by Susan King
"You need to get safely to Blackdrummond Tower," he said. "And—I'm freezing," he said bluntly. "I rode through an icy stream for you, my lass, and I'm soaked." She saw him smile faintly in the darkness.
The smile filled with warmth, despite the wind and the dark and the miserable cold drizzle.
"I will not have to pursue Heckie Elliot," he added. "He will come looking for me soon enough. I still have what he wants."
"The raven's moon," Mairi said. "He said someone paid him to find it. I do not think he knows its powers."
"Who paid him?"
"It could not have been Iain," she said. "He would never hire a ruffian like Heckie."
Rowan nodded thoughtfully.
"Heckie told Martin Elliot to ride to meet someone. He said he would barter me for something. Not the raven's moon, but something else. I do not know who Martin went to meet. Later, when we met Simon and his patrol on the moor, Heckie tried to trade me to him for his freedom."
"I heard them talking as I rode up."
"If Simon had not arrived when he did, Heckie would have had you killed. Clem was ready to shoot you down. Simon was angry with Heckie and wanted to arrest them. The warden and his troopers saved both of us."
"Perhaps," Rowan said thoughtfully. "I hope by truce day we'll have this maze sorted."
"Heckie will not show up for his summons."
"If he wants the raven's moon, he'll find me."
She nodded, frowning. "I've never been to a truce day. I've heard they're wild, unruly affairs, more a gathering for drunkards and gamblers than a judicial meeting."
"On occasion. Most truce meetings I've been to have been fairly dull. If naught else, this meeting will be talked about for a long time to come."
"Why so?"
"A lass has never been summoned before, I think."
"Oh." She fought a sudden onslaught of dread that cut through her stomach. And she remembered that Iain, too, would be handed over to the English that day.
But she was too tired to think about it now. She would have to face the fear, and the challenges, as they came.
Rowan turned. "Mairi o' Blackdrummond," he said. "Your tower is just there."
She looked ahead. The stone tower soared up from its rocky perch, impermeable stone in the shimmering drizzle.
At the top, a beacon flared like a welcoming torch. And suddenly she longed to be inside, where it was warm and dry, where there was fire, and food, peace and safety.
She guided her horse up the rocky slope following Rowan. The gate opened and Jock and Sandie stepped forward in torchlight.
Chapter 23
O hold your tongue of your former vows,
For they will breed sad strife
O hold your tongue of your former vows
For I am become a wife.
—"The Demon Lover"
"Where's Jamie?" Anna asked as soon as she saw them and embraced them both. "You did find him?"
"We did." Rowan removed his cloak and helmet and began to unhook his jack. "He's fine. We left him with Jean Armstrong for the night. I'll fetch him in the morn." He looked up as Jock entered the great hall behind him. "Will you ride with me, sir? Jamie has been asking for you."
"Aye," Jock said gruffly.
"Those horses have been through mud and all this night, I trow. 'Tis a muckle poor night to be about so late." Sandie came in after them, brushing at the rain on his doublet.
"Some would disagree," Rowan said wearily. He set his jack on a wooden chest and went toward the hearth, stretching his hands toward the intense warmth there.
Jock frowned. "You had trouble, then."
"Some. I'll explain. We're cold and hungry just now." Rowan pulled a carved chair close to the fire and gestured for Mairi to sit. She had removed her jack and Grace, the maid, took it while Mairi sat. Anna brought her a blanket, which Mairi accepted with a word of thanks, spreading it over her lap. Anna gave one to Rowan as well, which he threw around his shoulders.
Rowan let the heat of the fire and the blanket sink into him, though he still felt the uneasy, restless residue of the past few hours still stirring his blood, sobering his mood. When Mairi gave him a fluttering, tentative smile, he did not return it.
In part, he was vexed with her for leaving Jean Armstrong's house and putting herself in such danger, and frightening him so deeply. More, he was deeply concerned about her summons for truce day—he knew too much about unpredictable outcomes.
He would say nothing to her of that. He only wanted to see the bloom in her cheeks, wanted to know she was not hurt. He felt a deep urge to ensure her safety, her comfort, whatever she wanted. The depth and variance of the feelings that she stirred in him simply astonished him. Just his fatigue, he told himself.
"Mairi is cold and wet," he said to Anna. "And hungry."
Anna nodded. "We'll see to her."
"Rowan is far more wet and chilled than I am," Mairi said. "He should bathe first."
"Let Mairi have the hot bath. I have had enough of a dousing for one night." Rowan bent to tug off his boots, intending to warm his chilled feet and toes before the fire. He glanced up to see Anna narrow her eyes thoughtfully. Then she poured the contents of a flask into two pewter cups, handing one to him and the other to Mairi.
"Spanish sherry," she said. "'Twill warm you both. I'll heat some broth for you while Grace is heating water for the bath. Then we'll put warm stones in your beds. Rowan, will you let Mairi have your bedchamber again?" She paused. "Is she still your, ah, prisoner?"
"She can sleep in my bedchamber," he answered succinctly. Far more needed to be explained, but it would wait.
Tossing his boots aside, he peeled off his damp nether stockings and dropped them on the hearth stone, then dried his feet with the blanket and stretched out his bare shins before the blazing yellow fire, sighing at the warmth as he sipped sherry.
Mairi began to tug awkwardly at her own long boots, favoring her left arm. Rowan left his seat to kneel beside her and help her to pull off first one boot, then the other.
"You look pale," he said. "Does your shoulder hurt?"
"It's fine. Thank you," she added, touching his arm.
He warmed her bare feet between his hands for a moment. Then he stood and turned to see his grandparents and Sandie all staring at the two of them.
"Well then," Anna said, fisting her hands on her hips, "just how was that ride into the Debatable Land?"
He hesitated, glancing sidelong at Mairi. A blush glowed on her cheeks. "Oh," she said, "'twas not what we expected."
"And why not?" Jock asked. "What happened there?"
"Aye." Sandie glowered at Rowan. "What happened?"
Rowan cleared his throat. "We, ah, went to a wedding."
"Whose?" Anna asked sharply.
"Lang Will Croser got married," Mairi said.
"Oh! How nice," Anna said.
"What else?" Jock asked brusquely. "You two look as guilty as Scottish riders in the night, caught with sheep."
Rowan twisted his mouth to one side. "Well," he said, rubbing fingers over his jaw, "there were other weddings too."
"Several couples were wed, all at once," Mairi said.
"And so were we," Rowan added.
Silence fell over the room. Rowan glanced from one face to the other. Anna look stunned, then smiled; Sandie frowned and then broke into a raw grin. Jock's expression was sober, but his blue eyes were bright.
"Wed? You're wed?" Anna asked.
"Aye," Mairi said. "'Twas sudden," she added, as Anna rushed forward to fold her arms around Mairi, then Rowan. Jock clasped Rowan's hand without a word, smiling. Jock turned to Mairi, taking her hands in his and murmuring to her.
Sandie congratulated them and went to the table to pour sherry into three additional cups, sharing them with Jock and Anna, and cradling one in his own hand. "A toast! To all the blessings o' life—" He raised his cup.
Rowan drank with the others, feeling the natural heat of the sherry warm him. He looked at
Mairi, thinking how bonny she was with the firelight shining in her eyes, and her cheeks glowing like summer roses from the drink and the moment.
Sandie grinned. "I guess you needna argue about who has the first bath. You'll have it together, hey?"
"Alexander!" Anna said, her eyes widening.
"You auld scoundrel," Jock said, huffing a laugh.
Rowan suppressed a smile and saw Mairi's cheeks deepen in color as she tucked her head down to sip the drink.
"'Tis no proper wedding feast," Anna said, "but I'll fetch that hot chicken broth now, some for all of us, with good bread."
"It is a fine wedding feast," Mairi said softly. "Thank you."
"We'll sup on broth and barley, and keep reiver's hours on the morrow." Sandie chuckled. "Meaning we'll sleep through till gloamin' if we like, hey." He wiggled his eyebrows.
While Anna admonished Sandie for his boldness, Rowan smiled and turned back to the fire. That heat could not warm his heart as well as this welcome had done.
But beneath it all, like dark clouds sailing toward the sun, he could not shake a sense of impending danger.
* * *
Reclining in Rowan's bed against feather-stuffed pillows, Mairi stretched her feet between soft linen sheets. Dark red damask curtains surrounded the bed, enclosing all sides but one, creating a nest of feather mattresses and woolen blankets. She yawned, sliding deeper in the bed, savoring the comfort.
A candle flickered on a wooden chest beside the bed. Peat crackled and glowed in the hearth. The wooden tub, where she had soaked in hot water and fragrant herbs, was still warm near the hearth. She sat waiting for Rowan.
When she had gone up to bathe, he had sat in earnest conversation with Jock and Sandie. She had heard him explain something about truce day and the curious black stone, too, but she had been almost too tired to care what was said.
She closed her eyes—and when she woke, startled, to the sounds of splashing, she realized that she had fallen asleep for a while. Near the hearth, silhouetted in the scant light, Rowan stood in the tub and stepped out, water sloshing quietly.
His back was to her, and his hair, black as a raven's wing, swept between his wide shoulders. Candelight flowed over the sculpted hardness of his body, the powerful contours of his wide shoulders and muscled back, tapering to narrow hips and strong legs. He was potent strength and supple grace in perfect balance.
Fascinated, she rested her head on the pillow and watched as he dried himself with a linen towel. She wanted so much to feel that hard, warm, solid body against hers—wanted him to surround her with his strength.
As Rowan turned, the low light revealing the tight modeling of his torso beneath a dusting of black hair, thick at chest and groin, and with a quick, easy motion, he sat on the bed beside her as he pulled the red damask curtain closed, leaving a small opening that let the candlelight spill inside, so that the interior was the color of dark rubies.
The mattress sank beneath him as he leaned toward her. Mairi inhaled the clean, herbal scent of him and saw him move his fingers through his wet, tousled, curling haiar that suddenly reminded her of Jamie's glossy, curly head of hair.
"I thought you were asleep," he murmured.
"I was, for a while," she answered.
He nodded and shifted to face her, half leaned beside her, drawing the covers up to drape over his legs, his bare chest wide and powerful.
"Since you're awake," he said, "we need to talk about something."
She sat up against the pillows, drawing the linen sheet over her chest, disconcerted. Nude, too, she shielded herself with the blankets. What did he mean to ask her? It could not be good, by his grim tone. "What is it?" she asked cautiously.
"First," he said, touching her shoulder, "I wondered if you were still in pain."
Something wild plummeted through her at the warm brush of his fingers. "It aches some," she admitted. "The bath helped."
Rowan stroked her aching muscles with his thumb and fingers. Above his shadowed jaw, his eyes reflected the candle flame with green clarity. "Tell me—why did you leave Jean Armstrong's house?"
"To follow you, to help," she said simply.
"You could have stayed there." His fingers circled and pressed, creating heat, releasing some of the ache. She moved her head languidly, lured into relaxation by his touch.
"I could not," she said quietly, shivering slightly as she felt an echo of the compelling need that had moved her to ride after him. "I had to go—had to help you."
"I thank you for it, but Christie should have gone."
"He was injured—you did not know, but he could not go. So I went."
He sighed, his fingers kneading her muscles. "When I saw you there—when I saw Heckie take you down..." He paused. "I could not bear for you to be hurt," he finished.
"I only meant to help you," she murmured.
"If you had jumped the cliff wi' me, we could have ridden off. Ah, Mairi, 'twas a lackwit thing to do and you frightened me near to death."
"And you did a muckle dangerous thing when you rode out from Jean's house," she said. "I did not reprimand you for it."
"I rode out and left you safe, or so I thought."
"You risked your life too," she said curtly, and folded her arms, glaring at the flickering shadows on the red curtain.
He watched her, then smiled. "If you had a riding name, 'twould be Firebrand," he murmured.
She slid him a petulant glance. "Or Lackwit? 'Rowan's Lackwit Mairi'?"
He laughed. "Firebrand Mairi. Your hair is dark, but you have the hot temperament of a redhead."
"My mother has coppery hair," she said.
"Ah, there 'tis, then." He paused. "I know you thought to help me. But seeing you in danger"—his voice caught.
"Worse than me seeing you risk your scoundrel neck?"
He laughed ruefully. "We are even, then, in this."
"I was afraid I would not see you again."
"That ride was nae threat to me," he said quietly. "I told you I would be back for you."
"Two years ago,"—she looked away from him, easing through the hurt of the words—"on a poor misty night, I watched my betrothed ride out after reivers. He laughed when I asked him not to go, and said he would be back soon." She paused. "He was killed that night. Iain and Simon brought his body back."
He was silent. She watched the flame while the old grief swelled and ebbed. She waited for Rowan to ask if she trusted him so little because of that night that she had to follow him out.
He nodded, taking her hand in his. "Sweetmilk Johnny."
She glanced at him. "You knew?"
"Simon mentioned it. I knew Johnny Kerr as a bonny lad, overbold and quick to act, but a charming, good rascal."
She nodded, relieved by his response, sensing no jealousy, only caring and concern.
"My kin killed him, I think," Rowan said.
She breathed the burden of resentment out, the sadness she had carried for a long while, almost without effort, as if it were a mist. "Aye," she said. "Scotts of Branxholm."
"I could not blame you if you hated me for their crime. Blood feuds run as strong in the Borders as in the Highlands."
She shook her head. "I could never hate you," she whispered. "I resented all Scotts, and you at first, but I could not hate you now for it. Johnny is gone. His own wild ways brought him to that night." She felt a few tears slip free, but she felt so calmed by Rowan's steady presence, as if she absorbed strength from him. "'Twas long ago. He's gone." She looked at him. "So we both have sadness in our past, you and I."
Rowan took her chin in his fingertips. "We can let that go."
She looked at him earnestly. "They're not ghosts to haunt us. They've left us memories, many good ones. We need not let them hurt us still." She had clung to her grief for a long time, but now sensed a new emptiness, almost a peacefulness. "I do not want that pain in my life any longer."
Rowan was silent, then nodded. His gaze contained a depth, a spark, light through
the green. "What do you want?"
"You," she whispered.
His thumb moved over her chin, his fingers cupped her cheek. "I did not say it well earlier—when I saw Heckie take you down—I've never been so frightened. I only wanted you safe," he said. "Naught else mattered but that."
Tears glimmered over her vision, and a deeper, quieter, more real joy than she had ever felt washed through. "If I had not come after you, we would not be together now, here."
"Ah. Now that is true." He smiled, a little wan lift of the corner of his mouth. "This talk of sorrow and feelings—" He hesitated, looked. "Just days ago, we were suspicious of one another, and angry, yet now—"
"'Tis fast, this," she agreed in a whisper.
"Aye, sudden. Strong." He paused. "'Tis not easy, for I am one to keep thoughts to myself. And I am no poet to talk of my heart. But—" He stopped again, as if searching for something.
She watched him, waiting.
"But my heart's full, lass," he whispered. "I do not know how, or why, or when, but 'tis muckle full for you."
"Rowan," she whispered, feeling her soul fill past its brim. She moved into his arms then, and he lowered his mouth over hers, and the touch surged like lightning through her as the kiss deepened. she splayed her hands on his chest and felt the soft, warmed cushion of hair there, sensed his deep pulse beneath the muscle. His mouth slanted over hers, his tongue touched hers gently, and she opened to him, asking, sharing, giving. His mouth tasted hot, sweeter than sherry, and she drank it in, that comfort, that love, so new, yet strong and solid.
The blankets slid away and she sighed as his hands slid around her, spreading on her back, his hands sliding to cup her hips, pressing her into the pillows as he shifted to his side.
Together they sank into the soft, giving mattress, surrounded by the crimson draperies as caught in the heart of a fire. Her body fit fully to his now, touching, grazing, penetrating warmth and exquisite caresses. She caught her breath when she sensed him, warm and bold, against her, and a subtle, exciting shiver swept through her.
His lips touched hers, his tongue insistent, exploring. The feeling plunged through her like flame. She melded to him, moving sensuously against his hard, warm, silky length.
