Chapter Seven #4
The tantalizing motion sent bolts of sheer, white-hot need pounding into his loins, her every movement stealing his breath and setting him like granite. Her nipples began to contract, the large rounds of her areolae crinkling and drawing deliciously tight beneath his stare.
“Jesu God,” he ground out when the hardened tips lengthened, stretching toward him as if begging for his caress, his kiss.
Half-afraid he’d soon be reduced to begging, he bit down so fiercely on the inside of his cheek that he tasted blood. But the saints took pity on him at last, for the very urgency of his desire ripped through the spell she’d cast over him.
The knowledge that he was a mere hair’s breadth away from dragging her against him and taking her, mayhap even in standing, braced against the cold, hard edge of the table, restored his sanity as naught else could have.
His lesson learned, he began stalking about the chamber, snuffing the candles one by one. He slid a hot glare at the night taper, flickering innocently on the small bedside table. That flame, too, would meet its end—but only after Lady Amicia was securely ensconced within the massive, canopied bed.
Meantime, he doused every other source of illumination, plunging the room into ever-greater shadow until only the soft glow of the peat fire and the tiny coal-burning brazier lit the murky half-dark.
She moved about behind him, turning down the bedcovers. Something she did not seem to be doing with all speed.
And he wasn’t about to glance her way to be sure. He deemed it wiser to keep pacing and simply set his jaw against the image of her voluptuous body stretched sinuously upon the linen sheets.
Blessedly, the worst throbbing at his groin receded. But one more glimpse, however fleeting, of even an inch of creamy skin not usually freely visible, and he’d find himself in fine ferment all over again.
“I am abed, sir, and . . . covered.”
The words floated out of the semi-darkness, mellifluous as always but with a slight tinge of defiance.
And that wee suggestion of rebelliousness sent another hot tide of tingles sluicing across his nether parts. Had she perchance divested herself of all her garments? Would she, in her boldness, have other sultry delights on display for him?
Perhaps a quick flash of the sooty-black curls he imagined sprang in wild abundance between her shapely thighs?
At the thought, his tarse raged harder than the bone hilt of his dirk, but he took the bait and spun to face her—and saw at once exactly how she’d chosen to express her defiance.
Not that he could see much of her at all, buried as she was beneath a welter of furs and mounded pillows.
She’d extinguished the night candle, but enough of the fire glow seeped between the parted bed curtains to reveal the lusty spark of humor in her dark-flashing eyes. Equally telling, she appeared to be biting her lip to keep from smiling.
And those brief—but startlingly revealing—glimpses of her indomitable spirit filled the cold places inside him with warmth just as glorious as the fierce heat that had swept through him upon glimpsing her naked-swaying breasts.
For one precious moment, he savored that warmth, holding it as close and dear as he’d like to hold her. Then, with a heavy sigh, he crossed the room, seeking sanctuary in the infinitely safer wash of cool, gray moonlight spilling through the opened windows.
And if the saints had any mercy at all, they’d let the patter of the mizzling rain, the hollow whistle of the wind, his own wise distance from the bed, blur the tale he’d promised to tell.
Ill ease nipping at every inch of him, he stared up at the black-raftered ceiling and began. “The first keeper of this castle, Reginald of the Victories, had but one arm,” he said, his words eliciting a sharp gasp of surprise from his wife . . . just as he’d known they would.
“But I’d heard he was a great warrior,” she argued from the bed. “How—”
“By all accounts he was a much-esteemed man—the most skilled warrior in all the Isles,” Magnus confirmed, tossing her just the wee hint of a sad smile.
“But life being as it is, there always comes a day when even the greatest amongst us meets someone better skilled. That day cost Reginald his right arm, and he never considered himself a whole man thereafter.”
“Was he married when he lost his arm?” Amicia raised herself on an elbow, peered at him through the gloom. “Is that the sadness in the tale? His wife stopped loving him?”
“Nay, far from it—she loved him deeply. That is the tragedy, for he could not believe it.”
“Because his pride would not let him?”
“So tradition claims,” Magnus admitted, pulling a hand down over his face. “He had only just married and was building this stronghold when his arm was sliced off in the heat of a fierce battle. Although he’d e’er been a bonny man of quick wit and a sunny nature, he quickly grew bitter.”
Amicia sat up straighter, but still kept her nakedness well-hid beneath the bedcovers. “He must’ve kept building the castle?”
“Och, aye, that he did.” Magnus stared at the falling rain, preferring not to see if the coverlets slipped. “He spared no expense or trouble, strove to build the finest stronghold these isles had e’er seen.”
He blew out a frustrated breath, hating what he must tell her.
“Reginald hoped to impress his new bride, see you? He feared she would not love him unless he gave her the grandest home his coin and standing could provide.”
“But you said she loved him deeply.”
“And she did.” Magnus sighed. “With the whole of her heart and every breath she drew.”
“She didn’t care that he’d lost his arm,” Amicia said, making the words a statement.
“Nay, she didn’t—not one whit. But she did doubt Reginald’s love, even though the seannachies tell us he loved her endlessly.
” Magnus’s stomach began to pitch and twist. This was the part he’d been dreading.
“’Tis said he ne’er spoke his heart to her, ne’er laid bare his innermost feelings.
He only devoted himself—his life—to building this castle. ”
He slid a glance at her, then immediately wished he hadn’t, for her unbound hair now spilled in charming disarray around her shoulders.
The long, black-gleaming tresses beckoned almost indecently, demanding all manner of lascivious attention even as she stared at him all dewy-eyed, her feminine heart most assuredly guessing the end of the tale.
“She felt unloved,” she said, proving him right.
Worse, her lower lip wobbled with tears she clearly fought to keep from spilling. “She didn’t ken why he was so obsessed with building the castle and he ne’er told her.”
Magnus pressed his fingers to the icy-damp stone of the window molding and a great shudder racked his spine.
“Every new day saw them loving more, yet growing further apart,” he said, borrowing one of Hugh’s descriptions of the pair when his own words failed him.
“With each new stone laid, each new comfort provided, rather than showing the appreciation and devotion Reginald hoped to win from her, his lady—Margaret was her name—only became more sad-eyed.”
“Did she not tell him how she felt?”
“More times than there are stars in the sky.” Another of Hugh’s quotes. “But each time she did, or begged him to reveal his heart to her, he would either plunge himself into some pressing castle-building task, or fall into an exhausted sleep from having done so.”
A sniffle came from the direction of the bed.
Magnus suppressed a groan . . . and an urge to smash his fist into the chamber’s cold, arras-hung wall.
“So Reginald of the Victories could not see his greatest victory of all.” The statement came on a long, quivering sigh. “He ne’er knew that it was not a proud and mighty castle his lady wife so desired—she wanted only his love,” Amicia concluded.
“That will have been the way of it, aye,” Magnus agreed, bracing himself to tell her the rest, wishing she hadn’t proved so persistently curious.
So persuasive.
“And loving him as she did, life without his love held no meaning for her.”
At his words, all color drained from her face. “So that is why you called her doomed. She took her own life, didn’t she?”
Magnus nodded. “Hers, and surely Reginald’s, too, for from the day she let herself fall from the parapet walk, he is said to have grown ever more bitter, believing until his death that she’d taken her life rather than endure being bound to a man who was not whole.”
“Oh, dear saints . . .” Amicia gasped, dashing silvery tears from her cheeks with trembling fingers.
Furious with himself for distressing her, and equally frustrated with her for giving him scant choice, Magnus stared out at the dark, impassionate night and pulled in a great, spine-stiffening breath of the chill air.
When he trusted himself to speak again, he turned back to her. “There is more. The reason many believe a pall—or curse—lies over all who live within these walls. Would you truly know Coldstone’s heart, my lady?”
She nodded, her eyes still misting but with a decidedly belligerent spark beginning to replace the tears.
“Then know you that from Margaret’s death onward, the stones of this castle turned cold—so frigid that even the brightest summer day cannot warm them. Hence, the name Coldstone,” he told her, his nape prickling at the way her chin thrust higher upon each spoken word.
“Some say their ill-fated love yet lives—remaining as a clear memory to this day, ever locked within the chill damp of Coldstone’s walls.”
Her eyes fair blazing now, Amicia regarded him long and hard. “Then I would say it is well past time for someone to release them.”
Magnus blinked. He had no answer to that.
But for one breath-catching moment, something inside him leapt and brightened; then the sensation passed as quickly as it’d come.
So he strode for his pallet in silence and thought, stripping off his knightly accoutrements as he went, leaving his wife to stare after him . . . or seek her slumber.
He also tossed aside her fool notions.
Impossible, dangerous notions.
Delving too deeply into romantic old tales best forgotten would mean exposing his own heart.
And that was something he had no intention of doing.
In especial, not to her.