“With my wedding to ye, I give ye no’ only my name, but the protection of my body, until my last breath is yanked from it against my will. As long as ye are mine, I will guard ye against every evil thing in this world.”
He moved his head so his lips were perched right over hers.
“Every evil thing, but me,” he said then caressed her lips with his in a movement that was so gentle, she couldn’t believe the kiss came from the man known as a monster.
His touch was light, as his knuckles caressed her jaw. He held her with such delicate arms, he seemed to be a completely different man, not a demon. Her lips responded in kind, meeting his and parting slightly when coaxed by his tongue. Her hand clutched at her skirts in heady desperation and her sense whirled. Who was this man who was at once a devil and a lover? Who was both hard and gentle? What was she to make of him?
The more she tried to grasp her thoughts, the more they twisted from her mind, until his lips left hers. He raised his head and dropped his fingers from her face, and all that remained of the man and his kiss was her red skin roughened by his beard.
“Ye should go. Ye are no’ yet my wife, and I would no’ have your reputation sullied. That is, if ye have no further questions?”
One thick, raven eyebrow slanted high on his brow and he moved to the door, opening it. Tosia’s words failed her again, only this time not from fear, but from something deeper and unfamiliar. As her hands still twined in her skirts, she curtsied quickly and escaped through the door into the dimly lit hallway.
Only then did her breathing resume.
James stood firm andstraight as the lass rushed from his chambers, as though all the demons of Galloway chased after her.
And didn’t they? James scratched his thick beard with one hand and reached to his groin to adjust his ballocks with the other. The lass, in all her fearful beauty, created a yearning deep inside — something he hadn’t felt in years. Decades. If ever. As a man accustomed to finding his release between the willing thighs of a tavern maid or a whore, the prospect of a wife, forced though it might have been, intrigued him.
And she might fear him for their entire marriage, as long as it lasted — James could easily find himself at the wrong end of an English sword or Edward’s beastly trebuchet — but at least the lass would have the protection of his name for the rest ofherlife.
He vowed to protect her with everything he had, and he would, even if it was only his name from beyond the grave.
Protecting her with his body? James glanced at his torso and arms. His chest and arms, hidden presently by a fine tunic gifted to him by the Bruce, bore witness to scars, a patchwork of near-deaths and agonizing pain and fear of pus. The lass wasn’t getting a milquetoast gentleman. He hoped she was prepared to meet the monster under his clothing.
Yet, when he kissed her, he didn’t feel much like the monster he was accused of being. Rather, he felt like a man, a skin and hair man with a rising cock and throbbing heart, and a desire to hold this lass and love her as a man loved his wife.
James shook his head and departed his chambers to join the Bruce for an evening of drinking, one which promised an abundance of mead and fineuisge-beathato celebrate James’s upcoming nuptials. The king mayhap had a sound idea in bringing the lass to Auchinleck castle to wed him.
He’d certainly felt the monstrous side of him temper the longer he was in the room with her. And when his lips brushed hers, no monster at all.
Only a man, through and through.
Chapter Eleven: The Dreaded Wedding
Tosia’s wedding kirtlewas a gown fit for a queen, at least in Tosia’s estimation. Accustomed to rough woolen dresses and misshapen leather shoes, the pale sky-blue gown with draping sleeves and thistles embroidered in green and lavender, fit like something from a dream. Tosia felt much like a fae creature from one of her mother’s stories.
