Captured by Desire

by Kira Morgan

  ’Twas only Methuselah, Father Conan’s cat. The ragged old creature hunkered down in fear and squeezed through a crack in the vestry door while Rane silently cursed his rattled nerves.

  He carried the lass forward, placing her gently upon the stones before the altar. He cast off his cloak, removed his leather jerkin, then pulled his outer shirt over his head, rolling it into a makeshift pillow, which he tucked carefully beneath her head.

  A fat candle slouched in an iron holder beside the altar. He blew the dust off, then trimmed the wick with his gutting knife and used his flint to light the tallow. As the candle sputtered to life, shadows danced like devils along the crumbling plaster walls and over the blackened beams above.

  Now the belt had to be loosened. Rane prayed the maid would lose no more blood. He blew out a bracing breath and knelt beside her. Easing her skirts up, he bared her slim leg, which was now deathly pale. The bandages had stanched the flow, but whether they would hold…

  Slowly, cautiously, he unbuckled the belt.

  Almost at once, fresh blood oozed through the linen. The lass groaned, but didn’t fully waken, as sensation returned to her limb.

  He muttered an oath, wadding a fistful of her underskirt and pressing it firmly against the wound. She’d rail at him for ruining her fine garments, he supposed, but he’d gladly bear her temper later if it meant her survival now.

  While he waited for the flow to cease, his gaze roamed over her features again. Who was this lass thrust into his path?

  She wasn’t from Selkirk. He knew the maids of Selkirk. Such a face he’d remember. Indeed, she was as beautiful a lass as he’d ever seen. In the candlelight her skin had an ethereal sheen, almost as if she weren’t human, but some fey creature. Her face was heart-shaped, with striking cheekbones and a pointed chin with a dimple, and her dark brows and long lashes had a distinct upward tilt to them. Her curved mouth was small yet full, with lips soft enough to kiss a wee bairn without waking it.

  He lowered his gaze to her slim throat, from which hung a delicate gold filigree pendant, and the fine bone above her bosom, where her pulse beat. Her kirtle dipped low upon her creamy shoulders, revealing the gentle swell of her modest breasts. The well-made garment hugged her snugly, delineating her trim waist and the subtle flare of her hips. Below, where his hands pressed, touching her as intimately as a lover, her limbs were long and lithe, her skin silken, smooth, warm…

  His body responded instinctively, hardening at once. But he grunted away his misplaced desire. The lass might make his mouth water, but she’d also made his hand bleed. And though he was currently saving her life, she wasn’t likely to harbor tender feelings for a man who’d shot her.

  If only she hadn’t wandered into his sights… And if only he hadn’t been so desperate for game…

  Now he held her life in his hands.

  The bleeding finally slowed, to his relief, sealing the injury. The narrow-headed shaft had gone deep but straight, thankfully leaving a wound that would require no stitches. Still, blood stained her skirt, the flagstones, her face, and his hands. Anyone stumbling upon the scene at the altar would think some unholy sacrifice had been made on the spot.

  He blew out a weighted breath. One more task remained. He needed a priest to grant the lass sanctuary.

  Could he convince Father Conan to come? Almost a hermit, the blind old priest lived closeted within his cottage nearby, seldom venturing out. Indeed, if Rane hadn’t made a habit of bringing him food once a week, he doubted the man would see himself properly fed. As for getting him to set foot in the cursed church again…

  He glanced at the lass, noticing the way her dark lashes lay gently upon her cheek, how her sweet lips parted in slumber. She looked so tiny, so defenseless. He dared not abandon her to fetch the Father. Not while she lay helpless and danger lurked outside.

  Rane was not a man to turn aside from those in need. Indeed, ’twas his own soft heart that had gotten him into this plight from the beginning. He’d already failed the hungry crofters. He’d not add to his faults by failing the lass.

  Still, a huntsman couldn’t hear her confession or grant her the right of sanctuary. Only a priest could do that.

  A faint commotion outside interrupted his thoughts and brought him to his feet.

  Riders. Several of them.

  Were they the lass’s pursuers?

  He lunged for the candle, extinguishing its flame between thumb and finger, throwing the sanctuary into darkness again.

  In a single movement he drew his knife and faced the door, his legs braced apart. ’Twas a pity he’d left his bow in the grass—’twas a far more formidable weapon. Outside, men’s voices rose and fell on the air, their speech indistinct.

  They rode past a number of times but never breached the door, probably because they believed in the curse of the church. Eventually they rode off. Still, Rane doubted they’d give up the hunt. The lass was a prize worthy of pursuit.

  He frowned, sheathing his knife. With mounted trackers on the maiden’s scent, venturing into the dark woods tonight was out of the question.

  Rane would have to see to her safety himself. He might have no authority to grant her the protection of the church, but till morn he could at least offer her the defenses of his sharp ear and his keen eye.

  To one side of the chancel sat the fridstool, the low stone chair that served as the seat of refuge. Surely she’d be safe enough there for the night. None would dare drag her from such a holy place. Not with Rane standing guard.

  And he intended to stand guard. Piercing a woman’s flesh with his arrow had shaken him more than he cared to admit. Now that he’d borne the lass to safety, a nausea born of shame grew in his gut. The sooner he could put this mortifying episode behind him, the better.

  He’d hardly be missed. Rane spent half his nights betwixt the willing thighs of some maid or other in the burgh anyway, dragging back to Lord Gilbert’s tower house in time for breakfast and some good-natured jesting from his fellows. No one would question his absence.

  As he placed the lass gently beside the fridstool, she shivered in her sleep. He tucked her skirts in around her. A generous measure of Norse blood served Rane well against the chill, but the abandoned church was a cold, hearthless place. On the morrow he’d bring plaids for her comfort. Until then, his wool cloak would have to suffice.

  After she was snugly cocooned in his garment, he pulled out his leather costrel of ale, took a hearty swig, and then sat back against the fridstool to watch over her. Retrieving his belt, he ran his thumb over the dents her teeth had made in the leather. They’d serve as a bitter reminder of what his carelessness had cost.

  In silence, he watched and waited until the deepening sky beyond the stained windows grew completely black, until Methuselah emerged from the vestry to go on his evening hunt, until distant wolves howled at the stars. The lass’s pursuers never returned.

  He must have drifted off after that, for he was startled awake in the middle of the night by the sound of rough breathing. He leaned close to the lass sleeping beside him. She was quivering. He reached out, found her hair, and traced his way to her forehead. She wasn’t fevered, thank Odin, just cold.

  Unfortunately, he had no more spare garments to give the lass. He’d lent her his shirt and cloak already, and he’d torn a good portion of his linen undershirt to make bandages. There was only one way to keep her warm.

  He slipped beneath the cloak and stretched out beside her. Careful of her wound, he drew her small body back against his chest, enclosing her in his arms, stopping her shivers with the steam of his breath.

  Despite their disparate size, she fit perfectly into the circle of his embrace. Her hair, soft and fragrant under his chin, grazed his chest where his shirt gapped away. Her body felt lissome and yielding beneath his arm, and where her buttocks were nestled against him, his loins, oblivious to his honorable intentions, warmed and stirred of their own accord. He closed his eyes against a wave of lust as his staff swelled against
her.

  There was nothing like the comfort of a lass in one’s arms, and this lass in particular, with her supple limbs and her gently curved shape, conformed to his body like a well-tailored jerkin.

  Still, Rane wasn’t a man to be ruled by the beast betwixt his legs. He’d sworn to take care of her, to protect her. And he intended to do just that.

  He tightened his arms about her. For now he’d shield her from the cold. Then, when the time came, he’d protect her against whatever devils had chased her into sanctuary.

  Lady Mavis Fraser, quivering with frustration and rage, paced her drafty solar, the leather soles of the new shoes she’d bought at the Selkirk Fair clapping against her heels. She clenched her fists in her ocher velvet skirts as she wheeled, making them swirl about her like a swarm of angry hornets. She couldn’t stop reliving her harrowing ordeal at the fair earlier with that horrid wench, an ordeal that her husband had refused to address with the proper concern at supper.

  Her anger, of course, only masked a far more vulnerable emotion—nerve-racking dread. She’d recognized that pomander at the goldsmith’s booth, not because she’d seen it before, but because she’d heard something about such a piece months ago from her husband’s most trusted maidservant. At the time, Mavis had discounted the woman’s account as the ramblings of an old crone, bent on destroying her marriage. But today, there the thing had been, as real as her own hand, the entwined letters on the lid as familiar to her as the lines in her face. And Mavis had suddenly realized that if, by some chance, the owner of the pomander were still alive…

  She’d wasted no time in purchasing the piece from the dullard at the booth, not even quarreling over the price. She intended to have it melted down at once, so that no one would ever know it had existed.

  But the wench who ran the booth had arrived then, and the instant Mavis caught sight of the dark-haired lass with the hauntingly familiar brown eyes, she realized the danger was even more immediate and grave than she’d imagined. The possessive brat and her bauble could well be the undoing of all Mavis’s ambitions.

  Of course, Gilbert mustn’t learn any of that. One’s past indiscretions had no bearing on the future. He must be told only that a gold piece had been stolen from Mavis. He was a simple man who saw only black and white, right and wrong. He hated to be bothered by what he deemed trivial. And at the moment, with the boy king Edward sitting on the English throne, Princess Mary avoiding his advances in Scotland, and the Borders under frequent attack because of it, a gold trinket seemed indeed trivial.

  But for Mavis, it meant everything.

  She twisted the wedding ring upon her finger, and the topaz flanked by gold initials appeared to wink at her with bemused scorn. Frowning, she turned it inward, clenching her fist around the gem as if to crush it.

  Once, she’d been naive enough to believe she was untouchable. Why, for years she’d been the secret darling of King Henry himself—a beloved spy who’d managed to charm her way into the Scots court, returning to Henry to appease his appetite for bed sport and information about the Scots royals. In the folly of her younger years, Mavis had even imagined one day bearing Henry a son and convincing him to take her to wife.

  ’Twas not unthinkable. The king flitted like a bee from flower to flower, after all, and Mavis had been beautiful and beguiling once.

  But that had never happened.

  Her fingers fluttered up to her throat, remembering what had befallen a few of his other wives. She supposed she should be glad the king had slipped her grasp and that she’d had the foresight, upon Henry’s death, to let the Scots queen marry her off to the newly widowed Lord Gilbert Fraser.

  Unfortunately, Gilbert, while a respectable catch, was also lord sheriff of the remote and savage burgh of Selkirk, which meant Mavis was effectively exiled from the Scots court. She’d lost not only Henry’s protection, but also her contacts.

  She shivered, silently cursing the crude tower house she was forced to live in now. Its only saving grace was its location along the Borders, which helped Mavis from becoming completely useless. There were a few ambitious Englishmen who’d made use of what bits of information she could pry out of her husband about the movements of the Scots royals.

  But when that information led to a few well-planned English attacks, Gilbert became more tight-lipped, claiming he did so for Mavis’s protection. After all, she couldn’t be held accountable for what she didn’t know, he’d told her with a loving kiss.

  She remained unmoved by his gesture, as she’d learned to be with any overtures of affection, for last year, when King Henry had died, Mavis had discovered the bitter truth about men. She’d been little more than a cog in Henry’s machine. He’d never acknowledged her service to the Crown. He’d left her no coin, no title, not even a bastard to raise.

  She enjoyed little royal protection now. Once the favorite of a king, she’d been reduced to the lowly wife of a sheriff. Mavis had learned a painful lesson: if she wanted anything in this world, she’d have to seize it herself.

  Starting with that gold pomander.

  A soft knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.

  “My lady?” Gilbert called.

  She straightened. Perhaps her husband was finally ready to give her the attention she deserved.

  Improvising, she snatched off her gable hood, loosening a few strategic strands of her honey hair. She withdrew a soft lawn napkin from her bodice and unlatched the door, letting it swing slowly open.

  “Aye?” she said with a sniff, dabbing at invisible tears.

  Gilbert frowned and entered the solar, closing the door behind him. “Don’t weep, love,” he said gently. “If ye can describe the piece, I’ll have another made for ye.”

  “But I don’t want another,” she said, pursing her lips into a pout. “I want that one.”

  He sighed and came up behind her, placing placating hands upon her shoulders. “My men couldn’t find the lass.”

  She twisted away from him. “They didn’t look hard enough.”

  “They scoured the grounds. She just disappeared into the woods.” He shook his head. “Maybe the English got her.”

  Mavis rounded on him, curling her lip. “She’s a thief! Ye can’t let her… disappear!”

  “Be reasonable, darlin’.” He spoke to her in patronizing tones. “’Tis only a bauble.”

  “’Tisn’t the point!” she cried, wadding the napkin in her fist. She was seething now with desperation, but she dared not let him know. She turned her back and let her shoulders droop, feigning hurt. “They were laughin’ at me, Gilly,” she said on a sob. “Ye should have seen them. The entire fair saw her snatch that girdle away from me as easy as stealin’ a sweet from a bairn.”

  This time when Gilbert came up behind her, she let him comfort her while she wept softly into her napkin. She knew her husband’s weaknesses all too well. If there was one thing he couldn’t abide in his domain, ’twas disharmony.

  “The folk here don’t like me, Gilly. They’ve never liked me.”

  “Ach, ’tisn’t true, darlin’.”

  But she knew ’twas true. And with good reason. She didn’t like them.

  These ugsome Scots were as rough and stubborn as jackasses. If they would simply give up Princess Mary to be wed to King Edward, the killing would stop, no one would go hungry, and Mavis could focus on securing her future.

  “ ’Tis true,” she countered. “They hate me, and now they don’t respect me either.”

  That touched a nerve. Gilbert’s hands tensed upon her shoulders. “O’ course they do.”

  “Not if a thief can get away with stealin’ from me and pay no consequences.” She drove the knife deeper. “And if they don’t respect me, Gilly, how long will it be before they don’t respect ye?”

  That did the trick. And after a long and pensive silence, Gilbert gave her shoulders a decisive squeeze. “My men will find her. I’ll round up my constables and have them look for her in the morn.”

  “The morn?
” Mavis blurted out, turning to him, then carefully tempered her voice. “But she may be halfway to Edinburgh by then.”

  “They’ll find her,” he vowed, giving her a light kiss on the brow.

  Mavis bit her lip as he exited the solar. Gilbert’s promise wasn’t good enough. Immediate action was necessary. Though she had few friends among the Scots here, there were still those among the English who were interested in Mavis’s connections, who valued the unique usefulness of her position, who, for a price, would come to her aid tonight.

  Chapter 3

  Emerging from dark, swirling veils of dreams, Florie grew aware of strange sensations. A deep throbbing in her thigh. Intense thirst. Sunlight upon her closed eyes. Hard stone beneath her hip. A profound silence. And the subtle scent of rosemary.

  With great effort, she lifted her eyelids. Slowly the world came into focus, a world strangely familiar, yet unfamiliar. Vivid colors—ruby and amber and sapphire—streamed into her eyes like flames bouncing off the facets of gemstones. And then, out of the glowing light, a figure clad in white descended to welcome her.

  Her breath caught.

  One of God’s seraphim gazed upon her. His long hair was as pale as winter wheat, his head haloed in soft gold. His face was radiant, his features bold. His jaw was wide, his nose straight, his brow strong, and when his aquamarine eyes captured her own, they seemed to delve deeply into her spirit. The eyes of an all-knowing angel of heaven.

  “Am I,” she whispered, “dead?”

  “Dead?” A crease touched the angel’s brow as he reached out to brush a stray lock of hair back from her face.

  She flinched, expecting his fingers to be cool and otherworldly. But they felt warm and callused and human upon her cheek.

  “Nae,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Ye’re safe. Ye’re in sanctuary, darlin’. Remember?”

  Sanctuary. And that voice. Wisps of memory blew past her now as she gazed beyond his shoulder at sunlight leaching through the panel of dingy stained glass. Snatching the pomander. Evading the sheriff’s guard. Fleeing through the woods. Discovering the pond. Then a sudden excruciating pain in her leg. Someone had…