Captured Hearts and Stolen Kisses

by Ceci Giltenan et al.

  "Much ye know about it," his brother snorted. "'Tis good for a man to move about when he begins to mend."

  Muriella stepped out of the way, turning to the men at the nearest trestle table. "Ye'd best clear him a place here. I don't think he'll make it much farther."

  Sim and Adam moved aside as Richard settled Andrew gingerly on the bench.

  "Ye'll find the seat a little hard, no doubt, after yer soft pallet," Sim called. With a smile, he pushed a half-full tankard of ale over the marred tabletop.

  Andrew leaned forward to catch the tankard, grimacing at a twinge in his shoulder. "To tell ye the truth, since the Earl's gone back to Edinburgh, Richard's had nothin' to do but sit by my bed and play with the straws from the mattress. I told him to have mercy, but he would keep chewin' them one at a time till I was through to the floor." Looking around, he whispered behind his hand, "The bench is much more comfortable than the cold stone, I can tell ye that."

  While the men laughed, Muriella motioned for Mary to bring more food. Grinning in spite of his pain, Andrew said, "Thank ye, m'lady, for rescuin' me from Richard's cruel hands. He pretends to help, but he only does it to torture me, ye ken."

  She smiled, and Richard too was grinning.

  When Sim shifted on the bench, Adam wagged a finger at him warningly. "Don't be shovin' that way, man. Ye'll start Andrew's wound to bleedin' again, and I won't be the one to carry him upstairs."

  In the midst of the general laughter that followed, Richard reached over to touch Muriella's arm gently. "M'lady," he whispered, nodding toward the huge double doors to the Great Hall.

  Muriella looked up and caught her breath.

  John stood in the doorway watching in astonishment. He had never before seen the men laugh with his wife, never seen her move among them, apparently at ease. Thumbs hooked in his belt, he saw how she bent to assure Andrew's comfort, how quickly she ordered his food to be brought. Several strands of hair had fallen free from her braid to curl over her cheeks, which were flushed from the heat of the fire. Her gown had a smudge on one sleeve that told its own story. To him she had never been more beautiful.

  But he had not yet come to a decision. The hours of hard riding through the mist, over rushing streams that flowed beside magnificent, rugged hills, had done nothing to clear his thoughts. Then his wife looked up.

  With a cry of surprise she broke into a wide smile. Color darkened her cheeks, touching them with a warmth he could feel even from across the room. Her eyes sparkled, green and clear with welcome, relief, and something more. All at once, there was no longer a choice to be made.

  John crossed the hall slowly, making his way with difficulty between the uneven rows of tables. He had been too long without his wife. Now the few moments before he reached her side seemed endless. Yet not once did her smile waver; it seemed to reach out to him, drawing him inexorably forward toward the remembered warmth of her slender body. He could not have turned away from her in that moment even if he wanted to.

  As he approached, he realized the men had fallen silent, watching with curiosity his passage across the room. He had left without explanation, he remembered. No doubt they would wonder why. He would deal with that later.

  When he reached the table where Richard and Andrew sat, before he could speak to Muriella, Duncan came to greet him. "'Tis glad to see ye I am, m'lord," the squire told him. "Since yer brother left, the men have been running wild."

  "Don't tell me," Andrew groaned. "I missed all the fun!"

  Though John wanted only to take Muriella's hand, he turned to Andrew. "How are ye healing?"

  Glancing from right to left as if someone might overhear him, Andrew said in a whisper loud enough to reach the vaulted ceiling, "Richard would have killed me by now if twere no' for yer lady wife. She has magic hands with a wound, that lass." John looked up at her in pleased surprise. Clearly she had spent the time while he was away mending her relationship with the men as well as mending Andrew's shoulder.

  "Besides," Andrew continued, "'twas so still in that chamber I thought nightly the Kelpies would come and take me away."

  John did not hear him. He was looking at Muriella. She had taken a step toward him and her eyes never left his face. Her gaze devoured every familiar curve and plane.

  "I've told ye more than once," Richard hissed to Andrew, "that ye don't know when to close yer mouth. 'Tis time ye learned that lesson."

  Disgruntled, Andrew looked up to see John close the distance between himself and his wife, then take her hand. The man's eyes widened in sudden comprehension. "As ye say," he murmured.

  "M'lord, ye're just in time for supper!" Mary cried, arriving just then with Andrew's bread and stew. "We didn't know ye were comin', but there's plenty of venison, and stew besides."

  John nodded absently. All he could hear was the sound of Muriella's breathing; all he could see was her radiant face. "Shall we go up?" he murmured, taking her arm.

  "Aye."

  They turned to start toward the dais but Muriella paused, frowning. "But Johnnie—"

  "Later, my wife, there will be much to say. For now just let me have yer company to enjoy." When he slipped his arm around her shoulders, Muriella leaned closer. He could feel the rhythm of her heart beating against his, and an ache of longing rose within him.

  "I missed ye," she said so low that only he could hear.

  "And I ye, lass. And I ye."

  ~ * ~

  Only Duncan, Muriella and her husband sat at the high table that night. While he ate, John touched his wife's arm often, to reassure himself she was really beside him. Though she smiled whenever his eyes met hers, though the air between them crackled with the knowledge of their need, they did not speak of these things. Instead, John discussed with his squire what had happened at Kilchurn since he had been away.

  They had finished eating and were sitting with their goblets of wine in hand when Alex and two other Gypsies took their instruments and moved toward the fire. Every night since Alex's return, he and his friends had entertained the men after supper.

  "Ye didn't say the Gypsies had come back," John said, turning to his wife in surprise. "'Tis glad I am to see them. No others understand music as they do." Smiling down at Muriella, he asked, "Will they be staying long?"

  His wife shook her head in regret. "I don't think so." Just that morning, as she knelt in the solar finishing the binding on the tapestry of the loch, she had felt Alex's gaze upon her and turned to see the sadness in his eyes. "Ye won't be here much longer, will ye?" she'd asked quietly.

  Alex had shaken his head. "No. Soon enough we'll be on our way."

  With an effort, Muriella kept her voice steady. "When?"

  "I can't say for certain," he told her, "but I promise ye this. Ye'll know when the time comes."

  She stared down at her hands. "Once ye go, will I see ye again?"

  The Gypsy smiled. "I don't think ye can help but do so."

  Muriella reached out to touch his arm. "Alex—"

  He stopped her with a single glance. "'Tis the way with us, isn't it, to hear things that haven't been said?"

  Muriella looked into his eyes and saw there all she wanted to say and all she wanted to hear. "Aye."

  "So be it. We've said enough." She'd thought there was a quaver in his voice, but could not be certain.

  Now she watched him settle by the fire, strumming his harp softly. When John recognized the notes of a familiar song, he rose. At the question in his wife's eyes, he explained, "I miss the magic of the

  chaw and would find it again tonight."

  His voice was low and husky with promise. Muriella smiled as he brushed his lips over her cheek. "Soon," he told her. Then he was gone.

  As John made his way toward the fire, Muriella felt Alex's gaze upon her and looked up. There was a message in his gray green eyes, but she could not guess what it meant.

  When a servant had brought John his harp, he sat by the fire with the hollowed gray stone at his back. He listened for a moment, t
hen began to move his fingers over the strings. Eyes closed in concentration, he played the notes as if they were a part of his blood and bone. Muriella locked her hands together on the tabletop and leaned forward listening. Then, softly at first, her husband began to sing.

  An thou were my own thing,

  I would love thee, I would love thee.

  An thou were my own thing,

  How dearly would I love thee.

  Muriella bit her lip. She had heard the song before—she could not remember when. Resting her head on her braided fingers, she let the sound of John's voice enwrap her.

  To merit I no claim can make, But that I love; and for yer sake, What man can, more I'll undertake, So dearly do I love thee.

  John looked up until his eyes met hers across the crowded room. All noise ceased: the chatter of the men, the scratching of the dogs beneath the tables, and the clatter of pewter on wood as the servants removed the last of the meal. The clinging notes of the clareschaw were all that was real.

  In that moment, John's clear blue gaze drew her back in time to a distant memory; the dark passageway, the flickering candles, Alex at the harpsichord, and her husband singing in a voice that had made her shiver with its beauty. She realized then that the Gypsy had chosen this song in order to make her remember.

  An thou were my own thing, I would love thee, I would love thee. An thou were my own thing, How dearly would I love thee.

  John's eyes never left his wife's face. With his song and his voice and the sensual movement of his fingers on the strings, he seemed to echo her thoughts and her need. Muriella rose at last to make her way toward him.

  While love does at his altar stand, Have thee my heart, give me thy hand, And with this smile thou shalt command The will of him who loves thee.

  Her heart beat in time with the slow, enticing cadence of the song as she moved between the tables without knowing she did so. She knew only that her husband's voice was calling her, mesmerizing her as it had done once before. Without so much as a touch of his hand, he was drawing her toward him, weaving an invisible web of notes with which to bind her.

  How dearly would I love thee.

  She reached the place where John sat and knelt at his feet, one hand on his bent knee.

  My passion, constant as the sun,

  Flames stronger still, will ne'er have done,

  Till Fate my threads of life have spun,

  Which breathing out,

  I'll love thee.

  Slowly, slowly, his music dispelled her fears, scattered them like dry forgotten leave in the October wind. John's fingers lay still on the strings, yet the notes seemed to linger in the air for a long moment. Muriella leaned closer, her fingers warm against his knee, her thick braid falling over her shoulder.

  "I think—" he began.

  "Aye," she murmured.

  Without another word, he set his harp aside. They rose together, joining hands. Muriella felt an ache in her throat when she looked up at her husband's dark, bearded face, touched now with shadows, now with light as he guided her out of the reach of the fire. At the foot of the stairs, Muriella stopped and turned to Alex with a smile of gratitude.

  But the Gypsy was gone. She did not look at the wide oak doors that opened into the starless night, for she knew he would not be there. Ye'll know when the time comes. Too soon, it had come. She felt his loss in the painful dragging of her heartbeat and the tears that burned behind her eyes. Yet as John slid his arm around her waist to draw her close, she smiled, if a little sadly. For days Alex had been beside her, trying to ease her sorrow and make her understand her fears, but now, she realized, he'd done all he could. In the end, inevitably, he'd turned away, delivering the choice back into her hands.

  ~ * ~

  John and Muriella did not speak, not even when her chamber door was closed behind them and they stood alone. For a long moment, palms cupped around her flushed cheeks, John simply looked at his wife—at the luminous green of her eyes, the soft curve of her parted lips, the graceful lines of her neck. He caught his breath in admiration and wondered how he could have believed, even for an instant, that he could live without her.

  The stillness whispering around him like a wordless invitation, he reached for the leather thong that bound Muriella's hair. She stood, eyes closed, face tilted towards the light as he worked the thong free, then slowly, one long gleaming strand at a time, began to unbind her heavy braid. When her hair hung rippling down to her knees, he ran his fingers through it again and again, kissing the curling tendrils as they fell across his callused palms.

  Then, with his hands still caught in her hair, he moved so near she could hear his shallow breathing in her ear. Muriella opened her eyes and took his face in her hands, burying her fingers in his beard. Without a sound, she drew him closer until their mouths met and clung together, warm and moist and fierce with need. The tangle of his beard brushed her sensitive cheeks and she sighed with pleasure as he slipped his tongue between her parted teeth. Unexpectedly, John drew away, smiling a promise that needed no words. As slowly as he had unbound her hair, he now untied the laces of her gown.

  Muriella could feel the movement of his fingers, kept from her skin by the soft barrier of fabric. She shivered at the need that rose within her, a bright white heat that stopped her voice in her throat. She had never wanted John so much before, never known how bright an agony her yearning could be. She dug her fingers into his shoulders in a silent plea, but he would not hurry.

  When the laces came free in his hands, he lifted the gown over her head, then drew the kirtle up an inch at a time. The cool satin clung to her, caressing her hips and thighs like the mist curling softly through the night beyond her window. She groaned and reached for him, but he only smiled as he knelt and began to brush aside the strands of her hair with the movement of his lips over her naked skin.

  The spinning began deep within her—the hot whirl of colors that stole her breath away—while John kissed her thigh tenderly, then trailed his tongue upward to her hip, the curve of her waist, her stomach and, finally, her small white breasts. He was torturing her with a pleasure too sweet to bear. When his warm, circling mouth reached the hollow of her throat, she cried out, pulling him to his feet. He caught her in his arms and held her, but she was not satisfied. With her hands curled against his shoulders, she guided him back toward the curtained bed. Somehow he lifted her onto the furs, and, pausing only long enough to discard his own clothes, moved up beside her.

  Skin to skin, he kissed her recklessly, his lips as searing and demanding now as they had been gentle before. With a gasp of pleasure, he slid his hands over her back, seeking the quivering of her body that told him her need was as great as his. With her tongue, she followed the line of his neck to his ear, then touched her lips to his again.

  She was shaking from the white darkness that whirled within her, from the paths of liquid heat John's hands traced over her bare skin, from the wild, tender pressure of his mouth. With willing hands, she traced the curling hairs on his chest. Drawing her close, John intertwined his legs with hers and they rolled across the mattress, while her hair wound itself around their bodies, binding them together in a fine, soft web. Sinking her fingers into his flesh, Muriella cried out, knowing her desire was too great, that the spinning would grow so bright and hot within her that, eventually, her heart would burst. But she did not care.

  With a groan, John entered her at last. He began to move against her, rocking, rocking, tangling himself in her rippling hair. He was with her everywhere; no part of her remained untouched. As she gasped and closed her eyes in wonder, the bright darkness shattered and fell in glimmering fragments, filling the aching emptiness inside her.

  Muriella sighed as John shuddered once more, then drew her into the curve of his arm while his rasping breath caressed her damp forehead. When he closed his arms protectively around her, her eyes filled with tears.

  Her husband felt her tremble and looked up to see the shimmer of moisture in her eyes.
Leaning down to trace the path

  of a single teardrop with his tongue, he whispered, "Why?"

  "Because I'm so happy to have ye back."

  He felt a constriction in his throat that would not let him speak. Almost, it was enough to make him forget.

  Chapter 49

  They awakened to a morning that, for once, was free of storm clouds. Muriella lay in her husband's arms while they talked of Andrew and Kilchurn and Colin's return to Edinburgh.

  They talked of Elizabeth and her husband and the changes in her since the wedding. By unspoken consent, they did not mention Muriella's fear or what it would mean when they left the warm safety of her chamber for the cool misted brilliance of the world beyond.

  When at last they fell silent, John drew away from his wife so he could see her face. "I've been thinking a great deal about Cawdor," he said.

  "And so have I."

  He brushed a strand of hair off her cheek. "We don't really have a choice," he said. "We have to go back. We've lived on my brother's sufferance for too long, and Cawdor is where we belong. Besides, the keep has been too many years without a master."

  "I know," his wife agreed. "'Tis not only Cawdor that's suffered from our neglect. I need to go back, though 'tis not a pleasing thought. But mayhap there..."

  "Mayhap what?"

  Muriella contemplated John's face, cloaked with morning shadows. "Mayhap there I can begin to understand."

  John nodded but did not trust himself to answer. He was thinking how lovely she was in the gray morning light. Her hair was a splendid, glittering web across the pillow—a woven net that enwrapped him and would not set him free. She was not human, he thought. She was of some other world—a Kelpie, a witch who bound him with the magic that glowed in her hypnotic eyes.

  Muriella's gaze met his—dark with secrets, bright with desire—and in that instant, he felt they were frozen in time. They could not go back, because they knew too much. Yet they could not move forward until she was ready to do so. In a way he was glad. The waiting would give him time. Time to prove to her what he now knew with certainty: whatever his wife had seen, whatever she feared, whatever she believed, he could not hurt her—ever.