Heart of Ashes (Hearts of the Highlands Book 1)

by Paula Quinn

  She flicked her tongue over his with confidence born from independence and with passion born from loving him.

  He moved his fingers over her face like a light, tender caress, touching her while he kissed her. He pushed her down gently, his hand slipping to her neck, and lower. Her nipples grew tight and erect when his fingers brushed over her breast. She tried to remember to breathe while he kissed her and worked the tight laces of her bodice. He fumbled and she gazed at him, loving that he wasn’t deft at working the laces of ladies’ bodices. She helped him and closed her eyes when it was loosened.

  He glided his arm beneath her and pressed her to his hard angles, kissing her mouth with exquisite thoroughness. “Lass,” the word left him on a raspy whisper when he slightly withdrew. “Ye dragged me oot of the ashes and into yer fire.”

  She curled her lips and smiled against his mouth. “My heart would allow no less.”

  She didn’t stop him when she felt his fingers on her belly beneath her léine. His touch was like a flame, burning a path up the side of her body to her left breast. She gasped when he cupped her in his hand.

  “Dinna be afraid,” he whispered above her.

  “I am not afraid,” she promised, despite her shivering. Perhaps she should be afraid. He was a Scot, after all. But she trusted him. He’d been protective from the first few days and never anything but gentle with her.

  When he began to push her léine up, she thought she might die of embarrassment. He meant to undress her here in the open! But there was no one here to see. After Cainnech’s threat to kill them all, her suitors had left Lismoor. The villagers never came here, and Cainnech’s men certainly had no reason to come.

  Oh, her heart thrilled at the thought of being even more intimate with him. When he bent to kiss her bare belly she stopped caring about her clothes and helped him undress her.

  Finally, she lay bare beneath him, modest and untried, afraid to look him in the eyes, lest she see disappointment. Afraid also to look at him, for he was bare, as well—atop her. That is, he was leaning up on his splayed palms, keeping himself above her.

  “Aleysia,” he groaned deeply and waited for her to meet his gaze, “ye are perfect, lass.”

  He made her skin feel tight and her heart thud in her ears. She didn’t know what to expect. She should be afraid, and she was. But she’d somehow managed to capture the heart of this warrior. He might not be known for his mercy, but he would not harm her.

  He looked down at himself and his heavy erection growing between them. When he returned his gaze to hers, he appeared a bit worried. “I hear this hurts if ye are…”

  Her eyes opened wider, due both to the beast getting closer to her and Cainnech’s warning. “I am,” she told him quietly, suddenly not so sure she wanted to do this.

  The long, grueling days of preparing for the Scottish army had strengthened her to many things, but she wasn’t sure taking a man, especially one like him, into her body, was one of them.

  No. She could do it! She wasn’t afraid of some little—oh, but there was nothing little about any part of him! What if he smothered her? How would she breathe with all that muscle on her? He knew it would be difficult, that was why he hadn’t let himself down yet.

  “I can do it,” she promised him, tilting her chin just a bit, unsure who she was trying to convince.

  He lowered himself and then shot back up when he touched her and she nearly leaped out of her skin. “I canna do it.” He shook his head and pushed off. He landed in the bluebells and pulled his plaid over his lap when he sat up. “I dinna want to hurt ye and I fear I will. I know nothin’ aboot—virgins.”

  She nodded. “We will need some help.”

  He paled and then scowled. “Nae! I willna—”

  “I would not feel right about asking Father Timothy for advice about this,” she said, pulling on her breeches.

  He turned even whiter. “The priest? Advice?”

  “We cannot ask any of the men,” she pointed out while hurrying into her léine. “They would give terrible advice. We cannot ask Mattie. She is but a child.”

  “Aleysia, I am sure we can—”

  “Of course!” She smiled thinking of just the right woman to ask. “Beatrice, the miller’s wife! She will know. She was always like a mother to me.” She smiled to herself, remembering, and then looked at Cainnech.

  He was not smiling. In fact, he appeared quite horrified. She laid back and pulled him with her. They stared up at the sky for a moment, and then he turned toward her and pulled her close against him. “We will do as ye suggest, lass,” he said, as if his agreement in this truly mattered. “I willna see ye hurt.”

  If anyone would have suggested to her that one day a Scot would vow not to hurt her, or that this fierce, angry man would go soft and give in to her whims, she would have called them mad. But Cainnech proved her wrong.

  She stared into his eyes. “I love you, Cainnech.”

  Instead of the reaction she expected, he looked pained. She realized, suddenly, that he hadn’t said he loved her yet. Her heart sank. She had just assumed… “Is it so difficult for you?”

  “Aye,” he said quietly. “’Tis. Love is…” He stopped to think about it. “…’tis worse than death when ’tis lost.”

  Oh, he couldn’t feel this way! Love was so much more than that. How would he ever heal? She realized that was what she wanted. Not for herself, for she wanted it for him since Father Timothy had told her about Cainnech’s life. But what could she do? He had his brother back. Was that not enough?

  “’Tis true,” she said, her soft breath making a strand of his hair move over his jaw. “Sometimes love can be painful, but we need it in our lives, Cainnech. We need it to live because, most times, ’tis fulfilling and wonderful.”

  “I have done just fine withoot it,” he argued quietly.

  Rather than reply, she gave him the look such a preposterous statement deserved.

  “I have,” he insisted.

  “Are you happy?”

  “Aye,” he said with a smile that made her forget everything else. “I am.”

  She was happy to hear it. “I mean if you never met me. Were you happy before?”

  “Life is not always aboot bein’ happy, lass. Things need to be done. Ye know that.”

  “Cainnech.” She stopped him. “When is the last time you were happy?”

  He didn’t answer. He bent his head to hers, but he said nothing. Not for at least fifty breaths. She closed her eyes and prayed she didn’t just ruin his time in the glade.

  “I have been dreamin’ aboot her more,” he said, finally shattering the silence.

  “Who?” she prompted, knowing every word brought him closer to healing.

  “My…mother.”

  Aleysia waited, feeling his heart beating against her…or was it her own heart?

  “She is…” He shook his head against her, not wanting to think on it.

  “She deserves her place in your heart, Cainnech.”

  He began slowly, hesitantly, telling her first about his dreams, the screaming, and the flames—a babe crying. There were some things he admitted to remembering lately, like flashes from someplace deep of his brother Torin’s dirty face and his mother smiling when she saw him.

  The more he told her, the more memories came rising like molten lava to the surface. He tried to resist for a while, but she was there, holding him, there with him in his anguish and helping him fight through it.

  Later, they lay entwined in the sun-soaked, tear-drenched field of bluebells, kissing and smiling like fools, and kissing some more.

  Finally, just before the sun set, they rose and set off toward the miller’s house. No one was home. The village was empty.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Cain looked across the great hall to where Aleysia stood with a small group of women from the village. He thought of her body beneath his, naked and sublime. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her. He knew whores, not virgins. She’d wanted to do it, of
course. She was brave and bold.

  But what they did was intimate, no less. She came for him. She broke down his defenses stone by stone until she breached his inner core and dusted off his heart.

  He found himself remembering things, like a flash of a face or the sound of a voice. It had nearly driven him mad once. He didn’t want to miss them again.

  But remembering didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt wonderful.

  He smiled at her when he caught her eye. She blushed and tempted him to go to her.

  “So ye are not angry that I invited everyone from the village to the celebration?”

  Cain sipped the last of his whisky and looked down at Father Timothy. “Nae, I am not angry. They are her kin.”

  “Aye,” the priest agreed. “Is it not odd to think that now ye have kin, too?”

  “Aye,” Cain turned his eyes toward his wee brother, who was not so wee anymore. “Nicholas!” he called out and gathered the lad in his arms when he reached him. He had his brother back because of the two people who loved him.

  “Has the announcement been made aboot who ye are?”

  “Hours ago,” Father Timothy replied for his brother.

  “Come,” Cain said, urging them to their chairs. “We have much to discuss.”

  “Oh, what is it, Brother?”

  Hell, would he ever grow accustomed to hearing the lad he’d called William for a pair of months now call him brother?

  He smiled into his cup and thought for a moment about how much Aleysia d’Argentan had changed his life.

  “There is somethin’ I would tell ye,” Cain said, taking a seat beside him. He finished off his whisky and called on the nerves of steel that aided him on the battlefield to help him now. “I…ehm…I have been tryin’ to remember things.”

  “Son.” Father Timothy placed his hand over Cain’s larger one. Once it had been the other way around. Cain remembered that, too.

  He smiled at his old friend and then returned his gaze to his brother. Nicholas had lost much. They all had. He wanted to give his brother something back. “I remember our mother holdin’ ye.” Tears gathered at the rims of his eyes as the memory played out before him as though it happened yesterday, bringing with it waves of emotion. “She carried ye with her while she did her work and called over her shoulder…” He had to stop and remember to breathe. “…as Torin and I wrestled in her carrot patch.”

  “Torin.” Nicholas repeated the name, as if needing to hear it on his tongue. “Tell me about him, and our parents.”

  Cain looked across the table and found Aleysia watching him, knowing what this meant to him, for him. He would thank her for it all later.

  “He was five when last I saw him,” he told his brother. “He was fairer than ye and I, more like our mother and he enjoyed when mother told him stories.” He shared what he remembered of their parents, their mother especially—the one whose love he remembered most.

  Aye, it had been painful at first, almost maddening—going back and finding her in the ashes. But in the end, her smile and gentle voice was worth the search.

  He hadn’t been alone on the difficult journey. Aleysia had been with him. It wasn’t over, but she would be with him for it all. She was more courageous, more determined than any man he’d ever known. He wanted to spend the rest of his days with her. He wanted to go to sleep beside her each night and wake every morning to her bonny face. He wanted to watch her belly grow full with his bairns and be there to help them grow. Hell, he loved her. He hadn’t told her yet. He wanted to tell her now.

  He rose from his seat just as someone called out a toast. He raised his empty cup and smiled with his men. Someone else rose up with another cheer for him and Aleysia, more for him and Nicholas. Before he knew it, everyone was gathered around his table, patting his back.

  His eyes found Aleysia as the cheering settled down. She was speaking to an older woman with her back to him. When his betrothed looked up, he smiled and moved to go to her. The woman turned to have a look at him—from his boots to the top of his head. Beatrice. Hell. He averted his eyes from her the instant she looked at him.

  “Ye look…happy.”

  Cain turned to the warm, salient eyes of his oldest, only friend. “I am.”

  “I am glad to hear that, Son.”

  Cain knew he spoke the truth. Father Timothy had been the only comfort Cain knew in the cruelty of his world.

  “Withoot ye and God lookin’ after me,” he said. “I might have died and never seen this day. Thank ye, Father.”

  Father Timothy scrunched up his face and his large eyes filled with tears. Cain drew him in for an embrace he wished he hadn’t waited so long to give.

  “In case ye didna know, I love ye, old man,” he managed and then patted the priest on the back and released him. “We will require ye in the chapel later. Just us.”

  Father Timothy raised his brows. “Ye will marry her before ye speak to the king?”

  “Aye,” Cainnech didn’t hesitate to tell him. Why wait? Nothing would stop him from having her. “I willna lose her.”

  “Ye will need witnesses,” the priest reminded him gently.

  Cain nodded, looking toward Aleysia and moving instinctively toward her. “Bring Nicholas and Richard.”

  Beatrice was gone and his betrothed wore a smile touched by an inner light, radiating outward. She loved him. He still could not believe it. How had she fallen in love with such an unlovable heart?

  “You are not rubbing your belly,” she noted, stepping into his arms.

  “It no longer pains me,” he told her and dipped his mouth to hers. Their kiss was brief but she tasted of honey mead and desire.

  “I spoke with Beatrice,” she told him quietly, stepping out of his embrace. “All is well. The pain is eased by a tender lover. Will you be tender?”

  Her eyes were so green, so round with anticipation of his reply he couldn’t do anything but nod his head. He would do his best.

  She moved in closer. He inhaled the top of her head. “She said we should do pleasurable things to each other.”

  “Oh?” he asked. “Like?”

  She laughed softly. “I did not ask her.”

  “Good.” He took her hands in his and gazed into her eyes. “We will learn as we go.” He pulled her hands up behind his neck and leaned down close to her ear. “I am eager to begin.”

  “As am I,” she whispered along his jaw and set his blood on fire.

  “Father!” he called and pulled her toward the priest. “To the chapel!”

  They couldn’t find Richard, but picked up Nicholas and Mattie on the way. Mattie wept and stared at Nicholas while Father Timothy gave his benediction. Cain tapped his foot and the priest kept it brief. He and Aleysia gave their consent. Father Timothy made the sign of the cross, and told them they were husband and wife.

  Cain’s heart leaped for the first time in—well, for the first time.

  Eager for each other, they bid good eve to the priest and their witnesses and hurried out of the great hall. When they reached the solar and opened the door, they found the hearth fire, along with a dozen candles, lit, and Aleysia’s bed sprinkled with rose petals.

  She turned to cast him a surprised, delighted look. He shook his head. It wasn’t he, but now he knew something she enjoyed…besides fighting and lying in bluebells.

  “Oh, it must have been Mattie!” she sang out, smiling. “She is always so considerate.”

  “Aye.” He smiled, entering the room behind her. He bolted the door and turned to look at her standing before the bed bathed in the soft glow of candlelight. His heart beat madly against his chest. She was his. She had braved the battlefield for his heart and won it. It was hers. It would always be hers.

  He walked to her tall wooden chest and took her comb in his fingers. He brought it to his nose and smiled at her behind it. “Ye are hauntin’, lass.”

  Her eyes followed him as he moved nearer and pushed his plaid off his shoulder. Her gaze dipped to his belly after h
e lifted his léine over his head.

  He watched her unlace her bodice and slip it off. His body hardened for her.

  “The first time I had ye in this bed,” he told her, his voice thickening as he reached her. “I knew I wanted ye there always.”

  She tilted back her head and laughed softly. “Do you mean the night I almost killed you?”

  He snaked his arm around her waist and brushed his lips over her exposed throat. “Ye didna want to kill me even then.”

  “I was a coward. Nothing more.” She laughed when he gently bit her neck. “I hated you!” She squealed when he tickled her and pushed away from him. She fell back on the bed and he fell with her.

  He grew serious looking down at her against a backdrop of rose petals. He picked one up and brushed it over her cheekbone. “Ye are everythin’ to me, lass,” he told her, his voice a deep-throated rasp. “Yer heart calls out to mine and I answer—” he looked into her eyes. “I love ye.”

  Tears gathered at the rim of her inky lashes. She didn’t have to speak, for he could see her heart in her eyes. “Oh, Cainnech, I love you, too.”

  He kissed her, taking her full, lush mouth with measured control. He swept his tongue over hers, and she answered by joining him in his sensual exploration. Her body felt soft and warm beneath him. His, on the other hand, was as tight as a drum string.

  He moved his hands over her and liked that she had the boldness to do the same to him. Her fingers running down his arms made his muscles tremble. She asked him modestly to turn his head while she undressed.

  Doing as she bid, he waited on his knees facing the head of her rose-covered bed. He felt her moving behind him and closed his eyes to pray for control, to be a tender, gentle lover with his untried wife.

  She came up behind him slowly, placing her hands on his shoulders. Her body was warm at his back. He turned his face toward her when she dragged her bottom lip up his arm. He inhaled her, aching for more of her. She came around slowly, tantalizing him with her breath, each fluid movement of her body. He’d wanted her in the glade. Even more now.