by Karen Ranney
A hand trailed up one leg, slid beneath the gauzy cotton of her gown.
"MacLeod!" she said, placing her own hand upon his, stopping his gentle exploration, “what are you doing?"
"Alisdair," he corrected calmly, with a smile.
She could feel each separate finger on her flesh, five places of heat and sensation. It was like playing with fire itself, the pain of being burned following the sensation of it by long moments. His hand undulated under hers, a teasing touch, one that let her know he was acquiescent only because he wished it, not because she was strong enough to prevent him.
Yet, he had said he would do whatever she wished. Did she truly wish him to stop?
Mating with the MacLeod carried overtones with it, buried laughter, a hint of teasing, qualities she wasn’t sure she understood or could even accept in such context. There was more, too, a hint of something stronger, feelings which swelled the heart and expanded the soul.
Did she truly wish him to stop?
He smiled at her, his lips dusted with light and mischief. He bent slowly, giving her ample time to escape, testing her with resolve and a bit of dare. If she wanted to escape, it was now she should move, now she should protest, now she should refuse.
The touch of his lips was warm, full, soft. A gentle invitation to proceed down a road she was unfamiliar traveling. She lay quiescent, waiting, but he did nothing more than lay his lips tenderly there, as if implanting the feel of him upon her. When he did not move, did not deepen the embrace, she breathed slowly, a small gasp of air escaped her lips, brushed against his. He opened his mouth as if to receive a treat, inhaling deeply.
Intimacy in a breath.
She shivered.
He drew back, studying her, his eyes the color of molten gold, the expression in them too deep to read. Or, was it simply too uncomfortable? There was restraint there, and something else wild and needy and frightening. But even more fear provoking was the tenderness.
She could not fight his empathy.
Her eyes were as wide as the ocean and as deep, made mysterious by a thin film of tears.
A tear slid from her eye. He traced its path with his tongue, buried his hands and his mouth into the mass of hair at her temple, breathing slowly, fighting back the insensate rage he felt. Not for her. Never for her. But only for the man who had done this her.
She turned her head, found his cheek, pressed a soft kiss upon it. He raised his head and studied her face. Such a gentle gesture of acceptance, such a tender bestowal of permission. He did not discount the meaning of that kiss.
“Ah, Judith.” It was the only thing he could say, the rage fading beneath the swelling of more tender emotion.
A long finger reached up and traced the outline of her lips. Would it frighten her to know the extent of his need?
“You have such beautiful lips.” He stopped what she would have said by the simple expedient of placing two fingers atop her mouth. “For kissing, Judith, not for speech.”
He kissed her then, like he had in the cove, a mouth hungry kiss that demanded reciprocity, not surrender. He led the pace, but he did not force it. When he lifted himself away from her, her lips were pink, full, their borders looked inflamed. A tender touch of tongue anointed them, his and hers alike.
Her eyes were open wide, her cheeks flushed, her fists no longer gripped the sheet but instead, his shoulders as if she once again feared drowning.
His hand continued its gentle exploration under her nightgown, as if there’d been no interruption, no long mind-drugging moments of kisses shared and mutually enjoyed.
They watched each other, only inches apart, his eyes lit with mischief, hers with something that looked like fear but tasted only of inexperience. He was prepared to stop the moment she asked him to, she was ready to ask him the moment he stopped.
“I didn’t pleasure you in the cove, Judith," he said softly, his voice like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings on her skin.
Was it possible for her skin to become more flushed? She looked as ripe as a fall apple ready to be plucked from the tree. He grinned at her embarrassment, bent down and nuzzled her neck with his lips.
With a sweep of hand, he divested her of the sheet. In a flash of seconds, he had her nightgown at her waist, her limbs exposed to night air and candlelight.
When she would have brushed his hands aside and covered herself, he kissed her again, his lips as mind numbing as laudanum, as addictive.
One moment he was smiling gently at her, tracing the line of her chin with a teasing finger, the next, he was kissing her belly, anointing those scars which trailed from her back, lacerating the tender flesh of her stomach.
His touch was gentle, almost tender, but stubbornly insistent.
“MacLeod.”
Her entreaty had no effect. Yet, she remained still and unmoving, bound not by cords, but by the sensations which swept up from each of his touches on her body.
Bold fingers trailed through the curls at the apex of her thighs, combing them, patting, petting.
“Forgive me for being an impatient lover, before,” he said, a parody of apology. The words were nearly obscured by her gasp of shock.
His tongue traced an imaginary line from her thighs to their juncture, and she squirmed in his grasp until his hands gently pushed apart her legs.
"MacLeod!" Her opposition had no effect on him.
“Hush, Judith.”
She lay back against the pillow, her focus on the ceiling above her. Strange darts of fire strummed in her belly when she had seen him tasting her. The tenderest of touches and yet, they had the ability to make her shiver. What power did he have, that he could make her feel such things?
He opened her legs wider, as if demanding access to the very core of her. It was not fear which made her part her thighs, or even the heat which poured over her skin until she felt molten with it, but a strange, compelling, curiosity.
Resistance faded beneath his touch, her will melted beneath the sensations he was stirring in her. It seemed as though he had all the time in the world, hours and hours in which to tease and taunt, all the while whispering to her of the sweetness of her taste, the need he felt for the tasting. His tongue touched her everywhere, short darting strokes that were fast, and then slow, and then fast again, circling, stroking, a parody of soothing. His touch did not placate, it incited, it stirred. It raised a fire from ember to conflagration. He seemed pleased by her reaction, delighting in the soft moan which slipped from her wet lips, defying restraint.
"Alisdair," she mumbled softly, his name an incantation. He ignored her summons, denied anything but the sensation he was experiencing. She opened for him, a flower blooming wetly in the candlelight, her petals swollen and deeply red. Her hips were pinned gently beneath his arms, but he could feel the thrumming rhythm in her trembling, knew that she would arch toward his touch if he gave her enough freedom. He wanted her captive, instead, a prisoner of delicate, repetitive, insistent demand. He wanted her to come apart in his arms, fold into herself, weep her woman’s rain onto his hands and flood his mouth.
He raised himself up and studied her, at the dark blue eyes that were wide and open, their pupils dilated, their color deeper than ever before. His own needs threatened to swamp his restraint then. It was almost pain, this urge to be inside her, to see her eyes open as she welcomed him, to feel her shudder and gasp with the sensation of it.
Instead, he returned to his delightful occupation, not ceasing until he heard her unmistakable moans of surrender. She shuddered, imploding into herself, her climax so powerful that he clutched the mattress with both hands to prevent the sweeping urge to be inside of her, sharing, melting into her warmth. There would be times for them both, but tonight was hers, only hers.
Only when he’d gained control over himself did he move back to her side. "Goodnight, wife," he said, leaning over her to extinguish the candles. He hesitated for a moment, debated the wisdom of kissing those too full lips, knew then, that he could not trust h
imself. He wanted her too badly.
A soft sigh was her only response. It sounded, to his eager mind, wistful and nearly as needy as he felt. She roused herself, as if gathering all the pieces of her body back together, turned until her back was to him, extended the sheet over her shoulders.
Alisdair pulled the sheet down, baring her back. Even now, he could feel the tremors which still racked her, sensations he could feel duplicated in his own flesh, a drum beat of insistence which demanded relief.
He kissed her above the deeply scooped neck of the gown., tracing the scars there with his tongue, so faintly and so tenderly that she might have imagined it.
She lay taut until he finished saluting each separate scar with his lips, kissing her, branding her with his painless touch. He covered her again and whispered in the darkness.
"They are a mark of your courage, Judith," he said, his hand smoothing the sheet and venturing up to her hair, which lay heavy and unbraided upon the pillow. "Not a sign of your shame."
Judith lay awake for a long time.
CHAPTER 22
"It’s a foolish thing we do here, Malcolm," Geddes mumbled, his shuffling gait in the ancient rushes the only sound in the room. To his ears, perhaps. But not to Malcolm, whose glower intensified with every harsh breath exhaled by the other three occupants. Stealth was what was needed here, not complaints, not the wheezing protests of an ill assorted band of conspirators. Not that he had much choice, now, did he? These were the elders of the clan, as pitiful a sight as they were, but he still punctuated his displeasure by glaring at his kinsmen.
They were a sorry bunch. Old Geddes, arthritis crippling him so badly that he walked in a permanently stooped position. Hamish, his one remaining eye so filmed over that he needed help to see even on the brightest of days. Alex, however, was the worst of the lot, and if they were caught, it would be because of his infirmity - one leg replaced by a crooked, whittled stick of a limb which fit so painfully that every piercing scratch upon the floor was accompanied by a muffled groan of pain.
"Quiet!" Malcolm hissed, his brow furrowed, his irritation growing with each precious second they lingered. They were the wise men of the clan, yet all they had done since they had met in Geddes' cottage an hour earlier was moan and groan or bicker like old women.
It was Alex's accusations which pierced him to the core, though, for all their muttering. He whirled and faced his detractor. "Would ye have the English take it a' away, mon?"
"What they've no' taken, Malcolm, is our lives," Alex said stubbornly. "As puny an' as ill fed a lot we are."
"I'd no' thought to hear a coward's voice from yer throat."
"A coward is it? A coward? When I lost my own son? When his bairn died because there was nothin' for her to eat except for the grubs an' the worms of burned out fields? I answered the call as willingly as the next." His words were whispered, but no less vehement for their lack of volume. Nor was the look he shot Malcolm softened by the gloom of the keep.
"Then ye' should ken mon, more than the rest."
"What is there to understand, Malcolm?" he said tiredly. “ Would ye have the four of us take on England's army, now?" Mockery tinged his words, and an odd sort of sadness.
"Aye, Malcolm, do ye preach rebellion?" The question came from Hamish, standing alone and apart from the others. He too had buried kin and mourned even now for their loss. What Malcolm wanted was a return to days of glory, as few as they were. He could appreciate the sentiment at the same time he realized its stupidity. What Malcolm wanted was as futile as their own march to Carlisle, but oh, those had been days to recall for the rest of their lives, weren't they? They had marched into England behind the Bonnie Prince filled with dreams and exhilaration in knowing that, for once, the men of Scotland had occupied English soil and not the other way around. For a few blessed days, the sons of Scotland had determined the course of events, not England. For a few glorious days, there had been change in the air and Scotland had been considered more than a nuisance, more than a wayward child. Aye, he could well understand why Malcolm preached insurrection now. But the days of Carlisle had been pre-Culloden. Before the end to the rebellion, before most of the able bodied men of the Highlands had died in a battle so unevenly matched. Surrender was what the English had wanted and surrender they had gotten and sent the Duke of Cumberland, the Butcher, to make it so.
"Rebellion, is it now?" Malcolm answered angrily. "Is it rebellion to want a Scotland filled wi' Scots, then, Hamish, an' no' the Sassenach?" he said, his spine stiffened by the accusations of his long-time friends.
"It's rebellion against the laird I'm speaking of. Have ye forgotten what the lad wants? Have ye forgotten the pardon?" His soft words were accompanied by a muttering of assent from the others. Alisdair's dreams of economic independence had found strong supporters in the glen. It was a sad fact of life, but one undeniably true, that they could not beat the English. The dreams of a Jacobite rebellion were only that, the prince had returned to the continent; the men who'd so gladly followed him either dead or stripped of their possessions, titles, estates, or like Alisdair, living a tenuous existence with a conditional pardon.
The dream of out trading the English was their only way of retaliation, not to mention what would happen to Alisdair and the rest of the clan if insurrection could be proven. Alisdair's conditional pardon was exactly that - based upon a series of conditions, none of which Hamish was sure, included meeting in a deserted keep for the purpose of anarchy.
"Besides, Malcolm, what about the English wife you brought to the glen? It was your idea to wed her to the MacLeod.” It was Malcolm’s words, but he uttered the thoughts of all of them.
“An’ I’ll go to my grave regrettin’ it. Is tha’ what you want to hear?”
Hamish did not reply.
“It’s time to arm oursel’s, for each member of the clan to have a weapon to protect against the English. Are ye for me, or no?" Malcolm asked, turning and fixing them with a steady look. Hamish sighed, and reached out one arm, which was taken by Alex, who lurched forward with him. Old Geddes shambled towards them, his step as shuffling as before, echoing his reluctance.
Malcolm crossed the room swifter then the others, pushing back the rushes to expose the metal ring hidden in the floor.
"We're for ye', Malcolm," Hamish said, when his companions remained mute. "Please God, this decision will no' bring tragedy down on our heads."
CHAPTER 23
Alisdair and Malcolm had taken the first shipment of their raw wool to Inverness. Without a goodbye, without a word spoken, he had simply left. Judith couldn't say she was ungrateful to be spared Malcolm's presence for a few days, but the least Alisdair could have done was to inform her of his plans.
Judith had the whole day to think of the fact he had let Sophie do the chore for him.
"The chicken is already dead, Judith," Sophie said mildly. Judith only slammed it harder on the board. She wielded a mean knife, too and it was Sophie's sudden thought that Judith was wishing it was another body laying upon that board other than a scrawny hen with its neck about to be chopped off.
Judith looked down at the exposed neck of the chicken, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. She hated this chore. But, they still had to eat and if she were to consume another meal consisting of colcannon, it would be one too many. Anything, even chopping the head off a chicken, was preferable to eating another turnip.
She was cutting the onions into fine dices when Fiona opened the seaside door, entering the kitchen as if she needed no invitation. Truth to tell, none of the women ever knocked, simply entered Tynan as if the laird’s home was as open to them as family. It was, after all, the clan system. Related or no, the clan was kindred and all its members as close as siblings.
Still, Judith frowned at the woman who dared to invade her kitchen.
"Yer daein brawlie wi the cloker," Fiona said, the sweetness in her voice at odds with the contemptuous sneer on her full lips. Her accent seemed oddly thicker, Judith tho
ught, as if it were a thinly veiled insult at her nationality. Not that Fiona ever needed an excuse to mock her. The woman had been a splinter under her skin since the first moment she’d seen her, always sauntering up to Alisdair, rubbing herself around him like a purring cat.
Even now, when Alisdair was in Inverness, she’d doxied herself up for him. Her blouse was scarlet, loose fitting with full, gathered sleeves and a neckline scooped low in the front, revealing the swell of plump, uncorseted breasts. A woolen skirt, not long enough to cover her ankles, also exposed bare feet. Her curly black hair was artfully tousled, as if she'd just risen from bed, leaving the impression that both the sheets and their recent occupant were still warm, sultry, and scented with sex.
Douglas was perched on one hip, eagerly patting his mother's cheek. Fiona did not distract him, only smiled fondly into his infant face. A face which bore the unmistakable stamp of Alisdair's parentage.
"Douglas cam ta bide a wee wi' the laird," Fiona announced, not bothering to mask the sneer on her face.
"Alisdair's no' here,” Judith said, in a parody of Fiona’s accent. One hand held the onion steady, the other held the knife, a pose that would have given any other woman a reason to retreat.
Fiona, however, sauntered closer.
There was a faint smile on Fiona's lips as she lowered Douglas to the floor, fetched him a piece of bread from the table.
"He'll be the laird one day, will my Douglas."
Judith did not bother to respond, only began disemboweling the chicken with a fierceness far in excess of the need.
"De ye no' ken he looks like Alisdair?"
Judith's temper was pushed one notch higher.
Fiona smiled down into her son's face. For a long moment, Judith did not raise her eyes from the much abused chicken.
"Alisdair says he is not Douglas's father."