She should step back, should move away while saying something commonplace. It would be the wisest course, the best thing for both of them.
She couldn’t do it. Her muscles would not respond to her will. Her mind was blank except for the treacherous memory of Marguerite’s voice murmuring in perilous reason: “Do you never wonder what it might be like…to allow those caresses that may lead to…to exploration of soft petals and warm centers?”
This was no garden, yet was an opportunity that might never come again. She had dreamed of such a time, just as she had told Marguerite. Oh, yes, she had dreamed.
Added to that, she was far more conscious than she wanted to be of Ross Dunbar’s unclothed virility there in the virginal chamber she shared with Marguerite. He was so large, so masculine in the sculpting of the muscles that formed his body, catching the warm bronze glow from the brazier in their firm strength. The whorls of his ears, the slope of his neck, the way his hair grew were all a fascination. The soft feathering of hair across his chest made her want to run her fingertips through it, to spread her palms over it for the silken friction, to follow the narrowing tail of it as it arrowed down beneath the folds of his plaid.
She didn’t move, didn’t lift her eyes from the firm shape of his mouth. Her heart thudded against her ribs, shuddering under her bodice. Her hands trembled as she pulled the ends of the bandaging she held into a flat, tight knot. She may have leaned a fraction, may have sighed. She did not close her eyes, however, not until his features moved nearer and his mouth touched hers.
He was so warm. Heat radiated from him, surrounding her so she shivered with reaction. His mouth was hot against the coolness of her lips, branding her so her internal warmth surged up to meet his. Her lips tingled, setting off minute vibrations that shifted through her, settling in the lower part of her body. The skin of his arms and shoulders was like velvet over warm marble as she slid her palms over them. She felt the hard, possessive strength of him as he circled her waist with his arm and drew her against him, felt the slide of his free hand over the silk of her gown, pausing at the turn of her waist before capturing her breast with his fingers.
A low moan, half protest, half surrender, sounded in her throat. How different was his touch from Trilborn’s earlier. Ross’s hand cradled her, making her shiver as her flesh swelled to fill it. She smoothed her palm over his bare shoulder, then threaded her own fingers through his hair. The silken strands clung, catching in the spaces between them, rousing her to an awareness of him so acute it was almost painful.
The taste of his mouth was as sweet and heady as the finest wine. She was enraptured by the gentle abrasion of his tongue, which ignited a fire deep inside her, and by the hard wall of his chest against her breasts, the strong throbbing of his heart. She felt, too, in wonder and excitement, the firmness of him against her thigh, so different from the punishing jab of Trilborn’s stiffness.
She was on fire, burning with desire so elemental it felt like compulsion. The slow brush of his thumb across the tip of her breast, the inexorable tightening of his hold, were incendiary beyond her imagining. The need to be closer to him, to feel him against her bare skin had such urgency that she moaned again.
“Ah, lass,” he whispered against her lips, his warm breath a caress against their sensitized surfaces. And hearing the question in it, she hardly noticed the sudden draft as the door opened, or the footsteps that scuffed over the threshold in felt slippers before coming to an abrupt halt.
“Saints preserve us!”
Gwynne. It was Gwynne.
Cate gasped, coming so suddenly to her senses that she felt disoriented for endless seconds. Disentangling herself from Ross’s arms, she stepped back, righted her veil, which had somehow loosened again.
“There…there you are, Gwynne,” she said hurriedly. “The gentleman was injured and had need of aid.”
“Aye, mistress, so I see,” the serving woman said, setting her hands on her wide hips, “and you were giving it to him.”
Cate lifted a brow, sought for authority. “You were not here to do it. Now…now he requires fresh linen, for his shirt is torn and bloodied, as you can see, and he can’t leave in his nakedness. Go you and find something for him to wear.”
“Where I am to find this linen?”
“In my chamber,” Ross answered, as Cate hesitated, at a loss. “I give you leave to search my belongings and bring back what is needed.”
If he was chagrined at all by being found three-quarters naked in a lady’s chamber, nothing of it was present on his face, nor did he appear the least embarrassed at being discovered with her in his arms. Mayhap he was used to such events, or else cared nothing for what a serving woman might think of him.
Cate could not be quite so sanguine. Gwynne had been maid to her mother from the day she was wed, and also nursemaid to Cate and her sisters. Gwynne was the only mother left to them when their own died while they were still children. She had seen them through a hundred illnesses and upsets, had shielded them from the wrath of their stepfather and stepbrother before those two died, had shared their sorrows and their joys. She was family.
“Please, Gwynne,” she said in fraught supplication. “I will explain, but not now.”
The woman searched her eyes, her faded gaze disturbed but not unsympathetic. After an instant, she gave a short nod. “Aye,” she said, “though I’ll not be long about it.”
It was a warning, if such were needed. It was not. The moment, so fraught with unnamable dangers, was past. When the door closed behind Gwynne, Cate moved to where she had dropped Ross’s shirt. She picked it up, shook it out for inspection, aware as she did so of its width across the shoulders, and of the dark shade of the blood that soaked it.
“The stain may come out if it’s put in water,” she said, her voice tight and not completely even. “If so, I—or Gwynne—could mend the tear for you.”
“Leave it,” Ross answered. “Some things are beyond mending.”
She glanced at him and away again, alerted by some undercurrent in his voice that said more than his words. “You have to try, often enough, before you can be certain of it.”
“Not always. Betimes, the damage is obvious.”
She pressed her lips together, busied herself folding the shirt and placing it firmly in the red-tinted water that remained in the basin. “And what then?”
“Then you make what accommodation you can. You vow to do without, or else begin anew.”
She could feel the heavy beat of her heart, the fullness in the lower part of her body, the weight in her mind. Something momentous was being decided here, and she could not be certain what it was or what the consequences of it might be. When she spoke again, the words were a mere thread of sound.
“And which shall it be for us?”
“Ah, you know, Cate. You’ve known from the first.”
She feared she did. She feared it greatly.
Ross’s wound became inflamed. It was no great surprise, in spite of Cate’s salt water, as it had been Trilborn’s dirty blade that sliced him. He kept to his chamber, tossing and shivering with fever, sleeping much, eating nothing. On the second day, Cate’s serving woman bustled into his room with a tray holding bread, chicken broth and a water jug. She clacked at him about his failure to appear in the great hall, bullied him, forced him to eat a little and drink much, changed his sweaty linens and left him far more comfortable. She came again on the third day, and the fourth. Sometimes she came at night, as well, though then she sometimes looked amazingly like her mistress, and her long fair hair sometimes brushed over his fevered skin like a hundred tiny fingers as she sponged him with water like that from a snow-fed loch. Her hands were gentle, yet made his skin pebble in reaction as she changed his bandage, brushed his hair free of tangles, smoothed a cloth over his face.
By the fifth day, he was restless, irritable, thrown into a temper by every stray noise as his fever climbed each evening. When two idiots in the chamber next to his started an argu
ment over a dent in a helmet, he rose from his bed, knocked their heads together and, weak as watery porridge from the exertion, went back to his chamber. Within moments, he was drenched with sweat, but calm enough that he slept from prime to vespers.
On waking in the middle of the sixth night, he had a fierce longing to throw on his plaid, saddle a horse and leave this self-imposed prison. He wanted, needed, to ride out and pit both wit and strength against a foe. It mattered little whether that meant keeping Dunbar cattle safe from theft or stealing the beasts of his neighbors, so long as he was moving, out in the open night air on this last day or two of the raiding season. Soon enough the nights would grow too short, forage for horses too scant and the cattle too weak for rough herding. The reiving would be over until spring.
As he lay staring into darkness lit only by the guttering stub of a tallow candle, he thought it doubtful he would ever ride out again with friends and the male members of his family to wreak havoc on those who stood against them. They would go without him, as they must have done during these many weeks since Michaelmas. He would be stuck here in England forever and a day, forgotten by all he knew.
A part of his melancholy came from loss of that close companionship of his youth and the surety of blood ties, another part from isolation and weakness due to lying abed. Adding to his gloom, however, was recognition of the great gulf that existed between him and Lady Catherine Milton.
He had let her know there was no future for them. It was idiocy, then, to bemoan her failure to appear. True, she had sent her serving woman, which could be seen as a display of concern, but she had not come to soothe his brow or relieve his boredom.
She could not have stayed, of course. He would have sent her away at once. Still, she might have made the attempt.
He was being unreasonable and knew it. They were both aware there could be nothing between them, had agreed upon it twice over. For her to be seen anywhere near his chamber could have disastrous consequences for them both. News of it would fly about the court more wildly than a sparrow lost among the flags and banners that draped the great hall’s ceiling. They would be wed before cockcrow.
The only thing worse would be if he was caught slipping into her chamber in the dark of night. In that case, he could wind up clamped in irons.
Still, he had considered it, particularly when half crazed with fever. Would she welcome him, all gentle smiles and soft, enclosing arms, or scream the palace down around his ears? Only the knowledge that she slept with her sister prevented him from sliding from his bed to find out. Yon Marguerite would not hesitate a second before calling for the guard. That was, if she didn’t brain him with a fire iron instead. And wasn’t he beyond hope that he could think to entice Cate from her bed while Marguerite slept beside her?
He needed a woman. That was what ailed him; he’d been celibate too long. Between scorning the blandishments of the court ladies, who looked upon him as a barbarian who might show them his rough ardor, and avoiding the drabs who sold their wares in tavern attics and alleyways, he had gone without. He could barely remember his last encounter, but thought it was with Sadie, the blacksmith’s daughter, who had smelled of hot metal polish, heather and the wind off Solway. They went at each other fast and hard that day in the bracken, two bodies grasping, holding, pounding together with no pretence of anything other than seizing the moment. When it was over, Sadie had walked away, skirts swishing, flinging a satisfied smile over her shoulder.
In his drifting daytime fantasies and midnight dreams, too, it was Cate who smiled and swung her skirts. She left him lying there in the grass as naked as he was born, wishing she would remain to sleep in his arms. Her kiss haunted his nighttime hours, returning to him with such tenderness, such untutored sweetness and gentle sighs, that he woke groaning aloud with the need for more.
In the evening of the eighth day, or perhaps it was the ninth, a messenger arrived at his chamber. Ross rolled out of bed as the hammering came on his door, then grabbed for the post, cursing, until his head cleared. The man outside was his cousin Liam, tall and burly, with hair the color of rusty armor and a grin that took up half his face. He buffeted Ross on the shoulder so hard he almost floored him in his weakened state, then grabbed him and set him on the bed.
“Ye look like cat vomit on a dung heap, mon,” he declared with typical diplomacy. “What’ve they been doing to you?”
The catching up took some little time. At the end of it Liam shook his craggy head. “A bad business, all around. Yon Trilborn is no the most canny creature under God’s heaven, but sly enough to make up for it. Think you he meant to gut you?”
“Oh, aye, though he could not know I’d come upon him with Lady Catherine,” Ross allowed. “He just meant to do as much harm as possible while he had the chance, would have done more had I not blocked it with my dirk.”
“Being that fearful of ye.”
“Or that determined to have the lady.”
“To spite a Dunbar then.”
“Or because he not only pants after her but has need of her dowered lands and their revenue.”
Liam looked wise. “And you’ve no notion of letting him have her.”
“I never said that.”
“Ye didn’t have to, for ’twas in your face. But it won’t do. ’Twill never do.”
Ross had known as much, though a slow anger simmered inside him at hearing it plainly spoken. “You’ve come to tell me so, I suppose.”
“The laird was fit to be tied when he got yon King Henry’s message. Raved up and down like a madman, he did, threatening to horsewhip you for getting yourself entangled with an Englishwoman. The upshot was a fine vow that you’d be no son of his should you dare give her the Dunbar name. Said you could get all the bastards you pleased upon her while Henry’s guest, but you are no to stand with her at the church door.”
Ross snorted in disgust. “Disowned, is it?”
“Wed her and you may as well call yourself a Sassenach. In fact, the laird said as how he’ll see you dead if you show yourself on Dunbar land.”
The old man had been on a rant, sure enough, or else he meant to make certain his will was obeyed. “You brought Henry this refusal of permission?”
Liam chuckled and slapped his knee. “Nay, not I. What the auld laird had to say to him went by the king’s messenger betimes. And what he said was that he’d have to think on it longer, seeing as our Jamie considers it such a fine match.”
“King James gave it his blessing?”
“Aye, being that content with the treaty signed between him and England’s Henry as to favor anything that may aid it.”
“So he’s kept the door open, the wily old devil, while making sure I’ll not step through it on my own.”
“Something like,” Liam agreed.
“Odd that I’ve heard nothing of it from Henry.”
“Ye wouldn’t, now would ye, if he still thinks to persuade ye? Well, or allow the lady to try? Though I can’t think what manner of female she must be that he’s so bent on handing her over to a dastardly Scotsman.”
“A sorceress, or something like it.”
Liam drew back, his eyes wide. “Never say so!”
“A jest only,” Ross said, giving his cousin a thump upside the head. “Henry plays a deep game, I think, with an eye toward a likely rebellion.”
“Because of this talk of a prince nay so dead as all thought? We’ve heard of it, across the border, along with stirrings in York, which was dead King Richard’s home ground. Just what’s needful, another little skirmish between white rose and red, followed by another row of lopped off heads stuck on posts to feed ravens.”
“As long as they aren’t Scots heads.”
“Oh, aye.”
“There’s no indication our King James intends to meddle in the business then.”
“None I’ve heard, him being that busy worrying over a braw little rebellion all his own.”
Liam lingered only long enough to give news of the Dunbar clan—who
had been born, married, sickened, died or killed. He complained of the boredom of being idle under the laird’s promise of good behavior—though he also laughed over a fine jest played on the Johnstones wherein a half-dozen Dunbars had dressed in sheepskins on a foggy night and made away with enough cattle for a fine feast.
When his cousin had taken himself off to find food and drink after his long journey, Ross sat staring at the four walls of his chamber, turning over in his mind all that had been said.
He had known how his father would react, so there was scant surprise there. The lack of an outright, damn-your-eyes refusal to Henry was more about taking the time to study all the angles than concern for his son. He’d figure Ross could take care of himself, and so he could, right enough. Why, then, was his first impulse to defy the laird of Dunbar? What maggot of perversity made him want to say to hell with his father’s orders and threats, and do what he wanted?
What he wanted…
Cursing, Ross shoved himself off the bed. Splashing and slopping the cold water that sat in his basin, he scrubbed away the stink of sweat from skin and hair while routing the stupor of illness. He bound fresh linen over the slash in his side that was still an angry red line set with neat stitches in black embroidery. Pulling on his thigh-length linen shirt, he pleated his plaid about him in folds to his knees, threw on his belt and sporran over it and topped the whole with his leather jerkin. Moments later, he slammed from the chamber on his way to the great hall.
The fresh smell of greenery assailed him as he entered, along with the smoke and brightness of a great crackling fire. Glancing at the enormous Yule log that blazed on the hearth, Ross realized it must be the eve of Christ’s Mass, that the holiday had crept in upon them all while he lay abed. Mingled with the unusual saplike fragrances were the aromas of roast meats, hot bread and ale.
For an instant he felt light-headed, almost ill, then realized it was because he was hungry enough to fight the dogs for the bones under the table. Striding to the end of the nearest bench, he made a place for himself and snagged the shirt of the boy moving past with large slabs of warm and crusty trenchers.
By Grace Possessed Page 10
