by Mia Pride
A desperate need to prove that she was safe with him took over and he strode quickly over to her and grabbed both shoulders, forcing her to look into his eyes. His chest towered over her as she stretched her neck to look up to his height. His body was solid muscle and she could see the outline of his large arms straining against his blue tunic sleeves as he held on to her almost painfully.
Looking down with a now softened expression, he said earnestly, “What you do need to know, mo chroí, is that I am here, and I will take care of you. I will not let him, or anyone else, near you. Aye, some nights I cannot sleep, and some days I pace with anxiety. The truth is that, aye, I am expecting him someday, and I have gone to great lengths to protect you. He does not know where you are and I want to keep it that way. I can only hope he believes his deed is done and does not come looking.”
Shaken by the seriousness of his words, Gwynn wrapped her arms tightly around herself, trying to stave off the sudden chill in the otherwise stifling room. She closed her eyes tightly with a squeeze, willing any glimpse into her past to come to the surface, but this attempt was just as futile as all her previous ones.
“Then is this place not really our home? Are we in hiding?” She spoke quietly, almost too afraid to hear more unpleasant truths. She looked around the tidy space that she had accepted as her home, with bundles of drying herbs hanging from the wooden beams of the thatched roof and a half woven green wool blanket hanging from the loom, where she had found comfort in working with her hands. She still sat in their bed with tall wooden posts supporting a red wool curtain for privacy. Two walls on either side of the bed created a snug sleeping space, one that she had been happily sharing with Liam. Wicker baskets stood next to the large wooden table, serving as storage for dried foods. Suddenly, its familiar cozy space no longer felt like home.
“Aye, I found this abandoned house in the woods, after I found you unconscious. It was the safest place for us to be, to start over. Together.” He gripped her shoulders tighter with his strong fingers, giving her a slight shake and closing his eyes, willing her to accept his answers without further questions.
Gwynneth saw his internal struggle and she rested her hands upon his chest, feeling his heart beating wildly. Suddenly, a fortnight of watching Liam run nervous fingers through his hair as he paced hopelessly back and forth came into clear focus. He had internalized all of his worry while he silently protected her, never once allowing her a moment of concern for her own safety. She had more questions, so many more. But for now, she had heard enough.
Completely breathless at the length he had gone to keep her safe, warmth blossomed throughout her body as she stepped into his embrace and wrapped her arms around his waist, feeling his muscles wrap around her with a crushing strength. He was a powerful man, both tall and muscular. His beige trousers clung to every muscle of his legs. She felt so small and protected in his arms as she melted against him with affection, suddenly wanting to feel his strength consume her.
She looked up into his blazing blue eyes, seeing a restrained longing he must have been struggling to conceal. A small smirk spread across one side of his face, just enough to expose his perfect dimples. His nose was perfectly straight and his skin was golden tan.
During the past fortnight, Liam had played the role of protector, but he had not yet attempted to play the role of a lover, not even so much as a kiss on the lips. At first, she was grateful, having no memory of him and feeling insecure about being intimate with him. She sensed his frustration at times, but knew he was struggling to keep his composure, perhaps waiting for her to be ready.
But, for the past sennight, she had been itching to feel him on her, to know what it felt like to really be loved by Liam Mac Cuill, a man of so much strength and power. Being alone with him, feeling his strong body wrapped around her at night as the fire blazed, adding extra warmth, was becoming more of a torture than a comfort. She felt a strong connection to him emotionally. There was no doubt she had always loved this man. Her attraction was growing by the day and her body was growing restless.
His eyes never faltered, blazing into hers with an intensity that made her stomach flutter. He was still holding strongly to her hips, almost hurting her with his increasing grip. She knew he wanted to touch her just as badly as she wanted him to. But he would not, she knew that as well.
With a mischievous smile playing across her face, Gwynn slid her hands up his chest, feeling his strength beneath her roaming fingers as she moved upward, gripping his shoulders as she stood on tiptoe. She lifted her head upward, inviting him to take her soft lips with his.
Liam could feel himself start to lose his resolve, inhaling the sweet scent of lavender lingering in her soft platinum waves. He lifted one finger to her mouth and softly grazed it along her lower lip, intensity in his eyes. He bent his head down to taste Gwynneth’s mouth for the first time since he rescued her, feeling himself give way to his deepest desires.
Just before their lips made contact, his body tensed and he pulled his head back, eyes squeezed tightly shut as he shook his head in resignation. He could not let this happen, not before he was able to be fully honest with her. He wanted more than anything to taste her lips, even just once, but he knew that once it was started, he would not stop. He could not, in good conscious, have Gwynneth the way he desperately wanted to, until she knew the whole truth.
He grumbled in frustration and removed both of her arms off his shoulders, tightly squeezing her hands in his. “Gwynn, I want this more than anything, but it would not be right. Not until you know a little more about the past. And I just cannot tell you…not yet,” he whispered. He dropped her hands and they fell limply to her side in confusion and defeat. Tears started to well up in the corners of her downcast eyes and he ran both hands through his hair in frustration as he turned and walked away with a scowl.
“Nothing makes sense!” she sniffed, trying to control her hurt pride. “All I know is what you will tell me, and you hold back so much! How could this be wrong if I am your wife? Why do you refuse to touch me?” her voice faltered as tears started rolling down her face. Seeing Gwynneth cry was too much for him to bear. It was tearing him up inside watching the woman he had loved his entire life fall to pieces before him, all because of his unspeakable secrets.
Just as Liam determined to speak, to say anything that might help Gwynn better understand the events of the past fortnight, there was a sudden forceful pounding at the wooden door. Gwynneth jumped and ran into Liam’s arms instinctively, sadness replaced by a jolt of fear. An audible gasp escaped from her lips just as Liam quickly wrapped his hand around her mouth to stifle her.
“Liam!! Open up. Tis me…and tis urgent.” The voice was authoritative, yet familiar, and Liam’s entire body visually relaxed as he recognized the voice of his lifelong companion. In two quick strides, Liam was at the door. “Duncan?” Liam said curiously as he opened the door. “I did not expect to see you so soon. But I am very glad, none the less, old mate. Please come in.”
Without stepping through the threshold entirely, Duncan’s face looked grave and disheveled as he frantically shook his head. His long auburn hair was tied in a tail with a thin strap of leather. Many wild hairs had come loose and were falling across his face as his head shook back and forth in dismay. He was wearing tattered beige wool trousers and a red and blue plaid tunic tied with a rope around his waist. He was filthy and the leather boots tied snuggly up his calves were covered in mud. He looked as if he had not bathed in ages. His stocky, yet muscular body was covered in soot, grass stains marred his trousers at the knees, and there was a yellowish-red leaf tangled loosely in his hair.
“Sorry, Liam, but I cannot. We do not have much of time.” Looking fractionally startled at the figure in the corner, Duncan saw Gwynneth and his entire demeanor changed. His brown eyes made a brief contact with Gwynn’s startled features, and he remembered his manners. “Lady Gwynneth,” he said with a slight tilt of his head. The yellow leaf fluttered to the floor as his h
ead came back up. Gwynn watched it slowly sway down to the ground as it fell, a welcome, although brief, distraction from the piercing looks of concern from both men standing across the room. “Tis an honor to see ye up and well, My Lady. The people will be pleased.”
Before Duncan could speak further, Liam grabbed him by the torn sleeve of his plaid tunic and dragged him a few steps outside with clear haste. The door slammed shut, leaving Gwynneth alone with her confused thoughts. “The people will be pleased,” he had said. What people? Gwynneth had not seen another living soul, excluding Liam of course, since she awoke from her accident.
As she pondered the possibility of other people, people who may be worried for her, and a man that may have tried to kill her, she realized this was all much bigger than her slipping off of a cliff in a careless accident. She didn’t know what, but she knew that something was wrong, and she had a feeling it had something to do with Liam’s secrets.
She sat down slowly on the bed, waiting for Liam to come back in the house while she tapped her nails nervously on the wooden post of the bed and chewed her bottom lip ceaselessly. When he back through those doors, she would share with him her own little secret. There was one more truth Gwynneth knew of her past, and she wondered how he would take it.
Chapter 2
“Listen Duncan,” Liam clasped him on the back in camaraderie as he pulled him further away from the door. “I appreciate you coming to look in on us, but do be careful what you say in front of Gwynneth. She has been recovering well, but still cannot remember anything about the past.”
Duncan was silent for a moment, eyes widening as he absorbed what this meant. “So, Gwynneth remembers nothing? Not her father? What about Baine? Does she remember you?”
So many questions were gathering at the very edge of Duncan’s mind, all scrambling on top of one another, like a mound of fire ants racing to the surface. Liam hesitated to answer at all, but Duncan had gone out of his way to help Liam hide Gwynneth and gather supplies. He deserved some honest answers.
“You know about as much as I do, Duncan. You were with me when I found her on the shore unconscious.” He shrugged and took a deep breath. “Baine had taken her out of the village alone that evening. By the time the guard at the gate found and alerted us, it was nightfall. We set out as fast as we could, but it was too dark to track him, even with our torch. I still do not understand why Baine took her away, but Gwynneth had a dream about him holding a dagger to her back on the cliff. He meant to kill her, Duncan. I am more certain than ever.” He opened and closed his fists, wanting to kill the man that dared to hurt his Gwynneth.
Liam’s tan forehead wrinkled and his lips slowly frowned as he continued to ponder the events of that night. “You and I stumbled over her body on the shore the next morning and we carried her here for safe hiding. You had already delivered us some cattle, pigs, clothing and supplies before she awoke from her accident, so as far as Gwynneth knew when she came to, this was our home. I finally told her today that this is not our real home.” He threw his hands up in the air in defense at the look on Duncan’s face. “She has been asking questions, man. I had to give her some semblance of truth!”
Duncan’s bushy red eyebrows flew up towards the sky as his mouth dropped open in sudden shock. He stuttered momentarily on his words, looking at the dilapidated house with crumbling white chalk walls and holes in the thatch roofing. “She thought this old house, with a leaking thatched roof and three cattle, was her home!? And…your home? Hers…yours…together?”
“Cernunnos’s horns!” Liam cursed as he stepped closer to Duncan in frustration. “Och, Keep it down, man! Aye. Hers and mine. And why not? What is so unbelievable about that? Have we not been in love for half of our lives? Were we not handfast, promised to one another, before her father forced her to marry Baine instead…the very man that tried to kill her?”
Liam was pacing back and forth in front of Duncan, kicking the loose gravel in anger as he pulled at his already disheveled hair. “Should I have told her that she is still married to that monster? And, even though I am hiding her in this house for the possible duration of her life, so that her husband does not attempt to murder her again, she and I still cannot try to be happy together? Och! Should I tell her that I cannot touch her because she is another man’s wife?”
His face was red with rage as he spoke through his teeth. “Should I remind her of the pain she felt when her father forced her to marry Baine and abandon me, simply because I did not want to be king? Can you not see, Duncan? This is her chance, our chance. We can start over, be happy together. The way it was meant to always be…”
Breathless from his tirade, his heart plummeted to his feet and he bent down, resting his hands on his knees as he panted for breath. He stopped talking and looked up at Duncan’s shocked face. Liam shot Duncan a look. It was a desperate, pleading look, one that Duncan had never seen on Liam’s face before, and one that he could not help but sympathize with.
“Och, Liam. Aye. Ye should have been Gwynn’s husband…should have. But the gods chose otherwise, mate, as did her father, King Doran. Who are we to question the judgment of our king and the gods?” Liam stood up straight and tugged on the bottom hem of his blue tunic as he adjusted himself to full height. Towering several inches over Duncan, Liam walked up as close as he could to Duncan’s face, without touching him.
Duncan did not flinch, but also adjusted himself to his full height, bracing himself for whatever insult Liam hurled his way. “That it is easy for you to say. You were allowed to marry the woman you love, were you not? You married Sharon and had a brood of children! Nobody denied you that. Nobody gave her away to a man that wanted nothing but gain.” His words cut to the quick. Duncan had the sense to stay silent and feel ashamed.
He looked down at his feet and, feeling rightfully scolded, kicked the loose dry dirt up with his muddy boot. “Aye. I am sorry, mate. I do see that ye did what ye had to do for her sake. Nay, ye could not tell poor wee Gwynneth that her father, the king, is dead. And her husband means to kill her. Nay. Ye have saved her from a world of pain…for now. But Liam, she must find out the truth, and soon.”
Liam sighed and shook his head in affirmation. “Aye, I know. And I will tell her. But, when? How? Will she resent me for the lies, or for the truths that I have omitted? Is not omission, betrayal?” Genuine pain crossed Liam’s face and it occurred to Duncan that his dear childhood mate had aged a decade in the last fortnight.
“Liam, tell me one thing. Say that ye have not lain with Gwynneth in the fortnight you have been alone with her? It would be a deception to her, man. Surely you know that, to be with another man’s wife when she cannot remember the truth, would be a foul betrayal of her honor.”
Balling his large fists as tight as he could at the sides of his body, trying to channel his growing rage, Liam looked straight into Duncan’s brown eyes and said as steadily as he could, “Nay, Duncan, I have not. I do have better manners than that, though, just barely. I am sharing a bed nightly with the woman that I have intended to marry for the past ten years. The sweet smell of her hair brushing across my cheek in her sleep and the feel of her warm soft skin…and her sleeping gown that hardly leaves anything to the imagination…tis enough to torture a man,” he growled.
“Do you know what it does to a man, to share a bed every night with a woman as beautiful as Gwynn, and not be able to touch her? She truly believes she is my wife and I can see the need in her eyes growing by the day. Tis all I can think about day and night…especially at night, when---” Liam stopped to shake his head violently, wishing his lustful thoughts would leave his head and trying to regain his control.
“Och. It hasn’t been easy, Duncan. But nay, I have not so much as kissed her.” And before Duncan could contribute anymore of his all mighty morals, Liam said defensively, “and I will not discuss this anymore with you.”
Completely speechless and full of sympathy for his mate’s plight, Duncan whistled through his teeth and gave Liam a
playful grin, showing his crooked teeth through his warm smile. Throwing his hands up in the air in silent forfeit, Duncan whooped with laughter a bit louder than he meant to and leaned over to hold his sides. “All right, all right, man. I understand. I really do. Nay more inquiries from me, mate. I will not say another word, except for this: I do not wish to be ye.”
Liam looked up at Duncan and flashed a playful smile back at him. “But, I will tell ye this,” Duncan continued, “your days as Gwynneth’s husband are numbered. That is why I have come here. I promised ye I would go back to Iverni to gather all the information I could. Well, I have and, tis bad, Liam. But, I do have good news as well,” Duncan looked up at Liam and flashed a huge, genuine smile.
Already past the point of frustration, Liam said with a bit more of an edge than he meant to, “Well? What is the good news, then?”
“Ye, Liam Mac Cuill, are now King Liam of Iverni. The tribal assembly has voted, and they have voted intelligently. Surely ye know that only ye would satisfy the people of Iverni as their new king and chieftain, even if ye resisted the honor?” as he said this, Duncan lowered himself down, placing his left knee into the dirt and bowed his head to the new king.
“Do not be ridiculous, Duncan. You do not ever bow to me.” Liam’s right hand came down to clasp with Duncan’s, and he pulled his mate back up to full height. “Aye, I did have a feeling the assembly may consider my name, but I thought I made it quite clear to King Doran himself that I was not interested in the power, or the corruption, that comes with being the chieftain of our tuath.”
Brushing off the knees of his torn beige trousers, Duncan continued with his news. “Aye, well, ye know very well the king does not have final say on who his successor is, though he may try. Only the assembly can decide, and they will choose who is best, not who wants it most. King Doran did try to listen to ye, if you recall...”