CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
No sooner was the confession made than Laoghaire’s bottom lip began to quiver, her eyes filling with tears. Feeling a ball of shame congeal in his belly, Galen ached to pull her into his arms, but he knew that he had to press on and finish the sordid tale.
“Did ye accept her offer?” Laoghaire demanded to know.
“No, I did not,” he said with a shake of the head. “In the end, I spurned her.”
Appearing unconvinced, Laoghaire shot him a suspicious glance. “Why did ye refuse her? She is beautiful, and I would never have known if ye had bedded her.”
“Yea, she is comely, but—” Galen broke off abruptly.
Knowing that he needed to take great care with his words, he took several measured breaths before he continued and said, “When I opened my eyes after we kissed, I was vastly disappointed that it wasn’t your blue eyes that I was peering into.
At that moment, I realized that I didn’t want to bed her.
I only wanted to bed you.” And still did with great urgency, his lust for Laoghaire like a banked fire that refused to die.
“On that night I discovered there is only one lady at Castle Airlie who tempts me.”
Still appearing dubious, Laoghaire folded her arms over her chest. “If that is true, why did ye mutter in yer sleep that ye were greatly tempted?”
“I spoke falsely.”
“To me?”
“To her,” Galen made haste to clarify. “I did not know how to reject Melisande without giving offense. She has suffered greatly on my account. Because I did not wish for her to suffer even more, I told her that I was tempted by the offer as a way to soften the blow.”
Eyeing him thoughtfully, Laoghaire took a moment to ponder his account of that regrettable night.
Worried that she was still unconvinced, Galen doggedly held her gaze, hoping that by dint of sheer will he could persuade her to believe him.
“I pray thee, Laoghaire. Do not throw away what we shared in the grotto because of an interlude that never came to pass. I desire but one woman and that is you. Only you,” he repeated, keen to emphasize the point.
To his great relief, the harsh lines on Laoghaire’s face began to soften.
By the grace of God! The ice is finally beginning to melt.
Determined to regain Laoghaire’s trust and affection, Galen said, “Whilst I am attending the king’s war council at Castle Balloch, I will do all in my power to find a suitable husband for Melisande.”
“Ye would . . . ye would do this for me?” Laoghaire asked somewhat hesitantly.
“I am not blind to the fact that it aggrieves you to have Melisande living at Castle Airlie.”
Laoghaire’s finely arched brows suddenly snapped together. “Why did ye not make this confession about the dream when we were in the grotto?”
Grinning wryly, Galen leaned his shoulder against the stone wall. “Perchance it had something to do with you pounding me on the chest and calling me a knave.”
Even though it was a gentle gibe, spoken with good humor, Laoghaire’s entire face instantly reddened.
“I did so because I was consumed with—” She stopped in mid-sentence, evidently thinking better of whatever it was she had intended to say.
A long pause ensued while she stared at her lap.
Finally raising her head, she peered at him with a gravely serious expression. “Can ye forgive me, Galen?”
“’Tis nothing to forgive, Laoghaire. We were both in the wrong that day.”
“But I seized hold of a false assumption and held it as dearly to my breast as I would the truth,” she argued, refusing to accept the pardon.
“And because I was in pride’s thrall, I stubbornly refused to relieve you of that false assumption,” he countered, not wanting to spoil the armistice with a pointless argument.
Evidently Laoghaire was of a similar mindset, for she unexpectedly slid her palm across the stone embrasure and shyly touched his hand. “I think we are both too new to this business of marriage.”
Cheered by that sweetly coy invitation, Galen closed his fingers around Laoghaire’s hand. “Perhaps it is no different from any craft that must be perfected over time.”
“But unlike most crafts, it requires two artisans to make a perfect marriage,” his lady wife was quick to point out.
Galen raised Laoghaire’s hand to his lips and placed a soft kiss in the notch between her knuckles. “You have my solemn promise that I will ply both hands and mouth to this craft.”
“I think it might require a few more tools than that. But ’tis a good start.” Although Laoghaire smiled playfully, there was a distinctly seductive glimmer in her eyes.
Despite the chill in the air, all of sudden Galen felt exceedingly warm, the blood rushing to his groin. And though he wanted to pull Laoghaire into his arms so they could hone their craft, there was one additional matter to attend to in order for their reconciliation to be complete.
Releasing his hold on Laoghaire’s hand, Galen opened the leather pouch that hung from his belt and retrieved from it the amethyst wedding ring.
“Many nights ago you left this at the high table.” Holding the glittering ring between his thumb and forefinger, he offered it to Laoghaire.
“’Tis my most fervent hope you will now consent to wear it. ”
Favoring him with a tender smile, Laoghaire extended her left hand, silently beckoning him to place the ring upon her finger. As he did so, Galen immediately felt a weight lift from his shoulders, the heaviness replaced with an ebullient lightness that filled his entire chest cavity.
Laoghaire held her hand to the window as she appraised the purple stone. “We have come a far distance since the day I left this ring—”
Without warning, Galen grabbed hold of Laoghaire by the upper arms and pulled her to him, silencing her with his mouth.
The kiss that followed was wild and deep and it caused a rush of hot blood to course through his veins.
Wrapping an arm around Laoghaire’s backside, Galen molded her to his chest. At feeling the press of her soft breasts, he bit back a groan of pleasure, while he angled his head to more perfectly fit their two mouths together.
He then used his tongue to sensuously tangle and entwine, to explore the warm, inviting depths of her mouth.
Laoghaire returned his ardor with an equal fervor. Threading her fingers through his hair, she clasped the back of his head, pulling him even closer to her.
Aching from the want of her, Galen slid a hand over the rounded contour of a plump breast and began to massage it. When Laoghaire leaned into him, he whisked his thumb back and forth over the hardened stub of her nipple.
Desperate for a more intimate contact, he stood up. After pulling Laoghaire to her feet, he walked her backwards several steps, pinning her to the nearest stone wall.
Overcome with desire, Galen thrust a hand between Laoghaire’s legs and cupped her sex. “I have dreamt of this for the last three nights,” he muttered against her lips.
“We have the turret all to ourselves.”
“Meaning what?” he prodded. Although her searing expression alluded to stolen pleasures, he wanted, needed, to hear her utter the words.
Laoghaire smiled seductively and said, “I would have ye make love to me, my strong and bonny warrior. Here. Now. In this place.”
His lady wife’s overture was like the sweetest minstrel’s tune, and Galen responded by pressing his fingers into the crevice of her woman’s mound.
Holding his gaze, her blue eyes gleaming with an ardent fire, Laoghaire arched her hips in his direction.
Galen shuddered, the force of his desire causing the blood to pulse in his neck, even as it lengthened and thickened his manroot.
Pushing his fingers deeper, Galen said, “You’re wet for me. I can feel it through your garments.”
Laoghaire moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Aye, I am ready for ye,” she murmured while she snaked her hand beneath his tunic. She then slid her palm over the muscles of his lower belly before she fondled his stiffened organ through his braies.
Christ God!
He gulped in a ragged breath, seized with a fierce yearning to take her, there, against the stone wall.
Just as Laoghaire had done a few moments ago, Galen arched his hips, pressing himself more fully into her hand. Then, suddenly needing more than a brazen caress, he grasped hold of her by the hips and together they sank to the floor.
Too lust-crazed to bother with undressing her, he simply hitched Laoghaire’s chemise and kirtle to her waist. That done, he shoved his tunic aside, untied his braies, and in one swift movement, thrust his cock as deeply into her as he could.
Laoghaire—her legs wrapped around his haunches, her arms clinging to his shoulders and back—moaned aloud with pleasure.
Galen also moaned, the muffled exclamation coming from deep within his chest. To his ears, it was an almost primitive sound, one that was born of want and wildness.
And something else. Some unfamiliar emotion that caused his heart to pound faster, harder.
For a moment it occurred to him that his beautiful Highland bride exerted far too much power over him, but he quickly shoved the errant thought to the wayside and allowed himself to be consumed by the blistering heat of what was an almost unholy passion.
Bracing his palms against the floor, he levered his chest upward and began to plunge his hips, maintaining a fierce rhythm.
Suddenly he felt Laoghaire’s entire body tense, just before she arched upward on a gasp. When, in the next instant, her inner muscles gripped him tightly as she reached her climax, Galen’s seed spurted from his manroot in a great burst, the pleasure so intense that he shuddered in the aftermath.
Still gasping for air, Laoghaire buried her face against his shoulder. Galen cradled her in his arms while he smoothed a hand over her silky tresses and softly pressed his lips to her heated brow.
“I am completely undone, lady wife.”
Peering into his eyes, Laoghaire graced him with a warm, womanly smile. “As am I, lord husband.”
“God’s teeth! They can’t keep their hands off each other,” Dame Winifred muttered while she watched the earl and his redheaded trollop enter the keep, arm-in-arm.
Standing in the lower bailey, enraged by the disgusting display of connubial bliss, she was forced to acknowledge that all of her hopes, all of her plans for the future, had come to naught.
The Highland bitch has taken what rightfully belongs to my daughter!
As a result, Winifred now feared their future was bleak, indeed.
She’d been given the position of chatelaine by the old earl when her sister, the previous countess, had taken to childbed.
That made her present situation precarious, particularly since she had few allies at Castle Airlie.
Melisande’s predicament was not much better.
True, Angus felt a responsibility toward her because they’d once been betrothed.
But how long the largesse would continue was anyone’s guess.
I suspect the Celtic creature, if given half a chance, will not hesitate to throw us to the wolves.
Had Angus not spurned Melisande’s overture, their future would have been secured. Why he did so was a complete mystery, to both her and her daughter. It was as if the Highland bitch had somehow cast a spell upon Angus, one from which he could not disentangle himself.
Granted, there was always a chance the cow would fail to conceive, forcing the earl to cast her aside for another.
But that could take years to unfold. Pragmatic by nature, she knew only a fool would cling to that slender thread.
Gnashing her teeth, Winifred snatched hold of her cloak to keep it from billowing in the wind. As she did so, she caught sight of Father Giroldus leading a donkey from the stables.
“’Tis late in the day to be setting out on a journey,” she said by way of greeting.
The cleric brought the donkey to a halt. “The earl has banished me from the castle,” he snarled, glaring at the keep with red-rimmed eyes.
“But . . . but there is a . . . a storm brewing on the horizon,” she sputtered, stunned by the priest’s shocking announcement. “Surely, the earl—”
“That redheaded witch has the earl so thoroughly in her thrall,” Father Giroldus interjected, “that he is no longer capable of listening to reason.”
“I was just thinking the very same thing,” Winifred murmured.
“Forsooth, the earl would not even allow me to take a horse from the stable. So I am now forced to make my way to St. Dunstan’s abbey with nothing but the clothes on my back and this pitiful donkey. Assuming roadway bandits don’t set upon me,” he griped.
On the verge of pointing out that their Lord Savior once rode upon a donkey, she thought better of it at the last. “Then, I wish you Godspeed,” she said instead.
“And may He also damn the red-haired sorceress to the fire pits of hell,” the priest muttered before he took his leave.
My sentiments exactly, Winifred thought, suddenly inspired.