“There’s my lad.” Callum bent, grabbed hold and swung him high in the air, winning squeals of unadulterated delight.
Watching them, Alys felt her heart squeeze in on itself. Limbs weak, she walked over to join them. Their eyes met atop Alasdair’s blond head.
Callum set Alasdair down and straightened. “I have a wee gift for you, laddie.”
He unlaced his sporran, reached inside and pulled out a small carved object. No Christmas Wife this time but a perfectly honed wooden horse, a miniature of the great black steed Callum rode. He offered it with a smile.
“When you’re bigger, I will gift you a real horse and teach you to ride.” His gaze rested on hers and this time she was all but sure of good tidings.
Alys’s heart lifted further. Making future plans, referring to himself as her son’s “papa,” surely he would not do so had he not good news to report.
Alasdair grabbed greedily. “Horsie!” He plunked down at their feet to play with his new treasure.
Callum’s eyes locked upon hers. The smile he’d worn upon stepping inside the garden broadened. “Will you not welcome me home with a kiss…wife?”
Tears filled Alys’s eyes. “My lord?” Before she’d been afraid to hope and now she was afraid to believe.
“The parish records didna bear out Alexander’s claim after all. It seems you were falsely wed, for he was wed already to another.”
“Truly?”
“Aye, most truly. She is described as tall, bony and painted. Do you ken such a person?”
Alys scoured her brain. She’d met people aplenty in Portree, most of them men. “I dinna.”
He shrugged. “It doesna signify.” He stroked his big rough hand along her cheek. “Tears, my lady, on such a glad occasion?”
Until he spoke, she hadn’t realized she’d started crying. Minded of Milread’s previous parting words, she dashed a hand across her eyes and shook her head. “The cold but stings my eyes.”
“Ballocks, you’re weeping. After what I’ve been through, those had better be happy tears.”
Hearing the smile in his voice, she smiled, too. “They are, my lord, oh, they are, the most happy.”
“I will do all in my power to see that you’ve naything but happiness from hereon.” He embraced her. His breath blew into her hair. “Ah, Alys, my sweet and beautiful Christmas bride, to think that all this terrible long week of stealth and wanting and saying goodbyes, it was always my right to hold you.”
Feeling his arms tighten about her, she knew she never wanted to leave this shelter again. She slid her arms about his waist, drawing him close, hugging him hard. Faith but he was warm and strong and all hers, or so it seemed.
Chin resting atop her head, he traced soothing circles upon her back. “Come with me. There is something I would show you, a place special to me since I was a boy.”
She lifted her head to look up at him. “Alasdair—” She glanced down to her son playing his toy horse about their feet.
“Go on with the both of you.” Milread stood in the garden gateway, tears streaming her cheeks. Caught up in Callum, Alys had not heard her approach. Clearly she’d arrived in time to hear the good news. “I’ll mind the little lad ’til you return. We’ll nay venture beyond the castle grounds.”
Alys hesitated. Alex was gone until nightfall, and even were he not, by the looks of him that morning, he was still too peckish to do anyone any great harm.
She glanced at Callum, duty warring with the most unbearable desire to be with him. “Verra well, so long as we return ere nightfall.”
He smiled. “You have my word that we shall.”
Milread came toward them and took hold of Alasdair’s hand. “Go on.” She lifted the boy into her sticklike arms. “Glad tidings such as these want for celebrating, aye, my lord?” She shot Callum a wink.
Alys could not defeat both of them, nor did she truly want to. Callum had promised her a Twelvetide of sensual pleasure, and she was more than prepared to collect her next gift.
Dismissing her misgivings, she bowed her head. “Thank you, Milread.” She turned back to Callum. “I feel as though I must be dreaming. Good my lord, can this truly be?”
“Aye, it can and it is, sweetheart. I will explain all on the way. For now, know this—you are my lady, my lady wife, mine and no other man’s, and I would give you a honeymoon to make the saints swoon.”
THEY RODE AWAY from the fortress and headed into the Cuillin Hills. Seated in the saddle in front of Callum and wrapped up in his fur-lined cloak, Alys had never felt so cherished and content. Ordinarily Callum’s great beast would have terrified her. But leaning back into her husband’s strength and heat, his arms and thighs locking like steel bands about her, her loosened curls blowing wild about her face, she’d never felt so protected yet gloriously free.
They rode for nigh on two hours, skirting plunging sea cliffs and lochs as deep as mountains. At one point, Alys lifted her head from Callum’s chest and looked back at him. “You never did say where you’re taking me.”
He smiled back at her. His eyes, though tired, looked radiant bright. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
Thinking of how Alex had barged into their wedding feast a week ago, she answered, “I am no longer certain I like surprises.”
Even knowing he had no power over her or their son, she couldn’t entirely dismiss him. He would have to be dealt with. She suspected Callum would not let him go without some punishment. What form retribution would take, she didn’t care to consider right now.
Callum cinched his arm more tightly about her. “You will like this one.”
She laughed and what a good feeling it was. “You’re that sure of yourself, are you, my lord?”
He kissed the top of her head and tucked it beneath his chin. Settling back, he said, “We shall see, my lady. In good time we shall see.”
They crested the steep hillside. Gossamer sheets of mist shrouded them. Looking down onto the coastline from whence they’d come, bolstered by Callum’s caring and his warmth, Alys felt as though she’d ascended to Heaven already.
They must be coming on to their destination, for he slowed the horse to a walk. Secreted into the hillside, a small striped pavilion came into view. Outside, a camp fire burned. Beside the fire was a goodly sized quarry of rocks.
He reined the horse in. “Ewan and I used to come here and bathe as boys.”
Alys lifted her head from his shoulder. “But these are MacLeod lands. I was given to understand the rift between the MacLeods and Frasers dates back to your fathers’ day.”
He dismounted. “To the generation before.” Wrapping his arms about her waist, he lifted her down. “When Brianna’s advisor, Duncan, made me out to be a murderer, the scurrilous lie was sewn upon verra fertile ground.”
Her feet touched the earth but looking up into Callum’s tired but happy face, her head still felt very much in the clouds. “And still you risked yourselves to come here?” If she lived to be as old as Milread, never would she comprehend the ways of men.
“That’s what made it fun.” He grinned and took her hand, leading her inside.
She followed, wondering what awaited them within. So long as it involved the two of them alone together, she was more than happy to embrace whatever he had in mind.
“My lady.” He lifted the sheepskin flap and motioned for her to enter.
Alys stepped within. The scene that greeted her put her in mind of a Christmastide fairyland. Bows of yew and holly hung from the wooden beams of the makeshift ceiling, exuding their crisp evergreen scent, Callum’s scent. A large marble basin took pride of place in the center. Stone steps led down to the bottom. From the water, fragrant steam rose. Floating on the surface were more rose petals than Alys had ever before beheld.
She whipped around to face him. “A bath!” Excepting holy days, she bathed herself and Alasdair from an urn of cold water carried up from the kitchen. A full bath was a rare and longed for luxury. “All this for�
��me?”
He ducked inside and let the tent flap fall. “Merry Christmas, my lady.”
A flagon of wine and two drinking horns had been set out on one of the wood benches along with a platter of nuts and fruits and cheeses, a re-creation of the simple wedding supper of which they’d never had the chance to partake.
Two serving wenches approached. Each girl bore two buckets heaped with heated rocks supported on a yoke borne across her shoulders.
“My lord, my lady.” Encumbered, still they both bobbed curtsies.
Alys looked over at Callum and smiled. “There is no end to your co-conspirators, I see.”
He didn’t deny it. “Ewan and Brianna would see us happy.”
Giggling, the girls unloaded their burdens and came toward him. “May I help you disrobe, my lord?” one of them asked.
Sitting down on a bench to pull off his boots and heavy woolen stockings, Callum shook his head. “Nay, attend my lady.”
Expressions disappointed, they turned to Alys. Between the pair of them, they had her stripped down to her shift in no time. Callum looked on, the heat in his eyes warming her. Being undressed before him was more powerfully erotic than Alys could have imagined. Still, some modesty remained.
When they made to raise her arms so that they might pull the shift up over her head, she halted them. “I thank you for your care, but I will manage from here on.”
“We will manage,” Callum added, and the famished look on his face brought her breasts tingling to life.
The girls backed off. They picked up their buckets and poured the hot rocks into the trough. Eddies of sweet-smelling steam arose, veiling the tent in mist.
Callum stood. As if reading her mind, he said, “They will not come back for an hour. By then the water will have cooled and it will be time for us to start back.”
After the past torturous week, Alys could scarcely wrap her mind around the bounty of a whole hour to be private together.
An hour to bask in warm water and moist steam and perfect peace and safety.
An hour to speak all that was in not only their minds but their hearts, as well.
An hour to make love in any way, every way, they might wish without fear or threat.
She slid her gaze over him and smiled. “You sent the lasses away and yet you are dressed. You must be warm with all those clothes on.”
Not since her whoring days had she been so bold, nor had she thought to be so again. But loving Callum and knowing now that she was his and he hers freed her.
“I am.” He held her eye and he started on the buttons of his moleskin jerkin. “I wish for no hands upon me save those of my beautiful wife.”
Wife. What a wondrous word that suddenly seemed. It was the second time in as many hours that he’d referred to her as such. A lifetime wouldn’t be enough to tire her of being so named. The sobriquet spoken from her love’s lips was as powerfully erotic as the prospect of helping him undress.
“In that case, pray let me help you…husband.” Heart quickening in anticipation, she rounded her bench and walked toward him, loving how his eyes tracked her every move.
She felt her breathing hitch and not because of the thick, pungent air. Heretofore she’d only ever seen glimpses of his body. The two times they’d been together before were furtive affairs. There had been no time for undressing. But this time they were husband and wife, not only in the eyes of God and the law but also their own. They were free, finally free of fear and guilt and the need to rush. Free to make love as slowly, openly and thoroughly as they wished.
She stepped behind him and reached up, sliding the vest over his powerful shoulders and off. Laying it on the bench, she circled to the front of him. His saffron shirt was next to go. Eager to see him though she was, she also had waited a long time for this moment. She unfastened the queue of buttons as slowly as she might, bringing his beautiful broad shoulders and tapered torso into gradual view.
“You are beautiful, my lord.” She trailed her forefinger down the queue of dark hair beginning below his breastbone to where it disappeared beneath his kilt.
“Not as beautiful as you, but then, nay one could be that.” He wetted the pad of his thumb and used it to wipe her cheek where dirt must be streaked. “You look much as you did that verra first time I laid eyes on you.”
Self-conscious, she shook her head and combed her hand through the tangles in her hair. “That is because I am a mess.”
His eyes were dark with desire, his smile heartrending in its tenderness. “You are all a bride should be.”
She wrapped her hands about him, unfastened his weapons belt, and laid it aside. His kilt was last to go. Reaching behind him she slowly unwound his plaid. Callum’s mighty chest rose and fell with each rapid, ragged breath.
The tartan slipped from her nerveless fingers, falling to the ground. Alys sucked in her breath, suddenly feeling as if she was suffocating in the thick, moist air. She had secretly wondered how far down the queue of dark hair traveled and there was no longer any doubt. Callum stood before her, Adam in all his pre-Fall glory, the perfect man in all his fleshly perfection—chest broad, belly flat and swelling penis standing out from its nest of dark hair like a mighty staff. Taking in the turgid flesh, remembering the scent of him, the texture of him, the taste of him, she felt her mouth water and her sex cream.
Stepping past her, he squatted to test the water, the sight of his beautiful back, slim hips and firm buttocks making her mouth dry. Her skin felt feverish and hyper-sensitive, her thin shift suddenly too heavy and cumbersome to bear.
He straightened and turned to her, his stark gaze striking hers. “I would give you not only your honeymoon but your wedding day, as well, my lady.”
Alys met his gaze. “And I would give you yours, my lord.”
He spread an arm to indicate the enclosure. “Let this bathing tent be our chapel and this pool our bridal bed.”
Alys swallowed hard and nodded, feeling as though they indeed stood on sanctified ground, a sacred place. “And these stone steps our church aisle and this unadorned shift my bridal gown, for my good lord, I would come to you as a bride.”
CALLUM AWAITED HER in the water. Like a selkie shedding her seal skin, she left most of her clothing on the bench and started down the stone steps. She waded into the water, her nubile form fording a path through the rose petals, her shift forming a floating train, bringing to mind fairies and mermaids and other ethereal, fanciful beings. Like them, Callum had trouble believing she was real.
She leaned back to sluice her hair, exposing the arc of lovely long neck and slender shoulders. Callum didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t be sure he still breathed. He’d never before seen her wet. The thin linen of her shift clung like a second skin. Slim of waist and hip and slender of limb with small, high breasts tipped in roses, she outstripped any fantasy he’d yet to fathom.
She met him in the center of the pool. She was so much smaller than he, the water reached nearly to her shoulders. The flesh of her face and throat and shoulders glowed with the luster of well-worn pearls.
She looked up at him through her water-clumped lashes. “I love you, my lord. With all my mind and all my heart and all my body I love you. I love the verra bones of you, and I am so happy to be your wife.”
Callum swallowed hard, feeling his newly mended heart swell. “I love you, too, my lady. I pledge you my honor, my fidelity, my protection and aye, my love from this day forward, for all the rest of our days.” Locking his gaze upon hers, he lifted her left hand, turned it over and matched it to his, the one with the scabbed A. “I receive you as mine, so that you become my wife and I your husband.”
Expression solemn, she held his gaze and she repeated, “As I receive you as mine, so that you become my husband and I your wife.”
Heart in his throat, he broke hands. Her betrothal ring rested upon his smallest finger. The ruby flashed crimson fire, a symbol of their Christmas miracle.
He slid the ring off his fin
ger and onto hers. “I pray you accept this ring as my token and never again take it off, for with it I thee wed. This gold and silver I thee give. With my body I thee worship, for the rest of our given days.”
She lifted the stone to her lips. “I never shall.”
He breathed in her scent, earthy yet delicate and still distinguishable above the greenery and roses. “Flesh of my flesh…”
Beneath the water, he glided his hands over her, shaping her tiny waist and hips, sliding upward to cup her breasts. Mapping the terrain of her body with his touch, he resolved that no hollow or crevice should remain unknown or unnoticed. He moved to the core of her, to the stiff curls between her legs, his palm stroking. Alys tipped back her head and sighed. Reading her want, he took the hem of her shift and lifted it. Through the water and steam, he saw the triangle of dark gold curls and the very beginning of delectable pink nether lips. He saw himself, as well, hard as the rocks sunken at their feet and stained a deeper hue from the water’s heat.
Reaching down between them, he found her with his fingers. “Sweet my lady, I canna wait to be one with you.”
She shook her head. “Dinna wait. I dinna want you to wait. We’ve waited long enough.”
He put his hands on her waist and lifted her onto him. She went without hesitation, her legs, slender but strong, locking along his hips, her hands clutching his shoulders, her breasts brushing his chest. Her shift floated atop them, a cocoon for their loving.
She arched back, her body begging. “My lord…Callum, please!”
Callum didn’t wait to be asked a second time. His cockhead pulsed against her lower belly. Shifting, he sheathed himself inside her in one long, sure thrust. Had he been a poet, he doubted he could have found the words to express the wonder of entering her on this, their very first time.
Alys’s eyes flashed wide. Her gasp echoed through the tent.
“You feel like a virgin.” She was very small and exquisitely taut for all she’d borne a bairn. He pulled back and entered her more gently this time.
She tilted her head back and smiled, her inner flesh pulsing. “You make me feel like a virgin.”
Blaze Historicals Bundle II Page 32
