Captured Hearts and Stolen Kisses

by Ceci Giltenan et al.

  She also rose. "Thane was keeping me company." She hoped her words sounded casual. Whenever around Ranald these days, she found herself getting absurdly shy. Like a nervous maiden, she was.

  One of those rare smiles eased the hard line of his mouth. "I wanted him to keep me company.”

  "Another raid?" Surely she could think of something better to say.

  "Only on the trout.”

  “You’re going fishing?" The thought of escaping the castle confines tantalized her. Of all the castle’s inhabitants, she, alone, was forbidden to leave. Even old Elspeth and Mary Laurie were permitted to visit the village. "Please, may I also accompany you?”

  He looked askance. "Ye fish?"

  She smiled demurely. "A wee bit.”

  His eyes took on a boyish gleam, his face alight. “Ever fished for trout?”

  She shook her head.

  "Then come along. The best bait is the mayfly, but until the insects hatch again we’ll have to make do with minnows.”

  She couldn’t believe this wild, unsophisticated chieftain, the leader of a formidable band of reivers, could be so congenial.

  Sunlight glinted in his tawny hair as he led her along a snow-banked road, then cut across crystal-frosted rye grass, and picked up a path leading to the burn. Thane trotted at their side, his tail wagging happily. Ever so often he would leave them to explore a hazel thicket or prickly gorse, then come romping back.

  The burn’s water rushed so rapidly that ice had no chance to form. Ranald halted beside a denuded, pale gray mountain ash. Here the river narrowed, slowed, and deepened. “There should be something in the riffle between the gravel bars and yon bed of watercress."

  She watched him impale a minnow on the hook of his fishing pole, doubtlessly booty from a recent raid. He cast the line in a dark area that marked deeper water and twitched it a few times. Within seconds, a juvenile trout took the bait. Ranald hauled in his catch, unhooked it, and held it under the belly until it swam off. "Not bad for a brown trout, but not large enough to be a gift fish."

  "Cast in the farthest riffle," she suggested, "the one closest to the sheep pasture across the river.”

  He flicked her a look that was both of surprise and challenge. “Ye do it."

  Before she could reply he passed her the pole. She searched his face, ruddy with the cold day. His expression held a look of patient good humor. “This outing had been planned," she accused.

  "Planned? More like ordered. The good hag Elspeth trapped me in a draughty passage and wouldna let me by until she had lectured me on your virtues. I ended up giving me promise to provide ye with the opportunity to stretch your legs—limbs," he finished lamely.

  His magnanimous gesture, then, had been at Elspeth’s prompting. In a dour mood, Enya accepted the fishing pole. Her cloak hampered her cast, but when she could control the line she dragged it crosswise, remembering how mayflies flutter upstream just before their wings are dry and are unable to lift off the surface.

  The trout came up out of a dark area in the farthest riffle and took the bait with an almost angry motion. She said a quick prayer to whoever was in charge of brown trout. Her excitement was contagious, and Thane began to yip.

  “That’s it!” Ranald encouraged. “Keep jiggling the line.”

  The trout stopped once to try and bury itself in a patch of watercress before she tugged it ashore. Bright and clean-finned, it stared up at her with a dour eye.

  “It shall make a marvelous meal,” Ranald said, kneeling to unhook it.

  “Let it go for another time," she suggested.

  He spared it, and it slipped away to the center of the river. Then he turned on her an accusatory glance. “Ye’ve fished a lot."

  She laughed with pure delight.

  He grinned up at her. “I didn’t realize you, also, have a dimple in one cheek.”

  At the soft gleam in his eye, she sobered. What if she fell in love with him instead? On the way back to the castle, both she and he were silent. Did he ever think about the woman he had been going to marry? “Tell me about Ruthven,” she blurted.

  A muscle in his jaw flickered. “Ye ha' been talking to Jamie."

  She said nothing. By now they had reached the portcullis. He nodded to the posted guards and continued on. "What do ye want to know?”

  "Why didn’t you marry her?”

  His long strides lengthened even more. "She died."

  "Oh.” She swallowed. "I’m sorry.” In the bailey, she circumvented a squawking hen. “Murdock’s doing, also?”

  Ahead of her, he climbed the stairs two at a time. “No.”

  She hurried to catch up with him and followed him into his chambers. "Do you think you could manage to be less monosyllabic?"

  He peeled off his deerskin coat and went to stand before the slow-burning fire. His voice was low. “Ruthven and I grew up in the village of Achnacarry, the Cameron ancestral home near Fort William. When I went off to the university we were pledged.

  “Later, Bonnie Prince Charles returned, and I joined the ranks. Not out of Jacobite zeal, but because of anti-Hanoverian feelings. With his defeat, I became one of the holdouts. Me younger brother Robby and I joined Ian and other rebels. Always on the run, striking here or there at a lone patrol, and off again.

  “Whenever I thought it was safe I would slip into Achnacarry with Davy to see Ruthven and Mhorag, who was living with Ruthven’s parents. One night, as I lay in Ruthven’s arms, I found a Sassenach bayonet pointed at my throat. She had betrayed me.”

  She swallowed. "You killed her?"

  He rounded on her and grabbed her arms. "Do ye think so ill of me?” He shook her once, then released her. "Nae, Enya, I didn’t kill her. I thought about it, God knows. But the Redcoats bound me and Davy and shipped us to Tolbooth prison in Edinburgh.”

  She gasped. The prison was known to be a hellhole, a museum of torture devices. She wrapped her arms around him and laid her cheek against his broad chest. "Oh, God, Ranald!"

  His voice, above her head, was harsh. “I learned later that her father and brother had been arrested. To save them, she had sold me out. I canna blame her. Fear will drive people to betray their verra selves.”

  “How did she die?” she whispered against the soft chest hair curling above the lacings of his shirt.

  He wrapped his arms around her and pressed her against him. "Mhorag said that the villagers gave Ruthven two sacks of silver: the proverbial thirty pieces. Weighted them to her waist, they did, and threw her in the burn. She sank out of sight.”

  She shuddered. Knowing Mhorag, the young woman probably prodded on the villagers.

  Apparently, Ranald didn’t realize he was swaying back and forth with her in his arms. With an almost maternal instinct, she drew him down with her onto the braided rug, where she cradled and rocked and crooned to him. "Oh, my dearest, my darling, my love."

  She was using her hands to heal, but what might have begun from maternal feelings gradually altered to something equally as powerful. That primal drive to procreate. In a frenetic drive, she disrobed him, tearing at the lacings of his shirt.

  He caught her fire. Wildfire. His hands ripped away her own clothing, so that she, too, was naked. Gone was her worry about being ample curves. His eyes told her she found favor with him.

  Without conscious effort, as if in altered states, they turned to touching each other. Massaging, fondling, embracing into a perfect pulsation. Moving as one, female and male in synchronization. Seeking that oneness with each other and gathering their life forces. They rolled, entwined, before the fire.

  They were performing that dance of creation, that act of love that Ranald sought to deny as such.

  Wherever he touched her, that part of her felt aglow with brilliant light. "Open your heart to me, Ranald,” she whispered feverishly between his wild kisses.

  “I canna.”.

  " ’Tis easy." She kissed him in return. "Now. Tell me you love me.”

  “Words. They are unreliable, mo ci
naed.” He moved up over her, into her, filling her. His hands wound through her hair with strokes that bespoke wonder.

  Intermeshed with him, she felt as though she lost her own separate identity and yet felt they were the only two people in the world. Her emotions rapidly vibrated with ecstasy, then rapture and lastly an unsustainable bliss. She felt that burst of exquisite sensations that overflowed her.

  Breath rasping, heart pounding, she lay silent, locked as one with Ranald. Gradually she became aware that something in her was irrevocably changed.

  Ranald’s weight grew pressing, but she didn’t stir beneath him, only continued to hold him. What an unusual man he was. Brave and bold, educated more than most, yet a visionary, and charmingly superstitious with his belief in clans of wee folk and fairy legends.

  She would have sworn she felt on her cheek the dampness of tears not her own. " Tis over now,” she gentled. "Those nightmare years are over."

  He lifted his head to stare down at her. His eyes, dark with another form of passion, glistened. “Nae. Tis never over.” He took her hand. Forced it between his legs. “Feel me.”

  She let him guide her fingers down the length of his hot, hard flesh to those still swollen twin sacs. "Touch me, there,” he urged.

  She did as he urged and felt the line of puckered flesh.

  “In prison the gaolers were going to castrate me. At Murdock’s orders. Ye see, mo coinneach, your congenial husband’s prizes of war are a collection of human testicles for such conversational pieces as coin purses and snuff pouches.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The depth of winter embraced the hamlet of Lochaber in its dark, swirling shroud, obscuring the distinction between minutes, hours, and days. Enya moved through this precarious interlude like a carnival’s tightrope walker, balancing these days between Mhorag’s viper tongue and Ranald’s beguiling arms.

  There were times when she doubted she would escape with her sanity. She couldn’t go to Duncan. He was determined to turn the shrewish Mhorag docile.

  Confusion prevented her from going to her mother and Arch just yet. And Elspeth, who had never been in love, would not understand this tug-o’-war feeling she was experiencing.

  Surprisingly, or mayhap not so surprisingly, it was Annie who provided perspective. They sat before the guardroom fire, absorbing both its warmth and light. These days, noon was as dim as twilight. The fireplace was big enough to roast a stag. The walls, at one time adorned with weapons, were bare if one didn’t count a halberd and spear, which were of little use in grouse hunting. Which was what occupied Ranald’s Reivers today. The castle was empty of all but staff.

  Her eyes narrowed with concentration in deciphering the unrecognizable words, Annie read, “‘And it came to pass in an—an—’”

  “Eveningtide," Enya supplied, scratching Thane’s head. Disliking this latest blanket of deep snow, he had chosen to keep her and Annie company.

  “‘—eveningtide, that David arose from his bed and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.’”

  She read slowly, letting her forefinger point out each word. “‘And David sent and inquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite?’

  “’And David sent messengers and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her.’ Oh, mistress!” Annie said. "I dinna ken that the Book held such stories! Bathsheba was married, and still she slept with King David? Did she have no choice?”

  Enya shrugged. "Mayhap she wanted to.” How did you explain that you lust after the very man who is holding you captive? "Read on, Annie."

  The young woman’s words came more quickly now. "‘And the woman conceived and sent and told David, and said, "I am with child.’ Oh, mercy. Now what?"

  Enya watched with satisfaction as the maid, without prompting, read on. ‘“And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.’"

  Annie paused to scan back through the previous passages she had read. "Uriah was Bathsheba’s husband?”

  Enya nodded.

  Annie’s words came faster now than her finger. “‘And he wrote in the letter, saying, set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten and die.’”

  She glanced up at Enya. "David kills Uriah to have Bathsheba? Why, mistress, that is what Ranald is doing. Killing the Lord Lieutenant to have ye!”

  ~ * ~

  Christmas, regarded as a pagan festival by the kirk, came and went with but little notice in Lochaber and its castle. However, the festival of Hogmanay brought celebration.

  On December 31, Enya was kept busy in the kitchen from dawn to dusk in preparation for the great quantities of food that would be consumed the next day, the first of the year.

  Flora basted and roasted the traditional haggis: minced lamb’s offal with oatmeal, onions, and spices packed into a sheep’s stomach.

  In addition, large roasted boar, replete with an apple in its mouth, was served, as well as flambéed peacock; marinated duck with orange and ginger; and grilled venison with lemon and rosemary. The array of meats was an indication of the successful hunt of Ranald and his men.

  Enya helped cook the flummery and bake the apple tarts. Hogmanay’s traditional shortbread and black bun were added to the holiday fare. By the day’s end there was still the evening meal to be served. She could have cared less about the beginning of Hogmanay.

  Clearly, not everyone felt as she. Laughter, singing, and music could be heard coming from the great hall. Fiddles, a bowed psaltery, and a lute—but no bagpipe. Where was Ranald?

  “Oh, mistress,” Annie said, "let me serve the men at the head table.”

  “With pleasure,” she said, dropping down on the three-legged stool. With Flora downstairs in the buttery, she would enjoy a respite.

  Annie, excited about waiting personally upon Jamie, hurried out with a tray laden with goat cheese, hard bread, and ale. The handsome young man had yet to notice her, for all that she was now bathing regularly and taking to brushing her teeth with pressed rice.

  At last Flora dismissed Enya. As she climbed the turret stairs to her room, revelers were already spilling over into the offshooting halls and chambers. Hogmanay promised to be a long, drawn-out affair, lasting at least another twenty-four hours after the clocks chimed out the old year.

  Every bone and muscle in Enya’s body protested the event. Her head ached. She was too exhausted even to heat water for a bath, much less rouse Elspeth. The old woman had to be as tired as she. With the approaching holiday, the villagers had besieged the spinning house, buying out its bolts of newly woven cloth for their costumes of finery. Elspeth spent a goodly amount of time at the spinning house and, through singing the work songs, was becoming proficient in Gaelic.

  Enya placed a warming pan filled with hot coals beneath her bed’s covers to heat its coarse linen sheets while she undressed. No sooner had she snuffed her lamp and, with a blissful sigh, slid into bed than the door burst open. “I should have known," she muttered, staring up at Ranald, candle in hand. "Don’t you ever knock?”

  “Ye are not yet with child?”

  "What?” She sat up, pulling the bedcover up over her bare breasts.

  He crossed to her. His expression was brooding. He bent over her and cupped her face in his free hand. The light he held aloft to study her face. “No, the signs aren’t there.”

  “What signs? You’ve been drinking!”

  “Aye. Uisge beatha. The water of life—the best of Scotch whiskey. Come along.” He released her face to tug on one of her hands. “Tis Hogmanay. A new year.”

  Obviously, there was no gainsaying him. "Turn around while I dress!"

  His eyes narrowed. His hand dropped to her stomach. She realized what he was doing, feeling to see if her belly was "rounding.” She grabbed her pillow and pummeled his
chest. "You wretch! I am not a cow to be bred!”

  "I want ye showing by spring—when I meet your Simon Murdock and cut out a hole where his heart should be.” He grabbed up her smock and tossed it at her. “Dress, mistress."

  Without moving from her citadel of sheets and covers, she slid the smock over her head, yanked it down about her waist, and began jerking the strings through their eyelets. “You would look delicious served on a platter with an apple stuffed in your mouth!"

  His lip curled. His lids lowered in a speculative fashion. "You will look tempting with witches’ milk dripping from your nipples.”

  She threw off the covers, smoothed down her skirts, and slid her feet into her clogs. "There are ways to avoid being—impregnated." She was disgusted with her embarrassed flush and turned away to replait her hair before the chipped mirror.

  He came up behind her. His fingers wrapped around her braid. He tugged ever so slightly, but just enough to tilt her chin upward. "Ye better go down on your knees and pray for conception. Your welfare and that of your companions depends upon it.”

  She stared at his face reflected in the mirror. “What happens if I don’t . . . conceive?”

  He released his hold on her. "Then ye no longer serve me purpose.”

  “And?" she asked, forcing her breath past the cork of fear in her throat.

  "I withdraw my protection. Do ye think there is a door that would open to you—Murderous Murdock’s wife? Widows in the village would just as well stone ye; families who have suffered beneath Murdock’s bludgeon would as leave watch ye starve or freeze than turn a hand to give ye bread or shelter.

  "Which reminds me,” he added, in his irritating, offhanded manner, "ye’ll need your cloak. We go down to the village tonight. And make certain your hair is tucked beneath your hood."

  Despair churned her stomach sour. She squared her shoulders. Always that tightrope nightmare: to survive until spring when Ranald planned to clash with Simon—and to do so without bearing Ranald’s brat!

  A steady stream of merrymakers poured between the castle and the village just below. More celebrants crowded the lantern-lit town square, so many that it had been stamped dry of old snow. Their shouts of auld lang syne frosted the nippy air. Lively music from pipers and fiddlers rounded out the gaiety.