The Memory of Her Kiss

by Rebecca Ruger

  Torren shrugged and leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table. “Only thing that makes sense. Still dinna answer why he dinna try to free Hugh, though.”

  “Unless he hadn’t any intention of losing in the village today. Assumed he’d storm right through us, kill me, and take the castle.” It was pure conjecture, and assumed Duncan was imbued with an even greater arrogance than Gregor would ever have suspected of him.

  “When do we go for him?”

  “Tomorrow we bury them. Next day, we ride for Sketraw.”

  “But leave a full unit here to defend, should he have other plans. Cormac and his crew came in with the call, so we have the numbers.”

  “Aye.”

  Gregor glanced around the room again. He hadn’t any words to give these people now; tomorrow would be soon enough, at the funerals, to try to make some sense of this to them. He stood and patted Torren on the shoulder and left the hall.

  He found Anice not as he’d last seen her, curled up and sleeping, but now sitting up on the side of the bed, as if she’d only just woke. Her shoulders were slumped, her eyes and nose still red from the tears shed earlier. She stared at him as he closed the door to her chambers and leaned against it. Daylight endured, a thin and tall shaft of light from the window, allowing him to see that she had no fear, but was still bathed in sadness.

  Anice rose from the bed and came to him. She said nothing but worked at his belt to loosen it. Gregor remained still as she pulled the belt and his sheathed and bloodied sword from around him. She stood it against the wall by the door. Then she knelt on the floor and began to unlace his boots, tapping his shin when she needed him to lift his foot to remove first one and then the other. The pair of boots were set next to his sword. She stood again and lifted his tunic, up over his hips and chest until he lifted his arms and allowed her to remove it from him completely until he stood before her in only his hose and breeches. She turned, taking a moment to fold the piece and lay it on the short cupboard. When she turned again, her eyes were on his chest. She released a long breath and reached for the ties of his breeches.

  Gregor ignored her hands at his waist, grabbed her by the arms and yanked her to him. He kissed her savagely, so many feelings fueling his need just now, fury and fear and an enormous need of her overshadowing everything else. And she withstood it, answered with her own unrestrained craving, caught up by his hold on her arms until she shook it off and slid her hands up over his shoulders and around his neck, pulling him closer. She kissed him open mouthed, used her tongue to tease his, lifted herself up on her toes.

  He growled, squeezed her against him, backed her up toward the bed. Her hands left him, tugging at her own belt. He heard the rope drop to the floor and removed his breeches and hose while she doffed her gown and chemise, all these items dropped at their feet near the belt. They came together again, skin to skin, mouth to mouth, hungry, needful, urgent. Gregor lifted her up, moved his hands under her legs so she wrapped them around him. Her breasts were crushed between them while his fast growing erection lurched between her legs, only the tip touching her core. Hastily, with less than smooth movements, he dropped her on the bed and went to his knees on the floor. Gregor leaned over her, took one breast in his mouth and the other in his hand, cupping the weight of one and hardening the nipple of the other with his teeth. Anice arched her back, into his mouth and hand. But he hadn’t the patience for this, needed to be inside her.

  Frantic, hurried, angry still, he lifted himself and came on top of her, between her legs to thrust into her without warning. But she was wet already and squeezed around him as she let out a soft cry. He shifted, shoving her further up on the mattress to position himself. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, her lips sought his. He kissed her briefly, a small consolation for how hard he needed to slam into her now. Rising onto his hands, he pounded against her, closing his eyes. Underneath him, she met each thrust with her own, lifting her hips to his need, soft cries of pleasure coming from her every time his cock found the deepest part of her. Gregor opened his eyes, watched her breasts sliding up and down on her chest with their movements, the hardened nipples calling to him. He leaned in, sucked at one peak, opening her eyes. He licked his tongue along the nipple, in time to his continued thrusts, brought her to completion. She moaned and arched again, slowing as the orgasm burst upon her. Her lips parted as she breathed out her pleasure, tightening around him. Her face went completely soft and languid even as he could still feel her pulsating. Gregor pumped into her several more times, laying himself close to her again, chest to chest until his own bliss exploded, obliterating every sensation that had nothing to do with her and this, prickling across every inch of his skin.

  “ANICE, WHAT WERE YOU thinking, to be charging into that melee?” he asked sometime later, while her head lay against his shoulder, his arm under her. “I dinna ken if I’ll ever recover from the sight of you riding in with Kinnon.”

  Anice sighed sleepily and murmured, “Was I to simply stand idly and watch?”

  “Aye, please.”

  “I forced Kinnon to keep me with him,” she explained. “As soon as we saw the raiders, he sent Fergus back to the keep to warn the remaining soldiers there. And Fergus was gone before he realized he should have sent me with him. He wanted me to hide in the trees, but I was more fearful of being left alone and I refused. He hadn’t any choice.”

  Gregor said nothing, but she sensed he wasn’t placated by this.

  “I am sorry, Gregor, for what happened today. But I do not understand why the Duncans attacked the village—did they think Hugh was there?”

  “I canna make sense of it myself,” he said.

  “But what now?”

  “There will be more blood,” he predicted. “I’m tempted to charge Sketraw with Hugh’s head on a pike.”

  “Gregor!”

  “I will no, but I’m tempted.”

  Several minutes went by, Anice’s fingers lazily tracing patterns on his chest, before he said, “Anice, it’s no going to get any easier here. The new sheriff will learn I’ve no pledged to Longshanks, and Stonehaven will become a target.”

  “But you said that your position here, against the sea, keeps you safe.”

  “Might keep us safe in the long run. But it dinna stop a siege from coming. I want you safe. After the Duncans are subdued, I want you back at Inesfree.”

  Anice’s fingers stopped moving. She hadn’t expected this. While no words had been spoken between them about any possible change in her circumstance, she’d had some vague, maybe subconscious expectation that their lovemaking might have altered... something.

  “I won’t go.” She felt tears well, these words and this attitude being familiar, from the last time he’d wanted to send her away. “Not again.” She turned her head on his chest. “Gregor, do not send me away.”

  “It’s no safe.”

  “And Inesfree is? They suffered their own attack, only recently, by Tess’s own father. Where is it safe? Is there any place, in all of Scotland, that is safe?”

  He sighed. “There are plenty of places safer than Stonehaven is or will be in the near future.”

  Anice said no more.

  Chapter 20

  On Tuesday, they buried the dead of Stoney.

  The Duncan dead, as Gregor had instructed, had been burned the night before, tossed without care into one of the ruined cottages, along with several torches to ensure that no trace of their attackers remained. A light but persistent drizzle in the morning doused what few embers still burned in any of the cottage fires, while a hundred people gathered round the freshly dug graves behind the church, saying prayers over the linen-shrouded bodies of the Kincaid dead. Gregor said some words, offered condolences, promised retribution, while seeming still to seethe with some burning anger, his words choppy and curt.

  One other man spoke—the father to one of the children cut down, Torren whispered to Anice—asking for God’s grace and praying that the people of Stoney
seek peace in lieu of vengeance. Several faces turned toward the chief, who had just promised to bring his own arm of justice down upon the Duncans. He stared stoically at the bodies, his jaw tight, his gaze particularly on the two small forms, only half the size of the others. He ignored the man’s call for goodwill.

  A sorrowful dirge was sung by some young man, accompanied by the wailing of the women and girls of the crowd. And then the rain came in earnest and the mourners slowly dispersed, huddled figures of gray and brown slogging through the wet grass and muddy lane, disappearing into their short framed homes.

  Anice rode back to the keep with Gregor, glancing around his broad frame to have one more look at Stoney. The unfinished timber frames of the new buildings were bright and stark against the general tenor of brownish gray of the old cottages, dull wet grass, and cloudy road. Rain flattened and darkened all the thatch of the roofs. Many spots of black and gray ash dotted the landscape of the village. The entire effect was dreary and dismal, as if the village itself slumped its shoulders, too.

  THE NEXT DAY, GREGOR gathered his army at the bottom of the hill in front of Stonehaven, walking his horseback and forth in front of all the wayward lines of mounted men.

  “The Duncans have stolen from us!” He called loudly so that every man could hear, his voice thick and impassioned. “They’ve stolen our children and wives, husbands and soldiers. They’ve stolen our sense of security. They haven’t the right to take any of this from us. We will go to Sketraw, and will bring war upon them, as they have brought it to our door, unprovoked and grievous. You must conquer or die, there is no other course. We go, God willing, by His grace, and with the spirits of those lost to us so recently, covering our flank, guiding our swords, while we avenge the evil and heartlessness of their most honorable deaths.” He raised his sword at this last, thrusting it up into the air over his head, and a fantastic and booming battle cry answered his call and followed him away from Stonehaven.

  Anice squinted, watching from the battlements, with the small unit that would stay and maintain Stonehaven. She saw, at the front of the lines, one man who wore no Kincaid tartan, who carried no arms, and whose hands were tied to the pommel of the horse on which he sat.

  “Is that—” she turned to Kinnon, who stood at her side, his shoulder still bandaged, “is that Hugh Duncan?”

  “Aye,” said Kinnon, his expression displaying his aversion for having been left behind. “The chief will return him, send him into Sketraw, and request a complete surrender, which Duncan will never agree to, and well we ken. But we want the fight—avenge their attack on Stoney and kill Hugh in the process.” He brushed his hand up and down on his chest. “Done. The whole Duncan problem solved.”

  Anice watched them go, and then spent much of the day in the chapel, praying that each one of them returned.

  Anice spent countless hours on the battlements, waiting and watching. Kinnon explained that they were attacking a fortified castle, and not just raiding through an open village. He said it might be weeks before they could penetrate the defenses, depending on the actual size of the Duncan forces within Sketraw and their counter measures.

  They did not return for six days, by which time Anice was nearly beside herself. She was down at the castle beach when she heard the horn sounded and quickly gathered up all her reed supplies and raced back to the keep. By the time she’d stashed her wares near the granary and dashed up the steps to the walkway above the gate, the army was nearly to the bottom of the hill. She scanned each face, looking for those she knew and loved.

  She found Gregor first, near the front and so much larger than many of his soldiers. She could not be sure even from this slight distance but thought his eyes were on her. Her hand found her chest, sitting over her heart.

  There was Torren and Fibh, close to their chief. A few seconds later, she found Tamsin and Sim and Arik, and a cry of tremendous relief burst forth. Anice lifted the skirts of her kirtle and moved quickly back down the stairs to await them in the bailey.

  Standing in the yard, she was reminded again how awkward was her position here at Stonehaven. She eyed all the people milling and waiting with her, their eyes trained on the tunnel, their chatter lively. She hadn’t any right to be here. Who was she but the leman of the chief? True enough, she was favored by Kincaid just now, but she was also a fallen woman, and thus her present circumstance, standing alone, removed from the clustering, smiling, happy group of Kincaid people.

  The army was subdued but pleased to be home, she could see. Gregor directed his horse to where she stood near the door to the hall. She wanted very much to run into his arms. He smiled, grimaced really, looking road weary with dark stubble and tired eyes. Anice worried her hands around each other while he dismounted. Whether he would have swept her up in his arms, she would never know, as she was mugged by Fibh, coming between her and Gregor, clutching her in a fierce embrace.

  “Aye, lass, we’re all safe!” He swung her around and hummed a ditty while Anice grinned at such nonsense. When he set her down, Gregor was delving into his saddlebags and Arik was walking toward her. Anice smiled and hugged the large man with true joy. Sim and Tamsin came next, each taking one hand to dance her around. Anice laughed and spun with them until she saw Torren walking near. She broke off and flung herself at her dearest friend, raining kisses upon his cheeks. Her mountain only stood very still, wrapped his arms around her waist, keeping her feet off the ground and gazed into her eyes with a calm peacefulness, their noses touching.

  “I prayed everyday so that you would come back to me,” she told him.

  “Aye, lass, I ken you did.”

  “It is done then?”

  He nodded, a sad and slow smile coming. “The Duncans are no more. Only the innocent remain.”

  When Torren finally set her down, it was just in time to see the back of Gregor as he walked into the keep. Her shoulders fell, She chewed her lip and watched him go.

  SHE ENJOYED SUPPER with Torren and Fibh and the others, Kinnon keeping them busy with so many questions about the siege and subsequent battle. Anice snuck glances at Gregor. He didn’t sit for the meal, but only seemed to pass through the hall several times. Anice asked of Torren what might be wrong.

  The captain’s big shoulders lifted and fell. “No one likes killing, lass. Even when it be necessary.”

  Gregor did not seek her out and neither did he find her chambers that evening.

  Long after the sun settled low into the western sky, having waited with some hope for him, she slipped out of her bed and dressed again. Quietly, she left the keep and found her way down to the beach, waving to the soldiers on the wall.

  The sand was cool under her bottom. A near full moon lit the night, the clear sky peppered with tiny dots of starlight. She sighed heavily, crossing her arms over her chest against the chill, and thought of her conversation with Gregor before he’d gone to Sketraw.

  She was naïve, she understood. Being away from Jardine for only a few months didn’t suddenly give her any fabulous insight into people or places, certainly not a person so complex as Gregor Kincaid. She was not worldly and hadn’t much experience with the opposite sex. But then, she wasn’t obtuse either, maybe just a slow learner. He needn’t say it more than twice; he wanted her gone. She’d let her own feelings, her need and want and desire, color her hopes for them. And yet, truth was truth. She needn’t be hit over the head a third time.

  He wanted her gone.

  No fantastic or overwhelming sadness filled her now, just a self-directed anger at her own foolishness, for that recognized naïveté which had refused to allow her to see what was real.

  She’d known it since likely forever: hope was a dangerous thing.

  Torren found her on the empty beach, giving her a scowl as he sat beside her.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she begged. She pointed up at the castle wall. “Fibh and Lachlan are watching.”

  He grumbled but did glance back to make sure this was true.

 
; “Canna sleep, lass?”

  She shook her head, resting her chin on her arms, crossed over her knees.

  “No weaving in the dark?”

  “It’s all up in the yard. Maybe tomorrow.” Shifting her chin on her arms, she stared at Torren. “Why are you not abed?”

  “Demons, lass,” was all he said.

  Anice considered this, powerfully saddened by this acknowledgment. She swallowed and asked, “Would...would you like to talk about those demons?”

  “Nae, lass,” he answered without hesitation, but did qualify, “but I dinna mind the company while I suffer them.”

  Anice moved closer and put her arm around her friend, which only reached across half of his back. She leaned her head against his shoulder and hugged his big arm.

  They sat in silence for a long, long time.

  High above them, over the cliff, upon the battlements and under the torchlight, Gregor stood with his fingers clenched around the stone of the embrasure and frowned down upon the pair.

  ANICE DID NOT SEE GREGOR the next morning, but for his back again as he rode away from Stonehaven, through the tunnel and out of the yard.

  She supposed this confirmed her suspicions that he truly only wanted her gone. She found Torren instead, inside the stables. He asked her if she wanted to help with some horses in the pasture. She did not, not today. She took his hand and pulled him away from the watchful eyes of Arik and Davidh, who stood nearby.

  “Torren, can you take me away from here?”

  He frowned at her but said nothing, turned his head to the side, pursing his lips as he stared through the tunnel.

  “But not to Inesfree.”

  Now his eyes found hers, his expression probing, thoughtful, still frowning though. “Where?”

  “Home.”

  “This is your home,” he said harshly, pointing at the keep.