Body on fire, Kára kicked at the heavy blankets until some of them slid off to the floor. She arched her back, rubbing her backside against his raging jack. “Do not make me beg, Highlander,” she rasped, raising her knee to give him access. “Or I will make you beg.”
He chuckled softly behind her, his teeth nibbling along her nape to send shivers and chill bumps along her skin. “Threats from my warrior queen,” he whispered at her ear as his fingers plunged into her flesh.
Her gasp turned quickly to a groan as he touched every aching part of her inside. She felt his jack from behind, seeking her, and arched backward. Holding her open, he teased her, the tip poised for entry.
“Joshua,” she said between pants.
His mouth came up to her ear. “Kára Flett, I give myself to ye.” He thrust into her open body. “Bloody hell,” he roared, passion changing the curse into one of sheer pleasure.
“Yesssss….” Her moan drew out as his fingers found her most sensitive spot while he started a deep, plunging rhythm in and out of her open, wet body.
She could not reach him with her arm. Twisting would hurt her side, so she clutched the pillow before her, pressing back against him with each thrust into her. His lips pressed against the back of her neck as he groaned, and she lifted her top leg to curl back, tangling with his. The vibration of his passion against her nape shot more lines of passion through her body. It was as if she were being pulled apart but building into a tight ball at the same time. Chills and heat, the pleasure built higher and higher, until the tight ball inside her exploded.
“Joshua!” she screamed as the passion overtook her, her breathing so fast she saw stars in the darkness.
His own roar filled the underground den as he flooded her, rubbing to squeeze out every drop of passion in her as he pumped into her from behind. The two of them rode the waves together until they ebbed, leaving Kára with a languid feeling. Silence wrapped around them as their breaths slowed.
Neither of them spoke after saying so much. His little words to her, just a few, but strung together, “I give myself to ye” meant more than breath to Kára. Was it love he proclaimed? That she herself felt? She had never experienced the mix of heaviness and light within her before, the heaviness when Joshua battled, the light when he smiled at her or held her. Not only did he cherish her body, making her cry out in shameless rapture, he respected her and her people.
She hugged his arm where it rested over her. Joshua pulled her into the curve of his body, holding her close in the darkness until they both fell into a gentle sleep, wrapped up in warmth and revelations.
…
Kára’s eyes opened slowly, her hand sweeping under the blankets. She was alone. Twisting and then grimacing at the pinch and pull in her side, she gasped softly, remembering the wound. “Joshua?” she called out.
“I sent him away.” Amma walked over, holding out a cup to her.
“What? Why? Where did he go?” Kára threw back some of the blankets, wrapping the sheet around her nakedness as she sat up and set her feet on the freezing stone floor. Someone had started a fire, so it was not as cold as the night before.
Amma frowned at her. “To Hillside underneath, to ready for the ordeal today. He did not want to leave, but I sent him on his way.” She held the cup out again for Kára to take. “Drink. Eat, and then we will make you into a corpse.”
Kára’s shoulders relaxed, and she took the cup, drinking of the broth. “Is Calder with him?”
“Yes, and Osk. They will help him get ready and will accompany him to the Earl’s Palace.”
“Where is Geir?”
“He is with Erik and keeping an eye on your horse. Broch will carry you and the Highlander quickly away.”
“You can come with us,” she said. Her amma should have gone on the ship, but she and her sister, Hilda, had remained. Together, they’d stitched Kára up and saved her from fever. “You and Aunt Hilda.”
Amma shook her head. “We are too old to start over in another land.”
“Ridiculous. You are obviously young enough to climb down a rope into a well,” she said, indicating the way into her den. “You can surely travel to Scotia.”
Amma smiled at her, pausing over a long moment. “Well, perhaps, but Hilda is staying.”
“Robert will steal her back.”
“That might be what she has in mind,” Amma said and then waved off the comment.
“What will she do?”
“I will speak no further on it,” Amma said with tight lips and a tilt to her chin that told Kára there was no use in arguing with her. “Eat up, child. I have white paste to wipe you with, and we must collect things to lie with you in the grave.”
Kára exhaled. “Will this work, Amma?”
Her grandmother sat down next to her on the bed and patted her knee. “’Tis an unexpected plan, wild in fact. And Joshua has made contact with the men in Robert’s holding who are loyal to him. They will help with the act.”
Kára shook her head. “I still cannot believe the Horseman of War is sacrificing himself for our people. You know, Joshua has never lost a battle in his entire life. And he is now planning to do so to keep our people safe.”
Amma smiled, the wrinkles around her eyes turning into deep grooves. “Our people?” She huffed a small chuckle. “Child, the man, warrior from God or human made, is sacrificing for you. We but reap the benefit.” Her weathered hand came to Kára’s cheek. “He wants to bring you to his home, to meet his brothers and sister, his aunt. He wants you to live with him there, surrounded by his clan. Otherwise, he would merely escort you there and leave you, set out on his own as the powerful Horseman of War he has always been.” She shook her head. “Nay, he surrenders himself today so he can give you a life with him, and the Hillside people benefit.” She leveled her eyes with Kára’s. “You have succeeded in saving your people, Kára Flett, daughter of King Zaire, by winning over the heart of the fiercest warrior on earth.”
I give myself to ye. His words in the darkness resonated through her body, making her heart pick up a rapid dance. Without sight, last night seemed like a dream, a dream full of every other detail. Their entire beings mingling with a mix of scents, sensations, and sounds. But now she wanted to see him, to stare into his eyes. Was there commitment in his eyes, an everlasting loyalty? Love?
Amma stood, pulling her gingerly from the bed. “Now sit, eat, and I will whiten your skin. After all, you will be several days dead. Geir found a half-eaten seal washed up on the beach. He will hide it under you in case anyone comes close enough to smell death.”
“Is the ground frozen?” she asked.
“Calder built a fire with peat to burn through the day and night up at the chapel over your gravesite next to Zaire, Astrid, and Eydis. It will be thawed enough for a shallow grave, which is what we want anyway.”
Kára nodded and took a bite of the barley bread with butter, her mind a tangle of the wild staging they were going to enact. “I thought the Horseman was invincible,” she murmured, thinking of the sacrifice Joshua was about to make. “That he would never show weakness or crumble.”
Amma sat down opposite her, propping her elbows there. She leaned forward as if to impart a great secret. “No one is invincible to love. It is what makes us vulnerable and strong at the same time, doing things we never thought possible.”
Kára’s gaze snapped up to Amma’s. “Do you…?” Kára wet her lips between shallow breaths. “Do you think he could love me?”
Amma smiled softly. “The Horseman of War? No. Joshua Sinclair? Aye.” She clasped Kára’s hand. “What he does today, he does for you.”
Kára shook her head. “He plays out this trick to protect his clan from King James.”
Amma leaned forward. “He has already broken his oath to them in writing. He could leave Orkney and strike out alone in Scotland, yet he wants you and your p
eople to live in safety and the protection of his clan.”
“He could just be an honorable man,” Kára whispered.
“He wants to bring you home,” she said, sitting straight. “You both must survive this day.”
Kára’s chest squeezed as she thought about the risky details of their deception. Aye, they would live or die together—today.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“All warfare is based on deception.”
Sun Tzu – The Art of War
“It is an inch at most,” Calder said, shaking his head.
Joshua looked out across the moor that stretched down toward the Earl’s Palace. “An extra inch of flesh can save a man,” he said, glancing down to his tunic where the inch-thick bladder of chicken blood was strapped underneath around his ribs.
“It better save you,” Osk said behind them. “Or Kára will chop us up for letting you die, for real.”
“If Patrick Stuart cuts deeper and draws my own blood, too, so be it,” Joshua said, ignoring Osk. He could not think of Kára right now, or he might lose his concentration. Everything about the next steps in this farce must be concise. He looked to Calder. “Make sure ye carry me out of there before a Stuart can check my pulse.” He could hold his breath for long minutes, having built up his lung capacity with constant training, but there would be no stopping his heart from feeding his body with blood.
“I doubt they will go anywhere near you,” Calder said, pointing to the blackened tips of Joshua’s fingers and the realistic shading and lightening that Hilda had painted on Joshua’s neck to make part of it look swollen. “Remember to cough and act like you are getting tired when fighting.”
“Will those loyal to you in the palace really help?” Osk asked, his lip curling so his upper teeth sat exposed.
A lot could have happened since Joshua had woken Angus in the night at his cottage in the village beyond the palace where the soldiers and their families lived. Angus had asked his lady to journey back to mainland Scotland with him and Mathias after the battle, but she may have given him away to Lord Robert. Joshua had never met the lass, so he could not judge her heart.
“We will know if they are absent this morn,” Joshua said. “Then your small band must get my corpse out of there.”
“What if he wants your body to be hung, drawn, and quartered?” Osk asked. “He is calling you a traitor.”
“If the false symptoms and pretend gangrene do not deter them, Hilda took care of adding a definite symptom,” Calder said, flapping his hand toward Joshua’s kilt.
“What?” Osk asked, staring at the wrapped wool.
Joshua yanked up the edge of his kilt to expose his jack and ballocks. Nestled into the groin was a blackened ball that Kára’s grandmother had glued on.
Osk’s mouth dropped open. “My grandmother really did give you the plague.”
Joshua dropped his kilt. “Aye,” he said, his lips tight.
“You let Amma down near your ballocks?” Osk asked, incredulously.
The old woman had seemed to take great delight in pasting on the blackened nut while Joshua cupped himself. “One of ye will notice it when I am…defeated. Yell a warning.” Bloody hell, defeated. He had never been defeated in his life.
His father was surely turning in his grave. George Sinclair did not stand for defeat or weakness in any of his sons. And he had outlawed illness, saying God would never let one of his Horsemen die from disease. Yet here Joshua stood, feigning illness and defeat.
“You have brought the plague to Orkney,” Osk said, glancing back down the hill where the men who remained on Orkney waited. Half of those who’d battled for Geir had already journeyed on to Caithness.
Joshua looked over them, their weapons and attention ready. “Hilda visited several ladies in the village three days ago, asking if anyone was ill with it. That she’d heard it was moving up from the south and Pastor John had brought it with him from Edinburgh. Three days should be enough time for the rumor to have reached the palace.”
“Can you battle with that on you?” Osk asked, dropping his gaze to the front of Joshua’s kilt.
Joshua met his round eyes that were the same gray-blue as his sister’s. “I have battled with broken bones before. A nut is not likely to slow me down.”
“It better slow you down enough for Patrick to get in a strike,” Calder said as if reminding him. “Do not kill the bastard or you will have more problems.”
Merely thinking of the smug man made Joshua’s fists clench. Feigning weakness. Lord, help me do it. He was the Horseman of War, a warrior from the cradle, vengeance made flesh. Patrick deserved to die, along with his father, for the atrocities they’d brought down upon the people of Orkney. Like the rapist, Henry. Fury welled up inside Joshua as he remembered Henry slamming Kára against the chapel wall. He inhaled to rid himself of the image only to have it replaced with the vision of Patrick throwing her to the floor. And yet, Joshua must fall under his sword. For Kára and for Clan Sinclair.
…
“Here,” Amma said, nodding at Kára. “This will make you pale as death,” she said, mixing the paste in the carved bowl. “We will add subtle touches of gray where your flesh has begun to loosen.”
“And I will be lying on a dead, stinking seal?” Kára asked. Amma nodded. “And I will be buried alive?” Amma nodded again. “And this is the only way to stop Patrick Stuart from coming after me?”
“Death is the final escape from a determined madman,” Amma said.
Kára looked at the wavy reflection in the polished glass. “For both Joshua and me.”
“Aye.”
“The Horseman of War.” Kára shook her head.
“Will die for you this day,” Amma said and kissed her on the top of her head, taking up the paste-smeared rag.
…
“Patrick Stuart, come meet the Horseman of War.” Joshua’s voice boomed up at the men in the gate tower. “Pay for your crimes against Kára Flett, you murdering bastard.”
“Did your woman die from her wounds?” Angus yelled down, signaling that his betrothed had not given him away or he’d be in Robert’s dungeon. Hopefully, Mathias was also about the grounds.
“Aye, from the cruelty of Patrick Stuart against a woman. Tell him to come answer for his crimes,” Joshua yelled. He stood in a battle stance, sword in hand, feet braced, death etched into the lines of his face. At least this part he did not have to act. His hatred for Patrick Stuart and Lord Robert practically shot outward from him, making him intimidating enough that the five soldiers who came forward remained way back near the portcullis that was partway open.
In the week since the attack, Robert had ordered the men to work from sunup into the night to finish the defensive wall around his palace. Angus had told Joshua that Robert and The Brute had railed at them for not lighting the beacon that would have called warriors from the village to help. That they believed the Orkney warriors had numbered over a hundred strong, conjecturing that men must’ve marched up from the southern isle of Hoy and the East Mainland of Orkney to join the Birsay peasants in revolt. The farce had kept Robert from immediately ordering his men to give chase when the Hillside men retreated.
And now another farce must play out expertly, a farce on which The Art of War had no advice. Staging his own death.
Joshua stood strong facing the raised portcullis.
“Cough or something,” Osk whispered from behind and backed up as if afraid to get too close to Joshua.
Joshua coughed from deep in his chest, not bothering to cover his mouth. He wiped his arm across his forehead as if he might be hot despite the near-freezing temperature. Hopefully, they saw the black on his fingers as if gangrene were setting in. “Ye have taken Kára Flett from this world, and I will take all of ye.” He coughed again. “Send out Patrick Stuart and Lord Robert if he wishes.”
“Lord Pat
rick is no coward,” Angus yelled. “He will meet ye.”
Mathias was one of the men on the ground, along with Liam and Tuck. “He will split your brain, Horseman,” Mathias yelled, making Liam and Tuck look at him like he was insane.
“Send the bastard out,” Joshua called, holding his sword pointed upward.
Robert, Patrick, and John Dishington walked through the gate. “You are a traitor to the crown,” Robert said with a sneer. “You will be hung and disemboweled for your dishonor.”
“I very much hope ye are the one to do it,” Joshua said and laughed darkly. “But first I will seek revenge for my love’s life on your son’s worthless body.”
“The little Flett girl?” Patrick said, his voice goading. “Your love?” He smirked. “Her death is even more warranted.”
“Bastard!” Joshua yelled and then forced a cough up out of his lungs. Hilda had wanted him to drink something that would encourage phlegm, but he refused. A third ballock, blackened and pasted on, was enough. “Come forward and meet your fate.”
Patrick unsheathed his sword, The Brute walking with him.
“Ye are frightened enough to bring Dishington to play nursemaid?” Joshua gave him a look that called him a coward. “What a poor Stuart ye are. Are ye shamed, Lord Robert, for raising a quaking lad?”
Patrick held his hand out to Dishington, speaking to him over his shoulder, and he stopped. Och, but it was so easy to manipulate them. Dishington seemed like he would argue but halted. The look of eager violence told Joshua that if he didn’t fall to Patrick, Dishington was obviously continuing the attack.
Joshua kept his stance ready. The man would likely strike low, but Joshua would be ready. He must give him a challenge to make the farce look credible.
“You foking Highlander,” Patrick said, striding toward him. “I will kill you, and you will be cut up and fed to the fish.”
“Or…” Joshua dragged out, giving him a fierce grin, “I will run my blade from your black heart down to your wee jack so ye trip over your shite-filled bowels when they fall out.” He could imagine his brother, Cain, rolling his eyes over Joshua’s colorful threats. Aye, he missed home.
Highland Warrior Page 26
