by Amanda Scott
Looking up again, she whispered, “Kiss me.”
He felt himself stir again and knew that she must feel it, too.
“Is it wrong to kiss me now, after such a horror?” she asked.
“Nay, lass; it is natural for two people who care about each other to want to be together at such a time.” He watched her eyes widen and her pupils grow even larger and darker than they had been before. Then he pressed his lips to hers.
She responded hungrily, opening her mouth to his searching tongue. Her body responded as well, tantalizing him more, as his fingers and hands caressed her.
“I do want you so much,” he murmured.
“Me, too,” she whispered against his lips.
“I meant to tell you so tonight,” he said, straightening. “Before we left, I went upstairs to find you, to tell you, but you and Nan had gone.”
“Don’t talk; kiss me.”
“Sweetheart, I want to do so much more than kiss you,” he said. “I want to claim you as mine forever, to marry you. We should wait and—”
“But I don’t want to wait,” she said. “I want you now. I might never have seen you again after tonight. And Archie could take you away tomorrow.”
“Nay, he will not. It will take time for the English to recover from their losses tonight, and Northumberland will be as sure as I am that the Douglas and March will join Archie. I ken fine that you want to be sure this time, sweetheart.”
“I am sure, if you are. But it takes weeks to get married.”
“Nay, I know the priest at Annan Kirk. We can wake him if he’s asleep.”
“Tonight?”
“Aye, sure, tonight if that is what you want. If you think your sister would not object, we can stay at Annan House tonight and ride back in the morning.”
“I don’t want to plan, Dickon, or wait. It is not as if I were a maiden, after all. I want you to make love to me. Now.”
He held her close again. The clearing was softly warm, the murmuring water soothing to nerves still taut from battle. When she tilted her head up again, he kissed her hard and let his hands roam over her body, encouraging her to do likewise to him.
“Art sure about this, Fiona-love?”
“Aye, more sure than I’ve been about anything in my life before now.”
They spread her cloak on the ground and lay down together. He rose on an elbow to look down at her, and his cock stirred sharply when she smiled up at him.
Her gaze was warm and unwavering. Her lips, when he reclaimed them, were soft and swollen and moist. Her darting tongue teased his. His fingers and palms caressed her breasts, soft yet firm, then moved to her bodice laces and deftly unlaced her. The silk ribbons of her thin cambric shift parted easily next, and its neckline opened wide, revealing the silken, rosy-tipped mounds beneath.
Her nipples were hard, and she gasped when his fingers touched them, and then moaned when he took each one between his lips and laved it with his tongue. Tasting her milk, he tasted again. “I could envy wee David,” he murmured.
“You need not,” she murmured back. “They are aching, overfull.”
Her fingers touched the flap of his breeks, unfastened it, and touched him.
“You’re not cold, are you?” he murmured.
She chuckled, a sound as soothing to him as the burn’s murmurs and intensely stimulating, as well.
After a time, he moved over her and eased her skirt and underskirt up past her knees and soft, silky thighs until his palm could cup the parting of her legs and the velvety cleft it hid. His fingers explored it, finding it moist and eager for him. Easing his way, he gently inserted himself as she shifted to welcome him. He felt himself sliding into her warmth, and when he was fully inside, he kissed her again.
A small sob made him draw back to let the moonlight touch her face. To his dismay, it revealed the glint of moisture in her eyes.
“Fiona-love, what is it?”
“’Tis naught, but I’ve felt so alone for so long,” she murmured as her watery gaze met his. “I did not realize until now how lonely I’ve felt.”
“Ah, well,” he said, kissing her again, “you are not alone anymore. We’re together now, love, and I mean to see that we stay that way.”
With that, Dickon eased almost out of her and back in, beginning a gentle rhythm that teased and delighted her. Never had she felt such sensations before.
Will’s notion of coupling had centered on Will, and except for the first time, when he had given her a chance to accustom herself, first to his touch and then to his entry, it had always been quick, hard, and over as soon as he’d spent himself.
Dickon moved slowly, gently, and seemed more interested in her reactions than in his. If anything, he was holding himself back to give her pleasure, and his efforts were highly successful, because she felt as if every nerve in her was alert and responsive to the increasing pace of his movements.
Heat built within her to such an extent that her body seemed to take on fiery life of its own, arcing to meet his. So focused was she on every nuance of feeling that came from hitherto unknown depths in her that it was as well that Dickon asked nothing of her but to savor each new sensation.
Her body began pushing harder against his as the sensations grew more and more intense. Then, suddenly and without thought or intention, she arched and held herself, soaring higher until she thought she could bear no more. Release came just as abruptly but pulsed outward from the very center of her in waves of pure delight.
“Laird, laird, be that ye and our lady down there?”
The boyish shout from the top of the rise startled them both.
“God-a-mercy!” Fiona exclaimed, gasping, feeling the fur-lined cloak and firm ground again beneath her, and struggling to reclaim her wits. “That’s Davy!”
Dickon did not stop. The pace of his actions increased until she realized he could not stop. Seconds later, he collapsed atop her, gasping as hard as she had.
“Laird?”
The boy was closer. Fiona could hear his horse’s hoofbeats.
Dickon heard them, too, for he rolled lithely off her and onto his feet in what seemed to be a single motion, one hand flipping her skirts back over her legs as his other first tugged to straighten his breeks and then moved to the flap to refasten it.
Grinning at him as she sat up, Fiona said, “You do that as if you have had much practice, sir.”
His eyes twinkled. “Think what you like, lass. I’ve just learned over time to react quickly to an emergency. Davy, lad, over here!” he shouted.
Bending, he helped her up, and as she quickly tied her bodice laces, he snatched up her cloak and draped it over her shoulders.
“We’re for Annan town now, sweetheart.”
“Aye, sir,” she said, reaching up to stroke his cheek. Feeling the roughness of his incipient beard, she realized that her cheeks were burning.
His hand clasped hers and moved it to his lips. He pressed it warmly against them before he said, “You will marry me, won’t you, my love?”
“I must now, must I not?”
He grinned. “You will decide that for yourself, but you should know first that I’ll not permit you to marry anyone else.”
She chuckled. “I knew it would not be long before you were exerting your authority as my trustee, sir.”
He shook his head at her, but there was no more time for teasing, because Davy emerged just then from the woodland.
“Where did you spring from, lad?” Kirkhill asked the boy. “I thought I told you to wait for the other men where the main road met the track into the cleuch.”
“Aye, ye did,” Davy agreed. “But, sithee, I soon saw that the English might surprise me there afore they came, so I rode on till I could see the Firth. Then I watched from the bluffs till the Black Douglas came, and the others. Dinna be vexed wi’ me,” he added hastily. “I kent fine that I could be off again and away did any o’ them English villains make it ashore. They’d no ha’ caught me.”
“Then how did you find us here?”
“Sir Hugh rode up near where I was, and he sent me to find ye. He said he thought ye’d ha’ ken o’ this wee hollow. He said to tell ye the others left to join the Black Douglas, but he’s a-waiting for us near the track west o’ Dornock village. He said that ye’d ken the place and that the way back to the main road from there be gey easier than through Riggshead Cleuch.”
“It is, aye,” Kirkhill agreed. “What’s more, that meeting place lies in just the direction that I want to go. What would you say, lad, if I were to tell you that the lady Fiona and I mean to marry?”
Davy grinned. “I’d say that be a fine thing, laird. But be our lady willing?”
“She is,” Fiona said, smiling at him.
“I’ll need a man or two to stand up with me,” Kirkhill said. “Will you do it?”
“Me?” Davy’s mouth gaped and his eyes widened.
“I don’t know anyone better suited to the task,” Kirkhill said.
“Aye, well, Sir Hugh and some others may think ye’ve gone daft, laird.”
“We don’t want to disappoint Hugh,” Kirkhill said. “So mayhap I’ll ask him to stand up with me, too. I do think a wedding is supposed to have two witnesses.”
“Aye, sure, then, I’ll do it,” Davy said. “When?”
“As soon as I can waken a priest,” Kirkhill said. “Art ready, my lady?”
The next hour passed quickly but not quickly enough to suit Fiona. The first part, before they met Hugh, was the most difficult. Her imagination produced different, negative ways that he might react to the news that Dickon wanted to marry her, but none of them matched the reality when they found Hugh with a half dozen of his men and Dickon’s Joshua at the appointed meeting place.
When Dickon announced bluntly that he would marry Fiona, Hugh laughed.
“Do you dare to mock such news?” Dickon demanded before Fiona could express her own indignation.
“’Tis nobbut an expression of my delight at proving to be right about your feelings, my friend,” Hugh said, still grinning. “Just ask my Jenny if you don’t believe me. I told her before we left that if we found the lass, you’d marry her.”
“What about me?” Fiona asked. “Were you so sure of me, then?”
“Lassie, I knew you’d not find a better man,” Hugh said. “Moreover, after Tony told us about you dumping your food onto Dickon’s trencher and—”
“He told you about that!”
“And about what followed, or as much as he knows about that. We both suspected then—aye, and Rob, too—that you two would make a match of it. Jenny and Mairi agreed with us, too, after they had seen you together.”
“Never mind all that,” Dickon said. “Davy here has agreed to stand up with me at Annan Kirk, Hugh, and I’d like it fine if you would, too.”
Hugh grinned at the boy. “Aye, sure, I would. But won’t the lass need someone to stand with her, too, and give her away? I’m her uncle. I should do that.”
“I’d like that fine, sir,” Fiona said. “Joshua can stand up with you, Dickon.”
“I’d be honored if he would,” Kirkhill said, glancing at Joshua, who smiled.
“He’ll do that, aye,” Hugh said. “We’ll see it all done right, won’t we, lads?”
“Aye, sir, that we will,” Davy said, straightening his shoulders.
Since Dickon had seemed unsurprised to see Davy in the hollow, it occurred to Fiona only at that moment that Davy had no business at all to be so far south. Turning her gaze on the boy, she said, “But I don’t understand, Davy. Surely, you did not ride all the way to Riggshead Cleuch with Kirkhill and Sir Hugh?”
“Nay, me lady. I followed ye and the lady Anne from the Hall.”
“He did,” Kirkhill said. “And he continued to follow you after Nan got away. It was thanks to Davy that we knew where your captors had taken you.”
She thought of Nan then, and guilt washed over her. “So you found Nan?”
“Aye, leading a lame horse,” he said. “I sent her back to the Hall.”
“She must be dreadfully worried. She was so fierce, Dickon. She fought those men off with her whip and rode away.” Remembering that Hod, or another of them, had said to let Nan go, she swallowed hard. “They wanted you to follow me.”
“We know that,” he said with a slight smile. “They thought they were laying a trap for us, but we suspected as much, so Rob took one party of men along the north rim of the cleuch, and Hugh took another one south of it. We made as much noise as an army of banshees and scared the lights out of them.”
“Out of me, too,” she said, remembering. “I was terrified that my horse would break a leg or that the rest of Hod’s men would ride right over me.”
“So it was Old Jardine’s Hod at the back of this, eh?” Hugh said.
“Aye, or the raiders he joined after he left us,” she said. “He called them raiders, but he sounded different when he talked, like an English nobleman.”
“There is one thing that you don’t know yet,” Dickon said to her. “The chap at Spedlins who told us that Davy was following you also told me that the English had been there and had broken up Old Jardine’s fine bed.”
“Broken the bed! Good sakes, why would they do such a thing?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I’ll want to see the damage to be sure, but recall the key that I found and gave to you, and then took back again. I’m wondering if one of the carvings in that bed might have been a keyhole.”
“Old Jardine’s gelt!” she exclaimed. “If he hid it in that bed, and the English found it—” Recalling Davy’s presence, she felt a wave of guilt, but when Dickon smiled reassuringly, she added, “How would they know to look for it, though?”
Joshua, who had been silent until then, said, “That Hod, of course.”
“I agree,” Dickon said. “If he is English, he was likely Northumberland’s spy and his messenger. He said he’d been with Old Jardine for just three years, so I’d not be surprised to learn that much of that gelt came from England. If Jardine agreed to aid them again, be sure that he demanded a good sum for his help. Hod may have thought that with Jardine dead and Will missing, he could just take the money, either for Northumberland or for himself, with no one else the wiser.”
“Mayhap he knew that Will was also dead,” Fiona said. “Sakes, mayhap Hod killed him to get that money.”
Kirkhill shook his head. “He may have known that Will was dead, but I doubt that he killed him. The English need all the support they can get in Annandale if they mean to take over the place. As it is, such support is fast waning. My guess is that Hod just wanted to take the money and clear out.”
“If he did, then Old Jardine’s gelt may be at the bottom of the Firth,” she said. “Many of those raiders had sacks tied to their saddles.”
“Most men-at-arms do,” he said. “They carry small amounts of food and other supplies. They may have been willing to weigh themselves down with silver, but if they did, someone can look for it when the tide ebbs again. Such bags would be weighty enough to stay put for a while.”
“Aye, well,” she said with a sigh, “if they took any of it from the bed, they took all of it, so there will be nowt left for me. I’ll have to marry you now.”
Kirkhill looked swiftly at her but relaxed when he saw her mischievous grin. Hearing Hugh’s chuckle, he knew that the other man had seen it, too.
Davy, wisely, kept silent.
Riding into the town of Annan, they discovered that although it was well after midnight, a number of its citizens were wide awake and in the streets, celebrating the defeat of the English army. With little delay, they made their way to the kirk and its adjoining manse at the center of town, where, dismounting at the manse entrance, Kirkhill hammered on the door.
A manservant answered, and Kirkhill demanded to know if his master, the priest, was asleep. “For if the reverend father has slept through the din out here, you must waken him and tell him that Kirkhill of Kirkh
ill requires his services.”
Twenty minutes later—a mere ten minutes after promising a hefty donation to the kirk’s building fund—Kirkhill was a married man.
He smiled at Fiona. “What think you, sweetheart? Shall we impose on the hospitality of Annan House now? Hugh, you must be our guest there if we do.”
“Nay, Dickon, that moon will last until dawn, so I’m for the Hall. Had the battle lasted longer, I might be ready for bed and a long sleep, but I’m still wide awake and likely to remain so long enough to get back to my Jenny.”
“Aye, well, I’m wide awake, too, but this is my wedding night, so—”
“Prithee, sir,” Fiona said. “It is my wedding night, too, but I’ve little desire to stay at Annan House and every desire for us to travel north with Sir Hugh. I’ll need a fresh horse, and Davy will, too, but I’d much prefer to return to Spedlins for the night, or ride straight on to the Hall and my wee bairn.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Faith, have I married a masterful woman?”
“Serve you right if you had,” Hugh said.
“Well, he hasn’t,” Fiona told Hugh. “But Annan House has not been my home for two years and still feels like my parents’ home, so it is not a place to enjoy my wedding night. In troth, though…” She glanced warily at Kirkhill.
“In troth, my greedy wife, you want to find out about the gelt,” he said.
“Aye, my lord,” she said. “I do.”
Chapter 21
Leaving a messenger to request that Archie organize a search of the Sands for bags of silver—English or Scot—and temporarily exchanging Fiona’s horse and Davy’s for two from the priest’s stable, they set out for Spedlins after the ceremony. Their journey was nearly twelve miles, but bright moonlight and the good Roman road meant they made nearly the same time that they might have made by daylight.
Kirkhill, Fiona, Joshua, and Davy parted from Hugh and his men at the Spedlins turning. The moon was still high when they rode into the yard.
