Chapter 26

Plans were afoot. Ye would have to be a fool not to notice, and Brodwyn had ne’er considered herself a fool. Henry, St Clair and some of the other stalwarts she had observed in the cavern had been putting their heads together in whispered conversations then disappearing as if about to proceed to follow some command Henry or the young Norman knight had given them.

St Clair had more courage than she had given him credit for at her first sight of the man. Henry had made nae secret of his young cohorts brash if unsuccessful venture into Cragenlaw when he had reached the castle in time to attend Melinda’s wedding feast. On his return, Brodwyn had her first indication that Henry couldn’t have given a brass groat who his daughter wed. It was the bairns he couldn’t abide losing.

The discussions afterwards had revealed a truth Brodwyn would never have expected.

She was homesick.

Missing the sights and sounds of her homeland—a place she had been banished frae what now, after listening to St Clair, seemed to have happened a hundred years syne.

Even the name Cragenlaw stirred emotions around the area of her heart she never thought to feel again, the castle and her cousin Astrid’s death having been the starting off point for her eventual downfall. It was there that Harald had mounted his failed attack on Euan McArthur, an assault that should have ended in the McArthur’s death—would have done but for that wee devil Rob Farquhar, now McArthur. From the first he had been like a flea in her bedding, aggravating, and she had hoped she’d heard the last of him but was wrong. The second occasion had happened when, still nae quite a man, he killed Harald at Caithness. That had been the day she was banished—by her own cousin the Jarl, nae less. Lastly, the much larger and lustier version had turned up at Wolfsdale, and stolen Melinda and the twins. Frae that moment on, her life with Henry had turned bad, and frae there worsened.

Now she was carrying Henry’s bairn in her belly and had nae notion at all how to tell him.

That night at dinner her curiosity was satisfied.

Henry seemed unusually relaxed, and not simply because he motioned his servant to fill up his goblet again and again. The wine was dark and strong, a special favourite of his frae Normandy. If there was one of his faults she had never catered to, it was drinking too much wine and now, with the sporadic sickness and the health of the bairn inside her to consider, she was glad of her habitual abstinence.

Henry had opened up about his plans—boasted. Scotland was in disarray, two factions claiming their man for King—the perfect time to make his way through Scotland and reclaim his heirs—confirmation that he had nae interest in retrieving his daughter. The Scots would be intent on two places where the English might cross the border, Carlyle and Lothian close to Edinburgh where King Malcolm’s castle sat on a huge intimidating lump of rock. She had never seen the castle herself; her journey to Wolfsdale had taken her farther by sea than by land down the west coast and across the Irish Sea to England where she eventually met Henry.

Why, now, did it feel that fate was sending her home, and had been responsible for her connection to the McArthur and Rob—answerable to this need inside to home to mountains that made these borderland hills look like bumps in comparison.

Upstairs in the bedchamber she made her move. “I should accompany ye to Cragenlaw.”

Henry, currently searching for a jot of equilibrium with one hand on the bedpost, pushed back to look down at her, eyebrows arched in amazement. “It would be too dangerous for a woman, its not only the inhabitants that are rough, the country is wild, these mountains are but pups compared to the Highlands,” he slurred the last words but that didnae make them any the less telling. She hadn’t thought he cared that much about her, for everyone said he was cauld, severe.

That’s why she gathered her courage up in both hands and said, “I rode all the way here; I am used to travelling on horseback.” One eyebrow shot up, sending her pluck into a quickly spurted mutter, “I once lived there.”

Solving his balance problem by sitting one haunch on the end of the bed, he frowned, bleary-eyed he threw out a demand, “Speak up, Brodwyn I can hardly hear ye. What did ye say?”

There would be nae mistake this time, she decided, yelling, “I used to live at Cragenlaw.” She blinked by way of an apology, then softer came out with, “Many years ago I had a cousin married to Euan McArthur. I was younger and sent to keep her company. She died giving birth, there’s a curse on McArthur ye see; that’s why he never married Rob’s mother.”

He leapt to his feet, cursing, “Christ’s blood, ye mean my daughter has married a bastard?”

“Aye, she has. I did not like to say before, truthfully, since no one mentioned it when I came to Wolfsdale. I was not aware he that had been a hostage here, which makes it harder to understand why he stayed until the ransom was paid. He was born here at Wolfsdale, his grandfather was the Baron and his uncle is married to another cousin of mine who King Malcolm made Chieftain of Bienne á Bhuird and the Comlyn clan.”

“Ye lied to me. I would never have looked at ye if I’d known ye were a Scot, like my first wife—and wasn’t she a disappointment!”

Brodwyn leapt in to put him straight, in her anger dropping her efforts to mask her native speech, “I’m nae wife to ye, never suggested I could be; and aside frae that, I’m not fully Scot. My roots are Norse, not unlike yer own. My cousin is Jarl of Caithness and the Comlyns are all more Norsemen than Scot. I’ve always been proud of that,” she said it like a boast, choosing to forget how Olaf Olafsen had sold her to the Irish.

Henry appeared to sober as she stood up to him, thrusting her tender breasts out, aware she was taking her life in her hands. She remained erect, straight-shouldered, as his hand snaked around behind her neck, gripping hard; then she realised he was using her to stay upright. The fingers of his other hand squeezed one of the nipples that of late kept poking through her kirtle. She gritted her teeth and refused to show it hurt. She had always been able to hide pain, had done so with Harald, and he had been brutal. Henry was kinder in his way, but that was another truth she would never confess within his hearing.

“God’s teeth, yer an unusual woman. In one moment ye make me want to thrash ye for yer impertinence and the next I want to make ye mine in a way that will make ye forget every other man ye ever knew.” He locked his savage mouth over hers and raped it—nae other word for it—so she did as much to his.

It was nae surprise when he tossed her atop the bed.

She pushed up, taking her weight on her elbows, her gaze fixed on his, goaded. Safe in the knowledge he wouldn’t leave her behind, she spread her legs, taunting. “Now that ye have flung me up on this huge bed, what do ye intend doing with me?”

“I was thinking I would have St Clair pick ye out a good sturdy horse that will carry ye safely into Scotland.” His hands grasped the hem of her kirtle and shift and pushed them higher than her thighs baring her to his gaze. “And then,” he said, licking his lips, I thought I’d give ye as fine a ride as yer horse will give the woman on his back. I always thought there should be more sauce in a woman with hair as red as yer own.” He paused, looked her over in a way he hadn’t since Winchester. At Wolfsdale he put his estate first, and afore Melinda ran away, had taken to leaving her to tempt and cajole him into a more active role in their sex play. Love could never have been said to enter into it.

She didnae really care.

Tonight was one of surprises for both of them. Henry knelt afore nae one but his king. Remembering the cavern, she realised William Rufus might go farther than Henry would dare. His naked pursuits with St Clair and the others were trials of strength, men competing against men, with naught of his King’s perverse manly love. That’s why she was astonished when he knelt betwixt her legs and dipped his head towards her mons.

She shuddered as his tongue licked her, lavish, wet, rough. Her breath caught. Jamie was the only man who had ever tended to her in the way she had been forced to pleasure other men. Hope bloomed inside her where her bairn hid. Who could say what lay ahead on the journey to Scotland?

Nae sooner thought than he was upon her and for once she relished the hard thrusts and the taste of herself as he forced his tongue deep into her mouth, an echo of the hard, plunging erection pounding her womb with every push of her hips against Henry. Harder, deeper he took her to a higher place than she had achieved in an aeon.

This time her screams were real, nae pretence put on to make her lover feel he was much more skilled than indeed he was. Nae, tonight Henry lifted her to the nirvana all lovers crave, and by the time he spilled his seed inside she was crying, her chest heaving as she sobbed. “Oh, my certes Henry, yer so powerful, such a man.”

He pulled her higher up in the bed and wrapped her in his arms. His chest was hairy, grizzled because of his age but swelled at her compliment—though for once false flattery wasnae needed. Mayhap this was a new beginning for them; and why not, she was past the age of being over-fussy and she had a bairn to think of.