Chapter 38

The grains were springing up tall frae the dark, fertile ground, standing up green in ploughed fields she had seen being tilled frae top of the Keep: oats, barley and wheat, the three staples of life in Scotland—oats for porridge, barley for Uisge beatha and ale, and wheat for bread.

A sigh left her lips as she thought of the fertile bounty of the McArthur lands. Yesterday her courses arrived. Dangerous as it was, she could almost wish she had missed them. The event meant the time had come when she must talk with Rob, if she could corner him.

Ever since that night when their lovemaking had gone out of control and in doing so reached new heights, he had avoided her. In her heart of hearts she believed it couldn’t go on.

She missed him, his heat—his height—his humour.

Missed him in her bed, missed looking up at him as he stood by her side, missed the shared laughter over the antics of the twins.

Her days felt bereft without him in them.

Tomorrow, she would tell him tomorrow.

Soon…

It was late in the day when Rob left the stables, determined to sit down at the board for a meal instead of pinching wee bites of this and that frae the kitchens and getting a telling off frae the cook, the way he and Nhaimeth had as lads.

Well aware he smelled of some of the more unpleasant aspects of horses, he aimed his long stride in a direct path toward the water butt. His back and neck ached frae the labour he had put in, work he had fallen back into with ease as if he were still eleven acting fourteen, acting the man. In some ways, though he had been in fear for his life, his early days at Cragenlaw had been less complicated, without the difficult decisions he had forced himself to make about his future as the McArthur’s heir.

At this time of day, there were few folk in the Bailey. All those with more sense than him had already trooped into the Great Hall, which made the likelihood of his getting caught stripped naked doubtful. For years, dipping his head over the lip of the full wooden butt afore sluicing the water down his chest and belly had been a daily routine. On a guid day with the sun shining, he sometimes braved the rocks and waves, but he wasn’t feeling foolhardy.

After a third ducking, Rob tilted his head back. Shaking the water off, he let the long, wet, rats-tails of hair stream down his dust- and sweat-covered back then squeezed the ends. That done, he rubbed the flat of his large hands across both shoulders in turn, cupped water in his palms to wash under his armpits then, twisting, reached behind with his arms to swipe the remaining runnels of water down his spine and over his buttocks, and shuddered as they tickled his spine.

Bending forward, he ran his hands down the backs of his thighs into his wet boots which was neither here nor there. They would survive; they always did. Finally he scooped handfuls of water over his flaccid prick, thinking as he did that the chance of it reaching its full length again was growing as dim as tonight’s gloaming floating between earth and sky.

“Let me…”

He started up, shoulders tense as a slightly rough piece of cloth rubbed down his spine.

Melinda! His heart leapt to his throat.

Her voice drifted over his shoulder—husky, quivering slightly like a tug on a harp string. Naught else was needed to tell that she was directly behind him than the well remembered sensations its sound sent running up his spine—where she was touching.

And just to show he wasn’t always right, his prick sprang to life.

Naught she hadn’t see afore, he told himself as he gritted his teeth and turned to face her. The strip of linen cloth looked barely big enough to cover his hips the way it was bunched up in her hand. Beaten clean on the rocks, it stood out white against her dark green kirtle as if pulling what light there was left frae the gloaming.

He pointedly looked at where he had dropped his soiled shirt and plaid atop an ancient tree stump that acted as a shelf, to mention, “I was going to use my shirt.”

“Now ye don’t have to,” she explained. Snippy, impatient.

He scowled, lip curling as he demanded, “What are ye doing out here, alone in the Bailey and it getting near dark?” he questioned as she pushed the linen into his hand and waited while he dragged the strip o’er his chest, across the hairs on his belly, acting as if she didnae exist for him either as lover or woman.

As a final insult—warning off—Rob cupped the sack tucked up into his groin, balls straining against his skin frae the inside out, and using the cloth to dry them and his engorged prick, as if had been every bit as hard afore she arrived.

She sniffed, showing she was aware he did it to shock. “I wanted to speak with ye, have done so for days.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Don’t look at me like that. I ken fine ye have been avoiding me, Rob McArthur.”

He wondered at her surprise. “I felt the need. A man must protect himself any way he can,” he growled, tossing the damp cloth back at her afore bending to retrieve his plaid and belt. Already damp, he hung his shirt over the edge of the water butt until he dressed, folding the plaid into a kilt around his hips, working with the ease of long practice. Finished, he stared down at her as if he hadn’t noticed the way her eyes lingered on his bare chest. “Speak up then, what did ye want to say?”

She lifted her chin, the whites of her eyes gleaming up at him as the air about them drew closer, darkened by the sun sliding over the horizon behind the distant Highland mountains. “I’ve nae intention of standing here making cow-eyes at ye like a wee maid, fascinated by the width of the chest ye have been washing the dust off.”

Rob picked his shirt up, held it to his nose, which curled at the stench now he was clean. The smell wasn’t enough to stop him slinging it over his shoulder closest to Melinda. “Actually, it was stable dirt. What ye would call slightly malodorous, but I’ll come into the Hall with ye. I could do with some supper. I’ve worked hard this day and my stomach thinks my throat’s cut.”

Melinda tripped alongside him, taking two steps to his one as he made her nae allowances. His wife must work for what she wanted. The talk he had intended to have with her anyway would be on his own terms. Her sighs were loud enough to be easily heard, deliberate on her part. He ignored them and kept on walking. As they left the cobbled Bailey, she snipped at him, “I never thought to see Rob McArthur scared of a woman.”

Her bite of sarcasm gave him reason to pause. “Nae just any woman—” he spoke without thought, giving himself away. “Yer my wife, it’s my aim in life never to do aught to upset ye. That said, I know what I have to say is unlikely to please ye.”

“Yet ye think to say it before yer father, mother and whole clan?”

“If it bothers ye we can retire to our chamber, a grand notion since a clean shirt and plaid could be said to be in order.” Afore she could answer, he turned his back on her and marched up the steps to the entrance, ignoring the clan-filled Hall, and heading straight to the stairs without attempting to glance over his shoulder to assure himself that she followed.

“A pair of clean boots as well, Rob,” she told him, wife-like. “Yer leaving dirty wet foot prints and bits of straw on the flags.”

Melinda never gave up. That’s how they had landed up with two braw lads.

She was correct about one thing, he hadn’t wanted to see her, hadn’t wanted the day to arrive when he would break the news of his plans to her face. It was not as if he felt happy about the decision he had come to, forced on him by a lack of options. He had run out of them long ago.

Rob was certain Melinda would feel much the same.

Separating mother and son didn’t come easy.

The best Melinda could say about their first encounter since the day Nhaimeth and Rowena wed was that at least they were talking.

She followed him into the chamber they hadn’t shared for almost a month, and it broke her heart to remember how it had been. Aye, he had not said he loved her, but then she too had been remiss in admitting her feelings.

Most of his plaids and shirts were still kept folded in an old wooden kist. It stood against the wall on his side of the bed. He had explained it had been given to him by the McArthur, sacred because it had belonged to the McArthur grandfather he had never met. It had sat against the wall since the days he, Nhaimeth and Jamie used to share the chamber—the days when the McArthur first acknowledged him as his son and all three lads had trained together here at Cragenlaw under Euan McArthur’s eagle eye. She had imagined him passing the beautifully carved kist on to his sons when they no longer lived under Becky’s auspices.

Though she had always been certain Rob’s feelings for her hadn’t changed, when she had seen the three young warriors together it felt as if she was competing against friendships—friends who had stood by him most of his life.

Now they were all wed, and Mayhap one day she wouldn’t feel as if she had to share Rob—a flaw in her nature she knew came from her upbringing at Wolfsdale. If naught else she’d learned that about herself.

Rob walked around the big bed and as if taunting her, slipped his belt frae its silver buckle to let his plaid slide to the floor. She couldn’t prevent a noisy indrawn breath as the taut muscles of his buttocks were displayed while he opened the kist and bent over the folded contents she had taken care of for him. Her thoughts were running in a completely different, more sensual direction.

She wanted to touch him, to run her hands across tight, hard contours that had been kept away frae both hands and eyes for far too long.

Aye, she could admit to herself if to nae one else that her reasons for wanting to get him alone were self indulgent—for she couldn’t deny her nature. The time had come to confess. If only she could be certain of his reaction…

Coward that she was, she directed her words at his long muscular back. “I wanted to inform ye that our worries are over. My courses have come and gone as if naught happened—naught went wrong.” Her gaze took in the way his hair had grown longer from the last time she trimmed it. Once again his hair curled against his neck, easily noticed while he kept his face away from her.

Her fingers itched to comb through it as she lifted her mouth for his kiss.

Rob took his time dressing, slowly kilting one of his best plaids around his slim hips as if it were a special occasion, without saying a word.

Tension thickened the air betwixt them until Melinda was certain she heard it crackle like the lightning preceding thunder. She had told herself Rob would be equally happy at the news—about what he must surely think of as an escape.

So relieved in fact that he would forget to be angry over her deception. For the blink of an eye, she had even considered telling him she hadn’t been certain the seeds would work, but how could she with his own mother as proof of their success.

Melinda perceived not a flicker of the relief or happiness she had hoped for when he turned. Instead, his features looked craven, severe, like a small statue of an ancient god that had been dug up near the wall when her father had robbed the edifice to help reinforce Wolfsdale’s defences. He kept it in his room. She had never liked the look of the little god. No more did she like the expression on Rob’s face.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said appearing anything but. “It makes much easier to tell ye the steps I have decided to take.”

She dragged her eyes away from Rob’s stony expression, bewildered. Why would he try to confuse her by talking of decisions? Naught needed to be done—needed to be changed. Their lives could go on as they had before, safely for as long as they chose. “What is this exchange of words about Rob, I thought ye would at least be pleased, if not happy.”

He huffed down his nose, his long, narrow lips flat against his teeth as if to prevent the words that would break her heart. “If only life could be that simple, Melinda. I can’t go on as we have been. It’s torture watching ye and not being able to touch ye, to love ye without putting ye in danger. To me, the only solution seems to be for ye to take Harry and return to Wolfsdale. Yer father will welcome ye I’m sure. Ralf can bide at Cragenlaw with me.”

He paused as if waiting for a reply, but she couldn’t speak, dumbfounded by his absurd notion. As if she ever wanted to see her father or Wolfsdale again. “Yer father will have his heir and I will have mine, while my wife will be safe frae my attentions.”

His fists clenched at his sides and his expression could only be called heated, showing Melinda she still had a chance to turn this bull-headed notion around. “It’s the only way, lass. I’m not the McArthur. I could never have buried three wives up on that brae as he did. And if that makes me a coward, so be it. I could never face burying ye, burying my wife up on the brae.” Rob gave a short, rueful bark of a laugh. “It’s as if the curse is still taking its toll on the McArthur clan—even unto the next generation.”

His pain made Melinda cover her mouth with her hands, to hide her quivering lips but not to hide laughter, to disguise the silent sobs that wracked her chest.

“This is all my fault…” she managed with a strangled cry.

Arms lifted as if to hold her, he took a step toward her, then realised his mistake and let them fall to his sides. “Nae the fault’s mine. I should never have brought ye here, but at least it led to me having some time with both of my sons afore we need to separate them. Mayhap, this is the way to keep the prophecy safe. I’ll make certain of yer safety as ye travel—send a troop of warriors to protect ye on the way across the border to Wolfsdale.”

He kept on speaking, reassuring, but he wouldn’t let her talk, and in the end she was forced to stamp her foot at him, damning this prophecy her sister had made. Did Rob believe that the present had to suffer to ensure an unknown future. She wouldn’t do it to them. “Will ye listen for once? I too have something to say.”

Rob didnae think he had seen her so angry since the day he pulled back the flap on the gypsy wagon at Loch Leven and released her frae the confining folds of a thick cover.

Aye, he would listen, but he doubted she had anything to say that would change his mind. He could nae longer live here with Melinda within touching distance without dragging her to his bed.

She appeared somewhat anxious over what she wanted to say. He could tell frae the way she fidgeted, pulling at the seam down the side of her kirtle. Telling actions that were beginning to annoy him.

His temptation was to take that thumb she rubbed against the stitches and suck it into the wet cavern of his mouth. “Come now, lass. Do ye have aught to say or naught.”

With as much nonchalance as he could muster, he sat down on the edge of the bed, legs stretched afore him and creating a much needed space. Mayhap now he wasn’t looking down on her, she would get on with her tale. Beneath his calloused fingers, the soft fur of the bedcover reminded him of better times, of Melinda lying atop the wolf skins and he over her, finding and giving pleasure—a memory he was best to avoid if his aim was to get her agreement, not to thrust into her with the prick lying hard against his belly now he had chosen to sit down. To hide his needy condition, he leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees, asking, “Well then, what is this all about?”

“I have not been honest with ye.”

That brought him back to his feet, closer—a mere breath away—a breath he could taste. The flames leapt in the hearth as if the mix of hunger and anger inside him had reached out, stirring the bright red embers. “I dare ye to say the twins are not mine, for I and everyone else in the castle would ken ye for a liar.”

The green eyes that looked up at him were awash with unshed tears, like the pool near the secret cave where he found the gypsies reflected the green of the trees around it—the cave where he had lived for weeks, praying to catch sight of her, if only for just a moment, when she had been locked up in Wolfsdale preparing to give birth to his children and almost dying in the process.

“That is not what I meant. It’s about my courses—”

More frustrated than impatient, he whipped out a harsh question to lash her with, “So ye have yet to bleed? Yer with child again?”

“Will ye shut yer mouth Rob, and let me tell ye instead of butting in every other moment.” Her mouth flattened, grim, corners turned down. “l did bleed and I always will as long as I continue to take the seeds yer mother supplied me with. Morag has been taking them for years. That is why she never carried another child after Maggie. Don’t try to tell me ye imagined a lusty man like Euan McArthur would have gone without all these years. I have only to look at them together to know he loves her, see the passion they share. It’s there in the way he touches her, looks at her—the way ye once looked at me…” her voice faded away until she stood afore him her heart in her eyes. “The way I love Euan McArthur’s son, Rob.”

She had crept under his guard, caught him unawares with her talk of love—of his parents all too obvious need of one another. In a daze, he thought of what it would mean. Could what she told him be true?

He should be shouting his relief, his gratitude, out loud until it rolled around the vaulted ceilings and everyone in the castle believed him a mad man, but he couldn’t, for his breath had stalled inside his lungs and nae sound would come out, not even when he thumped his fist against his chest.

An effort Melinda took the wrong way for she said, “I’m begging, Rob. Ye have to believe that I’m telling ye the truth. Ask yer mother if ye must, but I beg ye, don’t send me away to a living death inside my father’s hall. I’ve never felt so alive as I do now. As I have since the day ye brought me to Cragenlaw.”

“Christ’s blood!” Air emptied frae his lungs in a rush as the magnitude of knowing he could keep Melinda here by his side—in his bed—sank into his thick skull. He reached out for her, hands sliding down her back frae shoulder to spine, to the sweet flare of her feminine hips afore he pulled her close. Pulled her into his arms.

His breathing took a long moment to steady and nae wonder. Nary a few of yon moment ago he had given them both what had felt like a death sentence. Melinda had given them a reprieve. “Ye were right lass, I do love ye. I do believe ye. Christ’s blood! This means I can live again, love ye again.” His eyes swept around the chamber. Suddenly the world seemed a brighter place, even inside these auld grey granite walls lit only by a single candle and the light of the fire, yet the flecks in the walls sparkled like jewels.

Of its own accord, the hard hot length of his prick began to burn through the rough worsted of his plaid, bent on discovering for itself the lush softness of her belly.

Melinda made nae complaint.

Tonight anything—a future—seemed possible. That didn’t prevent his habitual jerk away frae the hand sliding betwixt the folds of his plaid. “God’s blood—” he let out a curse that acknowledged his dire need to put his childhood behind him. The best he could do for the moment was apologise—”I’m sorry, lass”—and settle in to the touch of her fingers—cool compared to the heat radiating frae his turgid length.

He hoped she couldn’t feel his fingers tremble as he smoothed a strand of hair come loose frae her braid and resting on her cheek. At that instant, it felt as if all the tension built inside him by his decision to send her and Harry away gradually eased out through his skin, and all that he had left was a surfeit of tenderness toward her. “Ye can fondle me all ye want, lass. If we can but learn to trust each other without fear, the turmoil we’ve been through will have been worth all the pain.”

Hand gripping the nape of Melinda’s neck he pulled her face nearer to his. Dipping his mouth, he placed tender wee kisses on her brow, cheeks and lips by way of an apology for his daft notion of separating them all.

“Later, love,” he murmured dropping a last kiss on the tip of her nose, “ye must remind me to explain why just I acted like an idiot. Please dinnae take yer hand away simply because my cock is better versed at recognising yer intent than I am.”

He laid his big hand atop hers and pressed it more firmly around his needy flesh. “Men can be right dunderheads; we keep too much to ourselves. I promise ye I can change, and soon I’ll give ye the explanation yer due.”

His mouth edged closer to her ear, the tip of his nose nudging the delicate curve of her dainty ear. He liked that every bonnie part of his wife spoke to her femininity. Voice roughened by emotions of need, want and love, he growled, “That said, dear heart, it’s been weeks since we made love and I can think of naught else.”

“And I can think of naught I want more,” she sighed against the taut cords of his throat and licked him with the point of her tongue, as if tasting the enjoyment he wanted for himself by supping on the delicious textures of his skin.

Lifting Melinda, Rob gathered his sweet wife high against his chest, allowing his belt and the plaid it held to slip away and cover the flagstones. His palm splayed wide, cupping the curves that for him were pure temptation. Kirtle bunching into folds around her waist, Melinda circled his hips with her legs, clinging. The heat generated by them both swiftly mingled into a violent conflagration that only joining with his wife could quench.

Teeth nipping her lower lip until she opened for him with a gasp, he took her mouth with his, covering her softness with his hard, questing lips, moving his tongue against hers, tasting, sucking, remembering.

Turning to the bed, Rob almost stumbled in his haste to be inside her, burning desire tumbling them onto the bed. The seams of her kirtle parted under his hands baring skin the colour of honey-tinted cream, luscious against the dark silky fur of the wolf skin as Rob covered her, skin moving against skin as his mouth plundered hers once more.

After long, aching nights missing her warmth, the aching tenderness he’d touched her with flared into passion. He dragged his mouth frae hers, dipping his head to taste her breasts, lathing the deep raspberry-pink nipples he had watched his sons latch onto. Tonight It was his turn and oh, the sweetness…

Pressing the gloriously soft mounds together gave him ease to abrade each tight peak with the edge of his teeth. In response, she arched her spine, whimpering, moaning his name, “Rob”, eager for each rough wet caress of his tongue against her skin. The sound of his name on her lips spun in his head like the strongest swallow of Uisge beatha. “Do ye want me, lass? Are ye ready?” he demanded. Sliding his hand lower, he reached down. Palm pillowed on her belly, he found her, touched her folds with fingers that sent her squirming against them.

“I want ye inside me, Rob—want ye now. Take me, my sweet love—take me.” She groaned her need from the back of her throat and the sound rippled across his skin, a frantic sensation he answered by parting her knees with his hair-roughened thighs, sinking into her heat in one continuous motion, filling her—returning home where he belonged.

Melinda wasn’t deaf to the noises she made in her throat and didn’t care. The whole castle could be listening to her moans and groans—she didn’t give a jot. How could she, while her body hummed with the pleasure of having Rob’s fierce thrusts move her farther up the bed? She clung to him, fingernails digging into the broad shoulders braced above her as if he might try to escape. Never again would she be so foolish as to keep the truth from him.

Trust had to be earned and he had done that by offering to sacrifice his own happiness to keep her safe. What more proof did she need of his love?

Unlike her father, her husband was what heroes were made of.

She swallowed hard, every breath shallow, fast, her heart pounding in her ears, drowning her thoughts. Her whole world centred in the wet place where she and Rob were joined. She tightened the muscles surrounding his hardness, squeezing, until all she was aware of was the need follow his rhythm, to reach for that place, to strive for the delight she knew awaited, knew only Rob could take her there.

And he did. She locked her ankles behind him, scared she would float away without his weight to hold her down, but as the tip of his cock brushed her womb one final time, she flew into the sun, taking Rob with her.

He had nae notion of long it took for him to surface back into the world—Melinda had taken him to paradise, of that he was certain. The realisation that his weight still pressed down on her brought him to his senses and he rolled onto his side, legs entangled, taking her with him without disengaging from her body. Although he minded squashing her, he enjoyed remaining where he knew that she liked the feeling of him coming erect while still deep inside her.

One look and he knew she was in a similar case—heavy-eyed frae a surfeit of passion. Aye, she looked satisfied, as was he. Rob brushed a tangle of nut-brown hair back behind her ear and dipped forward to brush her swollen lips with a soft kiss. “God’s teeth, I must have been mad to even consider sending ye away.”

Her lips curved, a sweet expression that took his breath away, until her answer, “That I can agree with. I hope madness doesn’t run in the family,” made a bark of laughter erupt frae his throat.

“I’ll ask Morag and the McArthur, but if there is a streak of madness in the blood they’re keeping it secret.” The warm glow in his chest made him smile at her and, pushing back slightly, he lifted a brow and asked, “Are ye saying that because of Maggie? I’m sure she’ll grow out of it.”

She blinked, her eyes bright in her face. “No. She’s but a youth, and one likely to keep an eye on the twins and be able to protect them. I’ve watched her practice with that wooden sword, the way I watched young men with a yen to becoming knights train under my father’s eye at Wolfsdale.” She paused as if making a decision. “I think ye should have a real sword made to suit her.”

“Ye believe in the prophecy,” he gasped.

“Of course, Rob. Ye have told me all about the Green Lady, the ravens at Dun Bhuird and the white stag that led ye away frae danger and into the valley where Rowena, Guaril and the gypsies were sheltering.” She placed a palm on his cheek, smoothing it across the beard he should have shaved to protect her bonnie skin, and as her hand drew close to his mouth he kissed the base of her thumb as she softly breathed out the word, “Magic.”

That was when he gathered her back into his arms. His prick sprang to life as he covered her mouth with his own, aware at that instant that the real magic in their family came from Melinda and the love they shared.

He needed nae more to know that whatever happened they would be all right.