie himself away before his head split from the things she was doing to him.

There was only so much goodness a man could bear.

But
that part of him
swelled and grew, stretching even longer than he’d known was possible, the urgent pounding at his loins rooting him in place as surely as the neat rows of herrings she’d strung above her hearth fire.

Just the place he ought not have looked for the orange-blue flames lapping at the peats on her hearth only minded him that he’d likely spend a thousand years sitting on the hottest hob in hell for indulging in such naked, carnal abandon with a sinfully alluring woman at least ten summers his elder!

And, he realized with another flood of heat up his neck, he was now well and truly naked.

Somehow, without him even noticing, she’d freed him of his boots, hose, and his braies, and was holding him in her hands, gazing down at his full-jutting tarse as if she’d ne’er seen the like.

“M’mmm, but you
are
a splendidly-built man,” she purred again, her eyes growing ever wider. “They ought style you
Destrier.
”

War-horse.

His face flaming even hotter, Jamie looked down.

But he didn’t share her astonishment. He’d known he’d fill both her hands, even stacked one atop the other. Her fingers didn’t meet, either, the plum-shaped tip well topping the curve by her thumb.

Truth tell,
three
hands would be hard-pressed to contain him.

“I tried to tell you,” he got out, his voice little more than a rasp, for she’d dropped to her knees and was . . .
licking
him. “Not many lasses are able—”

“Then more’s the pity for those unfortunates,” the widow murmured, gently kneading his ballocks as she opened her lips over him.

“Holy saints!” Jamie cried, clenching his hands.

“Shush, you, and just enjoy,” she murmured, stroking him. “I was told you need such
comforting
—and so do I.”

Looking up at him, she swirled her tongue around the thickness of him, moving her head up and down, again and again, each suctioning pull drawing him deeper into the sweet warmth of her mouth until his nails drew blood from his palms and his toes dug into the cold earth of her hard-packed floor.

A floor that suddenly tilted beneath him as the night went black and all the stars in the heavens rushed into the little cot-house, spinning around him as he threw back his head and roared, his seed spilling hotly into the widow’s throat, the great need he’d been carrying so long, thoroughly quenched and sated.

But hours later, when the half-light mists before sunrise crept round the cottage and Jamie lay depleted for the seventh time in the widow’s arms and neither the lush curves of her body nor her sultry glances could stir him, she rose from the pallet to stand above him, her nakedness no less glorious for the dimness of the hour, the heat in her eyes now of an entirely different nature.

“You are a man of spirit and hot blood, James of the Heather,” she said, straddling his thighs so he had a clear view of the sooty curls of her womanhood. “I wonder if you also might have courage enough to pass on a warning to a mutual friend?”

“Courage?” Jamie swallowed, used all his strength to lift his gaze from
there
to her face. “Lady, I will lean a strong shoulder into any wind that comes at me. In especial, for a friend.”

She arched a glossy black brow. “And if a part of my warning might prove displeasing to that friend?”

“Even then. If the learning of it will be of use,” Jamie vowed, his heart thundering.

But, saints, she’d moved a bit closer and a band of moonlight bathed her in silver and shadow, the shimmering light slanting across her full, round breasts and emphasizing the mysterious darkness beckoning so irresistibly from betwixt her shapely thighs.

His entire body tightening again, Jamie curled his hands around her ankles, stifling a groan. “And who is this friend? You have not said.”

“I did not say because I am only guessing,” she said, smoothing her hair back over her shoulder, the gesture improving the view almost more than Jamie could bear. “So tell me, James Macpherson, does the name Mariota Macnicol have any meaning to you? To your
Keeper
?”

Jamie near choked.

His
need
froze.

Unthinkable, if Gunna of the Glen had heard of the embarrassment at the burnt mound.

But she only gave a small sigh and fixed him with her dark, smoldering stare. “I see it is as I thought,” she said, her voice low-pitched and smoky, but also cautious. “She is your Keeper’s lady?”

Jamie nodded. “So everyone says . . . or hopes,” he amended, the smooth warmth of her calves beneath his fingers and the attar of roses, along with her own heady musk, making it hard for him to concentrate. “I think he is well smitten with her.”

“Then you must warn him anon,” she said, holding his gaze. “Tell him I have had . . . unwelcome visitors. He will know I am not usually wont to turn away companionship. But these were men of no fine grain. Rough-looking devils who—”

“By the Rood! Did they harm you?” Jamie made to leap to his feet, but she dropped swiftly to her knees, began rubbing her slippery, female heat in slow circles across his groin.

His breath catching, Jamie slid a glance at his sword belt, discarded near the door. “You must tell me, lady. I will shred them to ribbons, run them through if—”

“No need,” she said, and kissed him, the sweet warmth of her lips sending heat pouring into his loins again.

“See you,” she said, breaking the kiss, “I have lived alone long enough to ken how to disperse undesired
guests.
I simply told them I was suffering a woman’s malaise the day they came to call.”

Jamie flushed. “And these . . . men asked about the Lady Mariota?”

The widow nodded, began lowering herself onto him—as if sheathing him might soften her answer. “You must tell Sir Kenneth these men are looking for his lady,” she said, already rising and falling on him. “Her, and her tiring woman.”

Some dim memory cut through the haze of Jamie’s lust, a comment heard in passing. “The Each Uisge!” he exclaimed, reaching for her, grasping her well-rounded hips. “These will be the men she was running from, the ones who meant to sacrifice her to the water horse of Assynt!”

“That may be,” Gunna of the Glen agreed, riding him hard and fast now. “But they want her for another reason as well,” she added, her back arching. “A grave one.”

Jamie scarce heard her, raw lust roaring through him, stealing his wits and hurtling him toward his eighth
shattering.

“Grave?”

“Even worse,” the widow confided, her voice a faint echo just as he loosed himself. “I would not heed a word they say, but the men seeking Mariota Macnicol, claim she is a murderess.”

Chapter Twelve

K
enneth froze on the turnpike stairs, too stunned and disbelieving to move. He
did
drop one of the bags of coin he’d been clutching, and stared it, watching as it thumped down a few of the curving stone steps before coming to rest with a dull-sounding
plump.

Not one to greet disaster gladly, he blew out a gusty breath and eyed his men as well—in especial Jamie the Small.

The one who’d brought such astonishing tidings.

Ill tidings.

But Jamie, too, was staring at the loosed bag of siller. And not mere slack-jawed gawping. Och, nay, the young knight stood straight as if he’d swallowed a lance, his whole great body stiff as stone. And ne’er had Kenneth seen the lad’s face flushed a brighter red.