Highland Charm: First Fantasies

by April Holthaus

"If ye're asking could I fall asleep on the floor with the stones for a pillow, aye, I'm that weary."

  "I think—" she paused, searching for words— "I think ye should go to yer wife."

  John eyed his sister warily. "I don't think she would welcome me in this state." He indicated his clothing, which was crusted with blood. "What makes ye think she would want to see me anyway?"

  "I was with her all evening. She was worried about ye. I know she won't sleep till she's seen ye. Please, just go to her."

  There was a strange expression on Elizabeth's face that John did not entirely like, but he could see no harm in stopping to say good night to Muriella. "All right then," he agreed, "if ye say so. After I wash the blood away. Will that satisfy ye?"

  Elizabeth nodded. She smiled as he started up the stairs. He would find his wife waiting, and tonight she would welcome him, because her defenses had been half destroyed by fear. By morning her brother would be bound inexorably by his love for Muriella; his sister had seen it in his eyes. Just now that was all Elizabeth desired.

  * * *

  Muriella sat in her chamber, gazing out the window. She could see nothing beyond the faint glimmer of stars shrouded with gathering clouds, but she did not mind. The night air cooled her burning cheeks and the cry of the rising wind overshadowed the sound of her ragged breathing.

  Megan sat behind her mistress, sewing in the lamplight. She was listening intently and heard the footsteps in the hall long before Muriella did. When her mistress finally looked up, her gaze met Megan's and held it. Perhaps those steps meant news of John.

  As the door swung open, Muriella turned, her heart pounding, to find her husband standing on the threshold in a long saffron shirt and trews. His hair clung damply to his head, and his cheeks were pink, as if he had just scrubbed them. She could see some drops of water clinging to his beard; they caught the light, glimmering as he turned his head. Muriella sank back against the stone with a sigh. He was safe.

  Megan rose, looking from her mistress to John and back again. Muriella did not move while her husband stood silent in the doorway, watching her. At last he nodded at Megan and she slipped past him, closing the door behind her.

  John listened until the servant's footsteps had disappeared. He thought he had forgotten how to breathe. Muriella sat by the window, dressed only in a pale gown with a robe draped over her shoulders. In the lamplight, he could see the curve of her breasts against the gossamer-thin fabric. Her hair, usually tightly braided, fell about her shoulders and down to the floor. With difficulty, he focused on her eyes and the dark shadows underneath. Elizabeth had been right after all; Muriella had not yet slept.

  He stood unmoving, waiting to see if she would shrink from his gaze, but she did not. Instead, she rose to stand facing him, her night rail undulating about her body like a wisp of transparent smoke.

  "Holy Mother of God," she whispered. "We didn't hear of ye for so long that I thought ye were dead."

  "Did ye really mind so much?" he asked.

  When she looked for her fear of him, she found it had been washed away in the wake of an even greater fear—that she might have lost him. "Aye," she said simply.

  He took a step forward. "Muriella, I made ye a promise—"

  Before he could finish, she grasped his hands in hers and kissed them each on the palm.

  He felt the heat of her lips all through his body, and with a deep breath, drew her into his arms. For a long time he merely held her, kissing the top of her head, stroking her hair with his fingertips.

  Muriella was beyond thought or reason. The evidence of her eyes was not enough; she wanted to see with her hands and her lips that the battle had not taken her husband from her after all. Without hesitation, she put her arms around his neck and stood on her toes, raising her lips to his.

  John groaned, then pulled her closer, circling the edge of her mouth with his tongue. The robe slid from her shoulders as he began to caress her back in ever-widening circles, drawing her gown up as he did so. He trembled at the touch of her fingers on his neck, at the way she teased the still-damp strands of his hair, winding her fingers in the dark curls. With one swift gesture, he drew her night rail over her head and stood gazing at her naked body. He caught his breath in admiration.

  Though her face was touched with sun from her rides across the moors, the skin of her body was pure, startling white. She tossed her hair over her shoulders, revealing the soft lines of her breasts and stomach, hips and thighs. His pulse quickened when he saw the little short breaths she took to calm her excited nerves.

  He wanted to pull her to him roughly, to satisfy at once the hunger she had fueled in him for so long. But he knew he must wait a little longer, until he could hold her in the safety of the darkness. His heartbeat slow and labored, he lifted his wife in his arms, smiling when she twined her arms around his neck and nestled closer. As he carried her across the room, he buried his face in the hair at her neck and traced the line of her throat with his tongue.

  Muriella shivered, amazed that such a little thing could bring her such pleasure. In that moment, she closed her mind to thought and doubt and fear. When John placed her on the bed and tried to pull away, she clung to him, unwilling to lose the heat of his body even for a moment.

  "Wait," he murmured.

  She released him and he moved to the foot of the bed, putting out the lamp as he passed. When she heard him remove his clothes, she held her breath until she felt his weight on the bed, then rolled to the center to meet him.

  John stretched out and held her, not moving, barely breathing, while her racing heartbeat slowed and she became used to the feel of his body on hers. He was heavy and warm and she responded slowly, circling him with her arms, touching his naked skin for the first time of her own free will.

  When she turned her head to meet his lips with hers, John withdrew from her a little. Leisurely, gently, he took her hands to guide them along his shoulders, down over the thick hair of his chest to his hips and beyond. While he kissed her hair and eyes and mouth, he showed her the strength and the softness of his body through her seeking fingertips. Sometimes he shuddered when her hand strayed to a sensitive spot. When her shyness had begun to pass, she sought those places out, delighting in her power to rouse him with a single touch.

  Finally he caught her in his arms, and began to know her body as she had known his. He brushed the hair away from her breasts and ran his fingers over the flesh, which he could see in his memory, though the darkness hid it now. Circling, always circling, he moved his hands over her skin, delighting in its supple warmth and the shivers of pleasure that answered his touch.

  He drew her close, nibbling her ear, tracing the lobe with his warm tongue. She could feel every part of him against her sensitive skin. When he found her breast with his lips, she ceased breathing for fear he would stop. With hands and lips and tongue, he caressed her until she trembled, wanting something more, though she did not know what.

  "Muriella?" John whispered into the throbbing pulse at the hollow of her throat. "Are ye frightened?"

  "No," she answered, surprised at the way the single word vibrated through his body. The blood was pulsing madly in her head, her legs, her chest. The weight of his hands on her body was a pleasure so intense that it left her without breath or words. Now that her eyes had become accustomed to the light, she could see the outline of his face, the fall of his hair across his cheek, the glow of his eyes in the darkness. She felt the water hissing around her, swirling at her shoulders, threatening to pull her under, and knew she should turn away before it was too late. Then John touched her hair, her flushed cheek with his fingertips, and the choice was taken from her.

  "Muriella?"

  She reached up to draw him close—so close that she could hear the pounding of his heart.

  John heard her answer in the movement of her body. His breath escaped in a rush as slowly, his hands cupping her warm flesh, he entered her. She gasped, digging her fingernails into his shoulders, shudder
ed at the sudden pain, then clung more tightly as he began to move within her.

  Her vision blurred while the colors whirled and clashed and melded in her head. She knew she could not bear it; she could not. In her wonder, she held him closer and closer still, his heart beating into hers, his breath soft against her ear. Then he cried out once. With her lips pressed to his, she swallowed the sound of his passion and answered it with her own. "Johnnie," she breathed.

  When at last they lay side by side, John held her while she trembled, trying to breathe in the stillness that had descended upon them, until the colors settled into familiar patterns, then faded in the darkness. She reached for his hand to grasp it tight, welcoming the heat of his fingers as they twined with hers. "Hold me," she whispered. "Don't go."

  His arms closed around her, caught up in the long, damp tangles of her hair.

  "I won't leave ye," he murmured. She rubbed her cheek across his chest, then rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder. He said no more, because, just then, there was nothing more to say.

  Chapter 38

  When John awoke, gray morning was spilling through the open shutters. Tossing aside the furs, he reached out to draw his wife near. With his arm around her shoulders, he looked into her sleep-misted eyes and saw she was smiling. There were no shadows to come between them now.

  Muriella moved closer as he brushed the hair off her shoulder to caress the bare skin. She considered the curves and hollows of his face, made stronger by the morning light, and tears burned behind her eyes. Always before when he came to her bed, he had left her long before dawn, but this time he had stayed. She trembled at the rush of joy that shook her as their lips met and clung. His kiss was warm, insistent, tender. She closed her eyes when he slipped his tongue into her mouth. In that moment, as her body met his, a quiver of fear pierced her happiness and she clung to him more fiercely, her need a wild keening cry inside.

  When John drew away, Muriella moved her hands hungrily over his chest, as if to forge with her open palms a bond between them that could not be broken. She had never before seen his body in light untouched by shadows. She wanted to come to know by sight what she had already learned by touch. Raising herself on one arm, she explored the pattern of dark hair that almost concealed skin toughened by years of sun and battle but still strangely soft beneath her circling fingertips. She traced the jagged line of an old scar, intrigued by the number of these reminders of past violence on his body. Her own half-finger, her only visible scar, touched a puckered line of whitened skin curving over his ribs, and she felt an odd disturbing sense of kinship she could not explain.

  "'Tis wonderful hands ye've got, lassie," John murmured, his arm tightening around her shoulders, "but I'm thinking 'tis time I left ye for a while. There's much to be done after yesterday's battle."

  The flame of fear burned brighter. Muriella cupped his face in her hands, tangling her fingers in his beard. I must let him go, she thought, but she whispered, "Stay a little."

  There was nothing her husband would have liked more. The movement of her hands across his chest, the feather light touch of her fingers in his hair were stirring his need to life once more. But from the light pouring through the half-open shutter, he knew they had already slept too long. "Ah, lass, ye tempt me greatly, but 'tis late. Before the morning's over we have to bury the dead and see to the wounded. But I'll see ye at breakfast, little one."

  Before he rose, he took her in his arms to kiss her one last time. Muriella locked her arms around his neck and her mouth opened under his, drawing a groan of frustration from his parted lips. Then he pulled away and swung his legs over the side of the bed. For a moment he was poised there, frozen in time, the muscles along his back taut with his suppressed desire. Finally, he bent down to scoop his clothes from the floor.

  Muriella watched, heart pounding, while he threw on his shirt and stepped into his trews. His body was fine and strong and supple, and she wanted to feel it beneath her hands, but she knew a single touch would not satisfy the craving within her.

  "Good-bye, lass," John called as he reached the door. "till later."

  "Aye."

  When he was gone, Muriella closed her eyes, praying for the rapid beating of her heart to ease. She slipped from the bed and found her robe, discarded carelessly the night before. Tossing it over her shoulders, she knelt before the window and looked out at the garden below. It was late spring; long ago the wild roses had taken over the tangled bracken and heather carpeting the ground, but the profusion of bright flowers could not soften the stark, terrible beauty of the scene. In the distance the mountains rose, jagged, black and menacing, outlined against the cloud-filled sky by the shimmering silver sunlight. There would be a storm before the day was out; she could smell the threat of violence in the air, hear it in the rising wind through the brooding pines. Below her, hawthorn and heather and bracken, roses and wild myrtle undulated in the sudden onslaught of cold, wet wind. Only Loch Awe lay still and untouched, an island of peace in the center of the coming storm.

  Muriella breathed deeply, overcome by the power of the landscape that echoed the tumult of joy and fear inside her. It was inevitable, she realized, as inevitable as the pleasure she had known in John's arms. And what of the vision of the rushing water? No matter how much she might wish to deny it, that too was inevitable. She could only wait, powerless, as she had always done. But now the waiting would be sweeter by far—sweeter and more frightening—for now she had so very much to lose.

  * * *

  A cold wind circled through the chamber, waking Elizabeth like the touch of icy fingers on her cheek. She stirred, her mind still clouded with sleep, and opened her eyes with reluctance. When she saw the figure beside her, she sat up abruptly, drawing the furs close. She had forgotten about her new husband—had made herself forget. He'd been sound asleep when she finally came up to their chamber the night before, and she'd been grateful.

  "Good morning, my wife," Archibald Campbell said.

  He was sitting with his back against the wall, regarding her mildly. She blinked to assure herself he was real and not some unwelcome figment of her imagination.

  "Ye must have been up half the night tending to the wounded," he observed when she did not reply to his greeting. "How many men were lost, do ye think?"

  Elizabeth shrugged. "I'm no' certain, but I do know 'twas not nearly as many as the Macleans lost."

  Frowning, Archibald reached out to take her hand. Elizabeth wanted to shrink from his touch, but knew she had no right to do so.

  "The Macleans were yer own clan for so many years," her husband mused. "It can't be easy to find yerself their enemy all at once."

  Elizabeth's eyes widened in surprise. "No, 'tis not easy." She gazed at her free hand, pale and somehow vulnerable against the dark fur. "But 'tis no good to lament what can't be helped." She shook her head in resignation. "I'm afraid the Macleans were glad to be rid of me in the end. It seems I brought them nothing but trouble in the past few years."

  "And what did they bring ye?" Archibald asked, squeezing her fingers gently. "I'll wager ye've suffered more than any one of the Macleans."

  Elizabeth stared at the man who was her husband as if she had never seen him before. In the past week, she had become familiar with his straight brown hair and heavy beard, but she had never noticed how the hair fell untidily over his forehead or the way his dark beard softened the weathered lines of his face. She had seen the hazel of his wide-set eyes, but never recognized the compassion there. She found she could not speak: it had been too long since anyone but Muriella had offered her kindness.

  Aware of her discomfort, Archibald released her hand. "I don't know about ye," he said, "but I'm hungry enough for twelve men. And I suspect ye had little to eat yesterday in all the excitement. Shall I call a servant to bring some food? That way ye won't have to dress and go down to the Great Hall quite so early."

  Too astonished by his thoughtfulness to speak, Elizabeth could only nod. She was hungry, s
he realized, and that surprised her as well.

  "'Tis as good as done," her husband said as he rose and threw on his robe.

  When he started to turn away, Elizabeth moved across the mattress, stopping him with a hand on his arm. He turned, one eyebrow raised in question. "Aye?"

  She found her voice at last. "I just wanted to—thank ye."

  Archibald Campbell smiled and covered her hand with his. "Ye're welcome, lass," he said.

  * * *

  When Muriella descended to the Great Hall, every bench at every table was occupied. The victory over the Macleans had left the men and wedding guests in a boisterous mood. The shutters had been thrown back and the doors hung open, allowing the sunlight, touched with silver from the threatening storm clouds, to bathe the huge vaulted room. As she moved among the tables, Muriella heard the men recounting with enthusiasm the details of yesterday's battle. They praised John's skill, exaggerated their own, reviled Evan Maclean, jested and shouted with laughter at their own wit. For once, they were not aware that she passed among them.

  Colin was already seated in the carved oak chair at the head of the high table. His brother sat on his right and Jenny hovered, as always, at the Earl's shoulder. As she stepped up onto the dais, Muriella was met with the sound of Colin's coarse laughter, but she was not really aware of it. Her attention was on her husband. When he looked up and smiled, her heart paused in its usual rhythm. She slipped onto the bench beside him as he motioned for Jenny to fill his wife's platter.

  "Here, Johnnie," Colin exclaimed in sudden inspiration, "won't ye kiss yer wife good morrow? I'll wager she hasn't seen ye since the battle. Ye should greet her properly."

  "Och, but ye haven't been payin' attention, m'lord," Adam Campbell chuckled from the far end of the table. "For unless my eyes deceived me this mornin', she saw a great deal more o' him than she cared to last night."

  Heads swiveled toward John and Muriella in avid curiosity, and though she turned pale, she did not allow her smile to waver. She would not give Colin that pleasure.