Neither James nor Tavish moved right away, which Tosia found odd. Wouldn’t one want to defeat their opponent swiftly?
Tavish took small steps to his right, moving in a slow circle, with James following his steps. Then, in a shocking burst of frenzied moves, James launched an attack. His muscles bunched and clenched with smooth precision in his explosive movements. The flurry of overhead and underhand swipes at Tavish left Tosia gasping for breath at her only recently recovered brother. And Tosia had held a sword before — no wonder James’s back and chest were corded with muscle. How much strength it took to keep up those sweeping moves with so heavy a weapon!
She shifted her gaze to Tavish, whose own lean muscle had increased since their arrival, but appeared naught more than boyish when compared to James’s thick chest and arms.
A sudden shiver overtook her as she continued to look upon her husband. Such power, indeed — a power that was, as James told her nightly, at her complete disposal. The space between her thighs grew damp as she recalled those heated moments.
She cleared her throat, certain that those nearby must feel the flush of her heated skin and see her pinked cheeks, but no eyes were on her. Everyone’s attention focused on poor Tavish and how he might combat James’s attack.
“Do ye see where ye were weak, lad?” James asked, his breath calming as he rested his sword tip in the dirt. The way he handled the weapon, ‘twas a natural extension of his body. Tavish, on the other hand, had yet to grow so comfortable with his broadsword, and still held it awkwardly in his hand.
“I was no’ ready,” Tavish admitted sheepishly.
Tosia knew it couldn’t be easy to train and admit one’s failures in front of an audience. She hoped her encouraging face might give him a measure of comfort.
“Aye, ‘twas obvious. What did ye miss because ye weren’t ready?”
“Weel, ye could have killed me easy with that overhand strike.”
James nodded. “How might ye have known I was ready to make my move? I knew the most opportune moment to unleash hell upon ye. How might ye know the same of me?”
Tavish dropped his gaze, his face scrunched up as he pondered the question. The audience of lasses held their collective breaths in hopes that their champion might know the answer.
Then his face smoothed and brightened. “Your jaw,” Tavish answered. “With ye being clean-shaven, I could see your jaw clench before ye lifted your sword. Ye had to clench those muscles in your shoulders to lift your weapon.”
He spoke as though he amazed himself for having an answer, and pride welled in Tosia’s chest for her brother.Smart lad,she said to herself. Then again, Tavish had always been a deep thinker.
“Aye, well done. And if I was no’ clean shaven? If I was as bearded as our king?”
Tavish studied James for a moment. To help him answer, James moved slowly, lifting his sword over his head again, this time in an exaggerated manner.
Tavish’s eyes lit up like a torch. “Your shoulders! I can see those muscles shift under your tunic!”
James smiled widely. “Good lad. Even if your opponent is wearing armor or mail, the plates or links will shift. So ye have more than one way to read your enemy afore he gives attack. Read your enemy well enough, and he will tell you what his actions will be. All ye must do is respond.”
The girls watching tittered at James’s words and Tavish’s accomplishments. At least her brother had the good sense to blush under their attentions.
And James’s lecture told her much of what she had wanted to know about him and his military accomplishments. He must be able to read his enemies very well — then used that knowledge to frame a battle strategy. It explained why he was heavily scarred yet alive when many lay dead in a field under his sword.
Tosia gave one more glance at her husband’s strapping, hardened body, then left him to Tavish’s lesson.
One lingering thought did rise in her mind as she lifted her skirts to step through the soft dirt. Would the day come when he didn’t read his enemy as he should, or worse, when his enemy read him first? Would he come home with scars? Or not at all?
James had been gonefrom her too long, too many days and nights training or riding into battle with the king, and if it weren’t for the generous company of Lady Elayne, Caitrin, and Caitrin’s mother Davina, Tosia would have been positively alone. Brigid worked well as a chambermaid, but her duties kept her far too busy to be a companion to a lonely new wife. Tavish, too, had his duties to attend. He was no longer the bumbling lad shadowing her throughout the day.
Tosia threw herself into any tasks she might find at the king’s stronghold. She wasn’t one who found joy in boredom. Her mother had often cautioned her about idle hands and what the devil might do with them. Moreover, Tosia enjoyed busyness. Milking cows and goats, scattering feed for chickens and collecting their eggs, preparing meals in the kitchens, and sewing clothes — these solitary duties provided a sense of calm and solace in her new life as the wife of the Black Douglas. The more peace she could find, the better she could provide a sense of solace to salve the emotional wounds of the beast himself, if not his physical wounds.
Yet too much solitude surely wore on a person. A woman needed the company of other women, and Tosia was fortunate in the ladies of the keep. They made sure she was never too alone, where her mind might wreak havoc from all-encompassing loneliness. In fact, one misty summer morn, she had folded her mother’s shift and placed at the bottom of her trunk. Between the ladies of the keep and James himself, she no longer needed that linen memory of her mother where she might see it daily. Rather, she’d keep it safe and sound, taking it out only when she felt the need.
She didn’t mention any lingering sense of loneliness to James, however. His own duties to the king wore plainly on his face — deep lines etched into the hard planes of his face. From worry, from over-thinking, from battle. He slept little, fought much, and it wore on him like the ocean against stone. Eventually, ocean would win out.
On nights when he did find her bed, she wrapped her arms and legs around him, touched every inch of his rough skin to hers, let him sink into her as one would a warm, welcoming bath. Tosia was the balm to James, ensuring he didn’t lose himself over to the violence he thought on and participated in almost daily.
So on a bright summer morning, Tosia was surprised when James didn’t leave their marriage bed early to find a sunrise meal with the king. Instead, he rolled to her, curling around her in a protective embrace.
“Ye have been most patient, my wife. The ladies speak highly of your work ethic, how ye have found a place here, and I pride myself that ye have managed to do the impossible. Keeping me grounded when I’d play the Viking berserker against the world.”
Licking her lips, she tasted the salty memory of his lips on hers from the night before. She turned her gaze to find his gray-green eyes, soft instead of flinty, searching every curve of her face, the swollen expanse of her breasts, down to her hip.
