Chapter Thirteen: Well and Truly Wedded
Tosia dozed next tohim, her hair entwined in his arm as she slept the sleep of the innocent. James’s cheek twitched at that thought. No longer so innocent.
Rolling to his side, he disentangled her hair from his skin, and he moved with stealth off the bed to his discarded clothing from the day before. He folded the rich black tunic into a neat pile, ready to return it to their proper owner, and opened his trunk. The aged wood squeaked in the silent gray light, and he froze, his gaze darting to the woman in his bed. She didn’t move.
James placed his kilt inside and withdrew his own worn tunic and braies from the trunk, then closed it with clenched shoulders. When it didn’t squeak again, he exhaled and placed his borrowed wedding finery atop the trunk where Brigid or another maid might find it.
Once dressed, James lifted his tartan cloak where he’d hung it on its peg the day before and held his breath when he opened the door, waiting for another irritating squeak. Thank Christ it was silent, and he stepped into the hall and closed it quietly.
James hated himself for sneaking out, but his mind was in turmoil from his wedding night. He hadn’t wanted to wed the lass yet did as commanded by his king. Upon meeting the nervous creature, his heart went out to the shy-eyed young woman who’d recently lost her mother, her home, and was forced into the union with a man of his terrible, deserved reputation. If anything, he marveled at her restraint. Unlike him, she didn’t have the resources or skill to lay waste to those who put her in that situation. Despite his better judgment, James worked earnestly to calm her fears. He protected her as they rode to Auchinleck, answered her questions with full honesty, and spoke to her in the sweetest of tones he could muster.
Then, he’d expected to send her off to Threave and refocus his energies on the king and Scotland’s independence.
But yesterday, last night . . .
He had no understanding of what had transpired. But he had a better grasp of what Robert the Bruce endured every day that his own wife was imprisoned by the English. If anyone tried to remove Tosia from his side, he’d make the reputed Douglas Larder look like a springtime walk in the moors.
What ached his head was he had no reason for those emotions. Firstly, King Robert had been correct in his belief that a fine wife could calm the beast that was Black Douglas. That knowledge vexed him to no end. And other than the undeniable fact that Tosia Fraser Douglas was now his, in the eyes of both God and the law, he couldn’t wait to find himself between her legs again. Only next time, he’d make sure she experienced the same consuming heights as he had.
Since he wasn’t prepared to speak to his new wife, the notion of exposing his conflicting emotions to her a knife in his chest, ‘twas better to sneak out before she woke.
The torches in the hall had burned to blackened stumps and fell into shadows where the bleak sunrise didn’t reach. So Shabib’s sudden appearance at the top of the stair made him clutch one fist to his chest and lash out with the other. He stopped his flying fist just before it made contact with Shabib’s full lips.
“How do ye do that? Ye materialize from the shadows like a specter! I could have stuck ye senseless!”
Shabib didn’t recoil — instead, the white gleam of his teeth crested into a half moon, mocking James.
“Oh, sirrah. Was your attention focused elsewhere? Perchance on the fair lass you snuck away from?”
James pursed his lips and crossed his arms over his broad chest. For so lean a man, Shabib had no fear or mocking those who might land a punch. Or at least mocking James. And James had no doubt Shabib wouldn’t even flinch from the strike and would hit back just as hard. He’d seen Shabib do it more than once.
“I wasn’t sneaking.”
“Oh. Well, I know you have an abundance of practice at it with other women. I had assumed that, since this lass was now your wife, you’d be more inclined to tarry by her side for a bit longer.”
James stiffened and narrowed his eyes but said nothing. The white gleam of Shabib’s teeth widened in the dim hall.
“So, you wanted to stay. Could it be the iron-hard beast of Scotland has found his heart softened and now doesn’t know what to do with it?”
How did Shabib read him so well? James prided himself on his stoic face and tried to maintain that under the Moor’s taunts.
“Ye know no’ of what ye speak.”
Shabib’s smile faltered. “Don’t I though? A man might burn his land to ash for king and country, but he’d scorch the entire world for a woman.”
Aye, Shabib well knew. He had done the same for those who’d had a hand in his wife and daughter’s death in northern Spain, Moors and Christians alike. Their violent deaths crushed Shabib’s heart so fully that he had indeed laid waste, fire and sword, against everyone who had executed his family so indiscriminately, as if they were nothing more than garbage to throw out with offal. Shabib’s sword and torch had killed and burned as indiscriminately, and he hated all those who lived south of the Holy Roman Empire. He especially despised his own people whom he’d expected to help protect his wife and daughter and instead left them to die.
It was one of the reasons he’d stood beside James when he’d destroyed his own keep.
Aye, Shabib truly understood what a man would do for the woman who held his heart.
