Lion Heart (Hearts of the Highlands Book 4)

by Paula Quinn

  Lily wasn’t surprised to look through her window and see her beloved descending the stairs inside. She barely heard what Father Benedict was saying to her and Eleanor about the children running around in the church earlier. She nodded. Aye, she would scold them, of course. “Pardon me, Father. I see Elias coming. I will go aid him.”

  Father Benedict bent to look inside and shook his head. “He does not look like he needs any help.”

  But Lily was already gone.

  “My love, are you well enough?” she asked, rushing to him.

  “To eat? Aye, I’m starvin’.” He threw his heavy arm around her shoulders and kissed her then let her help him out.

  Father Benedict intercepted them before they had a chance to get Elias any food.

  “Young man, did I just see you both kiss? You understand she is—”

  “My wife,” Elias interrupted. “Brother Simon married us.”

  The priest looked taken aback. “He did not tell me.”

  Elias smiled at him, looking far too handsome for a man who’d had the plague. “He probably thought ‘twas our decision when to tell everyone.”

  Father Benedict smiled. “Aye, of course. ‘Tis good to see you up, Eli. Of course, we will have a ceremony in the church.”

  “Aye,” Elias agreed then waited patiently while Father Benedict complained to him about Charlie, Annabelle, and little Eddie—and of course, Terrick the Terrible.

  Finally, they were able to escape him, only to run into Norman, and then Eleanor and Estrid. Lily smiled, looking up at her husband while he reassured everyone who was concerned about him, loving him more than the last time she thought about how much she loved him. Especially after she heard his belly grumbling.

  “You will excuse us while I show Elias to all your special dishes. He is quite hungry.”

  Everyone made way, eager to get him fed.

  “You are part of the family,” she told him, fixing him a bowl of Estrid’s rabbit stew. “We must tell them about our marriage before my good name is ruined.”

  He chuckled softly, the sound coming from someplace low in his throat and traveling down her spine.

  “Everyone!” he called out, taking the bowl she offered. “Brother Simon married me and Lily before we left. The children were present.”

  Charlie and Annabelle nodded. Elias smiled and winked at them and spooned some stew into his mouth.

  He ate while everyone cheered. In fact, he ate three times while everyone came over to wish them well and ask them questions. When they had answered every one, Elias took little Eddie in his arms and walked him to Brother Simon’s grave. He exchanged smiles with the boy and spoke to the mound before him.

  A little while later, he called his two older children and Terrick to where he was.

  Lily…and Father Benedict watched him speaking to them, listening to them, and then speaking again. They all nodded, including little Eddie and ran off once again to play.

  He returned to the priest. “They will be a trouble to ye no longer.” He reached for Lily and took her hand passing Father Benedict.

  “What did you say to them?” Lily asked, a bit breathless at the way he had just whisked her away.

  He led them to the other side of the house, where it was quiet and dark. When they reached the east wall, he stopped and pulled them into the shadows, against the house. “I told them the church is God’s house and if they dishonored it again, they would shovel the cattle manure every day fer a month.”

  “A month!”

  He nodded. “Aye.”

  “They are not fool enough to disobey,” she remarked, and then giggled when he coiled his arm around her and dipped his mouth to her throat as he drew her in.

  “I have been thinkin’ aboot ye since I woke up alone in our bed.”

  “It was the middle of the day, sir,” she told him with teasing indignation. “Was I supposed to lie around in bed all day with you?”

  “Aye. I would like that.” He dove for her throat and raked his teeth over her pulsebeat. “Send everyone away.”

  “And the children?”

  He left her neck and breathed against her face. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear him.

  “I thought they were stayin’ with Terrick?”

  “They want to come home, remember?”

  He shrugged his shoulders beneath her palms. “We will be silent.”

  He covered her giggle with his mouth. He drank her in. He tasted her, and explored her, and she showed him what she liked. Just a slight parting of her lips, enough to slip in and out of her mouth, soft strokes across her tongue. If she wanted more, she could suck him in deeper.

  She thought about lifting her skirts and letting him take her here, but it was disrespectful to their friends who had cooked all day for them, after they’d buried Brother Simon.

  He must have been thinking the same, for he withdrew from their kiss as well.

  “Forgive me fer my peach-faced eagerness to be with ye?” he asked her with his head bent.

  She smiled and took his head in her hands to turn his face up. “I am eager for you as well, Elias,” she assured him.

  “We must wait,” he groaned.

  “Aye,” she agreed miserably.

  They walked back to the western side of the house, and spent more time with their friends and their children, and each other. She told him what happened with Bertram in West Wickham just before the bishop’s men had arrived, and she told him what the bishop meant to do to little Eddie. As she suspected, Elias was angry and swore to kill the bishop for trying to kill his wee babe.

  Oh, how could her heart be so deeply, so madly in love with him in a fortnight? After a while of anxious fidgeting, Lily managed to gracefully announce that it was late and time for bed. She thanked everyone for all they had done and embraced each one as they began to leave.

  She caught Elias’ furtive wink and blushed.

  She wanted to be with him again, but her passions ran high. Perhaps too high. He would surely bring her to the edge of the precipice again. What would happen if she fell?

  They tucked Annabelle into bed with little Eddie. Charlie slept beside them on the floor, in a cozy nest of blankets and cushions. They sat with the children for a while talking softly about things until little Eddie and Annabelle, and even Charlie fell asleep. Then they stepped through the curtained doorway and Lily let the curtain fall loose, cutting off their rooms and giving them privacy. Still, Elias vowed to build a wall separating their rooms within the sennight.

  She wanted to clean up a little in the kitchen. She kissed Elias and promised to come to bed in a short bit.

  She felt on edge, like she had earlier today. She’d had all day to think about things. She couldn’t relax or think right. She didn’t want to know what tomorrow would bring. It wasn’t over. Brother Simon was proof.

  Finally, she climbed the stairs and entered their room without looking at him. She began tidying things up, stalling for time.

  Her life had never been secure from the age of twelve on. Every day could have been her last. But it had been nothing like this. This involved others. People she loved. The man she’d fallen in love with. She was afraid of teetering on the edge of madness. If she’d lost him…if she’d lost him to this…

  He was quiet watching her then reached out for her from the bed. “Come, let us lay together. There is somethin’ I wish to tell ye.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lily stripped down to her chemise and went to him. He pulled her onto the bed and into his arms. They lay under the blanket in a tangle of arms and legs, their faces close so they could speak softly and hear each other without waking the children.

  “We have lost much in the last fortnight. ‘Tis difficult to think of movin’ forward,” he said.

  “I’m so sorry about Brother Simon.” She wasn’t sure if she’d told him in all the bustle of the day.

  “Lily,” he breathed hesitantly, as if he weren’t sure he should say what he w
as going to say. “I saw him. I spoke to Simon. He came to bid me farewell.”

  She felt the wetness of his tears in her hair. She pulled him closer, trying to comfort him. She believed his words for she had seen him reach for his friend just as Charlie had called out to her.

  “Lily?”

  “Aye, my love?”

  “He wanted me to tell ye that yer tears are water fer yer roots and will make ye even stronger than ye already are, and believe me, lass, ye are strong.”

  The bubbling was rising, climbing higher. Water for her roots. She felt like giggling but when she smiled, her eyes filled up with tears. Let them fall, she heard in her heart. Let them really fall. Oh, she couldn’t. She was afraid. “I do not feel strong,” she let out but even as she spoke, her throat felt as if it were closing up. She’d wept a little last night and she was able to stop. And today, over Brother Simon. But this was all of it. This was the storm, and panic engulfed her. What if she never stopped crying?

  “My love,” he said, gazing down at her. “Nothin’ will hurt ye again.”

  Pressed against him, she closed her eyes. “What if I can never stop my tears once I let them fall?”

  “Ye will stop. I will help ye.”

  She knew he could. He always helped her feel better. She looked at him and he smiled. She ran her palm down his cheek. “You were worth whatever I had to endure. If I knew you were at the end of every journey, I would go on each one.” She could feel her nose turning red. Her voice quavered. She wanted to let it come and there was no one she wanted to shed her tears over more than for Brother Simon. She asked Elias to tell her about his closest friend.

  “I think he was proud of me.”

  “He was,” she pushed out. “He…he told me he was proud of the man you had become.”

  The bubbling spring finally erupted. She held on to him like an anchor in the storm as she wept for all her friends and their children, for Elias, for her father, for Richard, for Brother Simon, and for the strong little girl Bertram had tried to destroy. She cried for all of them and for every day she spent away from her father, her half-sisters. She told Elias through sobs and hiccups about the destitute, broken women she’d met while traveling with Bertram. She wiped her eyes but it was a heedless endeavor.

  He held her and listened to her and soothed her while she sobbed out stories about Joan and Agnes, all the women she’d called friends for the last two years. She’d lost so much, but she’d gained Elias and a new precious family in the other room. “I want to go to Invergarry. I want to meet your kin.”

  “Yers now, as well.”

  She wept again at the thought of gaining another family.

  After a quarter of an hour passed with her still weeping, she wiped her eyes and kissed his arm that was slung around her neck and made her feel safe. “Elias,” she said with a sniffle, “are we keeping the three children?”

  “Aye, and any more we find along the way. My home in Invergarry is modest but I can add to it and there is more than enough land fer many children. Not includin’ the ones we have together,” he added with a hopeful smile that made her laugh. “If we remain here, I shall add more rooms to this house and make it even bigger than Norman’s.”

  It started as a giggle and grew into breathless laughter she muffled in his arm.

  He held her and watched her, amused by what he saw. He kissed her smiling lips then he kissed her tear-stained cheeks. When he rolled on top of her, she didn’t protest but coiled her legs around his to keep him close. She wanted this…she needed this intimacy with him.

  He moved gently, slowly, running his palms over every curve he exposed while he pulled her chemise over her thighs, and her soft, ticklish belly.

  He lifted himself up onto his elbows and stared into her eyes. “I love ye, my lady.”

  “Umm,” she purred like a cat, feeling his strength atop her. “I love you, sir.”

  He found her wet and waiting and broke through like a husband home from a long absence and eager to see the love of his life.

  They made love quietly though the sound of their breathing boomed through their ears. Short, ragged gasps as he sank deeper, moved with more purpose, filling her with every inch and then retreating again. She dug her fingers into his back and gripped his hard, tight buns while he pushed her to the brink of ecstasy. She held on as he dove over the precipice with her, thrusting slow and deep until she almost cried out. He covered her mouth with his hand and then she did the same to his an instant later as they found their releases moments apart.

  They slept, first, wrapped together and then apart, each back to their own usual sleeping position.

  Lily didn’t remember little Eddie crying in the night. Had he been too tired to wake? Or had she?

  When she finally did rise the next morning, it was to find herself alone in the house. She washed and dressed quickly and dashed outside to find them. Silence met her ears.

  “Elias?” she called out. “Charlie?” They wouldn’t just leave her.

  She didn’t panic, knowing that Elias would die before he left her. And he wasn’t dead. He’d fought off the deadly pestilence. He wasn’t going to go down easily. She wasn’t worried about Charlie either. He was very much like his new father. He’d fought the same illness and lived.

  They must have gone to the village. But what was so important that Elias would wake the children and take them there?

  She decided to find out.

  She didn’t get far when she saw Father Benedict outside, trimming the bushes around the church. “Father, ’tis good to see you well this morning,” she greeted happily. “Have you by any chance seen Elias and the children?”

  He smiled like he knew something she didn’t and beckoned her forward. “Come, child.”

  “Come where?” She laughed softly, not understanding what he was up to.

  She followed him to the church and entered the small, front foyer behind him.

  He snapped his fingers and Annabelle sprang from her stool. Lily smiled at her and was about to ask where the others were when her friend’s child, now her daughter, asked Lily to bring her head closer. She held in her hands a circlet of rosemary and pine interwoven with tiny white lilies and placed it over Lily’s brow.

  “Elias made it for you.” The little girl smiled at her and then took her hand and led her inside. “Come,” she beckoned Lily onward.

  They turned the bend and Lily stopped to gasp and take in what was happening. She gazed upon dozens of candlelit faces, all turned toward the entrance, toward her.

  She saw Estrid and Eleanor, Alan and his wife, everyone left in the village...and woven amongst them, she saw Joan and Clare, Agnes, Walter and Brother Simon. She saw them all, smiling at her.

  She looked up the aisle and saw Elias waiting there for her, especially handsome in his Highland plaid, his tousled waves, and his fearless, confident smile. Charlie stood at his side with little Eddie in his arms.

  Lily wasn’t sure she could make it to the altar without the floodgates bursting open once again. This time with thankfulness for the man before her.

  Annabelle led her to them then giggled with laughter and clung to his neck when Elias lifted her into his arms.

  Father Benedict cleared his throat and Lily looked into Elias’ eyes. In the deepest pools of silvery-blue, she saw what she meant to him, what the children meant to him.

  He told her in his vows to her and before God, but she already knew. He would go to the ends of the world for her. Surrounded by their children, he promised to love and cherish her and them until the day death took him. (Which wouldn’t be anytime soon if Lily could help it).

  “I adore you and cherish you, Elias MacPherson,” she told him. “I promise before God and these witnesses to be for you and never against you and to be a good mother to all your bairns.”

  Her heart pounded in her ears. Look what he had done for her! She could not wait to leave church and kiss him.

  Father Benedict said a few more things, but
it was the last thing he said that made Lily’s heart go even faster. “You may kiss her.”

  She blinked. Richard hadn’t kissed her.

  She blushed and felt her blood swooshing through her as Elias bent, with Annabelle in one arm, and drew her in. His kiss was quick but filled with both possession and passion.

  When he let her go, the villagers cheered and she blushed even more.

  Elias led her and the children to the church dining hall, which was decorated with sprigs of flowering rosemary in neat bunches on the two tables pushed together and covered in undyed linen.

  “What is all this?” she looked up and asked her husband. “When was there time to—”

  He shrugged his draped shoulders. “I had told the priest my plan last eve at supper and he enlisted the help of the others. I was awake most of the night, restless to do this fer ye. I even prepared dinner.”

  She stopped and stared at him. “For all of us?”

  “I cooked in the army, remember? Some nights, I cooked fer forty men. This is far less.”

  He led her and the children to the table and then disappeared again with Estrid and Eleanor.

  They returned with ale and then with herring, boiled eggs and melted cheese, roasted chicken and brown bread.

  Everything was cooked to perfection and Lily thought that watching Elias eat and laugh with her friends was one of the best parts of the day, besides marrying him again, of course.

  “Oh, Elias,” she breathed, sitting close to him. “This is all so thoughtful. I do not know how to thank you.”

  “Thank me later,” he said on a deep-throated purr, raising his cup and the corner of his mouth to her.

  She blushed and looked around at the faces smiling back at her. They knew! They had to know! Anyone could see the hunger in his smoldering gaze. Or did she alone see it?

  He loved her. He’d gone through the worst days of her life with her and he made her smile. He went out of his way to make her smile. “Have I told you how much I love you, sir?”