“And through the town we go!”
Ambeal froze as the chorus was finished, in another voice. A soft male voice, clear and warm, perhaps even better at carrying the tune than her own.
“Alf?” she shouted.
“Ambeal!”
She was laughing now, and crying too, as he rode out of the woods to her right. He had been the tracker. She felt her heart soar with joy.
“Alf!” she shouted again. She rode to him and they dismounted, and together, laughing and crying, they embraced and kissed again.
“Don't ever go away again,” he whispered, stroking her hair as he smiled down into her face. “I was so, so sad. So wretched...”
“Alf, Alf!” Ambeal chuckled, reaching up to stroke his cheek. “I cannot believe it! How can you be here, so loving? I thought we...” she choked, unable even to speak it now that they were here, and safe, and friends once more.
“You thought what?”
“I thought you hated me!”
Alf stared down at her. She saw his warm brown eyes cloud with confusion, and his smile was a tremulous thing, like crocuses in snowfall. “Ambeal!” he said, amazement thinning his voice. “How could you?”
She giggled. It seemed so stupid now. So surreal – why had they even fought?
“Ambeal, my dear,” he said again. He hugged her close to his chest and she felt his arms, warm, safe and comforting, enfold her close. “How could you think I ever could hate you?”
“I don't know,” she chuckled. Her relief was making her feel lightheaded. She clung to him, swaying a little, to steady herself. “I am sorry I did, though.”
“Oh, Ambeal,” he sighed. “No, never apologize for that! The fault was mine...I should have trusted you. Should have asked you. I thought...” He shook his head. “No matter now. Nothing means anything...only that you are safe. And here, with me.” He kissed her brow.
Ambeal sighed, held him close, and then, gently lifted her lips to his.
They clung together, and she felt her heart settling to how it should be. Then they mounted and rode on, together and quiet, her heart filled with love again, back to the footpath and back home.
CHAPTER TEN
UNION AND PLEASURE
UNION AND PLEASURE
The castle was dark by the time they rode back. Ambeal shivered as she dismounted and tiptoed in up the stairs toward the great hall. Torches were lit behind the sentry on duty, their plumes wavering in the fitful breeze. Ambeal shivered as she nodded to the guard. Alf was already within. She walked up the steps, her footsteps echoing, and went slowly inside.
“Ambeal,” a voice whispered from the darkness in the recess.
“Alf.”
Ambeal felt her heart thump slowly as his arms came down round her and his lips, hard and hungry, pressed against hers. His tongue was probing and licked along the line of her lips, demanding entry. She parted her lips and let it in, feeling her own body tingle in urgent response as she felt it explore her yielding mouth.
“Ambeal,” he whispered as he looked into her eyes. She leaned back and in response to the question those hungry eyes asked, she turned and headed into the darkened hallway, heading up the stairs.
“Good evening,” the sentry said as she headed to the upper hallway, passing through the colonnade.
“Evening, Bryce.”
They slipped on silently and urgently, to her bedchamber.
Ambeal unlocked the door with trembling fingers and led him inside. On the threshold, she stopped. He grabbed her in his arms and pressed her to him, his body closing the door. She heard it shut with a click.
Then his mouth descended on hers and it was clinging, hard and famished. She felt her own body respond in kind and let him push his tongue into her waiting mouth, probing and exploring as she leaned against him, yielding to his touch absolutely.
“Ambeal,” he whispered again.
She nodded and he led her to the bed and threw her back on it. She bounced a little when she hit the mattress and lay there, breathless and excited, while she heard the small sounds of his undressing. She waited, body coursing with uncontrollable excitement, as he came to join her on the mattress.
“I want you so much,” he said.
“I want you.”
He chuckled and kissed her again and his hands, slow and insistent, unfastened the buttons down her dress. She felt the cool air on her back and tensed, then relaxed, her body shivering with need, as he drew the dress down her body and to the floor. Then his mouth moved to her throat and she gasped as his lips whispered over the delicate skin of her neck, biting, nibbling and teasing.
“Oh,” she gasped as he undressed her, and then bent down to her body.
His mouth was tender and warm as he drew in a nipple, taking it between his lips so gently and firmly. She felt as if fire ran through her veins as the sensation from his touch on her left breast and his mouth at the other worked through her and transported her to another place of bliss.
He swapped hands and then moved lower still, his lips leaving a trail of fire down her body. She shivered and gasped as he parted her thighs, his hand reaching for the place between.
Then, pleasure exploded in her, so intense it might have been painful, as he touched the same place with his warm, soft lips.
“Oh, oh, dearest...” she sobbed as his lips nuzzled and touched her, moving over places that struck such pleasure in her body that she could not be still. She was feeling strange sensations moving through her, a heat rising and building in her that was unbearable, that was rising, and rising and sweeping her away...
“Oh!”
She screamed aloud as the heat consumed her, crashing through her like a wave and then, before it had a chance to filter through, he was kneeling down and inserting himself in her.
She closed her eyes as, slowly and insistently, he began to move. He was in her and the sensations he called up in the depths of her body were so sweet and so profound that she had to block out all other sensation as the wave rose in her and he moved faster and faster, and then impossibly fast as they both gasped and panted and cried and then collapsed. They lay together in sleep.
Later, they talked. Ambeal woke to find him looking into her eyes and smiled up at him.
“Ambeal, my dearest,” he said gently. “I am sorry. Perhaps you can tell me what happened?”
Ambeal sighed. “Oh, dear. It all seems silly.”
“Be that as it may,” he said tenderly. “It happened. We should not let unsaid words come between us. Not again. Not ever again.”
“Oh, Alf,” Ambeal agreed, swallowing hard as her tenderness and sorrow filled her heart. “You are right. There is nothing, nothing, that should come between us.”
They kissed and Ambeal sighed, finding her words.
“I thought...when I rode off like that, I thought you wanted to be rid of me.” She closed her eyes, feeling the misery of it well up in her afresh. “I thought you...wished you'd never come here.”
She opened her eyes to look into Alf's worried brown ones. “Sweetness,” he whispered gently, stroking her brow. “I cannot believe you thought that. I am a fool.” He closed his eyes and she saw his throat work as he swallowed a lump there. “I thought...” he shook his head. “Silly, now.”
“No, tell me,” she insisted gently. “I need to know. No secrets, now.”
He nodded, gave her a smile, and continued. “Well, when you seemed so cold, I thought...I thought he was right.”
“Who?”
“Your father. He told me...” he paused. “He said that you were in love with Beiste. Beiste McGormond.”
Ambeal felt her face stiffen with disbelief. She sat up. “What?” she asked. She was furious. Her heart pulsed with her anger. She felt half a mind to go straight to his chamber and demand an explanation for that act. Demand an apology. “Beiste!” she spat.
Alf looked at her with his mouth twisted to the side, almost amused. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I should not have believed it. It
seems you have...little liking for him.”
“Little indeed!” Ambeal said grimly. How could she tell Alf that she was frightened of the man? That he'd threatened her? Alf would skewer him. She knew that now. However, her father... “What did he say?” She sighed, her heart weary now with the sorrow in it.
“He said,” he paused, clearing his throat. “He said you were always in love with him. That, when he visited here, you expressed your interest in renewing it. That you wished...you wished rid of me, to pursue...that.” His voice was harsh, as if it was hard to get out the words. Ambeal swallowed.
“He said that! He lied!” she felt so angry that she slipped out of bed, reaching for her long robe where it hung in the corner by the curtain round the bed.
“Ambeal,” Alf said gently, sitting up, the coverlet falling in gentle folds back from his sculpted chest, “where are you going?”
“I'm going to confront my father. Now,” she said. Then she felt her anger leave her and the ill-advised plan left her.
“Come, sweetling,” Alf said gently. “There is time for that. Now we know it's not true, we can work it out. We can.”
Ambeal nodded grimly. “We shall,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Beiste is...not to be trusted,” she said cautiously. “Neither is he.”
“Your father?” Alf asked. He had sat up against the pillows and his arm reached for her hand. She moved closer, laying her face in the crook of his shoulder and her hand on his belly, feeling the rise and fall of his breath and of his heart as they rested.
“Yes.”
She considered what she should tell him. At length, she told him of her father's dealing with the Duncraigh. She told him Beiste had threatened her when visiting. Those of her suspicions which she could not yet prove, she kept back. Better to wait until she could show conclusively that Beiste was trying to prove her mad than that she accused him now. It wouldn't work now.
“You think,” Alf said later as they lay together, still and comforted by their closeness, “he intended to be rid of me?”
Ambeal snorted, a mirthless giggle escaping her lips. “I'm certain of it.”
Alf whistled. “That's wicked.”
Ambeal nodded. “I know.”
They lay there in the silence awhile.
“Beiste told father I'm wandering in the wits,” she confided. She felt Alf tense. He turned to her. His face was white with anger and she instantly wondered if she'd been right to tell him. He was furious. Would he do something spontaneous and rash, because of this? She did not know.
“How...why?” Alf said loudly, incoherent in his anger.
“Shhh, dear. I didn't wish to make you angry,” Ambeal soothed. Her hand rested on him, steadying his impassioned mood, and he lay back, relaxing.
“Sorry, dear,” Alf said contritely. “I just couldn't bear to think that someone would do such a thing. And do that to what end, I wonder?”
“He wishes to convince Father he needs him,” Ambeal explained grimly. “He wants Father to make him his heir, entrusting all the estate to him. It's all he cares about.”
“And he thinks your father will trust him to protect you?” Alf asked, voice harsh.
“He thinks my father will see him as competent, as running the estate better than I do,” Ambeal said tightly. “He does know the place – he's known it since he was a boy, really. And he's known me since then. Which Father of course would see as making him the perfect person to manage my madness.” She chuckled, tightly. The more she thought about it, the more she could almost appreciate the wildness of his desperate plan.
“He cares for you?” Alf asked.
She laughed. “He cares for nothing,” she said harshly. “Just the estate.”
“Oh.”
They lay there in silence for a while. At length, Alf whispered softly.
“I'm sorry.”
Ambeal turned to stare at him. His face was pale, eyes like two chips of shattered glass.
“Why, dearest?” she whispered. “Why are you sorry, my dear?”
“I left you here,” he whispered. “And worse than that, when I returned, I wouldn't hear you. You could have been harmed by that man. Probably almost were. And I was too arrogant, too distant and too self-obsessed, to let you tell me that.”
Ambeal closed her eyes. Though she did not want to see him hurting, his words were balm for her soul. Proof that he did care. Proof that he understood the hurt he had caused her, that he knew her well enough to know how badly that had hurt, that feeling of betrayal.
“Oh, Alf,” she whispered. She rolled over and propped herself on one elbow, looking down into those solemn brown eyes she loved so boundlessly. “I love you.”
Alf smiled up at her. “What'd I say?”
She chuckled. “I know you're sorry. And you can know I'm sorry, too. I'm sorry I was so blind. That I chose to believe you'd reject me. I'm sorry I didn't trust you.”
She saw him blinking rapidly, and knew, to her astonishment, he too was crying. He coughed and looked into her eyes.
“Oh, Ambeal,” he said.
“Oh, Alf.”
They kissed and made love again. It was getting light outside, the first gray of morning touching the sky beyond the deep recessed windows across from them before, sated and sleepy, they settled down again.
All was well in their world.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CALLING OUT THE ENEMY
CALLING OUT THE ENEMY
The day was surprisingly warm, and Alf spent the afternoon in the courtyard with Lewis, the chief guard, scrubbing down their shields and sharpening swords. It was a painstaking business, bettered by the good company.
“A bad winter and a good spring, eh, sir?” Lewis said. His eyes wrinkled in the corners as he bent to scrape a particularly stubborn rust spot off the blade.
“So it is said,” Alf nodded. He smoothed sand over a notch in his wooden shield, wondering if any amount of polishing was going to get it out. He doubted it. However, today, he had hope enough for everything. He closed his eyes as he recalled the previous night he had spent with Ambeal. The reconciliation and the flame of their love, renewed, burned inside his stomach like a forge fire.
“Well, you seem cheerful with it, so that's a good sign,” the man grunted, kneeling up so he could reach for the long knife that lay on the bench beside them.
“I am cheerful,” Alf commented, scrubbing with a will at the shield.
“Makes light work,” Lewis nodded.
They were silent a while longer, Alf scrubbing away at the shield, his thoughts recalling every gasp and moan of the night before, the war chief busy with scrubbing at rust spots. Alf heard footsteps crossing the courtyard.
Probably just the maidservant off to the kitchen garden. All the same, those footsteps sound different.
He looked up in time to see Ambeal, light-footed, running over the flagging before them, long hair a pennant on the wind.
“Ambeal!” he said, squinting into the sunlight, a happy smile stretching his cheeks up in a grin.
“Alf!” Ambeal said. Close up, she seemed worried. Alf frowned, wondering why.
“What is it, dear?”
“Beiste,” she said succinctly. “He's here.”
Alf frowned. He stood, setting the shield aside. He had something to say about that. He turned to Lewis, an apology on his lips.
“I need to go now,” he said softly. “I'll finish later.”
“Very good, sir,” the chief guardsman grunted. He bent his graying head over the blade again.
“Ambeal?” he asked, frowning as he caught up with her. “Why? Do you know?”
Ambeal shook her head. “I don't, no.”
Alf went with her as, together, they went through the main doors into the castle. Ahead of her, he frowned down where she stood on the lower rung of the steps.
“Ambeal,” he said gravely. “Please, don't let yourself be close to him alone. Keep away from him. He means you ill.”
Ambeal n
odded. She looked afraid and Alf felt a tremor of nerves down his own spine. She really was fearful of this man. She nodded. “I'll stay away,” she promised.
“My lady!” A maid, Mrs. Ainsely's daughter, appeared. “Oh, there you are. The master called you to the solar.”
Ambeal nodded to her. “I'll go.”
Alf looked at her. She nodded fractionally as if she heard the unspoken question that he posed.
“I'll also come,” he said.
Ambeal breathed out, seeming relieved as he joined her in the hallway. Together they went up the long and winding staircase to the upper colonnade.
“Thank you,” she whispered at the head of the hallway.
“It's nothing, dear.”
Ambeal gripped his hand and they walked along the long, well-lit colonnade together.
At the solar, Ambeal hung back. Alf stood behind her, feeling the way her whole body went rigid with fear on simply smelling him. He rested a hand on her shoulder, feeling an almost unreasoning anger at anyone who made her so afraid.
“I'll come too,” he said.
Ambeal gripped his fingers with her hand and nodded. “Thank you, dear.”
Together they walked into the solar.
The light streamed in through the long windows, casting wavering shadows on the floor. In the blaze of it, a man sat on the settle. Her father stood at the edge of the room, squinting into the light.
“Ah, daughter...” he began. His eyes fell on Alf and he stopped, hesitant.
“Allow me to express my gladness upon seeing you again, in such rare health,” a man said. Someone – Alf presumed this to be Beiste - had stood up smoothly from the place he had occupied on the settee, long legs unfolding from where they'd been crossed before him. He smiled down at Ambeal, his eyes filled with apparent warmth. Alf, he ignored.
“Ambeal is very well,” Alf said stubbornly. “My lord,” he added with a trace of irony.
Beiste looked at him, his long, grim face showing no real expression. Only his eyes danced.
The Highland Secret Agent Page 28