When his lips moved down the softness of her belly, Fiona held her breath. He parted her legs and his tongue found the sweet, moist darkness and thrust inside.
Fiona could not take air into her lungs, but she was beyond caring as the blood roared wildly in her head. She felt his weight upon her as Alec took her into his arms and slid into her. Like two clay forms, their bodies molded together with a completeness that Fiona sensed more than thought. As they lay momentarily still, she felt his arms tightly around her, and she felt cherished, valued, loved. When Alec began to move, Fiona went with him, the pulsing rhythms they each felt rising undeniably within them. Looking up through the gauzy haze that clouded her vision, Fiona saw Alec’s eyes burning into her with intensity. Her hands moved over his chest to his face, but her poised hands fluttered and then clutched at his long hair as he once again slid molten heat into the very center of her. A moan escaped her lips, and a new urgency swept into her.
Alec increased the tempo of his strokes. Within his brain, rational thought was breaking apart, as he felt her moving hungrily beneath him. But as he attempted to concentrate on pushing her before him to that moment of bliss—he felt himself expanding within the walls of her passage. Yet even as her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper within her, he bore down, holding on tightly to his will. But when Fiona raked his back, her whimpers now intense cries of ecstasy, he could no longer hold back.
The room Fiona saw now was lit with the flashing whites and reds of exquisite pleasure. Fiona felt no material beneath her, saw no canopy above. The only things she knew to be real were the man she loved and the wild sensations that were threatening to lift her out of herself and into another dimension. Fiona clung desperately to him, the pounding rhythms of the sybaritic labor obliterating the darkness of the castle chamber. Still more quickly she rose, ever higher and higher, until her spirit tore through the curtain of actuality. With blinding speed, the sky opened above her, and like a bird thrown into flight, Fiona soared upward into a crystalline sphere, stretching and circling, climbing into the blue-white reaches of an ethereal realm.
When Alec felt her graceful body arch up and back, moving harmoniously in their dramatic dance of love, he could wait no longer. Feeling her shuddering, Alec drove himself deeply into her, filling Fiona with the warm fluid of his being.
Transfixed, it seemed they had spent an age lying together in each other’s arms. Astounded by the deep passion that they’d shared, Alec’s mind dwelt lingeringly on the experience. This night was one that, even in his wildest imaginings, he’d not have thought possible. He had been the experienced one. But nothing in his past had come even close to this union of bodies and souls that had taken place with Fiona. They were destined to be together. He knew that with a fierce certainty.
Resting on his elbow, he traced her beautiful face with his fingers. She turned and gave him a smile that took his breath away.
“Alec?”
“Aye, my love?”
She edged up against him, resting her head on the pillows as she gazed into the deep blue of his beautiful eyes. “What do you know of Huntly?”
“I think I should be jealous,” he teased threateningly. “We’ve just gone through the most incredible lovemaking since the Garden of Eden, and now the first words out of your mouth have to do with Huntly.”
“Don’t be,” she coaxed, running a finger across his full, pouting lips. “But I’m serious.”
“Very well.” Alec sighed, gathering Fiona in his arms and pulling her even closer. “What is it you want to know?”
“I need to know about his past. About the kind of the man he is. If he ever married. If he has any children.”
“These all seem like very personal questions.”
“Alexander Robert Macpherson, you’d better start talking or else.” She tried to growl the last words menacingly, but Alec started to laugh.
“Let’s see, where is the best place to start with Andrew, the earl of Huntly?” he lay on his back musing for a moment as she snuggled comfortably beside him. “Well, from what I know of him, Huntly has been a Stuart man all his life. He sided with your father when he came to the throne, and took the king’s fight into the northwestern Highlands when Torquil MacLeod and the other renegade chiefs decided to turn their backs on the rest of Scotland. Lord Huntly remained the king’s most trusted adviser until James decided to bring the army into England. He warned the king against going, so James left him to secure the queen, the prince, and Edinburgh Castle. You know the rest.”
Alec turned his face toward the open window. For the first time in three years, the bloody field at Flodden seemed so far in the past, so far removed from the world he was living in, so distant from the future he was envisioning with Fiona. He turned his head back to her and kissed her cool forehead.
Fiona Drummond Stuart, daughter of his long dead king, had brought him peace. Finally, by coming into his life, his heart, his soul, she had slain the demons that had been haunting his memory. Demons of guilt about a hard fought battle in which his king had died while he still lived. Finally, fate had brought him the chance to assuage his guilt by protecting Fiona, and he would protect her forever. He would have, anyway. He loved her.
“Alec,” she whispered, running her hand over his chest. “What about before Flodden? His personal life?”
“Huntly is an extremely smart man. All his life, he has been a soldier and a politician. But most of all, he’s been a ruler. Even before Flodden, the king left many matters of government to him. He was the king’s most capable adviser, so it was natural for your father to have him involved in all of his affairs.”
Then Huntly would have known about the king’s delay in arriving at Drummond Castle the night her mother had been murdered. Fiona shuddered involuntarily. Alec mistook her shiver as being caused by the gentle breeze that was beginning to waft into the room, and pulled a blanket over them.
“The way he acted tonight is the way he always acts,” Alec continued. “Over the years, he’s developed a somewhat harsh side to his personality. He’s not what you might call sociable or even friendly.”
“I thought he didn’t like me.”
“On the contrary,” Alec said, pushing back a tendril of hair from her face. “He liked you very much.”
“How could you tell?”
“He asked you many questions, didn’t he? If he didn’t like you, all the glories of this world and the next could not make him talk. Andrew’s dead silence is legendary.” Alec remembered the treatment Huntly had always given Kathryn at court. Her charms had had no effect on the aging earl. He’d been a very good judge of character.
Dead silence, she thought. My mother is dead silent.
“He never married?” she asked quietly.
“Nay. He never—”
“Is it true, what they say?” she interrupted. “Was it because of my mother?”
“That’s what many people believe.” Alec looked with surprise at Fiona. He hadn’t expected her to know about Huntly’s thwarted love for Margaret Drummond.
“Tonight he told me he’s been to Drummond Castle many times.”
“Aye, he’s had dealings with your uncle for many years.”
“Nay, I mean before. When my mother was alive. He said he’d visited her many times there.”
“Fiona, from what I’ve heard, Huntly adored your mother. But when she chose your father, Huntly stepped away. He always has been a man of honor.”
Fiona was quiet for a moment, looking for the right words. What was the price of this honor? she thought bitterly.
“Would he have held a grudge, Alec?”
Alec looked into her face. “Do you mean, would he hurt her? Your mother?”
“The prioress told me he was known to have sworn to win my mother back. Is it impossible to think he might have acted irrationally?” her voice became a murmur. She couldn’t accuse the earl without proof. Proof that might lie hidden at Drummond Castle.
“Never, Fio
na,” Alec answered steadfastly. “I’ve known him all my life, and he would never do such a thing.”
Fiona closed her troubled eyes. Alec was loyal to his friend. And that loyalty would never be shaken by any unfounded accusation she might make. No, she had to do this all alone. If her mother’s leather pouch was still hidden there, she alone would have to find it. And in finding the proof, Fiona would show Alec—show them all—the long concealed truth.
Whatever the cost, she would reveal the truth.
“When are we going to Drummond Castle, Alec?”
“Bored already, my love?” he teased gently.
“Not bored,” she answered, punching him playfully in the side. “Spoiled. I’ve been here not even full day, and already I have a full wardrobe, I’m sleeping in a finer room than I ever thought existed, and I have a family.”
“Oh, is that all?” Alec pulled her on top of him, smiling mischievously. “Haven’t you forgotten one small thing?”
Fiona smiled back at him and kissed the cleft of his chin. “Oh, did I fail to mention that? Though I don’t think I’d have called anything we’ve shared ‘small.’” She repositioned herself slightly.
Alec growled, running his hands down her slender back and over the smooth rise of her buttocks.
“Take me to Drummond Castle?” she entreated. “There is so much there—about my past—that I need to see for myself.”
“After our wedding, my love,” he responded, his face darkening at the thought. There were two people at Drummond Castle that he didn’t want her to see before the ceremony. And he had no desire to see Kathryn or her father, either. But later on, he would help her reclaim what was hers. “We’ll stop at Drummond en route to Sterling.”
“Is it a long journey?”
“Nay, in good weather like this, we could make it in less than two days.”
“Then why can’t we go now?” she pressed.
“Because I need to go to Kildalton Castle before the wedding.”
Fiona lifted herself up, her elbows squarely planted on his chest. “Why?”
“Because the Campbells are holding the mate from the pirate ship that went looking for you. I need to find out what he knows before we go on to court.”
Fiona began to calculate in her mind the possibility of getting to Drummond Castle and back in the six days before their wedding. Alec watched her and grinned.
“Don’t worry, love. I’ll get back in time. No one is going to leave you standing at the altar.”
Chapter 18
He shall ascend as a horrible griffin
And meet in the air a she dragon;
These terrible monsters shall together thrust
And in the clouds beget the Antichrist.
—William Dunbar “The Antechrist”
Like some unredeemed spirit, the curling smoke from the altar candle hung restlessly in the air of the small church.
Fiona’s eyes traveled upward to where the wispy cloud disappeared into the shaft of sunlight. The light from the window high above streamed overhead, illuminating the church’s single adornment, a carved cross that hung dark and heavy on the whitewashed wall above the small altar. Her hand closed unconsciously around the heavy, jeweled cross dangling from her neck. Her mother’s cross. Drawing a deep breath, she tucked the cross inside the neck of her dress.
“Perhaps I don’t understand, Fiona. But you’re certainly not helping me any.” David stood looking angrily at the young woman sitting so calmly on the bench at the back of the village church. “Why in God’s name do you have to go now?”
“Because there are things at Drummond Castle that must come to light.”
“But you said Lord Alec is planning to take you there after the wedding,” he argued. “Why can’t you wait?”
“Because I’m afraid, David.”
“Afraid?” he repeated, puzzled. “Afraid of what?”
Fiona took a deep breath. It was all so complicated; how could she explain it? She hardly understood it herself.
“I’m afraid that the person responsible for my mother’s murder might be a friend of Alec’s.” She looked steadily into her old comrade’s eyes. “A close friend.”
The two turned their heads in unison when the heavy oak door of the church creaked slowly open. The old woman who shuffled in hardly glanced at the them, but without another word, Fiona stood up and led David out into the sunny Marketcross.
Turning toward the bridge that crossed the Spey under the looming walls of the castle, David followed in silence as Fiona walked briskly to the arched span of stone and wood. There Fiona stopped. David looked out across the sparkling stream at a tinker’s wagon that was noisily working its way along the river toward the bridge. Even from where they stood beside the low wall at the edge, he could hear the cursing of the driver over the clanging of pots and pans hanging from the cart’s high wood sides.
“Have you told Alec what you suspect?” David asked, turning his attention completely to Fiona. “Have you confided in him?”
“Of course not!” she responded tersely. “I have no proof. He’d laugh at me. They’d all laugh at me.”
“Is it so ridiculous?” he suggested. “Fiona, I’ve known you as long as anyone. What you are talking about here is more serious than just about anything that you faced at Skye. You’re talking about accusing one of Scotland’s most powerful noblemen with a crime that happened long ago. You are about to marry into the Macpherson clan. You can’t just accuse the earl of Huntly without talking with your intended.”
“I haven’t accused him by name. You are the one who has brought his name into this. But that is exactly why I have to go now. I can’t bring these good people into this. I can’t involve Alec until I know for sure.”
“First of all, Fiona, I don’t know what good going to Drummond Castle would do. Whatever it is that you remember—or think you might remember once you’re there—has probably disappeared. Your uncle and your cousin have been using that place as their own for the past three years, and they may not even let you step across their threshold. No one but the queen herself can recognize you as the true heir to those lands.” David pulled her closer to his side as the old cart rumbled onto the bridge. The fierce-looking old tinker driving the emaciated old ox glared at them through bushy red eyebrows that crossed his forehead uninterrupted. David glared back at him and the drover lashed his beast in a nominal effort at giving the two a bit of room at the edge of the bridge.
“I only asked you to help me get my horse, David. But I’m going to Drummond Castle if I have to walk.”
“Lass, at dinner last night, I heard you agree to be married in six days. Are you just going to leave Lady Elizabeth now and run off? You’ve always been impulsive, but you’re not one to be irresponsible.”
“I’ll talk to Alec’s mother before I go—”
David’s hand came down sharply on Fiona’s arm as the cart behind them creaked to a sudden halt. She turned in time to see the driver’s heavy club graze David’s skull as her friend ducked nimbly in an attempt to evade the crushing blow. With a sharp cry, Fiona reached out in horror as David dropped like a stone onto the low wall before toppling over the edge into the rushing waters below.
“Dav—” A coarse hand clamped over her mouth as she found herself being lifted roughly from behind. Struggling against the one holding her, Fiona saw come into her vision another man, who drew back his fist, smashing her viciously in the midriff. Fiona folded in pain, sagging in her assailant’s arms.
Unable to draw a breath of air into her lungs, Fiona looked up helplessly as the next blow landed brutally against the side of her head. Yellow lights flashed momentarily in her head before darkness descended like a shroud around her.
The two men looked about them nervously as they dumped the young woman unceremoniously into the back of the cart. From his perch above, the driver peered over the edge of the bridge into the waters below, looking for some sign of the old man. Seeing nothing, he quickly gestured t
he two into the back of the wagon and whipped the ancient beast into motion. With a lurch, the wagon continued on across the bridge into the village as the men in back pulled down the skin that covered the rear opening. A few moments later, they were rumbling toward the grove of woods in the foothills beyond the village.
“That bastard left me standing at the altar, and now you’re telling me he wants to marry this church mouse?”
Fiona kept her eyes shut tightly. The woman speaking was leaning directly over her. Inspecting her.
The ground beneath her was hard and damp, but Fiona had forced herself to remain still even after the spinning sensation went away and the muffled voices became clear. Now she continued her pretense of unconsciousness while the woman stood above her. Altar? Alec left this woman at the altar? Fiona thought confusedly. Who is she?
“That’s a good-sized lump on the side of her head.”
“Aye, but she made out a fair sight better than the old bull who was with her.”
It took not a moment until the full import of the man’s words sank in, and a rush of sorrow ran like a lance into Fiona’s heart. David. Oh God, David.
“Look at her! Look at her clothes!” the woman railed. “She’s a mess. Why can’t you follow my orders? I told you to bring her here safe and sound. I told you I just wanted to scare her back to the same dung heap she came from. I don’t want to kill her, for God’s sake. Look at her! She looks like hell!”
“I have to disagree. The lass looks quite bonny, if you ask me.”
Fiona could feel the two pairs of eyes burning into her. “Perhaps you’re becoming partial to red-haired country wenches,” the woman snapped. The razor edge of jealousy in her voice was unmistakable.
“She is a beautiful woman...whatever you call her. A nun, a princess, a wench. But frankly, I do like the sound of ‘wench’ the best.”
Angel of Skye Page 28