by Emma Prince
Suddenly one of his powerful thighs nudged between her legs, giving her an anchor in the storm of sensation swirling around her. She clamped her knees around his thigh, moaning at the delicious pressure at the juncture there. But she needed more, needed—something.
Though she didn’t know what it was, Niall must have. His lips lifted from her mouth and his tongue found the shell of her ear, flicking and delving. Another moan escaped on an exhale, wordlessly urging him on.
His mouth moved down her neck and to her collarbones, skimming lightly, while his hand still worked dark magic on her breast. His other hand fumbled behind her, tugging clumsily at the laces running down the back of her dress. She arched to accommodate him, her breaths coming short and her blood thundering in her ears.
After loosening the first few loops, he returned his attention to her breasts. He gently tugged on the front of her dress, drawing down both the wool and her linen chemise.
She felt herself pucker as cool air hit her exposed chest. Some small, shrill voice in the back of her head told her she should be embarrassed, she should cover herself up, but she shoved it aside roughly.
She’d never felt such a torrent of pleasure before. And it kept building and building. She felt like a blacksmith’s forge, stoked to a blaze and barely able to contain all the heat.
And when his mouth closed over one of her breasts, she nearly came undone. He circled her nipple with the velvet warmth of his tongue, dragging a gasp from her.
“You are sensitive here,” he murmured against her skin, sending vibrations of pleasure straight to that aching spot between her legs.
“A-aye.” She realized distantly that the breathy, trembling voice that answered was her own.
“I would tease you here all night if I could, but we don’t have enough time, and I want to taste you somewhere else.”
In her passion-clouded state, she couldn’t make sense of what that meant. She muttered a protest as his lips left her breast. When he lowered himself to his knees before her, she frowned in confusion.
“What are ye doing?”
“Giving you pleasure.”
He slid a hand under her skirts, cupping her stocking-clad calf. She still didn’t understand, but she shivered in response, letting herself indulge in the sensations without fretting over what would happen next. She trusted him, she realized with a flicker of surprise.
His hand rose higher, to the soft hollow at the back of her knee, and then to the ribbon holding her stocking in place. Instead of untying the ribbon and removing the stocking, however, his hand ventured higher still, over the bare skin of her thigh.
He muttered a curse as if he were in pain. He began gathering her skirts and chemise up, lifting them to expose to his eyes the path his fingers had just travelled.
Mairin’s legs began to tremble, though it wasn’t from the rush of cold air against her thighs. He bunched the wool and linen up to her hips, exposing her completely.
But it was naught compared to what he did next.
He rocked forward on his heels and pressed his mouth to her womanhood.
She jerked in shock, but when his tongue flicked along the seam of her sex, a cry of ecstasy broke from her throat.
His hands closed over her hips, pinning her against the cave wall and holding her up. Looking for purchase as she rode through the storm of sensation, her fingers sank into his hair once more, tangling in the softly-curling russet locks.
He laved and caressed her at that pulsing point between her legs where all her need seemed to center. She felt as though she was climbing and climbing, spiralling toward something, though she didn’t know what.
Abruptly, pleasure exploded within her, shattering her and sending her soaring into thin air. She cried out, her hands turning to talons in Niall’s hair and her back arching off the cave wall.
Slowly, she spun back to earth, her body pulsing with echoes of her release. Niall pulled back, letting her skirts fall around her legs, yet he returned his hands to her waist to keep her steady as he rose to his feet.
Tenderly, he tucked the bodice of her dress over her chest and refastened the ties at her back. Then he enfolded her in his arms, smoothing her hair. He was so warm, so solid. For the first time in a long while, she felt truly safe.
When he pulled her more fully against his chest, she felt the long, hard column of his manhood straining against his breeches. She might be an innocent, but she’d overheard enough of the basics from Helena, Isolda, and Lillian to understand that it represented his own unspent desire.
“Ye didnae…ye still must want to…”
Och. So much for knowing even the basics. Luckily, Niall seemed to understand what she was getting at.
“There is so much more pleasure to be had between us, Mairin,” he said, his voice edged with unfulfilled need. “But there isn’t time just now.”
They both turned their gazes to the mouth of the cave, where the overcast light was now tinged with blue.
“We ought to return to the bawdy house before it gets dark. Lancaster needn’t ever know we were gone.”
“Ye dinnae think Audley will tell him?”
“Aye, he might. That brings up the matter we began with.”
He drew back enough to be able to hold her gaze.
“I hurt you yesterday by implying we had been…intimate. And again today when Audley caught us leaving. I am sorry, Mairin.”
She exhaled. “I ken yer reasons. Ye were trying to protect the mission—and me.”
“I know that this hasn’t been easy for you, being back in England, and what’s more being surrounded by those pig nobles.” His mouth tightened in anger as he spoke, but then he drew a breath and softened his voice once more. “But pretending to be bedmates may be our best option.”
Her brows dropped and her teeth clenched, but Niall went on.
“Hear me out. It gives us a good excuse to slip away from the castle to check on the birds or send a missive to the Bruce. If we are questioned, we’ll say we were trying to find a private place for a tryst. It worked easily enough on Audley.”
“But that would confirm what those bastards think,” she replied, still frowning. “That I am more wench than warrior.”
“Aye, exactly. They will underestimate you, which means they won’t pay as close attention to you. They trust me because I’m English, but as a Scottish warrior you would have fallen under their suspicion. But as a mere woman…”
Mairin nodded slowly. “They willnae mind their tongues around me.”
“And we’ll draw much less attention as a couple than as individuals. Pretending to be married at the inn proved that.”
But pretending at the inn had led to that blazing kiss, Mairin thought, her face warming. And now pretending to be on a tryst had led to a real one. Where did the line between pretending and reality lie when it came to the two of them?
Still, she couldn’t deny that he was right—it was in the best interest of their mission to keep up the ruse.
She only prayed that she could discern their invented relationship from their real one. Everything felt so delicate with Niall, as if little more than a gust of wind or the brush of a feather could destroy this fragile connection between them.
There was no longer a question in her mind that she desired him. But was there more to it than a bodily longing? The feelings of affection he spoke of so plainly still seemed foreign and indecipherable to her.
“Verra well,” she said at last. “I’ll agree to play along with this scheme. But I want something from ye in return.”
“Name your price.”
Mairin met his gaze. “I want yer trust.”
His brows drew together and he opened his mouth, but she hurried on.
“I ken ye dinnae want to see me hurt, and that ye will always do yer best to protect me, but I need ye to give me just a wee bit more space to work with. Although Lancaster and the others may think I am some helpless lass, ye ken I am no’.”
Her words must
have struck true, for he remained silent for a moment, then gave her a single nod.
“Aye, I promise that you’ll always have my trust.”
She drew out of his arms all the way then as they prepared to depart. But a warm fullness lingered in her chest long after they set out into the cold, drawing night.
Chapter Eighteen
“Lords Damory and Badlesmere approach, milord.”
At the wave of Lancaster’s hand, the guard bowed and slipped out of the great hall. The nobles lounging on the dais suddenly jerked to life, and the hall filled with the buzz of their excitement.
Niall remained motionless behind Lancaster’s chair, but inside his stomach clenched.
In the several days since the men had visited the bawdy house, little had changed with the nobles’ routine. They rose late, spent most of the day eating and drinking on the raised dais, droning on about their grand battle strategies and plans once they were in power, then stumbled to their chambers when they could indulge no more.
Niall and Mairin had apparently become as invisible to them as the servants, for though they both remained rooted behind Lancaster’s enormous throne, the men talked freely before them, never once even looking at them anymore. It gave them all the freedom they needed to continue gathering information—what little could be sifted from the nobles’ ramblings and grandiose boasting.
They had returned to the cave once a day to feed the pigeons—always claiming to be slipping away for a lusty tryst when they were questioned by the guards at the gate—but they hadn’t sent the Bruce another missive. With only three more chances to be in communication with him, they had to wait for something truly significant to report.
And this just might be it. Lancaster had alluded to the others that he might wish to strike against Edward soon, but had coyly insisted that they wait for the arrival of Lords Damory and Badlesmere and the reinforcements they would bring. Now it seems the lords were only just beyond the castle walls.
Niall slid a sideways glance at Mairin. She stood on the other side of Lancaster’s chair. From the subtle way her shoulders tensed, he knew her thoughts ran in the same direction as his.
They hadn’t spoken of what they’d done in the cave—kissed, tasted, and nearly more, though Niall had just managed to leash his raging desire. He almost believed he would wake and find that the whole thing had been an achingly hot dream.
But it had been blessedly, blazingly real. Yet things felt fragile between them. He feared that if he pushed too far, too soon, Mairin would turn to sand and slip through his fingers once more. He couldn’t risk destroying this unnamed connection between them.
Whatever it was, a voice of hope whispered in the back of his mind, it was growing. Several times over the last few days, he felt himself being watched, only to turn and find her dove-gray eyes lingering on him, their depths unreadable.
And she’d come to him every night. Nay, they hadn’t shared any more heated moments of passion, not even another kiss, but each evening after they’d retreated to their chamber, she would wordlessly slip into the large bed beside him and snuggle into his arms.
He held her as he would a piece of delicate stained glass, trying not to move, scarcely breathing for fear of startling her into flitting away.
It shook him to the core to be able to enfold her against his chest every night. It was staggeringly exhilarating, yet it also felt so damn right. And he couldn’t help but notice that when the fire burned low, she didn’t draw taut at the dark shadows that lurked in the corners of the chamber as long as she was in his arms.
In those secret, precious moments lying in the soft glow of firelight with Mairin in his embrace, he wasn’t English, and she wasn’t Scottish. They were simply a man and a woman, bodies tucked together, hearts thrumming softly in unison.
Niall gave himself a little shake, forcing his thoughts back to the present. They might be only a man and a woman in the blessed privacy of their bedchamber, but now they were warriors on a mission.
The great hall’s double doors swung open and two dripping-wet nobles strode in, a gaggle of seconds-in-command shuffling behind them.
Lancaster rose, greeting the soggy, barrel-chested man of middling years first. “Lord Badlesmere. Welcome to Pontefract.” At Badlesmere’s bow, Lancaster turned to the other man, who was sharp-nosed and thin of build. “And Lord Damory. Welcome to you as well.”
Even before Damory finished his courtesy bow to Lancaster, Badlesmere straightened and fixed Lancaster with a frown. “The roads are soup, Earl. This bloody rain threatens to wash them out completely in another few days.”
“Come, get warm and dry by my fire. Refresh yourselves with food and wine.” Lancaster snapped at one of the servants who stood hunched near the door to the kitchens. “But,” he said, fixing them each with a pale stare. “I would hear what news you bring from the south before you make yourselves too comfortable.”
Damory opened his mouth to acquiesce, but Badlesmere raised a hand to halt him. He scanned the nobles on the dais, nodding to each of them in turn and murmuring a word of greeting. But when his shrewd brown eyes landed on Niall and Mairin, his mouth tightened.
“Who are they?” he demanded. “Surely not fellow members of our coalition.”
Lancaster spared them a brief glance over his shoulder. “The Bruce sent them,” he said with a dismissive wave. “They are meant to keep me alive so that our rebellion may reach its victorious conclusion.”
That seemed enough of an explanation in Lancaster’s view, but Badlesmere’s hard gaze lingered on Mairin, distrust written on his weathered features. Niall tensed, but Lancaster drew both newly arrived noblemen’s attentions back to him.
“What news?” he said again, and this time it sounded more like a command than a question.
“As I said, the roads are nigh impassable,” Badlesmere replied sourly. He shook water from his fur-trimmed cloak as if to emphasize his point.
“But you managed to bring your men with you?”
“Aye, six hundred between the two of us,” Badlesmere replied.
At that, the nobles on the dais murmured with barely-contained excitement.
“Excellent,” Lancaster said, lowering himself into his chair with a faint smile. “And what of Edward?”
“He is on the move.”
Now the other nobles shot eager grins at each other.
“He rides north with his army as we speak,” Badlesmere went on. “Last I heard, he’d reached Northampton. He aims to reclaim Doncaster and Tickhill Castles—and Pontefract.” The man lifted his wiry, dark eyebrows. “He is coming for you, Lancaster. For us all.”
Lancaster’s soft grin turned into a wolfish smile. “We’d best not keep our King waiting, then. We will march to him.”
The nobles sprang to their feet, shouting with glee and pounding each other on the shoulders as if they’d already won their civil war.
It struck Niall then that none of these men had ever truly fought in a battle. Aye, they had likely received what he never had—an education in the finer art of ornamental fighting, which nobles were taught when they were fostered out. But how many of them had ever drawn blood? How many had killed a man with his own hands?
Lancaster and likely one or two of the others had participated in a few sieges, at least. Lancaster had even been fired at, if Logan’s report had been accurate. And from what little Niall had seen of Badlesmere, the man probably had some experience on the battlefield, though it seemed to be in giving orders rather than taking them.
But beyond that, these men fancied warfare as a sort of game, a chess match in which they pushed around their pawns at will. Their pride seemed more important than the lives of the soldiers they commanded.
“You are certain our forces can match Edward’s?” Willington, the only noble to remain seated, asked Lancaster pointedly.
“With Damory and Badlesmere’s six hundred, we have nearly three thousand men,” Lancaster replied, shooting Willington a frosty look. �
�And de Holland waits for us in the south with at least five hundred more soldiers. He will join us when I alert him that we intend to meet Edward in open combat.”
“There is no reason to delay, then,” Hereford cut in. “The sooner we depart, the sooner we’ll be able to cut off Edward’s progress north.”
Several of the men called out their agreement.
Lancaster held up a hand to silence his over-excited nobles. “Mobilize your men,” he commanded. “And ready yourselves for the journey. If we work swiftly, we may even be able to depart this afternoon instead of having to wait for first light tomorrow.”
The great hall erupted into a flurry of activity, and the noblemen scurried from the dais to prepare themselves and their men to depart. Lancaster rose and sauntered toward the stairwell leading to his chambers, but Mairin surreptitiously caught Niall’s arm, halting him before he could follow.
“We need to get word to the Bruce. He will want to know that Lancaster is on the move, and plans to engage Edward directly.”
“That will only leave two more chances to send information to him,” Niall whispered, his gaze darting around the hall to ensure that no one was listening. Thankfully, the others were so busy with their own plans that they had been completely ignored.
“Aye,” Mairin replied, her brows lowering, “but this isnae trifling.”
Niall nodded reluctantly after a moment. “You’re right. But if Lancaster truly means to mobilize today, there may not be enough time for us to reach the cave.”
“The guards wouldnae buy a story about us sneaking off for a tryst anyway,” she murmured. “No’ at such an important moment. But dinnae fash—I have an idea.”
Unease rippled up his spine. “What is it?”
“Ye’ll see. Trust me.”
And because he had given her his word to do just that, Niall had no choice but to nod curtly before they fell in behind Lancaster.
* * * *
Niall hunched into his cloak against the slicing, frigid rain.