Chapter Six
Prepared for the worst, Ronan burst into his bedchamber only to come to a skittering, undignified halt. Far from requiring
rescue, Lady Gelis knelt calmly on the bearskin rug in front of the hearthstone, her delectably rounded bottom bobbing in
the air as she jabbed an iron poker at a tidy pile of just-beginning-to-smolder peat bricks.
Ronan’s eyes widened. He stared at her, well aware his jaw was slipping. His breath lodged in his throat, making it difficult
to think. Worst of all, her flame-bright hair caught the fire glow and his fingers itched to touch the gleaming strands.
A man could lose himself in such silky, glistening tresses.
Lose himself and much more.
He frowned.
Praise the saints she hadn’t yet undressed.
Even so, it took all his strength to tear his gaze from her jigging buttocks.
When he could, his pent-up breath left him in a great, gusty rush.
“What goes on here?” He strode forward, his stare pinned on the iron poker in her hand. “Who —”
“We both know who is responsible.” Cool as spring rain, she set aside the fire poker and stood. “One glance was all I needed”
— she made a sweeping gesture, turning — “though I vow anyone would have guessed upon seeing . . .”
She froze, her extended arm poised in midair. “Mercy!” she gasped, her eyes widening. “You’re naked!”
“Bah. I —” Ronan started to deny it, but clamped his mouth shut instead.
He was naked.
He firmed his jaw and squared his shoulders, opting for a show of dignity. With each breath, he became more aware of the heavy
plaid still clutched in his hand, the dry bits of rushes and herbage tickling the bare soles of his feet.
Lady Gelis was staring at him.
He could neither move nor speak.
Great folds of tartan dangled from his fingers to pool on the floor. Rather than throw the plaid around him, he’d simply snatched
it up and run, so great had been his urgency to reach her side and ensure her safety.
Now he looked the fool.
“You forgot to don your plaid,” she said, quite unnecessarily.
“Nae,” Ronan lied, “I did not wish to waste time with such trivialities in my haste to see what was amiss here.”
Her eyes twinkled. “There is naught amiss here that cannot be easily rectified.”
Something in her tone warned him.
Against his better judgment, he glanced down, his worst dread confirmed.
Her jigging buttocks had affected him more than he’d realized.
Heat shot up the back of his neck. His vitals caught flame. After all, it wasn’t every day such a desirable female stood staring
at his man piece.
Nor could he recall having ever seen a more amused-looking female.
Or one who looked quite so triumphant.
Ronan cleared his throat, pride not letting him sling on his plaid too hastily. “Fair lady, you’d be hard-pressed to find
a Heilander who doesn’t sleep naked as the good God made him.” He held her gaze as he spoke, forcing himself to use slow and
careful movements as he covered himself.
The plaid finally in place, he dusted his hands, blessed composure his once again. “Anice woke me,” he began, doing fine until
he perceived a certain canine stare boring into him from the door.
Buckie lay sprawled across the threshold, his shaggy head resting on his paws, his milky eyes keener than Ronan had seen them
in years.
Definitely unblinking, and perhaps even a wee bit accusatory.
Ronan let out a long breath. “Anice and my dog, Buckie, woke me,” he started again, the correction earning him an appreciative
tail swish. “Anice said the victuals I’d sent up for you went missing and that —”
“So you admit they were meant for me?” Gelis pretended to examine her fingernails. She had him now. “Not for the two of us?”
“I hardly see how that matters.” He brushed at his plaid, looking more trapped than if she’d pinned him in a corner with a
twelve-foot lance.
“It matters to me.”
He lowered his brows, but said nothing.
Gelis felt her lips quirk.
“You needn’t glower so,” she said, allowing the quirk to flash into her brightest smile.
If anything, his mien darkened.
“I am not wroth with you. Even if I am not accustomed to discovering my evening repast has been tossed out the window.” She
gave a light shrug, willing her smile to blaze. “Truth be told, I am quite content.”
The Raven humphed.
“That, sweet lass, I find hard to believe.” He looked at her, his brows arcing. “ ’Tis impossible for you to be at ease. Here,
in this place” — he planted his fists on his hips — “and with me.”
She gave a soft laugh. “Nae, especially with you,” she declared, her breath catching.
Her heart leaped, some wild devil inside her making her close the distance between them and poke a finger into his proud,
plaid-draped chest.
“Truth is, I welcome challenges,” she announced, jabbing her finger harder on each word. “I wouldn’t be my father’s daughter
if I didn’t. So-o-o” — she lifted a fold of his tartan, ran her thumb over its soft warmth — “I’ll start by asking where you
were going?”
“There are challenges here that would daunt even your redoubtable sire.” He narrowed his eyes at her, deftly ignoring her question. “Were the window
shutters bolted or opened when Anice brought you up here?”
“They were flung wide, the wet wind gusting into the room.”
“And you shut them?”
“I did.”
From the door, his dog shifted and resettled his bulk with a grunt.
The Raven shot him an irritated look. “The shutters,” he continued when the beast stopped his scuffling, “did you notice anything
unusual when you closed them?”
“You mean besides the whirling mist, denser than any I’ve ever seen, and my smashed feasting goods spread across the cobbles?”
“I mean . . . anything.”
“Perhaps the staves of what appeared to be a broken bathing tub?”
“The bathing tub as well?” His brows lowered. “You are certain?”
Rather than answer him, Gelis lifted her chin and fixed him with her best so-you’ d-doubt-me stare. A look that she’d learned
at her father’s knee and that would have made a man of lesser mettle tremble in his boots.
The Raven remained unperturbed.
“You have peat ash on your face,” he said, reaching to brush his thumb across her cheek.
A grave mistake, for as soon as he touched her, her attar of roses scent wafted up to befuddle him. He swallowed hard, tried
not to breathe until he’d wiped away the smudge.
But the scent was too seductive.
He bit back a groan, the heady fragrance thrusting him right back into his dreams until he could feel her melting against
him, lush, warm, and pliant. As if they still kissed, he could feel her lips parting beneath his and the hot silken glide
of her tongue over and around his.
The scorching heat that had whipped through him, burning away his defenses until all that mattered was the wild frenzy of
their passion.
As in the dream, he could hear the soft lapping of the wavelets on the shingled strand and feel the afternoon breeze lifting
his hair. The sweet warmth of spring sunshine, and a blaze of desire such as he’d never known.
Not even with his long-dead first wife, Matilda.
Horrified, he jerked his hand from Gelis’s cheek and wheeled away from her. His gaze fell at once on the great four-poster
bed across the room, his anguish complete when he spied the piles of his folded clothes mounded on the bed’s luxuriant furred
coverings.
His grand black cloak and his opened, half-packed leather travel bag.
Rose attar perfume and lusty dreams forgotten, he spun back around, not at all surprised to find his bride standing with her
hands braced against her hips, her amber eyes alight with challenge.
“Your money purse and wine skin are there.” She flicked a hand toward the shadows behind the door.
Glancing that way, he saw more of his gear gathered in a neat little pile. His hauberk had been laid carefully over a chair,
the mail shirt’s silvery links gleaming softly in the candlelight, while his extra sword and sword belt rested on the floor,
half-hidden in deeper shadow.
He refused to goggle.
And under no circumstance would he acknowledge the cold, hard knot beginning to pulse between his shoulders.
He did clench his hands.
With the exception of the wispy more-an-annoyance-than-a-threat mist wraiths that were wont to slither across window ledges
and sometimes probe into the great hall, slinking along the tops of the trestle tables, none of the unholiness associated
with Maldred the Dire’s curse had ever dared to actually penetrate Castle Dare’s walls.
Until now, he owned, the certainty of it tightening his chest.
“Those clothes and gear are my travel goods.” He looked at her, some foolishly optimistic corner of his soul hoping she’d
put his suspicions to rest, proving him wrong. “They were locked in my strongbox, my extra sword hidden beneath the bed.”
“So Anice said when we found them strewn about the room.” She held his gaze, her words taking his hope. “She also said that
only you have a key to your strongbox.”
A truth that made the matter all the more damning.
Not about to tell her so, he folded his arms. “And if I do?”
“Then you were in here before I came abovestairs,” she informed him, sliding a glance at Buckie, who now occupied the entire
threshold.
The dog’s fluting snores indicated he slept, but a single eye, cracked no more than a sliver, followed Ronan’s every move.
One somewhat tatty-looking ear was lifted as well, craftily poised to catch every word.
Ronan’s mouth twisted.
Gelis was watching him just as carefully, and he didn’t doubt her ears were equally sharp.
“So you do not deny it?” She narrowed her eyes. “You were in here.”
Ronan made a dismissive gesture, not trusting himself to speak.
He had been in the room earlier.
But only long enough to ensure that all her comforts were met. A fire laid, the bedding freshened, and his carefully planned
feast- for-one spread upon the table.
An insult he’d hoped would see her riding away with her father at the morrow’s first light.