He drew back. “That I can’t do, and well you know it.”
“Because I’m a maiden? No one believes that except you, as Trilborn made abundantly clear.”
“The man’s a fool. If others are not ready to accept it, it’s for their own ends.”
“Or else they think the worst because it’s so often true,” she said in dry correction. “But what is the point of enduring ill beliefs if I am not to have the advantage of it? Come, this way.”
He took a step, then stopped. He raked back his hair with an impatient gesture, exposing a black scowl. “You would not prove them right out of anger?”
“What, wallow in sin because I’ve lost my shiny halo? My pride is greater than that. Besides, Gwynne, my serving woman, will be there.”
“Well enough, but if I am seen going into your chamber, all the holy angels may not bring back that halo’s polish.”
“No, but the wound from Trilborn’s knife may turn putrid, so prove the curse of the Three Graces yet again. I would see that doesn’t happen.”
Rueful humor gleamed in his eyes. “You think the feud will do me in because of this curse? Belike it’s Trilborn who will die of blood poisoning after you set upon him with your sharp, white teeth.”
“It was all I could do.” Her voice was curt and she did her best to disregard the heat in her face as she urged him toward her chamber.
“And a fine thing it was, for all it drove him fair mad. Belike, he’ll be the victim of this dread prophecy, as he tried to claim you.”
“Pray God. Yet you are the more injured.”
“I’ve also sworn not to wed you, so how am I to fall victim?”
“Don’t mock it!”
“Nay, but you must see it makes little sense.”
She shook her head, a movement heavy with concern. “We are as good as betrothed, like it or not. Come with me now, before you bleed to death from it.”
He should refuse; Ross knew that well. It would be far better if he made whatever bow he could manage, and walked away while Lady Catherine was still talking. The slash halfway across his belly was irksome, but not deep. Certainly, it was nothing he had not dealt with before. A few strips torn from an old shirt, a stitch or two with good Highland wool, and none would be the wiser.
He didn’t do it. Meek as a newly dropped shoat, he followed where Lady Catherine led. He walked into her chamber behind the intriguing sway of her hips, sidestepped the sweep of her trailing hem as she came to a sudden halt, then waited to see what she would do next.
The chamber was simple, containing only a curtained bed with a chest at its foot, a table with bowl and ewer, a low stool, and a carpet instead of rushes on the floor. It was warmer than the outside corridor by grace of coals that glowed in the brazier on a three-legged stand. Yet what struck him like a clout to the head was its scents of perfume, spice and warm, indefinably feminine linen.
His reaction was immediate and all too predictable. There were times when the front-and-center placement of his sporran—called a cache-sexe by Scotland’s French allies for obvious reasons—was most useful. It was Ross’s personal belief other men at Henry’s court would do better with one instead of the useless codpieces they sported now and again.
“Oh, I forgot,” Lady Catherine said with an air of confusion. “Gwynne is washing linens this morning. If you will be seated on the stool, I’ll send to the laundry yard—”
“Nay, ’tis not worth the trouble or the time, as you’ll be needing to arrange yourself before you leave here again.”
She reached up at once to feel for the placement of her veil. Which was more than a little off-kilter. “Am I that bad? I didn’t think—”
“Don’t fuss, that wasn’t my thought at all. I’ll just take myself off to my own chamber.”
“Indeed, not. I can see to your wound as well as Gwynne, if you won’t mind my ministrations.”
The serving woman who had been with her and her sister on the progression was an older woman with a no-nonsense manner and skill in divers things. The only advantage Ross saw in having her tend him was that he would have no difficulty whatever in keeping his hands off her.
“You should not be called upon for such,” he said, in a last attempt at reason.
The look Lady Catherine gave him held two parts regret and one part impatience as she indicated the room’s squat stool. “You should not need it, but that can’t be remedied. If you sit, this will be easier for both of us.”
He failed to see the logic. The difficulty that lay ahead was obvious, but he moved deeper into that feminine fastness and dropped down onto the stool.
She bustled around, stirring the coals in the brazier and tipping in a few more from a scuttle that sat beneath it. As smoke rose in a thin column toward the low haze that lingered near the high ceiling, she moved to take up a small basin. “I must fetch water. Mayhap you’ll remove your shirt while I’m gone.”
“My lady…”
“Now what? I refuse to believe you are shy.”
His laugh was low and rather breathless. “Nay, but to strip off the shirt, I’ll have to remove my belt and sporran.”
“Do so then.”
“If I remove my belt, there will be nothing to hold my plaid. And I should point out that we Scots have no great liking for yon braises Englishmen wear to cover their private parts.”
She opened her mouth to speak, standing there halfway to the door with the basin in her hand. Then she closed it with a snap as rich color moved from her neck to her hairline. “Well, then, wrap your great coverlet of a plaid about you. It appears you’ll be no more naked under it then than you are now.”
It hurt to laugh, but he couldn’t help it. He’d thought to see her rattled. Aye, and so he had, though not for long. She was no milk-and-water English milady. For all her cool blond coloring, she had fire inside her. She might keep it tamped down, as doubtless she’d been taught, but it flared up now and then, burning so bright Ross longed to warm himself in its glow. And he would, naked and shameless withal, in this brief time heaven had provided.
Reaching up with his free hand, he began to unfasten the lacing that closed his shirt’s slit of a neck opening. Lady Catherine’s gaze rested for long moments on the movements of his fingers. As he exposed the dark and curling hair that pelted his chest, however, she drew a sharp breath and whirled, whisking from the room.
By the time she returned, Ross sat naked to the waist, but with the rest of him decently wrapped in yards of woven wool. She stopped just inside the door, sloshing a little water from her basin so it streaked down the skirt of her gown. Sensing her gaze on his shoulders like the brush of butterfly wings, he felt a rash of goose bumps spread across them. In sheer reflex, he pressed the wadded shirt he held against his wound so hard he feared he had caused more damage.
Averting her gaze, she came on almost at once. Like the busiest of serving maids, she drew the small table near and placed the basin on it, then went to pull a ragged linen shift from the box at the foot of the bed. She tore it into strips with a few quick jerks. Face set, she returned to his side.
Ross eyed the bruise on her cheek. It was bluer now than moments before. Murderous rage surged in his chest. The need to smash Trilborn’s face instead of just his nose, to pound it with his fists, was so strong Ross ached with it. The fingers of his left hand curled into a fist.
Lady Catherine seemed unaware of her disfigurement. Her gaze rested on his chest and shoulders. The absorption that lay in the blue depths of her eyes pleased him so mightily that he felt the flat, dark rounds of his nipples bead with it. It was a moment before he realized her interest was not caught by his manly physique but by the white streaks of old scars, a four-day-old sword cut on his upper arm and sundry bruises picked up in recent fights.
Her gaze lifted to his face. “You are cold. Shall I drape my cloak around you?”
“I’m not cold.” The words came out as a growl.
“No?” She looked away without arguing. “
I’ll bind the wound as quickly as I can, anyway. Here, let me see the damage.”
She took hold of the shirt he held wadded against the slash, peeling it away with slow care. The cut gaped, oozing, but was not the freshet it had been before. Ross watched her face, waiting for the sick disgust that would have been expressed by many. All he saw was calm appraisal.
“The edges need to be pulled together,” she said quietly, “else it will take forever to heal.”
“Do it then.”
“Gwynne would be better at it.”
“Don’t tell me you are no hand with a needle. I see your work there.” He nodded toward a basket that sat on the seat beneath the room’s single window, and the piece of embroidered silk that spilled from it, showing flowers in jewel colors.
“It isn’t the same.” The words were laconic.
“Nay, it should be easier, as I have no need for daisies stitched round my navel.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. She turned away then, speaking over her shoulder as she moved back to the boxlike trunk at the bed’s foot. “On your head be it.”
He was busy dabbing at the ooze from the cut and did not see what she took from the box. It was brought to his notice as she cast a handful of white powder into the water she had fetched, and stirred a piece of linen cloth in it, which she then pressed to his side.
“God’s blood!” he swore, coming up off the stool as the sting of a thousand ants bit into him. His plaid began to slip and he caught it in haste, holding it in front of him. “What is that stuff?”
“Salt. It’s only a salt-water wash. Gwynne swears by it.”
“So might I, if I were a piece of boar meat needing preserving,” he declared, subsiding back onto the stool.
“What prevents flesh from putrefying in the cask does the same for it on the body. Can you not be still?”
Thus abjured, he sat like stone. He required distraction from the pull and throb of his side, however. It was found, somewhat, in his close view of her curves under the deep rose silk of her outer tunic. At the center bodice, and again on either side at the level of her knees, this tunic had sizable slits with bound edges that spread open to reveal the vinelike tracery of embroidery on the pale pink gown it covered. The small cap that held her veil had the same color and embroidered design.
Strands of her hair had become enmeshed with the gold threads during her struggle with Trilborn, Ross saw. His fingers tingled at the tips with the need to set them free, to smooth them back into the heavy braid that shifted between her shoulder blades, under the semi-concealment of her veil. The fine fabric of her bodice molded to her shape with utmost fidelity, outlining the gentle globe of her breast. He could see where the areola made a flower shape around the tiny peak that was, most likely, a close match in color to the silk that covered it.
Trilborn had laid hands on her there. Ross knew a sudden ferocious need to wipe away that touch by cradling both her breasts in his hands, brushing the crests into sweet berries that he might taste, tease, gently suckle. He yearned to help her forget.
It was a part of the blood feud, it must be, this deep need to obliterate the very memory of his enemy from her mind. There was nothing more in it. No, not even if his yearning extended to greater liberties, to testing her soft heat and womanly fragrance while she lay naked in his arms.
He needed to think of something else, anything else.
“You have had difficulty with Trilborn before? He makes a habit of accosting you in quiet corners?”
“Not at all. I’ve managed to avoid him since our return,” she replied, explaining in a few words how she had been accosted. While she spoke, she finished cleaning around his wound, and then moved to where her sewing basket sat, bringing back a needle threaded with black silk.
“Deliberate, then, of a certainty.”
She appeared to consider that while she patted his wound dry with a soft cloth. Dropping it on the table, she knelt at his side, then reached to take up the needle. “I suppose it must have been.”
“He meant to force himself on you if you failed to see reason. It seems to me he could have chosen a better place for it, though he may have only…seized the moment.” Ross’s breath hissed between his teeth as she caught the edge of the slash and pierced his flesh without warning.
“It was fortunate he did not choose differently, else you might not have come upon us.”
Though her words were prosaic enough, a small shudder ran over her. “Nothing of chance was in it,” he said deliberately. “I saw Marguerite, who let fall that you’d been summoned to the queen. I was on my way to meet you, and make certain all was well, when I saw Trilborn intercept you. I thought to discover his intention before I joined you. I almost left it too late.” He sucked in a breath as she pushed her needle through his skin again, but was too intent on how she would answer to give the stinging pain his full attention.
“Not quite,” she said.
“He hurt you.” He reached to brush a knuckle over her cheek as he had before, unable to resist the urge. Her skin was as soft as apple blossom petals. To see it damaged pained him in some way he could not explain.
“Not as much as he hurt you,” she answered, with her attention on what she was doing. “Nor as you are likely to be hurt if you continue to fight every man who speaks an incautious word concerning our time in the New Forest.”
Her features were grave, her voice severe. That she spoke of preventing pain for him while thrusting a needle into him was a wonderment, though he said nothing of it. “Would you have me ignore them?” he asked instead.
“To make much of what they say lends credence to our odd betrothal. It will be more difficult to renounce it at some future date.”
“To let it pass would have it appear I have no care for your good name, or mine.”
“Courting death merely because my mare ran away with me seems beyond foolish.”
“’Twas not my plan.” He held up his hand as she opened her lips to speak again. “It’s a conundrum, agreed, but what would you? I must act the part of a man about to be married, or else appear the coward. After the seven or eight I’ve made eat their words, mayhap fewer will hunger to face me.”
Her eyes widened, turning a darker blue as they met his. “Trilborn said a half dozen.”
“He is behind time,” Ross said shortly. Dropping poison wherever he went was both habit and pleasure for his old enemy.
She pressed her lips together before she spoke. “It’s too much.”
“Even if ’tis said I took advantage of you? I’ll not stand for that.”
“I’m to believe you fought for that reason, am I?”
Many women would have, if only because it absolved them of blame. He should have known Lady Catherine would be different. “I am pleased to be your champion,” he said, his voice resounding deep in his chest, “as I can be nothing else.”
Her eyes held his, twin wells of dark blue, for endless moments before she spoke. “You feel I require one then.”
“Aye,” he said, inclining his head, “that I do.”
She gave a small shake of her own head, turning her attention to her stitching as she released a sigh. “You may be right.”
She finished the task in short order, and tied off the last stitch with a small, flat knot. So surprised was he that she was done, he barely felt the tug as she leaned to bite the thread just above it, freeing the needle. Or mayhap it was the sight of her veiled head so near his lap, the brush of her lips against the skin of his abdomen, the press of her breast against his bare thigh. Aye, and the knowledge that he was near naked made no difference, that all he need do to take her was throw off his plaid and pull her down to the floor with him.
His body hardened with a drawing agony so strong he felt his eyes water. It took his breath, destroyed reason, so he was left with nothing but impulse and desperate need. Unable to move without reaching out for her, he sat as still as death while she got to her feet and, oblivious to his state, began to dr
ess his wound.
She compressed her lips so tightly they almost disappeared while she concentrated. He had noticed it before, but now he wanted to follow that tucked line, to coax them free, tease and stroke until they were soft, full and moist as she opened to him. He wanted to cup her face in his hands while he trailed a thousand healing kisses over her bruised skin. He longed to remove her veil and free her hair, to comb his fingers through it until it spread over her back and shoulders in a shining cape. He yearned to remove the yards of stifling fabric she wore, unfastening hooks and ties, saluting the flesh he uncovered until she was naked and pliant in his arms.
Unaware, she made a pad of linen and pressed it to his side, held it down with another strip while she passed her arms around him to the back, crossed the ends and drew them forward again. She was close, so close that he caught the lavender-and-rose scent she wore, the warm fragrance of her hair. He held his breath while she wrapped his waist with the all too brief embrace of her arms, wrapped it again and then began to tie a small square knot.
Something in his stillness must have communicated itself to her. She glanced up, met the heat of his eyes, searched the set expression on his face.
For long seconds, she did not move. In the sudden quiet, the sound of ash falling away from the coals in the brazier was a slithering whisper. By slow degrees, her eyes turned as dark as the sky before a summer storm. A small tremor passed through her hands, which rested upon him.
Her lips parted at last, at last, and he was lost. He was lost, and feared it might be forever.
7
She was close, so close to the Scotsman. She could see the individual lashes that sprang thick and black from his eyelids, could see the shards of silver that spiraled around the pupils of his eyes against the background of dark blue irises. She was aware of the thin scar that bisected one eyebrow and the blue shadow of his beard stubble beneath the skin. The firm curves of his mouth were peculiarly enticing; she could almost feel their heat, their smoothness. The herbal scent that was his own, mayhap from some Scots soap, surrounded her. She sensed with an instinct beyond her understanding the power he held under restraint, and the price he paid for it.
By Grace Possessed Page 9
