by Stone, Lyn
“Well, ah, I should...” Honor began, completely at a loss in light of the couple’s easy affection.
“Aye, you really should,” Adam agreed with a meaningful lift of his shaggy brows. “’Twill be our first line of defense.”
Honor hurried to the door, blushing to the roots of her hair. Just before she reached it; she felt his hands on her shoulders.
“Daughter?” he said softly against the top of her head. “Do not go afraid. Alan’s heart is in his eyes when he looks at you.”
Honor nodded quickly, felt him release her, and scrambled out of the room as though the devil pursued. What did the man mean? Alan’s heart was in his eyes? Did the baron believe Alan loved her? She had certainly worked toward that end.
If he did love her, and in light of what she felt for him, Honor knew she should confess to Alan what a charlatan she really was. That she had never loved his best friend at all. That she used Tavish’s affections. Of course, he would hate her then, toss her out to fend for herself. Not to her father, perhaps, for he was not cruel. But how could a man called Alan the True bear to live with someone he knew to be deceitful? How could he love her?
But lovers they must be—at least in body—if she planned to ensure this marriage was legal. Lord Adam was right in that. Her father might have undone her marriage to Tavish because she had used the altered documents and wed him under false pretenses, but this union with Alan would be infinitely harder to set aside.
It had genuine documents to commend it, and the blessings of not only the priest, but Robert Bruce himself. Her father did work for the Bruce, keeping abreast of things at the French court. Invoking the Scot king’s name might dissuade her father from killing Alan. She had not thought on that until Lord Adam put it in her mind just now. Robert Bruce had ordered her to wed Alan. Now she must put the seal to it and honor those vows tonight. Will he nill he, Alan must agree to that.
Despite the reasons for the event, Honor did look forward to it. She had never seen a finer figure of a man or one with a sweeter disposition. Considering all he had endured, he might have turned bitter and raged against life.
But no, he had survived it all—abandonment, neglect, abuse, the rigors of battle—and still smiled at the world with a glint of humor in those wonderful green eyes. How could she not admire him?
She did not need to entreat him to love her, Honor knew that now. He either did or did not, no matter what she did to alter matters between them. Alan would keep her as safe as he was able in either event. She did love him. That would be enough, Honor told herself. More than enough, and they would add the physical pleasure of the marriage bed. Even if he did not really love her, he did desire her. She knew that for certain now. And Honor meant to make him infinitely glad they had wed.
The baron was right. She should.
Alan paced the solar while he waited for Honor’s return. He tried pushing thoughts of his mother and brother to the back of his mind. They were nigh to strangers, after all. Nigel, he could barely remember. A tall, fierce-looking fellow at fifteen, he had been eight years Alan’s senior. Da had packed him off to England shortly before Alan’s own sojourn to the Highlands.
Their mother had wept, that he did recall, and it had frightened him. Not three months afterward, she had shed more tears as she left her youngest in her brother’s care. Alan had been beyond fright that time. Terror absolute had held him in its grip, a terror called Uncle Angus.
Could he forgive her, now that she was dead? Later, he would try. Later, when the present trouble lay in the past and he could think straight. He would grieve then, as well, for the mother he both loved and blamed. And for the brother he had scarcely known.
Tonight he must do what he craved and also dreaded. Part of him relished the thought of possessing Honor. He had dreamed of it, sleeping and waking, since their first meeting. She would submit, probably even pretend to like his attentions, but later in the night, he would hear her weeping for all she had lost. Weeping with regret for Tavish, his friend, the husband of her heart. How could he do such a thing to her?
How could he not?
Back and forth he trod the tightly fitted oaken planks that bore not the slightest trace of dirt or dust. Honor’s penchant for cleanliness drew him nearly as much as her grace and beauty. Perhaps the squalid life he had led, sleeping either in a filthy hall amongst clansmen who cared naught for fleas and filth, or outside in the dirt itself with warriors of like ilk, made him yearn for the sweet scents of his early youth. The comforts.
Though he had bathed scrupulously since coming here, he wondered if any soap could fully scrub away the sheepdung smell of life with Angus MacGill, or the odor of battlefield carnage.
He did not deserve to lie with a woman such as Honor. But he must, and he would. Even knowing how she would quail inwardly, probably hate herself and him for the necessity of it, Alan could not completely suppress his joy at the opportunity to have her.
“Alan?” she said softly, “Are you all right?”
He turned and worked up a stiff smile. “Aye. I’m well enough. Everyone set for the night?”
“They are too tired to mark the lack of comforts,” she admitted, seeming distracted. “I stopped by Nan’s chamber and fed Christiana. She sleeps.” Honor drifted toward the bed and pulled back the covers. Hesitantly, she looked back at him, a question in her eyes. He noticed her hand on the furs tremble slightly.
“Ah, sweet Honor, dinna be afraid,” he whispered, not daring to approach her yet. “We need not...” He couldn’t finish that. No, he could not deny himself this, despite her qualms. And his own.
She let the coverlet drop. “Why does everyone think I fear you? ’Tis time, Alan. You know it as well as I. All must know for certain this is no marriage made of words alone. I am not unwilling to do this, as you must have guessed by now.”
He shrugged, unsure that he could even accomplish a decent mating knowing how she must feel inside. “I know you were willing the day your father came here, and even before that. I’m not so thick-witted that I didn’t notice. But I also knew your reason and I misliked it. I still do.”
“Could we not speak of that?” she asked, turning away.
Indecision gripped him again, and an unfamiliar foe it was, too. Alan hated it. Should he take her or not? Probably not, since he could better bear a frustrated body than a heart full of guilt.
He knew what she wanted to hear, so he forced it out. “After what my father said at table, all will believe the deed done tonight. You are no virgin bride. They cannot prove we did nothing. No one will know for certain.”
“You and I will know,” she chided. “Could you lie to my father if he asks directly? You, who are known for your honesty?”
May be that he could. Anything to prevent her feeling she must betray her vows of love for Tavish. Anything to save her tears. Though it meant abandoning truthfulness, practically the only virtue he had left, Alan considered it.
Honor sighed and shook her head, “No, Alan, I do not think you could, and I would not ask it of you.” She began to unlace her kirtle. “Will bedding me be such a chore, then?”
He laughed. “Daft. I knew ye must be lacking somewhere. ’Tis yer wits. How could anyone not want ye? I do, with all my being, Honor, but I ken—”
“Do you now?” She raised her brows, shot him a sidelong glance, and let the kirtle drop. Her softly pleated chemise glowed in the candlelight, draping the curves and hollows of her body like a beckoning veil.
Her lips parted as she ran her small pink tongue along her top lip. Fascinated, he watched it disappear. Wanted to follow with his own. Desperately wanted to.
How had he gotten to her side without walking across the room? He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head to clear it. When he looked again, she pulled away the headpiece of woven mesh that held her rolls of hair. The shining waterfall tumbled down her shoulders and over her breasts.
Unable to resist, he reached out and lifted a handful of the spun silk to
his lips. “So beautiful.” He moved the strands against his mouth, inhaling their flowery scent, tasting their texture.
She moved closer so that the fabric of her chemise brushed against him. Her fingers tangled in the neck lacing of his sark and pulled it free. “You do not need this,” she whispered softly. Her breath stirred the hair on his chest, stopping his breath as effectively as the blow from a quintain.
“Or this,” she continued, removing the round silver pin and sliding away the length of plaid draped over his shoulder. His lungs filled with a rush, his hand fisted in her hair when she began to unbuckle his belt. The heavy leather dropped to the floor with a soft thud.
She smiled up at him, a knowing smile gone almost wicked. The fingers of her right hand plucked at the shoulder of his unlaced sark. “Will you remove it?” she asked.
He could not speak. Instead, he turned away slightly and awkwardly tugged the sark off over his head. He watched it hit the floor beside her kirtle. Her chemise now lay in a pool atop the amber wool. Alan kicked off his boots and slowly raised his eyes. Honor stood carelessly draped in the eUs of his now unpleated plaid.
“Your breacan,” she said, her slight French intonation giving the word a softer sound. She smiled wider and smoothed the loose gathers over her breasts. “Remember when you said you would not wear it again? I thought to steal it for myself even then. It does make you look invincible.”
Alan thought she must have lost her courage and sought to cover herself as well as change the subject. Too late for that now. She had gone too far. Here he stood in nothing but the skin God gave him, thanks to her. And though she was not looking down at present, she must surely sense he had passed the time for self-denial. “So, ye wish to be the invincible one now, do ye?”
“Ah, and under your plaid, I am so,” she murmured softly. “Dauntless. Indestructible. I feel it. Nothing can harm me here.”
Alan nodded slowly and rested his hands on her shoulders. “Aye, ’tis glad I am ye ken that.”
He only wished to God it were true. They both knew it was not. She had been right to doubt his ability to keep her safe from her father. The old man might well conquer the keep and all within. But not this night. For now she could pretend, and he with her. “There’s magic about it, ye know?”
“Show me,” she whispered, her gray eyes languorous, silvered by the candlelight. He watched in amazement as she held open the familiar brown-and-green folds in welcome.
For a long moment he stood there, held in thrall by the sight of her perfection. Full, rounded breasts lifted and fell softly with each breath, their dark rose peaks beckoning. Her slender waist fanned out to sweetly curved hips and in again to well-shaped thighs and legs. Her ankles and feet seemed small even for her wee size. A fairy child, a pagan sprite, surrounded by the colors of the highland forests. Enchanting as a druid queen on Samhain Eve.
“I want you so,” he breathed out the words on a wave of need so great it almost drove him to his knees. He surrendered gladly, sinking slowly to the floor, sliding his arms beneath the plaid and gathering her to him. He lay his cheek against her, turning slightly to taste the curve of her hip, the softness of her belly, the sweetness of her skin. “Feast of dreams,” he whispered, touching his tongue to the smooth, tender place above her mons.
She made a sound in her throat, of desire or denial, he knew not. Cared not, for slowly she sank before him so that they knelt knee to knee. She raised her eyes to his and he imagined hunger in them, wished for it so hard he found it there. With a groan of sheer animal pleasure, Alan claimed her mouth. Ravaged it, seeking to erase all vestige of any other who had so much as admired it from afar. She was his. Everything, everyone else be damned; Honor was his own and his alone.
Still raining hot kisses over her face and neck, Alan rose to his feet, gathered her, plaid and all, into his arms and lifted her to the bed.
When she made to speak, he covered her mouth with his and crawled up beside her, surrounding her in a hold so fierce, she’d dare not say him nay. She had not pushed against him in protest, but beyond that, Alan did not deliberate whether she liked what he did. She might only pretend, or she might only endure. He could not bear knowing, either way. Honor had foregone her chance to escape.
Part of his fevered mind told him to slow his advance, court her with touches and soft words. Another, more insistent part warned him this was best done now or it would not be done at all.
He rolled her beneath him and parted her legs with his knee. The wine-sweet, heady taste of her kiss banished all thought as he reached between them and touched her. To his surprise, she arched into his hand as though eager. Ready.
He drew away from the kiss and looked down at her, fully expecting gritted teeth and tightly closed eyes. Instead, her face was fraught with something like wonder, open and trusting, wanting. The sight undid him and he thrust into her like the veriest half-grown virgin he felt.
She cried out, but not, he thought, in pain. Her openmouthed smile stole any remaining wits he had, along with his heart. Her body rose to his as though he’d trained it every night for years. The pleasure of its fit around his own made him worry he would spend himself with the very next foray, but he held back. No power inside him would force the end to this just yet. Not until he savored a full measure of the miracle that was Honor.
He slowed apurpose and tried to regain his usual control. But he had not reckoned with her well enough. Honor’s small hands grasped his hips, slid down to draw him to her, squeezing, raking his skin with her nails. The sensation, combined with his tentative grip on reality threw him right over the edge. He hurled endlessly against her like North Sea breakers pounding into the caves of Wykshead.
Every feeling in the world collected in the space where they joined, the tight cling of her passage around him, the wet friction, the pull of her womb.
Ah, saints, he could not last. The shudder and keening cry might have been his own. But her body rippled around him, held him fast for what seemed a flash of a moment. Or eons. Time mattered naught for he burst forward with all his life force and felt he had died of it. Hoped she had as well, for he never wanted to part from this woman in any way or form.
Honor.
Breathing her name was his last waking thought.
Honor wriggled out from beneath Alan and then cuddled next to him, pulling the tail of his plaid over them both. If she’d had any reservations about consummating this marriage, they were well laid to rest now. She had never imagined an experience such as the one she’d just had.
Lovemaking with Tavish had been pleasant enough that she had missed it when he left, but doing so with Alan proved extraordinary. Magic, he had said, and so it was. She should have known he would never lie, but that had to be the truest word he had ever spoken.
Her lips stretched into a wide smile and she sighed against his shoulder. Thoughts of nights such as this one stretching into a limitless future made her shiver with anticipation. Yes, love or not, this feeling between them would definitely be enough.
“Honor?” the gruff whisper interrupted her musings. She moved her head so she could see his face. He looked worried. “You slept,” she said, resorting to an inane observation to avoid voicing the intimate things she would really like to say. Would you kiss me again? Would you hold me, take me,. make my body weep with pleasure?
No, it was probably too soon for him, and he would think her wanton beyond redemption. Mayhaps she was.
He shifted to support himself on one elbow, his head resting on one hand as he looked down at her. “Are you well?”
“Well married, that is a certainty!” she said, laughing softly. She knew she blushed; she could feel the heat in her cheeks.
He sighed and brushed her tangled hair off her face with his free hand. “I fear I might have been overly rough with you.”
“No bruises. I told you no harm could come to me.” She flipped up the corner of his plaid. “Invincible. Magic.”
His smile warmed her heart
. She sensed he wanted to say something serious, but held himself back. For a long time, he said nothing, just stared at the fabric, thinking.
Then, when he finally spoke, it had naught to do with what had happened between them. She knew that was no oversight, but deliberate avoidance to cover either regret or embarrassment. Honor suspected he seldom let lust take him unawares such as it had this night.
“See this small thread that runs through, the lighter one?” He traced a line of gray that crisscrossed the brown and green. “This makes my breacan different from all the others old Moriag wove for the clan.”
“Because you are part English?” she asked.
“Nay. Aye. I dinna ken why.” He rolled to his back and laced his hands beneath his head, staring at the overhead drape on the bed. “When my mother left the Highlands, I stood watching her ride away, too frightened to weep. My uncle shoved me at Moriag, the main weaver, and ordered her to outfit me with a breacan and beat the English out of me. She took me in hand then and we went to her cottage. ’Twas little more than a bothy, but larger than the rest in order to hold her looms.” He smiled at a memory and was quiet for another while.
“Did she make you this?” Honor fingered the raveled edge of the plaid.
“Aye, but that was not the first. I sat for hours watching her weave that day. She fed me, of course, made me a pallet in the corner. Long into the night, I listened to the clack of her loom. When she had finished, she stripped me of all save my sark and taught me how to belt it on.”
“Hard to do?”
He laughed softly. “Aye, there is a trick to it if ye havena a ghillie to help. But I got the hang right quick.” Then he took the cloth from her fingers and again traced the small gray stripe. “Moriag pointed this out to me. Said it was an added thing, a prophecy. She had the sight, so she said.”