by Tessa Murran
***
When she awoke in the morning, it was to find Cormac’s side of the bed cold and empty. She went outside to look for him, with childish eagerness.
She spotted him by the stables, talking to Ramsay and running his hand down a horse’s smooth flank. How very handsome he looked in the dawn light, and how gentle his hands on that horse, as they had been with her sometimes.
‘Cormac,’ she called out.
He looked up and stared at her for the longest time, and then nodded, with a hard look on his face.
Her eye caught Ramsay’s as he walked toward her, and there was a big smirk on his face. He mouthed the word ‘whore’ at her as he passed.
Ravenna swallowed hard. Cormac continued with his inspection of the horse without looking at her. Why this abrupt change in his demeanour, this indifference?
‘Did you not want to stay abed a while and rest, on this cold morning?’ she said to him.
‘Rest? How can I rest, Ravenna, when Ramsay just told me we have a spy in our midst.’
Ravenna pulled her cloak around her as the wind took it and something icy gripped her heart. ‘How did he…?
‘He’s had a suspicion for some time that our movements are being watched and reported on. Do you have anything to share with me, Ravenna?’
Nausea swept through her and, for an instant, she almost fainted. ‘So, you think that it is me, the spy?’
‘I don’t know what to think. Ramsay has warned me to keep an eye on you, and it’s not as if anyone ever trusted this truce with Baodan.’ Cormac ran his hands slowly down the horse’s side, big hands, so gentle now, but capable of choking the life out of her in an instant. ‘You know I was married before, Ravenna? Her name was Alain, and she was soft and kind.’
‘And you think me hard and cold,’ she spat.
‘I think there is a part of you, Ravenna that is as icy and dark as the bottomless depths of a loch.’ Cormac gave her a withering look. ‘Between me and Alain ‘twas no great passion, but there was loyalty and some kindness. I could at least count on that.’
‘And for us, there is only bitterness and mistrust,’ said Ravenna. Her voice came out as a sob. ‘Your wife is a ghost, but I am blood and bone and living, and you can’t make room in your heart for me, just a little?’
‘On the day she died, I cursed God and what he had taken from me, and he cursed me back. From that day on, I have not felt anything for any woman and I won’t for you. I will not allow it.’
‘Why take me to your bed then?
‘Lust, and a desperate kind of wanting. I am ashamed of it, for with my first wife, I never felt it, but with you, dark and conniving as you are, I feel it savagely. Sometimes I think you are Lucifer’s own daughter come to drag me down into hell. I shouldn’t want you, but I do, I should be indifferent to you, and yet I am not. You burrow into my mind Ravenna, like a worm into an apple.’
‘If you have an ungodly appetite for me, then that is your sin, not mine. I did not expect your affection, nor have I sought it. You are to blame for what is between us, not me, and you must live with it.’
‘And, are you a spy Ravenna?’
‘No, I am not.’
‘I hope for your sake that’s true because whoever it is, when I find them, I will kill them.’
Ravenna never thought she would miss the convent. It had been a cold, harsh place, but it was nothing compared to the soul of Cormac Buchanan.
Chapter Sixteen
A soft breeze lifted Ravenna’s dark hair around her face as she strode back through the fields hand in hand with Morna. All around them, came the soft bleating of fat lambs, suckling greedily on their mother’s teats, plump tails wiggling back and forth. The hedgerows were bursting into life now spring had warmed to summer. They had walked for hours along the banks of the river but it was getting close to dusk so, reluctantly, their feet had turned to home.
Ravenna was keen to escape Beharra and Cormac’s dark moods. Since his return, and his father’s death, he was withdrawn. His flinty gaze seemed to light on her with constant disapproval. He had not tried to make love to her since that drunken night, though they still shared a bed, and when he rode out of Beharra, he never bothered to take his leave of her. Often she would wake to find him long gone.
His indifference was surprisingly frustrating and hurtful. Ravenna wondered if he had decided she was the spy, and she worried about what poison Ramsay whispered in his ear. Or maybe Cormac was struggling with himself, as she struggled, with her own guilt. Neither was supposed to want the other, but her body would not be denied. Was it the same for Cormac?
Beharra was a bustle of activity as they strode in through the gates. There was a big bonfire lit in an open space in the middle of the yard, and a boar carcass was being hoisted on a spit over it. People were gathering with excitement and anticipation. Beyond it, Cormac was with a group of men repairing a dry stone wall. He was handing up rocks to them, flipping them up and holding them against his chest, arms straining with the weight.
He glanced over and stopped. There it was again, that hard penetrating look. Ravenna could not seem to pull free of it. If he’d had a softer countenance, that dark face of his would be very handsome indeed, and she wondered what it would feel like, to have such a man look on her with affection and admiration.
‘Who are these ravishing beauties I see before me?’ shouted a warm voice from across the yard.
‘Lyall, I thought you would never return,’ squealed Morna in delight, and suddenly she was in his arms, hugging him so tight Ravenna thought he might break. ‘Where have you been, brother?’
‘Here and there, I needed solitude for a while. But I am back now, that is what matters. You got fatter, Morna.’
‘No, I did not!’
Indeed Morna had started to fill out here and there, as young girls do as they go from caterpillars to butterflies. She now had a woman’s curves, and her tunic had become tight across the swell of her breasts.
Lyall turned his handsome face to her. ‘How fare you Ravenna? Are you managing to tolerate my gloomy brother?’
His high spirits seemed forced. In his eyes, there was a kind of desolation.
‘I do my best, but it is no easy task.’ She looked at Lyall steadily, and he turned back to Morna.
‘Well, be of good cheer, for Cormac has laid on a feast for my return, and to celebrate the coming of summer. I intend to gorge and drink and debauch myself into a stupor. See, already the fire is underway, and I have told old Magnus to play his fiddle for us. We will have music and food and dance a jig under the stars. So I am off to find out where Cormac’s has hidden his wine and if I can’t find that, a flagon of ale will do.’ He kissed the top of Morna’s head and hurried off.
Morna gave Ravenna a big grin. ‘Can you help me do my hair up? I want to look bonnie.’
‘I will be along presently, Morna. Run on inside and wash your face and hands.’
Across the yard, Cormac was still staring at her. Ravenna gave him a hesitant smile back, but his scowl did not soften, so she dropped her eyes and hurried inside.
***
The night sky was clear and starry. The mouth-watering smell of roast meat filled the yard, the fatty skin on the carcass now blistering and crackling from the heat of the flames. Cormac noticed that Ravenna stood apart from the others, watching their revels from a quiet corner. She snuggled deep into the fur collar of her cloak, as she was a good way from the fire. Old Magnus, one-eyed and decrepit, was playing his fiddle with as much gusto as age and infirmity would allow, and his clansmen were dancing around the fire. Already many of them were well in their cups as the ale had flowed freely.
A little too freely, in Lyall’s case, as he was already lurching about the place, drunk as a lord, begging kisses from some of the bolder women at Beharra. Cormac was pleased to see him in good cheer. He had suffered at Roxburgh, his stout heart had been confronted with the realities of siege warfare, death and suffering, and he had come home to the lo
ss of their father. It would be a while before his brother was himself again.
He watched as some of the men went up to Ravenna, holding up their cups and smiling. They were surely complimenting her on the ale, which was sweet and potent. He noticed they did not stay to talk long, hastening away, as if it embarrassed them to give their approval. Nevertheless, it pleased him to see Ravenna receive some appreciation for her efforts. She was slowly being accepted into Clan Buchanan, as she was slowly worming her way into his heart.
A cold thought slid into his mind. Ramsay suspected there was a spy in their midst and he believed it was Ravenna. His taskman had made no attempt to hide his contempt of Ravenna since the day he had met her. He could never forgive her for being a bastard and wed to his Lord. The man looked for danger everywhere, and Cormac swore he slept with one eye open, but he was loyal to a fault, and Cormac trusted Ramsay’s instincts.
So, since his accusation, Cormac had kept Ravenna at arm’s length. When he had confronted her about being a spy, all the colour had drained out of her face. Nevertheless, he could not accept that she would betray him. She had been as much a victim of her father’s malice as his own clansmen, and she had not wanted to wed him any more than he wanted her. But the attempt on his life on the road back from Roxburgh had made Cormac watch his back, and so he was also watching Ravenna, looking for signs of treachery and hoping to God he didn’t find any. If he did, he had no idea what he was going to do about it.
All his life, he had been waiting for someone to light a fire in his heart. Why did it have to be Ravenna? Why did it have to be someone he could not trust? Why did it have to be a Gowan girl who made him burn with desire?
A group of young girls, with Morna at its head, dragged Ravenna by her arm, cajoling her to join in the dance. At first she refused, glancing his way and hesitating, but, as usual, his sister would get her way. He watched, as Ravenna cast off her heavy cloak and approached the flames.
At first, she seemed awkward, but slowly she started to move her body in time to the scrape of the fiddle. The young girls joined hands, and they all looked so fresh and clean and lovely in their beauty, so soft and rounded and fertile, that he could not help but smile to himself. Ravenna grew bolder as she danced and soon she was swirling around the flames, swinging her hips, twirling round and round, hair loose and flowing, bright with ribbons woven into it.
The firelight flickering over her pale face set her eyes to blazing. She looked lustful, and unrestrained, aching with sin, and then she smiled, with some kind of simple joy. Her face changed and became girlish, and something vulnerable was there, for the first time. Cormac saw her then as just a soft and sultry woman, one he wanted underneath him, one he wanted to master, one he ached to have. She belonged to him, so why not take what was his? All the other women faded away. It was as if Saint Brigid herself, saint of fertility, took hold of Ravenna. She was ripe and pagan, and she may well be a she-devil tempting him into hell, but oh, how he longed to walk into its flames.
He pushed himself off the wall and made his way through the throng. The fire warmed his face as he got closer, and when Ravenna whirled past him, he grabbed her hand. She stopped, and suddenly they were facing each other. Her face was pink from the heat, lips ripe and red, her chest heaving with her exertions. Cormac wanted his mouth all over those lips, to taste all of her. Ravenna stared at him boldly. If his need showed in his eyes, then it was mirrored in hers. Whether it was the ale or the firelight, something wild and lustful had been brought to life between them.
Ravenna did not resist, as he led her away from the others, back to the entrance to the keep. Cormac did not know why she went with him, and he did not care.
Loud noises of revelry and laughter came from within, so, instead of going inside, he walked on and pulled her down the steps leading into the darkness of the castle’s undercroft. The firelight from outside filtered in through the shutters and, in a hidden corner, full of dancing shadows, he pushed Ravenna up against the wall.
‘I brewed the ale too strong, for I feel a little dizzy with it,’ she said, catching her breath as he brought his face close to hers.
‘Hold on to me then,’ he said, tightening his grip.
She bit her lip and his cock thickened.
‘You should have not danced for me like that,’ he said, in a voice thick with lust.
‘I didn’t dance for you, and I never will,’ the words were harsh, but her tone was not.
‘Are you sure, Ravenna?’
‘Would you punish me for it then?’
‘Aye, I’ll punish you alright,’ he snarled, taking her face in both hands.
‘You should leave me well alone. Those who go to too close to the flames get burnt.’
‘Aye, I’m burning alright, with wanting you, woman.’
‘You should leave me be, Cormac.’
‘I will if you swear you don’t want me.’
She stared at him for the longest time while he held his breath.
‘You can’t can you? You feel it too, Ravenna, and it tortures you, as it does me.’
‘Yes,’ she gasped.
Cormac was all over her then, his mouth crushing hers as she clutched at his shoulders, her fingers digging into his hair. As he kissed her, she took hold of his lip with her teeth, and he groaned and undid his braies. Her fingers found him, down there, so cold they made him suck in his breath. He lifted her tunic up to her waist. Cormac put his knee between her legs and spread them, grabbing hold of one and lifting it high around his waist, so that she was laid open for him. He smiled to himself when his fingers stroked the soft hair at the centre of her, where he found she was warm and slick, more than ready for him, gasping at his touch. He could not wait. He positioned himself at the entrance to her body and thrust into her.
‘I have such a hunger for you Ravenna. It rages inside of me,’ he gasped, pushing her up against the wall.
‘Have me then,’ she gasped. ‘Have all of me.’
Gods, how he wanted her. He lifted up her other leg up, his hands around her bottom, pinning her to him and up against the wall. When she locked her legs around his back, he knew she wanted him as much as he wanted her. There were no words between them, just a savage need to take and be taken. The smell of smoke from the bonfire drifted inside and mingled with the sweetness of her hair falling against his face in a dark cloud. It smelled of grass and heat and summer flowers. Cormac sank his teeth into the softness at the nape of her neck, as her moans of pleasure turned to cries of ecstasy.
Drunk on ale and lust, Cormac ground into her, trying to delay his pleasure so that she took hers. Just as he could hold back no longer, Ravenna arched her back and threw back her head, her belly and breasts pressed hard against him. He felt her tighten around him as his own growl of pleasure was lost over the sound of music and revellers outside.
As his breathing calmed, she took his face gently in her hands and kissed him, and Cormac sank his head to her breast, hearing the rapid thud of her heart against his cheek. He gently let her down and pulled down her clothes. She would not look at him.
‘Ravenna…I…’
‘Don’t say anything. Don’t bark at me and tell me I have shamed myself, I cannot bear it.’
‘I was going to say no such thing. I was going to ask if you felt what I felt, as we joined together.’
‘I did feel it, but I should go now.’ Her words sounded thick, as if they were full of tears.
‘No, stay with me, we will go out to the fire, with the others, and enjoy this eve together as if I am not a Buchanan and you are not a Gowan, as if there is no bitter past driving a wedge between us. I want to be as a man and wife should be. I want to be gentle with you, Ravenna.’
She looked down at the floor. ‘Alright, I would like that,’ she said.
‘I should go first, and then you join me, to spare your blushes. If we go out together, people will know what we have been about.’
‘Are you ashamed of it?’ she whispered.
‘That wasn’t exactly bedding me, was it?’
He laughed. ‘Go and get warm by the fire and I will be out soon, once this bulge dies down.’
‘Oh, I see.’ She smiled and hesitantly went on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. Weaving slightly, from lust or drink, he could not tell, she headed outside.
When Cormac joined her a little later, she was watching on, as the most foolish of his clansmen braved the tradition of jumping over the remnants of the bonfire. Some ended up singed, to the great amusement of the onlookers.
Ravenna had a soft smile on her face and, for a moment, he just looked at her. How could he ever have thought of his wife as merely bonnie? She was so much more than that. Was he blinded by lust? Was he not seeing her properly?
He went to stand beside her, their shoulders touching just a little, and it was as if there was an invisible cord pulling them together. He felt at one with someone, for the first time in a long time.
Cormac saw Lyall swerving towards him, stopping now and then to kiss a buxom blonde woman he was dragging in his wake. She was well known for being a trollop, but who was he to judge?
His brother lurched up to him and slurred, ‘I’m off to tuck this beauty into her bed…or mine if she likes.’
The girl giggled and kissed Lyall again.
‘I will bid you goodnight then, brother.’
‘Aye, goodnight, Cormac.’
As the pair walked away, Cormac shouted after him. ‘Lyall, you are in your cups, so for God’s sake be careful, you don’t want to be whelping a bastard on her.’ The words were out before he could stop himself. He turned to Ravenna, and her face was stricken. He had not meant anything by it, so why had he said it? What kind of cruel fool was he?
‘Ravenna forgive me, that was not well said.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘you are right, no one wants a bastard to drag through life as their shame, something base and low-born and reeking of their sins.’
‘You know I didn’t mean it like that.’
