by Paula Quinn
But she wasn’t married anymore. For two years, she had done her best to honor the man who’d saved her life. Even toward the closing of his life, she stayed by his side and did not so much as glance in Elias’ direction if their paths crossed. She remained devoted, as she’d promised. Until he died.
She caught Elias looking once again and smiled at him before he could look away. She liked basking in the chiseled angles of his face, the mesmerizing beauty of his silver-speckled eyes, the tantalizing contours of his mouth that made her want to delight in them.
She felt her face flush and watched him chop. He was helping her. Good. They would get done faster and go on their walk. She couldn’t wait to be alone with him.
What would she say? Brother Simon had told her a little more about Elias, but all she needed to know was that she liked standing close to him, like now, and his arm or leg brushed her and sent fire shooting through her veins. It made her forget everything and think only on his size, the length and thickness of his well-muscles thighs and his broad, deft fingers.
They prepared soup and yesterday’s warmed black bread and ate with Simon and the children. When they were done, Lily prepared her remedies and Elias cleaned up, while Simon readied his charges for bedtime.
“I will go to Ivett while you see to Father Benedict,” Lily told Elias outside. She handed him a jug of tea, some pouches of ointment, and a torch.
“No,” he said, shaking his head and lighting his torch on hers. “Alan the carpenter lives closer to Ivett, so I will see to him first.”
“You worry still about Bertram showing up?” she asked in the dim light.
“I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
She shook her head in disagreement. “You see that God did not want him dead yet. ‘Twas right not to take his life.”
“I have taken many lives, my lady,” he said disparagingly.
“And now you are saving them—or doing your best to,” she countered with a smile, lighting his path.
“I know you were a warrior, one of King David’s best—”
“Ye have been speakin’ to Simon,” he scowled, though it didn’t last longer than an instant.
“You are a masterful swordsman and you fear nothing. Is it true? Do you fear nothing?”
“I never had a reason to fear before. What is the worst that can happen?’
“You could die!”
“I was taught from a young age how to save my life and the lives of others. Because of it, I also understood that I could die. That my life could be quick. I’m not afraid of death. Not my own,” he added and stared at her between their torches’ light.
“Are you afraid of someone else’s death? Whose?” she asked and then answered before he could. “Brother Simon.”
“Aye. And ye.”
“Me?” she asked incredulously and started walking. “No, I will not be the one who weakens Lion Heart’s heart.”
He laughed and caught up with her. “What do ye mean? Ye willna weaken my heart, lass,” he tried to assure her.
“How do you know that, Elias?” she asked him, holding the torch at an angle that helped her see his face. “I sometimes think you would die for me.”
He grew serious and gazed into her eyes while they walked. “I would, my lady. Dyin’ fer ye isna the trouble. ‘Tis yer death that I fear.”
Her knees almost buckled right there while she was walking. She would have fallen into his arms. It was one way to get there. She wasn’t sure if she had the nerve to fall into them any other way. She didn’t know how to seduce a man. She’d never had to learn.
“Well, ‘tis your death that I fear,” she responded honestly, keeping pace with him.
He smiled. Now she knew they were mad. What an awful thing to smile about, yet here she was smiling with him.
“Knowin’ that pleases me,” he admitted with a teasing slant of his mouth.
“It does not please me,” she told him. “I would absolutely hate it if you died because of me.”
“Would ye weep?”
She tipped her gaze to him in the firelight. So, he had noticed. “I do not weep because it serves no purpose, save to make me feel worse.”
He nodded and said nothing more until they reached the grand home of the late reeve, Osbert. Norman hadn’t moved in yet. Not while Ivett was still alive.
Lily departed from Elias’ side and watched him by his torchlight as he walked to Alan and Helen Carpenter’s cottage.
Her heart yearned to go with him, to never leave his side again.
With resolve, she pulled up from her years of training, she turned away and stepped into Ivett’s foyer and looked around. Where were the reeve’s two servants, Millie and John? Had they fallen ill since an hour ago when she saw them at the vigil? Who then had kept the candles lit and put wood on the fire? She went to her friend’s room with her tea, calling out for either of the servants. Had they abandoned Ivett because she was sick?
She stepped into Ivett’s room and almost dropped her jug of tea when she saw Bertram lying on the bed next to Ivett and holding the edge of a blade to her throat.
“Dinna scream, Lily,” he warned, “or I will speed this up.” He glanced down at her sick friend.
Lily wanted to scream. She wanted to alert Elias. Oh, why hadn’t she attached her knives to her legs? She was quickly learning how to use them but what good was it if she left her knives at home? She looked toward the window.
“Och, what the hell does it matter?” Bertram sneered. “She will be dead in a day or two anyway.” He swiped his blade across Ivett’s throat and blood flowed into the bed.
Lily screamed in her head. She screamed and screamed in silence, as she’d learned so well to do.
“Hmm.” He slipped off the bed and went to her. “I see ye are still the same frosty bitch ye have always been.”
“Not always, Bertram,” she said, looking toward the window again. No one was there, but when Bertram turned to look, Lily pulled back her arms and swung her jug upward, directly at his face.
Thick clay smashed, along with a bone or two. Her precious tea spilled everywhere, especially in Bertram’s face.
He went down like a lightning-blasted tree, and she took off, screaming for Elias as she went.
#
Elias searched everywhere for Bertram, even on top of the reeve’s large house. He found Millie and John, dead from having their throats cut, as well.
He had to find the man. He and Lily were fighting to keep people alive and here Bertram was killing them for no other reason than his own sick desires. Elias had to stop him.
He left Lily with Father Benedict, who looked a bit stronger tonight, while he searched. He checked behind every bush and knocked on the door of everyone left alive in the village. He searched the shop and the empty homes of the dead, but Bertram was nowhere to be found. The bastard had once again eluded him.
When he returned to the priest’s rooms behind the church, he wanted to smile at Lily and wash her in compliments. He wanted to tell her how delighted he was that she’d injured Bertram. But there was no time now.
They hurried home to make certain Simon and the children were safe, though Elias had no doubt Simon could take on the taller Scotsman. Like Eli, he’d been trained in the art of battle by the three MacPherson brothers and was quite deadly for a man of God.
He was surprised Lily had agreed to go on their promised walk, though they didn’t go far and they didn’t use their torches so as not to alert Bertram where they were if he returned.
“What passes through the mind of a hardened Highland warrior,” Lily asked him under the moonlight, “that can soften his face and make him smile in the midst of a battle?”
He slipped his gaze to her and let his smile widen into a slow grin. “Ye watch me too closely, Woman.”
“You are easy to read without your mask.” She pulled down hers and smiled back at him. “Is it a lass? Someone from home?”
He laughed at her madness an
d looked up at the full moon. “Nae,” he said, sobering a bit when he thought of home. “I was thinkin’ of takin’ Charlie home as my son and teachin’ him how to fight.”
Her expression went utterly soft and Elias watched as her defenses that she’d built long ago began to crumble.
“You mean to…make him your son?”
He couldn’t help but gaze at her like a soldier seeing home after a long battle. She radiated, outshining the moon. “Aye, and Annabelle, too, of course.”
She nodded and brought her palms to her belly as she walked. “Annabelle, of course.”
“Lily.” He took her hand and stopped walking, stopping her with him. He pulled her gently into his arms, afraid to squeeze too tight. But this woman, though she appeared as if she might shatter, never would. She never had. She stood bravely in the face of a devil and had never broken down.
He enveloped her as the treasured lass she was to him and let his lips steal slowly over hers. “And ye.”
He kissed the breath from her, molding her mouth to his, sweeping his tongue across her lips and coaxing them open. He suddenly stopped and withdrew enough to look at her. “I’m goin’ to put my tongue into yer mouth. Dinna bite it off.”
“Your tongue?” she asked a bit nervously, tempting him to smile at her innocence.
“Ye will like it,” he promised on a whisper and dipped his head to kiss her again. Her lips were soft, her mouth sultry and pliable. He parted her lips with his tongue and she opened to him and then stopped and withdrew.
“Why would you think I would bite off your tongue? Did Father Benedict tell you that I cut off Bertram’s nether…sword?”
Elias stared at her for a moment and then stepped back, letting her go and bringing his hands to his groin. “Did ye say ye cut it off?”
She nodded, visibly upset that she had frightened him. But after a moment and a good, deep breath, he let his smile shine on her. Still, he was in too much disbelief to speak. This was Bertram they were talking about. She’d cut off his—how? When? He asked his questions numbly.
“I added a mixture of valerian and nightshade to his ale every night with his supper to make him sleep and keep him away from me. One night, when his men were on a mission doing I do not know what, he struck me and left me by the fire and made his own drink. I awoke later to find him atop me, trying to have his way. I snatched his dagger from his belt and reached between our bodies to grab hold of it in my hand. He did not know what I was about to do. I slipped my other hand between us and sliced it off with all my power.”
Elias stared at her in the moonlight, marveling at her courage. “Ye are fierce, lass.”
“I did not feel fierce. I still do not.”
“’Tis instinctual to want to stay alive, stay safe. When that is taken away, some crumble under the weight, some stand up and even if they go down, they go down fightin’. To me, those are the lion hearts. That is who ye are, Lily. Ye have the heart of a lion. But why did ye not kill him with yer herbs?”
“’Tis not my place to take someone’s life.”
“Nae,” he agreed. “‘Tis mine.”
She smiled and lowered her head. He put his index finger under her chin and lifted it. “Come and be my bairn’s mother, the only woman who shares my bed, and my heart, and all that I have.”
She wilted in his arms when he closed them around her, and opened her mouth to receive him. He smiled and dipped his head to take what she offered, knowing he was lost and not caring.
Chapter Sixteen
Lily woke up the next morning thinking about Elias. About his kiss, so passionate, so compelling. His lips had caressed her, his tongue explored her, leaving her weak and willing in his embrace. When she’d responded boldly by weaving her fingers through his dark waves and pulling his head closer to hers, his body grew hard and captivating beneath her fingers. She wanted to touch him everywhere, without the barrier of his clothes, but heavens, how would she ever get him to take his clothes off? She blushed thinking of it and sat up. By habit, she turned to look down at Cecily and saw Annabelle instead. She thought she might weep at the idea of Cecily not coming to Invergarry. Would any of them make it there? As long as people continued to die here, they couldn’t…he wouldn’t go.
She left her bed and peaked over the wooden railing to his and Simon’s makeshift beds.
Elias was not in his.
She dressed in her chemise and a dark brown kirtle with full skirts, perfect for hiding a few daggers and a kitchen knife, and left the house quietly.
She looked around for Elias, unashamed for the first time, thanks to God and Brother Simon, for helping her understand that she was free. It had nothing to do with loving Richard. He was no longer here. ‘Til death do us part, had happened. They were parted.
She heard a sound farther down the path. Was it Elias? Bertram? She walked along slowly between her gardens, drawn by the sound of splashing water. Finally, she skimmed her gaze over Elias squatting off the narrow path between the house and the forest. He had a bucket of water from the well at his feet and scooped out some to wash his body. He splashed some on his face then dumped the bucket over his head and shook himself free of excess water.
He rose, tall and bare from the waist up. From low on his waist, for his leather belt was weighted by his heavy Scot’s claymore, an axe, and two sheathed daggers. Water streamed down from his head, over his sculpted body.
He looked nothing like she’d imagined, for the only male bodies she’d ever seen were Bertram’s, whose was layered in wiggly fat, and Richard’s when she once stepped into his room without asking. It was nothing like this.
She could never have conjured up Elias’ broad chest and the long, lean muscles of his torso. From the flare of his shoulders, down the tapered length of his chiseled belly, to the alluring curves below his navel, he looked like he might be made of steel…or carved from rock.
His arms, the arms that came around her last night in the moonlight, glistened with droplets falling from his hair as he turned in her direction, as if he sensed her there.
She remained still, like prey, though her heart thumped with the guilt of spying. What would she say? At least she would wait until he put on his léine and she could think straight.
She waited, slowing her breathing.
He smiled and came toward her. Was he happy to see her or was he smiling because she looked like a hapless fool?
She cleared her throat and backed away a little. Then stopped.
“My lady,” he said with a voice draped in velvet—meant to seduce “’Tis nice to see ye so early.”
She looked up into his eyes as he came closer. Her first error. Oh, what kind of magic was at work within him, reflecting in his eyes, making her breathless, helpless?
“Aye, and you.” She felt her face go up in flames and laughed at herself. “Forgive me for stumbling upon you. I was looking for—” She stopped, hoping he didn’t ask her…
“Who were ye lookin’ fer?”
She blew out a huge breath and then reluctantly told him. “For you.”
“Oh?” He didn’t look curious. He looked infinitely happier. “What can I do fer ye, my lady?”
He could start by kissing her. She wanted to tell him but she didn’t have the courage. She stepped closer instead, knowing by now that Elias adhered to stricter codes of behavior than most other men.
She didn’t have to do much though. The instant he felt her move closer, the instant her breath mingled with his when she looked up at him, he swooped down, dragging her closer against all that rock. He held her, gazing into her eyes while she gazed into his and played with the hair slicked back at his temples.
He emboldened her. He made her ache for him, denying fear and embarrassment. “I want you to kiss me, sir,” she whispered.
He bent to her and kissed her chin. “Here?”
“No,” she giggled and then closed her eyes in sheer pleasure when he set a course with his teeth and lips gently down her throat. “Her
e?”
“Mmmm.” She couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe when he flicked his tongue across her neck then up to her earlobe. She felt his muscles tremble under her fingers and locked her arms around his neck. He kissed his way to her mouth and enveloped her like smoke.
His lips were firm and plump and delightfully sensual. His tongue was a hungry beast, tasting every inch of her and giving her tastes of him as well. His large, broad hands splayed down her back and drew her closer against his carved body.
He pulled back, as breathless as she and smiled at her. “This is a nice way to begin the day.” The shards of silver in his eyes flashed like fire across the sky. “How shall we end it?”
She smiled, knowing instinctually what he wanted, for she wanted it, too. “By making me your wife in between.”
He grinned at her and she could tell he was surprised at her boldness, and that he liked it.
“Ye would be my wife, Lily?”
“Aye, Elias, happily,” she told him and he kissed her again.
They decided not to have a celebration. It felt wrong to have one in the midst of so much death. They would speak their vows in private with Brother Simon and the children.
But first, they had the sick to see to.
Still, they kissed a little longer amidst the scented flora and laughed at silly, inconsequential things like frogs and fairies. They strolled up the path and Lily pointed to herbs and told him what they helped with and how to prepare them. She was acutely aware of every inch of him on their way back to the house. She liked his dominating size and the scent of him, the sound of him, and the heat from him. She wanted to douse herself in it. “Do all the men in your family’s stronghold look like you?” she asked with a teasing smile.
“Nae. They are handsome.”
“Sir, you are handsome,” she corrected with a flirtatious smile. “I would wager you are the most handsome of all.”
He laughed and leaned in closer to her. “We dinna have to go there. We can live here.”