by Sondra Grey
Margaret’s overly sweet and girlish voice sounded right behind Edane, and Edane whirled, finding her arm suddenly clutched in Margaret’s grasp, the queen’s nails sinking into the soft skin of Edane’s wrist.
Edane could do nothing as Margaret led her towards the wall, where they would not be overheard.
“Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on,” Margaret hissed. They were of a height and Margaret leaned so close that Edane could see the black flecks in dark blue eyes. “You’re carrying his child. A child you stole from me!”
“Your majesty I did not…”
“You did, you filthy slut,” Margaret hissed, digging her nails further into Edane’s arm, breaking the skin. “And marrying the highlander won’t save you or your child. You should have kept your legs closed. You shouldn’t have stolen his majesty from my bed. Remember, Edane Campbell, I know where you sleep. I know what you drink and what you eat. You think you can leave here with his child and live happily ever after? Think again.”
Margaret released Edane’s wrist and Edane pulled it close to her with her free hand. Margaret didn’t stay to offer any more parting words. The Queen strode angrily from the ballroom, and her citizens watched her go.
Edane tugged at the sleeves of her gown, hoping they would cover the queen’s marks. She was relieved when the herald called for them to be seated for dinner. She wouldn’t have to speak to anyone else.
But as she sat down to eat, she kept replaying the Queen’s warning. I know where you sleep, what you drink, what you eat. Would Margaret stoop to poisoning her? Had she started already? What if Edane’s illness wasn’t from the pregnancy, wasn’t from melancholy, but was from poison. From something that had been put in her food, or her drink?
Instead of a series of long tables, small round tables had been set up. Edane found herself seated with the highland contingent: Adam, Richard, Leith, a few of Leith’s clansmen, and a large, impressive looking man who introduced himself as Calum Grant, Isla’s husband.
Though the table was kind enough to her, most of the conversation was directed at Leith and in low voices. Edane didn’t listen. She had her own problems to worry about.
Halfway through their dinner, Leith noticed that Edane had not eaten a thing. Twice, he asked if she were all right. The woman, Isla, was examining her as well and with such concern that Edane finally said to Leith, “I’d like to speak with you alone.”
Leith stared at her a moment before turning to Calum and Richard. “Meet in my room in an hour’s time. There’s more to speak on.” Then he stood and, in a loud voice, announced that he could no longer wait to be alone with his bride. There were cheers and Edane blushed from the roots of her hair to her toes.
“Modesty?” said Leith, quietly, as he escorted her from the room. “One might think you were a maiden.”
Edane had no response for him and did not speak again until they reached her rooms. It struck her as odd that he had returned her to her chamber and not his, but she had larger concerns at the moment.
“What is it?” asked Leith.
Needing to sit down, she perched herself on the trunk at the foot of her bed. “Before he walked me down the aisle, James spoke to me.”
“Did he?” Leith’s expression darkened. “And what did he say?”
“I think…” Edane paused, closed her eyes and summoned the courage to continue speaking. “I think he means to continue where we left off. He…he suggested as much.”
Leith’s lip curled. “Well that should please you, should it not? You get the protection of my name, and you may continue your tour of the king’s bed.”
“Leith please,” said Edane, as he paced to the other side of the room. “You do not understand the circumstances that led me there in the first place. I do not wish to return to James. I am married to you. I wish to be faithful to you. But if the king calls me back to his bed, I do not know if I can rightfully refuse him.”
“You’ve a tongue,” he said, “You can simply say, ‘No.’”
“The same way you could have said ‘no’ when he commanded you marry me? I know you are not naïve!” Edane wasn’t sure where her anger came from, but it flared up suddenly, like wind catching a flame.
It took Leith by surprise too, for he blinked and shut his mouth on whatever retort he was going to make.
“The king can and will do whatever he wishes. I’m no longer just something to amuse him. I’m a chess piece that can be used against you. If I refuse his bed he can and will easily take the lands away from your father, or announce to the entire court that this baby is his baby, and not yours.”
Leith frowned. “Know you, for a fact, that he would do this?”
“No,” Edane shook her head. “But you have already upstaged him in his own court. You have claimed that I – the most beautiful woman in Scotland – am to be yours. Nobody envies James right now. They envy you. And James is petty enough when it comes to status that he will try and lessen yours.”
Leith was quiet a moment, resting his hand on the bed post and staring at her, as if to assess the truth of what she said. “I admit,” said Leith. “I did not anticipate that he would want to keep you here. I would have assumed he’d want you out of Edinburgh before you started showing.”
“No.” Edane shook her head. “No. Because if I start showing, then the baby is clearly not yours. And all your claims of a love match are immediately called into question. You look the fool. I look the harlot.”
“I spoke with James this morning, and he expressed his wish for you to remain in Edinburgh until the babe was born. He made no such demands on me. I can leave here on the morrow.”
Edane felt the blood leave her face. “No,” she said, the word coming out choked. “No, you cannot do that to me!”
“Can I not?”
“The Queen means to have me killed. She said as much to me today!” Edane pushed her sleeve back revealing the queen’s angry marks. Leith’s eyes lit on them and Edane could swore she saw a spark of anger.
Leith inhaled through his nose, as if to steady himself. Then he said, “The queen would not dare harm you while you are pregnant with her husband’s child.”
“You don’t know her.” Edane insisted. “We need to leave here, and you need to take me with you!”
Leith rubbed a hand over his face. “What is it you wish me to do? Run away with you? Forfeit my title as the next chief of Clan Macleod? Hide in the highlands?”
“There must be something you can do.”
Leith stared at her. “I’ve married you, Edane. And when the babe is born I will take you to Skye where you will have a home, food, and shelter. I think I have done a great deal for you already.”
Edane could only stare at him, her hand resting on her abdomen, which was only just starting to round. “Do you hate me that much?”
The question shocked Leith, clearly. His eyes widened, his eyebrows drew down and he opened his mouth, as if to deny it. But he didn’t say anything. He closed his eyes a moment, and when he opened them he looked resigned.
“It has been a long day already,” he said finally. “We should both get some rest.”
He turned, hand gripping the door handle.
“Please wait!” Edane said, and she stood. Leith turned, eyeing her suspiciously as she approached. But he didn’t go so far as to flinch from her when she laid her hands on his chest. “Please,” she said. She felt her cheeks heating. “The…the consummation.”
Leith blinked, clearly not expecting her to request to consummate the marriage. Edane hurried on before she could lose her nerve. “I don’t want James to change his mind. I don’t want there to be any doubt about the consummation. We need to be married. Please. I know him. If he changes his mind…”
Leith’s gaze hardened, and he looked ready to deny her. “Leith,” she said, his name a breathy whisper on her lips. She ran her hand down his arm, her fingers twisting in his. For a moment he refused to return her grasp, then he did, lightly, brow furrowing
with displeasure.
“Please,” Edane said, “We found such pleasure in each other’s company once. Leith, I dreamed of you every night…”
She wasn’t lying. She’d dreamt of him often since he left, and she let the longing she’d felt then infuse her voice. With her free hand, she stroked it along his chest. “Please,” she said. “Hold me again, Leith. Make me your wife.”
He didn’t telegraph the move, but spun her in a quick, fast motion. Edane’s breath hitched in her throat but before she could ask what he was doing, he’d walked her into the bed until her knees hit the side, and she fell onto her stomach, her behind in the air, knees trapped against the bed as Leith pressed close behind her.
Edane closed her eyes.
“Leith,” she said, and her voice was a plea, but she didn’t know what she was asking for. Gentleness? Fulfillment?
But Leith didn’t respond. Instead, she felt his hands at her ankles and then suddenly her dress was lifted up, falling heavy around her shoulders. His hands were fast and methodical, reaching around the front and undoing the drawstring on her undergarments so that they fell around her ankles.
Then his hands came down, roaming across the firm globes of her buttocks. “I admit,” he said, but his voice sounded impersonal. “The thought of that arrogant bastard with his hands on this…” He smoothed his hand up to the small of her back. “What do you want, Edane? Do you want me to fill you, roger you until you can’t even remember what he felt like?”
Edane closed her eyes. Yes. That was what she wanted. She wanted Leith. “Not like this,” she said, proud that her voice came out firm.
“Unfortunately, this is all I am capable of at the moment,” he said, his hand dipping between her legs, running his finger along her lips, finding her wet.
“Do you know what I think?” he asked, sounding amused. “I think you like it this way.”
“Leith…”
“You want me, Edane?”
“Yes, Leith.”
There was little pre-amble, he slid a finger inside her and then another. Edane shuddered. Unlike James, Leith knew exactly where to touch her to make her burn, and she was burning.
“I remember,” he said, sounding smug. “All I have to do is touch you and you ignite. Did you ignite for him Edane?”
“Leith…”
He withdrew his fingers, holding them just outside her opening. She moaned at the missing pressure and tried to press back against him, but he held her to the bed with his other hand. “Tell me. Did he make you burn like this?”
“No. Just you,” she gasped and moaned when he sunk his fingers back in. “Please…Leith.”
“Yes?”
But Edane couldn’t speak her desire. She wanted him to hold her, she wanted him to be gentle, and yet she wanted him to do exactly as he suggested. She wanted him to erase all memory of James from her body.
As if reading her mind, or perhaps following his own inclination, his fingers withdrew. She felt the wool of his kilt on her back and something hot and hard pressing against her bare buttocks.
Edane barely dared to breath as Leith coated himself in her wetness and worked himself inch by slow inch into her channel.
“Lord,” Leith swore between his teeth as he withdrew to push further in. “You’re tighter than a drum skin. The king must have an upsettingly small prick…”
Edane couldn’t say a word. She was inhaling through her nose, her body aflame with the sensation his fullness evoked.
Leith’s hands found her hips and he held her stationary as he withdrew and surged forward again, this time burying himself to the hilt. Edane cried out at the shock of the sensation, her body squeezing at him. She braced herself, but Leith wasn’t James. He didn’t pick up the tempo, instead he withdrew slowly, surged in slowly. In, out, in, out – torturous in its rhythm, torturing her further still has he kept her hips immobile.
She wanted, she needed more.
“Leith!” she moaned, “please!”
“Please what?” He asked, his voice mild. Oh, how could he stay so calm!?
“I need more, Leith please. Please.”
He paused mid-stroke, and Edane strained against his hands. He pushed back in, inch by slow inch. Edane wriggled, writhed.
And then suddenly he pulled out. She gasped as he flipped her, tossed her higher on the bed and followed, bearing down on her.
She could see his face now - see his eyes were not as mild as his voice, but intense and dark with lust. Grabbing her knees, Leith pushed her legs up and slid into her again. Edane groaned, as the new position had the rough wool of his kilt caught between them, rasping over the bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs. He surged within her, more urgently now and Edane cried out, her voice high as the new pressure threatened to undo her.
With each stroke, her fire raged higher, the pressure built until she thought she might explode. Leith reach down and tilted her hips up, came into her on a powerful down-surge, and she screamed as her orgasm exploded about her, obliterating her senses, sending her shooting into the heavens.
Above her Leith had quickened the rhythm, his own climax close and with a roar he came, shooting hotly inside her, something he had not dared do those first times together.
When their cries silenced, the quiet was nearly deafening – the only sounds around them the rasps of their breathing. Leith’s head was pressed into the bed by Edane’s. Edane was holding him fiercely, clutching him to her, her legs squeezing him in place while his heart thundered against her chest.
She stroked his hair while his breathing quieted and cried out as he pulled away from her suddenly, sitting up and flipping his kilt back down, leaving her lying there with her dress about her leg, bare from the waist down.
Edane struggled to untangle herself from her dress. She sat up, reaching for him, but he stood. “No doubt,” he said, not looking at her, but straightening his clothes. “They heard us all the way from the ballroom.”
“Leith…”
“I told the others I would meet them. I will have food sent to your room. You need to eat.”
And he left the room, not once looking back at her.
CHAPTER 19
L eith strode back to his room, trying to control the fact that his knees were still shaking from the force of his climax. He had not been expecting the explosive lust that had overcome him, or the explosive anger at the thought of Edane with the king. He knew that he’d been cruel in the way he’d spoke to her, hated that his anger still rode him, that his feelings for her were still too strong to control.
He’d left the room because he needed some control. Because he couldn’t stand to be with himself and certainly not with her – staring at him as if he were the sun setting. Lord!
Leith threw open the doors to his room and saw that Richard had let Calum in already. And not just Calum. Isla, Calum’s wife, sat perched on the windowsill, and sent him such a look of irritation so intense that he nearly stepped back out of the room.
He had told the laird of Dundur that he need not attend the wedding. In fact, he preferred Calum and Isla stay at Dundur with their daughter. But Calum had insisted. “You stood by me on my wedding day.”
“Have I offended you, Lady?” Leith asked Isla, as he took a cautious step into the room.
“You’re acting like a spoiled child, Leith Macleod,” snapped Isla, who was known for her sharp tongue.
Leith blinked. “I’m sorry?” he asked, turning to Calum who was gazing grimly at the floor. Leith looked at his cousin, who was sitting in chair near the dresser. Richard at least, looked confused at Isla’s outburst.
“That poor woman…” Isla started, and then stopped, shaking her head. “You’ve manipulated her since you arrived here. You barely glanced at her through your wedding, spoke two words to her at the wedding meal and, my guess, just consummated your marriage and left.”
Leith felt his cheeks flame hotly.
“Lady Dundur,” said Richard, speaking up for his cousin, “I
don’t think you appreciate the situation that my cousin finds himself in…”
“Oh really,” Isla bit out. “Explain it to me then. Give me a scenario in which his behavior is at all gentlemanly and forgivable.”
“She played him false,” said Richard, firmly. “Seduced him and then left him for the king when the opportunity presented itself. For Leith to then be summoned back by the king and forced to wed the Campbell girl while she’s bearing someone else’s child…”
“Oh hush!” snapped Isla, mouth curling in disgust. “Men! Never looking beyond the length of your own cocks!”
“Isla!” Calum thundered, finally.
“I cannot believe the lot of you!” She continued without hesitation. Glaring at Leith, her irritation now full-blown anger, she demanded, “Did you ask her what happened? Why she left you for James?”
“I don’t need to know…”
“Because I’ll bet the king treated her the same way he treated you. I’ve been asking around the castle. I heard that the king selected her personally from amongst Argyle’s daughters and forced her to attend the queen. I heard that Queen Margaret has been nasty to Edane since she arrived, and that once the king summoned her to his bed, Margaret became worse. When she found out Edane was with child, the queen scarred her face.” Isla shook her head, muttering, “I knew she was wearing cosmetics on her cheeks that first night.”
“I really don’t see…”
“Of course you don’t!” Isla interrupted Leith again. Standing, she balled her hands into fists. “Because you’re a man. You have power, you have money, and you have family. You think you chafe under James’ thumb now that you’re his vassal? Imagine what she has been through. It took me twenty minutes of meeting her to see that she is guileless. If she betrayed you it was not her choice to do so. She has no power, she has no money, and she grew up with the kind of family who would sell her to the King simply to remain in his favor.”
Leith stared at Isla as she fumed. His first thought was that at least Edane Campbell wasn’t as mouthy as Isla Macleay. His second was that Isla might be correct. Edane’s expression the first time he laid eyes on her – desperately beautiful and so, so sad – passed before his eyes. He saw her smile after he kissed her, saw the look of despair and resignation when he spotted her with James. And when he’d arrived just the other night, when he’d first stepped into her rooms, he’d seen relief.
