Such ponderings served naught.
But he could feel the warmth.
And the scent of roses filled his senses on every indrawn breath.
Even more strange, the ceiling crack was suddenly gone and she filled his vision.
A dream, he knew, but she was there all the same.
His high-spirited bride, standing on a narrow shingled strand with what looked to be an imposing curtain wall looming behind her. All ardent woman and desirability, she watched him, her flame- colored hair bright in the autumn sunshine, her magnificent breasts and shapely hips more than apparent.
Sparkling as the glittering loch waters at her feet, she beckoned, her allure pulling him deeper into sleep. Somewhere inside him something twisted and cracked, freeing him of his usual caution.
Need, want, and an inexplicable urgency swept him. Then, his entire body tightened and he found himself standing only a hand’s breadth in front of her.
He drew a harsh, rapid breath, then seized her by the arms and pulled her tight against him for a hard, demanding kiss. A devouring, all-slaking, open-mouthed kiss full of tangling tongues and hot sighs.
The kind of kiss he’d been burning to give her ever since he’d seen her march so boldly up Dare’s steps, her wicked green bauble bouncing against the vee between her thighs.
Some lucid part of him wondered if her gift allowed her to invade his sleep, but his dream-self didn’t care why she was there, tempting him.
Only that she was.
Groaning, he jerked her even harder against his chest, his fingers tightening on her arms as he plunged his tongue ever deeper into her mouth. His heart thundered, his need near bursting as she swirled her own tongue seductively over his.
Heat swept him, her attar of roses scent enfolding him, bewitching him.
He thrust a hand into the silken mass of her hair, twining his fingers in the bright, glossy curls. Soft, nubby curls with a surprisingly familiar feel.
A feel that was just a wee bit worn, not nearly as soft as he’d thought, and decidedly woolly.
His eyes snapped open.
The illusion, dream, or whate’er it’d been spiraled away. An odd lurching disappointment shot through him and he pushed up on his elbows to glare at the bunched plaid clutched so tightly in his hand.
His own plaid, still wrapped snug around him save that he’d managed to pull it up over his chin. Its edge tickled his nose, the seductive scent of roses wafting up from each woolen fold, reminding him how often she’d leaned over-close at the high table.
How many times she’d endeavored to brush her breasts against his arm, her attar of roses perfume nigh undoing him.
His brows snapped together. “By all the living saints!” he cursed, lifting up just enough to fling the rose-reeking tartan into a corner.
When he tried to roll onto his side and found he couldn’t, he made another discovery.
The delicious warmth he’d been imagining hadn’t been imagined at all.
He was engulfed in warmth.
But not because his entirely too tempting, bauble-wearing bride returned his dream-kisses with such heated fervor. Nor thanks to the unexpected coziness of the muffled converse he’d caught from the dais end of the hall, his grandfather’s occasional bark of jolly laughter.
He was warm — overly warm — because his favorite hound, Buckie, was sprawled across his lower legs!
As if the great scruffy beast sensed Ronan’s ire, he opened one eye, giving him a long, steady look before shutting it again and continuing with his snores.
Ronan swallowed a curse. The dog wasn’t just warming him. His entire lower body beginning somewhere about midthigh tingled and burned as if the devil and his minions were jabbing him with red-hot fire needles.
He might not rid himself of the sensation for days.
It was that bad.
And ordering Buckie to move wasn’t an option.
The old cur was lame in his back legs and deserved his rest even more than Ronan. Nor would he budge if Ronan did glower and scold him. Unlike the other castle dogs, Buckie was wholly impervious to his dark moods.
Far from slinking away whenever that look came onto Ronan’s face, Buckie would simply shuffle over and lick his hand.
Something he’d done ever since Ronan had found him tied to a tree on the edges of Glen Dare, thin, half-starving, and covered in welts. Ronan had doubted the then-young dog would survive the night.
But he’d thrived, and to this day, Ronan could hardly take a step without Buckie trailing along at his heels.
Nor, it would seem, would he find undisturbed sleep this night.
Sighing, he lay back again, determined to try.
But he’d no sooner closed his eyes and drifted into the sweet bliss of a deep, dreamless sleep when the sound of hastening footfalls woke him.
That, and the renewed surge of red-hot fire tingles in his legs when Buckie stirred and pushed slowly to his feet.
Trying again not to curse, Ronan once more opened his eyes, this time staring up into the smoking, hissing flames of a handheld rush light.
A few sparks dropped onto his chest and he brushed at them, frowning.
Now he knew what had disturbed Buckie.
He blinked. Then he raised a hand to wave away the smoke from in front of his eyes, half wondering if he’d wakened in the fires of hell.
Before he could decide, the rush light moved and he saw Anice, the large-eyed slip of a serving lass, peering down at him. Her throat worked convulsively and her thin little face looked white as the moon.
“O-o-oh, sir!” she cried. “You must come at once! They’ve ravaged your bedchamber and —”
“What?” Ronan blinked again, the last dredges of sleep making it hard to think. “They who?”
The girl shook her head so rapidly that one of her thin black braids slipped from its pins. “I’m sure I dinna care to know,” she wailed, and then Ronan did know.
He leaped from the pallet. “Lady Gelis,” he demanded, snatching up his plaid. “Is she harmed?”
“Nae, sir, she’s fussing about the fine victuals having been tossed out the window.”
At the niche’s opening, Buckie dropped onto his haunches and whined.
Ronan’s eyes widened. “The repast I ordered? It was tossed out the window?”
Anice looked down at the rush light in her hand, unable to meet his eye. “Aye, that’s the way of it, my lord. The lady thinks it was you what did it.”
The Raven’s stomach clenched, an icy dread streaking down his spine.
Whipping around, he dashed from the little niche to sprint across the darkened hall, making for the stair tower. He raced up the winding stairs, taking them two at a time and not even bothering to curse when, almost at the top, a misstep caused him to slam his bare toes full into one of the unyielding stone steps.
Pain shot up his leg and made his eyes water, but he didn’t even scowl.
There’d be time enough for that later.
He hadn’t expected the Holders to move so quickly.
Nor, he realized, hearing Buckie clumping up the stairs behind him, would he have believed how much Lady Gelis’s safety meant to him.
Somehow, somewhere in the brief span of time since she’d first flashed him her brilliant smile and he’d dreamed of kissing her on some narrow strip of shingled shore, she’d become more than a well-born lass he wished to keep from harm.
She’d become important to him.
And that was a greater danger than the Holders and all their unholy mist wraiths combined.
A greater danger indeed.
And one he wasn’t at all sure he could conquer.
He just knew that he must.
Chapter Six
Prepared for the worst, Ronan burst into his bedchamber only to come to a skittering, undignified halt. Far from requiring rescue, Lady Gelis knelt calmly on the bearskin rug in front of the hearthstone, her delectably rounded bottom bobbing in the air as she jabbed an iron p
oker at a tidy pile of just-beginning-to-smolder peat bricks.
Ronan’s eyes widened. He stared at her, well aware his jaw was slipping. His breath lodged in his throat, making it difficult to think. Worst of all, her flame-bright hair caught the fire glow and his fingers itched to touch the gleaming strands.
A man could lose himself in such silky, glistening tresses.
Lose himself and much more.
He frowned.
Praise the saints she hadn’t yet undressed.
Even so, it took all his strength to tear his gaze from her jigging buttocks.
When he could, his pent-up breath left him in a great, gusty rush.
“What goes on here?” He strode forward, his stare pinned on the iron poker in her hand. “Who —”
“We both know who is responsible.” Cool as spring rain, she set aside the fire poker and stood. “One glance was all I needed” — she made a sweeping gesture, turning — “though I vow anyone would have guessed upon seeing . . .”
She froze, her extended arm poised in midair. “Mercy!” she gasped, her eyes widening. “You’re naked!”
“Bah. I —” Ronan started to deny it, but clamped his mouth shut instead.
He was naked.
He firmed his jaw and squared his shoulders, opting for a show of dignity. With each breath, he became more aware of the heavy plaid still clutched in his hand, the dry bits of rushes and herbage tickling the bare soles of his feet.
Lady Gelis was staring at him.
He could neither move nor speak.
Great folds of tartan dangled from his fingers to pool on the floor. Rather than throw the plaid around him, he’d simply snatched it up and run, so great had been his urgency to reach her side and ensure her safety.
Now he looked the fool.
“You forgot to don your plaid,” she said, quite unnecessarily.
“Nae,” Ronan lied, “I did not wish to waste time with such trivialities in my haste to see what was amiss here.”
Her eyes twinkled. “There is naught amiss here that cannot be easily rectified.”
Something in her tone warned him.
Against his better judgment, he glanced down, his worst dread confirmed.
Her jigging buttocks had affected him more than he’d realized.
Heat shot up the back of his neck. His vitals caught flame. After all, it wasn’t every day such a desirable female stood staring at his man piece.
Nor could he recall having ever seen a more amused-looking female.
Or one who looked quite so triumphant.
Ronan cleared his throat, pride not letting him sling on his plaid too hastily. “Fair lady, you’d be hard-pressed to find a Heilander who doesn’t sleep naked as the good God made him.” He held her gaze as he spoke, forcing himself to use slow and careful movements as he covered himself.
The plaid finally in place, he dusted his hands, blessed composure his once again. “Anice woke me,” he began, doing fine until he perceived a certain canine stare boring into him from the door.
Buckie lay sprawled across the threshold, his shaggy head resting on his paws, his milky eyes keener than Ronan had seen them in years.
Definitely unblinking, and perhaps even a wee bit accusatory.
Ronan let out a long breath. “Anice and my dog, Buckie, woke me,” he started again, the correction earning him an appreciative tail swish. “Anice said the victuals I’d sent up for you went missing and that —”
“So you admit they were meant for me?” Gelis pretended to examine her fingernails. She had him now. “Not for the two of us?”
“I hardly see how that matters.” He brushed at his plaid, looking more trapped than if she’d pinned him in a corner with a twelve-foot lance.
“It matters to me.”
He lowered his brows, but said nothing.
Gelis felt her lips quirk.
“You needn’t glower so,” she said, allowing the quirk to flash into her brightest smile.
If anything, his mien darkened.
“I am not wroth with you. Even if I am not accustomed to discovering my evening repast has been tossed out the window.” She gave a light shrug, willing her smile to blaze. “Truth be told, I am quite content.”
The Raven humphed.
“That, sweet lass, I find hard to believe.” He looked at her, his brows arcing. “ ’Tis impossible for you to be at ease. Here, in this place” — he planted his fists on his hips — “and with me.”
She gave a soft laugh. “Nae, especially with you,” she declared, her breath catching.
Her heart leaped, some wild devil inside her making her close the distance between them and poke a finger into his proud, plaid-draped chest.
“Truth is, I welcome challenges,” she announced, jabbing her finger harder on each word. “I wouldn’t be my father’s daughter if I didn’t. So-o-o” — she lifted a fold of his tartan, ran her thumb over its soft warmth — “I’ll start by asking where you were going?”
“There are challenges here that would daunt even your redoubtable sire.” He narrowed his eyes at her, deftly ignoring her question. “Were the window shutters bolted or opened when Anice brought you up here?”
“They were flung wide, the wet wind gusting into the room.”
“And you shut them?”
“I did.”
From the door, his dog shifted and resettled his bulk with a grunt.
The Raven shot him an irritated look. “The shutters,” he continued when the beast stopped his scuffling, “did you notice anything unusual when you closed them?”
“You mean besides the whirling mist, denser than any I’ve ever seen, and my smashed feasting goods spread across the cobbles?”
“I mean . . . anything.”
“Perhaps the staves of what appeared to be a broken bathing tub?”
“The bathing tub as well?” His brows lowered. “You are certain?”
Rather than answer him, Gelis lifted her chin and fixed him with her best so-you’ d-doubt-me stare. A look that she’d learned at her father’s knee and that would have made a man of lesser mettle tremble in his boots.
The Raven remained unperturbed.
“You have peat ash on your face,” he said, reaching to brush his thumb across her cheek.
A grave mistake, for as soon as he touched her, her attar of roses scent wafted up to befuddle him. He swallowed hard, tried not to breathe until he’d wiped away the smudge.
But the scent was too seductive.
He bit back a groan, the heady fragrance thrusting him right back into his dreams until he could feel her melting against him, lush, warm, and pliant. As if they still kissed, he could feel her lips parting beneath his and the hot silken glide of her tongue over and around his.
The scorching heat that had whipped through him, burning away his defenses until all that mattered was the wild frenzy of their passion.
As in the dream, he could hear the soft lapping of the wavelets on the shingled strand and feel the afternoon breeze lifting his hair. The sweet warmth of spring sunshine, and a blaze of desire such as he’d never known.
Not even with his long-dead first wife, Matilda.
Horrified, he jerked his hand from Gelis’s cheek and wheeled away from her. His gaze fell at once on the great four-poster bed across the room, his anguish complete when he spied the piles of his folded clothes mounded on the bed’s luxuriant furred coverings.
His grand black cloak and his opened, half-packed leather travel bag.
Rose attar perfume and lusty dreams forgotten, he spun back around, not at all surprised to find his bride standing with her hands braced against her hips, her amber eyes alight with challenge.
“Your money purse and wine skin are there.” She flicked a hand toward the shadows behind the door.
Glancing that way, he saw more of his gear gathered in a neat little pile. His hauberk had been laid carefully over a chair, the mail shirt’s silvery links gleaming softly in the candlelight, while
his extra sword and sword belt rested on the floor, half-hidden in deeper shadow.
He refused to goggle.
And under no circumstance would he acknowledge the cold, hard knot beginning to pulse between his shoulders.
He did clench his hands.
With the exception of the wispy more-an-annoyance-than-a-threat mist wraiths that were wont to slither across window ledges and sometimes probe into the great hall, slinking along the tops of the trestle tables, none of the unholiness associated with Maldred the Dire’s curse had ever dared to actually penetrate Castle Dare’s walls.
Until now, he owned, the certainty of it tightening his chest.
“Those clothes and gear are my travel goods.” He looked at her, some foolishly optimistic corner of his soul hoping she’d put his suspicions to rest, proving him wrong. “They were locked in my strongbox, my extra sword hidden beneath the bed.”
“So Anice said when we found them strewn about the room.” She held his gaze, her words taking his hope. “She also said that only you have a key to your strongbox.”
A truth that made the matter all the more damning.
Not about to tell her so, he folded his arms. “And if I do?”
“Then you were in here before I came abovestairs,” she informed him, sliding a glance at Buckie, who now occupied the entire threshold.
The dog’s fluting snores indicated he slept, but a single eye, cracked no more than a sliver, followed Ronan’s every move. One somewhat tatty-looking ear was lifted as well, craftily poised to catch every word.
Ronan’s mouth twisted.
Gelis was watching him just as carefully, and he didn’t doubt her ears were equally sharp.
“So you do not deny it?” She narrowed her eyes. “You were in here.”
Ronan made a dismissive gesture, not trusting himself to speak.
He had been in the room earlier.
But only long enough to ensure that all her comforts were met. A fire laid, the bedding freshened, and his carefully planned feast- for-one spread upon the table.
An insult he’d hoped would see her riding away with her father at the morrow’s first light.
A fool plan he now regretted, wishing he could simply tell her the whole fell truth. But even voicing such darkness could be dangerous, his thoughts too easily led down paths he didn’t dare to tread.
Seducing a Scottish Bride Page 10
