Highlander's Forbidden Love: Only love can heal the scars of the past...

by Faris, Fiona

  Duncan kicked at the whorls of sand cast by the burrowing lugworms.

  “But you are more than just a companion to the lady, are you not? You are something of a favorite, her ‘protégée’, some say…”

  “Who says?” Elizabeth snapped, stopping and looking him up and down with ill-disguised contempt. “Are you a fishwife, to be listening to tittle-tattle? Or have you been ‘making inquiries’ about me behind my back, like a despicable spy?”

  Duncan laughed good-naturedly.

  “Peace, Elizabeth Bryce,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. “Let us not fall out all over again. If my intelligence of you is false, then, please, put it right.”

  “That is what I am seeking to do,” Elizabeth replied, resuming their walk across the sands. “As it happens, Lady Margaret counts me as her friend as well as her personal maid. She wishes to help me rise in the world, make me a lady like herself and find me an eligible match that would secret my advancement.”

  “So, you are her ‘project’,” Duncan said, trying to keep the sneer from his voice.

  “If you like, yes,” she admitted, unashamedly. “Out of friendship and fondness, she wants to make something of me.”

  It was Duncan’s turn to stop. He reached forward and took her hand, bringing her around to face him.

  “You are already something, Elizabeth Bryce.” He smiled at her fondly. “Quite something. You are a beautiful young woman who, I fear, is stealing my heart like the selkie does. I think I am falling in love with you.”

  Elizabeth clutched his other hand with her own and squeezed both of his gently, a rueful smile of affection twisting her lips. She looked up into his eyes, and her look was tinged with regret.

  “But it can never be,” she said mournfully. “Lady Margaret would never accept you as a suitable match for me, and Sir Gilbert… well, Sir Gilbert would hate you as a Comyn.”

  “Damn Lady Margaret and Sir Gilbert Hay!” Duncan cried out in angry frustration, releasing Elizabeth’s hands and turning away from her. He whirled back around. “Listen to yourself! ‘Lady Margaret would never accept you as a suitable match’… ‘Sir Gilbert would hate you’… I’m not asking Lady Margaret to accept me or Sir Gilbert Hay to love me; I’m asking those things of you, my love. What do you want?”

  Elizabeth looked up in fright and astonishment, as if Duncan had slapped her across the cheek. It was the same question that Dearbhorghil, the spaewife, had asked her, the same question that Dearbhorghil had urged she ask herself. And, at that moment, Elizabeth again knew – and knew for certain – what she wanted. She wanted Duncan.

  She threw herself onto his broad chest, linking her arms around his neck. He staggered backward, taken completely by surprise by the suddenness of her assault. She closed her eyes and buried her cheek against his firm breast, breathing in his musk and growing giddy at his contact.

  “Take care,” Duncan cautioned, prizing her arms from his shoulders. “We are exposed out here. Someone might see us.” He looked up meaningfully at Slains Castle on its headland. “Come away off the beach. There is a corrie I know, just up yonder, behind those rocks. We will be safe there.”

  He led her quickly up off the sands, beyond the tideline, and across the shingle. Behind a tumble of rocks, they found a long narrow defile, which opened out into a small ravine in the cliffs. The walls of the ravine were covered in bright yellow whin bushes and its floor with thick purple heather.

  As soon as they entered the seclusion of the corrie, they fell into each other’s arms. Elizabeth hooked her arms beneath Duncan’s shoulders, and he clasped her head in his strong soft palms and covered her face with kisses. He ran his fingers through the tresses of her wind-tangled hair and stroked her temples and cheekbones with his thumbs. She clutched at the fabric of his robes at his back, clinging to him as tightly as she did the day he had plucked her from the inrushing tide. Gently, he pulled her down into the heather.

  She froze and scrambled away from him on her heels, a look of horror blanching her face.

  “No!” she sobbed.

  He reached for her, but she shrank away from him.

  “What ails you, love?” Duncan asked, his eyes wide with concern.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “You will…”

  “I will what?” he pressed. “I will be gentle with you,” he insisted. “I will not hurt you.”

  “I am no longer a maiden,” she blurted out, then buried her face in her hands.

  She was sobbing uncontrollably now, her slight shoulders heaving, her breath coming in strained fitful gasps as if she were suffocating. Duncan tried to lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but she flinched violently away.

  “It matters not to me if you have already lain with another man,” he assured her gently.

  “You don’t understand.” Elizabeth dropped her hands from her face and keened at him, her voice full of desolation, her eyes wild with madness. “I have been with lots of men, lots and lots of men. Since I was a child, they have used me for their pleasure. I am spoilt goods, as you would soon have discovered and despised me for.”

  A flash of fury passed over Duncan’s face like lightning. She had been raped and abused throughout her childhood, he realized. He tried to hide the wrath he felt by looking at the ground between them; he did not want her to think that his anger was at her. With a struggle, he composed himself and raised his eyes to her once more.

  “I cannot despise you, Elizabeth. You were a helpless child. The fault lies not in you, but in the men who did those things to you. It is they who are despicable.”

  He reached his hand out again, tentatively, and stroked the back of her hand with his trailing fingertips. She continued to weep, her whole body fallen limp as if everything had been lost. He twined his fingers loosely through hers, and they sat like that in silence for a while, her tears streaming freely down her face, his heart aching in sympathy for her.

  Eventually, her tears stopped, and he ventured to clasp her fingers in his palm, rubbing his thumb lightly over her knuckles.

  “That is a terrible burden you have had to carry,” he murmured. “You will feel better now that you have been able to put it down.”

  “Lady Margaret it was who rescued me from that life,” she said in a distant hollow voice. She sounded as if she had been completely spent in her grief. “You can perhaps understand, now, why I am so obligated towards her.”

  “I understand,” Duncan replied. “She is a good woman, and I am sorry I cast aspersions upon her the last time we met for the sake of her name just.”

  “I found that particularly hurtful,” Elizabeth informed him, but without a trace of ire or resentment, just as a simple fact.

  Duncan clasped her hand and drew her down to lie beside him in the heather. He wrapped her in his strong arms and pillowed her head in his palm.

  “I will never hurt you again, my love. And you are my maiden still,” he promised her, “whatever has been done to you in the past.”

  She closed her eyes as two small tears escaped them and trickled down her cheeks. She opened them again and gazed pensively into his, lifting her hand to draw her fingertips lightly along the strong line of his jaw.

  Then, as if she had come to a decision, she raised her lips and kissed him lingeringly on the mouth.

  “Make love to me, Duncan. Please, make love to me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” she replied, closing her eyes and giving a slow, deliberate nod to emphasize her words.

  Her drew her even closer and covered her mouth with his. She tasted sweet, and he felt the small tip of her tongue testing his lips. He met it with his own, and they twined and wove against each other in a sinuous dance. He ran his hand over her hair and rose up onto his elbow, easing her gently onto her back. The firm spring of the heather cradled them as he drew up her gown.

  He shrugged out of his surcoat and Elizabeth fumbled with the laces of his shirt. Once they were loosed, she plunged her h
ands inside to caress the broad flat muscles of his chest. She arched her back as his fingers found the folds of her vagina and his thumb pressed against the button of her clitoris. Her eyes flew open with a look of surprise as a wave of pleasure flowed through her veins; she had never known such a sensation before, at least not outside of her dreams.

  She reached down and cupped his testicles in her hand, letting them roll in her palm, exulting in the delicious anticipation that yearned in her. She wrapped her fingers around the shaft of his member and felt the pulse of his longing. She withdrew her hand and clasped his hips, shifting her body to lie beneath his, guiding him onto her.

  He slid in slowly and gently. She gasped as he filled her. Her vaginal muscles embraced him, and her mouth sought out his, hungrily, greedily. His hand sought out her breast, while she tugged at the neckline of her gown to help release it. It was small and firm in his palm, the nipple hard and budlike under his thumb. He began to move, beginning with long shuddering strokes, gradually increasing in speed until his testicles were clapping loudly against her buttocks. She raised her legs and wrapped them around his waist, drawing him in deeply while his breathing came more quickly and more ragged. She felt a tingling grow in her stomach and between her legs, growing and growing and growing until it quite suddenly bloomed through her entire being and forced a cry from her throat.

  Duncan too could feel his climax approaching. His thrusts went deeper and grew more rapid, more insistent. As his orgasm erupted, he withdrew, and his sperm spilled over the flatness of Elizabeth’s tummy, pooling in her naval and dribbling over her flanks. His testicles contracted and his member spasmed over and over in the cool air, until he was spent, and he collapsed breathless between Elizabeth’s slim thighs.

  They lay still and sated in the heather, listening to the wheeling gulls calling down their complaints to them. After a while, Duncan rolled onto his back and drew Elizabeth’s head and shoulders onto his chest.

  “I never knew it could be so beautiful.” Elizabeth purred contentedly. “It had always been so rough and… dirty and… painful. That was so sweet and… beautiful.”

  “It was that,” Duncan said, twirling his finger in a lock of her hair. “Thank you,” he added. “Thank you for trusting me.”

  She reached up and kissed the lobe of his ear.

  “Thank you,” she returned, “for making me feel whole again. I cannot remember the last time I felt so… unbroken.”

  “I love you, lass,” he confessed simply.

  “And I love you, lad,” she echoed.

  “I could lie here forever.”

  “So could I.”

  They lay together for a good while longer, saying nothing, each just listening to the breathing of the other and watching the freewheeling gulls in the endless depths of the sky.

  Her life felt complete. Surely, she thought, nothing can come between us and deny the love we just consummated.

  Could it?

  Chapter Twenty

  Slains Castle

  The Great Hall

  Gilbert was sitting with his lieutenants in the Great Hall. A flagon of ale sat on the table between them, and they were talking intently over their pewter mugs. King Robert was intending another foray into the north of England, to maintain pressure on Edward II of England in advance of the peace negotiations, and Gilbert and his men were readying their plans for the upcoming military campaign.

  “My Lord…”

  Gilbert looked up and found Ewan Sanderson standing before him, his head inclined over his hands, which he wrung before his chest.

  “Sanderson, man.” Gilbert sighed with impatience. “Can’t you see we’re busy. Whatever it is, can’t it wait? I will discuss estate business with you at the appointed hour. I am dealing with affairs of state here and would not be disturbed.”

  Sanderson cringed with even more servility – if that were at all possible.

  “Alas, my Lord, I am truly sorry, but there is a man at the door, William Farquharson of Muirhead, a bonnet laird, who would speak with you urgently on an important matter. I think you would want to hear right away what he has to say. It pertains to your affairs of state.”

  Gilbert looked up to the rafters in exasperation. It would be nothing, he knew; some jealous complaint against one of his neighbors, blown up like a bladder-ball to epic proportions. But he had better see him, he reflected; you never know.

  “Well, show him in,” he said reluctantly, then turned to his three lieutenants. “Well, this should be amusing if nothing else. No doubt the English have landed off Boddam, disguised as seals.”

  The men laughed, but Gilbert simply glowered at the figure that Sanderson was escorting up the hall.

  “Master William Farquharson, my Lord,” Sanderson announced as they reached the table.

  “Farquharson!” Gilbert greeted him. “My steward tells me you have important intelligence…”

  Farquharson doffed his cap and bowed his head, looking for all the world like a penitent child.

  “Well…? Out with it, man.”

  Farquharson looked up in fright. His lips worked, but no sound came out of his mouth. His thick farmer’s fingers kneaded the cloth of his cap as if he was wringing a hen’s neck.

  “I-I have come to inform you that there is a traitor at large in the country,” he stammered.

  “A traitor, you say.” Gilbert smiled. He suspected the man’s neighbor had a field he coveted and had come to denounce him in order to have that land.

  “Aye, one of Beaumont’s men, a Comyn, who is here to stir up trouble in the country against the king… and yourself, my Lord.”

  Gilbert and his men looked at one another; the bonnet laird’s words had a ring of truth to them.

  “And how do you come to know of this mischief?” Gilbert asked him.

  Farquharson visibly relaxed; his story was not being dismissed out of hand. Some of the stiffness went from his shoulders and the fear from his eyes.

  “He has been going around the country, trying to rouse a rabble… Not that he is having any success, sir; we are all leal subjects of the king hereabouts, you need have no fear of that…”

  Gilbert bridled.

  “I doubt I would have any fear of the rabble hereabouts even if you were all rebels.”

  Aonghas MacNeacail gave a bark of derision.

  “Of course, sir,” Farquharson quickly corrected himself. “I did not mean to imply…” He trailed off.

  “But still.” Gilbert turned to his men. “We cannot have a traitor running around the country even if he is on a false errand among the Comyns’ former vassals. That would not reflect well on us, would it, gentlemen? It would not reflect well at all.”

  His lieutenants murmured their assent.

  “Who is this fellow?” Gilbert asked.

  Farquharson could not repress a grin of pleasure. This would teach the young whelp not to meddle with him.

  “He goes by the name of Duncan Comyn. He has arrived but only lately in the country.”

  Gilbert’s blood ran cold. Duncan Comyn; the man who had turned Elizabeth’s head, only to then insult her. He ran his eyes around the faces of his men. The same conclusion dawned in their eyes.

  “It seems, then, that we have discovered our mysterious Duncan Comyn. And if this man’s testimony is to be believed, he has indeed washed up from abroad with a kistful of Balliol silver. I think we should have a word with this Comyn chiel and inquire into his purpose a little more closely.”

  He turned to Farquharson, who was by now beaming from ear to ear, like the cat who had gotten the whole milk. Sanderson’s face too bore a beatific blaze of satisfaction, knowing that the favor in which the Bryce bitch stood with the Earl would be tarnished by Farquharson’s revelation.

  “To think,” he ventured, as if to himself, “that the poor Lady Elizabeth, was nursing a viper in her bosom.”

  “What?” Gilbert turned on him, his nose wrinkling with a look of contempt.

  “I was just thinki
ng, my Lord, how the Comyn tried to insinuate himself with a close member of your household. Perhaps he is not here to raise a rebellion but to strike at the heart of your family and, therefore, indirectly at the king. You are, after all, one of his highest officers and trusted friend.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, man,” Gilbert said, irritated at the allusion. “It’s ridiculous to think that the Lady Elizabeth, could be complicit in any plot against me. At best, she would have been a poor innocent pawn in their devious hands. Don’t you dare suggest that she would knowingly do anything to harm this family.”