Yet James’s touch upon her chin and tongue upon her lips was persistent. And experienced. He’d kissed others, but as he’d admitted by accident, he used care and discretion—the only time he’d bragged being when he’d wanted to get under her skin at Urquhart, the infernal man. Her treacherous mouth opened without her permission, which was all he needed. His tongue pressed inside, bringing with it warmth, wetness, and the taste of wine. His hand now cradled her cheek, the other still bracing her neck, and a sigh escaped her throat of its own volition.
James pulled back at the sigh, his eyes furrowed in stern concentration and his lips damp, determined to understand what it meant. But she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, his hold still strong upon her nape and his hand still cupping her cheek. Vaguely, the presence of others, cheering and laughing, filtered into her mind, foggy from his kiss. And then he leaned down to her ear, his breath a silky caress; his words, a balmy encouragement.
“I lied when I met ye at Urquhart.” He cleared his throat, then whispered while his fingers caressed a path up and down her cheek, as if a mindless idle, “I’d say yer tongue is quite agreeable, as are these lips when they’re no’ slinging insults at me. With a bonny smile as my boon. My lady is without a doubt nay plain and every bit as beautiful as the wild Highlands.”
Her breath hitched. She couldn’t string a single thought together. In the face of her crippled tongue, he stood tall again, looking out into the crowd, and smiled, though it seemed forced, like an act, for it was too measured. Was he feeling as uncertain as she was?
“Let it be known, good folk, that the laird indeed fancies his bride, and let no one, most of all her”—he squeezed her hand, now back within the crook of his elbow—“question it!”
A new surge of shouts erupted. Sakes, but how could folk be so loud for so long? Her ears were ringing. Blush was burning her cheeks with its telltale stains of embarrassment, and she dropped her gaze to her feet. These strange new people were pleased with the spectacle, and she felt a tumult of the same confusion that had plagued her since she’d sat fireside with James. And a treacherous desire to be kissed in such a way again. Her knees, so weakened, wobbled. Her fingers dabbed mindlessly at the moisture upon her lips. He was nothing like the man he’d at first presented himself to be.
She needed breathing room and needed to make sense of what she felt, for how could she so easily enjoy such a carnal pleasure with James MacDonald when her own people were ushering in Christmastide with naught?
“Mi lady,” Maudie now peeped, curtsied to her, with upset contorting her sweet face as she straightened the oversize crown. “Have I offended? I meant no’ to embarrass ye.”
“I’m quite well,” Aileana said, patting her back reassuringly. “Though, aye, a bit embarrassed. Worry nay, and enjoy yerself this holiday. I believe yer next command as Abbess is to order the lighting of the Yule log.” She turned to James, breathing, “Please pardon me.”
Aileana hastened across the hall, leaving James and the revelry behind her. Climbing the winding stairs, she clung to the rope railing until she reached the gallery above, where it was dark and shadowed.
“Sent her runnin’, he did,” she heard a couple of men jest below as she peered down upon the hall. “If the laird is wise, he’ll make chase.”
Breathing hard from her jaunt, she peered down at James to see if he had heard. He seemed to be clearing his throat, his face firm and his eyes fixed upon the stairway. He forced a strained smile, then took Maudie’s hand, leaned down to her to listen while the child spoke in his ear, then announced, “The abbess rules that the Yule log be lit!”
Guardsmen cleared the benches, abandoning them alongside a wall and shifting aside the trestle tables while maids hastened to keep balance of the platters piled high with juicy meats. Folk took to dancing in the newly opened space. James straightened his belts, then stepped down from the fireplace as Sir Angus held a burning wick to the kindling wedged beneath the log. He glanced around as he walked through the throng, his eyes coming to settle on the gallery and, no doubt, the shadowed shape she created.
Aileana exhaled hard, resting a palm against the fluttering inside her belly that thoughts of intimacy with James had induced, and she backed up until she bumped the wall, losing herself in thought. Is he coming to find me? Do I want him to?
“Aileana?”
She turned at the deep brogue. James leaned around the dark archway, watching her. She gazed back over the gallery to examine the dancers’ shadows lapping upward from ensconced torches around the great hall, feeling his presence as he stepped close. She could hear his soft breathing, smell his scent that had intoxicated her as his lips had pressed to hers—
A hand rested upon her shoulder.
“I meant no’ to embarrass ye,” he said softly.
Her nerves gnawed at her, and she chewed her lip.
“But I’m nay sorry I kissed ye,” he added.
She gripped her middle now, unable to look up at him. He moved in front of her, blocking her view. Dim light glowed around him, casting him in a halo. A strange bout of laughter nearly gripped her. A halo? Just mere days ago, the thought of a halo upon the Devil MacDonald would have seemed preposterous. But now that she’d seen how he looked after his folk? Heard his clan’s stories of terror brought on by her brother? She wasn’t so sure the thought of a halo offended anymore.
He settled his other hand at her waist. Such a familiar touch for him to offer, and yet she sensed no attempt at liberties. “Aileana?”
His palm left her waist empty and slid up her side, over her shoulder, alongside her cheek to cradle her face, and like an animal in a snare, she withstood the eruption of desire and nerves it evoked, alone in the darkness while the revelers below intoxicated themselves on drink, dancing, and merriment.
“Are ye sorry ye kissed me?” His question was gruff.
Trembling, she shook her head, her sentiments betraying her and her tongue failing her again, rendering her unable to speak.
He exhaled with pent-up relief, nodding, and his fingers alongside her cheek fondled her coif as he studied it.
“And if I were to kiss ye again, in the privacy of this corridor, would ye reject me?”
Sakes above, was an entire spring faire turning flips in her stomach? She clenched her arms around herself and felt her blasted head shaking again, surrendering to the desire to know the tame side to this warlord. He leaned toward her, his fingers on her coif, sliding around her nape to cradle her head. He braced his other arm upon the wall, easing himself forward, encapsulating her in his body heat, and yet his approach was so careful, she wanted to smile in spite of her nerves.
Lips trembling, she closed her eyes and waited for the touch of his flesh upon hers.
She felt his breath first, heard his exhale close and smelled the familiar wine, waiting, waiting, until he finally, blessedly, ended the torture and pressed his lips to hers. She exhaled shakily against his mouth. Her hands, fidgeting, needed something solid to which to cling and hold herself steady. Her blood roared in her ears, pounding, pounding, and he relaxed himself against her, slipping his hips aside her thigh to better anchor himself. Sakes, the kiss downstairs by all accounts had been their first, and yet this alone, engulfed by his broadness, was far more special, and she released herself over to the sensation.
…
James sensed the moment Aileana capitulated. Her hands, twisting themselves, gripped him. Her mouth softened with welcome. And he was floating. Sakes, he loved this part of her mouth, the part that gave tentative flicks of her tongue against his. Her breath hitched so innocently. She trusted him, a nàmhaid—he grinned at the word, an insult now becoming a playful endearment—to have care.
He angled his head, unable to stop the passionate sweep of his tongue, and growled appreciation against her as she encircled his neck and held him close. He nipped her lip with his teeth, devouring t
he offering she made. Both hands now cupped her head and neck, so slight in his massive palms. His tongue laved hers—tasting hers, touching hers—and his control, barely held by a thread, threatened to snap.
His hand made daring roves up and down her side, caressing her hip, caressing dangerously close to the underside of her breast, causing a strangled whine to catch in her throat.
“Ye intoxicate me, lass,” he muttered, delving in for another helping of her lips.
She squirmed and trembled in his grip, holding him tightly and arching by instinct against his touch. Saints, take me now. She liked this. It had been so long since last he’d slaked his lust with someone other than his fist, but this wasn’t just lust. He was growing to know her, growing to understand how his clan’s aggression against hers had tainted her. This lust was deeper. Because he wanted to do this again. And again. Not just with anyone. But with her.
And it’s forbidden, man. Ye gave yer word to Lady Peigi that ye would return her untouched.
A groan worked its way up his throat to be absorbed in their tangling of tongues. This was wrong, but he didn’t want to stop. How he would love to see her body, laid bare in the firelight, her limbs languid and sated from his rutting, his fingers swirling indolent patterns upon her skin as they basked in the glow of the hearth. Christ, she was slight, featherlight against him. Could his thoughts not keep course in one direction? For he felt as if his mind jumped from thought to thought like hens dodging a running mongrel.
“Aileana Grant, ye’re a devil, ye are…” he breathed, deep and low, and nudged his hips, desperate to rut, against her, held her head tightly to his, anxious for the connection to gain more strength. “I want ye to be happy here with me. I nay want ye to leave. And I hope that my people and I can convince ye.”
She froze.
He paused. Why?
Growing rigid in his arms, she dropped her grip upon him and palmed the wall behind her. He pulled back, cradling her face, examining her.
“What’s wrong, lass?”
She looked askance and chewed her delectable lip, and slowly, the sounds from below filtered into his thoughts. What had he done? Then she wriggled for freedom. He stepped away, lest she feel ensnared.
“Speak to me, Allie.” He swallowed hard at his throat, twisting in knots.
Instead, she scrambled away as if he were a leper, putting distance between them. Cool air enveloped him now, an unwelcome sensation considering the warmth he’d felt against her.
“Goodness, I’m shamed,” she whispered, turning away from him.
The sharpness of her claim stabbed his pride, and he stood to full height, looming over her. No, Aileana was brash, and she threw her passion into whatever she wanted to do. How could she feel such maidenly shame? His hands hung awkwardly. He clenched and unclenched his fists to occupy them.
“We’re man and wife,” he said, tamping down the grumble to his words for fear they would sound angry. “Even if only for a fortnight. There’s no shame in what we do.”
She whirled around to face him, and hell, tears brimmed in her eyes, making them glisten.
“Aye, there is. I’m shamed. Because whilst my people suffer, I sit here in the lair of a man who they consider to be our gravest enemy, indulging in rich foods aplenty and kisses and basking in the desires of my flesh. Whilst my people go hungry from yer and yer men’s attack on us. I ken now that there’s more to it, that the Grants have wronged ye, too. I do nay blame ye in the same way I used to. But how can I ignore their suffering and indulge in such sweet desires? How will my people ever understand that this feud betwixt us all is more complicated than a game of pointing fingers? If I decided to stay, to let this union flourish instead of end it at Epiphany, how could they ever forgive me?”
Was she considering staying with him?
“That is why I’m shamed. For forgetting their suffering.”
A tear succeeded in leaking down her cheek, clinging to her chin, and dripping onto her bosom.
“Allie—”
He tried to touch her again, but she was already hastening down the corridor, pushing into her chamber, closing the door. An unfamiliar ache lodged in his chest, and he took a deep breath to try and ease the tightness. Was this heartache? Whatever the wretched sentiment, it didn’t dissipate. She had every reason to be angry at him. But was he supposed to let his ancestral lands surrounding Loch Ness go? All his life, he’d been tasked with the burden of reunifying the MacDonald birthright. Those lands had been wrongfully seized by a spiteful Crown. But Aileana had been right. It had been long ago, more than two hundred years, and the king who had stolen the land parcel was long since dead. Was it really MacDonald land anymore?
He thumped his chest with his fist, hoping to loosen the knot forming there, but the vision of pain on her face and the hurt in her voice wouldn’t show him mercy; instead, it paraded across his thoughts. He’d done this to her. He’d put her and her people in such a desperate position that she’d thieved from him, nay to gain riches and wealth but to gain a night’s meal—and a pathetic one, at that.
He strode down the corridor and shoved inside his solar, toeing shut the door to block out the sounds of celebratory music. His hearth was stacked with wood and ready for a fire. He pulled the flint and striker off the mantel and soon ignited a flame, then lumbered to his desk, where a fresh decanter of wine was laid out. He snagged it in his fingers and brought it to his lips. He inhaled deeply, taking another swig and letting the decanter dangle at his side.
He thought on Marjorie and his stepmother, and he realized that he’d gone a whole day without sparing them much thought at all when normally, they were always lurking in his mind like shadows that refused to be banished. Neither had he thought much about his inheritance—the impetus of this whole marriage. But Aileana’s withdrawal now had been as powerful as a slap to the cheek.
He dropped into the chair and took another swallow of wine. The night wore on, and the wine in the decanter slowly emptied, leaving his thoughts blurred. He nodded off, slouching backward, staring at the dying fire and embers rolling in the hearth. If he didn’t do his best to make things right with her and her clan, his marriage would end soon enough, and his inheritance would forever rest in donation to the church. If he didn’t find a way to make her feel fully accepted here, then he might lose Aileana, after just beginning to realize how deeply he wanted her.
Chapter Nine
28th of December
Eejit.
James stretched and flexed his neck to rid it of the pinched muscles from sleeping in his chair when a perfectly good bed sat nearby in the next chamber. He shivered. His hearth was cold, and the chamber was as frigid as the edges of Loch Moidart. Feeble light rimmed his window shutters. What time was it? He shoved to standing, rubbing his arms through his tunic as gooseflesh prickled his skin, and unpinned his mantle to drape around his shoulders, shrouding himself in the wool. Contemplating taking a short nap before calling his soldiers for morning drills, he moved to the window to see how light it was. His head pounded. He’d drunk too much wine the night before as he wallowed in Aileana’s rejection, considering what to do about his desire for her.
Ye have to go see her, man. He had to make sure that after their kiss that had rattled her and flooded him with the type of lust that turned a stoic warrior into a beggar for a lass’s affection, that she was all right.
After pushing closed the shutter, he paused, then pulled it open again. A tiny woman upon the hill rising up from the loch moved among the headstones of the cemetery on her hands and knees, clearing each marker of snow and dormant weeds. Bright red-auburn hair hung loose, and a gentle breeze lifted the unruly tendrils. What was she doing?
“Sir Lewis!” James hailed a soldier below in the bailey, one of his skilled archers, who was striding to the well from the barrack, still disheveled from sleep.
“Good morn, my laird!” h
e called back up.
“Ask the sentry what the Lady Aileana is about so early this morning!”
Sir Lewis glanced to the open portcullis—though from his vantage, he likely couldn’t see her—and shrugged. “She left nay long ago, telling the guards she wished for some fresh air and solitude!”
A walk among the headstones of MacDonalds for solitude? Sakes, if he wanted to find her, he had to go there? He would wait for her to return. Although, by the look of it, she’d only cleared a few headstones and had a row and a half to go. He might be waiting a while, and his apology needed to be swift, not belated.
Nay be a coward, man. Marjorie has been laid to rest for years.
He freshened his teeth with a pinch of mint, chewing on the leaves while he stripped and changed into a fresh tunic that didn’t smell like yesterday’s celebration. After strapping his calves and feet into sturdy boots for hiking, he fastened his leather doublet and drew his mantle down over his shoulder.
The morning meal was still being prepared—the fresh, savory smells permeating the hall from the kitchens—and though his stomach growled to ease the headache he’d brought on himself, he resigned himself to stop at the well on his way out of doors to drink from the bucket and ladle.
His thirst quenched, he strode through the bailey, beneath the portcullis, and across the promontory toward the mainland, rising the path to where he saw Aileana’s tracks diverge into the snow. Sunlight broke in the east and cast shards of bright light through the crystalline trees above them. His heart pounded as the first headstone came into view, but he climbed onward until the stone cross protruding from the roof of the kirk rose above the horizon, too. He glimpsed Aileana’s hair again—a beacon so bright and fiery, it gave her away—and noted her old gown, once more donned.
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