by Jackie Ivie
“Call off the duel,” Plato said.
“Morgan will na’ let me.”
Plato looked over at her then, and she watched his features soften. She only hoped it wasn’t as noticeable for the others. Then, she asked herself why she cared. Zander couldn’t possibly punish her any further than he already was.
“Verra well. Find the heat stone,” Plato said, finally.
“The what?” Zander asked.
Martin was already rooting about in the basket at the foot of Zander’s bedstead.
“Heat stone, for warming beds.”
“They use such?”
“These English-bred lairds like their comforts. I have to admit that ’tis verra welcome on a cold Highland night, too. You’ll see when, and if, we ever get you home again. You have it, Martin?”
“Aye.”
Morgan looked at the strange, flat boulder, and watched as Plato took it from the lad and walked over to the fire. He set it down and with two long-handled tongs, picked up the stone and set it in the midst of the blaze.
“Now, Morgan. Your turn.” Plato winked at her. “Take your clothing off.”
“I will na!” she burst out.
He was grinning across at her, now. “Well, since your squire is so shy, Zander, I suppose we’ll have to see if this will work through the stout FitzHugh sett he wears. Lie down.”
Morgan looked at the three men in the room and felt panicked. She wasn’t going to a prone position with them watching. She’d already shown too much of her weakness.
“You heard him, lad. Now.” Zander was motioning to the center of the room.
“Back away then,” she snapped.
She waited until Martin and Zander were at the walls. Plato was still at the fire. She ignored him. She was rosy with the reaction of having an audience to her weakness, and that was transferring to a sheen of sweat all about her body, and Plato was warming a stone for her? She was going to expire of the heat.
Morgan forced her legs to move, hating the jerking motions she had to use, since she’d been upright and in one position for too long. She looked toward Zander only once, and watched his lips thin and his face stiffen.
Then she was at the center of his rug, looking across at the window as she prepared to take the jolt on her knees.
“Morgan?” Zander’s whisper touched her ear.
“Doona’ move!” She snarled the command in his direction and slammed her knees into the tapestry on the floor. Then she was shuddering with the blast of fire-pain along her back while she waited, panting through the throbbing until it became bearable.
“Plato, assist him,” Zander said, “since my touch is so abhorrent.”
“Doona’ touch me! Either of you. Any of you.”
She scrunched her eyes shut and took the landing onto her buttocks with only a gasp this time. She didn’t hesitate before falling the final distance to her side, either. She didn’t dare. She lay for a few moments while the pain eased away.
Then, she grit her teeth and rolled onto her back, opened her eyes on the amazing height that was the ceiling and smiled. “There. ’Tis done. I’m down. What next would you have of me?”
Zander was at her shoulder, and his eyes had never looked so big, nor so blue, as they did with a sheen of moisture coating them. Morgan shifted her gaze away before his emotion transferred to her. She should be feeling the mortification more than anything, but instead, all she knew was relief.
“Now, we ease the stone under his neck. Zander, you lift his head. Watch when I place it. ’Tis hot.”
Zander didn’t move. Morgan forced herself to meet his gaze.
“Go ahead, lift my head. Move my neck,” she told him. “You already have. One more time won’t do more damage, now will it?”
“I dinna’ know,” he said. “Dear God, I dinna’—”
“You still doona’. None of you. I’ll stick a blade in the first of you that says he does know, and I will na’ miss. You ken?”
Zander smiled, although it wasn’t a very strong smile like his usual. In fact, he looked a bit white around the lips. Morgan narrowed her eyes as she considered that. A little weakness and he turns sick? Good thing he wasn’t the one forced to raid battlefields.
“Lift my head, FitzHugh, or I will. And if I have to expend my strength to do it, I’ll take every bit of it out of your hide.”
“Is that a promise?” he whispered, sliding an arm under her neck, while his other slid beneath the small of her back where it arched above the floor.
Morgan closed her eyes then, and let herself feel his touch. She felt it so keenly that she wasn’t aware when he lifted her, although she felt the heat when he put her back down. She smiled again.
“That’s awful nice, Master Zander. Verra nice of you. All of you. My thanks.”
Sweat was breaking out all along her hairline at the heat, just like she’d guessed it would, but the blessed warmth was saturating every bit of her spine, making it limber, protected, relaxed and comfortable-feeling for the first time since Zander had assaulted her mouth with his.
She used to think it a kiss, now she didn’t know. It didn’t resemble what Sophie had tried to plant on her, it didn’t resemble what she’d seen the hag doing. It didn’t resemble any of that. It must not have been a kiss, and that meant it wasn’t given as one.
“When the stone cools, we have to replace it, Zander,” Plato spoke from what seemed leagues away.
“Get the one from your room, too, then. We’ll not waste time heating one when it could be on his neck.”
“You want him well enough to fence, that badly?”
Morgan kept her eyes closed and listened to the voices floating about in the almost obscene height of this Argylle castle room.
“I doona’ ken what I want anymore, Plato. All I know is this is my fault. I wish it undone. I feel all hurt inside watching him. I wish it atoned for, and I wish my squire healed. I’ll heat stones all night.”
“So he can fight for you?”
“Nay. I want him well. I doona’ care if he ever fights again after tomorrow.”
It’s all right, Zander, she longed to say, I will na’ be fighting after tomorrow. It will be nigh impossible to do anything after tomorrow. I guarantee it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In her dream, it was Zander smoothing over her hair, caressing it, leaving it to cascade about them. It was Zander’s perfect, muscled body lying alongside hers, his lips touching hers, searching, reaching, accepting nothing less than she give to him absolutely everything she had, and everything she ever would be. If she did, his lips promised her the same.
Then, Morgan woke.
The Argylle castle floor was hard, the stone at her neck was cold, and the man sitting cross-legged beside her was all strength and rugged masculinity. He wasn’t paying much attention to tending to her, either. He was sliding his fingers through her loosed hair and combing every strand between his fingers, before putting several little braids in.
“Zander?” Morgan whispered it, and he dropped the miniature braid he’d been weaving. “’Tis morn?”
He smiled, and he looked more worn and haggard than she possibly could. “Some hours ago, it was,” he replied.
“Truly?”
“How do you feel?” He brushed the strands of her hair from his lap and reached under her to touch the stone beneath her neck. “I let it go cold. Forgive me. ’Twas my chore.”
“Your chore?” she asked.
“The others had things to see to. Actually, Plato had to see to things. Martin had to see to Plato. I think that’s what I was told.”
“Have you been awake all night?” she asked.
He tipped his head in a slight nod. “Most of,” he replied. “Don’t move. I’ll get the other stone.”
Morgan turned her head and watched him, and then it occurred to her. She’d turned her head.
She was smiling so widely when he turned, that he stopped in place and the stone in the tongs trembled.
“Plato said it would be so. He said you had to work the injured part back into place with heat. Once that was done, you’d be as right as before. You’ll have ache where you held the injured part stable, though. He wanted you warned of it.”
She went to rise, and groaned. “Oh. He was right,” she answered, falling back.
“If you do that again, I can place the stone.”
“How did you do it before?”
“Lifted you. You’re na’ verra heavy, although you’ve gained two stone since we met. You’re still light as a thistle, and about as strong, I might add.”
“I am na!” she protested, and caught the hint of his teasing smile.
“I was thinking while you slept, that you should trim that hank of hair you own,” he said.
Morgan considered him for a moment. She supposed it wouldn’t matter actually, if that’s what he wanted. Then again, after the duel, it wouldn’t matter, anyway. “I will, if that is your wish,” she replied, softly.
He knelt at her shoulders, his hands busy with the stone. She watched as they shook, banging the tongs together.
“Morgan,” he said, her name like a plea.
“What is it?” she asked.
Blazing, blue eyes bored into hers at the question, and she gasped at the answer. Then, the stone hit the floor and she was in his arms. Morgan didn’t even know how she got there, all she knew was complete and utter joy. Zander’s hands filled with her hair, wrapping it about his fists, and he plundered her mouth, much as he had before.
Morgan wasn’t letting him get all the motion in, though. She was using everything he’d taught her, and she sucked on his tongue until it squirmed out of her grasp. Then, his lips were on her jaw, her throat, tracing to the button placket of her shirt, and sending nerve signals throughout her body in anticipation of a pleasure so vast, she’d have no comparison. It was exactly what she needed before she sacrificed herself to the English champion.
She wondered how Zander knew.
Then, she knew she couldn’t let it continue. If he found her true gender, he’d finish this, they’d finish this, and she wouldn’t be able to meet her destiny. She’d get nothing other than a lifetime as his play-time wench, while the beauteous, perfect, Gwynneth Argylle got the position of his wife.
Not that a KilCreggar would even consider the position of a FitzHugh wife, but his whore? She pushed at his chest, and received tighter arms about her for the effort.
“Doona’ stop me, Morgan...please?”
Breath caressed where he’d just moistened with his tongue, and if she hadn’t a binding holding everything in place, the pin-pricks of her nipples would be trying to bore into his chest. Morgan gasped at the sensation and pushed harder against him.
“Nay, Zander. Nay!”
He lifted his head, stared at her, and then shut his eyes. His groan wasn’t as raw or tormented as it had been on the target field, but it meant the same thing. Morgan knew it the instant he pulled away, sliding from beneath her without looking her in the eye.
He was on his feet and adjusting his kilt about himself and looking anywhere but at her.
“Zander?” she whispered, trying to get her body to follow his, but Plato hadn’t exaggerated the ache she’d feel. “I’ve got something that needs saying.”
“Don’t.” He put a hand, palm outward, toward her and placed his other over his eyes. “Please, don’t...say another word. Not one. I beg it of you.”
Morgan lay flat, her hands making fists at her side, and her lips tightening so they could force her not to spew the truth. She was stiff, and it had nothing to do with her back. It had to do with keeping him from the truth until they prepared her body for burial.
“Sweet Jesu’, but I hate myself, Morgan. I dinna’ wish this. I doona’ like the feeling.”
“Zander—”
“Doona’ stop me, and doona’ interrupt again! I’ve words that need spoken, and then we speak no more of this, you ken?”
“I ken,” she whispered.
He moved to sit on his bed, put his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands. Morgan had a very good view of him from her vantage point, and he wasn’t wearing his loin-wrap. Her face was hotter than any heat stone could make it. She was in luck that he didn’t look up.
“I’ve no taste for boys. At least, I dinna’ a-fore you. I doona’ know why, either. I have no leanings towards other lads, just you. You, Morgan…and I doona’ ken why. Oh, God.”
She watched as he tensed, and then he was shaking with what could only be sobs. Morgan bit her tongue until it bled a pool of the liquid into her mouth. She was not going to tell him! She was not going to be his whore! She was not! She was not!
She repeated it over and over again to herself as he shook with emotion. He could find out when they buried her, and not before. As the last true KilCreggar, she demanded nothing less. She rolled her head back to look up at the ceiling far above her and the beams that crossed it to hold up another floor above it.
“I went to confession. I told a priest about you...about us. I asked him for absolution. I want you to know this.”
He was sniffing away any evidence of his lack of control and sounded like the little boy he must have once been.
“What happened?” she asked the ceiling.
“All I received was a proposition to go to his chambers. The lecherous bastard! A man of the cloth, and he—! They—! Blast and damn their souls to Hell, too! Along with mine!”
He didn’t sound like a little boy anymore. Morgan didn’t look to see why. She could imagine, and she wasn’t telling him anything. No matter what he said, she wasn’t telling him anything. She wasn’t going to spend her life as a FitzHugh whore. She wasn’t.
“I begged Plato not to leave me alone with you, too. Damn him. Damn me, and damn him again. I surrounded myself with clansmen so I would na’ be left alone with you, and what happens? They abandon me.”
“I recollect that they tried to purchase me from you,” she remarked.
“No one purchases you from me. No one!”
“You canna’ be with me, Zander, and yet you won’t save yourself from this? Why?”
“I doona’ know. Just as I doona’ know why I feel this way. I dinna’ ask for it. God forbid! I had no place in my life for a love such as I feel for you.”
She was not telling him a word! Not one! Morgan moaned with the vow, and choked on the horrid-tasting blood in her mouth as she swallowed it. She was not telling him a word! “Zander?” she whispered, despite every restraint she was putting on herself.
“Doona’ say a word, Morgan. ’Tis I, who must face this. I who must try to learn to live with it.”
“Live...with it?” she repeated, in a broken whisper.
“I canna’ have you, but I will na’ give you up. I will na’, although Plato asks oft’ enough. I will na’ give you to any man, for any amount of silver. I doona’ ask why, anymore. It’s enough that I know it as fact.”
“I will na’ serve another, anyway, Zander. I am too stubborn.”
“That much is true. I hope that is one trait my betrothed does na’ have of yours.”
“Your...?” She couldn’t finish it. She was afraid of what it meant. In the next words, she knew, too.
“Why do you ken I picked a bride that matches you?”
Tears filled both eyes and she didn’t know how she managed to still be breathing. He’d gone and selected a bride because he wanted Morgan? Oh, dearest God!
He sighed, loudly enough for her to hear over her silent grief, and then he was speaking again. Morgan knew if she’d told him when she’d shown him knife-throwing, he’d have wanted her. He’d have wed her instead. She, rather than the petite Lady Gwynneth, could have been his wife, the woman to bear him little, black-haired bairns. Oh God!
Morgan moaned, feeling the rivulets of emotion wash over her
in wave after wave of belly-churning sickness.
“...something I need to give you. You are na’ to tell a soul the significance. You ken?”
He was waiting for an answer and she had to get control over herself in order to give it. She focused on the ceiling above her, and begged God to numb her heart until it ceased beating. If He would do that, she’d be content. She didn’t think she could manage to take this long enough to make it to the evening duel. Any more, and she’d be putting a dirk into her own heart to numb it.
“What?” she finally managed to say.
“I’ve got something for you.”
“I’ll na’ take another thing from you Zander FitzHugh.” Her shoulders were shaking on the floor with the repressed feelings. “I...I will na’...I canna’ repay it.”
“I do na’ give it as a debt!”
Tears were blinding her when he knelt beside her again, and she didn’t do anything other than let them slide into her ears, while she stared at the ceiling. She didn’t dare look at him. She was being stupid, too, she tried telling herself. What, but knowing he’d sent the woman he loved to her death, would be better payment for anything the FitzHughs had done to the KilCreggars? The only thing better would be if he were their laird. Perhaps the laird would hear of it, and know. It was actually a perfect revenge, if she thought of it, but it was torturing her worse than it could ever him.
At least, her torment would be short, however. His was going to be life-long. She hoped the Lady Gwynneth had the tongue of a serpent, and aged poorly.
Morgan blinked the tears from existence, rubbed at her eyes and turned her head to meet his eyes. Zander looked like he’d been through a torturer’s embrace, by the dead look in his eyes. He was holding something out to her, too. Morgan forced herself to sit, cross-legged, face him, and look at what it was.
“’Tis a skean dhu known as the dragon blade. ’Tis said it possesses magical powers. I doona’ ken any of that. It’s verra old. Very valuable. It bears my family crest, the dragon.”
The blade was stiletto-length, and polished to a slick-water surface shine. There were two dragons molded into a hilt, their mouths open and appearing to spew forth the blade, while their tails intertwined to form a mysterious, beautiful, and wicked-looking handle. At the crest of the hilt was a heart-shaped, blood-red ruby. Morgan’s eyes were as wide as her mouth as she looked at it.