He stilled. “Do I hurt you?”
“Nay, you dinna hurt me, my love.” She slid trembling, water-warmed fingers down his face. “You heal me. You make me feel wondrous young and shiny new.” She rocked against him.
Callum was deeply moved and mortally aroused. He pushed inside her again, his fingers trailing the juncture between her buttocks. Alys shivered. She ground against him, her breaths coming in little pants, her nails digging into his shoulders.
For the span of minutes, reality dissolved into the slapping together of warm, wet flesh, the smell of roses and evergreen, and the firmness of Alys’s lithe little body straining to meet his. The wild, urgent look in her eyes told him she was closing in on her climax. Callum reckoned he was but a few strokes from his, as well. He vowed to wait for her.
“Flesh of my flesh…” Hands braced beneath her thighs, he pressed deeply into her.
Alys threw back her head, her moaning spiraling like steam. She clutched his shoulders harder. “Oh, Callum!”
“Heart of my heart…” He twisted his hips and thrust again, entering her at an angle.
He trailed the fingers of one hand between her buttocks and reached around to her front. He wanted to touch her everywhere at once, all at once, but he most especially wanted to touch her there. “Love of my life.”
Clutching his shoulders, Alys threw back her head and screamed.
THEY LAY TOGETHER atop the blankets spread upon the floor, the cooling water tickling their toes, their bodies sensitized from the steam and the loving.
Alys’s shift lay across a bench to dry. Callum picked up the vial of scented oil and drizzled it on her back, following the curve of her spine.
Resting her head on her folded arms, Alys shivered, and then sighed. “You spoil me. I could become accustomed to this.”
“And so you will.”
He massaged in the oil, his hand dallying in the cleft between her buttocks. Giving in to a devil’s dare, he leaned over and lightly bit one taut milky lobe. “Just as I thought. Like a firm apple.” Pulling back, he gave her a light smack.
Alys wriggled more in pleasure, he thought, than in any desire to get away. She looked back at him over her shoulder. Her damp hair formed a halo of ringlets, framing a face that was not only relaxed but glowing.
“We have yet more Christmas nights before Twelfth Night. You must not spend all your gifts in one day.”
“I will have to come up with more beyond the twelve. Once I’ve finished with Field, I mean to devote endless hours to finding new ways to pleasure and delight you.”
She sobered. “What will you do about Alex?”
Callum stalled his stroking. He let out a heavy breath and admitted, “Ordinarily I would have him executed.”
She hauled herself up on her elbows. “My lord, I pray you do not. He is my son’s father. And he was…dear to me once.”
A week before that admission would have roused him to jealousy but they’d both been through so very much since then. The past was best set to rest in the shadow land of memory, whereas a joyous lifetime of Christmases lay ahead.
He pulled her back against him, wrapping her in his arms. “Then I will spare him for your sake, as well as Alasdair’s.” In response to her furrowing brow, he explained, “I want no more doubt cast upon our union. After the Christmas holy day, I will convene another court, presided over by the Old Gentlemen and myself, and before all the clans folk, I will make his treachery known.”
If only he might track down that rent records page! He would give an eyetooth to have it in his possession. Still, if need be, the sworn testimony of the priest at St. Andrew’s, Father Seumas, would suffice. He glanced at the hourglass above them, set out to track the time. Like the dwindling sands, the steam and scent were fast fading, the outside chill finding its way within the tented walls. It was coming on time for them to leave their Christmas fairyland for the real world where hard tasks and unsavory duties awaited. Field must be dealt with. The depth of his perfidy made him a dangerous man. He couldn’t be allowed to go about freely, not any longer. The trial would not take place until after the holy days, but Field would find himself a prisoner under house arrest ere nightfall. The sooner he was clapped in irons, the safer Alys and her son would be.
IT WAS COMING ON DARK when Father Fearghas finally reached the Fraser fortress. He’d never found his mount. The bandits who’d stolen his purse had taken his cloak, as well. Frozen, footsore, and no doubt nursing an ague, still he summoned a smile as he crossed the bridge and stepped up to the gatehouse. His personal trials were nothing compared to the glad tidings he bore. Because of him, Callum and the Lady Alys could wed. Come to think of it, they were already wed. Who knew but mayhap they would name a son after him. He wasn’t expecting anything. It was but a thought.
For now he would seek out the Fraser, impart his good news, and then take his weary, aching body to the comfort of his bed.
“Halt, who goes there?”
One of the pair of guards hauled him up against the stone wall. The other pointed his pike at Fearghas’s throat.
Dividing his gaze between them, he said, “My good men, you are grievously mistaken. I live here. I am a respected priest—your laird’s priest.”
They ran their gazes over him and chortled, knifing one another in the ribs. “O’course you are. And I’m the King of France and he of England.”
Several times they tried sending him to the beggar’s gate. They laughed at his repeated demands to be taken to Callum.
“Even if we were so addled as to take you to the Fraser, he’s nay here.”
Fearghas felt his faith and his fortitude sinking like twin wrecked ships. “What…what did you say?”
“He set out for the MacLeod Castle days ago. He’s not expected back ’til after the holy days.”
10
THEY RETURNED to Castle MacLeod as night was falling. A somber-faced Brianna awaited them within. “Alasdair is missing,” she announced.
Alys felt as though the slates were sinking beneath her feet.
“What do you mean missing? He is a bairn yet whose steps are unsteady. He cannot have wandered off on his own.”
Callum’s arm came around her. Scarcely minding it, she swung about to Milread, who’d entered. The crone wore a bandage on her head. She looked not only old, but frail.
Tears welling, Milread shook her head. “Not wandered off, wean. Taken.”
Taken. The word tolled fear into Alys’s heart. Feeling as if she were in the midst of a nightmare, she listened as Milread explained how earlier she’d walked Alasdair about the beach, pointing out the sea’s hidden creatures when a tall woman with a plucked forehead and painted face approached them. The woman had looked passing familiar. Milread’s Third Eye had begun its telltale twitching, ever a harbinger of danger. She’d taken Alasdair and started moving away when the blow struck. A fierce pain, blinding and blazing, was the last of her memory.
Callum spoke up. “Tall, plucked and painted, you say?” He sent Alys a meaningful look. “So the priest at St. Andrew’s described Field’s wife.”
Alys nodded, feeling as though her brain was frozen. She’d been so caught up in celebrating her new happiness, it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder after the fate of Alex’s wife.
Milread ended her tale by wringing her hands. “When I awoke, the wee laddie was nay where to be found. Only the castlefolk have access to that bit of beach. I thought we’d be safe.”
Bending awkwardly down, Brianna draped an arm about the witch’s thin shoulders. “It’s not your fault, Milread. Nay one blames you.”
Numb, Alys nodded. This wasn’t Milread’s fault. It was hers. Given Callum’s news, she should have considered Alex might be up to something. She should never have left her baby behind. Now her selfishness had lost her Alasdair, mayhap forever.
Callum demanded, “What is being done to find him?”
Brianna answered, “Ewan has two of our finest warriors with him to search. They
have taken torches and are combing the beach and the—” she hesitated, gaze veering to Alys “—cliffs. Field, too, seems to be missing. The cupboard in your chamber has been cleared out.”
Alys nodded, feeling as if she were working a tavern puzzle and yet missing a crucial piece. Even without it, the picture that formed frightened her: a future without her beloved son.
“Aye, he rode out this morn. I thought ’twas odd he’d go riding given his illness, but I was so glad to see the back of him, I didna question him.”
She clutched Callum’s forearm. “Alex threatened to take Alasdair to England without me if I did not obey him. And so he has.”
Turning her in his arms, he gripped her shoulders, his gaze boring down upon her. “I will find him. On my life and the love I bear you, I swear I will find them and bear our son safely back. In the meantime, bide you here with Milread and Brie.”
Alys shook her head. “He is my son. I want to help. I can help.”
Brianna draped an arm about her. “My brother-in-law speaks wisdom. Being almost a mother myself, I ken how hard it must be to stay behind and wait, but for now biding here with Milread and me is your best course.”
Alys nodded numbly. They were right, of course. Whether she took her own mount or rode with Callum, she would only slow them down.
Feeling useless, she eased out of Callum’s arms. “Verra well, I will do as you wish.”
HOURS LATER, sitting before the fire in Brianna’s solar, Alys could wait no longer. Neither her beloved needlework nor Brianna’s reading aloud from The Canterbury Tales could take her mind off Alasdair and Callum for so much as a minute.
She set the shirt she was pretending to stitch aside and rose. “I am Alasdair’s mother and I am going after them.”
She braced herself, expecting them to try and stop her. To her surprise and relief, they didn’t.
Brianna rose awkwardly from her brocade-covered chair. “I would that I could ride with you. But in my present state, I am useless.”
Milread shoved her runes back in the bag with a sigh. “I would that I was young and fleet of foot.”
Brianna added, “I will send some warriors to escort you.”
Alys shook her head. Grateful as she was for her friends’ care and concern, the time had come for her to stand alone.
“It will take too long to muster them. Besides, Alex will be expecting that. What he will not expect is me.”
And why should he? Ere now, she’d been compliant, if not exactly docile. Even after the question about her first marriage arose, still she’d held back and let others do her rescuing. No more.
She left Brianna’s chamber for the one she’d shared with Alex. Opening the cupboard, she confirmed his things were indeed gone, including his weapons. Fortunately she still had the dirk Callum had given her. It would suffice.
Folded on the shelf above, she found the set of page’s clothes she’d worn seven months before when she and Callum had first met. An inner voice had urged her to hold on to them, mayhap one of Milread’s gods whispering in her ear. Now she was glad to have heeded it. She undressed quickly and put on the snug-fitting hose, trews, doublet coat and high boots. Her coiled hair she stuffed beneath her man’s feather-trimmed bonnet cap and slid the dagger in the belted scabbard at her waist.
Brianna and Milread waited for her in the great hall below.
Tears brightened Brie’s eyes, which so far as Alys knew was a first. “We’ve come to see you off.” Hugging her, she added, “Godspeed, my friend, and come you back safe. Otherwise this time, my brother-in-law really will do murder—mine.” She pulled back and tried for a smile.
More moved than she might say, Alys stepped back from her friend’s big belly. “I will, I promise.”
Milread tugged on her sleeve. “My Third Eye is opening again. The second sight is not yet back to its full strength and yet still, I see…the wee lad crying upon an English saddle…a copse opening onto a glade with a half-frozen stream running through…a valley below.”
Alys and Brianna exchanged looks. From Milread’s description, it sounded to be the very spot where seven months before, Brianna’s traitorous advisor, Duncan, had tried to murder them. Then Ewan had ridden to the rescue followed closely by Callum. Callum’s arrow in Duncan’s back had saved Ewan’s life. That was the first time Alys had set eyes upon her future love and lord. She’d thought him arrogant, high-handed—and very, very handsome. When he’d lifted her into his arms and set her upon his horse, in her heart she’d known he was The One.
She’d been terrified then, all but frightened of her own shadow and barely able to keep herself in the saddle. She was terrified now, not of falling but of failing. So much stood at stake—her precious child, her precious Callum, and the happy lifetime of never-ending Christmases yet within their reach.
From that time before with Brianna, she was privy to the location of the set of secret stairs at the castle’s northwestern quarter. The stone steps led down to a sea gate, a natural escape route. In addition, it also provided a shortcut. Taking it would enable her to recover precious time lost.
It was yet dark when she left the castle. Holding her lantern aloft, she passed the gatehouse and headed for the stables. Her breath struck the air in puffy clouds, her determined footfalls crunching across frost-covered ground.
In the stables, she bypassed her gentle palfrey in its stall and instead opened the gated door to one of Brianna’s swiftest steeds. At her direction, the sleepy-eyed groomsmen saddled the horse and walked it over to the mounting block. Alys stepped up to the pedestal, and for the first time she neither hesitated nor shook.
She slid her left foot into the stirrup, missing as the leather loop swung like a noose. It took several attempts, but she finally got her right leg over the horse and swung up into the saddle. She took a moment to get used to the feeling of being so high above ground, and then looped the reins about her gloved hand and locked on to the horse’s sides with her thighs and knees.
Retracing the path that she and Brianna had taken during their madcap flight more than seven months ago, she marveled at how much loving Callum had changed her. Seven months ago, she’d barely been able to keep her seat. Seven months ago she likely would have waited for him to return, not because it was the right course but because she would have been too timid to consider striking out on her own. He wasn’t the only one of them who was the better for their love. Because of him, she had transformed from a frightened girl to a woman.
At dawn break, her horse stumbled over a rock. Seeking to keep her seat, she felt her foot slip from the stirrup. Seconds later, the earth upended. She fell sideways, landing hard and knocking the breath from her lungs. She scrambled to her feet, forehead and palms bleeding. Fortunately the animal, unharmed, righted itself. Mopping the blood with the back of her glove, she struggled back into the saddle. Her back ached, her thighs ached, and her arms ached, but still she rode on.
Brianna’s clan motto was Hold Fast. Until she had Alasdair and Callum back and safe, Alys meant to make it her own, too.
CALLUM ALSO RECALLED the spot where he’d first encountered Alys, which led to the ferry that took passengers across to the mainland. If he were fortunate, his quarry had not yet reached it. The previous night’s rain had been a boon for him, for it would have slowed Field’s progress. It had also left the back roads moist and in some cases soggy. Once daylight came, he was able to trace the fresh tracks of two horses riding in tandem. Given the scarcity of travelers on the holy days, he had a hunch those tracks belonged to Field and his wife. He prayed to the saints he would be proven right. And that he would find Alasdair yet with them.
He passed through the copse, thinking to stop at the stream and refill his water skein. Raised voices, one of them female, came from the glade ahead. He walked his horse up to the stand of trees. Peeking through the foliage, he saw Field facing off with a gangling, plucked and painted woman, presumably his wife. They stood across from one another at the side of the st
ream refilling their water skeins. Alasdair rested on a rock between them, chin on his chest, his wee face blotchy from earlier crying but otherwise seemingly unharmed.
Standing on the stream’s edge, the woman dipped her skein in the water. “Why should I have to bear the brat on my saddle? He’s yours and by the stink of him, his nappy needs changing.”
“Because, Morag, you’re the woman, that’s why. If you’re going to pose as his mother, you’d do well to start acting like it.”
Holding up her skirts, she snorted. “If you wanted a nursemaid, you should have brought along the bitch that whelped him.”
Callum’s heart stalled. Thank God Alys was safe back at the castle with Brianna and Milread.
“She was nowhere within the castle and there wasna time to search. And she would be of scant help to us headless.”
Standing ankle-deep in the water, Field appeared to have divested himself of his weapons. Callum caught sight of his broad sword propped on a stone precariously close to the boy.
Still, he forced himself to hold back. Not since Ewan had been locked in mortal combat with Duncan had so very much rested on his single shot. He checked to make sure his bracer was in place over his left wrist, his leather shooting glove lined with scarlet covering his right. He took his bow strung with hemp from his shoulder and moved it into position. Shooting a man or woman for that matter was not the same as felling a beast. Reaching down to the quiver of arrows hanging from his waist, he pulled out one of the barbed broad heads, the arrow’s cutting edge designed to produce the greatest slashing.
Then and only then did he charge into the clearing.
They swung about to face him, shock replacing the scowls on their faces. For the moment, even Field was rendered speechless. He cast a longing look at the weapon lying beyond arm’s reach and cursed.
Callum caught Field’s eye and smiled though his heart was drumming. “How now, having the pair of you as quarry makes for verra fine odds indeed.”
Blaze Historicals Bundle II Page 33