Pale and tight-lipped, Quinton gathered his reins and deftly motioned his men in the opposite direction. “I will not believe until I hear the blessed truth come forth from Christian himself,” he replied staunchly, praying that all of the clues, the innuendos, and the innocent remarks had been incorrect. Surely the Demon was not a traitor to his own family, lured into betrayal by the feminine wiles of his worst enemy. Surely his father and the merchant had been wrong.
God… please don’t let it be true.
“We will find him,” Quinton’s teeth were clenched as he spoke, indicative of his volatile emotions. “We will find him and I will ask him myself. Until then, he is still the Demon of Eden and will be afforded due respect. Do you comprehend me, Jasper?”
Jasper nodded faintly. He, too, was reluctant to believe what all evidence was leading to explain. But, unlike Quinton, he was not willing to turn a blind eye to the indisputable facts. If the Demon of Eden had turned sympathetic to the de Gare cause, then as with any traitor, he would be handled accordingly. No matter how painful the necessary task.
“Intruders, Rake. Two entire armies o’ intruders.”
Roger stared at his younger brother as if the man had gone completely insane. “Intruders?” he repeated. “Who on earth would be violatin’ Douglas lands? We’re at peace wi’….”
“Not Scots. Sassenach invaders.”
Roger’s eyebrows rose in a gesture of distinct interest. “Sassenach? Mother of God, wha’ would they be doin’ here?”
Mac drew in a long, deep breath. “I recognized St. John standards. But I dinna recognize th’ second army, nearly two hours after the first.”
Roger’s brow furrowed with concern. “Bandits? Mayhap they mean tae ambush th’ St. John forces.”
Mac shook his head. “They dinna look tae be common bandits, though they were a might scruffy and worn about th’ armors and steeds. But they did appear tae be followin’ th’ St. John soldiers.”
Roger gazed at his brother a lengthy moment, trying to determine what was transpiring upon the rich earth of his beloved territory. He wasn’t entirely surprised with the incursion of the St. John soldiers considering the missive he had delivered to Eden a few days ago, but he was increasingly concerned with the mysterious second army in apparent pursuit. Clearly, it made no sense whatsoever and he rose from his chair, pacing the floor in pensive silence.
Mac observed his brother with lagging impatience, trying to determine the man’s thoughts and speculations. Roger was usually quite secretive with his plans and ideals, but Mac was certain they were pondering the very same options at this moment.
The English had invaded their turf.
“Macky,” Roger said after an endless span of deep thought. “We canna have th’ English fightin’ their wars on our soil. If th’ second army means tae do th’ St. John harm, then we canna allow it.”
“Agreed. Do we ride after them?”
Roger nodded faintly, scratching his stubbled cheek. “We do. But only tae determine th’ situation, not tae cast our army inta the middle of an English battle. If they plan tae do fightin’, we shall chase ’em homeward. They’ll not destroy my Galloway.”
Smelling the invigorating scent of an approaching battle, Mac couldn’t help the faint smile that touched his lips. Ever-ready for the feel of a sword and mace in his hand, he looked forward to the potential skirmish even if Roger was clear that their presence should be neutral, not combative. Once the first arrow was launched, it didn’t matter if their intentions were neutral or not.
“Shall I mount th’ men?” he asked his older brother.
Roger nodded, still partially absorbed in thought. “Mount ’em immediately. We must pursue the foolish Sassenach tae see what they are up tae.”
Turning on his heel, Mac vacated the solar with an aura of purpose. Roger glanced at his younger brother as the man faded from view, knowing his hot-headed soul was itching for a proper fight. But knowing, just the same, that a fight would be avoided at all costs. Unless, of course, it was in defense of his St. John relations.
Roger pondered the matter of defending the St. John army from their secretive pursuers, the more encouraged he became at the prospect of lending aid to his distant kin. Coupled with his willing deliverance of Christian St. John’s missive, the added support of armed assistance would further substantiate his willingness to reestablish clan ties with his English cousins. Mayhap then Jean St. John would realize the value of his remote Douglas kith, enough to willingly explore the possibilities. Enough to re-secure family ties after generations of separation.
Roger suddenly found himself agreeing with his brother. Mayhap there would be the added event of a skirmish – to aid the St. Johns against their adversaries.
A call to arms. Kin to kin.
Nothing had been touched. Christian could hardly believe his eyes as he wandered about their encampment, inspecting every sack of stored grain and every lug of the wagon’s wheels. Even the ox had been left tethered beside the stream in a patch of knee-high summer grass. Surrounding their sod-house lodged deep into the Wood, everything remained as it should.
As they had left it.
Gaithlin smiled smugly as Christian paced about, examining every miniscule inch of their cozy home. Not a thread moved, not a grain of wheat shifted. All was as it should be and Christian could scarcely comprehend that his wife had been correct in her assessment of the dog-people’s character.
“Are you satisfied that my judgment was true?” she asked confidently as he examined their food stores in the small alcove off the main room.
Emerging from the room, bent severely at the waist due to his excessive height, Christian nodded in agreement. “Good Christ, I can hardly believe my eyes. Nothing is disturbed in the least.”
Moving from her arrogant stance resting against the doorjamb, Gaithlin put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him soundly. “As I told you. Mayhap there is hope for our neighbors, after all.”
“Or mayhap they understood the length of my blade far better that your logical reasoning,” he couldn’t resist jabbing at her cocky manner.
Gaithlin cast him a threatening gaze, yelping with delight as he swatted her backside. Moving out into the late afternoon sunlight caressing their familiar clearing with a fading warmth, Christian held his wife’s hand tightly as his eyes roved the area in thought.
“I suppose we should grind the grain for the bread I promised Malcolm,” he said, his mind moving from their untouched possessions to the chores that lay ahead. “Considering we were rightfully distracted yesterday morn, we never did get around to preparing the necessary flour.”
Deliriously happy and content, Gaithlin snuggled against her husband’s magnificent torso. “Nay, dearest, we made love instead. Far more satisfying.”
He grunted, a joyful grin tugging at his lips. “For you and I. But I doubt Malcolm shares our opinion.”
As if on cue, Malcolm came through the trees bearing the ox on a long rope. Speaking to the animal as if it was capable of understanding him, he led the beast to a sturdy tree and tied him tightly. Moving forth to his chores of watering and feeding the animal, Christian and Gaithlin watched him with a good deal of settling contentment.
“He’s a hard worker,” Christian observed with satisfaction. “He’ll be a great knight someday.”
Gaithlin smiled as she watched the young lad with the rapidly filling-in scalp. “My mother will love him. She’s always wanted a son.”
Christian sighed faintly as he watched the lad groom the ox for parasites, his thoughts turnings towards the deeply sinister implications that had plagued him since the day he had decided to marry Gaithlin de Gare. Now that he had finally wed his most hated enemy, the dissenting factors seemed to be gaining strength and weight with each passing moment. The more he held Gaithlin in his arms, the more intoxicating his adoring emotions became. And the more desperate his anxieties loomed.
The Feud. He had married her to end the hostilities, to forge
a peaceful link. But the further time progressed, the more he wondered if his motives had been entirely reasonable. Good Christ, his father was so completely embroiled in his hatred for Alex de Gare that Christian was more apt to believe that he would be unwilling to accept such a peace overture than he would be agreeable to put all differences aside.
Christian knew, factually, that Jean’s inbred loathing of the de Gare name sustained him more than food or drink or inherent breathing ever could. Clearly, there was only one way to determine the course his future would take; he must return to Eden and inform his father of his actions and his intentions and stand his ground as Jean raged and cursed and ranted to the very heavens.
Yet even as he exposed himself to the wrath that he would surely endure, it was of the utmost importance to maintain Gaithlin’s safety until such a time as she could be carefully introduced to her new relatives. If such a time would ever come.
Aye, Christian knew he must return home as soon as possible, but he was terribly reluctant to give up the life of ease and peace that he had come to adore within the greenery of the Galloway territory. Life was safe here, a blissful utopia away from the true harshness the Feud had to offer. A protective hideaway from the realities he would be forced to endure eventually.
Good Christ, how he was reluctant to face those realities. How he would love to hide far away from the brutal truth for the rest of his life. But it was not in his nature to hide from the verity of the circumstance, no matter how easy it would be to slide into the depths of oblivion with his new wife and adopted son.
Truly content for the first time in his life, Christian began to realize with sickening certainty that there was no Paradise to be had on the face of the earth. There was never a true balance between contentment of the soul and contentment of physical realities. Everything in life that was desired or needed had to be struggled for.
“What are you thinking?” Gaithlin’s sultry voice was quiet, deliciously soft.
Breaking from his train of thought, he smiled into her beautiful face. “Nothing of import,” he lied. “Shall we grind the flour? We can use the old pestle and stone we found buried with the other debris on the day of our arrival.”
She nodded, allowing him to lead her across the compound towards their shelter while against the tree, Malcolm picked mites off the ox’s thick skin. “Surely the village has a mill,” she said as he entered their shack in search of the necessary equipment. “Why don’t we pay them to grind our grain into flour?”
He shrugged. “We could, of course,” he knelt before their collection of supplies and equipment. “I purchased whole grain instead of unsifted flour because the grain can be used a variety of ways. However, I suppose we could delegate a good portion of the grain to be ground into flour. Providing we can keep it free of pests and vermin.”
Gaithlin watched him in the dimness of their hut, observing the muscles of his back flex beneath his thin tunic as her uncharacteristically dreamy thoughts drifted to the events of the previous day.
Their wedding night had been a peculiar quagmire of stolen kisses and desperate lust displayed in the midst of a common abbey room, certainly not an ideal situation for a newlywed couple. As Malcolm slept peacefully a few feet away, Gaithlin and Christian had lain awake most of the night, touching discreetly and struggling against their powerful passion.
Christian had even tried to recite passages of his own composition to her to further distract them from the ardor, but his literary talents had the opposite effect and only served to excite his wife further. Although he abruptly realized he had a powerful erotic tool in Gaithlin’s regard for his scholarly skill, it was with painful irony that he shut his mouth in favor of easing her passionate fire. Even when she begged for more, he refused to utter a sound and cursed himself for his damnable sense of self-control. Exceedingly misplaced on his wedding night, he mused bitterly.
Somewhere during the darkened hours, however, Gaithlin had eventually given up on her heated discomfort and drifted off into a fitful sleep. In spite of the three other occupants of the common room and Malcolm’s resting form nearby, she had nonetheless awoken before dawn to Christian’s mouth on her breast, stoking her dormant fires into instant blaze beneath the mounds of fur and woolens.
So much for her husband’s superior sense of self-control. Biting off her groans of pleasure, she had struggled to keep silent as his wicked mouth lapped her tender nipples while his thick fingers tenderly explored between her legs. Gaithlin had stifled her screams on the musty wool as he probed her with two fingers, stroking in and out of her glistening flesh as his teeth nibbled her tender breasts.
His eager attentions had proved to be too much for the eager new groom. He was far too overcome with his own insidious passion and regardless of their potential audience, was determined to make love to his new wife. Removing his experienced fingers, he had mounted her silently under the mounds of material, praying he would be able to control his vocal passions as he drove into her quivering flesh as discreetly as he could manage.
In faith, there was a distinct measure of excitement in making love to his wife in front of a host of sleeping travelers. Almost as if he was taunting the odds of discovery, enough to add an explicit measure of erotic thrill to their actions. Turning onto his side, he had pulled Gaithlin’s leg over his hip so that they were lying side-by-side as he continued his measured thrusts. Between the giggles of their wicked endeavor and the pants of their inherently lusty natures, both Christian and his new wife found their release within a matter of a few short moments. And Malcolm, as with the rest of the room, had slept through it.
Gazing at her husband’s rich honey-blond head as he rummaged through their possessions, Gaithlin could not help but smile at the thought of their marriage and subsequent wedding night. Of everything she ever imagined her union to be, it had thus far proven to be beyond the scope of her wildest dreams.
“We were terribly wicked last night,” she knelt beside him, her cheek on his shoulder and her fingers in his hair. “What do you suppose Lady Dervorgilla would have said to our tryst in the common room of her abbey?”
Christian snorted humorously as he located the mortar. “As if she has never done such a thing before,” he said patronizingly. “Surely she did not expect that I would wait to claim my wife until I had quit the walls of her pristine abbey.”
Gaithlin laughed softly, watching his silken hair as it poured through her fingers. He was so incredibly handsome. With a gentle sigh, she continued to play with his beautiful locks in the weak light. “Are you happy, Christian?”
He nodded as he came across the pestle. “Happier than I have ever been. And you?”
She sighed again, dreamily, as she continued to rake her fingers through his hair. “I have never known true happiness in my entire life. Now that I have come to know the feeling, I don’t ever want to be without it.”
He put the large flat stone and pestle to the floor, turning to pull his wife into his arms. Seated on his bottom, she straddled his lap with the greatest of pleasure and contentment.
“You won’t ever be without it,” he promised softly, watching her exquisite features as she toyed with his hair. “And I promise that you will never be without me.”
Fingering his silken locks, she met his ice-blue gaze. “But what of the Feud? You said that you planned to return immediately after our wedding to inform your father of your actions,” sighing pensively, she wound her arms possessively around his thick neck. “I am frightened, Christian. Frightened of what he might do to you in his anger.”
Thoughts and suspicions Christian had been wrestling with for days. But he could not allow her to see the true extent of his concern; for her own sake, she had to believe that the situation was not as bad as Christian believed it to be.
“You mustn’t worry,” he forced a smile. “My father will see reason. As will your mother.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “I have inherited my stubborn nature from my mother. Mayhap she won�
��t be reasonable after all.”
He made a face. “Good Christ, if she is anything like you, then I have no doubt that I shall have to beat her into submission.” When Gaithlin laughed softly in agreement, he kissed her beautiful teeth impulsively. “Not to worry, honey. I shall return you to Winding Cross before making my trek back to Eden to tell my father what I have done. You will be safe within the walls of your own keep while I force my father to come to reason.”
Her smile faded as she gazed wistfully into his magnificent face. “But what if he doesn’t come to reason, Christian. What then?”
His smile faded as well. “Then we shall flee to a safe haven. Some place where the St. Johns and the de Gares can never harm us again.”
As the uncertain future became a bit clearer, Gaithlin seemed to relax somewhat. It was obvious that she trusted him implicitly and for that, he was deeply grateful. He needed the support of her trust.
“As you say,” she said, pulling his face into the crook of her neck. Although her body conveyed nothing but calm, resigned trust, the expression illuminated by the weak light was distinctly apprehensive. Even if Christian was convinced that there was naught to worry over, she couldn’t seem to help her deep-rooted apprehension. “Mayhap we shall return to Scotland to live. I love it here.”
He squeezed her tightly, smelling her delicious skin and savoring the feel of her exquisite body against him. Straddled over his thighs and groin, it was inevitable that her position should wreak a measure of distracting eroticism into his preoccupied mind and he growled softly, running a huge hand down her torso as his concerns and anxieties faded for the moment. Grazing the side of her breast with his tender touch, he moved down her waist and began to fumble with her skirts.
She melted against his touch, succumbing to him instantly. He managed to maneuver his way amongst the yards of fabric and drag his palm up her long, silken thigh in search of his true goal. Focusing on the wet heat beckoning his eager fingers, Christian sank his teeth deep into his wife’s neck when she groaned softly in response to his probing touch.
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