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“Ye brazen, thieving wench, was it not enough for ye that ye stole my cattle?” he teased her, his dark green eyes warm. “Must ye have my heart as well, lassie?”
“Aye!” she responded. Damn him! Why would he not admit he loved her? She knew he did. Why else had he kept her?
His fingers delicately kneaded her flesh. His lips brushed her brow. He took her face between his hands, his thumbs softly brushing along the sides of her mouth. Then his lips took hers in a warm kiss, once, twice, a third time. Lifting her into his arms, he walked slowly across the chamber to place her gently upon their bed. He lay on his side, propped upon an elbow. His fingers trailed down her throat and across her chest. Bending his head, he rubbed his cheek against the swell of her right breast.
Fiona sighed deeply. He had never been a rough lover, but neither had he ever been so tender with her. There was something exceptionally exciting and alluring about him this night. She twined her fingers through his black hair, trying to draw him back to taste her lips, for his kisses were intoxicating. She felt his mouth opening, then closing over her nipple. He sucked strongly, and Fiona felt as if lightning were tearing through her. Never had her breasts been as sensitive to his loving as they were this night. An arm about her shoulder pinioned her lightly. His other hand slipped slowly, seductively down her torso, insinuating its long, slender digits between her soft nether lips.
“Ah,” she let her breath out in a long hiss. “Ah!”
His fingers teased at her only long enough to stoke her rising excitement; then they caressed the velvetyinsides of her rounded thighs. He moved to take her left nipple into his mouth, his tongue encircling the hardened little nub. Her breasts felt hard, and ached with his attentions. She felt his tongue begin to lick at her skin, and Fiona shivered with delight. Pulling the hand on her thigh up to her mouth, she began to suck his fingers, each in its turn, and he shuddered at her voluptuous and carnal act. She had the most incredible instincts for the sensual. “Witch!” He groaned, knowing that if he did not soon plunge himself into her willing body, he would shatter into a thousand bits.
Fiona sensed the sudden urgency of his need. “Come into me, my love,” she whispered, releasing his hand and spreading herself for him.
He covered her, struggling futilely to maintain his superiority but unable to resist the warmth of her and the sweet yielding of her flesh as he plunged his manhood deep inside her. “Ah, lassie.” He thrust over and over again within the silken heat of her love passage. But rather than weakening him, her compliance seemed to strengthen him. Once more he became master of the situation and, realizing it, used her with renewed vigor.
Beneath him Fiona released her control, arching her body to meet his every downward thrust. She was mindless and yet totally aware. She burned with a fire that he strove mightily to quench. She could feel his hardness, pushing, pushing, pushing into her. It throbbed and burned with a life all its own until she thought she would surely die with the arrant pleasure he was bestowing upon her. Fiona ascended and aspired to the pinnacle of complete passion. Reaching it, she hovered for a long, delicious moment before hurding down into a warm darkness. Then she heard him cry with his own satisfaction, an almost animal sound.
And afterward she wept with the magnificence of what had just transpired between them, but there was no sadness in the sound. It was pure and simple joy.
The laird spoke with the king. “Ye'll see that my lass gets safely home to Loch Brae, my liege?”
“Don't fear, Angus,” the king said. “Everything will be exactly as it should be by the time ye return with Mistress Elizabeth. I canna tell ye how grateful the queen and I are for this last kindness before ye disappear into yer highland lair again.”
“’Tis little enough to do for ye, my liege,” the laird answered. “I can understand yer wanting Mistress Williams to see a friendly face in York rather than one of yer less cultured subjects,” he finished, laughing.
“Aye, exactly!” James Stewart agreed. “Scotland will be a revelation to the queen's gentle relative.”
Fiona saw her lord off, offering him a stirrup cup before he departed on the rainy September morning.
“Try to be a good lass,” he teased her. “Go straight home, and don't get into any mischief, Fiona Hay.” Lifting her up onto his saddle, he captured her mouth in a long and sweetly lingering kiss, then set her down again.
She struggled to keep the tears from falling. He wasn't going to war. He was simply going to fetch the queen's cousin. She was being foolish, she thought irritably, as the laird of Loch Brae rode off into the gray morning. Then, after hurrying back to their apartment, she burst into fulsome tears and could not be calmed for a good half hour by the faithful Nelly.
“Ye’ll feel better when we quit the court, lady,” the little maidservant said. “In a few more days we'll be off to Loch Brae, and ye'll feel ever so much better.”
“Aye,” Fiona agreed, sniffling noisily. “I want to go home, Nelly, but I want my lord back with me.”
“Och,” Nelly replied, “’Twill be no time at all before we see the laird again. York is no distance. He'll be back in two weeks’ time, and then ’Tis just a few days to Loch Brae. When are we to leave?”
“I suppose we can go any time,” Fiona said. “The queen has already dismissed me from her service. Will three days be enough time for us to pack, Nelly? I will help ye, and we don't have to wait for an escort from Loch Brae. The king has promised my lord that he will have his own men escort us.”
“Ye had best get to work,” Nelly said, “if ye want to go in three more days, lady. It's time enough, but only if we work hard.”
Maggie MacLeod came to help the two women fill their trunks for transport. And afterward she deliberately sought out her cousin of Nairn to taunt him, for her time was growing short to succeed in the task given her by the king.
“Let us find some wine, Colly,” she said. “I am fair exhausted from helping Mistress Hay and her servant pack up all their belongings. She sets out in three days’ time for Loch Brae. Now that Black Angus is gone, ye have a chance with her, or are ye afraid that she will reject ye again?Yemust be growing old, Nairn, for I can remember a time when the lasses would not say no to ye.” She laughed lightly, noting the muscle in his jaw that twitched as he handed her a goblet of wine. He was annoyed, and that was to the good. “Fifty years ago a man in yer position would have stolen the bride away if he desired her for his own,” Maggie continued, “but we are more civilized now in Scotland, are we not?” She sipped her wine, sighing with satisfaction.
“Bride-stealing,” said The MacDonald of Nairn,“is still practiced in the highlands.” His look was thoughtful.
“Ye would not dare!” Maggie said, subtly taunting him, her blue eyes wide with feigned shock. “This is not the highlands, cousin.”
He smiled at her wickedly, and her heart contracted, for Maggie MacLeod remembered a time when Colin MacDonald's smile would have made her do anything he desired. “I shall not approach her before she leaves lest those who look for her consider I might have her. What road does she take to travel to Loch Brae, and how big an escort will she have, cousin?” he demanded, his finger gently caressing Maggie's flushed cheek.
“Colly, ye dare to do such a thing? Ye must not! If they catch ye, ye'll be killed. Angus Gordon will go mad with fury. He'll search high and low for her-I know it! Don't be such a fool! Are ye not past the time when ye would risk yer life just to have a pretty girl?” Maggie sounded genuinely distressed, and in fact she was. Her conscience was plaguing her mightily over her part in the king's plot. If she did her best, and Colin MacDonald did not steal Fiona Hay, could she be blamed? Aye! The king would indeed blame her. “Are ye so desperate for the wench then that ye would risk yer life? Oh, verra well! I'll get ye the information ye desire, but don't blame me if yer killed. Men! Why are ye such fools when it comes to a pretty woman?” She shrugged.
“Ye would betray yer friend?” he said softly. “For me?”
“When did ye ask something of me that I did not do it for ye, Colly?” Maggie replied, her gaze melting. “Are we not family, cousin? Doesn't our blood tie bindus to aid one another? I may think ye a fool, but I would not break a blood tie with ye.”
