“’Tis just a scratch,” he muttered.
“Is that so?” Meg asked. “What with all your twitching and complaining, I thought your throat was fair slit from apple to ear.”
The knights remaining in the room laughed at the sight of a girl scolding one of the most feared warriors in all of England. Meg looked up and smiled at them.
“Go to supper, good knights,” she said. “Sir Duncan will be with you soon.”
As the men filed past Meg to the great hall, she bent once more and began prodding Duncan’s throat with careful fingertips. Duncan had cast aside his battle clothing and was wearing little more than short leather breeches. Meg’s hair, as usual, had come undone. When a thick lock slithered forward and threatened to get in her way, Duncan caught it, tugged it lightly, and tucked it behind Meg’s ear. The casual gesture spoke of long familiarity between the Scots Hammer and the lady of Blackthorne Keep.
With hooded eyes, Dominic watched Duncan and Meg from the doorway. Each time Dominic drew a breath, he told himself there was no cause for the jealousy that was lying like molten lead in his gut. Yet seeing his wife’s hands smoothing over the muscular width of Duncan’s neck in search of injuries made vivid every bit of gossip he had heard both before and after coming to Blackthorne Keep.
Duncan’s betrothed.
Duncan’s leman.
The witch waits, smiling and biding her time.
“You came very close to seeing God,” Meg muttered.
“Aye.” Duncan tugged on another stray lock of her hair and smiled whimsically. “Would you have missed me, Meggie?”
“The way a cat misses a dog.”
Duncan laughed and tucked the fiery lock away beneath Meg’s head cloth. Bells chimed when he accidently pulled the cloth askew. He removed and refitted the circlet on her, setting bells to singing with every motion. If she objected to the intimacy, she didn’t show it with word or action.
Affection between them.
Pretending to be satisfied with her cold Norman lord.
Smiling and biding her time.
“Ouch! God blind me, are you trying to finish what your husband started?”
“Are you sure you have no trouble swallowing?” Meg asked.
“I’m certain.”
“Well, ’tis a lucky scoundrel you are, Duncan of Maxwell.”
“Aye,” he agreed. “But I’ll never have a wife like you, Meggie.”
“For that you should thank the lord,” she retorted. “Ask Dominic. I’m such a trial to him that he makes me go belled like a cat or a falcon.”
“Is Dominic unkind to you?” Duncan asked, his voice no longer teasing.
“To his Glendruid wife? To his sole hope of legal heirs? Does my husband strike you as a stupid man?” Meg asked curtly.
“God’s blood, no. The man is as cunning as a wolf.”
“He’s as cunning as a pack of wolves. And he isn’t unkind to me. My jesses, after all, are almost the equal of his fine peregrine’s.”
Duncan shouted with laughter.
Smiling even as she scolded Duncan to sit still, Meg rubbed a salve into the various bruises that showed on Duncan’s broad chest.
Biding her time.
For the Scots Reever she has always loved.
She waits.
“If you should have any trouble swallowing, come directly to me,” Meg said as she rubbed salve into a bruise on Duncan’s shoulder.
“I always do, Meggie. Your touch alone would heal a man, much less your magic Glendruid potions.”
Dominic pulled off his helm and dumped it onto a nearby table with enough force to make ale leap in the bowl Simon had left for the knights to drink.
Meg looked up swiftly. Her green eyes went over Dominic like intangible hands, searching for hidden wounds. What she saw was an icy anger that made her realize she was standing between Duncan’s muscular thighs. A flush tinted her cheeks. Hastily she stepped back.
Duncan turned and looked at Dominic. The expression on the liege’s face made it clear that he wasn’t happy to find his wife alone with a half-naked Duncan of Maxwell. Duncan smiled rather sardonically.
“Now I know why you gave me an estate three days’ ride from here,” he said.
“See that you get to it quickly,” Dominic said in a cold voice.
“Aye, lord. I’ll do that. I like my head just where it is.”
Duncan stood and strode quickly from the solar, snagging his mantle on the way out. Dominic’s cold gray eyes bored into him every step of the way.
“I had Eadith prepare a bath,” Meg said. “It should be ready by now. Shall I call Simon to tend you?”
“Nay. I think I will sample the joys of your ‘healing touch’ for myself.”
The words were like a whip. Meg stiffened.
“You have no reason to hint at anything improper,” she said angrily.
Dominic lifted a skeptical black eyebrow.
“There is naught between Duncan and me,” Meg said. “For the love of God, husband, I came to your bed a virgin!”
“But you can’t do that every time, can you? A man can be certain only once of a woman’s fidelity.”
Meg’s eyes widened. “You can’t mean that!”
“I can. I do. Once again, I regret not killing that Scots bastard.”
Stillness came over Meg like night flowing over the face of day.
“What have I done to earn your distrust?” she asked in a remote voice.
Meg’s tone was like adding straw to the fire of Dominic’s temper, which was already ablaze with the last, dying echoes of a battle he had come very close to losing.
“You were alone with a half-naked knight who is reputed to be the owner of your heart, if not your body,” Dominic retorted. “Were it Marie standing between Duncan’s thighs, I would applaud. But it wasn’t Marie who was simpering over Duncan’s wounds. It was my wife!”
“I have never simpered over any man’s wounds. I am a healer, not a prostitute.”
Dominic grunted. “At times, ’tis hard to know the difference.”
“Duncan has no such difficulty. He knows me for what I am, healer not whore. Would that mine own husband knew me half as well!”
“I’m trying, wife. I’m trying. But I keep tripping over that Scots bastard at every turn. Tell me—for whom did you cheer while we fought?”
“How can you even ask that question?” she whispered.
Turning away, Meg began gathering her medicines with hands that shook from anger and something more, the chill fear that increased each time she understood how little of her husband’s respect she had.
And of his trust, she had none.
“I’ll send Simon to your bath,” Meg said.
“Nay.”
The command was as flat and cold as a sword.
“As you wish, lord,” Meg said, stalking past her fierce husband. “Though I would think a man who trusted me so little would be fearful of a dagger in his back.”
With a hissed phrase in Turkish, Dominic followed. He knew his temper was abrupt and his tongue was as slashing as the edge of his sword, but there was little he could do about the matter at the moment. His usual irritability after battle had turned to fury at the sight of Meg and the half-naked Scotsman.
Dominic stepped into the bathing room and yanked the drape across the doorway into place.
“Do you love that Scots bastard?” Dominic asked abruptly.
“As a cousin, a friend, the brother I never had, aye.”
With quick, curt motions, Dominic began undoing his battle gear.
“Did you once love Duncan as a woman loves a man?” he demanded.
“No.”
“But he loved you.”
Meg made a sound that was too sad and angry to be called laughter.
“Nay, lord. For me, Duncan felt some affection. For Blackthorne Keep, he had great love. Like you, Duncan saw me as a means of becoming a great lord. Unlike you, he was not the man the king commanded me to marr
y.”
“It is a noble woman’s duty to increase her family’s security through marriage.”
“Yes. I have done my duty.”
Dominic couldn’t argue with Meg’s quiet statement, yet he wanted to. He wanted her to say that it was more than noble duty that brought her to his bed, more than duty that made her soften at his touch, more than duty that called forth her sultry, passionate rain.
In a stiff silence Meg assisted Dominic out of his battle gear. When he peeled off the last of his clothing, his heavy arousal made her breath catch in her throat. Abruptly she began to understand why he might have been so angry at finding her with Duncan. The passion of battle had been transformed into another kind of passion altogether.
Meg could understand that, for she had felt the same. The terrible fear she had known while Duncan’s charger bore down on her husband had been transformed in the space of a breath to intense desire.
Dominic was alive. She wanted to celebrate his survival in the most elemental of all ways.
“What? No sweet smiles and tender touches for your husband?” Dominic asked harshly as he stepped into the bath. “Aren’t you going to stroke me and heal my battle wounds?”
“You look quite wonderfully healthy,” Meg said. “But I will stroke you anywhere you please.”
The change in his wife’s voice from tight to husky both surprised and disarmed Dominic. He looked at Meg in time to see the sensual appraisal in her smile as his loins vanished into the bath. With hungry eyes he watched her remove her mantle and outer tunic, scoop up a handful of her own soap, and walk to the bath.
The water was hot and smelled like Meg’s herbal. The soap was soft and smelled like Meg herself. The aches and bruises Dominic had gathered from battle dissolved, but not the hunger that held his body in a sensuous vise, nor the stark arousal that pulsed more heavily with each motion of Meg’s hands as she bent over him.
In a low voice Meg sang the Glendruid chant of renewal while she bathed Dominic, washing away the mistakes and pains of the day, coaxing hope to come and live within her warrior’s powerful body. When Dominic could bear no more of the tender torment, he took one of Meg’s hands and dragged it down his chest to the part of him that ached more than any bruise could.
At the first touch of Meg’s fingers on his aroused flesh, Dominic groaned. When her hand curled eagerly around and stroked from base to tip, he thought he would burst like a wineskin overfilled.
“Meg…”
The word sounded as though it had been torn from Dominic unwillingly.
“Yes, husband?” she murmured.
“Simon tells me I’m beastly after a battle.”
“Simon is correct.”
Meg pulled her nails delicately over Dominic’s eager flesh, drawing another groan from him.
“But now that I know how to pull the thorn from my beast’s paw,” she added, “I will be more understanding.”
“That is not a thorn.”
Soft, feminine laughter agreed with Dominic.
“Aye,” she whispered, stroking him. “’Tis a very fine, very magical sword.”
“Magic?” Dominic’s breath hissed in as pleasure lanced through his whole body. “How so?”
“Though your sword is hard indeed, it is hot rather than cold, it brings pleasure rather than pain, joy rather than sorrow…life rather than death. That is a very great magic.”
With a throttled groan, Dominic tilted his head back against the rim of the bath and fought for control.
“I have never before been a jealous man,” he said, “but the thought of you touching Duncan like this makes me want to kill him out of hand.”
As Dominic spoke, his fingers went beneath the hem of Meg’s inner tunic. He heard the sudden intake of her breath when he caressed her ankle. Smiling, he stroked his long fingers up the curves of one leg and down again.
“For a knight who is renowned for his logic and tactics,” Meg said breathlessly, “your jealousy makes little sense.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed into glittering gray slits as his palm stroked up the length of Meg’s leg again. But this time he didn’t stop at her thigh. His fingers sought the frail layer of cloth that lay between him and her sensual heat. He pulled once, sharply, and the barrier tore. An instant later his fingers were tangled in the warm thatch between her thighs. The shivering sound she made pleased him as much as the liquid fire his touch drew from her softness.
“Why shouldn’t I be jealous of this?” Dominic asked. “A man would kill for such sweet fire.”
Meg gently squeezed Dominic’s masculine flesh as she asked huskily, “Do you think me too slack-witted to know the difference between paradise and a childhood friend?”
“When you hold me thus, I can’t think at all.”
Smiling, Meg stroked from blunt tip to base and beyond, cradling the twin spheres wherein his seed strained to be released.
“In your arms I taste paradise,” she whispered. “Duncan is my friend, Dominic. I have never touched him thus. I never would. It is only your sword that pleasures me.”
“God,” Dominic groaned. “You are killing me.”
Meg gave him a startled look, then understood he was speaking of sweet torment rather than true agony.
“You’ll have me full to bursting all over again,” he said thickly.
“Is that so terrible a thing?”
“Nay.”
Dominic’s burning gaze went from Meg’s mouth to her breasts, to the red-gold nest that so tempted him. A primitive hunger lanced through his body. His hands slid up her thighs until he could touch the soft, sultry flesh that gave him so much pleasure.
“But we should have the privacy of a bolted door,” he said. “There are things I want…”
“What things?”
His only answer was another look at her and a silence that was hotter than fire.
Meg listened. No sounds came but those from the great hall below, where knights drank and boasted of their prowess in battle.
“No one comes,” she said.
“If we stay, it will be at your peril,” Dominic said.
“’Tis great danger for me here,” Meg agreed with a smile. “I can feel it like a mighty sword against my body.”
Dominic gave a crack of laughter. Even though he knew he should make himself go the short distance to Meg’s rooms, he wasn’t sure he could. He was on fire for his passionate Glendruid witch.
“There are things I heard of among the Saracens that intrigued me,” Dominic murmured, looking hungrily from Meg’s eyes to the place where their bodies would soon be joined, “but I was never tempted to try them until now.”
“What things?” Meg asked again.
“Ways for lovers to tease and pleasure and finally ease, but only after they scream with the sweet torture.”
Meg’s eyelids half lowered. “’Tis shameless of me, but I must confess to curiosity.”
“Aye, witch. I can see your curiosity.” Dominic’s smile was dark and fully male. “I shall take great pleasure in satisfying it…and you.”
The ball of his thumb probed the lush nest between Meg’s thighs. When he brushed against the nub hidden within, she flinched with unexpected pleasure.
“You are very sensitive,” he said.
Meg shivered.
“My thumb is too hard,” Dominic said in a low voice. “I believe my tongue would be better suited to polish the living jewel of your passion.”
The startled look on Meg’s face made Dominic laugh softly despite the heavy, relentless beat of desire in his body.
“Aye, witch. You begin to understand.”
The sight of her nipples taut with arousal and the passionate flush of her body made him want to shout with triumph and hunger. He cupped her breasts in his hands and prodded the nipples sensuously, dragging a cry from her. The cry became a shattered sound of desire when his long index finger caressed down her belly and slid deeply within.
“I want you,” he said simply.
“I am yours to take.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “I can feel the truth of your generosity. I have never known anything like you.”
“It is you, not I.”
“It is both.” A shudder ran the length of Dominic’s powerful body. “This time you shall scream with pleasure, my sensuous witch. I swear it.”
“What of you? Will you teach me how to give you that much pleasure?”
Dominic groaned. “I shouldn’t.”
But he finally did.
26
“ARE YOU READY TO GO HAWKING this morning?” Dominic asked in a low voice. “Or is my beautiful falcon still tender?”
The shuttered sensuality of Dominic’s eyes made Meg blush. It had been two days since she had bathed her warrior husband and discovered just how potent and demanding a lover he could be.
Before that afternoon, Dominic had held back much of himself. Meg hoped he would never do so again. She had discovered she was every bit as demanding a lover as he was.
“I was tender only for a morning,” Meg whispered. “A bath set me right again.”
The lazy gleam of his eyes deepened into a hungry blaze. He touched her smile with the tip of his finger, then brushed his mouth over hers.
“There is indeed magic in your baths, sweet witch,” he whispered against her lips. “We shall try one again after hawking.”
Meg’s breathless agreement did little to cool Dominic’s blood. The temptation to deepen the kiss was very great, but he suspected if he did, the only hawk that would get flown that day would be a very special Glendruid falcon.
Reluctantly Dominic lifted his head and looked intently into his wife’s unusual green eyes. They appeared as clear and untroubled as sacred springs. Yet each night he spent with her, she awoke at least once chilled and shaking.
Last night had been no different.
Why are you afraid?
I dream Glendruid dreams.
Of what?
Danger.
What danger? Duncan left for the north this morning. The Reevers are divided. Under Rufus, they will soon come to naught. The rest of my knights will soon be here. What danger is left?
I don’t know. I know only that I dream.
A peregrine’s distinctive, keening cry sliced through the normal noise of the keep.
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