Parris Afton Bonds

by The Captive

  “We’re almost there."

  Ranald forsook the cobbled street for a snow-bordered lane. Away from the warmth of the throng and the shield of stone buildings, she could hear the wind soughing in the pines and hidden crags surrounding the village. Far overhead, the phosphorescent curtain of the aurora borealis lit their way.

  Her cloak was not thick enough to ward off the cold. She shivered. Ranald seemed unaffected by it. She had to quicken her pace to keep up with his long stride. At least his immense frame blocked the cutting wind.

  The wend gave way to a narrow, tree-bordered road. Hard-packed snow and dead leaves crunched beneath her clogs and his heavy boots. The scalp-tightening thought occurred to her that he might be taking her out into the woods to kill her. Maybe the Highlanders celebrated Hogmanay with human sacrifice.

  She really was crazy! And tired. "How much—”

  "There," he said. "Through the trees.” Situated on a rocky bluff was a small two-story building with a thatched roof and darkened windows. No one greeted them at the barred door. Ranald let them in to a darkened room.

  "This is first-footing?” she asked, an uneasy feeling gnawing at the pit of her stomach. "Wait,” he said, and then deserted her.

  She stood in the darkness and wondered if she shouldn’t flee now and take the chance of perishing in the trackless wastes of his country.

  Soon a candle’s light spread its inviting rays across a bark-paneled room, bisected by a rough-timbered staircase. Rustic chairs braced a smoke-blackened fireplace. He crossed to it and knelt to hold a taper to the chips clumped beneath stacked wood.

  She stared stupidly before realization dawned on her. "Ye—you—planned this!"

  With a flare, the chips caught fire. "I leave nothing to chance.”

  With growing trepidation, she eyed his broad back. “What do you plan to do?”

  “’Tis the time for welcoming in a new year. Tis the time for begetting in you a new life. Here, we won’t be dist—”

  Rage beat furious wings against her rib cage. "You savage! Do you think I’ll spread my legs for you so docilely?”

  She turned to leave. She got the heavy door open by only the breadth of a belt before he slammed it shut with an echoing bang. He whirled her to face him. His hands dug into her shoulders. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it of whiskey fumes. "What is it between us?” he growled. “When I touch you—when you lie with me—’tis not enough.”

  “You fool! ’Tis my love you want, and that you canna have without giving me your own!"

  "Your love?" he scoffed. “I want only my seed in you."

  With that he swept her up into his arms and strode toward the staircase. She would have struggled but did not relish taking a tumble down the stairs. Instead, hands balled, she lay unresisting in the cradle of his arms. She could smell the wood smoke in his shirt. Against her cheek she could feel the powerful and preternatural beat of his heart.

  He kicked open the door of one of the rooms and dropped her on the bed. Staring down at her, he loosed the buttons of his trouser band.

  As always, when made aware of his physical nearness, like awakening beside him in the middle of the night or coming upon him unexpectedly, there stirred in her a thrill of excitement as powerful as the sudden clash with an adversary.

  He did not tarry to undress further. He lowered himself atop her and, taking her arms, stretched them out at either side of her. His hands pinioned her wrists to the bed. His knee spread wide her thighs. She waited, breathless with throbbing anger and something else. Without preliminary, he drove into her, sheathing himself to the root.

  She arched and cried out his name. He silenced her not with a kiss but with his mouth over hers, his tongue penetrating, invading. She bit his lip and tasted salty blood.

  Incredibly, he held her to him tenderly and began to move more slowly. Entering and withdrawing with velvety precision. Entering and withdrawing with a relentless will. Her body responded treacherously, harmonizing with his movement.

  "You are mine, Enya. Should you run away, I would come after you. Again and again. The first time I saw ye at Afton House, I knew—”

  She froze. She had forgotten that fact. "I know you came to one of my mother’s salons, but when was the first time you saw me? You could only have entered by invitation. Were you disguised?"

  "As a servant. I waited upon ye, m’lady." His mouth curled sardonically. "When I learned ye were to be Murdock’s wife I knew I would have ye first.”

  "Why?” she whispered. “If you had ridden that far into enemy territory, why not ride on to London? Steal his horse, burn his house, butcher his dogs? Why me?”

  His breath was hot and rapid. “I saw ye," he said simply.

  Recalling the biblical story of David and Bathsheba, she needed no explanation. Her body yielded and molded itself against him.

  He released her wrists to began his rapacious stroke again. Her body signaled its acceptance in its creamy release. She trembled, groaned, clutched him to her. Still he went on with a determination to make her yield completely.

  “Say ye belong to me,” he said, his breath harsh.

  Her thighs felt battered, yet she wrapped them around him and rode that tumultuous crest. Her nails raked his back. Her passion answered his.

  The need to be one with him consumed her.

  It was as if he was consumed by the same savage need. His teeth nipped the hollow of her neck. "Say it, Enya. I want to hear it!"

  From somewhere, she dimly heard her voice, like a distant cry. "Aye! Oh, God, Ranald, aye!”

  As if that night was an admission of Enya’s surrender to Ranald, he began inviting her to ride with him on the days the weather permitted. Like the day he took her fishing, she supposed this was another way he was acknowledging her need to escape the confines of the castle occasionally.

  Or was it his way of curtailing her sylvan outings with Jamie?

  One gray, cold morning, Ranald took her with him. She rode her Shetland, he a great shaggy horse, bred for the rugged Highland landscape. He was visiting a crofter’s widow who wished to wed.

  "Do you ever think about a normal life?" Enya asked him as their mounts picked their way across a bed of shale bridging the river. "Marriage, children, that sort of thing?"

  She expected him to scoff, but his reply was thoughtful. “Aye, occasionally. But the Sassenachs wouldna let me live in peace."

  "If you could . . . if the British came to terms—"

  “They never will,” he said, his full mouth stretched flat with grim finality.

  She flashed him a gentle smile. "But if your trowies worked magic, if the British did capitulate, what would you do? Buy a commission in the military?"

  His laugh was short and harsh, his expression as gloomy as the mist. "Nae, soldiering is not what I want from life.” He shook his head, and his queue brushed away a dead leaf clinging to the back of his doeskin jacket. "I love the land. But the Highlands is nae such a place for crofting.”

  She rode on in silence. Come spring, come the confrontation between Ranald and Simon, what would happen to her and the others? If Simon should triumph, she didn’t think she could bear to remain his wife. Better that he cast her off.

  And if Ranald triumphed? What would happen to her then? Conversely, she didn’t think she could bear it if he should cast her off.

  Dame Whitaker’s cottage was a thatch-roofed hut walled with timber and cob just beyond a sheep fank along a burn. An iron plowshare and rusty-bladed scythe and sickle that had harvested autumn’s crops lay unattended next to the doorway. Smoke eddied from the stone chimney.

  Before Enya could dismount Ranald put his hands around her waist and lifted her from the saddle. For just a moment her hands lingered on his muscled shoulders. She found herself wanting him though they had lain together scarcely less than twenty hours earlier.

  Her gaze met his. For once she saw in his eyes an absence of bitterness. Then he released her.

  The widow met them a
t the door. She had ruddy cheeks and graying brown hair. Two children, a boy and a girl each under five years of age, clung to her heaven woolen skirts. “My laird," she said, her eyes shining with the honor of his visit.

  He picked up the boy and sat him on his broad shoulder. "You are taking good care of your sister, son?"

  Eyes wide, the boy nodded solemnly.

  "I expect you to help your new father care for your mother. Understand?”

  Again, the boy nodded.

  “Come in, my laird," the woman said. She dipped a curtsy as Enya passed inside. “M’lady,” she said with a more reserved tone.

  The floor was bare, trampled earth. Two flock mattresses girded one wall. Smoke from a peat fire stung the eyes before fleeing up the chimney.

  Ranald put the boy down and rumpled the girl’s matted brown curls before addressing Dame Whitaker. “A kinsman tells me ye wish to marry outside the Clan Cameron.”

  “Aye, me laird." Her pale lashes fluttered, and she looked five years younger. "Morven Finlaggan. Of the Clan MacDonald.”

  Ranald nodded. “Staunch Stuarts. I would welcome the man. Bring him to the great hall when ye are wed.”

  The little girl had been eyeing Enya. Enya dropped down and smoothed the straggling hair from the girl’s oval face. "What is your name?” The girl fastened her gaze on her wooden clogs. "Bonnie.”

  "Well, Bonnie, you have the bonniest eyes.” The girl smiled. Two teeth were missing. Then Enya spotted the still-smoking pipe on the chimney mantle. The bowl was a carved dragon’s head. “How clever! May I?” she asked the widow.

  The woman darted a nervous glance at Ranald. "I only smoke when the bones git to hurtin’.”

  "I see,” he said, keeping his countenance sober. "May the lady examine your pipe?”

  Dame Whitaker’s head bobbed in permission, and Enya picked up the pipe. The workmanship was crude, fitting even better the concept of a fire-breathing dragon.

  Ranald's usually impassive eyes glinted with amusement. One of the few times she had seen him let down his guard. She thanked the woman and followed him out.

  When they were once more mounted she asked slyly, "Do you think pipe-smoking could become a feminine habit at Lochaber Castle?”

  “I think you are more trouble than I bargained for," he grumbled, but the glint still sparkled in those unusually colored eyes.

  Ranald treated Enya with a hint of gentleness she would not have credited in his character. His gentleness lasted until three mornings after the visit to Dame Whitaker, when he strode into the still-darkened kitchen and found Jamie helping her rekindle the embers in the fireplace.

  "I never had to do this at home," she was telling Jamie. "And with Margaret ill with the ague, I—"

  "Mayhap ye dinna understand me?"

  Both she and Jamie glanced over their shoulders. Jamie sprang to his feet. She rose hastily, the soot-crusted poker still in hand.

  Ranald’s brows were drawn down over flashing blue eyes. "Go to your room, Enya."

  Jamie’s hands balled. “Enough is enough, Ranald. This high-handed treatment of her dinna serve to strike back at Murdock. She is not your concubine."

  “You are protective of the Lowland lass. Do ye seek to bed her, my cousin? Or perhaps ye already have."

  "Nothing has happened between us. But she deserves better than—”

  "Dinna answer him, Jamie,” she warned. “He only wants to make you submit to prove something to me."

  She whirled back to Ranald. “I’d rather be bedded by any of your men than you. Even Nob, as ugly as he was, had compassion and caring. Ye are an—unfeeling—” she was so choked with anger she could not breathe "—insensitive toad! Your touch repulses me! Do ye understand!"

  Without thinking, she lifted the poker to strike him. He grabbed it, snapping it from her hands to fling it across the tiled floor, where it clattered against a copper cauldron.

  Deliberately, he raised his hand and slapped her with his palm. The slap was not a hard one, but she yelled with fury. Jamie started forward, and Ranald set her aside. He stared at Jamie. “Is she worth it?”

  Jamie drew a long breath, then his shoulders sagged. “You have proved you are stronger, Ranald. But you may have lost more than you kept."

  Chapter Fifteen

  The long winter months affected everyone in the castle, especially Kathryn, who had still not wholly recovered from that near-death ride up to Lochaber. Stale and smoke-laden air, bitter cold drafts, repetitious fare, and, of course, close quarters made for short tempers, but today, Kathryn’s short temper had nothing to do with the castle confinement. She paced the parapet. The night’s prevailing westerly wind whipped her cloak around her tall, slender frame and tore at her braided coif.

  Arch stood, arms folded, and watched her. “Deny it, then.”

  "I won’t deny I have . . . tender . .. feelings for you," she said, nearly shouting as she strode past him in the opposite direction. She whirled around. "How could you do this, Arch? I trusted you!”

  "You still can,” he said calmly.

  “I trusted you as a holy man!"

  "Trust me as I am.”

  "Trust a spy!”

  As she made her next pass, he caught her arm and turned her to face him. "’Tis not the trusting that bothers you, is it?"

  She put her hands on his chest and pushed, trying to put space between him and her. "A spy for the Colony of North Carolina!"

  “For Governor Johnston," he corrected, "and you are evading my question.”

  She still couldn’t believe it. She had been suspicious for some months now that something was awry, but the mask with its hourglass cutout that she had found in his satchel was indisputable proof. She had seen one like it brought by an Edinburgh parliament member to one of her salons. A quaint device placed over a seemingly innocent letter to reveal a communique.

  Arch pulled her against him and stared deep into her eyes. “Tis the fact that your feelings for me were safe as long as I was committed to becoming a priest someday. That is it, isn’t it, Kathryn?”

  "I’m married, Arch!"

  His mouth flattened in a grim line. "Then your feelings for me are still safe."

  Her forehead dropped against his chest. She couldn’t control the long shudder that rippled through her. For so long she had been the strong one. Making all the decisions. Decisions that affected not only a household but an entire clan, a way of life that had to move into the future and yet preserve the integrity of its past.

  Now, here was the love of her youth. This strong, loving, and compassionate man. Holding her. Supporting her both physically and emotionally. If she would but let him. Who would have thought that at her age she would be feeling like this?

  He took her chin and raised it, forcing her to meet his impassioned gaze. "Trust me, my love. All this time, all these years, I have come to you when you called. Trust me, even in this.”

  Her eyes closed. She could feel his warm breath, almost caressing her lips. His mobile mouth, so alive . . . so different from Malcolm's anguished, pain-contorted lips . . . she could not . . . surrender.

  Slowly, reluctant to give up the dream, her eyes opened. “I call upon you now to help me be strong. To help me remember the man who has loved me faithfully all these years and who awaits my return."

  He smoothed her unbound hair down over her back. "My attention is focused exactly on that— getting us back to Ayrshire safely.”

  She moved a little away and immediately missed the comfort and warmth of his embrace.

  "You’ve found the person who would betray this Kincairn?”

  He shook his head, and his shaggy red hair was caught by the wind. "No. I’ve talked with everyone in the castle from lackeys to council members. No one professes even the least criticism of Kincairn. Including both Ian and his son. Ian claims the Cameron clan would have been decimated without a man like Kincairn to ride at its head.”

  “Enya says she is keeping an eye out for scribbled notes. Short o
f asking for samples, she hasn’t turned up any proof of handwriting as yet."

  Kathryn frowned, and Arch read her thoughts. "You are worried she is coming to love the man who could most hurt her.”

  She managed to smile. "The way you put it . . . isn’t that true of anyone we come to love? That they are thus given the power to hurt us most?"

  Ranald tossed onto the table the message brought by the merlin. “From me contact at Islay." He glanced from face to face. Which of the men assembled for the council was his betrayer?

  Ian picked up the folded scrap of paper and scanned it. "So, Murdock knows we are holed up here at Lochaber. Well, ye expected him to learn sooner or later."

  "Hell be at the pass come spring thaw," one- eyed Robert said.

  "Does Murdock know you have his bride, Ranald?" Jamie asked.

  Ranald studied his cousin’s bland expression. Could this man whom he had known all his life, who had fished and fought and fared with him, betray him?

  No, Ranald decided, Jamie might be in love with Enya, but he would not betray the Camerons. It was not in the man.

  Colin, who had picked up the message, fingered his wild beard. "God help our laird."

  "What—what does it sa-say?” stuttered Patric.

  Colin passed him the message. He peered at it. A blush suffused his peach-fuzzed face.

  Ranald enlightened the other men at the table who had not seen the message. "It seems that Murdock threatens to not only take from me his wife but to also take me nutmeg, something he failed to do the last time his men had me beneath the knife.”

  At the knock on the door everyone at the table tensed, then relaxed when Annie entered with a tray bearing a cheap tin teapot and cups.

  If Ranald hadn’t been staring at the girl's face, wondering what was different about it, he would have missed the look that passed between her and Jamie.

  Dia’s Muire! It wasn’t Enya, but Annie, whom Jamie was courting!

  Whatever affinity and trust that might have developed between himself and Enya had been obliterated by that awful morning in the kitchen when he found her talking with Jamie.