A Kiss #2
She shouldn’t be thinking of kisses, nor how the gaze of his green eyes burned her skin, sending a rush of heat through her that threatened to sweep her away. Nay, she had to focus on her concerns, her dreams. She had to see him safe.
His smile broadened. “Ach, if ye canna decide, mayhap I should try again, aye?” he suggested with a full-bodied laugh.
And that was all it took, a twitch of those full, sensual lips, and the last of her lingering concerns melted away. Aye, she’d ride with him on the morrow. He’d be safe. More importantly, right now, was the temptation to rub her finger along his strong jaw covered with the faintest hint of stubble.
He read the desire in her eyes and reaching out, yanked her against his hard chest and almost growled against her ear, “Aye, but I’m fair besotted with your saucy little mouth.”
Spearing his fingers through her hair, he directed her face up towards his and sealed his mouth over hers again, the velvet of his tongue demanding—in the most delightful of ways—her lips to part at once.
This kiss was invigorating, potent. He tasted like spice, wood-smoke, and pure sensuality.
His tongue ran slowly over hers, evoking a shivering response with each masterstroke.
Aye, the magnetism of the man was too hard to resist, and she melted into the softness of his embrace.
His arms were gentle, strong, protecting her from everything save the heated fervor of a kiss that threatened to sear her soul.
He moaned as his hands fell from her hair back down to her waist, every inch leaving a heated trail of sensation before he slowly disengaged his lips from hers.
The glint in his eye spoke volumes as his brows arched in triumph. “Aye, and I think ye do like kissing me, lass,” he judged, the timbre of his voice alone eliciting a stirring, deeper, passionate response.
She blushed under the scorching heat of his gaze.
He lifted a hand, smoothing her auburn curls back from her cheek in an intimate gesture when a voice interrupted from behind.
It was Gellie.
“Ach, forgive me for intruding, my lord,” she said, bobbing at Alec but sending Sorcha a quick glance of mischievous glee. “But the laird bids Sorcha to come to the stables, and with no delay.”
Tension jolted through every line of Alec’s hard body as Sorcha’s stomach rolled with apprehension. “Stables?” she repeated, bewildered.
“Aye,” Alec answered with a visible tic in his jaw. “’Tis where he pries loose lips with a whip.”
Sorcha jerked.
Alec’s hard green eyes turned on her then, softening with assurance as he ran his hand over her hip.
“Dinna fear, lass, I’ll be seeing Robert in your stead.
” An undercurrent of raw anger threaded his words, but as he looked upon her, his tone softened, “And I’ll be seeing Lady Margaret.
‘Tis best ye stay out of the tower this night, aye? Stay safe with Gellie at the guardhouse. I’ll meet ye there in the morn. ”
She nodded, a little numb.
He bent down then, to press his lips against the top of her head before nodding at them both and striding away, each step long and filled with purpose.
“Will ye remember me when you’re wed?” Gellie teased once he was out of earshot. “With the look in that braw man’s eye, ye’ll have a dozen bairns at the very least.”
As distracted as she was, Sorcha still blushed. “One kiss doesna make a marriage, Gellie,” she admonished.
“Aye, then remember me when ye’ve a dozen bairns,” came the apple-cheeked lass’s randy reply. “And guardhouse?” She rolled her eyes. “We all know ye’ll be sleeping in his bed this night. I’ll nae be seeing ye till the midday meal, if then.”
Feeling the heat of her cheeks only deepening, Sorcha turned away. “I’ve the urine to fetch for the lye afore the sun sets,” she explained and then escaped back to the dairy.
Her thoughts were a jumble, torn between the earl, her dreams, and Alec—Alec and his passionate kiss …
and the hard line of his chest … and his hands, the way they moved.
But her dreams were insistent. With every thought of Alec, a vision of the priest in the barn, brandishing his sword, cut through like a knife.
Disturbed, she leaned her head against the dairy wall, fear rippling through her.
The Second Sight had never intruded so fiercely before. She couldn’t leave Lainshaw fast enough.
Wiping the cold, clammy sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm, she shooed the chickens away and retrieved her bucket to head back into the dairy in search of urine.
Flies buzzed a greeting as she ducked through the low door.
She liked the dairy. It reminded her of simpler times, of Heather House and Christine’s goats, and it calmed her thoughts.
Squeezing past cows tied for a milking, she found the urine barrel empty and asked a dairy maid for the whereabouts of another.
The woman directed her to a different building, a smaller barn behind the others.
A sea of muck covered the yard between the barns, and it took Sorcha some time to find the driest route. Still, by the time she made it to the stone building, her shoes and the bottom of her dress were saturated. She sighed. She’d have to wade into the accursed river to wash the stench away.
The door creaked as she pushed it open. Few windows existed to brighten the interior, and cobwebs and grime covered the ones that did.
Leaving the door open as a source of light, she squinted in the gloom ahead.
The place was empty, obviously used for storage only.
Spying several barrels along the back wall, she maneuvered past a small cart covered in dust and filled with moldy hay, and picked her way towards the back.
She found the urine barrel by the odor alone, and she was already wincing before she even removed the lid, the eye-watering vapors blasting her in the face.
Dimly, she noted the sucking thud of hooves in the barnyard muck outside, but she paid them little heed and concentrated on her task.
It wasn’t until the voices of angry men sounded near the open door that she glanced over her shoulder, dismayed to see men wearing priest robes filing inside, engaged in heated discussion.
Quickly, she dropped into a crouch and crawled between the barrels and a low, stall wall.
A voice sounded. Deep. Nasal. She recognized it at once.
Hugh Cunningham.
Her heart began to pound as fragments of the conversation filtered through her panic.
“… but ‘tis delayed now that she couldna serve the wine …”
“Ach, but the poisoned wine was too dangerous—”
“Nay, arrows are more damning, ye fool!”
“Silence!” Hugh Cunningham’s voice thundered over the others. “Margaret couldna serve the wine. We have no choice but to fall back to arrows and swords. ‘Twill be the woods.”
Sorcha’s heart stopped, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose.
The men’s voices rose in dissatisfaction, and the shouting began again. Holding her breath, she leaned forward, but in her heart, she already knew what she would see. Pressing her cheek against the timbers of the stall, she squinted through the cracks.
Splashes of red met her eyes. Men, divesting themselves of robes to reveal Cunningham plaids. A blur of white passed by. A mule. A sword gleamed in the light of the open door.
She cupped a hand over her shocked mouth to keep herself from screaming.
Aye, it was the white mule and the priest—but the man clad in the priest’s robes was hardly a holy man.
Hugh Cunningham stood there, arrogant, tall, and treacherous.