What a Lass Wants (17 page)

Eventually, he would be unmasked—all it would take was the return of Marshal Finlay—but every additional day he spent in Caitrina’s company would be
worth the risk. And even one more warrior might turn the tide in the battle against Giric.

He tucked the parchment away and twisted in his saddle to face his men.

“The lord steward has joined the queen at Clackmannan,” he told them. “Let us ride swiftly to warn them of the English attack and add weight to the manor defenses.”

They spurred their mounts and cantered toward the manor, making good time. They arrived at the gates before sunset. As he dismounted in the close, he sent a lad for Lady Caitrina. “Please ask the lady if she would spare me a moment,” he told him.

She appeared at the top of the steps only moments later, a worried frown upon her delicate brow. “Did you not receive my message, Marshal?”

“I did,” he acknowledged.

Descending the steps, she joined him in the close. “Then I’m at a loss,” she admitted.

Although his arms itched with a fierce desire to gather her near, Bran did the proper thing and merely smiled. “Thanks to your message, I am fully prepared to update the royal steward,” he said.

Her gaze met his, her eyes suddenly hopeful. “Is the Englishman defeated?”

“Nay,” Bran said. “He has gathered additional soldiers, and we found ourselves outnumbered.”
Knowing the question that must be burning in her thoughts, he added, “It appears he still has several ladies in his camp. We must do what we can to ensure they are not caught in the middle of our conflict.”

“Do you have a plan?”

He nodded. “I do, and I promise that as it becomes more firm, I will share the details. You have my word that I will do everything in my power to keep the queen safe.”

As one of the stable lads led his horse away, she asked quietly, “What do you intend to tell the royal steward?”

“I will reassure him of my qualifications.”

Her eyes darkened with worry. “He has already inquired about your credentials.”

“Well,” said Bran, smiling faintly, “he has proven himself a very discerning fellow. We would expect that from a man so close to the queen, would we not?” He tucked his gloves into his belt. “I shall find dry clothes and then meet him in the great hall.”

She nodded slowly. “As you wish.”

He offered her his arm. “Shall we trade this dreich for the warmth of the hearth?”

She laid her hand on his damp sleeve.

“Aye, lead on.”

T
here was a large gathering of folk in the great hall when Caitrina descended the stairs for the evening meal. Unlike the queen, who had spent the vast majority of her time confined to her bed, the royal steward was eager to sample all of the food and entertainment the custodians of Clackmannan were capable of preparing. The high table was covered in an expanse of white linen and every chair had been assigned. With the presence of additional nobles, Caitrina, being untitled, found herself seated at one of the lower tables, sharing her meal with a handful of senior villagers and their ladies. She had just taken her seat opposite the reeve’s wife when Bran entered.

The sight of him stole her breath away.

His dark gold hair, loosely flowing down his back, shimmered in the candlelight—a perfect foil for his strong chin and long nose. With a crimson doublet laced over his cream lèine and a pair of black trews covering his legs, he looked every bit the part of a nobleman. Few men in the hall could compete with his bonnie appearance, including the resplendent royal steward, who wore forest green trimmed with beaver.

Caitrina bit her lip as Bran audaciously stepped to
the high table, gave a short bow, and introduced himself to the steward.

“Giles Gordon, my lord.” As the royal steward turned to him with a frown, he added, “We met once in Edinburgh, several years ago. I’m not certain you will remember.”

The royal steward’s eyes narrowed and he peered at Bran closely through the smoky haze of the room. “I don’t recall,” he said. “Perhaps you would be so good as to refresh my memory?”

Bran smiled. “Of course. It was the Yule after Queen Margaret’s passing. A quiet affair in the great hall. My uncle, Sir Thomas de Gordon, introduced us.”

Stewart frowned. “I remember the evening and my conversation with Sir Thomas, but I confess I do not recall you, sir.”

Bran shrugged. “You may recall his comment upon my introduction. I believe he called me ‘a blight upon the Gordon name.’”

Stewart’s eyes widened. Then he laughed. “I do recall that comment. Sir Thomas has always lacked a measure of tact. He’d taken issue with your reluctance to take a wife, as I recall. Have you since remedied that?”

Bran shook his head. “Regretfully, I am still unwed.”

Stewart patted him on the back and ushered him toward a chair. “That’s a situation that swiftly must be set aright. Are there no suitable ladies in Feldrinny?”

“An estate owned by monks suffers a dearth of fine feminine company, I’m afraid,” Bran said, taking the seat next to Lady Martine with a smile.

As the tables settled into the meal, Caitrina
struggled to keep her gaze on her companions. Even though their histories were intriguing and their travels far-reaching, her attention kept drifting to the high table, where Bran was engaged in avid conversation with Martine. Again, he proved quite the raconteur. His stories kept the table amused for several hours, and his compliments kept Lady Martine in an almost constant state of pink-cheeked blush.

Jealousy knotted Caitrina’s belly.

She had never felt such an intense desire to trade places with another woman. But, at that moment, she would have given every jewel she possessed to be seated next to Bran, basking in the warmth of his charming smiles.

How very foolish. She knew he was a fraud—that every word leaving his glib tongue was likely a lie—but that didn’t tame the burning want in her gut. Or silence the fierce whispers in her mind that claimed,
He’s mine
.

“Have you any children, Lady Caitrina?” her dinner companion asked.

She glanced at him. Sir Murdoch of Inverary. A handsome enough fellow, for an older man. Probably a popular courtier, in his day. If his stories were true, he’d once been captain of King Alexander’s guard. “Nay,” she said. “I’m not yet wed.”

“I have three daughters,” he said. “The eldest is eight.”

“How lovely,” she said, peering around his large shoulders for a glimpse of Bran.

When the meal was finally ended, after a raucous round of toasts to the queen, Caitrina climbed the stairs
to her rooms, weary and exhausted. The men had remained behind, still quaffing copious amounts of ale and regaling one another with tales of their conquests, both on and off the battlefield.

Having miraculously passed the royal steward’s identity test, Bran was welcomed into the midst of the courtiers with open arms. How he’d come up with that tale of Sir Thomas, she had no clue. Nor did it matter. Apparently, being called “a blight upon the family name” was an endearing feature.

Caitrina stopped by the drapery-hung platform bed to wish the queen a good night, then crossed to her pallet and accepted the help of her maid in exchanging her gown for a night rail.

She had worried for naught, it would seem. Bran was a consummate liar.

She doused her candle and lay down on her pallet, grimacing. What else had the man lied about? His feelings for her, perchance? If he was capable of pulling the wool over the royal steward’s eyes, he was surely capable of gulling a simple lass from the Highlands. No one at the high table had doubted his identity, not for a moment.

Lying there in the dark, listening to the soft snores of the other ladies, Caitrina slowly became enraged. She’d given her maidenhood to a silver-tongued bounder—to a man who had just spent the entire night complimenting another woman, never once looking her way. Did he think so little of her that his attentions could be so easily redirected? She had thought him a better man than that.

Caitrina tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Finally,
she threw back the covers and swung her feet to the floor. There was only one way to quiet her turbulent thoughts—she needed to speak with Bran.

Slipping her toes into her silk slippers, she rose from the bed and gathered her brat. Once again, she excused herself to the guards at the door with a tale of visiting the garderobe and scurried down the hall.

There was a light under Bran’s door, so she gently knocked and waited. Moments later, the door swung open and he stood before her bare chested and clad only in his braies. She opened her mouth to explain her presence, but he simply yanked her into the room and closed the door. Pressing her back against the thick wooden planks of the portal, he took her head in both hands and proceeded to kiss her as if he’d been imagining this kiss all night.

Caitrina’s indignation melted away under the heat of the embrace.

With his lips on hers, his tongue sweeping the inside of her mouth in a daring dance of desire and his hands caressing her curves with light but loving touches, Caitrina lost all sense of time. She found herself hungrily returning every kiss and wanting more. Had he not broken off the embrace and stepped back, she might well have let him take her right there against the door.

He scowled at her. “Who was that large man you were seated next to at dinner?”

Caitrina stared. “Sir Murdoch?”

“Is that his name? Was he truly as entertaining as you made him out to be?”

She blinked. “What?”

“You laughed at everything he said.”

Caitrina could barely remember anything the man had said. “He’s twice my age,” she said, frowning. “And happily wed to a Frenchwoman.”

His scowl faded. “Good. I’ve never been envious of another man, and frankly I do not enjoy the taste.”

“You were jealous,” she said, on a breathless note of surprise. “But what of Lady Martine?”

“Who?”

She smiled. “The blond woman who sat next to you at dinner.”

“Ah,” he said. “The woman whose passion is her garden. I find the easiest way to make conversation is to make simple queries of the other person and then let them speak. My dinner companion grows white roses in honor of her dearly departed mother.”

“You did more than listen,” she said. “You had your entire table laughing at your stories.”

Bran’s gaze sharpened. “You were as jealous as I.”

“More so,” she confessed.

He closed the gap between them and feathered kisses along the line of her jaw. “Impossible.”

Caitrina’s eyes closed and her head rolled back to give him access to the tender flesh of her neck. Showers of delight sprang up in the wake of each delicate kiss, but she needed more. More warmth, more strength, more of Bran. The smooth expanse of his chest was an invitation she could not ignore and her hands went awandering. Under her fingertips, the texture of his skin was like hot silk, drawn thinly over the powerful musculature of his frame. So wonderfully different from her own body.

The hard curves of his chest. The waves of muscle that ran down the middle of his belly.

Bran grabbed her hands. “Lass,” he whispered hoarsely in her ear, “I have spent the past few hours imagining every way in which I could make love to your sweet body. I am like a fully drawn bow, ready to send my arrows flying at the slightest twitch of a finger. As much as I enjoy your gentle exploration, I fear I am not man enough to endure it.”

She pouted. “You cannot expect me to simply stand here and take your kisses.”

A low chuckle vibrated through his chest. “Nay. I welcome your full participation.”

“Then what am I to do?”

“Whatever your heart desires. I would only beg you to avoid—for a short time—the area above my knees and below my belt.”

Caitrina chewed her lip. Some of his most intriguing terrain lay in the area he had just declared forbidden. “Then let us be fair. For as long as you wish me to abstain from touching you below the waist, you must also abstain from touching me in the same region.”

He frowned. “But that will reduce your pleasure.”

“I refuse to accept that. The game shall be to see who can pleasure the other more without touching the most private parts.” With that, she bent her head and kissed his right nipple, using her tongue to play with the tiny bud.

He sucked in a sharp breath.

“Dear lord.”

She released his flesh, reluctantly. “Oh, and I must
return to my room within the hour—else the queen’s guards will surely think me lost.”

Uttering a low growl, he scooped her up and carried her to the bed. He dropped her unceremoniously onto the mattress and then leapt upon her. “There’s no time to waste, then, is there?”

He untied the satin laces of her night rail and tugged the linen down, baring her breasts. For a moment, he did nothing but stare, and Caitrina frowned.

“Is there something wrong?”

A slow smile spread across his face. “Far from it, lass. You have beautiful breasts. Just large enough to fill my hand, with pale pink nipples that tempt me to taste.”

“And yet you do not.”

A truth that he swiftly remedied. He bent his head and captured one trembling peak in his hot, wet mouth and Caitrina gave up a hitched but deeply satisfied sigh. Sweet Jesu. The sensations he stirred within her were incomparable. She’d always known her breasts were sensitive, but this sweet unbearable attack rocked her to the core. No wonder the priests associated such moments with sin—anything that felt so good had to be sinful.

She closed her eyes and let the ripples of pleasure roll through her body, savoring the delicious tingle between her thighs and the slow build of tension in her belly. It wasn’t just the way he suckled her breast that stirred her—although that was masterful—it was the soft, glowing warmth that stole over her as she pictured him in her thoughts. He and he alone evoked such tender emotions, such deep desires. She had the
strangest urge to grab his hand and run away to some remote bothy and make love until they were finally, completely, utterly sated.

He gently nibbled on her nipple, and she bit her lip to restrain a squeal.

Right now, it was impossible to imagine ever being sated. Every part of her body was burning, and she wanted him so badly that there were stars dancing before her eyes. Going mad with need actually seemed within the realm of possibility. She lifted her hips, trying to press the ache in her nether regions into submission.

But Bran gave her no satisfaction—he shifted his body to one side.

“Do you already forget the rules?” he asked, hoarsely, his hot breath soft upon her breast. “To the game that you created?”

Caitrina groaned. She
had
forgotten. By god, he wiped all reason from her thoughts. What had she been thinking to set such terms? She thrashed her head from side to side. Such
unbearable
terms? And Bran seemed determined to make her pay. The only way he would set aside this foolish endeavor would be for her to drive him as mad with desire as she was.

“This game is very one-sided,” she said.

“How so?” His tongue drew a circle around her nipple.

She squirmed with need. “With you atop me, there’s little opportunity for me to play.”

He buried his face between her breasts, drawing in a deep breath. “You have another position in mind?”

She pushed at his large shoulders. “Aye. You on your back, me on top.”

He lifted his head and looked at her. “Truly?”

“Aye.”

“But the rules are no touching below the waist,” he reminded her.

“I’m well aware,” she said archly. “Roll.”

Obligingly, he rolled onto his back, a faint smile on his handsome lips. “How shall you proceed, lass?”

In truth, she had no idea. She was unschooled as a seductress. But wiping that smug look from his face was a fierce ambition. His smile suggested
he alone
knew how to win the game, that only he was capable of taunting and teasing and driving his partner wild. Caitrina rose to her knees on the bed, accidentally trapping the hem of her night rail, which pulled the gauzy linen taut against her skin.

His gaze dropped to the newly exposed skin at her neckline, his eyes dark.

Ahh.

He admired her form. Perhaps she should start there. With a series of slow, sensual tugs on the shift, she removed her night rail and tossed it aside. His eyes narrowed, implying an element of self-discipline belied by the flare of his nostrils and the clenched fists at his side.

He wanted to grab her.

But he did not, so she considered her next move. Her long braid had flipped over her shoulder as she removed her night rail, and she lifted it, prepared to toss it back. Again, his gaze closely followed her fingers and, again, she took his interest as a sign. He was
curious about what she would do with her hair. What did he think was possible?