Ambeal.
Alf scrambled sideways, finding his feet. Thus, the blade that was meant for his head came down half a foot further to the left than it should have been and went into his upper left arm.
Alf blinked. The pain should have been there, but he felt nothing. He was surprised. He stood and was moving away and the arm was burning and there was a strange tickling wetness there.
He could hear someone crying, great racking sobs that tore at his heart. Still, he was detached. His mind was elsewhere. Where was he?
He could hear Lewis shouting something. The men-at-arms were running forward, traducing the edges of the square. Someone was crying. What was happening?
Then he heard a roar.
He stepped back automatically as Beiste ran for him, a great roaring lunge that should have brought the blade down clean through his head.
He stepped sideways and the blade cut through empty air. Then, without thinking, he was bringing the blade down again. He cut into Beiste's back and he felt the sword bite and then grate and stop.
Beiste was on the ground and he was standing. The wind, chilly and light, was around him, making him cold. Why was he so cold? Why was he so empty? He stood in the middle of the courtyard and the air moved slowly around him. He stayed up on his feet as Lewis came forward. The old man was screaming himself hoarse and Alf had no idea what it was he was saying.
He felt his legs get tired then, and the blood was running slowly down his arm. He crashed down to one knee.
What were they saying? Why did nothing make sense?
“You've won. Alf, you've won. You can stop now.”
He heard the voice. Of all the others, it cut through his brain. His arm was tingling and stinging now, a tearing pain that made him wince. Why was he so tired?
He smelled the tang of blood and knew that the dark stain that was on the stone was the blood that leaked from his arm. Why was there so much of it? Where was he? What was happening?
“Alf,” a voice sobbed. “Alf. My dear.”
Then everything was silent.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A FRESH START
A FRESH START
The room was dark. The sky outside was gray and the fire burned low. The room was cold. Ambeal sat by the bed. The day had sunk to a fitful dark and the shadows were gray, green, and cool.
“Milady?” a voice called. It barely reached her. She sat where she was. “Milady?”
Bronna. She was in the door, standing behind Ambeal. She sat where she was.
“Leave me.”
“Milady,” Bronna pleaded. “Please, leave him. The priest's here. He's done all anyone can do. You can leave now. Please, come and have some dinner?”
Ambeal didn't move. How could she move? Her life was here, in this bed. There was nothing she could do or say or be.
She looked down at his face. So beautiful and so cold. He was a marble warrior, fastened to a grave. He was perfect and at rest. At peace.
She reached out and stroked his forehead. It was cold.
“Alf,” she cried. “Please. Alf. How can you leave me? Not now.”
He was breathing, but just. Shallow breaths that barely lifted his chest. Slow, effort-demanding breaths. His lips were carved of marble and they barely moved. His eyes were closed.
The breeze blew in through the arch and ruffled his hair. Ambeal reached out and touched it. It was so soft. She had never felt anything so soft. She couldn't believe that this was the same hair she had felt the other day in their bed, when he lay beside her, lips bruised from the kiss he planted there.
“Alf. Please.”
She took his hand, imploring. However, there was nothing she could say. No word that could reach through to him now. He had won the fight. Lewis had declared that he was the winner – Beiste had cheated, tripping him like that. It was against the rules of combat. Everyone agreed. The first blood was his. He had won.
But what does it mean? What can it mean? You won only to leave me! Is your pride satisfied?
The misery was replaced suddenly by a sudden rage. How dare he? She was here, alone, in a world made cold by his absence. It was as if the sun had gone. As if she wandered in a night in which the stars had withdrawn, cold lamps blown out by the breeze.
“Alf!” she screamed. The sob that came out of her sounded barely human, a thing as feral as the cry of wolves. “Alf. You say you loved me. Why, then, have you left me? How dare you leave me!”
She was weeping now, sobbing, her body racked by the sobs. She was rocking and she held him to her chest, his head against her heart. His body was heavy and cold and she dragged it to her, heedless of the pain she might inflict. He was heedless of her pain! He had left her.
“Alf,” she said softly. “I loved you. You leave me now in a world alone. My world is dead without you.”
She rocked him and sobbed and the world faded away, holding only her, him, and the weight of her sorrow.
Suddenly, something changed. She was sitting rocking and sobbing and then, suddenly, there was no longer anything in her arms. The weight had vanished.
What's happening now?
She had a sudden terror that he had in truth left her, that even his body was somehow leaving her. She looked down, blank and unseeing. Suddenly, the room was no longer silent, filled only with the sound of her sob.
Someone was coughing. She looked down, horrified and then in wonderment.
“Alf!”
He was coughing and gasping, great racking sobs that made him rasp for breath, and then turned over and draw in a great heaving sob.
She looked down, horrified and pitying.
“Alf?”
He looked up at her. His eyes were unseeing at first and then they focused on her face. He smiled weakly.
“Ambeal,” he said in a voice that was tired and broken. “Where am I?”
She laughed then. She couldn't help it. She was laughing, hysterical with relief and joy.
“Alf,” she laughed. “Oh, my dear! You're well.”
He smiled wryly. His skin was wax-pale, his eyes gray-ringed and weary. “I don't feel it.”
Ambeal giggled. “Oh, you dear. You're here. You're with me.”
“Yes,” Alf said. His smile softened, filling his face with tenderness and light. He was broken, battered and exhausted. Yet he was here. He took her hand and Ambeal felt his fingers squeeze hers.
“You're here. We're together again. Oh...”
Ambeal let out a great weary sigh. Alf looked at her. He lifted his hand and touched her hair. She looked down and stroked his face.
“I love you, Alf,” she said, every word coming from her heart like a ray of light that shone from it, as bright as the morning.
“I love you, too.”
“Promise me something?” Ambeal said.
“Anything.”
“Never do something so foolish again?”
He chuckled. He winced and coughed.
“I can try,” he said when the coughing had passed. “I don't know if I can promise. But I'll try.”
Ambeal giggled then to. She reached for him and hugged him. He hugged her and his arm tensed and he leaned back.
“That hurt.”
Ambeal laughed. “I suppose it did. You silly man. You're badly injured.”
He frowned at her, eyes misting and then clearing as memory seemed to come back. “What happened?”
Ambeal shook her head. She told him. “You won. You succeeded. Beiste cheated and Lewis declared it. You are my husband now. By right. Indisputably.”
He smiled. “Good.”
“But you are badly injured. You lost a lot of blood, darling.”
He chuckled. “I can feel that.”
They sat there together in a room that was filled with the pale white of setting sunlight. They were both silent for a long while.
Ambeal sighed.
“It feels wonderful. We're free now.”
“We are.”
There was no obstacle
now. No foreseen challenge. They were free.
Free to love.
Ambeal turned and smiled at Alf and the sun gilded that soft auburn of his hair. He took her hand and they sat there, hand in hand, watching the sun set.
Later, there were things to do. Ambeal spoke to her father, very quietly but very determined. He, for once, was silent. He agreed to what she said. He, too, had been shocked by what had transpired that day. He accepted her requests.
The priest came in to see to Alf. He recommended that he stay there for at least a week. Alf accepted his recommendations.
Then there were other things to discuss. The plans for the future. Where they would stay. What they would do. The plans they would make and the children they might one day have and provision for all of them. Their future.
Ambeal suggested that Alina, Alf's aunt and a skilled healer and seer, be summoned from Dunkeld, and Alf proposed instead that they travel there after a week for his convalescence. They agreed.
Ambeal sat with him in the turret room and watched the day cool to night. They hugged and kissed and just enjoyed the warmth and the togetherness. She was so, so happy.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TOGETHER FINALLY
TOGETHER FINALLY
The fire burned low in the grate. It cast a ruddy light over the cover on the bed, over the carpet and made gentle shadows on the bed where Ambeal lay with Alf. He held her close.
“I love you,” he whispered into her hair.
“I love you, too,” she said back. They were in their bedchamber at Bronley castle, just returned from their sojourn at Dunkeld.
Ambeal rested a gentle hand on Alf's shoulder, on the side away from the dark, aching scar where the sword had cut. Alina, Alf's aunt, had stitched the wound and cleaned it with strong spirits and it had closed over, a dark, jagged mark on his smooth, pale upper arm.
“I hope it doesn't hurt anymore,” she whispered in his ear.
“It hurts if I touch it,” he said with a smile, “but otherwise I barely notice.”
“Good.”
She rested her hand on his chest, loving the way she could feel his heart beat under her hand. Steady and regular, the rhythm rocked through her, making her feel safe and warm and contented. She looked up at his face where he lay, long lashes resting on his cheeks, quiet beside her.
“I hope it heals soon,” she commented.
“Mm,” Alf nodded sleepily. “So do I.” She felt his lean body tense under her hand as he turned to face her. “I hope so very much,” he whispered. His hands moved to stroke down her side in a way that made her gasp and warmth soak into her abdomen, traveling lower to fill her body with a slow, insistent flame.
“Why?” she whispered, gasping as his hands stroked down her body, leaving a tingling pleasure in their wake.
“Because,” he murmured into her skin as he kissed her shoulder, “when it's healed, I'll be able to pick you up in my arms again and then we can be even more sweetly wicked than we are now.”
“We can?” she asked, giggling as his hand stroked her belly and moved lower still. She gasped in pleasure as he touched her between her thighs.
“I think we can,” he murmured. His mouth touched her neck and moved lower still and she closed her eyes, waiting with delicious expectation for his lips to clamp onto her nipple. When they did, she gasped and her eyes opened then closed again in wonder as his fingers kneaded her nipple and went lower still. He traced down her abdomen and put his hand between her thighs.
“Oh!”
She breathed in deeply as he gently stroked her, his fingers moving over the soft folds of her skin and stroking her in a way that made her jolt with surprise and wonder. She was starting to shake now as he gently slid a finger into her and touched her in ways that made her shiver with a rising desire. She drew in a breath as he withdrew his hand and moved to lie on top of her.
His eyes looked into hers and she felt the sweet warmth of that expression tingle down every limb and pool inside her. His body moved back so that he knelt between her knees and he gently touched her again, his hand stimulating the hardness between her folds even as his manhood slipped into her. The pressure in both places was almost unbearably sweet and she couldn't help the incoherent moans of pleasure that escaped her lips as he touched her there.
“Oh! Oh!”
He smiled and withdrew slowly, then pushed all the way in again, the length of him filling and fulfilling her in a way she would never have imagined. Every time she was surprised by how wonderful it made her feel and every time she wondered how she could ever have imagined something so beautiful.
He pushed in again and she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him to her, wanting to feel the pressure of his body against her as they moved together, thrusting, panting and moaning as her body lost all knowledge of time or place. She knew only him and the sweet, magnificent feeling of his hardness meeting her softness, a union of flesh. She knew every part of him in this moment, the way it felt against her, familiar, sweet and lovely.
She closed her eyes, feeling the heat rising and building inside her, rising and rising and filling her and making her shiver, pant, and thrust.
Then there was no more awareness. Only the sweet mist of oblivion and the flowing warmth inside her.
They lay together, drowsy in wonderment, until he rolled off her. She lay beside him, her hand on his chest, her head resting on the side of his arm.
“I never imagined something like this,” he whispered to her as he stroked her hair.
She opened her eyes, looking at the ceiling, and turned to kiss his skin. “Me, too.”
There was not much to say, for a while. He held her and she slept, feeling the sweet exhaustion of release fill her. Her belly was a mass of sweet aches, her whole body felt wrung out as if someone had rinsed and soaked her, and dried her in the sun, recomposing her body into a form that recalled nothing except pleasure.
“Ambeal,” Alf whispered gently.
“Mm?”
“Do you think we should change things?”
“What sort of things?” Ambeal asked sleepily. She looked up at him. His eyes were open, but only a little, the lids drowsing over his big brown eyes.
“I don't know. House things,” he said. “Any rules for the tenants...that sort of thing. You know more about the running of this place than I ever could. You will have to teach me.”
Ambeal closed her eyes. After the scorn of Beiste and, to a lesser extent, her father, his assertion that she was a competent manager was amazing.
“I'm not sure,” she said, thoughtful. “We could reduce the rents of the cottagers, but raise the tax on merchants,” she proposed. “That way, we'll encourage more settlers, more artisans.”
“I like that,” Alf said, twisting to smile down into her eyes. “Wise suggestions.”
“Thank you,” Ambeal said. “I managed some of the household matters since I was fourteen years of age. My mother passed away when I was six.”
“I am sorry,” Alf said. “What was her name?”
“Emelia,” Ambeal commented. Her throat was tight with tears. She still recalled her mother's lovely oval face, her friendly green eyes.
“A lovely name,” Alf said.
“Mm.”
They lay quietly a while. At length, Ambeal rolled over so that she lay on his chest and looked down into his eyes. He was so handsome, with that long straight nose and wide brown eyes. She sometimes couldn't believe he was real.
She kissed his neck and his eyes shot open.
“What was that for?” he asked, a big grin bisecting his face.
“Because,” she said. “Just because you're there. And I love you.”
Alf beamed and stroked her hair.
“You're a beautiful woman,” he said gently.
“I'm a happy woman.”
“Mm,” He closed his eyes. “You make me happy. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said.
After a moment, he rolled ov
er, pressing her onto her back. He kissed her, his tongue gently insistent as it entered her mouth. She closed her eyes and let him explore her mouth, shivering as the kiss increased in intensity and passion.
As his body moved over hers and she felt the insistent probing of his body at her thighs she rolled over so that he was captive beneath her.
“Mm!” he smiled up at her. “You are an adventurous woman, are you not?”
“Indeed,” she said, holding his lean, hard body against her, reveling in the warmth and smoothness of his skin against her chest.
“I like that,” he replied. “Though I think we shall have to fight for supremacy here,” he added, rolling her over so that she was on her back, gasping with pleasure as he parted her thighs imperiously with his knee and pushed himself inside her.
She saw that mischievous laugh move his lips and rolled over again, pinioning him to the bed.
“You think so?” she asked, giving him a wicked grin.
“I believe so,” he added, straining and throwing her onto her back again and thrusting into her.
She giggled and leaned onto her side, wrestling to throw him onto his back, but he was moving in her now. giggling and laughing, his laughter mingling with hers, she held him close and they moved together, his pleasure mounting and hers growing and building inside her once again, a warm furnace that could consume her and leave her full of nothing but bliss.
Later, as they lay together, he on his back beside her, she with her hand on his chest, eyes closed, she knew that she could not be more filled with joy.
EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
The room was warm. A fire burned in the grate though it was sunny outside, the height of summer.
“Oh, Alf,” Ambeal giggled. “You know we don't have to be that careful.”
Alf smiled where he sat beside her in the bed. “I know.”
“We can start to worry about that in winter. Not now. Now we can still love.” She pushed him back onto the pillow insistently, her body pressed against his lean, hard one.
The Highland Secret Agent Page 30