“I am here to see to your...your injuries,” she said, quietly turning on her side and facing him at the edge of the bed. “You are hurt, and I am here to help you...heal.”
“Heal?” he growled as her fingers traveled up his thigh toward his aroused manhood.
“Aye,” she nodded. “You are in need of my gentle touch, my loving care.” She smiled mischievously. “And this gives me a chance to practice what I learned the other night.”
Gavin knew exactly what she was talking about. During their night together, she had been persistent in having him show her the ways of making love.
Raising herself to her knees, she first kissed his lips, then let her mouth travel down along his neck and collarbone, kissing his bruised shoulder with care. He watched her draw back and gaze with concern at the patch of black and yellow and blue that had formed beneath the skin.
Gavin let his fingers run through her hair, feeling the softness of it tumble over the back of his hand.
Lowering herself again onto the bed, Joanna’s mouth brushed over the flat planes of his stomach, and her tongue swirled in the hollow in his naval. Gavin held his breath as she still moved lower in her journey.
Hesitantly, almost shyly, Joanna rubbed the warm crown of his thick shaft against her cheek. Then, growing bolder, she ran her lips along the length of it.
Gavin clenched his jaw, forcing himself to keep a tight rein on his control. Digging his fingers into her golden mane, he watched Joanna’s lips part and move around his member, her tongue touching him, tasting him.
“By the...” He groaned as he watched her take him deep in her mouth. Sweat was beading on his brow as he struggled for control, and his eyes focused on her full lips as they threatened to draw out his essence.
One moment Gavin had a tenuous leash on his desire, the next moment he knew he was teetering out of control. Within him, passions surged, burning him, filling his chest with a tightness that constricted all breathing. His hands again grabbed her silken tresses, and he rolled her onto her back. Their eyes met, and even in the darkened room, he could see her own matching desire.
Dropping to his knees beside the bed, Gavin’s mouth descended upon her still parted lips. His tongue thrust deeply into her warmth, probing the soft, moist recesses of her mouth.
“You were saying something about a gentle touch?” he whispered raggedly against her lips before reaching down and taking hold of Joanna’s legs. “About a loving touch?” He dragged her slowly around until her legs dangled over the edge of the billowy mattress. She began to lift herself up, but he met her halfway, taking her wrists and pushing them back, trapping them with one huge hand above her head. His mouth was rough as he took possession of hers again, and Joanna responded with a driving passion that equaled his own.
He tore his mouth from hers. “‘Tis time I ministered some medicine of my own.” His ardor, though, threatened to engulf him as Joanna’s leg raised and hooked around his thigh. He kissed the hollow of her throat and felt her body arch against him as his mouth suckled the hardened nipple. Joanna moaned softly as Gavin continued to caress the sensitive flesh with his tongue.
When his lips moved down the ivory softness of her belly, he could feel Joanna stop breathing. He parted her legs, then, and his tongue found the sweet, moist darkness and thrust inside.
Her hands freed, Joanna laced her fingers into his thick black locks. Without breaking off the intimacy, he lifted her buttocks, raising her up and thrusting his tongue ever more deeply into her pulsating recesses until she cried out, a breathless throaty cry of ecstasy and release.
Gavin took her into his arms and held her until her shudders subsided, and then, without a word, slid smoothly into her. Like two lost souls at last finding their joyous destiny, their bodies and souls molded together with a completeness that shocked them both. As they lay momentarily still, he felt her arms tighten around him, and for the first time in his life, he felt loved. When Gavin began to move, Joanna went with him, the pulsing rhythms they each felt, rising undeniably within them.
And when at last they reached that climactic moment of rapture, it was the two of them together, body and soul, connected as one. Clinging to one another, each felt a destiny of loss, betrayal, and death melt away. Wrapped in one another’s arms, each was suddenly aware of a life, a future--a love they could not deny.
CHAPTER 25
Gavin pushed back a lock of golden hair from her furrowed brow. Leaning on one elbow, he traced the outline of her face with a finger.
“You must try!” he encouraged again. “For once, try to put Mater out of your mind and think of others who might have had a reason to commit that crime.”
“I still cannot understand your reluctance,” she argued, rolling onto her side and facing him. “I tell you, even yesterday, she was there in the crypt. She was headed toward the keep. She very well could have been the one who cut the rope to that footbridge.”
“Perhaps she did. But let us assume that she was not the one.”
“Why do you continually defend her? You put no faith in me,” she said, hurt evident in her voice. “Has she not already done enough harm? How many more have to die before you are convinced?”
Gavin gently wiped away the tear starting down her cheek. “‘Tis not a case of having no faith, but until such time as we can find some proof of her guilt, we simply cannot ignore other possibilities.”
“I need no more proof.” Joanna’s eyes flared. “No one else needs to die! If you were down there in that vault--if you were witness to the frenzy of their hatred--you would not be questioning...”
“Aye, what you say is true!” Gavin interrupted. “‘Tis easy to become blinded by what we think we see. We think one is guilty and then let the real murderer pass by undetected.” As she opened her mouth to argue, he brushed his thumb gently against her lips. “I’ve been doing just that for the past few days. I was so certain of Athol’s guilt, that...”
“Athol?” she said with great surprise. “He would never...he could never...”
“I know that now,” Gavin nodded. “But before yesterday, before finding his life in as much danger as my own, I could not ignore what was possible. I saw him as a man with both reason and the means to murder. And I, perhaps, wanted him to be the guilty one.”
“Then he is fortunate you did him no harm.”
“Aye. That he is,” Gavin answered. Framing her face with one large hand, the laird looked deep into her violet blue eyes. “I simply do not want to make the same mistake twice. I am not trying to act as protector to Mater and her women, but I am only trying to learn the truth about any others who may have been involved. From the first moment I arrived at Ironcross, not a single person has willingly spoken the truth. Everyone says only what must be said and no more. Secrecy enshrouds this place like the morning mists.”
“But this is all the influence of Mater.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “But I think there is something more. Something that goes deeper than the will of one woman.” Gavin reached and pulled a blanket high on her shoulder.
“You are talking about the curse.”
“Did you ever ask anyone about the crypt?” he asked. His gaze flickered toward the open window as an unseasonably chilly breeze blew through, raising the gooseflesh on his skin. “Did you ever ask why those women were buried beneath this keep?”
“I tried to ask once or twice, but I never received a complete answer. They are saints who died. I never learned how or why.”
“But I think that the truth lies with those old bones,” he whispered. “I believe if we were to discover the secret of that crypt, we might find the origin of the Ironcross curse.”
“And the murders!”
“Perhaps,” he nodded. “The curse seems to go back many years, ‘tis true, but we know very little of what happened before your family came here. We need to remember that, though those tombs have been sitting there for many years, the deaths of your family and the attempts on my life are f
airly recent.”
Joanna’s face was troubled as she placed her hand on top of his. “But that is all the more reason to believe in the evil behind those rituals.”
He shook his head. “Or perhaps all the more reason to consider that someone might simply want to use that as a shield. We cannot know for certain until we understand the history of those dead women.” He clasped her hand tightly in his. “‘Tis up to you and me, Joanna. Between us, we will avenge the crimes that have been committed. But we must keep an open mind and consider every possibility, however remote it might seem to be.”
Her expression softened, and Gavin sensed that though she was not persuaded, she was at least willing to trust in him.
She didn’t have to speak the words; he knew how she felt about him. So unlike him, whose feelings lay hidden beneath layers of thick, battle-scarred skin, she wore hers in the open. She showed her affection, her love, her trust.
Just then, he fought back the urge to tell her that how much he loved her. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. A voice inside his head kept reminding him that it was not time. He couldn’t speak the truth. He couldn’t reveal his soul, not until such time as he could honestly say that he had slain his own demons...his own curses.
“There is another,” she whispered softly, bringing him out of his troubled reflection. “In the days preceding the death of my parents, my father had harsh words with the priest.”
“Father William? I have spoken at length with the man, questioning him on the past. The dog never once hinted at any disagreement with your father.”
“He wouldn’t,” Joanna continued. “My father’s death saved him from ruin. And Iris’s death gave him a second chance at life.”
“Iris?” Gavin repeated, recalling the name.
“Father William might wear the cowl of a priest, but we all found out the cloak he wears.”
Her voice trailed off, but Gavin remained silent, waiting for her to continue.
“Iris was one of my mother’s maids. A wild, redhaired creature who took great joy in the attention that she received from the townsmen while my parents were at court. She was one of very few young women in my mother’s company, and Ironcross Castle was just too secluded for her. In fact, before my last visit here, she asked my mother if she could be sent back with me and become part of my grandmother’s household in Stirling.”
“But because of the fire, she never got the chance.”
“Nay, she never got the chance. But even if that fire had never happened, she would not have gone to Stirling.” Joanna looked gravely into Gavin’s face. “The same week that I arrived in the Highlands, I heard from my mother that Iris was with child.”
“Let me guess. No man willingly stepped forward to take responsibility for his actions.”
She shook her head.
“And she would not name the father?”
“At first, she wouldn’t. Not until my mother told Iris that she was sending her to the abbey until she gave birth to the bairn.”
“Under Mater’s care?”
“Aye.” Joanna nodded. “I cannot blame my mother now, although at the time I thought she was being harsh for not letting the poor creature stay at Ironcross Castle, close to the people she knew. But my mother never fared well amid crises. She always preferred to live her life quietly, undisturbed.”
“But this Iris did finally name the man?”
“She did,” Joanna answered. “She named Father William as the one responsible for getting her with child.”
Somehow, hearing Joanna’s revelation came as no great surprise. There had been something about the priest from the very first that had nagged at him. Gavin’s mind returned to the time he’d spent with Father William in the small kirkyard. The attachment he’d shown to one of the newer graves along the wall. The priest had even mentioned her name. All of that now rose fresh in his mind.
“And did he accept responsibility for the lass?”
“My father was the one who confronted him, and the priest did not dare deny anything that had been said. Father threatened him with ruin. From what my mother told me, he gave the priest a week to gather his things and leave Ironcross Castle for good.”
“John MacInnes was indeed a gentle man,” Gavin said quietly. “I have known many a laird who would have brought down a much harsher punishment for such conduct. Even if the blackguard were a priest.”
Joanna shook her head sadly. “There was no chance of Iris ever having a future with the man. So I suppose, other than sending him away, there was very little else for my father to do. Although,” she said as an afterthought, “as inadequate a punishment that it seems to you now, Father William was outraged with being discharged so ‘recklessly,’ as he put it.”
“So after the fire, with no one in a position of authority, no one to punish the man’s villainy, the priest just stayed put. And all along, you also knew that he had remained.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Iris and the unborn bairn were dead, and I had other matters to concern me.”
Gavin’s eyes bore into hers and she frowned.
“Nay,” she said in answer to his unspoken question. “He is too weak--too cowardly a creature ever to commit a crime of such magnitude.”
“He was about to lose everything he had,” Gavin argued.
She stubbornly shook her head, rolled onto her back, and stared at the blackened ceiling. “Hurting my father...nay, ‘tis too far-fetched, too unbelievable when you think of the man. But even if we consider it, killing half a household, and the woman he loved along with them...”
“Bedded, Joanna,” he corrected. “The priest may have bedded her, but we have no idea of what feelings, if any, he harbored for the lass. As far as we know, he may have bedded every other serving woman in this keep.”
Joanna’s beautiful face turned suddenly on the pillow, and the look in her eyes went straight to his heart. His tone had been harsh and the vulnerability of their situation was clearly reflected in her face. He gently framed her face in his palm as he lifted himself on his elbow.
“You are the only woman in my life, Joanna,” he said thickly. “Not in my past nor in the future has there been, or could there ever be, one so well matched to my heart and soul.”
She ran a hand down the side of his face before speaking out softly. “I love you, Gavin. And I want you always to remember how I feel for you now.”
“Now?” he teased gently, fighting back the words that he knew she wanted to hear. “And are you planning to hate me tomorrow?”
She pressed the heel of her hand onto his sore shoulder and rolled him onto his back. Moving quickly on top of him, she gazed down into his eyes with a playfully warlike look.
“Well, you have me in your power, lass. I can see I will have to do anything you ask.” He eyed the swells of her breasts pressing on his chest. His hands slid over her lower back and cupped her firm buttocks, shifting her slightly as his hardening member nestled tightly between her legs. “Anything,” he growled.
“Perhaps we should speak to the priest,” she said absently, sliding her body over his and eliciting a groan. She pressed her lips to the hollow of his throat, then raised her head abruptly. “Not that I think the man guilty of the killings. But still, ‘tis only proper making him understand that we are aware of his past. That he might still need to own up to his responsibility for his past.”
Gavin’s mind tried to follow her words, but his body was quickly taking control. The way she lifted herself off his chest, her swollen nipple waiting, beckoning to his lips. Rolling her roughly onto her back, he moved on top of her and took both of her breasts in his large palms and ran his thumbs over them.
“I want to...be with you.” She arched her back as his lips descended. “I want to be there...when you question him.”
“Fair enough,” he breathed, lifting his head and smiling mischievously into her flushed face before eyeing the next breast. “Once I find him.”
“Is he missing?” she said softl
y, hooking her feet behind his thighs. Her hand slipped between their bodies, and Gavin groaned again deep in his throat as he felt it close around his manhood.
“Since yesterday.” He bent his head and laved her other breast before taking it sharply into his mouth. When he pulled back, the sight of her arched neck, the passionate clouding in her eyes, all brought a satisfied smile to his face. “For some reason, Joanna, just looking at you, makes me lose all interest in the cur.”
A devilish smile tugged at her full lips as she drew his arousal to her moist opening. “So he has been missing since we came up from the caverns.”
“The two could be related.”
She lifted her knees and wiggled beneath him. She was teasing him, and he mustered all his control to hold back. He probed the entry lightly. He was in control.
“But what I’m trying to understand...” Gavin found himself speaking though clenched teeth. He could hold out longer. He was in control. “...that...I was...He was...”
The warrior chief breathed in sharply as her hands kneaded his lower back, pulling him, coaxing him to drive into her. Sweat was beading on his brow. Control. He attempted to finish his thought. He was...
Gavin gazed into her face and Joanna’s tongue slipped along her parted lips.
“He was...” Gavin began again, but his mind had gone blank.
“You think...?” Joanna stopped, her gasp turning into a moan as Gavin drove deeply into her.
Control be damned, he thought, feeling her tighten around his throbbing manhood.
“He ran,” Gavin started in a ragged voice.
Struggling against the wild urge to draw back and drive into her, again and again, he wrapped his hands around her and rolled them together on the bed until she was astride him. As she lifted her head, her silken hair draped like a golden blanket to one side.
“Nice view from up here,” she murmured.
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