Chapter 18

S idony wanted to weep with Giff, but she knew that no man would thank her for encouraging or even noticing his tears. She had also seen him shudder, and although she felt sure that a memory had caused it rather than a chill, she pushed his goblet into his hand and said, “Here, drink this. It will warm you.”

As he drank, she stood up, taking more care than when she had flown off the cushions and dropped her own goblet to the hearthrug at the sight of the tears in his eyes. At the time, she had meant only to offer comfort, but the same instinct that warned her now against letting him know she had seen his tears had warned her then that she must make him tell her the rest.

It was a wonder, though, that in her haste, the countess’s robe had not tripped her and sent her flying into the tub with him. The image nearly made her smile.

“Art trying not to laugh at me, sweetheart?”

“I was thinking about how near I came to treading on this robe and pitching myself headfirst into that tub with you,” she said, turning toward the bed. “The countess sent a robe of Henry’s for you, too. Her woman put it here on the bed.”

She heard water splashing and, turning back, saw that he had got out of the tub. He faced the hearth, dripping, and rubbed his head hard with a towel. His body gleamed golden in the fire’s glow and that from the cressets.

Walking up behind him, having all she could do not to stare the whole way at his taut, well-shaped buttocks, she held up the robe, saying, “Put your arms in.”

He obeyed and turned to face her with the robe still open, but when she began to step back, he dropped the towel, caught her shoulders, and pulled her close. Her head fit just below his chin.

She hugged him back, hard, muttering, “You will catch your death if—”

“I have never told anyone else.”

“Is that why you’ve stayed away from Duncraig for so long?”

“My father sent me soon afterward to foster with my uncle at Loch Hourn.”

“Because of the accident?”

“I’m sure he blamed me. Sakes, I blame myself. Had I shouted . . .”

“Why did you not?” she asked when he remained silent.

“It happened so quickly, but I had time, because I remember thinking he’d look a fool when he fell into that crevice.”

“Is that why your father blamed you?”

“I never told him that part,” he said. “He asked what happened, and I said Bryan was running and tripped. I said it happened all in a moment, and that’s when he said the bit about nothing bringing back lost ones. So I knew.”

“But you must have gone home to visit during your fostering.”

“Aye, sure, but he was gruff and distant, so in time I stopped. My uncle taught me about boats and gave me one of my own. Then I went to Dunclathy.”

She would have asked him more, but he straightened and said, “Enough talk of the past, lass. I want to get into bed and hold you. Will you let me do that?”

She looked into his eyes. “Aye, if you like, but you wanted to seduce me before. That’s why you plied me with brogac.”

He smiled ruefully. “Aye, I did, but in my favor, you should know I was fool enough to tell Henry I’d let you choose for yourself if you’d go with me or stay here.”

“Certainly I’ll go with you,” she said. “I’m your wife. Even if I were not,” she added, “you said before that if I did come with you, you’d take me to Glenelg.”

She knew by the way he looked at her that, whatever he had said to Henry, he meant now to persuade her not to go, even to forbid it, so she said quickly, “We can talk about that later. Now, however, I agree that we should go to bed.”

Giff watched her walk away from him. Despite the voluminous robe, she moved with a fascinating grace that he could happily watch forever. But why had it been so easy to tell her about Bryan’s death? He had expected rejection, but although his confession had saddened her, it had neither shocked nor repulsed her.

Snuffing the cressets, and setting her fallen goblet on the wee stool beside his, he followed her to the huge curtained bed, taking the robe from her when she slipped it off, and laying it across the end of the bed. The lacy shift she wore was also too large for her. She seemed unaware that it revealed most of her charms as she climbed into the bed and scooted to the far side.

He took off Henry’s robe and cast it atop hers, then climbed in and lay on his back beside her. Raising his right arm, he eased it to the pillow behind her.

“Come here and let me hold you,” he said.

Without protest, she snuggled into the curve of his body with her head on his shoulder. Her hair felt like silk, and her body was even warmer than he had expected, or else his own was colder from his bath than he had thought.

They lay silently for some time before he realized his body had no intention of cooperating with his decision to suppress his lust for her and just hold her.

She snuggled closer, turning enough so he could feel the soft curve of her breast, clad in cambric, against his naked chest.

“You’re still cold,” she murmured.

“Nay, then, I’m not,” he said. “You’re as good as a hot brick to warm a man.” When she chuckled, he added somberly, “I feared you would think less of me.”

“Why should I? Why should anyone? You were only a bairn with no ability to persuade a lad two years older than you of anything, any more than I could sway my sisters. There are many things I do not know, but I do know children,” she said firmly. “How could you have known he’d go over the cliff? You had not done so.”

“Nay, but I was not running. I’d never have been so—”

“So daft?” she suggested helpfully. “Is your father also a Scottish Templar?”

The non sequitur startled him, but he said, “Aye, sure, ’tis why he sent me to Dunclathy. With all you’ve heard, doubtless you know many of us trained there.”

“I did think so, since nearly everyone I know seems to be a Templar and all of them know Sir Hugo and his father. I presume they are all men of good sense, too.”

“Aye, sure, but if you mean they are never reckless, as I am—”

“I did not say that,” she said, laying her soft palm on his chest and shifting slightly as if to get more comfortable.

“Sweetheart, if you keep doing that, I won’t answer for my actions.”

“Why?”

“Shall I show you why?”

Sidony’s pulse began to race, because his voice had sounded different as he asked the question. It was lower in his throat and its vibrations resonated through her, igniting her desire and making her feel hot all over.

Her mouth was dry, and she hesitated, until it came into her mind that she might be losing one of those moments he had so often talked about. Still, she could not decide. Her hand seemed to have decided for her, though, because it continued to stroke him, pressing harder and moving more easily across his broad chest.

He caught her wrist in a hard grip, coming onto his right side as he did. “If you are teasing me, sweetheart,” he said, his face close to hers, his voice a near growl, “you will learn how dangerous that can be. I want to claim you as my wife but not if you remain unwilling. If you keep doing such things, I’ll take it to mean that you are willing, but I’d rather hear the words from your lips.”

Her fingers twitched on his chest.

“Well?” he said, his patience clearly on a thin tether.

“Aye,” she said then, licking dry lips. “If you want to, I . . . I’m willing.”

The words were barely out before his mouth came down hard on hers.

He still held her wrist, and his body pressed her into the mattress.

To her astonishment, hers responded by pressing back.

His lips were hot against hers and demanding, but when he released her wrist and put his hand instead on her breast, stroking it as she had stroked his bare chest, he stirred fire wherever he touched her, even through the lacy cambric. And when his thumb slid over her nipple, she heard herself moan in response.

“I want that shift off you, sweetheart.” He did not wait for an answer, but she did not protest, and the shift was soon gone. In taking it off, he also pushed away the covers. And after he tossed the shift aside, he gazed down at her.

The glow of the dying fire lit his face and body, and his hungry expression awoke a craving in her that she had not known she could feel. From the first, she had felt comfortable with him. More than that, she had argued with him and spoken her very thoughts to him in an easy way that she shared with no one else.

When his gaze traveled from her breasts to the joining of her legs and back up to look steadily into her eyes, she said in a demure way that was also new to her, “Art still wishful never to have married, sir?”

He shook his head, then said with a wry smile, “But I shall still make the very devil of a husband, madam.”

“You are the first to call me so,” she said and then gasped as he began to toy with her breast again.

He tickled the nipple, then took it gently between his lips, and laved it with his tongue in a most extraordinary way, sending jolts of fire through her with every lick. His left hand slowly stroked her belly, moving lower and lower. When it reached the juncture of her legs, he claimed her lips again, licking them gently between kisses, then pressing his tongue between them into her mouth.

The interior of her mouth was warm and silky soft, and Giff wanted to explore every inch of it, and every other inch of her. She tasted sweet and fresh, and her small, slender hands were moving on his body, touching him lightly, exploring the texture of his skin, tickling hairs on his chest and belly. Fingertips skimmed one of his nipples, sending another wave of lust through him.

His loins ached, but if he wanted to disprove her belief that he was always impetuous, he could not let her drive him to an early release.

He caught the hand on his nipple, kissed its fingertips lightly, then shifted himself over her, pressing her hand into the pillow as he eased himself down to suckle her breasts again. Releasing the hand he had held, he stroked her arm up to the shoulder, then stroked her side to her hip, shifting again to caress the insides of her thighs. At last, cupping her mound, he eased a finger between her nether lips.

When she stiffened, he released the nipple he was tonguing to say, “Easy, lass, I just want to prepare the way. Do you know how men and women couple?”

“Aye,” she murmured. “I’ve heard my sisters talk, of course, and Sorcha once told me ’tis much the same as the way most animals couple.”

He doubted that animals felt the same passions people did, but he said only, “If you don’t understand or don’t like something, tell me. Coupling should be enjoyable. The first time is not always so, though. You should know that, as well.”

As he talked, he moved his finger, finding the spot where she was most sensitive. When she moaned and opened her legs wider, he claimed her lips again, thrusting his tongue between them. With each kiss and stroke, his passions mounted until he could wait no longer and eased himself into her. He heard her gasp and tried to give her time to adjust to him, but his own needs urged him to get on with it.

He moved slowly at first, holding himself back, but the urgency grew as her channel began to pulse and the heat rose within her.

Sidony gasped when he began to move faster. His lips still held hers captive, and his tongue filled her mouth. Then his head came up and he pushed into her more deeply. In that moment, everything in her focused on the sensations pouring through her body, on the aching, the heat, and the fullness of him within her.

His face, barely visible in the dimness of the embers’ glow, had contorted as if he, too, felt pain but was too intent on his passion to care. He drove harder, faster, and deeper, until she feared the force of it would split her in two.

Then new sensations began to build, and she felt herself throbbing against him. He was breathing hard, plunging in faster until he pounded against her, threatening to crush her. At last, his rhythm shifted to shorter, speedier bursts and stopped.

He had exhausted himself, for he lay atop her, still breathing hard but replete and heavy. He was still inside her but no longer pulsing or filling her till she ached.

“Can you breathe?” he murmured near her left ear.

“Not easily.”

With obvious effort, he moved off her but kept an arm across her ribs just below her breasts. “Better?” When she nodded, he said, “Did I give you much pain?”

“Some, but I never knew anyone could feel like that.”

“I thought you said your sisters talked.”

“Aye, but it was just talk. I know they enjoy coupling, but I suppose one has to feel the feelings for oneself to understand.”

“I’m falling asleep, sweetheart,” he murmured. “We’d better get cleaned up.”

They did so, and he helped her clean the blood from her thighs. There was not a great deal of it and, to her relief, only a spot or two on the countess’s sheet. It bothered her more, when they returned to bed, that he had no sooner kissed her and settled close to her with her head on his shoulder than he fell asleep. And snored.

She lay beside him, wondering if a man could give his wife a baby the first time, or if it took an accumulation of attempts to do so. The next thing she knew, it was morning, and Giff was standing in Henry’s dark blue robe, telling the lass who had come to light cressets and a new fire that he wanted more water.

Giff saw Sidony turn over, yawn, and sit up, clutching covers to her breasts, and wondered if she had had second thoughts about her decision to bed with him.

The winds were shifting. He could tell because they had changed from their steady, low howling through the night to roaring gusts. He had no doubt that when the maid-servant returned with his water and lit the fire, it would smoke.

Sidony looked wonderful. She had not put the countess’s shift back on but had slept beside him naked. And now her beautiful, silken hair spilled over her bare shoulders and down her back. She had not taken time the night before to plait it and put it in a net, and he wondered how she had kept from entangling herself in it.

His own hair probably stood out as if he were in a stiff wind. He would not worry about it now, though. He’d get Henry’s man to look after it later.

“Good morning,” she said.

He smiled as he replied. Her voice did things to him. It was musical, as if someone had figured out how to tune a voice like a harp. He could never say such a silly thing aloud to her, of course, but that was what it was like. He had always been partial to harpists and to the lute. He carried his own lute aboard the Storm Lass .

“You are up early,” she said.

“I want to see how Fife and de Gredin have been faring. Henry said they lost several of their ships, so they’ll have to decide what to do with their extra men.”

“They won’t have drowned?”

“Sakes, no,” he said. “The reason they ran aground is that just off Noss Head a wide field of shoals surfaces quickly in an ebbing tide. Maxwell’s rutter noted them, and I recalled them from other visits. But Fife’s ships followed where we led and were coming fast enough to ground some of them before they could see them and stop. How much we hurt them depends on the damage they incurred, though. There’s a wide sandbar, too, and if they hit only sand, they’ll be in the bay now.”

“They won’t attack the castle!”

“Wouldn’t do them any good,” he said. “That long tongue it sits on acts as a more effective deterrent than Roslin’s land bridge. Only one pair of horsemen at a time can approach. They cannot capture the landing in the goe for a like reason. Even if they could, it would do them no good, because of the stairs. You saw them. Guards at the top could pick off likely invaders one by one if need be.”

“So what will they do?”

A rap at the door heralded the maidservant with his water, so he waited while she put it on the washstand, then said they’d do without a fire and dismissed her.

“That chimney’s bound to smoke with wind careering around as it is,” he said. “As to Fife, Henry said de Gredin must have had a good look round here last year and found no treasure, so ’tis likely they think we’ll be heading to Orkney. Sithee, Henry made a point of keeping de Gredin close to him there.”

“Is it in Orkney?”

“Sakes, I don’t know, and I must go.” He kissed her swiftly and was gone.

Sidony watched him go, wondering if he had spoken the truth. She did not think he would lie to her, but how could he not know where the treasure was hidden if he carried part of it aboard his ship? Did he mean to leave his cargo with Henry? If he did, why was he heading on west, and why—with Fife going to Orkney and the treasure safe—would Henry think it a risk for her to sail with Giff to Kintail?

Not long afterward, Morag, Jean’s waiting woman, arrived. As plump as her mistress, she carried a pile of clothing draped over her arms, from which the countess had said that Sidony was to choose as many as she liked.

“Countess Jean did say these be things she wore when she were slimmer, m’ lady. They be still too long, she said, but I can quickly hem any ye like. She said, too, that she’d be that grateful to ye did ye stay on here for a few weeks to visit.”

“I shall thank her for her kind invitation,” Sidony said, suspecting that Giff or Henry had suggested that Jean issue it to keep her at Girnigoe.

Accepting Morag’s assistance while she tried on the garments, and assuring her that she had no need of a fire, Sidony spent the next hour trying on and selecting what to keep. When Giff returned, she was standing on a stool, wearing a sleeved surcoat of warm pink cameline over a kirtle of pale green-and-gray striped silk.

Morag had hemmed the kirtle and was pinning up the surcoat hem to reveal a fashionable inch of the kirtle’s hem below it. The kirtle’s sleeve ends touched Sidony’s knuckles and thus also showed, because those of the surcoat stopped at her wrists.

Giff paused in the doorway with the same look on his face she had seen the night before when he had walked in to find her in the countess’s robe.

“Thank you, Morag,” Sidony said, her gaze locked with her husband’s. “If there is more yet to do, you may attend to it later.”

“Aye, madam, but I can easily hem this surcoat wi’ what pinning I’ve done. Be there aught else ye’ll want to keep?”

“Nay, I have plenty now. The countess has been most generous,” Sidony said, stepping down and letting Morag slip the surcoat off. Her own attention was still on Giff, as she tried to read his expression.

He reached out to stroke the pink cameline as Morag passed him, but neither he nor Sidony said anything more until the maid had gone and the door had shut.

“I hope you don’t think this gown makes me look like a child,” Sidony said.

From her low-curved neckline to her hips, the green-and-gray silk fit like a second skin, outlining her soft, round breasts and the gentle flare of her hips, and emphasizing her small waist. A girdle of four linked silver chains spanned her hips at the widest part and fastened with a jeweled buckle just a tantalizing few inches above the joining of her legs. From the chains’ long ends, tiny gleaming silver balls dangled just below her knees and clinked when she moved.

“Well?” she said.

“You don’t look anything like a child,” he said. “I like that pink thing you had on, too. ’Tis as soft as a kitten. I’ll want to stroke it often when you wear it.”

“I like it because it is warm and because it does not belong to Fife.”

“How does that come off?” he asked, indicating her kirtle.

“About a thousand tiny hooks down the back, but do not think you are going to get it off me right now,” she said, stepping hastily back and putting up her hands. “I have been dressing and undressing ever since you left, and I’m starving.”

“You haven’t yet broken your fast?”

“Nay, I never even thought of it after Morag came in.”

“Then we’ll find you something. The stairways are icy cold, so you’ll want a shawl or something till we get to the hall. It is smoky there but warm enough.”

She fetched a cheerful yellow wool shawl that the countess had sent along with the rest of the garments, and draped it over her shoulders.

“Did you learn what happened to Fife’s ships?” she asked.

“Three that went aground sank. One suffered serious damage. The longships, being more easily maneuvered, hit only sand and came off easily, and the two that were farthest back missed the shoals altogether. So there are still four, and a fifth may rejoin them. We doubt they’ll try anything violent with Henry’s boats at hand, but Fife may drop a coble in the water and demand entrance under his royal banner.”

“Will Henry let him in?”

“He said he’d let Fife and six of his men in, but no more. So far, no one has asked.” Shoving a hand through his hair, feeling confined, he turned to the window shutter and opened it a crack to breathe as he added, “I have one more thing to say.”

“What?”

“I have changed my mind,” he said. Then, because his reluctance to face her went right against his belief that the success of any decision required full commitment to that decision, he closed the shutter, turned back, and gave her a straight look. “It is just too dangerous, sweetheart. I’d be a damned, irresponsible fool to take you along.”

Calmly, she said, “So, then, what you told Henry was untrue.”

“Sakes, who do you think called it reckless and irresponsible? Henry doesn’t want you to go. He’ll be pleased that I’ve seen reason.”

“So, your word is untrustworthy only when the matter concerns me?”

“I never told you that I would let you decide.”

“No, you just said you had told Henry that you would. So if Henry had told me, he would now discover that, thanks to you, he had lied to me, would he not?”

“Stop this!” he snapped.

“Or what? You’ll beat me? That is what Hugo always threatens when Sorcha defies his dictatorial nature. I don’t think he has ever done so, however.”

“Hear me well, madam, for I do not make empty threats,” he said grimly, angry now. “As you have seen for yourself, when I want to do a thing, I do it. So do not try me any further in this.”

Her chin came up. “I also do what I say I will do, sir. I am your wife, and as far as I can tell, there is no more danger in what lies ahead of us than in what threatened us all the way from Lestalric to Girnigoe.”

“You have not seen that storm raging out there,” he said. “Look at it!”

And with that, he jerked the shutter open. The effect was not what he had hoped, however, because he had forgotten that for the past hour, the strongest gusts had come from the north and west, their fierce power breaking against the landward side of the castle. To be sure, outside the window the sea raged, but from the third story of a fortress a hundred feet above the water, its impact would seem small to her.

“I have no fear of any storm when you are controlling the ship,” she said. “I know that if you say you can do it, you can. It is not even raining.”

“It was pouring earlier,” he said. “And it will pour again. In any event, the strength of that storm is irrelevant. I am your husband, and you will do as I say.”

“Very well, but when you do come to fetch me, if you ever do, you will take me to my father’s castle. I’ll not stay with a man who doesn’t want me with him.”

He clenched his fists and said through his teeth, “I do want you. Don’t you see? You could be killed, either by the storm or by Fife’s lot if they catch us.”

“Then don’t let them catch us,” she said. “You must decide, for it is indeed your right, but I won’t change my mind. I don’t want to stay here in safety, fearing all the time you are gone that you have disappeared under fathoms of water or been killed by Fife and de Gredin, not to mention having not the least notion how long I should wait to hear any news, one way or the—”

“Enough, Sidony!”

“Nay, I am your wife now in every way. If I do not have the right to be with you until we have a home of our own, then I do not want to be with you at all.”

Hands on her hips, chin still thrust forward, she was just daring him to put her across his knee. And for the life of him, all he wanted to do was to grab her, hug her, strip that clinging silk dress off her, and take her back to bed.

Sidony saw the look in his eyes, and when he stepped toward her, she stepped hastily backward, clapping her hands protectively over her backside.

He stopped, made a sound like a growl low in his throat, then turned and went out, slamming the door behind him.

Drawing a long breath and letting it out, she picked up the shawl that in her rage she had let slip to the floor, rearranged it, and waiting only a minute or two to let him get well ahead of her, she followed him downstairs to the hall.

Fife had awakened on damp, uncomfortable shingle in the wedge-shaped bay where they had beached the longships. It was still raining then, and he ached all over but was glad to be alive. As if the landless stretches of the Moray Firth had not been terrifying enough, to see the damage wrought when they had hit the field of shoals off Noss Head had been enough to make him retch until he could barely stand.

The lead longboat had just scraped the top of a huge sandbar, but the second boat, only minutes behind, had stuck fast on another part of it. Then they had heard the horrible screeching of ships striking rocks that they themselves had missed.

Men had drowned, screaming for help. They had rescued many, but the three ships that had struck hardest on the rocks had sunk before they had got everyone off. They’d turned back south then, where men from ships that had avoided the shoals reported that the wedge-shaped bay could provide shelter for them all.

So they had beached the longships, anchored the others, and set up tents against the rain and the threatening storm. Fife had taken the first opportunity to seek his tent, and when de Gredin had brought him wine, he had drunk it gratefully and for a wonder had slept deeply. Now, his head ached, and he had a raging thirst.

A call to the man who had slept outside his tent achieving nothing, he got up to wake the fellow. No one was there. In fact, he did not see any of his men.

De Gredin had taken to giving them orders, something to which Fife knew he would have to put a stop. So, seeing the chevalier standing by a small fire they had managed to start under a protective ceiling of canvas, he strode to join him there.

Before Fife could speak, de Gredin greeted him cheerfully, saying, “You’ll be pleased to know, my lord, that the ship now at Girnigoe is indeed the Serpent . Men I sent ashore with the first boats got a look at it and say it is moored in an inlet with sheer cliffs all round it. My lads can easily look down on it from the landward side, so we’ll know if MacLennan tries to unload cargo, but apparently, the only access to the castle is up steep, narrow steps, so I doubt they can unload there.”

“Gratified as I am to hear that,” Fife said stiffly, “I would like to know what you have done with my men. You seem to think they are yours to command, but—”

“I am afraid they are no one’s to command, my lord,” de Gredin interjected. “Unfortunately, all of your men drowned in the disaster yestereve.”

“That’s impossible,” Fife said. “I know that some were on your other longship, and several were with me. One was sleeping right outside my tent.”

“Aye, it was very sad to lose them all so,” de Gredin said.

The chill Fife felt was no fault of the weather.