Chapter 9
Fumes from lads and lords and ale turned stronger as the night grew late.
Two tankards more after Clyde’s departure, Aonghus darted his eyes again at the far stairwell.
If only there were enough mead to quench the urge to climb those stairs and break the door down to claim the lips of the lass who haunted him.
When was the last time he’d held such a strong inkling?
There had been others he held an attraction to, but as he had considered before, Keirah was…
different. She was the reason – never had he met a lass who held such conviction in her views on so many different matters in a way that called to…
to strength of one’s character, not what title held.
Here he was spilling all his secrets quicker than the mead filling his tankard.
Something in her manner captured him as none other.
This was dangerous in more ways than one.
Once an audience with the king was seen to, there would be a high-born lord or knight declared a match for her, not a banished man such as he.
No matter what, he must keep his distance.
Repeat the plan: one – protect her; two – see her safely to King Alexander’s side; three – take leave to find Sturan. This was all.
The concoction guzzled easily down his pipe.
Setting the leather tankard down, his eyes strayed to her spoon, still on the table.
The very same spoon she used while adoring her pottage.
A wee feast in a bowl; those same courtiers they spoke about would have turned their noses up at the common morsels.
She instead had taken such innocent joy from it.
What a shame witnessing these simple joys will be lost on her future snob husband at court.
He closed his eyes a long moment; the unguarded blissful expression she wore at the simple task surfaced.
Aye, it took ownership of him; this was why he had shared his family’s past with her and the dire chronicle regarding Lady Morag.
He clenched his jaw. Repeat the damn plan again: one – protect her; two…
The third tankard drained, the steps gone over a hundred times, he grabbed the candle off the table, starting for the stairs.
A few raunchy remarks were made with lude hand gestures while he strode past the benches containing a feathering of remaining patrons from the lads who knew the lass was waiting for him upstairs.
Little did they comprehend he would be enjoying the comforts of a drafty floor at the bed’s foot.
At least he would be near her. His first stride covered three steps easily.
Outside the door, he paused. Humm humm…She was humming inside and feeling sprightly. A smile reached his lips. He rapped his knuckles onto the splintered wood and the humming stopped.
“MacCade?” Good, she followed the careful direction.
“Aye, Keirah.”
“Um…a moment,” she answered, sounding flustered.
His brows drew together. “All is well, Cluaran?”
“Aye,” she replied quickly. “I am just completing drying my hair by the fire, but my soiled garments are still drying…so I am bare.”
He ground his teeth. Repeat the plan…
“Wait! MacCade, I have a means…hold but a moment more.”
A slight pause held before the door issued a scrape from the board releasing on the other side. A scampering from footsteps sounded before she hollered, “You may enter, MacCade.”
He pushed open the door slowly while saying, “Cluaran, I may speak with the innkeeper’s wife about drying them on a line…”
The words died in his throat. There she stood upon the chamber’s center, securing a linen floor-length sheet above the swells belonging to her breasts. Even if Venus walked with a nude arse through the chamber, he wouldn’t have noticed.
There was a bonny with the grime, but after the soiled layers were removed, her skin showed like cream over her collarbone and delicate shoulders.
Shadows from the fire gave a luminescent quality to the milky tones till her cheeks and lips; these were flushed resembling a rose plucked at its peak.
The auburn matted hair was washed shiny as silk, cascading in waves all about her, reminiscent of a regal robe.
Her eyes were bright and clear from the happiness he had heard in the humming.
His gaze devoured her full length, the linen smoothing over her curves; with the hearth behind her he could see the silhouette hidden beneath with her toes peeping out the bottom, wiggling on the floorboards.
He swallowed hard. Repeat the damn plan…
“Clyde took his leave?” she asked awkwardly. “The bath was to your liking?” he asked – both at the same time.
He gave a low, nervous chuckle. “Aye, long time past.”
She smiled. “Aye, the bath was welcome as a sun on a bitter moor, truly lovely.”
Not as lovely as you, Keirah.
Ah hell, he had trapped himself within a personal torture chamber, only missing the thumb screws, at being so close yet unable to touch her.
“MacCade,” she said, while he shut the door. “The moments in the bath I have had time to reflect upon you.”
This was promising – thinking of him while running her hands over her flesh…
“The portion you spoke regarding being cast out,” she continued.
No, not good. Try to look confident, even if this is the same as the devil stretching me on hell’s rack. “Aye, Keirah?” he asked, somehow solidly.
“Well,” she began. Her little toes, they were wiggling at a massive pace – intriguing, she was nervous too. “You shared a very intimate declaration upon yourself regarding your past, and I would care for you to know mine as well.”
He paused inside the closed doorway, giving her space. “When I was taken at the hands of Lord Kollungr, he meant to claim all spoils in his grasp,” she said, carefully.
Crack! His knuckles sounded off when a fist formed at his side.
“MacCade, there may have been a moment I was less than completely forthright. The abbess would have frowned about it but ’twas the only way,” she explained. The toes began stammering faster. “I twisted some words at Lord Kollungr for my own protection.”
“You lied?” he asked, clarifying.
“Aye,” she answered, ashamed.
“Brillant,” he said, definitively.
She looked surprised. “I told Lord Kollungr if he were ever to touch me in any manner regarding intimacy, I would be of nae use to him – my times as a fate-seer would be condemned to ruin. Thus, he did not, well…kiss nor touch nor…” The words fell away as the bloom on her cheeks turned into crimson.
“Keirah, you are still a maid?” he asked, gently but shocked.
She lowered her eyes to the floorboards. “Aye.”
He gave a wide grin. “Clever lass,” he stated, and she met his gaze again. “Thank you for trusting me in your sharin’, Cluaran.”
“There is one more thing, regarding being less then forthright. ’Tis about my maidenhead veil.
” Her attention dropped again onto the planks beneath her stammering toes.
“The pleasure in a kiss or touch I may savor; this was never declared to Lord Kollungr. However, to the veil over my maidenhead, if this is broken it shall take my instinct in sense of being a fate-seer.” She lifted her gaze, which held a shine from emotion.
“Thus, the way you look upon me, MacCade…” She raised her hand between them.
“I have traveled with warriors and by nae means am I a ‘wee’ lass. I see the glimpse by desire written within your eyes; I…I feel the same inklings toward you as well.”
She cared for him!
“Forthwith, these may never come to be, so thus, it would be best if you sought another lass or lady to call your own. One who is worthy of your affections, who may give you all her flesh and a bairn.”
If his heart could halt by the sadness seen upon her beautiful face, he would have drawn his final breath.
***
She was settled on top of a linen sheet filled with straw upon the raised pallet.
Aonghus had taken the wispy coverlet to make a nest for himself at the bed’s base.
Should she have offered him a place next to her?
The massive Scotsman would never fit unless he was almost on top of her.
This would have only been crueler after her proclamation.
When he entered the chamber, the admiration in his eyes was unlike any she had encountered before; her instincts were right to race across the chamber away from the door before he had entered.
For if he were but a breath from her in the distance separating them, she would have been unable to halt the want steaming over all her flesh.
Years she had held her passion; never had it been an issue surrounded by those she detested. Now? It was a torment almost greater than Kollungr’s grasp. Giving a hard sigh, she threw her head back on the pillow. Raging hell!
A rustling stole her thoughts. She leaned up on one elbow. The ropes under the mattress released a grinding sound; her eyes doubled when the origins were discovered to be her protector shrugging from his leine to land the tunic onto a chair by the hearth.
There had been inklings at his size earlier, but once on full display, she couldn’t speak; her mouth was suddenly stuffed with wool.
Every time Northmen had gone natural – she had even stumbled upon Rune pleasuring himself once – her first reaction was turning away or lowering her eyes or simply closing them. Now? She leaned up higher on her elbow.
When Aonghus turned his back to her, adjusting the sword he’d set on the table, his muscles were like the ripples on a tempest ocean. How. Glorious. Was. He!