The Devil of Jedburgh

by Claire Robyns

  “I love you too,” she whispered.

  He pressed her to the bed, flat on her back, his gaze devouring her while he stripped his shirt. He went down, muscle rippling along broad shoulders and flexing his arms as he removed his boots. On his way up, his hands slipped beneath her skirts, his fingers playing a seductive game against her humming skin as he tugged her drawers down her legs, inch by tantalising inch. She groaned when his fingers trailed away, but then he was unbuckling his belt and pushing down his breeches. He came over her, bunching her skirts at her waist and spreading her legs wide, his jaw clenching on a guttural grunt as his swollen tip prodded her opening and slid into her core. She was ready for him, pulsing, swollen, slick, taking him fully to the hilt.

  For a long moment, he didn’t move, his shaft rigid, filling her completely, their bodies joined and their gazes locked. Then he was pumping, deep, urgent plunges that took her higher with each thrust. She gripped the bedcovers as her lower body arched up to meet him with burning intensity until the black void of need and want exploded into a waterfall of lingering release.

  Arran fell over her, his weight braced on his elbows. His lips brushed hers in a slanting kiss as he slid one arm beneath her, one leg over her, and brought her with him as he rolled onto his side while staying buried deep inside.

  “Now, let’s take it slow,” he said huskily, working loose the ribbons of her bodice so he could dip a hand inside.

  Breghan splayed her fingers across his back, exploring and caressing her way down to the steel curve of his backside. His kisses started at the base of her throat and trailed up to the curve of her chin. A delightful shudder arched her spine. The day’s growth of beard scratched her cheek as her lips and tongue followed the line of his jaw. She pressed flat kisses to the junction just below his ear and small nibbles to his earlobe. His breaths deepened against her throat, his fingers loosening her bodice further to free her breasts from the layers of soft muslin and taffeta. His arms wrapped around her, pressing her firmly to him, her exposed breasts and taut nipples rubbing against hard muscle as he rocked their bodies to the rhythm of his wandering kisses. Heat pulsed from her nipples to her core and she released a hot breath of pure pleasure at his ear.

  Her skin tingled with exotic desire as she felt his shaft stir inside her. The experience was new for both of them. He always entered her fully erect and ready, but now he began to fill her from the inside out, the pressure building with sensual intimacy. His mouth closed over hers again in a plundering kiss. His hands cupped her bottom cheeks, sealing his groin to the juncture of her thighs in a rolling, grinding motion that created the sensation of slow strokes in her pulsing canal. She reached up, threading her fingers through the hair at his nape to ride the wave that crested as his hot seed spurted deep inside her.

  They stayed in each other’s arms, clasped from chest to tangled legs, until their breathing slowed to normal. Arran pressed one last kiss to her brow and rolled off the bed. “We’re going to take an icy bath and then,” he promised, “I’ll take you out for a hard gallop. Let it not be said I canna please my lady both in and out of bed.”

  “But you’ve just returned from hours in the saddle!”

  “I’ve been gone from Ferniehirst almost a month. I need to do a thorough inspection of my lands, starting with the west boundary.”

  Breghan laughed. “You’re determined to save nothing for tomorrow.” She had a sobering thought. “You’re not leaving again so soon?”

  Arran shook his head. “The main conspirators are divided, conquered and destroyed—fled to England, pardoned or executed. The queen’s firmly seated on her throne and, thank the Gods, is reconciled with Moray.” He pulled her from the bed and to her feet.

  “You go ahead.” She grabbed a sheet from the bed to drape around her. “I won’t be long.”

  The ritual had become an elemental part of their lovemaking, as normal as the minutes Arran held her close afterward. She crossed the interconnecting chamber to her room and reached into the bottom corner of her wardrobe. When she came up, Arran was in the doorway, naked and leaning against the frame. His shoulders weren’t quite as straight as they’d been moments ago, nor quite as broad.

  Perhaps he wasn’t as fully recovered as they all believed.

  “Why don’t you come back to bed with me and let your men take care of those inspections?” she suggested.

  “You want more of me?” he said with a wolfish smile. His gaze turned to a deep and vibrant slate. “I would, darling, but I’ve given my men leave to go carousing in Jedburgh. Not everyone is as lucky as me to have a beautiful wench warming their bed at home.”

  Her thoughts fled to Janet. “Did Broderick go with them?”

  Arran lost the smile. “Broderick is on watch duty in the gate tower.”

  “Oh…” She raised a brow at him, somewhat amused. “What crime is he being punished for?”

  “When I sent him home with you from Edinburgh, the order was implicit that he stay until I release you from his safeguarding.”

  “Instead he went to fight the queen’s war.” She had her own issues with the obnoxious man, but this wasn’t one of them. “Broderick is a soldier, a man of action, you can’t expect him to play at nursemaid for the rest of his life.”

  “A few more weeks is hardly the rest—” Arran cut off. His gaze dipped and it was as if a ghost passed through him, sinking the hollows in his jaw all the way to the back of his throat, dulling vital energy. There and gone. Arran’s gaze came up and clear green eyes softened on her just before he turned to go. “I’ll wait for you by the river.”

  Breghan looked down at the bag of herbs in her hand. Bone, flesh and beating organs began to crumple inside her, as if that ghost had hopped from Arran and into her. The innocuous flaxen bag was the equivalent of a flaming arrow. And they were both complicit in striking the flint that would set fire to the pointed tip, loading, aiming, shooting the arrow that would burst into the heart of their love and set their world ablaze. Until all that remained were the ashes of what could have been.

  Breghan sank to the ground before the open wardrobe. Suddenly her pulse was racing, blood pounding behind her eyes. Arran loved her, more than life, more than his own life. Of that she had not a doubt. His fears on childbirth were irrational, although she understood his tortured arguments. He’d endured too much, loved her too much… She’d committed herself to fighting his demons for him, but time was slipping by.

  Would it be such a terrible sin?

  Yes, whispered her soul. Guilt swirled in the pit of her stomach, faster and faster, until she was sure she’d heave or pass out.

  I can’t do this. I can’t…I’m going to be sick. She tucked her chin into her chest, sucking in deep breaths until the dizziness and nausea passed. I can’t do that either…I can’t lose him, not over this. For the rest of their lives, Arran would be her protector, her haven, her strength. How could she not do this, be this strong for him, the one and only time he’d ever need her to be?

  She raised her head and took another deep, empowering breath. She wasn’t putting matters into her own hands, she told herself sharply, she was putting them into God’s. Still, her fingers shook violently as she replaced the bag of herbs, unopened, into the recesses of the wardrobe.

  The next few days were the worst. Guilt had its claws in her, scratching, nibbling, chewing. Then came the dread that buckled behind her knees and clamped her heart. She had no idea what she feared more, her own action or Arran’s reaction. Never had she felt such a paralysing, debilitating fear, not even in that dungeon cell with Sandie Armstrong.

  And at last, the numbing calm when her body, heart and mind could take no more. If she lost Arran’s love over this, at least she’d lost it fighting. He wouldn’t have to marry her, keep her, if that was what he no longer wanted… She’d treasure a bastard child as much as any other and now—she knew, she hoped, she believed—her father wouldn’t cast her aside over a child born from a handfasting he’d condoned.<
br />
  When Janet caught her small smile, the woman set down her needle and stood. “You’ve been so distracted of late, are you sure you don’t want to talk about?”

  Breghan shrugged and shook her head. She refused to involve Janet in her troubled mess. Besides, she would heartily disapprove and the last thing Breghan needed was another dose of guilt and self-doubt.

  “We make a sorry pair,” Janet said.

  Breghan blew out a frustrated breath. “I would say you deserve better than a man who barely knows you exist—”

  “Except when he’s shouting moronic orders.”

  “—but the heart doesn’t seem to understand simple English,” finished Breghan on a sigh.

  “I lied to you.” Janet took to pacing the chamber. “I didn’t come into your employ to escape the entrapment of my life. Or perhaps, not only because of that. I saw him that day, that day you paid us a visit. When I went walking with my sister, we passed by him and Duncan where they waited with the horses. I thought they were arguing, Broderick had such a black scowl on his face—that was before I learnt scowling was his natural state. But it didn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now.” She stopped in front of Breghan, hands upon her hips. “I took one look at him and I haven’t been able to look away since. I won’t give up on him, Breghan, I don’t know how to.”

  Neither do I. Unfortunately, the matter truly was in God’s hands and God, it seemed, had aligned his will with Arran. This month, at least. She took Janet’s hands in hers. “Arran was right, you and I are very much alike. The last spoke on the last wagon wheel must spring loose before we’re prepared to jump off.”

  The weeks passed swiftly, the spring days warming and lengthening until, finally, frighteningly, God changed his mind. The fear she’d thought she’d left behind curled the lining of her stomach. She waited until she was certain, and then she waited a little more. She dithered between telling Arran in bed one night, after they’d made hard, passionate love. But he took her in his arms, held her so tenderly, she couldn’t spoil the moment. He’ll kill me. He’ll hate me. She didn’t know which was worse.

  Time wasn’t merely slipping by, it was almost gone. He’ll forgive me and forget why he’d once feared so much. Breghan dredged every ounce of courage from her toes to her throbbing chest and faced him down in his solar.

  August was closing in, the end of their handfasting year. When Arran glanced up at her from behind his desk, the reminder was there, the shadow she only glimpsed when he was caught unawares.

  “I was just thinking of you.” He scraped his chair back and came around the desk.

  “I—I’m with child,” Breghan blurted out. “I’m pregnant with your child.”

  The blood drained from Arran’s face. He stumbled backward, hit the desk and put his hands out to support him. His gaze dropped a few inches and then stuck.

  “It’s a shock, too much, I should have—I should have prepared you first somehow. I didn’t know how to tell you… It isn’t that terrible, is it? Women give birth every day, children are born all the time.” Breghan curled her fingers at her side. She was rambling, she knew, but why wasn’t he saying anything? Why couldn’t he look at her? “You need time, but please, Arran, don’t give up on me. Don’t give up on us. Everything will be fine, I promise.”

  “I should never have brought you here.” He raised his eyes to hers, and then she wished he hadn’t. There was no emotion there, no joy, no anger, no life at all. The tear that gathered at one corner might as well have leaked from the black void of hell. “I should never have succumbed to this handfasting.”

  Her throat constricted. “Is that truly—you don’t—this needn’t change anything for you, if you don’t want it to.” The words came out as a strangled whisper. “I’ll go…I don’t have to stay here…if you don’t want me, I return home to Donague.”

  “This is my fault.” His voice was hoarse, strained with the effort to speak.

  “Nothing is your fault, Arran. Nothing is anyone’s fault. Making a baby is as natural as the sun rising in the morning.”

  But Arran wasn’t listening. “I grew complacent. I allowed lust and love to feed on common sense.” He brought his hands up to plunge through his hair, then held them out to her in supplication. “God forgive me, I had no right to trust anything this important to a witch’s weeds.”

  Breghan wasn’t getting through to him. And she couldn’t allow him to take this blame. “You had every right. Magellan’s herbs worked just fine, when I took them.”

  His hands fell to hang loosely at his thighs. His brows gathered into a dark scowl.

  “I stopped taking Magellan’s herbs,” Breghan said quietly.

  “You promised you’d never forget.”

  “I didn’t forget to take the herbs, Arran.” Dear God, this was even harder than she’d feared. “I didn’t take them on purpose.”

  “Jesu, Bree, did you no stop to think—”

  “Of course I did. Every hour of every day I’ve done nothing but think, think, think about what I’m doing, whether it was fair or right or wrong. I want your child, I wanted us to have a chance. I need you to believe our destiny is in God’s hands and I couldn’t—I couldn’t just give up. I couldn’t walk away because you were too afraid to give me a child and refused to let me stay without one.”

  “You don’t know what you’ve done.” Arran pushed away from the table with such force, she couldn’t help but cower backward. His voice was black ice, sharp and laced with danger. “You’ve sentenced yourself to death.” His stare sliced downward to her stomach. “You’ve condemned that babe and you’ve made a murderer out of me. Again.”

  “You are not a murderer.” Breghan took a step toward him, pleading, “You’re not responsible for your mother, for Elizabeth, for—”

  “You said you knew.” His eyes shot up to torch her. “You said you understood.”

  “I did.” Another tentative step. “I do.” She was no longer afraid for herself. She was afraid for Arran. “You didn’t kill Elizabeth. You didn’t kill your babe.”

  He splayed his hands up in front of him. His face contorted with disgust and anguish, as if he were watching blood drip from his fingers.

  She was close enough to grab his hands, but he was rigid, she couldn’t lower them. “Arran, look at me,” she cried desperately.

  His face was white, his jaw haggard. His dull, lifeless eyes were frozen on his hands.

  “It isn’t real. Whatever you think happened that night, it isn’t real.” Breghan was no longer sure how much was real or not, how much was the Crawley woman’s horrific imagination, but she knew what Arran was capable of and what he wasn’t. “You didn’t cut the babe from Elizabeth’s womb. You did not strangle the life from your babe. Look at me, Arran, look at me and tell me.”

  Somehow she had to break down the wall of ice encasing him, force him to re-examine the events of that long past night. She had to force him to admit there was nothing he could have done, nothing he was to blame for, because he’d never admit it willingly, not to or for himself.

  His hands went limp and slipped heavily from her grasp.

  “Arran, look at me.” She pummelled his chest, trying to pound the truth from him. Still, he couldn’t meet her eyes. “What happened was tragic. Elizabeth and your child died. But you didn’t kill them and I—I need you to look me in the eye and deny it.” She pounded harder, swallowing back tears. “Damn you, Arran, deny it. Do you hear me? Tell me it isn’t true!”

  “Dear God, I would give all I have, all I am, to do as you ask,” he said hoarsely. His gaze came up and his voice went hard again. Hard, empty and as cold as his eyes. “How am I supposed to do that? How does one look into the face of truth and lie? I canna deny a thing, for every word is true.”

  Dread furled around the edges of Breghan’s sanity.

  Arran wasn’t even done yet. “I am damned, again and again and here, now, you have damned us all. There is no end. There is no beginning. You!” He pushe
d away from the table, forcing Breghan to stagger backward. “You have damned every soul in this room today. Get out! Get out of my sight.”

  Breghan turned and fled. The walls of the castle were shifting, closing in on her as she stumbled down the stairway and raced through the hall. A few surprised eyes followed, but no one and nothing stopped her until she reached the stables. And then only long enough to order Angel saddled.

  The stable lad hesitated but quickly complied after she snapped, “I’m fine!”

  She used the time it took him to saddle Angel to gulp down desperate breaths and then jumped on her mare and managed to pull herself together and walk Angel through the bailey. The guard at the gatehouse still called down to her. She waved at him, leaned down low over Angel’s long neck and spurred the mare into a hell-bound gallop along the main road to Hightown. On both sides, furs and pines of Jed Forest blurred in her side vision. When the blur on her right snapped from green to nothing as the road curved toward Jed Water, she realised her mistake and pulled gently at the reins. To her left, the thick forest spread all the way up Dunmon Hill and along the northern ridge. She slowed Angel right down to a walk and veered off the road and deep into the canopy.

  She wasn’t ready to be found. Her thoughts were as tangled as the ancient vines strung from tree to tree and climbing up the trunks. Any direct path was impossible, and before long Breghan had been turned around so many times, she didn’t know north from south. The forest wasn’t vast, she only had to navigate toward the road again, but for now she could be travelling toward Donague or straight back to Ferniehirst. She dismounted and wrapped the reins on an overhanging bough. The damp of rotten leaves chilled her feet. She hadn’t paused to exchange her slippers for riding boots or grab a cloak.

  She didn’t know what she was going to do. She had no idea how to make this right. Her heart was thumping, her head felt as if it were exploding and she couldn’t breathe.