The Highwayman

by Doreen Owens Malek

  “You assume I need a defense against you,” he replied coolly when they were alone again.

  This comment stung, as he knew it would. “Is she your mistress, then?” Alex demanded.

  “She was.”

  “And have you had her many times?” Alex asked, her lower lip trembling.

  “Many times,” he confirmed, wondering why he was doing this when all he wanted in the world was to take her in his arms and kiss her until they were both breathless.

  “And is she very skilled?” Alex asked, keeping up the farce, her voice shaking.

  “Very.”

  It was her struggle not to cry that touched him. Her eyes were flooding, she was swallowing hard, but her chin came up proudly as she refused to give in to the weakness.

  “Go to her, then,” Alex whispered.

  He waited.

  “Go to her!” she cried, flying at him like a shrew. He caught her against his chest as she beat at him with her fists. “Have your fill of her and have done with me!”

  He stopped her mouth with his own. Alex struggled and then clung, kissing him with all the fervor built up during her endless wait for his return.

  “I haven’t touched her,” he said when he could talk. “I haven’t touched another woman since I met you. I don’t want anyone but you. That is my curse, and yours too.” He kissed her again.

  “Oh, Kevin, I thought you were never coming back,” Alex murmured, losing herself in the delicious warmth of his embrace. “The days were so long.”

  “I want to take you here and now,” he said hoarsely, running his hands down her back as if to assure himself of her presence. “I missed you sorely.”

  There was a slight noise outside the tent, reminding them both of their precarious position in the middle of the bustling camp, and he released her.

  “Can you find your way to the brook alone?” he asked, his breath still coming short.

  Alex nodded. She knew the path by now.

  “Come at moonrise,” he said. “I’ll be waiting.”

  He was gone before she could reply.

  * * * *

  The night was cloudy following the rain, and Alex stood at the entrance to the tent, watching the horizon for the pale slip of the quarter moon to show above it. The camp was already still as soldiers rose and bedded early. She had not seen Burke, or the woman with the black hair, since he had left her alone in the tent that morning.

  A shaft of light penetrated the trees, and Alex looked up and saw the moon. She left the tent and slipped across the camp, smiling at the sentry who looked up at her passage and assumed she was answering nature’s call. He nodded and looked away.

  She did not see the woman who watched from the shadows, surrounded by a cloud of raven hair.

  Under the canopy of leaves the ground was still wet, and it was difficult going in some places where her shoes sank into the soft grass. The moon was high by the time she reached the brook.

  The glen beside it was empty. She hesitated, looking around, and then Burke stepped into her path.

  Alex jumped. For a man his size, he could be remarkably stealthy when he chose to be.

  He opened his arms and she rushed into them.

  “Have you been waiting long?” she asked him.

  “It seemed long,” he replied, cradling her against his shoulder.

  “I kept sinking into the mud,” she said, drawing back to show him her boots.

  “Let’s have them off, then,” he said, taking her by the hand and leading her further into the clearing. There was a blanket spread on the ground. “It’s dry here; the sun shone on it this afternoon.”

  They sat on the blanket and he tugged off her boots, which were actually Rory’s with a rag stuffed into each toe. He rubbed each slender foot as he exposed it.

  “Did anyone see you come out here?” he asked.

  “Just one of the sentries, but they’re used to my going past them at night.”

  He lay back on his side, his cheek propped on one open palm. He surveyed her fondly as she sat twisting her hands in her lap, avoiding his gaze.

  “Alexandra,” he said gently.

  She looked up at him.

  “I’ll not ravish you,” he said.

  Her blush deepened furiously.

  “Perhaps you should cut my hair again. That put you in quite a mood,” he said.

  “You’re teasing me,” she said miserably.

  “I am,” he replied, “and I confess I’m a cur for it. Come here to me.” He gestured for her to lie beside him, and she did gladly, comforted by the solid strength of his body and relieved that she could escape his penetrating blue gaze.

  “Better?” he said.

  “Yes.” She snuggled closer to his side. “Why did you go off north without telling me?”

  “Good-byes are hellish. I spoke to Rory and knew he would look out for you.”

  “And you were angry with me,” she added.

  “Was I?”

  “For forcing you to face your feelings.”

  He sat up, and looked down at her. “True,” he admitted. “How did a mite like you become so worldly wise?”

  “I’m not a mite. Everyone looks small to you. And you are hardly an ancient sage to be acting so superior. How old are you, anyway?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Eleven years. Ten, really, I’ll be eighteen soon. It’s not such a gulf.”

  “It’s not the years between us that cause the distance, Alexandra,” he said.

  “I will not think about it,” she said. “We have this moment, this time, and while we’re here I will not think about it.” She put her arms around his neck and drew him down to her.

  Burke half lay on her, holding himself up with one hand to protect her from his full weight. He smelled musky and masculine as Alex pressed her face into the hollow of his throat, luxuriating in the sensation of his skin against hers.

  His mouth was moving in her hair, one large hand splayed against her waist to hold her to him. She felt the warmth on her ear, her cheek, and then she tilted her head to accept his lips on hers.

  His kiss was gentle at first and then gathered intensity until her mouth opened and her head fell back into the crook of his arm. She heard the throaty sound he made when his tongue found hers, and she clasped him to her almost desperately, pulling him toward her until he was pinning her to the ground. One small hand traveled up his back to sink its fingers into the thick wavy hair at the nape of his neck. She shifted her weight beneath him, and he moaned, straddling her.

  Alex felt him hard against her thighs as if their double layer of clothing had been burned away by the intensity of their desire. He pressed his face into her shoulder, and burrowed there, and she held him still, thrilled with the feel of him on top of her, anchoring her to the earth.

  “Don’t move,” she whispered.

  “I’ll hurt you,” he said in a muffled voice.

  “I never felt a sweeter weight,” she said, turning to trace the shell of his ear with her tongue.

  He raised his head to look at her, his eyes brilliant, and then bent again to nuzzle her breast, first mouthing her through the cloth, then pulling on it impatiently. Alex lifted her arms, her eyes still locked with his, and he sat back to draw the tunic over her head.

  “Oh, Alex,” he whispered when she was revealed. “You are so lovely.” Her redhead’s skin was milky in the moonlight, lightly freckled like a bird’s egg, and her nipples pink brown, puckering with exposure to the night air and her growing excitement.

  “I saw you once,” he murmured, “taking a bath when you first came here. Do you remember?”

  “I didn’t know you’d seen me.”

  “By chance. I think now I lived only to see you again.” He tossed the shift aside and knelt next to her, pressing his cheek to the satiny skin of her belly. She tangled her fingers in his hair, the coarse texture of raw silk under her hand, and closed her eyes.

  For long seconds he didn’t stir, then she
felt his tongue trail upward to her navel. She opened her eyes and watched as his brown fingers covered one bare breast and his mouth found the other.

  She gasped at the contact and cradled him against her, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and laying her cheek against his golden head. His tongue flicked, then soothed, changing sensations, and then he sucked gently, arousing her to the point where she was tearing at the loose shirt he wore above his leggings.

  “Take this off,” she moaned, but when he sat up to obey she whimpered at the loss of contact with him. He yanked the shirt over his head, tearing it in the process, and threw it on the pile made by her shift. She reached up to hook her arms around his neck and draw him down again. When his bare flesh met hers she sighed with deep satisfaction, kissing his naked shoulder, running her hands down his muscular arms and up again to the strong column of his throat.

  “I feared you so when I first met you,” she whispered, her hands fluttering lightly down his broad back, feeling it narrow toward his waist.

  “And I thought you were a boy,” he said, his mouth against her cheek curving into a smile.

  “What think you now?” she whispered, wrapping her bare legs around his hips, feeling her power in his answering groan. She slipped one hand beneath the waistband of his pants and touched the patch of down at the base of his spine.

  “Alex,” he said hoarsely, raising his head to look at her.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m ready.”

  “Are you now?” he said. He eased his weight off her and lay at her side, trailing one hand along the line of her hip to the apex of her thighs. When he slipped his palm between them she sucked in her breath, then moaned at the delicious friction of his touch.

  “Oh, please,” she gasped.

  “What are you wanting?” he asked, his lost brogue resurfacing with his emotion.

  “More.”

  “Of this?” His caress went deeper and her legs fell apart.

  “Of everything.” She sighed and pressed against his hand.

  “Do you know what I’m about to do?”

  “Yes.”

  “It. . . the first time for a woman there is pain, I’m told.”

  “I can bear it, for the pleasure that comes later.”

  “So you do know the way of it?” he said, gathering her close, quelling the surging of his loins with an effort that made beads of sweat stand out on his forehead. He wondered whether she really understood the deep waters of the river she was crossing. If she were sorry, after, he would feel the worst brute in the world.

  “Teach me,” she said, lying back on the blanket, raising her arms above her head in submission.

  He could take no more. He stood and pulled off his trousers. Alex looked at his naked body in the moonlight and then averted her gaze. He seemed too big and too strong for her delicate body. When he rejoined her on the ground and pulled her to him, she stiffened.

  “Easy,” he said soothingly, as if gentling a skittish horse. “Easy now.” She could feel him hard against her, and she swallowed nervously. She balled her fists against his back.

  His urge to enter her was the strongest he’d ever felt, but he knew if he forced her now she would be lost to him forever.

  “No fear,” he said, holding her loosely, letting her relax. “No hurry now, we’ve all night.” He kissed her lightly, letting her pull him closer, letting her desire overtake her until they were entwined again in a passionate embrace. But when she locked her legs around him once more, his patience was tried beyond endurance. He lost all control and thrust into her wildly.

  She cried out, and he stopped, resisting the overwhelming need to surge and surge again.

  “Alex,” he gasped.

  She ran her hands down his back, slick now with perspiration cooled by the night breeze. She was motionless for a moment and then made a little sound and pulled him tighter.

  Burke muttered something in Gaelic and dropped his head to her shoulder.

  “I love you,” she said into his ear.

  When he moved again, she moved with him, in a sensual rhythm as old as time.

  * * * *

  Alex was swimming in a pool of dreamy lassitude, her head on Burke’s shoulder, safe within the circle of his arm. She opened her eyes and looked up at the dark sky, the gossamer clouds skidding past a crescent moon.

  “Asleep?” Burke said.

  “Happy,” she replied.

  “You’ll be a mass of bruises in the morning,” he said ruefully. “Your happiness will fade before they do.”

  “No.”

  “I was too rough. You’ve a mark on your arm now, there will be more later. I was too eager. It made me clumsy.”

  “No. My skin is prone to purple, it was ever so.”

  “Truly?” he said, looking down at her anxiously.

  She reached up to touch his face. “Truly. No woman could have a sweeter lover to claim her maidenhead. Till the end of my life I’ll remember this spring night and be grateful that you took me with such special care.”

  He was silent, wondering what the uncertain future would hold for both of them.

  Alex traced the outline of his bicep with her finger. “Your body is beautiful,” she said. “Like a statue.”

  “I’ve seen some statues, my lady,” he said. “They don’t come ribbed with scars.”

  “I don’t mean the scars.”

  He grunted.

  “I mean the sinews, the way they play beneath the skin.”

  “All men are made the same, Alex,” he said. “You’ve only just seen me.”

  Alex didn’t answer. He could never see through a woman’s eyes, as she did, see that the way a man stood or moved, or turned his head, could single him out from other men and stop the breath in the throat.

  “When you were away I thought you never would come back,” she said softly.

  He caressed her bare shoulder, making no reply.

  “Did you reap the reward of your trip?” she asked.

  “You might think so,” he said. “Scanlon is dead.”

  “Did you kill him?” she asked, aghast.

  “We had a contest,” he said shortly. “It was fair.”

  “A contest?”

  “To settle our differences. It was Scanlon who tipped the raid to the castle when I was hurt. And I owed him for you. I should have killed him back then. He was a blight on the whole countryside and surely no loss to the world.”

  “Did you see Tyrone?”

  “I did.”

  “Kevin?”

  “Aye?”

  “This trouble between our two countries, why is it your life’s work? Why are you so driven by it?”

  “Someone should be driven by it.”

  “But what is it you want for your efforts?”

  “Home rule for Ireland, to govern ourselves without the interference of your queen.”

  “Will you get it?” she asked, sitting up and drawing the blanket around her.

  “I believe that it is coming closer.”

  Alex looked at him.

  “Your friend Lord Essex is bungling his mission,” Burke said. “He attacked the rebels in Leinster and Munster first, instead of taking on Tyrone as your queen ordered, and is already down by five thousand men. His ranks are being decimated by desertions and disease. Instead of putting down the pockets of rebellion, he’s in the midst of a rout.”

  “Why so?”

  “His timing is bad, for a start,” Burke said. “Spring is not the season for an Irish campaign. Our roads are cow paths in good weather, and the rains have turned them into ditches, hampering his passage. We are used to the conditions here and can still move while he is stalled. We skirmish from the trees and fens, and the English don’t know where to look for hidden enemies. Essex has lost a goodly portion of his force and accomplished nothing. He gets angry letters from your queen with every boat from England.”

  “How do you know these things?”

  “Tyrone’s spies are very we
ll informed.”

  “And of course you were involved in all of it while you were gone,” she said lightly.

  He looked down at her.

  “Well, how did you get this?” she asked, tracing the line of a vicious welt, obviously newly acquired from a knife, which ran the length of his sculpted thigh.

  He didn’t answer.

  “So then why haven’t they attacked our camp?” she asked, changing tactics.

  He smiled slightly at her use of “they” and “our,” and shrugged. “Mayhap they cannot find it.”

  This seemed possible. She doubted she could find it herself if necessary, and she certainly had not been able to find her way out of it when she’d tried. “What will happen?”

  “Tyrone wants a truce on our terms, and it seems that Essex may be forced to give it to him. Gloriana’s gilded boy is failing at his task. What think you of your uncle’s mentor now?”

  He had read her mind. If Essex fell, Philip Cummings would not be far behind him.

  “I brought you a gift,” he said abruptly, changing the subject as he stood and pulled on his pants.

  “A gift!” Alex was delighted.

  He retrieved a leather pouch from his pile of clothes and handed it to her. She tore it open like a greedy child.

  “Paper!” she exclaimed. It was used, of course, the foolscap blank on only one side. There was also a slightly bent quill with a squib of ink.

  “Wherever did you get this?”

  “There is a monastery on the road to Armagh. I stopped and asked for writing necessaries and made a donation for their trouble.”

  “You did that for me?”

  “For my lessons,” he replied, grinning as he rejoined her on the blanket.

  She turned over a sheet of the foolscap and examined it.

  “What is that writing?” Burke asked.

  “Introibo ad altare dei, ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam,” she read aloud.

  “Well?”

  “It’s Latin, the first part of the mass. It must have been written by a monk, an apprentice scribe, maybe, for the practice.”

  Burke, who’d not been in a church since childhood when his mother had taken him to the castle chapel, would not have recognized it. “That seems fitting, for a monastery,” he said. “Can you read Latin well?”

  “Church Latin, like this, and some classical.”