by Arnette Lamb
Still, she couldn’t let so cocky a remark go unanswered. “As Elanna would say, you one sassy man.”
“Come morning, we’ll see who’s sassy.”
Chapter 11
Saladin decided that if Elanna called him stubborn one more time he would dive for his scimitar and whack a chunk out of the bedpost. And if she didn’t stop fidgeting, he’d tie her to the chair even if he was too weak to wiggle a finger.
In the half hour since Malcolm and Alpin had left, Elanna hadn’t said a dozen words to him. He suspected the reason. He just didn’t understand how their tryst ten days ago in the walled garden had begun with sweet kisses and ended in a bitter brawl.
“You saved my life, but you won’t talk to me. Why not?”
Poised before the bookstand, she thumbed through the pages of his illuminated Koran. “Muslim plenty smart enough to know.”
He found himself staring at her narrow waist and the graceful fall of her skirt. The soft cotton fabric, in vertical stripes of daffodil yellow and midnight blue, accentuated her unusual height and complemented her rich brown skin. The matching head wrap concealed her hair and drew attention to her long neck.
His loins took fire, but to his dismay he was too besotted to govern his lustful urges and too weak to act on them. But as surely as the mountain came to Muhammad, Allah had sent this woman to him. Understanding her and winning her, however, must be the Prophet’s way of humbling Saladin Cortez.
“Why did you save my life?”
She turned. Her lips thinned; tried patience glimmered in her eyes. “Dumb question.”
Communicating with her was as difficult as explaining the teachings of Allah to a Christian zealot. Perhaps directness would work. “Then explain why you were as bold as a sultan’s first wife the last time I saw you. Now you’re distant. If you’ll recall, you asked me to kiss you.”
Her hands flew to her hips, and the square bodice of her gown stretched tight across her breasts. “This African princess cares more about dung flies than playing push-me, pull-you with some stubborn Muslim.”
Sadly, Saladin realized he lacked the strength to draw his sword from its scabbard, even if she destroyed his remaining copy of the Koran. “Push-me, pull-you? That sounds interesting.” He patted the mattress. “Come here and tell me what it means.”
She wandered to the foot of the bed and stopped at the trunk that housed his winter clothes. “Same as what the missionaries call pro-cre-a-shun.”
At least she was moving closer to him, major progress under the circumstances. “A manner of speaking, then.”
“Manners?” Her chin went up, and her swanlike neck stiffened. “Not you. Dirt-eating Akwamus more polite than plant-worshiping Muslims.”
He could envision her leading a tribe, with hordes of the beautiful Ashanti people paying homage to her. He wanted to again offer his own brand of tribute, but how could he when she refused to admit her part in that last disastrous meeting?
He held out his hand. “Come closer, princess.”
She eyed the mattress. Yearning shone in her eyes.
Oh, Allah, he thought, what deed have I done to deserve so great a blessing as this woman? Whatever it was, Saladin intended to make the most of his good fortune.
He sought a cheerful subject. “Talk to me about your potions.”
“Nothing to tell.” She stared at his scimitar. “Just plenty good medicine.”
He sought a way to warm her heart. “Thank you for saving me. I’m in your debt.”
“No debt.” Distant and defensive, she trailed her long, graceful fingers over the aged wood of the chest. “You already paid. So tell it farewell.”
His stomach rumbled and his head throbbed. Although he’d never tasted alcohol, he now understood how Malcolm felt after a night of too much ale.
He sought a way to draw her out. “You think I got ill because I acted like a rutting beast?”
With the flippancy of a saucy concubine, she said, “How should Ashanti princess know what almost turned you to duppy dust?”
“Duppy dust?”
“What the jungle leaves of a man. Dried bones. Dust in a Muslim’s coffin.”
Mother earth constituted a Muslim’s coffin, but he doubted that explaining the practices of his religion would aid his immediate cause. “In my culture some believe a man must enslave himself to the one who saves his life.”
“Slave taking bad, very bad.”
He cursed himself for broaching the one topic that would alienate her. Softly he said, “What about enslaving the heart?”
She headed for the door. “No time for that.”
He had to make her stay. Using the cheapest of ploys, he coughed, then groaned.
She nearly flew to the bed. Propping him up as she had before, she put the glass to his lips. “Here. Drink slow, slow. Don’t choke.”
He swallowed, but barely tasted the orange-flavored water; his senses were fixed on the pillow softness of her breasts and the hint of cleavage the bodice revealed. She smelled of sweet herbs and earthy musk, an enticing combination.
When she took the glass away, he whispered, “I’m sorry I ruined your dress.”
She opened her mouth, closed it. Then she sighed. “I sing you a sorry, sorry song about your book.”
He could sing her a song, too, about a lonely man who’d overcome the needs of his heart and body to live in a foreign land with people he admired. She challenged his decision of long ago, and for days he had searched his soul, trying to understand his sudden discontent. “I don’t know what got into me that day in the garden. I was possessed, as if I’d drunk a love potion. Have you bewitched me?”
“I ain’t no witch!” She moved away so fast that his head plopped onto the pillow. The room began to spin. He gripped the edge of the mattress and closed his eyes. This time his groan was real.
He heard the soft rustle of her skirt; then he felt the heat of her skin, the rush of her breath. “You one stubborn blackamoor. When you sing better, better song, this Ashanti princess will tell you a secret.”
Exhaustion threatened to draw him back into sleep. He opened his eyes. She was so close he could count her eyelashes. “Will I like your secret?”
She beamed. “Betcha that.”
He ached to draw her down for a kiss, but his arms felt like deadweight on the mattress. “Tell me now. I might not wake up.”
“You’ll wake. Gods throw you back one time. Gods throw you back again.”
The color of her lips reminded him of the berry juice. The memory made him smile. “Why?”
“Because you one stubborn Muslim.”
As he drifted off to sleep, Saladin wondered if Ashanti men beat their women.
Amid a chorus of cheers and good-nights, Malcolm led Alpin from the tavern. After the close and friendly atmosphere, the brisk night air cooled her skin, and the silence rang in her ears. The quarter moon rode high in a blue-black sky riddled with stars.
She started toward the keep. He pulled her in the opposite direction. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Wait and see.” He guided her to the edge of the lane near the merchants’ buildings.
The detour surprised her, she had assumed he’d be eager to consummate their handfast marriage. His carefree stroll through the castle yard seemed more important than making good on his lustful promises. He wanted exercise; she was eager for love. Aside from ending her curiosity about the physical aspects of marriage, their union would surely move her one step closer to gaining possession of Paradise Plantation.
She stubbed her toe and almost tripped. Malcolm steadied her. “Be careful. Watch where we’re going.”
Lanterns dotted the battlements, but little light reached the yard. In the darkness her other senses sharpened. As they passed the tanner’s shop, the smell of leather filled her nose. The banked forge at the smithy gave off waves of dry, warm air.
Thinking he meant to check on his birds, she said, “Are you worried about the owlet?”
> He stopped. “Nay. Should I be?”
During his absence she’d gone to the mews to find escape from troubling thoughts of him. She’d also relived fond memories of her youth. “No. I cared for the bird.”
“I thought you would. You never could turn your back on a sick or wounded beast.”
In the aftermath of so pleasant an evening, his congeniality was contagious. “No, I never could. Your little one’s only need is for food, and the mother’s wing is on the mend.”
“I’ll have to set them free soon.”
Resignation dragged at her high spirits. Same as the wild birds, she would leave him, but she wouldn’t let thoughts of the future spoil her wedding night. The observation did surprise her, for until this moment she had thought of her departure in terms of returning to Barbados rather than leaving Kildalton.
“What do you think of the Rot and Ruin?” he asked.
She laughed at herself and at his question. “I liked the tavern very much, but who gave it such an odd name? It’s a family gathering place, not a tumbledown rum shop.”
“Do you remember Lady Alexis?”
“I do.” Alpin remembered a dark-haired older woman surrounded by infamy. Years ago, by way of the hidden tunnels, Alpin had sneaked into the noblewoman’s room and made use of her toiletries. “She was your stepmother’s friend and some relation to Queen Anne, wasn’t she?”
“Aye.” He put his arm around her and steered her under the awning at the fletcher’s shop. “A cousin. She named the tavern.”
“What happened to her?”
“She married my father’s sergeant-at-arms, Angus MacDodd. They live at Traquair House.”
It was the ancient home of the Stewarts, but Alpin knew little else about the royal residence. “Is it near here?”
He stopped in front of the stable. “A few days’ ride to the north. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
She watched him disappear through the door, a shadow slipping into a blacker maw. The sweet and pungent odor of hay rushed out from the stable. Horses nickered inside. He spoke to them in comforting, melodic tones, and the fading of his voice marked his progress deeper into the building.
Looking back the way they’d come, she saw the tavern door open. Three soldiers came out and went their separate ways. One man carried a lantern. The light swayed as he walked down the lane, then up the stairs to the battlements.
Next came Rabby Armstrong and the maid, Emily, hand in hand. They headed toward the market. The maid giggled. The soldier spoke in dulcet tones.
The horses nickered again. Alpin’s pulse began to race, for now Malcolm would take her home and—she halted the thought. Paradise was home. Paradise. Not this quiet castle yard with its battlements outlined against the night sky and the yellow lights glowing in the windows of the keep.
“Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”
He sounded playful, like the Malcolm of old. She felt a twinge of regret, then the deep stab of pity, for her, for him, and for the events that had brought her to Scotland twenty years after she had sworn never to see this land again.
She held out her arms. A warm, downy softness brushed her wrists and palms; then she felt weight and movement.
“Do you know what it is?” he said.
An animal. But which one? She hugged it to her breast and stroked the soft fur. Not a mouser, for this creature was too gentle, too docile. Then she felt the ears, noticed the flat back feet.
“A rabbit.”
He put his arm around her. “But not just any breed of hare. This one had a special ancestor.”
Hattie, another of God’s crippled creatures that had been Alpin’s only friends. Happiness bubbled inside her, and tears filled her eyes. Her uncle had forced her to give her pet to Malcolm years ago. He’d set Hattie free to multiply in the wild.
Choked with gratitude, she cuddled the living keepsake of her past, and leaned against the man who’d given it to her. “You went to Sweeper’s Heath,” she said, completely awed by the tender gesture.
“Aye.” He stroked the rabbit’s ears. “I told you the place was overrun with Hattie’s offspring. We call them Alpin’s friends.”
In one instance, she had been remembered with fondness here. “I don’t know what to say.”
“The happiness in your voice is thanks enough.” He hugged her.
“I am very happy.” She was more than happy; at that moment she felt the strong pull of love for Malcolm Kerr.
“’Tis a shame it’s so dark. I doubt you can see her,” he said. “She looks just like Hattie.”
“I need no light to remember Hattie or her get. It’s as if I left her here yesterday.”
“Nay,” he said fiercely. “Forget our yesterdays, Alpin, every one of them. Think only about now, about how much I want you and how good we’ll be together.”
Eager to comply and explore her new feelings, she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. He turned and lowered his head so their mouths met.
His lips were soft and seasoned with the fresh taste of the ale he’d drunk and the honest plea he’d made. She, too, yearned for an end to the troubles between them, and as he tilted his head to the side and deepened the kiss, she knew passion would banish their differences, if only for a time.
The warm, furry creature, nestled snugly and quietly in her arms, formed a symbolic bridge between them, spanning the years of separation, obliterating the turmoil of their youth and gloriously embellishing the good.
When his arms moved lovingly over her back, and a hum of satisfaction rumbled in his chest, Alpin felt renewed and cherished. From a peaceful corner of her mind, a voice whispered that at last she had embarked on the real road to contentment and true joy awaited her at journey’s end.
Pulled along by the silent pledge of fulfillment, she leaned into him. The rabbit squirmed.
Malcolm drew back. “Do you realize, love,” he murmured, “’tis the first time you’ve ever willingly kissed me.”
“Given the chance, I’ll willingly do it again.”
“I assure you, the moment we reach my bed”—he took the rabbit from her and tucked it into the sash of his tartan—“you’ll get no protest from me. Unless you dally.”
Clasping hands, they strolled the well-worn thoroughfare that led to the castle steps.
“You owe me a horse,” she said.
“The gray?”
“Yes. Rabby and Emily are between the market and the tanner’s shop.”
“Playing kiss-the-freckle?”
“Well, it’s a little dark for that. They’re just kissing.”
“The horse is yours. I’ll talk to Rabby.”
Once inside the keep, he guided her up the stairs and into his bedchamber. In the soft glow of the oil lamp, she watched him release the brown rabbit. Unlike its three-legged ancestor, this rabbit leaped agilely over a footstool and nosed its way behind the drapes.
Then Malcolm was before Alpin, cupping her cheeks and brushing his lips back and forth across hers. The angel-soft touch of his mouth and the dreamy pleasure in his eyes set her senses astir with excitement and her body aflutter with need. Eagerness made her hasty, sent her hands to clutch his waist and feel the sinewy ropes of muscles there. Touching him only whetted her appetite for the banquet of riches he had sworn to lay before her.
“Go slowly, love. Follow my lead.”
His simple words spoke to the heart of her inexperience and supplied the resolve she needed to sate the hunger that raged within her. The moment her hands relaxed and her mind took control, she caught a glimpse of the wondrous place he intended to take her. Her heart soared.
He must have seen the elation in her eyes, for he smiled and murmured, “Aye, ’twill soon be ours.”
His gaze roamed her face, and with the patience a saint would envy, he drew her closer and laid his mouth fully on hers. Moist and warm and honey sweet, his lips worked a scintillating magic so expertly controlled, it soothed and tingled, provoked and appeased. He beckoned
her passion in stages: a little in the kiss at the corner of her mouth that made her breasts ache, a little more in the slow swipe of his tongue across her teeth that made her nipples contract, still more in the gentle suckling of her bottom lip that sent a jolt of desire straight to her belly.
Feeling all of a piece, she said, “It’s as if you’re kissing me everywhere.”
He chuckled. “I shall, in due time.” His hands left her face to roam her neck and settle on her breasts. “You feel the desire here?”
Covering his hands with her own, she applied enough pressure to make herself moan. “What do you think I feel?” she asked.
Taking her hand, he drew it down over the soft wool of his tartan past his tasseled sporran to the manly bulge beneath. “I think”—he sucked air through his teeth—“I’d better get you out of those clothes.”
Against her palm, he felt robust, the perfect fulfillment to her own emptiness. Her mouth watered at the relief his words and his body foretold. “What about your clothes?”
A grin as big as Bridgetown spread across his face. “I’ll leave them to you.”
For the first time, she felt confident in taking the lead. “Then I’ll exercise my right as a lady and insist on going first.”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. Spreading his arms wide, he said, “Then divest me, my lady, but do it quickly.”
Remembering his earlier plea, she decided to move at her own pace. With her right hand on the evidence of his need, she used her left to unfasten the clan brooch that secured the flap of his tartan at his shoulder. Understanding flickered in his eyes, and his hands returned to her breasts.
Clutching his most vulnerable part, she waved the silver pin. “Here, hold this.”
He took it in his right hand while she unbuckled the sporran belt that rode low on his hips. Another belt, wide and worn and snug at his waist, held his tartan in place.
“I believe this is yours,” she said.
His sly grin sent shivers down her spine. He gave her breast a last gentle squeeze, then snatched up his chieftain’s pouch.
Leaning back to admire her handiwork, she thought him rather gallant, his arms spread wide. “How does it feel to have your hands full of Kerr regalia?”
