Bride for a Knight

by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

His private lair and love nest.

  The scene, Aveline was certain, of many heated embraces and other lascivious delights. Kendrick’s bed-sporting exploits were legion, though a thoughtful soul might credit some of the wilder tales to hopeful female hearts.

  Boastful female hearts, she suspected.

  In truth, Kendrick could ne’er possibly have bedded all the lasses who claimed they’d enjoyed his favor. And ne’er had she actually encountered one of the countless bastards he’d supposedly sired throughout the neighboring hills and glens.

  A great red-haired giant, though not quite as big as Jamie, Kendrick’s twinkling blue eyes and his quick-flashing smile could bedazzle at a glance. And if his high good looks weren’t enough, he’d possessed a merry tongue and a soft Highland voice almost too beautiful for a man this side of heaven.

  Aveline shivered, the image of Jamie’s roguish brother having his way with angels almost making her smile, had it not been so sad.

  He ought to be here still, wooing and winning living hearts.

  Ravishing byre maids and knights’ daughters alike, whisking them away to his high-towered love lair and filling hours with naught but laughter, song, and uninhibited carnal bliss.

  The deliciously decadent kind as hinted by the naked images painted into the innocent-seeming pastoral scene gracing Kendrick’s window shutters.

  At first glance, it seemed a tranquil woodland landscape filled with mythical creatures and a fanciful distant castle. A closer inspection showed unclothed wood and water nymphs in a variety of suggestive poses, some even attended by handsome knights in equal states of dishabille.

  Aveline shivered again, seeing the painted images as clearly as if she were standing in front of the shutters and examining them. An undertaking she’d already allowed herself, carefully inspecting each and every depicted pair until the possibilities were emblazoned across her mind.

  Erotic possibilities.

  Images of lust and bared flesh, limbs entwined and handsome faces awash with rapture. She just hoped her joinings with Jamie would be as joyous.

  Willing it so, she pressed a hand to her breast, trying to steady her breathing, the thrilling sensations that spun through her each time she imagined herself and Jamie as one of the mythic pairs depicted on the shutters.

  Ach, to be sure, Kendrick’s bedchamber revealed a man who’d savored his sensual pleasures. And this night, she hoped, he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed his love nest for her own.

  A step she’d already taken in ordering a bath for Jamie, then setting out and lighting her finest beeswax candles. Aveline smiled and smoothed her hair. Faith, she’d even tossed a handful of pleasantly aromatic herbs onto the hearth fire. Preparations she’d finalized when she’d bolted the door behind the retreating army of kitchen lads who’d carried up a seemingly endless supply of steaming water pails.

  She looked again at the heavy oaken door and the sturdy drawbar now slid so soundly into its socket inside the wall. The bolted door was more than just a shielding barrier for their privacy: it was a tangible sign of her new life. The happy and fulfilling existence she meant to seize for herself as James Macpherson’s bride.

  His soon-to-be wife.

  And in every conceivable way.

  Aveline drew a deep breath. His notions about hurting her were absurd. Even innocent, she knew that nary a child would be born if a woman weren’t capable of stretching enough to let the babe slide out of her.

  No matter James of the Heather’s great size, she doubted his manhood was larger than any smiling, gurgling bairn she’d e’er bounced on her knee. And with so many married sisters, she’d seen her share of newborn babes.

  She just needed to convince Jamie that if bairns can come out of a woman, a man’s privy part will surely always fit in.

  To that end, she completed the reason she’d kept her back to him so long, pretending she was waiting until the last of the kitchen lads’ loud, pail-clattering descent faded from the stair tower.

  In truth, she used the time to undo her stays and laces. Taking her lower lip between her teeth, she mustered her courage and then let her gown slip to the floor.

  Jamie’s sharp indrawn breath from somewhere behind her, marked her victory.

  Her next triumph would come when she turned around and he glimpsed her standing before him wearing nothing but her near-transparent undershift.

  And, she hoped, a seductive smile.

  A look bold enough to rouse and excite him, tempting him into forgetting the night’s horrors and thinking only of the pleasure she wished to give him.

  But if his eyes narrowed or clouded with disappointment, she’d retrieve her gown and re-don it. Then she’d bathe him as chastely as she’d tended the worthies who’d visited Fairmaiden Castle.

  “They are gone,” she said, referring to the kitchen lads and their racket. “And you, my lord, shall now be treated to a bath like no other,” she added, turning at last.

  Her pulse quickening at her daring, she eased down the straps of her shift, gently lowering the top piece until her breasts were fully uncovered.

  Jamie’s brows shot upward and his breath snagged in his throat. His reaction seemed to please her for she made no move to cover herself. She simply stood where she was, her shift falling loosely around her hips and her breasts delightfully bared.

  And, he saw at once, not just her sweet, rose-tipped breasts. Through the thin cloth of her camise, he could also make out the silky curls of her woman’s mound, a tempting triangular shadow just topping her thighs.

  “Holy saints.” He knew he was staring, but couldn’t stop. “Sweet lass, do you ken I can see all of you?”

  “To be sure, I know.” She looked at him, her chin lifting. “Would I have undressed for your bath if I meant to keep myself covered?”

  Jamie hesitated, an unpleasant thought stealing into his mind.

  Saints, now he was the jealous one.

  “Did you bathe your father’s friends thusly?” he asked, damning the question, but needing to know.

  She shook her head. “Nay, I was e’er fully clothed when seeing to the comforts of Fairmaiden guests.”

  “I am glad,” Jamie admitted, his relief almost a living thing.

  Humbling, too, for its portent. Truth was, he’d often lain with Gunna of the Glen on a pallet still warmed by another man’s rutting. Yet all he’d cared about was taking his ease.

  Aveline was different.

  He wanted her body, aye. But more than that he wanted her companionship and caring, her wit and intelligence. The way she could make him laugh. Her appreciation for the beauty of the great hills and moors they called their own. The respect she’d displayed for the Old Ones and the ancient ways by bathing naked at a sacred well, garbed in naught but her unbound hair and the silver of the moon.

  Her kindness to his father and Hughie Mac touched him, too. As did the softness that came into her eyes when she knew he was missing his brothers.

  And though he’d ne’er admit it, he loved the way she passed the best tidbits from her supper trencher to Cuillin or whate’er other castle dogs might come nosing up to her for a handout.

  Jamie drew a deep breath, astounded by the clutch she already had on him.

  As if she guessed his thoughts, she glanced at her naked breasts and then back at him, suddenly looking shy. But she recovered as quickly, sending him a bright, dimpling smile.

  Stepping closer to the bathing tub, she swirled a finger in the steaming water, then turned away to fill a small earthenware bowl with violet-scented oil, carefully placing the bowl near the hissing, red-glowing charcoal brazier.

  “Hot scented oil for after I’ve bathed you,” she told him, moving to the tub again. “That, and more.”

  “More?”

  “You will see.” She drew up a low three-legged stool and placed a small jar of soap and washing cloths onto its seat. “But first, I must see you. Out of your clothes and into the water.”

  Jamie nodded, but he still
wasn’t certain he wanted her to see him at all. It was one thing for her to be daring so long as his clothes hid the dangers, and quite something else for her to actually see that danger hanging heavy between his thighs, long, thick, and swaying.

  Blessedly, he was still relaxed, but staying that way was proving a ferocious struggle.

  Jamie frowned.

  Aveline dipped her fingers into the bathwater again, watching him. “You were about to show yourself to me when Morag came abovestairs,” she reminded him.

  “Sweet lass, this has naught to do with removing my clothes.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I am trying not to run hard, is what I’m doing. Think you I can get naked and into that tub, have you touching me intimately, and not wish to touch you in a like manner?”

  She smiled. “Then do.”

  “I can hardly breathe for wanting you and—” He looked at her, his jaw slipping. “What did you say?”

  She studied him, her lovely face turning serious. “You did say we are so good as legally wed, did you not? That because of our plight troth anything we do isn’t a sin?”

  Jamie nodded, unable to deny his own words, or the truth of them. Leastways to his way of looking at things.

  Such as his conviction that she was his the instant he’d seen her gliding through that moonlit glade near Hughie Mac’s cottage.

  Or that he’d been hers since that moment.

  And anyway, come the spring, they would be man and wife in truth. Their union blessed and sanctioned by man, Church, and God. Until then, he’d personally slay anyone who dared try to come between them.

  Be it man, dragon, or bogle.

  Especially bogles. Wing-backed and haloed, ring-tailed or horned. He’d have done with whate’er variation of the beasties cared to come at him.

  She tapped his chest, looking pleased. “Then,” she said, a dimple flashing in her cheek, “if you agree that we are as good as wed, get in yon tub and let us see what happens!”

  Jamie groaned. She was the one who needed to be worrying about what would happen. He could already feel what was happening.

  Or rather, what was stirring.

  But it couldn’t be helped. Not with her rosy nipples so tight and thrusting, and her perfect little breasts jiggling so delightfully each time she swirled her fingers through his bathing water.

  So he made short work of sword belt and clothes, tossing off every last stitch with a speed that would serve him wonders if he could duplicate it on a field of battle.

  Full naked, he fair leapt into the tub. But not so quickly that he hadn’t seen her eyes widen in shock, the look of horror that flashed across her beautiful face.

  Jamie’s heart sank.

  She clapped her hands to her cheeks and stared down at him.

  “Dear saints in heaven,” she gasped, shaking her head. “You—”

  “I tried to warn you,” Jamie said, his world tipping, narrowing to her stunned face and the tears suddenly glinting on her fine, gold-tipped lashes.

  He sank down into the heated water, damning his uncommon height, his over-long legs that made it impossible to scrunch himself deep enough into the wooden tub to hide what he’d known would shock and scare her.

  And it had.

  Horror stood all o’er her and he wouldn’t blame her if she fainted away in a swoon. Or crossed herself and ran screaming from the room.

  Frowning, he grabbed a washing cloth and used it to cover himself. “Sweet lass, please dinna fret,” he said, searching for the right words. “I’ve told you, I will ne’er hurt you. There are ways—”

  “Och, Jamie!” She dropped to her knees beside the tub and flung her arms around his neck, kissing him everywhere. His lips, his temples and brow, his eyelids and ears, even his nose. “Jamie, Jamie, ’tis not your size that shocked me,” she said, grabbing his face between her hands, her tears spilling freely now. “I knew to expect that, and am thrilled and excited to explore you most thoroughly!”

  Jamie blinked.

  His heart split wide and blinding heat slammed into the backs of his eyes. “By the Rood,” he managed, pushing the words past the thickness in his throat, “then whate’er made you go so pale?”

  “This.” She thrust her arm into the tub and ran her fingers down his hip and farther until she reached the long puckered scar marring the outside of his left thigh. “You ne’er told me you’ve had a wound seared. It grieved me to see the scar after what happened tonight.”

  “Ach, lass.” Jamie leaned back against the linen-padded rim of the tub. “The scar is one I brought back from Crossgate Moor,” he said, blowing out a breath, wishing one great gusty sigh could banish the images of Neville’s Cross and its arrow storm of English longbows.

  The shattering defeat and the incredible blow of Scotland’s young King David being captured and taken prisoner from right beneath the noses of the realm’s greatest nobility. And none of them able to do aught but look on in appalled horror as the English routed and slaughtered them, then plucked their hiding king from beneath the span of a bridge.

  Shuddering at the memory, Jamie reached for his bride’s hand, kissing her fingers one by one, the soft, silky warmth of her inner wrist.

  And as he’d hoped, the sweetness of her smooth, white skin helped chase away the shadow images of angry and torn flesh, bright red and streaming. Or cold and gray, once death claimed the countless poor souls who’d left their lives on that devil-damned Sassunach bog.

  “I’d forgotten you were with the king at Neville’s Cross,” she said, her expression pensive.

  Jamie shrugged. “Compared to most, I came away unscathed,” he said, truly believing it. “What saved me was the good fortune of riding with Robert, the High Steward. He commanded the left of the field and we fared better than most, having the luck of more stable terrain to fight on. Even so, we were still unable to stop King David’s capture.”

  He looked down at his scar, then back at her. “After the carnage I saw that day, I can ne’er think of myself as having even been wounded in the fray. Truth be told, I canna even recall the moment it happened.”

  “I am glad.” She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him, and this time her kiss was leisurely, soft and sweet, and full on the lips.

  When at last she eased back, she smoothed her hand down his cheek. “It is best not to dwell on painful things we cannot undo or change. God was kind in letting you forget.”

  “Ah, but I do remember the searing,” Jamie admitted, her caress already taking his mind elsewhere. “’Tis why it grieved me to brand my own da. I knew the pain I’d be giving him.”

  “You also gave him life, did you not?” Aveline stood. “I vow he will be right pleased about that when he comes to his senses again.”

  To her surprise, Jamie laughed. “Not pleased enough to apologize to Lady Juliana and Morag for threatening them with his sword, I’ll wager!”

  Smiling back at him, Aveline leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Then I shall apologize to you for looking so shocked upon seeing your scar and making you think the reason was otherwise.”

  He cocked a brow. “You truly are not frightened by that particular ‘otherwise’?”

  “Frightened?” Aveline dipped one of the washing cloths into the little jar of soap and began to scrub his shoulders. “My only fear is that you might withhold yourself from me and”—her gaze slid to Kendrick’s painted window shutters—“I find myself eager to share pleasure with you.”

  “Eager enough to remove your shift and join me in this tub?” He arched a brow at her again, the simmering heat in his eyes and the way his voice deepened sending delicious thrills all through her.

  Making it impossible to say no.

  “O-o-oh, aye,” she agreed, already reaching to shove down the camise.

  But he shot out a hand, strong fingers encircling her wrist. “After you’ve finished bathing me,” he said, flashing a wolfish grin.

  “Of course,” Aveline agreed, slipping away to fetch a flagon o
f sweet, spiced wine.

  Returning to the tub, she handed him a filled chalice, watching as he sipped. Two heavy wax candles burned on a nearby table and the bright flames illuminated his naked body, casting an alluring pattern of flickering light and shadow across his broad shoulders and back.

  Rivulets of water trickled down his chest and she followed their path, admiring the fine glint of his chest hair and how some of the droplets caught there, clinging to the smattering of wiry red-gold hairs and hovering like glittery little diamonds before breaking free and rolling lower.

  Her gaze drifted lower, too, but this time he smiled and made no attempt to hide himself. Or his pleasure. The steadily increasing beat of the pulse in his throat bespoke his excitement, as did the rise of his maleness.

  An answering pulse quickened inside her. Her heart thumping, she dipped her hand deeper beneath the water, letting her fingers glide across and then tangle in the thick coppery curls springing at his loins.

  Her own loins went molten at the intimacy, especially when the backs of her fingers brushed against the smooth, silky skin of his thick, swollen shaft.

  Aveline’s breath caught and her hand froze, her fingers curling deeper into his nether curls as his manhood twitched and jerked against her. And though she could scarce believe it, swelled and lengthened even more.

  “Dear saints,” she whispered, looking down at the large, plum-sized head. Jutting well above the still-steaming water, a tiny glistening droplet of moisture appeared on its tip. Dewing moisture she knew had naught to do with the water droplets trickling down his chest.

  She swallowed and wet her lips, fascinated. Aching to stroke and fondle him, yet too awed to touch such magnificent male perfection.

  He must’ve sensed her hesitation, for he shifted in the tub, opening his thighs a bit more to give her a better view. Or greater access. Tingly heat swept her at either notion. Nay, he was definitely not hiding himself now.

  Not that he should.

  She was quite sure he was the most beautifully made man she’d ever seen.

  Watching her, he reached to capture a loose tendril of her hair, curling it slowly around his finger. “Touch me,” he said, firelight reflecting off his own vibrant, auburn hair. “I’d meant to wait, would’ve abstained totally—or tried! But it is too late, sweetness.”