by Carol Arens
‘A game. We played the first night my sister arrived, but have not played since. I should have lost the first game and did lose the second one.’
‘You were not speaking about chess to the young woman just then.’ Padruig was too keen and saw too much. ‘You remember who you will face if there is anything untoward between the two of you?’
‘Aye.’ Athdar took and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls before saying more.
Both he and Padruig had been at Lairig Dubh when young Rob Mathieson arrived to demand the hand of Connor’s eldest daughter. Rurik had met him first, as the MacLerie champion, and Rob had barely survived it. Despite his age, Rurik was still the fiercest fighter Athdar had ever seen and one he did not wish to face on a field. And since he planned to do nothing that would dishonour Rurik’s daughter, he was not worried about it.
‘So, do you want to tell me what the hell you are trying to do?’
‘I like her, Padruig. I like her.’ It felt good to admit it. He faced his friend then and waited for Padruig’s reply.
‘Anyone with eyes can see that. And she likes you. But what will come of it since you’ve sworn not to marry again?’
He would not admit it, even to his closest friend over a mug of ale, but she’d begun to make him want to forswear his oath.
‘We will play a game or two of chess. She will leave on the morrow and return to Lairig Dubh.’
Padruig mumbled something as he took another swig from his mug. He did not need to hear the words to know the curse within them. Padruig relied on a few, favoured, well-chosen words when he was angry, ones his friends could repeat along with him.
The servants approached to clear the table and Broc ceased flirting with both women and went off to see to preparations, leaving only him and Padruig at table. Rubbing his hands over his face, he suddenly felt as old as every year he had lived. Padruig had a family, a wife of more than a score of years along with three children—one, a son nearly full-grown.
Athdar had nothing.
‘Have you thought of trying—?’ Padruig began.
‘I have thought of nothing else.’ He slammed his fists down on the table. ‘After Mairi, I did. After Seonag, I did. But Tavia’s death made it clear I could not put another woman in danger. And you know what happened then.’
He did not want to talk about or even dwell on these matters—they were better left in the dark of an unhappy past. Padruig must have realised he’d overstepped for he sat and drank the rest of his ale without uttering another word.
‘She comes,’ Padruig whispered.
Athdar looked up and saw Isobel approaching. She walked quickly and decisively towards him. Padruig stood to leave, but he put his hand on Athdar’s shoulder and squeezed.
‘You do not stand a chance, my friend.’
Athdar wanted to ask what he meant before Isobel got close enough to hear. Padruig laughed then, smacked his back and moved away.
‘Lady,’ he said as he passed Isobel, ‘he mounts a strong defence, but dinna be fooled by it.’ Padruig warned her loud enough for Athdar to hear.
If Isobel was disturbed by it, she showed no sign of being so. Athdar dragged two chairs close together, near the warmth of the hearth. Isobel grabbed the small table and pulled it between them.
‘You finished packing quickly,’ he said as he reached for the wooden box and game board. ‘I did not expect you for nigh on another hour or more.’
‘My mother said I was making a mess of things, so she told me to leave!’
He waited for her to sit and then did so. ‘I suspect you have used that tactic in the past with great success.’ Her cheeks took on a pale pink hue as she blushed, confirming his suspicions without answering. ‘Which colour would you like?’
‘I like the black pieces,’ she said. Lifting one up, she wrapped her fingers around it and rubbed the edges of it. Athdar swore he felt her touch on the hard parts of his anatomy and tried not to show it. ‘The dark appeals to me.’
Though he would die before doing anything dishonourable, he was thinking of many, many things he would like to do with her as he watched her caress the carved wooden figure. He shook himself free of desire’s control and took up the red pieces, arranging them in lines on the board. With the way she’d played the first night, he needed his wits about him if he stood a chance of winning or even drawing a tie.
He allowed her the first move and it was not long before she began taunting him with risky moves, placing her pieces in harm’s, or his, way. Athdar resisted the urge to fall for her feints. She would make a remarkable strategist in any battle or war, he thought, as she claimed yet another of his. It took losing nearly half of his ‘army’ before he saw her pattern. He laughed aloud when he did, finally seeing the simple way she tested and took or tested and retreated from a confrontation.
Then it was too late for him, so caught up in appreciating the intelligence of her play that he missed her final series of moves that took his queen, then his king. This time she laughed, too, along with him. A few of the servants still working in the hall turned at the sound of it.
‘Another?’ he asked, motioning at the main table for cups and a pitcher. Ailean saw it and brought them. Isobel glanced around the hall and then back at him.
‘The polite thing for me to do is to beg off from another game, but I would like to continue,’ she answered.
‘Then, let’s,’ he said, with a motion of his hand to let her take the first move.
He’d learned much about her style of play and he was prepared for her this time. This game moved at a leisurely pace, each of them studying the board a bit longer than in the previous games. They’d taken several moves each, and he’d already lost a piece when she spoke.
‘So, what do you call your keep?’
‘The keep?’ he said, looking up at her. ‘I have no name for it.’ He thought about it for a moment and then realised what she meant. ‘It is not big and grand enough to have a name.’
‘Oh, it is big enough. And you could make it grand, if you wanted it so,’ she said.
‘Have you ever visited your grandfather’s?’ If she had, ’twas no wonder she thought of grander places—Rurik’s father was the Earl of Orkney and one of the wealthiest men in Norway.
‘I have met him, aye.’ She leaned in closer and lowered her voice so only he could hear it. ‘Father does not wish me to become accustomed to the way his father lives. But I have visited my grandmother in Caithness and stayed several months with her.’
Her father’s father had extraordinary wealth and power in the northern islands while her father’s mother was a nun, supervising a convent in the north-east of Scotland—two extremes in life—and yet Isobel seemed no more impressed by one than the other.
‘Your father is a practical man,’ he said.
Her eyes flashed and her cheeks turned bright red then. She laughed, leaning back against the chair and holding her stomach. She was so vibrant he thought the hall grew brighter from it. Only then did he notice that her hair was not bound up in a braid, but hanging loose and swirling around her as she moved.
‘In all my years...’
He frowned at her. All her years?
‘For as long as I can ever remember, you and my father have had nothing good to say about each other. Ever,’ she said, wiping her hand across her eyes. ‘I do not understand the basis for your animosity, though I have heard various rumoured bits of it.... That is the only good thing you have ever said about him.’
Her laughter yet echoed through his hall and he wanted to hear it go on and on. For so long, this had been a place of sadness, and would be again, but for now, he enjoyed her mirth.
‘I am certain I have said good things about him.’ Athdar searched his memory for that good thing now and could not bring it to mind. ‘I have admired his fighting skills.’
She stopped laughing, but her mouth curved in the most appealing smile then. ‘So tell me how it happened. I would like to hear the truth of it.’
Athdar hesitated. To put one’s humiliation on display was not done easily. Yet...
‘I was but ten-and-five and full of myself.’
‘As most young men are at that age,’ she added. She was much closer to that age than he was.
‘I travelled through Lairig Dubh on my father’s business and had the opportunity to watch your father in a fight with Connor. Apparently, it was a custom of theirs to engage in swordplay when they met up and I was witness to both their skill and strength. Scared the bravado right out of me.’
He shifted in his chair, wondering how to tell her the rest of it. She was, after all, a young woman with certain sensibilities.
‘I was a guest there and managed to get myself rather drunk one night at dinner. I insulted your father and found myself the victim, though at my own instigation, of his fury and his strength. I ended up with broken arms, nose and many, many bruises.’
It was worse than that, truly. The worst was not the two broken arms or the other physical injuries. The worst was when he understood the situation he’d drawn the unsuspecting and unwilling Jocelyn into because of his youthful stupidity. Her dreams of marrying the man she loved were torn apart by his foolish, drunken challenge that put him in the custody of the Beast of the Highlands.
Rurik had visited him in the depths of Broch Dubh and told him exactly what he would cost Jocelyn. All because he could not control himself. All because he did not think of the consequences of his actions. Not unlike an earlier time when...
A memory flared and faded in that moment. Something dark and terrifying flitted across his memories and sank back into the murky depths from which it had risen. Nausea followed, then his head felt as though struck from behind.
‘Athdar?’
His vision narrowed and then widened. He could hear only a buzzing in his ears. Then all of it began to fade away.
‘Athdar?’ Isobel said, caressing his face. When had she touched him? When had she risen from her chair and approached him? ‘Are you ill?’ She crouched down closer before him and stroked his forehead and cheek with the back of her hand. ‘No fever.’
‘I am well,’ he said, though he was trying to convince himself of it more than her. ‘What happened?’ He swallowed, but his mouth and throat were parched. She noticed and held out a cup to him.
‘You were telling me of your confrontation with my father and then something happened. You looked as if in pain and then ill. Now?’ she asked, taking the cup from him and kneeling next to him.
Strange. He had been thinking about the true humiliation of learning the unintended consequences that Jocelyn suffered when some other memories or feelings surged forwards. Now they were gone and he felt fine.
‘’Tis a painful thing—exposing a man’s youthful stupidity to a beautiful woman who is the daughter of the man who exposed it in the first place. You now know my sordid past with your father, Isobel.’
Her hand still caressed his face and, with her kneeling at his side, it would be easy, oh so easy, to lean down and kiss the lips that tempted him so much. When she lifted her head and her mouth opened slightly, he did what he wanted to do.
Her lips were soft and warm against his and he could feel her heated breath against his mouth before he touched it with his. Athdar did not touch her, but she did not let go of his face, stroking it as he deepened the kiss by sliding his tongue along her lips until she opened to him.... For him.
God, but she was sweet.
He knew not when it happened, but his hand slid up and he tangled his fingers in her hair. Then he cupped her head, and held her against his mouth. His tongue felt the heat deep in her mouth and he tilted his head tasting her and kissing her. For a moment, he drew back, but she looked at him with such wonderment in her eyes, that he kissed her again and again and again.
‘Isobel?’ Margriet called out.
She pulled away and pushed up to her feet faster than she realised she could. Her mouth, her lips and tongue, tingled from the way he’d touched her, kissed her. Isobel lifted her hand to touch her mouth, but her mother’s voice came again through the corner of the now-darkened hall.
‘’Tis late and you need your rest for the journey.’
Had her mother been watching? Had she seen...?
‘Go, lass,’ Athdar said as he stood up and took a step away. ‘I will see you in the morn before you leave.’ His hand grazed hers as she turned from him and she fought the urge to hold him. ‘Sleep well,’ he whispered as she passed him.
Her body hummed with some kind of heat and every part of her felt alive and achy at the same time. But her mouth... Her mouth hungered for more. More of him. More of his mouth against hers. More...
She knew he watched her until she reached her mother for she could feel his gaze on her skin. This was unexpected. This was unplanned. This was...wonderful.
This was over.
The wave of sadness hit her as she walked through the door to the chamber for her last night in Athdar’s keep.
She could not meet Lady Jocelyn’s eyes or her mother’s as she undressed and prepared for bed. Her trunk was packed and a fresh gown lay there for use in the morn. Her heavy stockings and boots waited next to the trunk, as well as her travel cloak with an extra plaid to keep her legs warm along the road.
Soon, the chamber grew silent except for the occasional soft snores and squeaking of the bed-ropes. Isobel lay awake thinking about everything that had happened between them. It had been a good start and he certainly found her pleasing or he would not have kissed her so. Would he?
Men, she knew, did many things that made no sense. The explanation of what had happened between Athdar and her father was but one example of that. Men would kiss any woman who would let them. She’d seen it, been warned against it and had wanted it. She wanted him.
Unfortunately, any chance she had of making him see she was right for him ended now. In the morning, they would ride out before the storms closed the mountains to them. And by the time the spring came and the roads opened once more, her father would have arranged a marriage for her elsewhere.
Her father would not settle her on someone she objected to. He would make certain her prospective husband was a good man who would provide for her and oversee her person and her dowry. Since her father was an important man within the Earl of Douran’s household, and the natural son of the Earl of Orkney, her husband would be a nobleman who had some position within the Scottish kingdom or connections to another.
But, she did not want to marry for those connections or to move away from all and everyone she knew. Oh, that was what she’d been raised to do and trained and educated to do, but she did not want that.
If only there was more time.
Minutes, then hours passed and she tried to quiet the turmoil in her mind and the tumultuous feelings in her now-awakened body. Just when she began drifting off to sleep, words began echoing in her thoughts. Lady Jocelyn’s voice whispered them.
Mayhap ’tis better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission?
Forgiveness for what? she asked to the voice within her.
My cousins and I had the perfect hiding place when I wanted to avoid Athdar’s teasing. Up there. Some days, some lazy days, I would hide up that so I wouldn’t have to do my chores.
Up there. A hidden alcove. The perfect hiding place.
Isobel sat up, suddenly knowing what she needed to do.
* * *
The girl could be a problem.
He watches her and dotes on her. Attends on her words and follows her steps.
Worse, he laughs with her.
He does not deserve to laugh.
Ever.
; He deserves nothing but pain.
She should leave...
Now...
Before it is too late for her, as well.
Chapter Nine
Athdar sought his bed, but never found the sleep he wanted. Instead, he could taste her on his tongue, a sweet flavour of innocence and desire that remained after their mouths parted. He could smell the scent of the soap she used as he had tangled his fingers in her hair and held her head. He could hear the soft sigh against his mouth as he’d kissed her.
Over and over.
His body hardened at her touch and at her kiss.
It was still hard and his blood rushed through his veins, heating him and pushing his desire for her to his limits.
From a kiss. It was only a kiss. Their first kiss.
But, if one kiss from her could do this, it was good that she was leaving at dawn’s light.
When he did drift into sleep, something from the depths of his memory moved again, bringing dread and terror and pain with it until he woke, silently screaming into the quiet of his chambers. Covered in sweat and unable to breathe.
He’d rather remain awake and think of her kiss.
He was no youth in the bud of first passion and yet he felt as if he were. He’d had women in his bed, and in his heart, for more than a score of years and Isobel made it feel new again.
He wanted her, he would not deny it, and it was in spite of every vow he’d made and every bit of opposition he would encounter.
Mayhap it was a good thing—for his peace of mind and survival—that she left in the morn?
Aye, a very good thing.
* * *
Finally the light of the rising sun brightened the darkness of his room and he rose. As laird and as a brother, he would see Jocelyn and her party off. Due to concerns about the weather and their overall safety, he ordered that six men would accompany them—three would ride ahead and three would travel as far as the pass and then return here to let him know they had made it through.