by Alyssa Cole
If this were battle, her body had already submitted to cowardly defeat, ready to fall at MacAllister’s feet as he plowed through the crowd, never once taking his eyes from her. Agnes took a deep breath and then gave him a smile that she hoped was steadier than her shaking hands.
She curtsied, suddenly keenly aware of the low-cut neck of her gown.
“Your Lordship—”
The words were barely out of her mouth before he was upon her. The first time they’d met, he’d availed himself of at least the rudiments of courtly behavior, this man who called himself a savage. But now his hands gripped her by Agnes waist, shocking her with their brute strength before he pulled her toward him. She was no small woman, but she felt like a sprite pressed against the solid mass of the Highland earl.
“I believe I asked you to call me Gareth,” he reminded her in a voice that was barely more than a growl, and she didn’t know what to do but obey.
“Gareth,” she breathed, finally, and then his head dipped down and his lips brushed hers, completely clearing Agnes’s mind of the proper etiquette for rebuffing an admirer in the middle of a banquet. His lips were warm and firm, but softer than she ever could have imagined as they glided against hers. When she’d been told that she’d have to kiss the winner of the tourney, she’d expected to provide a quick peck, but Gareth wasn’t interested in claiming such a paltry prize. There was no mistaking the fact that he was claiming her, branding her with the heat and power of his mouth and tongue, running his hands over her back as he pulled her closer against the solid warmth of his body. He was making her his.
In front of the entire court.
Agnes tried to pull away, tried to protest, but when she opened her mouth his tongue slipped in, warm and slick and overpowering. He crushed her to his body as he pillaged her mouth, close enough that she could feel his heart beating steadily in his chest. The hoots and cheers of the crowd around them faded into so much background noise as Agnes gave herself completely to his kiss. There was only his mouth, the sweet, malty taste of him, and his hands as they slid down to cup her ass.
“The Earl of Arran provided marvelous entertainment these three days of tourney, and now that he has claimed his prize, we shall dine!” Queen Margaret’s voice rang out, waking Agnes from her daze. Two dainty hands slipped in between her and Gareth and pried them apart; the queen was surprisingly strong.
How long had they stood there pressed against one another, a spectacle for all to see? Agnes didn’t know, and she found that she didn’t care either. The need that had been simmering since she first locked eyes with Gareth at his keep was now at full boil. It hadn’t been a fluke or a passing fancy all those months ago. She wanted this man, and he wanted her, too.
Margaret slipped her arm through Agnes’s, tugging her gently, but pointedly, away from Gareth.
“Your Lordship, I know that this title is new to you, but one of the more enforced rules of the peerage is that one doesn’t perform sexual congress, or near it, at the dining table,” Margaret said sweetly over her shoulder. “You are seated next to Agnes, but I will dump a cup of ale over your head if you continue to behave like a canine in heat. That goes for you too, sweet Agnes.”
Agnes wanted to sink beneath the flagstones and never see the light of day again, she was so embarrassed. More than that, she wanted to feel Gareth’s mouth against hers once more, to memorize how his lips moved and the intricate patterns his tongue traced against hers.
Instead, she nodded demurely and followed the queen to the table of honor. She was tempted to ask Margaret if she, too, felt the pressure of Gareth’s stare on her back, but she kept the question to herself.
Agnes tried to ignore the heat radiating from the chair to her left as she picked at her meal, but Gareth was so close and her mind kept seeking out the memory of their kiss, unbidden. She still reeled from it, although hours had passed since he’d crushed her to his body. His kiss had been powerful, but not just because of the brute strength of him. There had been emotion in the joining of their mouths. His lips and tongue had conveyed a message that words could not, one that spoke of longing and passion and something that touched her more deeply than both of those things.
She wanted to talk to him, to know more of him, but instead she made idle conversation with the various dignitaries and men who had fought in the tourney, answering their questions about her experiences at James’s court. That was easier than dealing with the feelings Gareth stirred in her. Her fantasy had come true when her champion had been revealed, but now what? He would return to his clanspeople and she would be left with nothing but an even more acute knowledge of what she was losing.
“Would you like more wine?” Gareth’s velvety burr ended the silence between them. He had addressed her directly, and she could no longer protect herself by pretending he wasn’t there.
She turned to see him holding a flagon toward her cup solicitously, as if she hadn’t been carefully ignoring him for most of the evening. His gaze on her was a living thing, like the fire licking at the wood in the hearth.
“You are the visitor here, Your Lordship,” she said, trying to keep her voice even-keeled. The consummate hostess. “It is I who should be serving you.”
His eyes went dark at her words.
“Do you wish to serve me?” he asked in a low voice, leaning closer to her. “Because I do not require a wench to do my bidding. What I desire is that which would give you pleasure. If this wine gives you pleasure, I will pour it. If there is something else you would ask of me, it is yours.”
“Your Lordship—”
“Gareth.” His reminder cut her off, and she was glad of it because she knew not how to respond.
“Gareth, what do you want of me?” she asked.
“Perhaps more than is advisable,” he said, studying her face. He placed the flagon down on the table. “I told myself that I came to this tourney simply to benefit my people, but that was a lie. I admit, before you came to my keep, I was intrigued by the tales of my fellow clansmen of the rare beauty who parlayed like the veriest statesman at the behest of the king. I was supposed to be searching for a bride, but instead I sought to learn more about you.
“Then I saw you with James’s retinue and I had no choice in the matter, really. I wanted you, and a dance wasn’t enough. When I heard about the tourney, I thought it was a sign.” He shook his head, flashed her a smile that seemed to strike her a direct blow, stealing her breath away. “It is entirely foolish, and I’d laugh at myself if I weren’t in such agony. Did you feel it, too, all those months ago?”
“I know not of what you speak,” Agnes said, looking away from him before he could catch her untruth. Her heart pounded and her dress suddenly felt too small around her chest, constricting her breath.
“For weeks after we danced, I believed the rumors that you were a changeling,” he said in a low voice, pitched only for her ears beneath the tumult of the evening’s festivities. He took her hand in his, and Agnes trembled at the intimacy of the act. “I dreamt of you. I longed for your scent, which laced my jacket, to perfume my bed sheets. I believed it had to be some Sidhe curse to need a woman so badly.”
“Need?” Agnes repeated. The word felt foreign in a way that Gaelic did not, that English did not, although neither was her mother tongue. It could mean many things, this simple word. She had expected that he would want her or desire her; need was a different thing entirely. It was what spurred a surge of envy when she saw how smitten James was with Margaret. It was what left her feeling hollowed out and empty when she clambered into her lonely bed every night.
“Your Lordship, I think you mistake simple infatuation for something more,” she said, unable to meet his intense gaze. She knew if she looked at him she might believe him, and she could not afford to lose herself so easily.
Gareth’s hand grazed her chin, nudging her head up so that she was looking him full in the face. “Do I look like a man who is easily mistaken?”
Agnes’s senses took
leave of her. She was like one of the king’s guard, whose vision was restricted to the thin slit in their armor that allowed them to see the road ahead; she feared what obstacles lay just outside her view if she chose to believe Gareth’s words. What could become of such a pairing? Had Gareth given any thought to what his people, and the world, would make of them?
“The poet Dunbar recited some verse yesterday evening after the meal,” she said quietly. “Were you privy to his words?”
“No,” Gareth said, obviously confused. “I find Dunbar is not quite my taste. What poem is this, that captured your attention?”
“‘Why were you blinded, Reason? Why, alas!’” she began, trying to say the words with ease, as if she were simply recounting the poem to any visitor to the court. She pulled her hand from his. “‘And made a hell appear as my paradise, and mercy seem where I found no grace.’”
“Hell? You fear I do not speak truly.” Gareth gave her another assessing look and his features softened. “Or perhaps you are more afraid that I do?”
Agnes felt exposed, but she could not deny his words.
“Come! Give us the truth and put these rumors to an end,” a slurred voice interrupted jovially, cutting the through the din of the hall and the illusion of privacy Agnes had felt when speaking with Gareth. “I would know your origins. What type of wench are you? Were you trained to give your master pleasure?”
Humiliation scoured Agnes from head to toe. Most people weren’t indelicate enough to bring up the more horrid things they’d heard about her past, especially not to her face, but the oafish English knight had imbibed too deeply and shouted his indiscreet question across the table.
Agnes struggled for something politic to say, something witty to gloss over this scene and continue the festivities as if she hadn’t been degraded before everyone in earshot. But then the feet of Gareth’s chair scraped against the stone floor as he stood, hand resting on the hilt of his short sword.
“The tourney was held in honor of this maiden. You fought to be her champion, yet you think nothing of asking such crude questions of her?” Gareth’s voice was low, but powerful enough to be heard over the clamor. Silence began to spread over the guests like a plague as they realized someone had run afoul of the Wild Knight.
The English boor, however, was still unaware that he had caused offense.
“Well, you must be curious too, with the way you had at her earlier,” the man said with a laugh. “Come now, she doesn’t mind my asking. Why would she?”
Anger roiled in Agnes’s stomach. For the most part, people were kind to her even if they were curious. But there were always those who thought her dark skin inured her to insult. She always had to be graceful in her put-downs and repulsions—that was one of the concessions she made to her position in the court—but oh, how it vexed her. Gareth, however, had no such graciousness, and Agnes was glad of that when he bounded straight over the table and grabbed the English bastard by the throat. The man was bowled back out of his seat, but Gareth maintained his hold, landing in a crouch beside the man and squeezing harder.
“As we’re asking idiotic questions, are you able to breathe through your arse? You might have need of such a skill after I bash your bloody face in.”
“Highland savage,” the chemist from London beside her sneered, and Agnes knew he only said aloud what several people were thinking. The faces of the courtiers lining the table ranged from horrified to intrigued, but Agnes covered her mouth to hide the inappropriate smile that pulled at her lips. He had been so gentle with her that she had nearly forgotten his reputation. She didn’t wish death upon the Englishman, but Gareth’s readiness to defend her honor warmed that loneliest part of her heart. It was…sweet.
“Jamie, do something!” Queen Margaret chided her husband from the head of the table, although both she and the king seemed to be quite amused by the spectacle. One less Englishman wouldn’t be such an incredible crime against humanity in their eyes.
The king stood abruptly, snapping his fingers at Gareth to get his attention. “I believe this is a sign that the festivities have reached their conclusion. If MacAllister would take his seat, via the floor so he doesn’t plant his foot in the mutton again, we can proceed with the finale of this banquet.”
Gareth ignored the king as the knight flailed in his grip. The Englishman’s face was a frightening shade of red, and Agnes began to worry. If Gareth was really set on murdering someone for her, there were other men who had caused her much greater offense.
“Please let him go, Your Lordship,” Agnes called out, to no effect. “Gareth! Release him. I beg of you.”
The English knave collapsed to the floor in a gasping heap, and Gareth stared down at him. “When you can speak again, you’ll apologize to the lass,” he said.
The man managed a sound approximating a duck’s quack, but an affirmative one. He crawled away, glancing over his shoulder as if he feared that Gareth would come at him again.
“I give you my thanks,” Agnes said quietly when Gareth took his seat. She wanted to touch him, to pull him close and calm the flood of feeling rising within her, but instead she placed her hands in her lap.
“I will always champion you,” he said simply. “If you will have me.”
What did those words mean? Agnes’s heart was pounding, and she would never have admitted it, but in addition to the knot of emotion in her chest there was dampness between her thighs. Seeing Gareth propel himself toward the Englishman, the fierceness in his every movement utilized for the protection of her honor, had touched upon something innate and undeniably attractive. His plaid had flown up when he’d leapt across the table, revealing a muscular ass and the hint of something thick and veined. She wondered if he could possibly be that large or if it had been the play of shadow and light, but then again, everything about the man was oversized.
She realized she had been staring at him as she ruminated on his endowment. Her thoughts must have been plain, for the corner of Gareth’s lips lifted into a smug grin. It was the first time she had seen a smile grace his face since he had arrived at the banquet, and she remembered that, somehow, it was possible for him to be even more handsome.
“Are you afraid of heights?” he asked, and the question was so ridiculous given all that had just happened that she burst out laughing.
“What would possess you to ask such a thing?” she asked, right as James raised his glass and called out, “Adieu to our lovely Agnes and her unrelenting champion, the Earl of Arran!”
The area around the table of honor erupted in a frenzy of motion. The acrobats who had worked the crowd earlier now flipped and tumbled toward Agnes and Gareth. The conjurers in their hooded robes converged on them, too, one blowing fire from his mouth. Agnes had been frightened of the tattooed men, but one of them winked at her as he dropped some kind of device at their feet, and she winked back. Pungent smoke billowed out of the small object, obscuring everything around them. Agnes couldn’t see, but two strong hands gripped her by the arms and pulled her onto Gareth’s lap. For a moment she was so distracted by his hard chest against her back, by his muscular thighs and the rigid length pressing against her buttocks, that she didn’t realize they were moving. Vertically.
“James had my chair rigged with ropes for the grand finale,” he said into her ear. His words were nearly lost in the shouts of amazement from the crowd.
Of course he did, Agnes thought, wishing it weren’t a crime to throttle royalty.
They were being pulled through the air, and the feeling of flying was as exhilarating as it was frightening. Maybe she wouldn’t commit regicide. Gareth held her tightly to him with one hand; his other hand was situated between her legs where he gripped the seat of the chair.
The trip was so quick that Agnes didn’t have time to panic. Only when the chair legs touched the ground and her feet didn’t, when Gareth held fast to her instead of letting her go, did her head start to spin. They were now ensconced in the darkness of the rampart that ringed th
e high-ceilinged hall of the castle.
“I’m pleased James is such a showman,” Gareth said, his burr tickling her ear. He smelled of whisky and the masculine soap she’d had the alchemist make for the baths of visiting statesmen.
“Why?” she asked. One of his forearms still rested between her thighs as he gripped the seat, a heavy length that seemed to be only slightly thicker than the one pressing into her from behind. When he moved it away, her legs squeezed shut, missing the warmth.
“Because it has given me the chance to do this,” he said. His hand spread flat on her stomach, holding her in place as he moved his lips over the shell of her ear and down her neck. The trail of kisses sent shocks of pleasure through Agnes. A sweet ache bloomed in her belly, and the peaks of her breasts tightened beneath the fine fabric of her gown.
In the hall below them, Agnes could hear the shouts of surprise and delight as the smoke cleared and guests realized they had disappeared. Not much light reached this far up in the great hall; they were shielded from view, and it seemed to the guests that they had simply vanished. To them, it was an act of magic, not a mechanical wonder of the king’s devising.
The noise of the hundreds of revelers conjecturing on their departure grew louder, obscuring the whimpers Gareth’s questing mouth drew from her as it explored her sensitive skin. She was finally alone with her green-eyed Highlander. His mouth was on hers, his hands roamed her body, and desire heated her blood.
