Library

Chapter 27

How much her life had changed in the last month. Look at her now, on horseback—a pretty white palfrey—with Harry afore her, chortling as the mount’s slow walk swayed from side to side. Melinda turned her head to see Nhaimeth and Rowena, riding side by side, reach out and touch hands. Strange, how the love betwixt them seemed so normal now. Her father had an abhorrence of dwarfs and not even a small Fool accompanying a minstrel or teller of tales had been allowed through the gates of Wolfsdale Manor.

High above them all. Rob rode Gun-eagal. Without its black trapper, the destrier’s black and white hide stood out against the bright green of spring grass. Sitting up afore him on the saddle, Ralf held onto the saddle his little face proud yet serious, as if he were in control of the enormous beast. Signs of the future? She wondered: Did her younger son already have visions of being as great a horseman as his father?

She felt relieved, when they reached the foot of the narrow bridge of land joining Cragenlaw to the mainland, to have land spread out on either side instead of falling away in steep cliffs with blue and white waves climbing their sides—blue because for once the sky wasn’t filled with mountains of grey clouds reflected in the surface of the water.

Rowena and Nhaimeth went ahead. Rob waited until her palfrey could ride abreast of Gun-eagal, and with one arm around Ralf he reached out until his fingertips grazed hers. Harry laughed, delighted to be close to his brother, and Ralf’s smile broke like the sun rising over the sea. These two would always be close. Though they were not identical, they had been together in her womb for nine months, creating a bond she could already see would be hard to break.

“Where to now Rob?” she asked of the man alongside her—husband, lover. She had never thought a man would take such great care of her, protect her from the chance of getting her with child again.

A thought that brought a pang of guilt to deprive her of her smile because she had still to tell Rob of the wild carrot seeds she had been taking religiously. In the first instance, trust in the tiny seeds wasn’t easy. Aye, Morag had faith in them, but Melinda’s heart was wary. What if it were naught but a coincidence? After a solid month of Rob loving her almost every night, she had heaved a sigh when the expected arrival of her courses came on time.

“I thought to go up the brae, to the cemetery. Nhaimeth’s sister is buried there along with her son. It’s a while since the weather was guid enough to visit. The brae can be slippery under horses’ hooves in the wet,” he said keeping his hand on the reins, controlling Gun-eagal’s speed.

“His sister?” had he mentioned that before, she couldn’t remember.

“His half-sister, Astrid. She was Euan’s third wife,” he mentioned casually.

“But when was this?” Euan didnae seem old enough to have had three wives and then Rob, with Morag. That day they had spoken of birthdays, he had told her he had lived twenty-three years.

“I was eleven afore Euan discovered I existed. As for Astrid, she died giving birth the day Morag and I arrived at Cragenlaw. It’s a long story, too long in the telling to go into it now. Mayhap we’ll find time tonight,” he promised, with a smile that promised much more than a story at bedtime.

“That is something I will look forward to Rob, but we best get a move on or the others will be on the way back before we make a move. By the looks of the way Ralf is jumping up and down he’s getting impatient.” No sooner did she mention it than Harry began bouncing as well.

“I think our sons are making their demands felt,” he said, pulling Ralf tighter into his chest. “Let’s catch up with the others.”

The crest of the brae was crowned in forest—pine, rowan birch and elm—a convenient source of wood. Slightly lower down the brae than the trees, Nhaimeth and his betrothed dismounted. After staring at the graves, Astrid’s in particular, Nhaimeth looked up at Rob saying, “She saved my life bringing me to Cragenlaw; I’ll ne’er forget how excited she was to marry Euan.” He turned to Rowena. “Astrid was beautiful, but few remember that now. Ask Rob. She would still be alive if it hadn’t been for our father. Every bone in the Bear’s body was brimming with ambition, and he’d a mind to add Cragenlaw to Comlyn lands. He didnae care about the curse, or his daughter, the truth be told.”

Afore his words disappeared beneath the sound of the waves down below, Nhaimeth turned to help Rowena mount her horse, and once on his own mount he said, “Let’s see if those bluebells are breaking through the ground. I’ve a mind to wed soon.”

“I’m right with ye, Nhaimeth, and look closely. Ye have to give us plenty warning. They’ll be coming frae all over Scotland to see ye wed,” Rob made a jest of it and Melinda could tell he wanted to lift his friend’s spirits.

“Jamie said he would come back, but who else is there?”

“For a start there’s Gavyn and Kathryn. She’s still yer sister.”

“Aye, whether she likes it or not.”

She watched Rob shake his head, “She got over all that a while ago, and Lhilidh’s death had naught to do with ye. I think it’s just that Lhilidh was like a sister to ye and seeing ye always brings it all back. Grief is a funny thing.”

Nhaimeth’s lip curled. “Yet, ye got over it Rob.”

Rob’s mouth flattened. Melinda had come to learn it meant he was not best pleased but was trying not to lambast the person annoying him.” I grew up, Nhaimeth, I thought we all had.”

“Yer not wrong. Life is ne’er easy; but we’re still alive. There’s that,” he answered, and with a shrug led off with Rowena toward the forest.

“Who was Lhilidh?” she asked deciding that if she brought the question into the open now, it wouldn’t forever be hanging around at the back of her mind waiting to trip her up at the least appropriate moment.

His gaze upon hers, Rob didnae hesitate, “Lhilidh was my first love. I was fifteen and she’d’ve been fourteen at most and a bonnie little lass, sweet. It would never have come to anything even if she had lived. She was murdered, burned up in a broch by Kathryn’s cousin Harald. Nhaimeth blames his father’s ambitions for Astrid’s death, but it was jealousy and ambition that drove Harald. He thought he should be Chieftain, and he abducted Kathryn. Lhilidh was her maid and she didnae deserve to die. He tied them both up then shut them in a broch and set fire to it. He was the first man I put to the sword.”

He dragged his eyes away frae her and one after the other turned his glance on the lads. “Now here ye are, having lived a sheltered life, be assured I’ll do my best to take care of ye for I dinnae want ye to be sorry ye married me, or me to regret I gave ye little in the way of choice.”

He shook his head as if clearing his thoughts. “Did I ever tell ye I once saw the Green Lady? She was up in a tree in the Bailey. This prophecy of Rowena’s—everything—the white stag that led us to the gypsies’ encampment. I think they are all part of a bigger whole meant to make sure that what I’ve begun to think of as a great deed performed by one of our descendants. Our descendants,” he repeated emphasising that she was part of it as the twins’ mother.

She lifted an eyebrow at him and he grinned.

“I know, I’m getting as bad as Nhaimeth, brooding over his part in it. The wee man’s nervous, and why not? He’ll soon be married and I for one dinnae believe Rowena is a lass to put up with any nonsense.”

Rob pulled on the reins and turned Gun-eagal’s nose toward the forest, and with a glance over his shoulder he caught her gaze as she and Harry began to follow. “Ye know, I didnae notice it afore today, but both Nhaimeth and I will be married to green-eyed lasses.”

Her husband was right—about more than just eyes, and she rode behind him wondering if the story he would tell her that night might answer some of her questions.

“And that’s the end of the story. I went out looking for adventure and found myself a wife,” he finished, looking down at his wife, who nestled in his arms, to make sure she was still awake.

“Ye tell a good story. Was it all true?” she asked him, as if he had made up a tale of heroism, a legend meant predominantly to entertain.

“Every word.” He rolled over and pulled her with him until her breasts pressed against his chest. “And since I kept my promise and ye now know everything there is to know about me, I think I deserve a reward.”

She pecked at his lips then drew away. “I’m sure yer mouth is bound to be dry after all that talking, are ye sure ye wouldn’t rather have a drink,” she teased.

Laughing, Rob gave as guid as he got, “Not to worry lass, I can make do.”

Melinda lifted a hand to land a slap on his face. He caught it and pressed a kiss at the centre of her palm then licked his way up her middle finger, afore sucking its tip deep into the hot cavern of his mouth. “Wet enough for ye?”

Soon play segued into urgency. Even after a month of discovering each other once more, he couldn’t get enough of the woman in his arms—his wife. Bastard or not, this was the one thing fate had given him that his father had been obliged to relinquish. That bluidy curse had taken Morag’s true status frae her, and though she held her head high, she was merely the McArthur’s woman, never his wife.

Ach, the taste of Melinda drove him wild, drove him to take her faster, deeper, more intimately, as if all would never be enough. His hunger, once satisfied, begged for more. Even now as he thrust into her heat, he dreaded the completion, the end that meant he had to draw out of her in time to let his seed spill uselessly outside her body.

Her legs wrapped around him, drew him closer, locked behind his hips until there was nae telling where she began and he ended, until they felt like one heaving bundle of arms and legs in search of something that seemed beyond reach, yet they never gave up.

His body trembled and Melinda’s breath was shallow and fast, her breasts stabbing at his chest as if the sweet points of her hard nipples might be the death of him as they rode towards the petit mort as the French were wont to call it. Love was a conundrum with the feeling that ye would die if ye couldn’t reach completion only to die once ye succeeded and in dying brought forth a new generation.

Nae more, his lads were enough, but he would slaughter any rogue who dared try to take them from them, from him and Melinda—his love…

His last thought as she began to clench around him, her legs holding him in a vice grip as she mewled her divine satisfaction in his ear. Such a sweet sound, calling him to follow, if only he could get free. He panicked and in desperation laid hands on her thighs, pushing them apart even as she clung. “Christ’s blood, Melinda. Let go of me!”

Rob pulled away as his release hit him, a losing of self stronger than he could remember wrought by the danger of breaking his vow.

Chest heaving, he lay atop her, unable to move, Melinda didnae complain, her case the female version of his own. Petit mort—they had never said a truer word.

When at last his lungs recaptured the breath he had lost, he murmured hoarsely, “By all the auld gods, I swear that was a close run thing, lass.”

“Dinnae blame yerself, Rob, I didn’t want to let ye go my love.” He could hear a smile tremble on the edge of her voice. “But did ye ever in yer life experience aught so grand. Husband, ye outdid yerself this night.”

Near killed myself , he thought; but Melinda had the rights of it, the experience had been grand, and immediately his mind began cogitating ways to repeat the splendour of the two of them coming together in love.

Comments

0 Comments
Best Newest

Contents
Settings
  • T
  • T
  • T
  • T
Font

Welcome to FullEpub

Create or log into your account to access terrific novels and protect your data

Don’t Have an account?
Click above to create an account.

lf you continue, you are agreeing to the
Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy.