Forbidden Heart

by Quinn, Paula

  She blushed and kept her head down. But she was smiling.

  Galeren looked around, happier than he’d been in many years. He was home with the woman he loved, his kin, and his friends around him.

  Where was his youngest brother, Lionell?

  Galeren hadn’t seen him last night. He remembered when he was here last, Lionell stayed out late and slept in even later.

  “Where is Lionell?” he asked his parents.

  “My guess is he is asleep,” his mother told him, sipping her warm milk, a drink she relished from her reiver days. She didn’t look up from it when Galeren rose from his seat, handed Daffodil to Silene, and strode for the stairs. They hadn’t seen Lionell last eve and if Galeren didn’t do something, they wouldn’t see him today either.

  He arrived at Lionell’s door at the same time a serving girl was bringing a jug of water and a basin. Galeren took the water from her and, with a grin, dumped it on his sleeping brother’s face.

  Lionell bolted upright, roused so alarmingly from his dreams. He swung his arm before him, as if he were wielding a sword. His other sleeve was empty, hanging limply at his side. He opened his heavy lids, revealing vibrant, green, bloodshot eyes.

  “Galeren? What the hell are ye doin’ back here so soon and what d’ye want?”

  Galeren grinned at him. “Greetin’s Lionell. That is a good question. What I want is ye at the mornin’ table every day and on the practice field after that. I want ye to come to the table now and meet the lass I love and plan to wed in just a few days. Mostly, I want ye to not give up on yer life.”

  “I canna fight, Brother, or d’ye not know?” He turned his empty sleeve toward Galeren.

  “I know, but there is still much ye can do.

  “Aye,” Lionell laughed and cupped his groin. “’Tis good I can still f—”

  “Get oot of bed,” Galeren commanded. “Get cleaned up and come to the table. When ye are there, ye will watch yer tongue or I will take ye outdoors and knock yer teeth oot.”

  Lionell glared at him. “I am not one of yer soldiers, Captain. Get oot of my room.”

  “If ye are not at the table shortly, I will throw ye oot of the house, Lionell. Dinna push me to see how far I will go. I will go far. I’m goin’ to help ye whether ye want me to or not. Best give in to me now.”

  His brother lifted an auburn brow and snarled. “Never.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Lionell lost his arm in battle last year,” Braya told Silene and waited for more warm milk. “He does not know how to live his life anymore. My poor husband has tried everything to help him. Bors has also tried.”

  Silene looked at Father Timothy. What did he think Lionell needed?

  He gave her an understanding smile. “Ye can add yer prayers to mine.”

  She nodded and smiled at him.

  A loud clang resounded in the dining hall.

  “What was that?” Silene began to rise.

  “’Tis just them fightin’.” Mac took her wrist until she sat again. “That is why he gave ye the kitty to hold.”

  They tried to carry on conversations between the thunderous noises coming from down the hall.

  No one was doing anything about it.

  Silene thought a one-armed man would not be a very good fighter. What was Galeren doing to him? “Perhaps we should—”

  “No,” Galeren’s father shook his head. “Mayhap this is what Lionell needs.”

  After a few more startling bangs that nearly brought down the walls, it finally grew quiet.

  “Highlanders fight, lass,” Father Timothy advised her with a wink.

  Highlanders fought. Aye, it seemed they did. Galeren’s mother and his aunts and uncles had all fought to stay alive or keep what was theirs.

  “I understand,” she told the priest.

  A few moments later, Galeren entered the hall. His luminescent, golden locks were more disheveled around his face. His léine was torn at the arm and the left side of his jaw was turning purple.

  He returned to his place at the table and smiled at his father. “His right hook is still efficient.” They laughed and Galeren turned back to her as if nothing had happened. “Lionell will be here shortly.”

  “Are you hurt?” Silene asked him as Daffodil jumped back into his arms.

  “No, but I’m goin’ to teach him to hurt me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he needs to be able to fight. From as young as we can remember, we are taught to protect our lives and the lives of those we love. ’Twas pushed into our heads over and over until we put away fear of dyin’ in battle—because battle is a way of life fer a Scot. Lionell lost his ability to fight. He is losin’ his ability to live because of such a loss. I’m goin’ to help him.”

  She swallowed and held back the tears she would shed. “And I will pray for him with Father Timothy.”

  She wanted to kiss his beautiful lips, breathe his breath. She would kiss his dimpled cheek, his bruised jaw. But there were too many people watching.

  She had no idea how much longer she could resist falling into his arms, his bed.

  She thought of being naked and intimate with him and it didn’t frighten or embarrass her as much as she thought it would.

  It excited her and made her long for him in ways she was not familiar.

  She didn’t tell Father Timothy about her sexual desires. Perhaps she should tell Galeren. He was the levelheaded one. He would know what to do.

  But in the meantime, his closeness at the table, whispering things in her ear—well, it was positively thrilling. Every time his thigh touched hers, she felt a lick of fire up her spine. If she gazed at his masculine profile, she found herself wanting to crawl into his lap and kiss him senseless.

  Everyone grew quiet. Silene turned to see why and saw a man standing at the entrance to the dining hall.

  He was starkly handsome with russet hair shot through with broad strokes of gold that fell past his shoulders. His mouth was full and sulky and cut in two places. One cut was beginning to swell.

  He wore a beige léine with black trousers and bare feet. One sleeve of his léine was empty and tucked into his belt. He looked around the hall and nodded in greeting to Mac and the other men, after greeting his kin.

  “I’m only stayin’ long enough to greet ye, Mum, Father, Father.”

  His parents and Father Timothy smiled at him.

  “And who is this short-haired beauty?” He set his eyes on her, his smile charming. Silene’s belly flipped. She smiled while Galeren introduced her.

  “Are you certain you cannot stay?” she asked him.

  “Mayhap I can be persuaded.”

  Oh, dear, but Lionell was astonishingly pleasing to look at. Like Galeren, he resembled both his parents, but Lionell favored his mother. He also had a silver tongue and boldness that exceeded Galeren.

  “Well then,” she told him playfully. She knew what his mother wanted. “Let me make a plea on behalf of your kin. Do not be in a rush to go.”

  He tossed her an incredulous grin and then moved toward the door to leave.

  She wouldn’t ask again, but she didn’t think he wanted to leave.

  “Lionell,” Father Timothy called to him. “Stay to please an old man.”

  For a moment, Lionell seemed to have decided and took another step toward the exit. Then he stopped and returned to the table. He took a seat near Bors. Everyone was quiet but relieved, especially Galeren. He felt the tension in his body leave and he relaxed close to her.

  “Lionell,” Silene said, drawing his attention. “Do you know that your name means little lion?”

  “I didna know,” he quipped. “But Galeren knows now, after tryin’ to drag me from my bed.”

  “But here ye are,” Galeren said with a smirk.

  Somewhere to the right, Will laughed, and then everyone else did, including Lionell.

  Soon, he accepted a cup of mead and shared a quiet word with Mac. His eyes found her. He smiled and then glanced a
t his brother. “Where did ye find him, Miss Sparrow?”

  “Silene, please,” she corrected. “And on the cliffs in Bamburgh. I had been there praying. He had come to take me to my uncle, the high steward.”

  “Go on,” Lionell urged.

  “Aye, please do,” his mother agreed.

  Silene smiled and glanced at Galeren. His apologetic expression changed into a smile even more radiant that his brother’s. “He was quite patient with me having to stop several times a day for my prayers.”

  “Several times a day fer…prayers?” Lionell looked on the verge of bursting into laughter.

  “They are verra important to her,” Galeren told him on a warning growl for Lionell not to laugh.

  “Verra well,” Lionell defended in a friendly tone. “But who prays several times a day and canna do so in her head?”

  Will chuckled while he chewed his bread. This time, Padrig kicked him hard under the table.

  “A lass preparin’ to be a sister in the church,” his father answered Lionell’s question.

  Lionell’s already large eyes opened wider as they fell on her and then on Galeren. “Brother, ye took a lass from God?”

  “Lionell,” Father Timothy said gently, trying to ease the high tension in the dining hall. “Ye speak of what ye dinna know.”

  Silene tried to remember to breathe. She was finding it difficult, but she closed her eyes for a moment and held on.

  “Of course,” Lionell said, unconvincingly.

  “I am going to raise bairns to know Him even more than I do.” She smiled at him and bit into a fig. She demanded her hand not to shake.

  Father Timothy and Galeren were smiling at her. They all were.

  “Lionell, I pray that you are in their lives, in good spirit and health.”

  “Alas,” he pouted. “Ye ask fer too much, lass.”

  “You are a MacPherson, son of the clever warrior who infiltrated enemy armies and brought down more castles than anyone else. Remember the stock from which you come. No one ever gave up.”

  She caught Torin MacPherson’s soulful gaze on her. He smiled. She felt a little lightheaded.

  The feeling didn’t change throughout the day when she was busy meeting the rest of Galeren’s family. She strolled outside with Galeren and Daffodil beneath the wooden walkways high above the ground.

  His uncles were the kind of handsome that makes a woman go warm. Especially Cain. He was still rugged and fit from, she guessed, practicing his swordplay every day—and playing with his grandchildren.

  Galeren shared a brief, private word with them about her uncle and then took her to meet Cain’s son, Tristan, and his new wife, Rose. They had arrived last eve just before Galeren had brought her home. She and Rose got along right away and promised to find each other later.

  Galeren had Lionell sent for and she watched Galeren practice with him. Lionell swung his sword wildly, as if he were off balance. Galeren pointed it out and had him start with the very basic of swings. Galeren was patient, as he’d been with her. It made her heart swell with pride over him.

  She spoke with him between meeting up with everyone.

  “What d’ye think of everythin’ so far?”

  She looked up and around at the people coming from or going to the market.

  “’Tis like nothing I have ever seen before. No one is begging for food. No one is hungry or alone.” Her gaze settled on his and he nodded.

  “As long as we are blessed with enough, we share what we have.”

  “I feel happy here,” she told him. “Like this could be our home.”

  “D’ye know,” he asked, coming closer while they walked, “sometimes when ye smile, yer nose bunches up just a wee bit and yer tongue parts yer lips. The sight of ye and yer fiery hair fallin’ over yer brow drives me mad.”

  She pressed her side against him. She wanted to be even closer—inside him.

  She coiled her fingers through his. “Sometimes when you look at me, I can see myself there, happy and adored in your eyes.”

  “Aye.”

  “You are everything I have ever wanted,” she told him. “God heard my prayers and prepared us for this day.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “There is somethin’ I wish to show ye,” he said and pulled her away by the hand.

  “Where are we going?” she asked on a melody of laughter.

  “Ye shall see.” He hurried with her back to the middle manor house and pulled her to the stairs.

  She let him lead her forward. Her feet felt as if they weren’t touching the ground. If she had wings, she would have taken off.

  They ran up the stairs and through a small hall to a door. Galeren opened it, letting sunlight spill into the hall in golden rays. Some of them fell over him.

  The bright doorway led outside to the wooden walkways high above the ground.

  “Come.” He held out his hand and Silene thought he looked like an angel, ethereal and beautiful, illuminated in the shafts of light.

  She took his hand and stepped out into the full sunlight.

  They were about twenty feet up, above the world. She looked to her left and saw the forest colored in greens and golds and oranges.

  “This way.” He pulled her along in a quarter of a circle. Then entered the tower of the next house and came out over the forest and the village. They met some of his kin on the way around, including Elysande.

  When Silene looked out at the view, she gasped at its beauty. “Oh, Galeren, ’tis breathtaking.”

  “As ye are, my love,” he told her, stirring her blood with the huskiness of his voice. He took her hand and drew her closer.

  Her heart soared. She could not wait to be his wife. She put her arms around his neck and laughed, feeling Daffodil there. He kissed her laughter from her mouth and closed his arms around her.

  He swept her away on waves of pleasure and desire. Her body longed for more of him, and thoughts of his sleek, hard body made her want to touch him.

  He broke their kiss to kiss his way to her ear. His strained breath fell hot and scintillating against her lobe. “Ye make me feel feral,” he told her thickly.

  “Are you trying to frighten me? Because you are not.” She smiled when he closed his teeth around the pulse at her throat. He didn’t hurt her. He held her close and she gasped at the hardness between his legs. He felt as if he were made of iron. “How will it…”

  “It gets even harder,” he told her against her ear. “Like a rod and I put it inside ye. Here.” He pressed himself between her legs.

  She realized she knew nothing about living a fleshly life. She swallowed.

  “Dinna be afraid. I will be considerate of ye.”

  She smiled at him, not caring if her face was aflame. “Thank you, and I am not afraid. I will be with you, so I have nothing to fear.”

  She watched him smile from the moment it began in his deep green eyes. She could feel his happiness, almost like a tangible thing. Her words pleased him.

  “Three more days. Will ye wait?”

  “Aye,” she told him. “I will wait.”

  She looked out over the hills and clung to him, and he to her.

  “Why did you vow six years?” she asked. “How old were you?”

  “Ten and eight.”

  “Oh. Was it difficult?”

  “Some days were more difficult than others,” he admitted.

  She appreciated his honesty. “But six years?”

  “I had to break its hold on me. I had become consumed with it. I didna want any master but one. I knew that if I vowed somethin’ to Him, I would keep it. So, I made my promise fer six years.”

  She remembered to breathe. “I’m thankful the time is almost over.”

  His dimple reappeared while his gaze hardened. “As am I.”

  “We can do this.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “We? D’ye find it difficult as well?”

  “Difficult not to be your wife, to lay in your bed and share myself with you, to wake up
every day knowing I get to spend it with you? Aye. I find it difficult, indeed.”

  He began to pull her back, but she pushed away—out of his reach. He took a step forward.

  In this moment, he did indeed appear feral, like a bird of prey swooping down on her.

  She held her neck where he bit her and something below her belly flipped and spread pleasure throughout her body.

  “We must part,” she told him. “Or we will—”

  He nodded, his brows dipping lower and casting shadows on his eyes.

  She slipped through the door and then fell against it and bit her lip until it bled.

  She didn’t understand these feelings plaguing her. She felt warm and raw. Even the wind outside pained her. She couldn’t think straight. Her belly constantly flipped. She wanted to feel his mouth on her. All of her, devouring her. She wanted his hands and other parts of his body on her. She wanted to take him to his bed and bind him to her. One flesh cleaved together.

  She was afraid that iron shaft would hurt her. She had no idea why she still desired it in some primal way. Intercourse was the one thing about which she was never taught.

  She needed to know.

  She couldn’t ask his mother. She would not feel right speaking about intimate things with a man’s mother. She didn’t see anything wrong with asking his cousin, Elysande, though. Aye! She would know best.

  She didn’t want to do it. How would she even bring it up? She wiped her brow and continued down the stairs. When she reached the first landing, she wasn’t sure whose house she was in.

  She entered the great hall and spotted Will and Padrig sharing a drink. She went to them, intending to get directions.

  “What is a lovely lass doin’ wanderin’ aboot the halls unescorted?” Will asked.

  “I am lost. One wrong turn and you could end up in another house.” She laughed softly. She missed traveling with them, getting to know them.

  “How have you brothers been?”

  “We are well,” Padrig said in a gentle tone and a smile to match. “Yerself?”