Chapter 6

Chapter

Six

“ Y e honor me, sweet maiden,” he kissed her hard. “I have treasured the memory of oor first meeting in me heart for so long.”

Lifting her hand, he placed it on his knee. And this time, Esme did not hold back. Never had a man made her feel more like a woman before. Bruce aroused intense feelings of desire inside her, and she was desperate for the fulfillment he promised her. Sliding her hand over his plaid, she caressed the hardness under the black wool. “If ye lift yer kilt, Bruce,” she whispered the suggestion into his ear and felt his body respond as it reared up in her hand, “and if I were to lift me kirtle and lie back on this table, ye might take yer pleasure of me.”

Jerking to stand up, Bruce tipped the bench back. He was so eager to possess her that it made the agile warrior clumsy. Hiking up her skirts and lifting her into his arms, Bruce and Esme were face to face as she wrapped her legs and arms around him tightly. “Is this what you want?”

He had to be sure. She had eluded him for so long that what was happening now felt like a dream. “Aye, Bruce. I want ye to take me and make me yer own. No one else. Ever.”

That was all he needed to hear. Putting her down on the edge of the wooden table, Bruce knelt on the floor in front of her. Pushing her shift and kirtle over her wide-open thighs, he lapped at her cranny with wild abandon. Esme gasped, her hands instinctively grabbing his hair to pull him back. It was such a tender sensation, it was hard for her to imagine something better. However, this was just the beginning of her dream coming true.

He let her pull at his dark hair, which she did when his probing tongue became too close to its end objective. “Bruce, if ye continue acting like the cat with the cream, it will cause me to reach me peak too quickly.”

This made him stand up, a wide smile on his face. “That cat ye keep hidden between yer shapely thighs needs a lot o’ petting, lass. If I dinnae treat it kindly, ye will feel pain when I enter ye.”

She could not rip her eyes away from what lurked under his plaid. Esme had never wanted anything more than this right now. “I’m ready. I want ye so badly, Bruce Sterling, that if ye dinnae please me right now, I think I might die from longing.” Panting, touching her soft mound with frantic fingers, Esme was almost mad with desire.

With her knees hanging over the edge of the table and her lover standing between her legs, Bruce entered her damp passage as gently as he could. When the extreme discomfort was over, he paid such loving attention to her breasts and mound with his fingers that Esme was able to relax her rigid posture and regain her enthusiasm. His body was a visual feast for her eyes, and Bruce loosened the ribbons of her shifts so that he could devour the sight of her luscious breasts as their bodies joined together.

Only when he felt her pleasure pulsing around his manhood did the Highlander allow himself to spend his satisfaction on her belly. Collapsing on top of her, his head lying on her breasts, Bruce heaved a sigh of relief. “Three years I have waited for this moment, Esme, and it was worth every heartbeat of patience.”

She felt shy at what they had just done, but she was not ashamed of it. “If ye like, ye can come to the servants’ quarters tonight and we can join oor bodies together again, Bruce.” Esme watched him move to the row of tasting ladles hanging from the wall where there was a pail of water and a rag. Dipping the rag in the water, he brought it back and handed it to her with a kiss.

“I’ll nae step one foot over Clyde’s threshold, sweetheart. I wish with all me heart that ye had nae gone to him. What was the thinking?”

Checking her body for signs of love making, Esme ignored his questions. She knew with almost perfect certainty that Bruce would stop her ambition to rid the island of the Fluga tribe. Not because he wanted to hurt her, but because it was so dangerous.

He allowed her to keep her silence. Like all men after sowing their seed and plowing a maiden’s virtue, he was half ready for sleep and half worried she might be in pain. Jumping off the table before he could offer her a hand down, Esme screwed the rag into a ball and hid it in a mouse hole in the corner of the skirting board.

“If I cannae come to ye, Esme,” Bruce would not rest until he was assured of their next meeting, “will ye then come to me?”

Esme slept in a long room with seven other female slaves, two to a bolster. The salaried servants—northerners or relations of Anna and Clyde—refused to sleep in the same room as conquered people. She was used to far worse, growing up orphaned and alone, but Esme had a suspicion that Bruce would be unhappy if he knew how poorly she was treated in the house.

Made to work from dusk to dawn on a scanty diet of plain food, the slaves were just glad to be relatively well looked after compared to those poor souls living at the beach village.

“I will come to ye, Bruce. Dinnae doubt me.”

Pressing an ardent kiss on her lips, he stared deeply into her eyes, as if he was trying to read her mind. “Ye belong to me noo, Esme. Dinnae doubt me either.”

And then he was gone. Slumping back down on the table, Esme stared at the low wooden beams on the ceiling and marveled at what she had just done. It felt as if her fantasies had been like a trail of breadcrumbs, leading her to spread her legs for the dark warrior and give herself to him with a smile and a kiss.

She had no regrets. Bruce was right. Since their first meeting in the boat, since the first time she touched his body and watched over his slumbering face, her feminine interest in him was piqued.

A loud voice bellowed her name, making Esme sit up and look around in panic. “Esme! Get your lazy arse back in here and start filling these ale pitchers!”

Sighing and checking her thighs one last time for stains, Esme went back to work.

It was midnight and the feast was only finishing now. Bruce was racked with rage at the thought of Clyde McFletcher stumbling back to his house where his pregnant wife was waiting for him in bed—while his slave girl was still working in the kitchen. Esme would have been ordered to rub sand on the jugs and then rinse them in water. Just another task from the long list of chores a bonded serf-girl was bound to do on any given day.

MacKenzie found him lying on their bed, staring up at the wooden beams in the ceiling with his hands propping up his head. He did not even acknowledge her when she came in, his mind was so obsessed with what had happened in the brewery.

“How now?” MacKenzie sat at the dresser and began to unbraid her long blonde hair. “Why are you in a black mood?”

“What did ye think when yer faither changed yer name to Mackenzie?” Ignoring her question, Bruce had one of his own that he prioritized. “What was it before?”

The laird’s daughter continued to loosen her hair. “I was Alleyt before, Bruce, but I would not turn my head if I heard the name called now. I have been Mackenzie for too long.”

Turning on the stool, she faced him. “What brought about your mood? Are you displeased that Father asked Clyde to tell the saga of the rescue?”

Bruce made a rasping sound with his tongue. “If ye kent how many years the bards have been telling me own story, Mackenzie, ye would nae be asking me such a daft question.”

Letting her tunic drop to the floor, MacKenzie crawled onto the bed and lay down beside him. “Let me turn that biting dog of a bad mood you have into something nicer.” Running her hand over his chest, she gave the muscles a soft pinch with her delicate fingers. “I have missed you. You were gone too long.”

He could not stand to replace the memory of Esme in his mind. “Ye’re a sweetheart, Mackenzie, and I am a lucky man to have ye warm the bed, but tonight I must walk ootside for a wee while. The moon is calling to me.”

She clung to him. “I have a sweet tooth of my own, Bruce. Come back soon so that I can satisfy its hunger.”

He nodded but was no longer paying much attention. Mackenzie understood him, but she could never comprehend how he felt tonight. They had been together for three years after all, but his restless, roaming spirit was leading him in another direction.

Thrusting his legs into a pair of leather breeks and tying his boots under the knee, Bruce threw his plaid over his shoulders and tramped outside. The moon cast a long shadow beside him. He would try the kitchen first to see if Esme was still working. Knowing that Clyde would sleep late but his wife was likely to rise early, the house serfs would take turns in serving them.

Bruce’s senses told him she was in the kitchen. He could hear her tired feet shuffling from one side of the flagstone floor to the other as she tidied the pitchers away. For some strange reason, Bruce did not make his presence known to her, preferring to observe her from the dark doorway instead. He took pleasure from watching her unaware, entranced by every little movement and sound she made.

When the last jug was put away, Esme groaned and stretched her back. Darting her eyes over to the great hall passageway to check that no one was coming, she tiptoed to a loose flagstone in the corner. Using all of her strength, she pushed the slab to one side and stuck her hand into the dark cavity underneath.

Because she lived in the slave quarters, a small hole under the flagstones would be the only private space available to her. Holding a small wooden box in her hand, she moved to the stool by the firepit and opened it.

Bruce recognised the pale, dried objects inside the box. They were poisonous fungi. He frowned, unsure as to why Esme would feel the need to elevate her senses by eating the spongy caps and stalks. It was a dangerous pastime. Many years of experience were needed before a person learned the correct amount to eat. An incorrect dose could result in death or chaotic rages.

Wiping her hands on her ragged apron, Esme shuffled over to the table and began to pound the fungi into a powder in the mortar bowl. Soon, the ingredients were no longer identifiable. The breath caught in Bruce’s throat when he saw her upend the contents of the mortar into the palm of her hand. Calmly walking to a pot hanging over the firepit from a hook, Esme threw the dried mushroom powder into it and gave the contents a stir.

Only then did Bruce step back into the shadows and wait for Esme to go to bed. When the kitchen fell silent, he went to the firepit and looked into the pot. There was no trace of the crushed mushrooms anymore. All he could make out was the large serving of porridge oats ready for the laird’s family to break their fast in the morning. The oats had to be soaked overnight, ready to be boiled when the cook lit the fires at dawn.

Frowning, Bruce lifted the pot off the stove and threw the contents into the sluice drain. Scratching his head because he had no idea how food was prepared, he guessed that refilling the pot with dried oats and water would be enough to cover up the swap.

Then he went slowly back to his quarters in a very thoughtful mood.

“Where have you been?” Mackenzie was still awake, sitting up in bed with her embroidery on her lap and using a rushlight for illumination. “You can’t just tell me you are going out and then disappear for such a length of time. Were you with one of the serf-girls?”

It unsettled Bruce how accurate Mackenzie’s guesses were. Also, he hated the domesticity of having someone in a house he was bound to call home, demanding that he stick to their schedule.

“Dinnae bleat on at me, lass!” he was too disturbed by what he had just seen Esme doing to worry about upsetting the woman who warmed his bed. “I’m back, aren’t I?”

He could see that Mackenzie was torn between squabbling with him or playing him sweet so that he would lie with her. She could be just as calculating as her father when she wanted to be, so Mackenzie forgot her questions and pretended to forgive him. “Is your black mood gone, Bruce?” she patted the mattress beside her. “Come, spend the rest of the night with me and I will put a smile on your face.”

Cursing her insistence that he prove his physical devotion to her to keep the peace, Bruce growled that he was still feeling queasy from the sailboat. “If ye want me to scratch that itch ye have, Mackenzie lass, ye’re going to have to bide a wee while.”

Instead of getting up to brew him a posset for his illness, Mackenzie huffed with anger and threw her embroidery frame across the floor. “I am young, Bruce! I have needs too, you know. And if you don’t satisfy them, I will ask my father to find me a strong man who will.”

Bruce was unmoved by her temper tantrum. “If ye ken how many long years I have been able to witness every emotion used to blackmail a man into acting against his better nature, Mackenzie, ye would nae waste yer breath acting like a spoiled bairn towards me.”

Before she could snuff out the rushlight, Mackenzie McFletcher was granted the sight of her Highlander bed partner wrapping the long back of his black woolen plaid around his shoulders and going to sleep in the dressing room next door.

The next morning, Bruce rose early and went to the great hall to break his fast. Esme was there, busy serving porridge from the pot to the men from Clyde’s household.

She looked shocked when she saw him there. “Good morrow, Master Bruce.” The way she said it showed him how stressed she was by his appearance. “Are ye missing an ingredient from yer own hoose? Can I bring ye a bowl to yer bedchamber? There is really no need for ye to come all the way to eat at the great hall.”

He held up his hand to stop the flow of her nervous words. Sitting down at a bench by an empty trestle board, he pulled a bowl towards him. “I’m that hungry, sweetheart, give me a real big serving.”

Esme did not move. “Nay,” she whispered in a desperately soft voice, “Nay, I cannae, Bruce.”

He would never find out if Esme could be forced to serve him from the pot she believed she had poisoned. A man from Clyde’s household seated at one of the head tables began to bellow aloud.

“You poxy wench! There’s no salt in this porridge. It tastes like pig swill!”

Bruce had to duck as a pewter bowl full of sludgy porridge was hurled down the hall towards Esme’s head. The bowl hit the flagstones and spun around like a quoit from a game of chance. Seizing her chance, Esme backed away from Bruce. “I better go make another batch, Master Bruce! I beg yer pardon.”

But the man who had hurled the bowl down the hall was not so easily put off. Stalking to the door, he blocked Esme’s exit. “It’s bad enough that we have to eat the foul muck you blasted islanders call food around here! And then you serve it to us without salt or cream!”

Esme cringed back as the man raised his fist to belt her across the face. But the blow never landed. Bruce easily caught the man’s wrist, holding it immobile and even crushing it slightly. Moving with his usual speed and silence across the hall, Bruce had no problem protecting the young woman. “Are ye nae going to ask the poor girl if she made the porridge first, lad? Before ye buffet the bonny lass in the face?” He knew the man well, well enough to know he was close friends with Clyde.

The man snarled, trying to bite back the pain as Bruce’s grip got tighter. So Bruce asked the question for him. “Esme, did ye make the porridge?”

Hanging her head, Esme nodded. “Aye, sir. I made the porridge.” Bruce knew that Esme did not want anyone else taking the fall for what she had done. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw four men from Clyde’s household sitting there, staring down at their bowls with a decided lack of enthusiasm for the contents. More men from the laird’s house were coming in and sitting down, pouring ale to quench their thirst and looking around for food.

“And did ye remember to add salt and cream to give the oats some flavor, lass?” Bruce asked Esme in a kind tone. She nodded. “Aye, aye. I most definitely did, master.”

Bruce locked his eyes on the man before letting go of his arm. “There ye go, lad. She added salt.” Shooting black looks at Bruce the man went back to sit with his friends. He was left alone with Esme.

“Ye are lucky I was here, sweetheart,” Bruce muttered in a low voice, “If I wasnae, ye could have been very badly injured, maybe even killed. Perhaps ye should go and make another batch o’ that porridge?”

She did not look at him, just bobbed a curtsy and turned to leave.

“And Esme?” She stopped when she heard him call her, but still did not look at him. “This time, remember to add salt and cream— only salt and cream.”