Chapter Five
K errick flipped back the canvas from the wagon. “Hurrah.” Three crates sat in the middle of the bed, along with a trunk of his clothes and linens, bags of grain and seed, a box of tea, and ground-breaking tools. He smiled at Grace, who stood beside him. “All a man needs to repair an estate and get it producing.”
“Are you planning to plow up the peat by hand?” she asked.
“Nay. I have a plow head coming, and I will rent a pair of oxen,” he said, leaping onto the bed with the pry bar to open the first crate of books. “And these are all a man needs to keep from going insane.”
“Insanity? Is that a concern of yours?” she asked. “Because a wife ought to know such things.”
He yanked out a copy of Voltaire’s Optimism that had become his companion in the darkest of days. “Do ye like to read?”
She threw a knee up onto the wagon bed, and he helped her climb. “Yes actually,” she said, raising her voice above the sound of rain that had just started tapping on the slate roof. “I spent most of my life reading in my father’s study.”
Kerrick’s gaze rested on the deep gold cast to her red hair as she bent over his collection, the light from his lamp adding to the soft glow. “And ye could bring none with ye.”
She didn’t look up, but her fingers paused on one of the spines as she shook her head. “’Twas like leaving behind the best of friends.”
“Ye are welcome to read mine. Plays by Shakespeare and Marlow. Poems by Milton and Voltaire. The novel Don Quixote. Paradise Lost. And books on farming and estate running.”
“You collect them?”
“Aye,” he said, smiling when she looked up from her crouched position. Lord help him, she was bonny.
“That seems a rather strange hobby for a soldier.”
He grasped his copy of Optimism . “A learned person is a powerful person. I credit my strategic abilities to books.” He helped her stand, his hand under her arm. She was warm against the coolness of his fingers. “The rest of the wagon is full of things that will make our lives easier up at the castle.”
“Is there a priest hidden in there who can chase out a spirit?”
He snorted. “Perhaps we can do it ourselves. My mother used to walk around the outside of our estate in Perth with burning wood sage to capture unhealthy and bad air in the smoke, which would then rise into the heavens.” As if to accent the reference to God’s abode, thunder rumbled outside.
“I add wood sage to our list of necessities,” she said.
He smiled. This was easy, this banter between them. He’d never just talked with a woman. Either they were admonishing him, his sister in particular, or trying to entice him into a tryst.
Kerrick jumped to the ground. Turning, he grasped Grace’s waist, lifting her down. She was perfect in his hands and made no move to pull away, but the wagon blocked her from behind. He cleared his throat and dropped his hands, turning. “Let’s find a meal and decide if we can make it back to Delgatie this eve.”
With Grace on his arm, they pushed out into the weather. Wind, cold and wet, gusted so hard against them that for a moment, Grace seemed to be swept away in it, her hair flying out like flames from a bonfire.
“Good lord,” she yelled. Kerrick caught her hand, and the two of them ran for the tavern door, pushing inside. The rain had soaked him, and Grace’s hair lay in damp locks around her shoulders, but she laughed and shook the water from her hands.
“Good eve, Lord and Lady Hay,” Fiona called from the bar. “Been out in the wet and wind I see.”
“Good eve, Mistress Fiona,” Grace called, picking at her sodden petticoats. “I am afraid it has ruined us.”
“Dry yerself by the hearth, and I’ll bring ye two servings of my cottage pie. It just came out of the bricks.”
“And two ales please,” Kerrick said, laying a shilling on the counter. He followed Grace to a small table near the hearth.
“’Tis a right blustery day,” Fiona said, bringing the ales. “There’s no one in the room above if ye’d care to rent it.” A gust of wind rattled the panes in the windows facing the road.
Grace held out one of her dripping curls. “The books should not get wet.”
Kerrick dropped another shilling on the table. “Aye, we will take the room.”
“’Tis a small bed,” Fiona said, “but I don’t think your lady will mind sharing with ye.” She winked and walked away.
*
The bed was made for two people, but those two people were undoubtedly lovers. Abigail stared at it as she listened to Kerrick trudge back down the stairs to secure Leum and the wagon. She had asked for a bath, and Fiona had two stout boys carry up water and a wooden tub hardly bigger than a bucket. She wrestled the water from the fire. Even wrapped, the handle was hot, and she sloshed some water over.
“Saint Bart’s bones,” she whispered her father’s favorite curse and felt the pressure of tears in her eyes. She let them run out, the thickness of them making the room look as if underwater. She hadn’t grieved enough for the man who had cared for her alone after her mother died. Now that John Lindsey was in Heaven, he must see the darkness in William’s heart and know that he should never have struck a bargain for him to wed Abigail once he died.
Abigail stripped the rest of her clothing off, careful to stay away from the window without a curtain, and stepped into the bucket of warm water. It barely reached her knees, but it was clean. She used the jasmine soap she’d bought from Fiona to quickly scrub herself while she stood, sinking in to rinse the dirt away. Everything but her hair was rosy and clean by the time she was done, and she stepped out, grabbing the drying sheet.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and she hurried to wrap the sheet around her just as a knock came. “Grace? Are ye out of the bath?”
“Yes,” she said. “But—”
“I bathed too,” Kerrick said and opened the door. His gaze fell on her, and he stopped. His hair was wet, his shirt removed and held casually in his hand. “I did not mean to intrude,” he said and backed out, closing the door behind him.
Abigail looked down at her hard nipples poking through the thin, wet bathing sheet. “I might as well have been naked,” she whispered, frowning as she wiped the sheet over her arms and shoulders.
Smock in place even though it stuck to her damp skin, she climbed into the bed. “You can come in now.”
Kerrick opened the door, spotted her under the covers, and walked inside. “Wagon and horse are secure.”
“Good.” She lay on her back, eyes to the ceiling. The bed dipped as he sat and pulled off one boot and then the second. The covers rose as he slid underneath. She turned toward the wall, grazing him slightly with her backside.
“I put my tunic back on,” he said.
“Also good.” She was so stiff lying next to him with only the thin linen of their undergarments between them that she doubted she’d sleep.
He shifted. “I can sleep on the floor. I’ve slept on the hard ground plenty of times on marches.”
She exhaled, forcing herself to relax. Kerrick Hay had lain next to her all the previous night without touching her. “You are honorable,” she said. “We can share.”
Outside, the storm buffeted the tavern. With an obvious gap around the crooked window, the floor would surely be wet by morning. She inhaled and caught the fresh scent of Kerrick behind her, and his warmth filled the space under the blanket.
“I wonder if Rohaise is wandering around Delgatie looking for us,” Kerrick said, his voice softer, as if he worried that he was disturbing her.
Abigail smiled, watching the firelight from the hearth dance upon the wall she faced. “She can tap all night without us being cross.”
She listened to his deep chuckle. “I just hope nothing is smashed when we return,” he said.
“Thank goodness Boo is safe in the barn.”
Lightning flashed, and a crack of thunder shattered the night. Abigail startled, bumping her backside against him. The sensation shot through her, making her heart race.
She rolled over to face him. His eyes were open as he stared up at the ceiling. “You are thinking something very hard,” she whispered. Laying there facing him in the dark as she whispered felt so intimate. Like they were trading secrets. Could she trust him with hers?
His brows pinched. “Do ye always smell of flowers? Like ye have a stash of flowers ye roll in all the time?” he asked, turning his head to meet her gaze.
“What does that…?” Her face scrunched to match his brow. “What?”
“Ye smell like flowers, always. In the rain, walking on the moors with a dead body, in a barn that needs to be mucked out, in a dusty room that hasn’t been touched for a century. Every room ye inhabit smells like a blooming garden.”
She closed her open mouth. He made it sound bad that she smelled good. Abigail poked him in the thick muscle of his upper arm. “Well, do you always have to be so… hard, like you’re chiseled out of granite?”
His other hand came up to rub the spot she’d poked. “’Tis my training. I had to be strong and agile to survive.”
“Well, ’tis my soap,” she answered with the same inflections. “I have to be smelling like flowers because…” She made a little frustrated growl. “Because I like flowers.”
“’Tis damn distracting,” he mumbled, his voice surly.
“So are your muscles,” she said and turned back toward the wall. Her backside grazed his. Her stomach fluttered, and she squeezed her eyes shut. What a ridiculous argument to have.
The rain continued to beat like a drum, and thunder rumbled. As the rain slowed, so did Abigail’s breathing until the comfortable darkness and warmth relaxed her.
The rain ceased, and she stood before Delgatie Castle. Kerrick stood outside the wall, his shirt off, his kilt sitting low on his narrow hips. His skin was damp, making it glisten. He motioned toward a plot of fresh grass with jasmine. She bent to smell the flowers and laid down on the soft green.
“Ye do roll in flowers.” Kerrick sat next to her, his gaze intense. Just his nearness caused the ache deep inside her to spread warmth. “Abigail.”
“You know my name,” she said.
“I know all about ye, lass.” Kerrick bent down, his lips pressing against hers. Heat spiraled down through Abigail, pooling in her abdomen and the crux of her legs. She shifted against him, her body rubbing his.
Boom!
Abigail jerked awake, the sound of the thunder ebbing away. She had turned toward the center of the bed. Rain poured outside, and wind rattled the individual windowpanes.
Another strike of lightning flashed. Kerrick’s eyes were open, staring at her. Walls of rain, darkness, and wind blocked out the rest of the world. It was as if it had all washed away, leaving them alone, the warmth of their bodies and their combined clean smell mixing under the single blanket.
Lightning flickered wildly. His gaze hadn’t left hers. “I like the way ye smell of flowers, lass,” he whispered, the words just loud enough to be heard over the press of the wind on the eaves.
A succession of flashing and thunder rattled the room, the drama of it mimicking the rush Abigail felt inside. Through it all, Kerrick’s intense gaze never left her. With another crack of thunder, she pressed forward.
Kerrick’s arms wrapped around her, pulling her halfway onto his muscular body. His mouth slanted across hers, and she opened against him, her foot sliding up the taut muscles in his leg. Her heart beat frantically, and her fingers found the edge of his tunic, lifting it up so her palms could slide against his warm skin. He had muscles all the way up his torso and chest where a light sprinkling of hair reminded her just how different their bodies were.
With a low growl that sent a shiver of desire through Abigail, Kerrick tore his tunic off over his head. He was completely naked next to her, but the thought only made her want him more as he caught her up in another kiss. Wave after wave of rain hit the window like wave after wave of heat battered any maidenly resistance she might have felt.
Abigail pressed her body against his hard frame, feeling the rise of his jack between them.
“Grace,” he said, pulling back, sliding her to the side. “We should not.”
“I ache, Kerrick,” she whispered.
His hand glided over her smock that encased her restless, naked body. She stroked up and down his chest.
“Lass,” he said, his voice a whispered rasp. “I would not have ye regretting this.”
She knew what happened in the marriage bed. Her mother had informed her with a book. A part of her argued that if she was not a virgin, maybe William wouldn’t want her. Maybe if she became Kerrick’s wife, she’d be safe. There was no guarantee that Kerrick would wed her, but at the moment everything felt so right, making none of that matter.
“I’m sure I’ll have regrets in life,” she breathed against his lips. “But this will not be one of them.”
Kerrick growled low, turning her so that he was over top of her, his face displaying torture and want. He bent to kiss her neck. Her smock slid off her shoulders, and he stroked the outside of her bare hip, making sensation swell within Abigail, and the moan of the wind outside swallowed her own.
Lightning flashed, showing his beautifully chiseled muscle. She slipped her smock down, allowing her full breasts to spill out. Lust and desire played across Kerrick’s face, and he pulled her to him again, kissing her. Abigail’s sensitive nipples rubbed against his bare chest. Her fingers roamed the thick muscles of his arms and shoulders, exploring every scar and smoothness of his hot skin.
The sound of horses in the rain made Kerrick glance toward the window. “’Tis the Aberdeen coach,” Kerrick said, taking a deep breath. “Delayed by the storm.”
She pressed back into him to capture another kiss, thankful that she hadn’t continued on her journey or she’d never have met this powerful, honorable man.
“Abigail Lindsey,” a man said outside the window. “She would have ridden on this coach.”
The deep voice cut like frozen steel through Abigail, and she stiffened, her breath freezing to ice in the center of her chest. Oh God, no. She rolled across Kerrick’s body, her feet hitting the floor. By the time she got to the window, the man who’d known her true name was inside the tavern below. But she didn’t need to see him. The voice was enough. William Gordon had found her.