by Nicole Locke
‘My eyes?’
‘Aye, your eyes that are more beautiful than a blue Scottish sky and filled with more depth and emotion than any life-saving stream. Your eyes say much, Lioslath.’
His fingers continued, but they now skimmed along her collarbone. His left hand no longer brushed the back of hers, but clasped it. His thumb rubbed and pressed gently into her palm. The sensation rushed up her arm and deep into her body.
Since all she could see was him, she wondered what he would say. ‘What’s in my eyes?’
His hands stilled, before he dipped his chin and looked at her through his lashes.
‘There’s desire, lass. It’s what’s keeping me close to you, it’s what is making me incapable of walking away. I saw it yesterday while you showed me your land. You were looking at me as if you’d never seen a man before or known what the purpose of him was. But as you kept looking at me, I couldn’t help but be reminded, acutely, painfully, what a man’s purpose is when he’s being looked at by a woman.’
Her skin flushed at his words. Embarrassment, but something more.
His hands stilled as a predatory sound emitted from him. ‘I hold by a hair here, lass. Especially now your eyes have gone all smoky dark. I’m lost in them and I’m guessing my words affect you the way they affect me.’
She was supposed to speak, but her lips were suddenly dry and she ran her tongue along the seam. Bram’s eyes fell to her lips.
‘Ah,’ he continued. ‘But there’s a hesitancy behind that desire as well. When it’s there, a man cannot simply take. So I stand here and feel your short breaths fanning against me, your skin warming in the sunshine. And with your eyes swirling like they are? You’re making me a beggar.’
She felt like a beggar with his voice swirling heat around and inside her.
‘I cannot just take, Lioslath, though I stand caressing you with my hands. I’m gentling you. I must, though everything in me is begging for a taste of you.’
His words that gave heat were now like ice. Had he said he wanted to gentle her like a horse? To break her?
No! He wouldn’t tame her. He couldn’t tame her. A hot ball of anger coiled deep in her gut as she jerked her head away from his touch and tried to snatch her hand back.
‘Thanks be to God in heaven,’ Bram whispered, as he held her hand firm, yanked her to him—
Gillean!
Gillean stood behind Bram. Gasping, Lioslath shoved Bram away and he swiftly turned and released the dagger from his belt. But he paused when he came face-to-face with Gillean, who didn’t move either. She, too, was rooted to the spot.
Bram reacted first.
Crouching low, he swiftly flipped the dagger’s handle to the boy. By doing so, Bram changed the dagger’s threat into a game.
Before Lioslath could get her heart to settle, Gillean’s wide eyes fell immediately to the dagger.
‘Here now, lad. This is a fine dagger, would you like to see it?’
No hesitation, Gillean’s hurried steps put him before Bram. No hesitation from Bram as he explained the blade, the shape, the metal and the edge. He did it so effortlessly, as if he’d intended it all along.
As if they hadn’t been about to kiss. That kiss...
Lioslath exhaled slowly. Gillean was enthralled. Was that all it would take for him to forget what he saw? Some distraction? Bram was so easy with him. An ease she didn’t have. Not when she continued to feel Bram’s arms and her own clutching response.
‘You were kissing her.’ Gillean’s voice rang clear. ‘I saw it.’
Lioslath froze.
Bram gave a brief hesitation before he answered, ‘Almost kissing.’
‘Are you marrying her?’
Lioslath wanted to run and hide. Gillean knew what he saw and Bram’s distraction wasn’t working. Lioslath wanted to put a stop to it, but a thrown knife wouldn’t do it this time. ‘Gillean, if you so much as—’
‘Nae—’ Bram started. The word was for her as much for Gillean. ‘When you get big enough to hold this dagger, you’ll know that kissing is for finding your wife as well.’
What was Bram talking about! He was making it worse. But he didn’t act as though it was worse. Instead, he steadily knelt and offered explanations. Again, she was acutely aware of his ease around her siblings and her own failings.
Then she remembered Bram’s diplomacy. Maybe this wasn’t so much his ease with Gillean as his ease with people.
‘You were in her bedroom. You kissed.’ Gillean’s fingers trailed along the dagger’s hilt. ‘Will she be your wife now?’
‘Marriage...’ Bram said as if he was considering it. Lioslath knew he couldn’t possibly be, that he must be stalling for time. ‘Just like a weapon, a man has to be careful what wife he holds for the rest of his life. A man rarely takes the first weapon he holds or the first lass he...almost...kisses.’
‘Why?’
Hoping Gillean would simply accept what Bram was saying, Lioslath looked around them. They could be discovered soon. If Gillean continued talking about their kiss and another person arrived, there wouldn’t be any discussion of a marriage. The clan would probably demand it.
‘Well, you see how fine this knife is? How it fits in my hand now and how it doesn’t fit in yours quite yet? Right now a dagger with a smaller hilt would fit you, later another knife will be better. That’s why you shouldn’t take the first lass or the first knife.’
‘Are you waiting for Lioslath to...fit you?’
Panic gripped her. But Bram chuckled and looked back at her. There was puzzlement in his eyes as he searched hers, but there was something else there for her to see: heat. Then his eyes dropped to her lips and stayed. When he raised them again, he looked...heatedly amused. Did he take nothing seriously?
‘Aye, something like that, lad,’ Bram said, holding her gaze.
‘She’s shorter than you. Does she have to get bigger?’
Bram faced Gillean. ‘Nae, women doona need to grow to fit.’
‘Then how do you know when to marry them?’
‘With a knife, you weigh it in your hands, both hands. A man has to be around a woman before he marries her.’
‘A lot?’
‘It...depends.’
‘On your being in the bedroom and you touching and kissing her?’
Lioslath couldn’t keep the strangling sound inside. Was this how Gillean saw them? She felt more than panic now. Terror. He made her sound like some whore for any man to work out his lusts on. Bram must correct him. Her brother couldn’t walk away with that in his head.
‘Aye, something like that.’ Standing, Bram patted Gillean on the shoulder. Not as though he was a child, but as if they were equals.
‘Nae!’ Lioslath said. ‘He cannot—’
‘Now, Gillean,’ Bram interrupted. ‘Unlike us, your sister’s a mite soft when it comes to weapons and marriage and the like. It wouldn’t do for her delicate temperament to have this talked of. Understand?’
Her brother glanced to her and visibly swallowed. ‘She’d get angry?’
Gillean might not understand Bram’s talking of her delicate sensibilities, but Gillean had seen her anger before.
‘She might,’ Bram said.
‘Won’t tell anyone!’ Gillean promised.
‘Good lad.’ Bram patted the boy’s shoulder again. ‘Now it’s time to make more hay men.’
Gillean ran a few steps before he stopped and turned. ‘I know what I want now! In return for being quiet.’
‘A knife of your own?’ the laird said. ‘If you stay quiet, you’ll get one.’
Gillean flashed him a smile and nodded enthusiastically before he ran off.
Only then did Bram turn to her.
‘You let him go,’ she said. ‘He’ll tell.’
‘What is it to—’
‘They haven’t been around you either,’ he interrupted. ‘They didn’t go to you for protection in your room and he’s strangely wary of you.’
‘What does it matter? He’ll talk and everything will be worse.’
‘Because you’ll have to marry me to save your reputation? I doona think you care about that.’
How would this man know?
‘It’s nothing to wonder about. I opened the gates to save my reputation.’
‘Did you? Why do you not know your siblings? Why did you avoid them in the village? Why did you not know that bribes often work with five-year-olds?’
All these questions. ‘I know them well enough.’
‘Do you? And why aren’t you married?
‘This is none of your concern.’
‘It does concern me when I know your reputation isn’t what motivates you here. Not when you dress as you do and walk freely and unaccompanied at all hours. I do remember that tunnel, lass.’ He held his hands up as if to show his innocence. ‘Be at ease, I have nae intention of marrying you.’
She felt relief. ‘Because we doona fit?’
A quick smile. ‘I think we would, Lioslath. And I think you know it.’
She took a step away and knew it was a mistake by the gleam in his eye. She didn’t care, she needed the distance from him. ‘I’ll tell you what I do know, Bram of Clan Colquhoun. Never try to kiss me again. Or next time my dagger won’t aim at a point behind your head.’
To make it clear what part she would aim at, she dropped her eyes before she turned on her heels and walked away.
Chapter Nine
Lioslath paced in circles. It had been hours since she had talked to Bram, hours since she saw Gillean skip away, but it wasn’t enough time to ease her racing heart or her anger at the Colquhoun.
She needed the archery contest to ease her restlessness and soon it would begin. In the meantime, she was forced to acknowledge too many facts.
There was a roar from the crowd circling the hand-to-hand combat. Bram was in the centre, fighting his men and hers. Now he fought Colin from the village. Colin, who was as large as her father.
All day she watched Colquhouns and Fergussons cooperating. Between the preparations and the contests, the tension between their clans eased. Bram’s insistence on these games was working.
That wasn’t the only acknowledgement she was forced to accept. Bram’s almost-kiss. She couldn’t fool herself. She wanted and waited for the kiss. It was his voice, the way he used words. They affected her.
Gillean had stopped them. And thus far he hadn’t revealed what he’d seen. It appeared Bram’s fame with diplomacy worked on five-year-old boys as well.
And that was where the acknowledgements ended.
Bram’s diplomacy wouldn’t work with her. She couldn’t allow it. Cooperation between their clans would prove nothing, would only be another concession to Laird Colquhoun.
Soon the archery would begin and it would be her turn. Soon she would show him Fergussons didn’t need Colquhouns. Pride. Aye, and if her stepmother were alive, she’d be punished. Or most likely locked in the storage rooms under the bedroom. But there was more driving her than pride.
Once she proved herself, the Colquhouns would leave. They needed to leave. For how long could a five-year-old keep a secret? Her clan might never have cared for her reputation before, but things were different now. Donaldo said she wouldn’t stop any demands for honour. If the truth was revealed, they could be forced to marry.
She couldn’t want to marry this man, and yet...that kiss. That almost-kiss. What would it have felt like? His lips perpetually curved up at one corner, ever ready for his frequent smiles. Over the crowds, she could hear him laughing. Yet she wanted to know his kiss.
The archery contest couldn’t come soon enough.
Another roar. Colin was standing now, shaking his head. How did she get so near the ring? She could see everything.
Bram looked as he did the many times he trained his men. Determined and encouraging. Now he looked the same. As if he was training Colin. As if he was the laird here.
She resented it, and yet...Colin was already gleaning warfare skills he hadn’t possessed before. Skills that would have been useful against the English.
Lioslath could not look away. Bram’s formal clothing was gone and he was down to his braies. Nothing hid the power and training of his body. She’d seen him like this from the platform, but now she knew how it felt to be held by him, to be pulled closer. Now she noticed every nuance.
It wasn’t Bram’s skill compelling her to watch him, it was something darker, more elemental, like need. Something she didn’t understand and certainly didn’t want. Still...compelling.
Stance wide, Bram stood in a half crouch with his arms out to his sides. Sweat and dirt ran in rivulets along the cords of muscles that formed intricate patterns along his back and flowed down into the knot of fabric rolled around his waist. He’d rolled and cuffed his braies, which meant she could see the power of his thigh muscles as they bulged and pulsed with each step of his feet.
He was restrained and yet feral. There was lethal tension held in the grace of his body, a primal undertone to the way he moved. Like this, he reminded her too much of the wildness of her forest, of the danger and purpose it revealed to her every time she stepped into it.
He was a warrior used to fights, to training, to...pain. He was a laird used to winning.
There was no doubting who carried the superior skills, but Bram only encouraged and instructed. His familiar amusement and humour were present. She didn’t know what to make of him and apparently Colin didn’t know either.
They collided. Colin depended on his strength, Bram on his skill. With a swipe of Bram’s foot, Colin fell. Bram, chuckling, helped Colin stand, then he showed him the move he made. Colin’s brow furrowed, but there was no humour or light in his eyes. Was he remembering how her father trained him?
Colin’s turn. When Bram suddenly hit the ground, there was a collective gasp from the crowd. Lioslath’s breath left her. She remembered her father’s angry reactions and punishments if ever he was felled. What would Bram do? He was an outsider. He would need to save face. He couldn’t appear weak to anyone now.
But Colin learned more than footwork from Bram. Colin stretched out his hand and Bram took it. Patting Colin on the back, Bram invited another to enter the ring.
Lioslath spun away, but not soon enough. In that brief moment, Bram’s eyes looked to the crowd and their eyes collided. She felt the gaze as much as a physical blow.
That almost-kiss. Why had he done it? She walked away from the ring. His ease with her siblings and clansmen burning through her gut, she sped through the crowd.
She wanted to kiss him, had stood still for his kiss, though she was supposed to hate him. He said the kiss wasn’t about clans or differences, only wants and desires. Only about them.
But she shouldn’t trust his words. Yet, while waiting for his lips to touch hers, she had felt the truth of them.
The archery competition couldn’t come soon enough.
* * *
She was up to something.
Bram shook his arms. He was exhausted, but heartened. The matches in the ring had gone well. In between, he kept an eye on Lioslath. She held herself apart but gave furtive and frequent glances to his archers. He forced his attention to Finlay as he approached.
‘Any more incidents?’ Since this morning’s feast, there had been minor arguments. Unavoidable, vexing and expected.
‘A few, but the woman, Donaldo, interfered.’
Dona
ldo had been a thorn in his side since they arrived. A few terse words at the beginning, but otherwise she purposefully ignored him and his men. Today, she interacted with his clan and viewed him with a calculating eye. He suspected that she, like her mistress, had ulterior motives.
There would be some time tomorrow to discover what. For now, although he thought the day went well, he didn’t want to assume. ‘What do you think?’
‘Laird?’
‘What do you think of all this, of what has been done so far?’
Finlay crossed his arms. ‘You haven’t asked before.’
‘I ask now.’
‘As a clansman or a friend?’
‘Do you think I have ulterior motives?’
Finlay’s mouth quirked. ‘Always.’
‘As a friend, then.’
‘I think you’re mad. We’ve been here too long.’
‘Aye,’ he said. He had not stayed long enough, but Finlay was right, his men had been here too long. He walked a fine balance since the beginning of this tumultuous year. A balance that kept secrets amongst brothers only. For their own safety his clansmen could know nothing of his plan, or of the existence of the jewel.
‘However...’ Finlay said. There was a note of speculation in his friend’s voice that sharpened his attention.
‘However?’
Finlay shrugged. ‘The delay may have helped us.’
Bram gave a huff of laughter. ‘You always were an observant man.’
‘Aye,’ Finlay said, but he made no answering laugh. ‘I also know how it kept you away from Colquhoun lands while King Edward made his demands on Scottish nobles this summer.’
He was too observant. ‘You think I purposely avoided a missive from our king?’
‘Nae avoided, but certainly delayed it.’
He needed to know what Finlay knew. He trusted him, but he didn’t want his friend in danger. And when it came to the Jewel of Kings, knowledge meant danger. Bram’s brothers had put themselves at risk before he could protect them. But he wouldn’t knowingly extend the danger to Finlay. ‘Do you wonder why?’