Authors: Bertrice Small
And if they chose not to remain at Cleit he would be out of luck. She had until then to gain his true affections so that he would marry her. It was difficult to admit to it, but Adair knew she would not be going back to Stanton.
Elsbeth was right: Stanton no longer existed. Their life was here in the borders of Scotland. At Cleit. The winter came, and it was a bitter one.
And then with the spring a visitor came to Cleit. He was Alpin Bruce, the laird’s cousin. Tall, and perhaps a bit too handsome, with dancing amber eyes and rich chestnut hair, Alpin Bruce arrived just as the sun was setting one late April day. The laird greeted his kin, but Adair noticed there was little warmth in the greeting.
Nor did Duncan Armstrong or Murdoc Bruce appear very glad to see the man. But the laws of hospitality made a place at the high board for the visitor. As the three women brought the food from the kitchen and placed it on the table, Alpin Bruce’s eye lit on Adair.
“Who are the wenches? I had heard all your serving women had left you after your mother died,” Alpin Bruce said.
“Adair is my housekeeper,” the laird replied tersely.
“And my mistress, cousin.”
“Indeed,” his guest remarked with a grin. “Is she as capable in bed as she seems to be in the hall, cousin?”
“I am efficient in all I do, sir,” Adair snapped.
“Adair! Go to Elsbeth. Flora and Grizel will serve the
board,” the laird said sharply. He knew his cousin, and he didn’t like the way Alpin was eyeing Adair.
“Yes, my lord,” Adair said, tartly sketching a curtsy, and she withdrew.
Alpin Bruce laughed. “A spirited lass, I can see. Have you had to take a strap to her bottom yet? Taming her must be a pleasure, cousin.”
“Adair is amenable, but not easy,” the laird told his cousin. “And I do not beat my women, as I have heard it said that you do. I like a spirited lass.”
Alpin Bruce smacked his lips at Adair’s retreating form. “I envy you the long winter nights you have had this year, Conal,” he said.
“Why are you here?” the laird asked bluntly.
“What?” Albin Bruce pretended to be insulted. “Can I not come to visit my favorite cousin without there being some ulterior motive for it?”
“Nay, you cannot,” Conal Bruce answered him.
Alpin Bruce laughed. “Well, as a matter of fact I have come on a mission. Old Jamie sitting in Stirling has decided that he hasn’t hoarded enough wealth while good Scots folk starve. He is demanding the revenues of Coldingham Priory.”
“What?” The laird looked genuinely startled.
“Aye, he wants them, and says he will have them,”
Alpin answered.
“But those revenues belong to Lord Home,” the laird said. “They have always belonged to the Homes.”
“King Jamie will have them for whatever purpose he desires. Perhaps another musician, or silk garments for his new favorite, or mayhap he will build another castle, but nay. Not that. Cochrane was hanged, wasn’t he?”
Alpin Bruce laughed.
“But how does all of this concern me, for surely you haven’t come just to bring such news? What do you want, Alpin?”
“Lord Home plans to defend his rights to Coldingham, and needs to know his friends are willing to sustain
him. He has already gained the support of the Hepburns, the Red Douglases, the Campbells of Argyll, and the bishop of Glasgow, among others.”
“Is Lord Home planning to go to war then?” Conal asked dryly.
“If he must,” came the answer. “If King Jamie is allowed to seize the revenues of Coldingham from the Homes, who will next suffer financial ruin at his greedy royal hands? He must be stopped now. It is rumored that some of the earls would set the king aside and put his son upon the throne. The young James is a grand laddie.”
Conal Bruce considered, and then he said, “There is naught I have that the royal Stewarts have given the Bruces of Cleit, and so there is nothing they could take from me. To rebel against the king, even a bad king, is dangerous, Alpin. And it is especially dangerous for a bonnet laird like me. I know of an English noblewoman who was stripped of both her lands and a title that she had been born to because her husband backed the wrong man in a dynastic battle.”
“This isn’t England,” Alpin said. “Besides, the king will die sooner than later. His heart, they say, broke with the death of good Queen Margaret. He’s like a beast gone to ground to die. He has holed himself up in those fine chambers that Cochrane built for him. He listens to his lute player, and reads copious treatises of scholarly import. And he counts his gold. But he cares little for his people. Plague has broken out in Edinburgh, but the king doesn’t give a damn.”
“I won’t support the king openly,” Conal Bruce said,
“but neither will I support a rebellion. The Homes don’t know me. If their fight comes to a bad end they will more than likely buy their way out of it. But bonnet lairds like me are always chosen to be punished, for an example must be made so that future rebels are warned against their own folly. Who sent you to me?”
“The Hepburn of Hailes. I serve him as a captain,”
Alpin said. “We cannot all be lairds with our own keep, cousin.”
“An accident of birth,” Conal Bruce said. “You are the youngest son of a younger son. I am the eldest son of a laird of Cleit.”
Alpin Bruce grinned. “If Cleit is to have an heir you had best wed soon, Conal. You are past thirty. A wife, however, would not tolerate that pretty mistress of yours. If necessary I shall be glad to take her off your hands.”
“Perhaps I shall marry Adair, Alpin. You are right. It is past time I took a wife,” Conal Bruce answered easily.
Adair listened in the shadows of the hall to all of the conversation between the cousins. She had not gone to the kitchens, but rather taken a leaf out of Grizel’s book. Was he jesting with his cousin about taking a wife? Time would tell. That he was a cautious man where Cleit was concerned she found interesting. He was clever not to involve himself in rebellion, but neither to refuse to support Lord Home’s cause. And she was learning a good deal of gossip about the Scots king.
Having grown up in a royal court, Adair found the politics of Scotland fascinating. The conversation was now turning to less important things, and so Adair slipped down the stairs to the kitchens.
When Flora, Grizel, and Jack had gone to their attic quarters, and Elsbeth was already snoring in her bed space, Adair returned to the hall to make her final rounds of the night. As the laird’s housekeeper it was her duty to see that the fires were banked, the candles snuffed, and the door barred before retiring to join the laird. As there was a guest, she went to be certain the bed space had been properly furnished. To her surprise Alpin Bruce was not there. He had probably gone to pee. She smiled to herself. It was a good thing she had not yet set the bar across the door. She was relieved to see that Flora had made up the bed space nicely. And then she heard his voice behind her.
“Come to tuck me in, Mistress Adair?” He was standing so close to her that she could not move. “Or have you come to offer me the comfort of your fair body?”
She felt his big hand on the nape of her neck as he forced her forward. “Let me go at once,” she said in a hard voice. “Let me go, and I will not tell the laird of your misbehavior, Alpin Bruce.”
He laughed low. “And if I don’t, Adair? What will you do?” He loosened his garments, releasing his swollen manhood. Then, with the same hand, he yanked her skirts up and sought to find entry into her body.
For the briefest moment Adair was frozen with fright, but then the fear dissipated, and she screamed at the top of her lungs, struggling to break his grip on her neck as he held her pinioned down, preparing to do rape. She was at a great disadvantage, and then to Adair’s surprise his grip on her released, and he howled in pain. She struggled to a stand, whirling about as her skirts fell about her. The young wolfhound who had befriended her had come to her rescue, sinking his fangs into her attacker’s snowy white buttocks.
Adair wanted to laugh, but instead she stepped quickly from the bed space and said, “Beiste! Release!”
The dog instantly obeyed, stepping back and growling low to hold Alpin Bruce at bay.
“I will tell the laird of this incident,” Adair said softly.
“And I will tell him I fucked you because you begged me to do it,” Alpin Bruce replied.
“He won’t believe you,” Adair replied. “And how will you explain the dog bites in your bottom?”
“Aye, how will you, Alpin?” The laird was now with them.
“Your wench is hot-blooded, cousin,” Alpin Bruce began, leering at Adair.
“What happened?” The laird directed his question to Adair.
“I was making my final rounds of the evening, my lord. I did not see your cousin, and I came to make cer
tain the bed space was ready. He came up from behind me and attempted to have his way, but the dog attacked him when I screamed,” Adair explained.
“She lies!” Alpin Bruce said.
“Nay, the one thing I can be certain of with Adair is that she does not lie,” the laird said. “You, however, do.
I told you that this lass was mine, and yet you could not keep your cock in your breeks. Turn around and bend over, so I may see what damage the dog has done to you.” And when his cousin had obeyed the laird looked at his cousin’s buttocks. They were now very bruised, but the dog had done only enough damage to free Adair. His teeth had just slightly pierced the skin, and the bleeding was negligible. “I’ll tend to your wounds myself, Alpin, so there will be no gossip about this incident. Adair, go and fetch what I will need from your apothecary.”
When she had gone the laird grabbed his cousin by his neck and shook him hard. “Listen to me, you bastard,” he growled. “If you ever come into my house again, and accost someone under my protection, I will kill you! Do you understand me, Alpin? I will kill you!”
Then he struck the man several hard blows. “Do you understand?”
“I understand!” his cousin whimpered, tasting the blood from a very loose tooth.
Adair, returning with the supplies that would be needed, saw that Alpin Bruce’s eye was now blackened; a reddish purple bruise was beginning to show on his other cheek; and his nose and mouth were bleeding. She did not ask what had happened.
“Go to our bed,” the laird said in a hard voice. “I will take care of him.”
“Yes, my lord,” Adair replied, and left the hall.
The laird bent his cousin over and cleansed the wounds. Then he put a healing salve on them. “Stand up,” he said, and when his cousin faced him, Conal Bruce drove his fist into the man’s middle several times.
“She is mine! You will remember it,” he said, and, turning, departed the hall.
Gasping for breath, pain radiating through his entire body, Alpin Bruce crawled, whimpering, into the bed space. He could not sleep on his back; nor could he rest comfortably on his belly. Turning on his side, he silently cursed Conal Bruce as he attempted to find some rest.
In his bedchamber Conal Bruce faced Adair. “I cannot protect a mistress as well as I can protect a wife,” he said bluntly. “It’s past time I had one.”
“You championed me very well, I thought. Did you beat him after I left?” she asked him softly, reaching up to touch his face with her hand.
“A little,” he admitted. “Don’t you want to marry me?”
“Do you love me?” Adair asked him.
He looked totally befuddled by her question.
“Do you love me?” Adair repeated.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he answered her honestly. “I want to wed you.”
“Why?” she queried him.
“Why?” His tone was irritated. “Why?”
“Aye, why?” Adair repeated.
“So I can protect you,” he said.
“You protected me very well tonight, and I am not your wife,” Adair replied. “My first marriage was a fait accompli before I even knew it. I did not like him. My second marriage was arranged because it was believed a woman could not protect Stanton without a man; and that was certainly proved when Willie Douglas came raiding. I was fond of Andrew. I suppose I loved him after a fashion. He was a good man. But the next time I wed it will be because the man I marry loves me. Really and truly loves me. My uncle Dickon loved his wife devotedly. And that is what I want from my husband. Will I marry you? Nay, my lord, not unless you learn to love
me, and will say the words to my face. And I will know if you lie to me.”
He was astounded by her words. Every woman he had ever lain with wanted to wed him. What was the matter with her? “You are mine!” he growled, pulling her roughly into his embrace, looking down into her beautiful jewel-colored eyes.
“Yes, my lord,” Adair said, and her tone was just faintly amused.
“My name is Conal!” he almost shouted. “You have been with me seven months, and not once have I heard you say my name aloud.”
“You did not give me permission to do so,” Adair responded reasonably. “Remember, my lord, I am your slave. You paid a silver penny for me.” The violet eyes were now dancing mischievously.
“Say my name!” he ground out. She was mocking him, damn her!
“Conal,” she murmured against his lips. “Conal.
Conal. Conal.”
“I will probably kill you eventually,” he told her, kissing her a hard kiss.
“Why?” she asked him. “Am I not obedient to your will, Conal? Do I not keep your house well, and please you in your bed, Conal?”
“You will marry me,” he told her.
“Nay, I will not until you love me. The day after Michaelmas, Elsbeth and I will be, under both Scots and English law, free of our enslavement. If you do not love me, Conal, I may not remain. I will go back to Stanton,”
Adair told him. “You’ve made me your whore, but I do not have to remain your whore.”
“Aye,” he said low, “I am going to kill you.”
She wrapped her arms about his neck and pressed herself against his hard body. “How?” she murmured against his lips. “How will you kill me, my lord Conal?”
The tip of her tongue snaked out to run over his lips.
She rubbed suggestively against him.
He could feel the nipples of her breasts against his chest. The heat from her mons was turning his manhood rigid with desire. There had never been a woman who satisfied him so well, and he knew that there would never be one like Adair. He wanted her. But what was this love she prated about? He didn’t understand, and so he kissed her another fierce kiss. And then he kissed her over and over again until she was limp in his arms.