“Why is that?”
“I have never before heard of a Christian marriage conducted in an inn, but according to Alys, the priest who joined them did so not at a church’s altar rail but at a taproom’s groaning board. Do you not find that odd?” Her cool green eyes awaited his answer.
Callum nodded. “Aye, I do.”
He harkened back to his proposal when she’d confided as much. The shady circumstance of her first marriage was obviously a source of shame, though he’d not given much thought to it before now. From there his thoughts flew to Field’s Christmas Day boast.
The parish records will bear me out…
Ere now, Callum had never thought to question the validity of Alys’s prior marriage. Like everyone else, he had accepted it as fact. But this latest bit of news cast a shadow over that surety. Annulments weren’t all that common but they weren’t unheard of, either. Could it be that he and Alys might have a future together after all?
“I will leave for Portree at first light and examine these documents for myself.” He raked a hand through his hair and admitted, “Faith, I am almost afraid to hope again.”
Brianna sent him a sympathetic look. “But you must, we all must. Just as the sky always appears darkest before the dawn and the danger at its most dire before the rescue, so do troubles such as yours appear at their most hopeless just before the solution is hit upon. If our two clans can come together after almost a generation of distrust and antipathy, if your brother and I can come together and love again after a decade of deception and feuding and aye, death, do you still discount the possibility that this matter of you and Alys may yet be mended?”
Callum shook his head, feeling dark doubt trickle back in. “When we parted, she admitted to having feelings for Field. If he truly makes her happy, I…I would not want to stand in the way of that.”
Brianna bit her lip. “Before you leave for Portree, seek out Alys. I willna say more, only that you must speak with her or better yet, listen to what she has to say.”
He nodded. “Aye, I will go to her now. Not all the hounds of Hell or one Outlander cur will keep me from her.” He rose and strode to the door.
On the threshold, he hesitated. No matter how hard he rode, the trip to Portree and back would take two days. By then, Alys might well be on her way to England. Once she and Field crossed the border, she could be gone for good.
He wasn’t accustomed to humbling himself. He wasn’t accustomed to asking for help. In truth, he was hard pressed to recall a single time when he’d asked for aid from another human being. But standing on the threshold he realized he couldn’t save Alys all on his own.
Dividing his gaze between Brianna and Ewan, he swallowed the last of his pride and admitted, “I need your help.”
Hands resting atop his wife’s shoulders, Ewan shook his head. “You are my brother, my twin. We’ve shared not only the same blood but our mother’s womb. Whatever help I can render, know that it is yours.”
Brianna nodded. “When our clans united, we became a family. We are your family, Callum. Whatever aid we may render you, we will render it freely and gladly.”
Deeply moved, Callum said, “I cannot think Field will want to bide here long, certainly not once he learns I am here, as well. I need you to find some means of detaining him until I return.”
Brie broke into a broad and rather wicked smile. “It is good that you brought Milread back to us, Callum. I suspect she will be more than willing to concoct a very special Christmas caudle for our dear Master Field.”
AFTER EIGHT HOURS IN THE SADDLE, Father Fearghas was more than happy to stop at an inn for the night. The run at a breakneck pace from the parsonage to his tethered mule had sapped him. Even as a young man, he’d never been especially spry. He badly needed to refresh his corporal self with food and drink and rest.
He stepped inside to the promising aroma of roasting meat. The innkeeper stepped out from what must be the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Good Eve, Father. How can I help you? Are you lost?”
“Not lost, good wife, but in sore need of bed and board for the night.”
One thick eyebrow lifted. “At Christmastide?”
Father Fearghas felt a niggling of annoyance. “The reason for my journeying is no concern of yours, my good woman. Suffice it to say ’tis in the service of the Lord. You’ll find my needs simple and my wants few. Whatever you have on the spit will serve me nicely.”
Scowling, she shook her kerchief-covered head. “That meat is for my family’s Yuletide feast. I have seven mouths to feed and but one meager goose.”
Father Fearghas heaved a sigh, calling upon the Lord to grant him patience yet again. “In that case, whatever you have in the stewpot will serve me nicely.”
Again, she shook her head. “Scraped clean.”
Pitching his voice higher, he said, “Och, woman, what have you to serve me?”
“Oysters.”
“Oysters? Only oysters?”
She nodded.
Fearghas hesitated. Shellfish could be a dodgy thing and oysters gave an especially bad report. Moreover, oysters were said to be the food of love, increasing the sexual appetite, yet another reason a man of the cloth might abstain.
She folded her arms across her breasts. “Aye, ’tis Christmastide, though twelve days of cooking scarce makes it a holy day for me. I’ve enough work to feed my own folk without cooking for an empty inn. Oysters, ’tis what I have, all I have, so you can take ’em or leave ’em.”
Father Fearghas paused to ponder. Not a morsel had passed his lips since he’d broken his fast that morning and he’d raced from the parsonage to his mule like a veritable Hermes. The growl from his stomach was the settling of it.
“Very well, oysters it is.”
She gave a mollified grunt and led him into the empty taproom where she seated him by the banked peat fire.
Needing something to knock the chill from both his bones and the room he asked, “Have you any wine? If not a respectable ale will do.”
She snorted. “Nay wine and as for ale, keg’s gone dry. Whiskey, ’tis all I’ve got. Take it or—”
“I know, I know, take it or leave it. I’ll take it.”
She brought the whiskey, slamming the flagon upon the unclothed table. Being the Almighty’s messenger was thirsty work. Ordinarily he took no strong spirits, sticking to ale and well-watered wine, but since whiskey was all the drink to be had, what choice had he?
By the time she returned, Father Fearghas was on his second cup of whiskey and feeling far warmer and merrier indeed. She set the trencher before him, a dozen oysters glistening raw in their pearlescent shells.
He hadn’t considered they’d come uncooked. He cast a dubious look downward. “Are you certain they’re fresh?”
Fisted hands resting on her ample hips, she regarded him with hard eyes. “My husband bought them from the boat just this morning. But if you dinna want them, nay worries…” She made as if to take back the plate.
Famished, Fearghas reached for the trencher with both hands, holding it firmly in place. As a man of God, he might fast at any time. But it would be beyond selfish to put his own fleshly mortification above the mission upon which the Lord had set him. Like the manna rained down upon Moses and the Israelites, God was sending him the sustenance to soldier on.
Tucking in, he allowed he was even hungrier than he’d thought. He polished off the last of the oysters, lapping up the salty brine, and called for another platter. After washing those down with the rest of the whiskey, he was a satisfied man.
Sometime later, he wove his way up the stairs to his chamber. Halfway up, his bloated belly began to bellow, great gurgling growls. Not hunger pains this time but a pain of an entirely different, entirely urgent nature.
Flinging open the door, Fearghas raced for the chamber pot as the first spasm broke.
CALLUM MET UP with Alys by chance on the turret stairs leading from the laird’s solar, he heading up and s
he down. Saucer-wide blue eyes registered her surprise. She reeled back, and he threw out an arm to catch her.
Having his lady once more in his arms proved to be powerfully primal. He didn’t stop to consider the consequences. He didn’t stop to consider much of anything at all. He did what he did best, what he’d always done best. He acted.
Callum pulled her into his arms. Holding her thus, he opened the nearest doorway and hauled them both inside. To his great good fortune it led to neither a privy nor a wardrobe closet but an unfurnished chamber that appeared to be used for storage.
Shoving them behind one cloth-covered suit of armor, he said, “I must speak with you.” He didn’t drop his hands for fear she’d flee.
His worry on that score proved unfounded. Far from fleeing, she reached up and smoothed back the hank of hair that was forever falling into his eyes. “I thought never to see you alone again. I never thought to see you at all. Faith, my lord, you are a sight for sore eyes.”
He rested his forehead against hers and breathed deeply of her springtime scent. “As are you, lady.” Shaping her with his hands, it seemed as though she had lost a stone since last he’d held her. “Field, he has not…hurt you?” He stopped himself from asking more, loath to embarrass or offend her and fearful of what her answer might be.
“Nay, he hasna touched me. I asked him to grant me time and so far he has.” She buried her head against him and sighed. “But how came you here, my lord?”
He couldn’t credit why Field wouldn’t have lain with her. She was his wedded wife, at least so far as the world knew. Whatever the reason, Callum was grateful almost beyond bearing. Assuming Milread did her work well, the Outlander would not be in any position to claim his conjugal rights for the next several days.
“I brought Milread.” He stopped himself from saying just how his good deed might soon be rewarded.
Looking up at him, she admitted, “I prayed you would come. Oh, I started out praying to the Blessed Virgin for guidance on how to accept my lot and be a dutiful wife but in the end I prayed to see you again if only to tell you all those things that before I dared not.”
Minded of Brianna’s counsel to listen, he prompted, “What things, dearling?”
She lifted shadow-rimmed eyes to his. “When I last left you, I said I loved Alex. Only that was a lie. I don’t.”
Mouth dry, he searched her face, daring to hope, daring to believe. “You don’t?”
She shook her head. “I love you and only you. I love you with all of my mind and all my heart and aye, all my body. I love the verra bones of you, Callum Fraser.”
He’d thought as much. Still, hearing those affirming words from her sweet, lovely lips had his heart blooming like a rose in his breast. He hugged her hard. “I love you, too, Alys. I love you more than I did even a week ago when I thought you to be mine and not another man’s. I want you more than I did a week ago. I’ll do whatever it takes to have you, give up whatever hope of celestial salvation I may yet have for the chance to be with you.”
She shook her head. “I made a vow, milord. We must content ourselves with kisses, only kisses.”
“Then kisses it shall be.”
Callum could wait no longer. The craving that had built inside him for the past week now threatened to combust. Backing them up against the wall, he kissed her high forehead, her closed eyelids, and the corners of her pretty rosebud mouth. He kissed her shell-shaped ears and long white neck, dallying in her throat’s well. He kissed her full on the mouth, softly and gently, deeply and fully, knowing these kisses must yet be called upon to last the rest of his miserably lonely life.
Moving down the length of her, he rediscovered the landscape of her body not only with his hands but also his mouth. Through the layers of kirtle and underskirt and shift he kissed her small, perfect breasts, her flat belly, and lastly the apex of her thighs. The musk of her arousal filtered through the layers of wool, making his mouth water and his cock throb. He kissed her because he couldn’t get enough of kissing her, because he never wanted to stop kissing her, because nay matter what he found or didn’t find in Portree, she was his lady, his Christmas bride, and always would be.
He straightened, chafing his beard-roughened cheek over hers like a brand. “Not until the day when you’re mine entire will I rest content or otherwise.”
Alys looked up at him. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and limpid, her mouth softly parted and moist. “I would make you content for a little while at least.” She slid to her knees at his feet.
Shocked, Callum reached down to pull her up. “It is I who should serve you, lady.”
But Alys would have none of it. She shook her head, an almost wild look upon her. “After today we will never be alone like this again. We must never be alone like this again. But for now, these few precious moments, I would taste of bliss.” She reached beneath his kilt and slid her hand up his thigh.
Watching her, Callum wondered if he might be dreaming. The beauty of her kneeling there, her hair and clothes in delicious disarray, her rosebud mouth moist and swollen and pink, rendered him mute.
Lifting his plaid, she nuzzled him with her cheek. He felt the sigh she breathed in his very bones.
She looked up at him with a small smile. “You promised me twelve nights of twelve verra different pleasures. I would give you one at the least.”
She took him in her hand, not tentatively, but firmly. Feeling the surety of that slender-fingered touch, Callum feared he would shatter into a million shiny shards.
“Alys, nay—”
“Just kisses, my lord, only kisses.” She angled her face and guided him to her mouth.
8
ALYS HAD NEVER BEFORE given thought of a man’s member being beautiful but Callum’s was very much so. She ran her hand along the length of him, savoring his smoothness, testing his weight. Long and thick and perfectly formed, he pulsed against her palm in sync with her own sex’s steady strumming.
Lowering her head, she lapped at the glistening cockhead, savoring his scent, his brine. It had been years since she’d taken a man in her mouth. Ere now, she’d never greatly cared for the act. But this was Callum, her love and her lord, and she couldn’t wait to have him inside her in this, the one way she still might.
“Just kisses, only kisses.” She drew him into her mouth.
The stone floor was hard and cold beneath her knees, Callum hard and warm inside her mouth. Nibbling, nuzzling, suckling, she pleasured him with lips and tongue and teeth. With every stroke, she contrived to drive him that much nearer to madness.
He shuddered against her. His hand descended upon her shoulder. “My sweet lady, you must cease now. You must. I—”
But Alys was in no humor to be denied. She anchored her hands to his hips and held fast. She wanted Callum, she wanted all of him. She wanted him inside her, she wanted him to come inside her, and if she wasn’t ready to dare damnation, she would at least grant them both a lesser sin. A few sweeps more of her tongue had his inner thighs trembling, his hips bucking toward her, his knees ever so slightly buckling. And then…
He snapped back his head and cried out, “Alys…my lady!”
His release struck like a summertime storm, sudden, intense and violent. Lesser tremors followed suit, ripples of thunder after the cloudburst. Holding fast to his firm buttocks, she pulled him against her, inside of her, milking the warm, rich cream of him, refusing to take less than all he had to give.
His body finally gave way. Feeling the tension in his muscles slacken, she sat back on her heels and smiled. “Are you content now, my lord?”
He reached down and lifted her up. Pushing her hair back from her damp forehead, he speared her with stark eyes. “Ere now I’d nay notion torment could be so bittersweet, that Hell could hold so verra much of Heaven.” He left her, then took one of the dust sheets and spread it upon the floor. “My lady?” He held out his hand.
She took it and joined him, settling herself against him on the ground. Lying with her
head pillowed upon his shoulder, she felt an unaccustomed contentment roll through her. She wasn’t entirely sure but she thought they might have slept, for a minute or an hour she could not know. When she opened her eyes again, he lay on his side facing her, the strained look for now gone from his features. Like a miser hoarding gold, Alys sought to gather and store every detail of him—the beauty of his broad chest revealed by the open shirt, the musky mingled scents of sweat and arousal and evergreen, the silken texture of his mussed hair when she reached up and brushed the unruly lock back from his brow. The angry A scarring his hand, the wound finally beginning to scab.
She sighed. Callum Fraser would always be laird of her heart, love of her life. He was as much a part of her as any limb or organ. And yet circumstances being what they were, they each had to find a way to move on, do their duty, and learn to live without the other. They must never be alone like this again. Once they rose from this room, they must part as friends and be lovers no more. Before they did, there was nothing she wanted left unsaid between them, nothing undone she wanted to later regret.
She pressed a kiss to his proud forehead. “I love you, my lord.”
His eyelids fluttered open. He looked over at her and smiled. “I ken you do and yet ’tis glad I am to hear you say it, for now that I’ve grown a heart, I’d be loath to be left alone in this loving matter.”
“You are most certainly not alone.” Tracing circles in the hair on his chest, she admitted, “Last night I lay abed thinking of you. I hoped my thoughts might carry me into dreaming but I lay awake a long time imagining us together like this. Now I have this beautiful memory to last me a lifetime.” She hadn’t wanted to spoil their short time with tears and yet she couldn’t help choking back a sob.
He reached across and lifted her hand from his chest. Carrying it to his lips, he said, “Don’t despair, lady. All may not yet be lost.”
Blaze Historicals Bundle II Page 29
