‘Willie Storwick deserved whatever death he got.’
‘And worse. He was no longer ours.’
He had told Rob as much the very Truce Day that the man escaped, but Rob had never fully believed it. ‘Hard for a man to do.’
‘I would not have him around my girl.’
The thought of him doing to Stella what he had done to Cate made Rob want him killed all over again. No wonder Johnnie had been so fierce.
‘He did us all a favour, the man who killed him.’
Or the woman. Or even the dog. But those were not his secrets to share. ‘Aye.’ Strange to agree with the man.
‘So you’ll take her home?’
‘I did not promise.’
‘Did you take her, then?’
Rob opened his mouth. No words came out.
‘Aye. You did.’
He felt as young and foolish as he had been when his father took the strap to him. Standing there, thinking he had fooled the old man.
Storwick sighed. ‘I should kill you myself.’ An empty threat now. ‘But I won’t, because I’m asking you to take me home, too.’
He looked at the man, pale as grey snow, and felt for him. Like his father, deprived of a death in battle. But his father, at least, had been buried as a Brunson should. With family all around and his son to honour him by adding a new verse to the Ballad of the Brunsons.
What if it had been his father, held on the English side of the border, dying? Would Rob have wanted him dropped into a mudhole and left, unmarked and unmourned?
I’m asking you … What it must have cost the man to say that.
‘Die in peace, old man.’ No question that he would say yes. One warrior honoured another. ‘I’ll take ye home to rest.’
Because you are her father.
Storwick’s lips curved and he closed his eyes.
Rob’s promise must have given him permission to die, for Hobbes Storwick did not live through the night.
Chapter Fourteen
Numb, Stella let Bessie coax her out of the room where her father lay dead. ‘Sleep now. I will prepare him.’
Prepare him for what? But her tongue was too weary to form the words.
There were things that should be done, but someone else had always done them. Now, when she should have shouldered the load, Stella knew nothing of how to prepare the body or ward off the Devil.
Silent, she let Bessie lead her through the halls to a room where a bed beckoned. Beside it, on a small chest, oat cakes lay to hand ready to eat when she had strength and stomach for them. Rob’s sister did not ask, but helped her undress and prepared her for bed as if she were a child and then tiptoed to the door.
As sleep crouched, ready to pounce, Stella summoned the strength to raise her head. ‘Thank you.’
Bessie nodded.
‘And is Rob …?’ Where is he? That’s what she wanted to ask. Tied by an uncertain mix of hate and attraction, they had rarely been apart the last weeks. Always, she seemed to know where he was and when she would see him again. Now, in her grief, he was the one person she wanted to see.
‘You’ve no family here and your father’s body should not be left alone. Rob sits with him.’
The door closed.
Her father had died surrounded by enemies, far from home, yet an enemy acted as kin.
What would happen now? Would they throw him to the waves?
And her last thought before sleep was that Rob would not allow it.
Rob did not see Stella the next day.
Bessie, the sister who cleaned up after everyone else, swept in to prepare the body. Carwell’s steward found a cart to carry the corpse and provisions for the men while Carwell sent word to the English Warden to let them pass in peace.
Rob shook his head. ‘And do you expect Lord Acre to ensure the safety of a band of Brunsons?’
Carwell sighed. ‘I trust him less than you do. But he’s a Storwick ally. He’ll let the man come home.’
But after Hobbes Storwick’s body was safely delivered, well, there would be no promises.
Bessie emerged, weary, and leaned against her husband, such a natural gesture Rob flinched to see it. ‘She still sleeps,’ she said, as if she knew Rob wanted news of Stella.
‘An unhappy end,’ Carwell said. ‘But now you can take them both home. Leave her to her family. It will assuage the warden. And the King.’
They don’t want her. Not the way I do.
He stayed silent. Let them think Stella would be going home. Perhaps by the time they got there, he could summon the strength to leave her.
She rose, finally, uncertain how long she had slept. Night and day had merged as she sat by her father’s side and in a strange place, it was hard to know whether the shaft of sun on her floor came from west or east.
She dressed and forced herself to open the door, surprised to see Rob sitting on a bench. How long had he been waiting?
He rose, his eyes silently assessing her as if she were a bastle house he was about to raid. She stood straighter and lifted her chin, certain she looked as weary as she felt, then tried to smile.
‘Are you ready to travel, then?’ he asked.
So soon. Life moved on after death. ‘Where do we go?’
‘Your father asked me to take his body home.’
No resentment in his voice, for all her father had been his enemy. Both of them, warriors before all.
‘And what …?’ She struggled against unwelcome tears. What will happen to me?
She did not complete the question. She knew the answer.
He would take her home, where she belonged. The whole misadventure would be over and she would never see Black Rob Brunson again.
Slowed by the cart that held her father’s body, the journey back took longer than the crazed ride to the coast. Near Kershopefoote, Rob sent the rest of the men home to Liddesdale, leaving only the two of them to escort her father’s body the rest of the way.
‘Do you not fear an attack?’ Stella asked, as the rest of the riders disappeared.
‘I do not want your people to fear my intentions.’
Logical, yes, but she knew he had put himself at risk. The capture of Rob Brunson would be as much of a coup as the capture of her father had been.
Yet he risked it in order to bring an enemy home to rest.
‘And what would happen to your people if …?’ She could not say if something were to happen to you. Could scarcely think it.
He looked up the valley, not at her, when he answered, ‘They would have my brother.’
Ah, even in this, he had thought of his people’s future. She wished her father had done the same.
They continued on the Scottish side of the water until they were out of sight of the truce village. The rustling of the trees and the rush of the water brought back the night she had fled.
And all the reasons why.
He led them into a small clearing, sheltered by budding spring-green leaves. ‘We’ll rest here tonight. In the morning …’ he nodded to the south ‘… we’ll cross into Storwick land. You’ll see home before day’s end.’
He helped her dismount and she stood easily, her ankle near healed. She spread blankets and drew water while he fed the horses and built a small fire.
Tomorrow. After tomorrow I will never see you again.
She struggled to bite back the words. Since he had walked from her room, he had become Black Rob again, stronger than she, once again the distant enemy he had been that first day.
A lie. The first time he had touched her, she had burned.
If you take me again, neither of us will ever let the other go.
But he would. She was sure of that now. Yes, she had seen the caring, the fire, in his eyes when he looked at her, but tomorrow, that would not matter. Tomorrow, he would deliver her into the waiting arms of her mother and the rest of her family, then he would mount Felloun and ride into the hills, away from her sight, away from her touch …
If her cousins didn’t kill him first.
Whether she had been saved by God or was just another lost soul, the one thing in life that she wanted was within reach of her hand for only one more night and she was going to take it. Even at the risk of having his seed take root. If God blessed, or cursed, her with a Brunson babe, well, He would have to bless her with the strength to bear it.
She walked up the bank from the stream, glad that coming darkness could disguise her desire until she was closer, until neither of them could escape.
She moved with purpose, not with seductive languor.
But he knew.
Crouched before the fire, he looked up, stood, raised his hands to ward her off, but when she lifted her hands, tangled her fingers in his dark hair, pressed breasts against his chest and lifted her lips to him, there was only a sound. Growl. Moan. Cry of an animal in anguish.
And then he took her lips.
He had tried. God knows he had tried. But in the end, faced with her desire, he was as weak as he had feared.
He wanted her. Wanted her all. Wanted her now. Wanted her as if he could devour her and thus make her part of himself.
So they could never be separated.
Neither of us will let the other go.
He would. He must. For her sake. But, in truth, he would never let her go. She would be seared on his skin, embedded in each heartbeat.
He let the last thought go. Tomorrow. All that was for tomorrow.
This was tonight.
At first, all he wanted was her lips. Lips he had denied himself for days. Soft. Warm. Sweet. He took time, nibbling and tasting and teasing with his tongue. Tracing the bow of the top lip, perfectly balanced by the full pout of the bottom lip. Then more. Inside her welcoming mouth. Open to him. All open. All giving. All wanting and taking.
He curled his hands around her head, marvelling at the perfect shape of it. Holding her closer so he could drink of her. Letting his fingers trail the sharp curve of her jaw until they joined where her chin jutted proudly before her.
And she, hungry as he. Loving with the desperation of goodbye. Of for ever. He was the one ready to slow, to savour, to love all night if they could because the time would not come again.
His hands felt so large. He tried to be gentle. Tried not to overwhelm her, because he was broad and strong and eager, so eager that he feared to hold her too tight. Feared he might break her with loving.
So he let his fingers move, slowly, gently, down her neck, her long, white neck, and to the front of her throat where he could feel the rumble of desire, sound without words.
Eyes. Eyes again. He pulled away just far enough to drink in the sight of her. Oh, he knew what she looked like. Fell asleep every night dreaming of green eyes and tumbling dark hair and the curve of a thigh he had seen but once. But now, eyes closed, lips parted, languid with desire … aye, that was an image he would carry to the end of days.
She opened her eyes. In the gloaming light filtered through the leaves, he glimpsed desire darkening her eyes.
His lips parted. He should speak. He should tell her—
She raised a finger to his lips. Touch soft as silence. And then, he devoured that, too, and she was pressed to him again.
Stella did not want to speak. She did not want to think. She wanted only this act, this feeling.
This is what I was born for.
As if her body knew, wiser than her mind.
She searched for the ties to his jack-of-plaites vest. Shielding him from harm, it also blocked her from the warmth of his chest, from the sound of his heart. And somehow her bodice disappeared. Soft air caressed her breasts, followed by his fingers. And she no longer had to fight thought, for she no longer could form words.
Tugging at his arm, she pulled them on to the spread blankets covering a carpet of bluebells. The sweet, wild scent of crushed flowers stroked her skin and mingled with the smell of leather.
Wanting all of him at once, she left his lips to explore the skin of his shoulder, soft cover for strong muscles that shaped his arms and back. Greedy now. Touch and taste. So much of him still mysterious. So little time …
But all this night.
She pulled back, leaning on her elbow, to savour the sight of his chest, letting her fingers discover each curve as her eyes did.
Until she pulled back, his lips and fingers had moved, unceasing, across the terrain of her, steady and silent as the ponies navigated the hills. Yet knowing, always, how to take the next step. Even in the dark, a reiver’s pony never faltered …
Deprived of her, his eyes opened, first with a flash of regret. But when he saw her face, with a smile that could not be contained, he shared it. Then, his fingers stroked the hair from her temple, his eyes tangled with hers, and the wind sighed, content.
‘I will love you, lass. All of my days.’
She struggled to keep her smile steady, not to think of all the days they would be apart between now and death. But this, this perfect moment, she would remember always.
‘Show me, Rob Brunson,’ she whispered. ‘Show me deep and hard and long enough for us both to hold until the grave.’
Rob had taken her before, but reluctantly, fighting against his body, his heart, thinking he should not and so never relishing each moment.
Now, he did.
Now, he must create a lifetime of memories in one night. Tomorrow, he must let her go. She knew it as well as he. But this one night, they would have this always.
He started with his eyes, needing to see her before sunset stole the last of the light.
The dark hair, near as black as his own, that framed her brow. Fair skin a contrast to the strong bones of her cheek and the curve of her jaw and the narrow chin and the full lips. The green of her eyes no longer discernible as the shadows fell.
She smiled still, and he realised, belatedly, that she hoarded her smiles as much as he did. So as he saw this one, he echoed it, broad and unreserved. And as he did, hers shifted, turned the corner between delight and desire.
And that he echoed, too.
Fingers, next. He wanted to touch all of her, from top to toe and back, so that he would remember always. As he began, she reached for him, but he picked up her fingers, kissed them and pressed them against his lips.
‘Shhhhh.’
He wanted no distractions.
He reached for her again, and this time she let him trail his fingers down her neck, then down the edge of her cross’s chain until he reached her breasts, one for each hand, matched, yet one slightly different from the other. He cupped them, feeling their full heat, then gently pinched each nipple, switched hands, and did it all again. He would know, for ever, even in the dark, which was the right and which the left.
Her skirt was still tied on and she helped him push it off, along with the petycote. And when he saw the skin of her, white yet full of secret shadows, he thought he might never breathe again.
Eyes and hands explored together and he thought, though God might strike him dead for it, that if some miracle had saved this woman to do something special, it must include making love.
A hipbone interrupted the curve below her waist, much as her collarbones created hills and shadows above her breasts. The closer he came, the more secrets her body seemed to keep as darkness wrapped itself around them. As it did, he closed his eyes and let his skin see her instead, shoulder to centre and lower, pressed against each other so tightly that he was sure there would be an imprint on his skin when they parted. And glad of it.
But much as he tried, his body no longer wanted to wait. Last time, he had let desire drive him. He had entered her fast and quick and deep as a night raid. This time must be different. This time must be long and slow and as deep as for ever.
He pushed himself up on his arms, trying to see her eyes before the light was truly gone. She must see him, meet his gaze, so she would see, so she would know …
But night had come and there would be no more glimpses. No more green meeting brown.
Eyes and fingers had looked
their fill. Now, it would be lips.
She reached for him again, and he twitched his hips away, knowing that if her hands caught him, he would have no defences. With his tarse safely beyond reach of her fingers, his lips began to journey anew, starting at the place where her hair sprang from her head, kissing his way to her temple and down her neck, pausing in the hollow of her throat for the joy of hearing the guttural sound of her desire again.
Now he let his tongue roam freely, drawn to the tip of each breast, delighted to hear the soft keen of her craving.
She waved her hands, tangling them in his hair. ‘Now. Now.’
He chuckled and flicked his tongue against her and shook his head no.
But he hurried now, down to the rise and fall of her hipbones, and then further, to the secrets hidden where her legs joined her belly, eager to find a new way to love her.
Now he could taste her indeed, sweet to his tongue as the scent of the flowers around them. Eager, wanting to please her before he took his pleasure, he licked and dipped and plunged and played and each different touch made her shudder anew, until the wordless growl become a happy cry of release.
And as each ripple shuddered through her, he felt the pleasure shoot through him as well. Aye, he was so much a part of this woman he could feel the pounding of her blood and the grip of her body as if they were fully joined.
Oh, Robbie, me boy, he thought, with his last coherent breath, how are you going to live without her?
Stella did not sleep that night. Impossible as it seemed, there was always another way of loving to discover. She would not stop until they had found them all, every one of them, so she could take them out, one by one, as the years went on, and remember.
But all her dreading did not delay the day. She looked up and could see the outline of the trees, distinct against the pre-sun sky.
They lay in each other’s arms, silent and still, as if watching the approach of the end of days.
And then, amidst the dark quiet of the dawn, Rob opened his lips and sang.
She had heard him sing before. He was the Brunson gifted with the voice, they had told her. So many nights, after supper, someone would take up pipes or bow and Rob would sing, his voice deep and strong. He would sing as if the song was enough, as if he led the people with his voice alone.
Taken by the Border Rebel Page 14
