Chapter Twelve
The afternoon was still promising rain, the clouds gathering and thrusting farther down until they were touching the tops of the trees, and yet nothing felt so alive, free, and vibrant, or as lightning-charged.
Lisle inhaled deeply of the scent all about her, and kept her eyes on the man leading Blizzom’s reins.
It wasn’t a difficult chore at the worst of times, back when she’d hated him. Now that she suspected all the good that was in him, and the self-sacrifice involved to make it happen, it was an absolute joy to sit and watch him handle his horse, and sway from side to side as he did so.
The first splatter of rain splashed onto her nose, then her cheeks; then she watched them pelt into Blizzom’s white coat, ruffling the texture, and knew it wasn’t going to be a light sprinkling, but a heavy deluge.
She opened her arms wide, rocked back onto the saddle, tilted her head, and opened her mouth.
“You’ve a look of a child about you, Lisle.”
She brought her head back down, looked across at him through drops that curtained her view, and stuck out her tongue.
That had him staring, and on him that was as disconcerting as his grin was.
Lisle hooted with shivers the rain couldn’t possibly cause, shoved the cloak aside, and opened her arms wide to it.
That way, she could pull as much of the chill and wetness into herself as possible.
Then she was leaning back again, running her hands through her hair, and fanning it out for the rainwater.
“You should have more care with that cloak. It’s the best gold can buy.”
“I know,” she replied loudly.
“And Monteith colors doona’ take well to such abuse.”
“Why? Do they run?” Lisle asked, opening her eyes to the conical look of drops that were falling in earnest abandon from the sky.
“What?”
She brought her head back down, licked off her lips, and smiled. “I asked if your colors run. You ken…bleed? Well? Do they?”
His face was shuttered and impossible to decipher. “Na’ so much that my laundresses ever let on,” he replied finally.
Lisle hooted again at the serious expression on his face. “Perhaps we should test it.”
“Now?” he asked.
“Of course, now. You see a better time?”
“I see a basket of food, two horses, and a lass who has lost her wits. That is what I see.”
“You wish to eat? Fine. Pick a spot. We’ll eat.”
“You canna’ have a picnic in the rain.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because good bread and meat does na’ take well to such effects.”
“How about wine? How does it fare?”
He shook his head. “Most folk seek shelter in rainstorms.”
“Do you always do what most folks do?” she asked.
“When it makes sense? Aye.”
Lisle looked over at him, putting her face and body in the same level stance he was in. “You ken what your problem is, Monteith?” she asked in the same solemn tone he was using.
“I’ve a wife with nae wits?” he replied.
She reached down and pulled on the rein, bringing her horse closer to his. “You only wish she had nae wits, my lord.”
“Can I get you to call me Langston?” he asked.
“Of course. Langston,” she replied, lowering her tone to try and match his. “Langston. Langston.” She repeated it twice, every time dropping her tongue on the first consonant.
He shook his head. “What has gotten into you?” he asked.
“You never had a childhood, did you?” she asked instead.
He pulled up, straightening his back. The rain was plastering his black hair to his head and neck, and the parts of him that the clothing was supposed to be covering.
Lisle reached out and touched her hand to one of the wet, muslin-covered humps of muscle between his shoulders, and pushed slightly. Nothing so much as moved.
“Very nice,” she commented.
“This is absurd,” he replied.
“Oh. I know. There are enemies behind every bush, the glens are peopled with secrets, and there’s darkness lurking in every gurgle of every burn. I doona’ ken how you manage the responsibility. I truly doona’.”
“Are you making sport of me?” he asked.
“Me?” she asked, opening her eyes wide, although that expression only got her pelted with a big drop, and that had her blinking and wiping at it, and laughing again.
“Of course, you. There isn’t another in sight, is there?”
Lisle looked about. The grass he’d been leading them through was flattening with the force of the rain, and little splashes of them were spurting back up when they reached the ground. She looked back at him.
“Nae,” she replied finally, and licked at the moisture dripping off her nose.
“Then, you were making sport of me.”
“Show me a picnic, and I’ll show you sporting. Why, I’ll even wager I can outrace you. Take me up on it. I’ll prove it. That’s what I’ll do. Gladly.”
“Dinna’ you spend years in a finishing school?” he asked.
“You already know I did. Seven of them. Long ones. I was sent there to keep me from turning into a lad, like I wished to be.”
“It dinna’ work?”
“Oh, aye. I was finished, too. Just draft one of your pretty missives and ask them. I was barely kept from getting the boot applied. Daily. Or should I say…nightly?”
“If this is the type of conduct you displayed, I doona’ doubt that, at all.”
She stuck her tongue out at him again.
“You do that again, Madame, and I’ll take a forfeiture.”
“You have to catch me first!”
Lisle slid off the side of her horse, wondering where the expertise for that came from, hitched up her skirts, and started running.
Wet grass slapped at her legs, soaking her skirts further, and she was almost to the trees before he caught up with her.
He was cheating, too, for he didn’t just pass her up, but caught her up to him.
Then he was heaving her over his shoulder, all without breaking stride, not even when he had to dodge and dart through shrubbery and trees that hadn’t been groomed for such a thing any time in the recent, or faraway, past.
Lisle was hooting with laughter. Then she was shuddering with the giggles.
She pushed herself up from the position draped over his shoulder, and that movement forced him to a walk.
Then she was sliding down into his arms, with her own wrapped about his neck, her legs gripping about the hips she’d straddled, and looking into black-hued eyes that had the strangest look about them.
Without waiting permission or rebuttal, she closed her eyes and put her lips to his, in order to cling and absorb and send the power of the kiss right to him.
The drumbeat he’d spoken of had her solidly in its grasp, filling her ears and head and soul with the pounding of it.
Lisle lapped at his lips as he was hers, tasting flesh and rain and salt, and everything that was manly about him.
There wasn’t anything nonemotional about him as he did the same to her.
Lisle hadn’t any experience with kissing, but Langston must have, for what he was doing had everything virile and lusty and passionate, and every other description the girls used to taunt each other with, about it.
Lisle sucked at the scratchy feel of his upper lip, moving her tongue along the ridge, while he did the same to her chin.
And then they weren’t standing anymore. Langston went to his knees, taking her with him, and that put hard, warm, damp, English-clothed thighs against parts of her that had never felt the like.
Lisle glided along him, moaning with the motion, and heard an answering response from the chest within reach, touch, and caress of her fingertips.
Lisle skimmed her nails along the muslin of his rain-wet shirt, barely hearing the sound of it, and answering every flinch of his with a corresponding twinge.
Then she was pulling the ends of it from where he had it tucked into his trousers, and wadding it into balls in each hand.
“You ken…what you do?” he asked, moving his lips the span from hers he had to in order to make the words.
Lisle had him right back, pulling on the wads of shirt to make him stay in place, and locking her ankles behind him in order to make it impossible for him to move.
Then she was filling her palms with the wet heat of his flesh, following the lumps of his abdomen to the mounds of his chest, and from there, to the tops of his shoulders, feeling the shirt moving and bunching as she went, in order to make a pathway for her.
The long, lonely, haunting sounds of a horn filtered through her consciousness, joining the sounds of their breathing and her heartbeat.
The atmosphere was defined by the forest carpet, the sponginess, and the damp.
Lisle barely heard it, and knew if Langston had, he was ignoring it as he had already this day, when they were in the meadow surrounded by clansmen and Clydesdale horses.
“I ken it…very well,” she whispered.
“I doona’ wish regret…and recrimination in the—”
“Will you stop such nonsense?” She nipped at his lip, stopping his argument with her motion as well as her words.
Her action unleashed something, and then she was down, rolling onto her back and covered over with a bulk she hadn’t experience enough to make note of, and gasping with the weight of him.
“You are one glorious woman, Lisle Monteith.”
Heartbeats filled her ears like drums, drowning out the sounds of breathing, the rain moistened leaves and limbs, and the three, short, muted, blasts of another horn.
Lisle barely heard it, and knew he hadn’t, as hands moved to her temples, holding her in place. Then he was moving, stabilizing himself on his bent elbows and looking down at her with such a tender expression that she didn’t dare blink, in case it changed.
“I will na’ do this now,” he whispered. He licked his lips.
“Why?” she asked, in a like rasp of voice.
“Because you’re special. You’re my wife. You’re the woman I have chosen for my own mate, and there is nae portion of this meadow, and this forest, and this entire estate of mine that is safe enough yet.”
“Safe from what?” she asked.