Authors: Bertrice Small
“Then keep him in your service, for I do not want him coming again to Cleit,” the laird replied. “We have never gotten on, and he always causes me difficulty.”
Patrick Hepburn nodded. “If we have a war perhaps I can get him killed for you,” he said half seriously.
Lord Home gave a sharp bark of laughter.
“It is good to have friends,” the laird replied with a grin.
Adair returned to say their beds were ready when they chose to retire. “Will you see to the rest, my lord?”
she asked Conal Bruce. “I should like to retire to bed.”
“I will join you shortly,” he replied, dismissing her.
“Good night, then, my lords,” Adair said with a curtsy.
The three men watched as she left the hall. A serving man refilled their dram cups with the laird’s whiskey,
and disappeared from the hall. The trio sat watching the fire and talking until finally the laird stood up and, stretching his length, bowed to them.
“I will bid you good night, my lords,” Conal Bruce said, and then he left them to make certain that all the lamps and candles were extinguished. He set the heavy bar across the door to the keep, wondering as he did so how Adair managed it each night. When he returned to the hall to add wood to the fire for the night, both of his guests had found their sleeping spaces, and Lord Home was already snoring loudly. Conal Bruce then made his way upstairs to his own bedchamber, where he found Adair still waiting for him. The shutters on the window were open, allowing in the soft summer air. He could see a moon rising over the hills through it.
“You are not in bed,” he said to her.
“I know how much you like to undress me, so I waited,” Adair told him.
“Aye,” he said as she stood up and turned her back to him. He slipped her gown off her shoulders, and watched as it slid down her slender frame to the floor. Then, reaching about her, he unlaced her chemise, drawing it wide open and pushing it to the floor with the gown.
Adair stepped away from the garments and, bending, picked them up, folding them carefully, placing them in a small trunk. “Now it is my turn,” she said softly. She stood naked before him, unbuttoned the bone buttons on his jerkin, unlaced his linen shirt, and drew both from his big frame. Her fingers tangled themselves in the dark curls on his chest and, bending her head, she kissed each of his nipples in turn. “Sit, and I will take your boots from you,” she told him. Then, taking each of his feet between her legs, she slowly drew off each boot.
She undid his breeks and slid them over his lean hips, her hands sliding down his legs teasingly. His interest was already stirring, but Adair pushed away, saying,
“First you must undo my hair, Conal.” She turned herself about, her buttocks brushing against his groin.
His fingers felt clumsy as he undid her thick braid. He spread the long sable hair out, marveling as he always did at its thickness, its shine, how it rippled down her graceful back. Grasping a handful, he closed his eyes and brought it to his nose, inhaling the fragrance of woodbine that emanated from the tresses. Then his hands moved about her body to cup her two breasts in his hands. He felt the weight of the soft flesh in his palms as he brushed the nipples lightly with the balls of his thumbs.
Adair leaned back against him, her eyes closed as she enjoyed the sensation of his hands. “I need a hairbrush,”
she told him. “It has been months since I was able to properly attend to my hair. I can do just so much with the little comb that Jack carved for me last winter as a Twelfth Night gift.”
“I’ll buy you a brush at the midsummer fair,” he promised her, pushing her hair aside to drop a kiss on her rounded shoulder.
“And a packet of needles. We have but two left,” she told him.
His fingers tightened about her breasts as she pressed herself back against him. “You are a greedy wench,” he told her.
Jesu!
He had had her with him almost nine months, and she could still engage his lust quicker than any he had ever known. He rubbed his manroot between the crease separating her bottom.
She turned in his embrace, slipping her arms about his neck and letting the fur on his chest tickle her nipples. “If you expect me to keep making your clothing you will give me the needles,” she told him. The tip of her tongue flicked around the outline of his mouth several rotations. Reaching down, she stroked his length.
“You are so greedy, my lord,” she teasingly scolded him.
“Your laddie is already eager for sport.”
“Aye, he is,” the laird agreed, “but I am going to teach you something different tonight, my honey love. Before he visits your sweet sheath, he would bury himself be
tween your lips. Kneel, Adair.” He gently pushed her down before him.
“I have heard such things are forbidden,” Adair whispered, staring fascinated at the manhood before her.
“Holy Mother Church . . . Will we be damned if I do it?”
“Why?” he asked her, amused.
“It is wrong!” Adair cried.
“Is it? Holy Mother Church says keeping a mistress is wrong. They say that every time a man mounts his wife it should be for the sole purpose of creating a child and nothing more. They say a man’s and a woman’s bodies are not for pure enjoyment, but only for procreating another soul onto this earth. Dried-up old men with no knowledge of women and passion. Or sodomites who plow between a lad’s buttocks for pleasure, not procre-ation. And yet I know a woman’s body is meant for enjoyment, as is a man’s. There is naught wrong if we both gain pleasure from it. Take me in your mouth, Adair.”
Her small hand wrapped itself about him. Slowly, hes-itantly, she opened her lips and took him in. He was thick, and he was warm.
“Suckle me, my honey love,” he crooned to her, his hand on her dark head. “That’s it! That’s it! Gentle, now.
Be mindful of your teeth, for he is a delicate lad.”
Shy at first, Adair grew bolder with confidence. She sucked upon him. She ran her tongue around the tip of him and tasted a salty drop of his juices. Soon she found she could no longer contain him within the cavern of her mouth.
Sensing her dilemma, he drew her to her feet and kissed her a long, slow kiss. “You did well, my honey love,” he told her. “Very well.”
“It has made me feel very lustful,” Adair whispered.
“Then we must satisfy your lust,” he said with a grin.
“Nay! I am not ready,” she told him. “On your back, my lord! It is my turn.”
Fascinated by her sudden boldness in their bed, for Adair had always preferred to be led to passion than to
lead, he lay down upon his back and allowed her to have her way with him. She crouched over him; then, bending, she began to lick him. She pulled at the hair on his chest with her teeth, making little growling noises as she did so. She brought a fire to his belly with her hot tongue and her little kisses. And then suddenly she pulled herself up and pressed her sex down onto his face.
Surprised, he lost his breath for a brief moment, but then he foraged with his tongue until he pressed through her nether lips and found the center of her desire, which he proceeded to tease and taunt with his tongue. “Witch!” he groaned into the moist, sweet flesh as he brought her satisfaction, and lapped at her juices until she was whimpering with her delight.
“Fuck me!” he suddenly heard her beg him. “Oh, Jesu, Conal, I am so hungry for you. I need you to be inside of me! Oh, hurry!” And then Adair was on her back, and she felt him enter her in a single thrust. She almost screamed aloud, but pushed her fist into her mouth to prevent the cry from erupting forth.
He rode her to her pleasure, but he did not leave her, for he had not yet had his. Slowly he began to pump her, going deep, withdrawing. And at first slowly. Slowly. He sensed her beginning to climb again, and his movements became faster and faster. This time she did not hold back. Adair’s scream of unadulterated pleasure burst forth at the same time as his roar of gratification. He thought his juices would never stop flowing as they jerked forth in a fierce staccato rhythm that filled her and left them both weak. There was nothing to say.
Conal wrapped his arms about Adair and they both fell asleep.
He awoke in the night to find the moon washing over their bodies. Adair lay curled on her side, her black lashes tipped silver in the light, her sable hair covering her shoulders. He lay watching her for some time before he fell back asleep. He considered how empty his life
would be without her, and knew he would do whatever he had to in order to bring her to the altar. He wanted bairns with her. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Was that love? He didn’t know, and he wasn’t going to say he loved her when he still wasn’t certain what love was. He didn’t want her accusing him of lying.
Lord Home and the Hepburn of Hailes departed in the morning. Both had kissed Adair’s hand and thanked her for both her hospitality and her information.
“Prince James will be grateful of your advice, madam.
He is not yet of a mind to wed, being young and filled with the lusty juices of a lad,” Lord Home said.
“Our Jamie is as randy as a ram in spring,” Patrick Hepburn remarked. “And the lassies all flock to him.
He’ll be a grand king one day.”
Then the two men were mounted, and left Cleit with their men at arms, Alpin Bruce among them. The laird noticed his cousin’s eye was blackened, and wondered how he had sustained his injury. He later learned that Alpin had come up behind Grizel as she gathered eggs in the henhouse that morning. Spinning the woman about, he had thrown her into the hay, only then gaining a look at her face. It was all the time Grizel needed.
Jumping to her feet, she had hit Alpin Bruce a blow, and as he howled with the injury she had grabbed up her basket of eggs, and run for the kitchens to tell her companions. And the shock of the brief attempt on her virtue relieved by his yelp, she had laughed at the incident with Elsbeth, Flora, and Jack. Adair laughed too, but the laird was furious.
“The fool cannot keep his cock in his breeks,” he grumbled. And then he too had laughed, for, seen from behind, Grizel appeared a younger woman. He could but imagine his cousin’s surprise when the face suddenly presented to him was that of an older, hook-nosed woman with a pointed chin. Grizel’s appearance was apt
to frighten those who did not know her. “I hope you gave him the evil eye, Grizel.” The laird chuckled.
“There was but time to black it, my lord. And I have not run that fast since I was a lass, but I broke not one egg,” Grizel replied, and her companions laughed all the harder.
Midsummer was suddenly upon them, and a small fair was set up in the laird’s village. A small group of tin-kers set themselves up in the midst of it, and families from the keep and the nearby crofts brought their pots to be repaired. One old woman among them told fortunes for a copper. Seeing Adair, she reached out to grasp her hand and peered into it. Her brow furrowed.
“You have known cruel sorrow, and you have been grievously wronged, but you cannot go back,” she wheezed. “Still, you will find happiness if you are wise enough to seize it. To do so you must slough off the past and listen to your heart, for your heart speaks true, my lady countess.”
Adair gasped, surprised at being addressed by her old title. “How do you know . . .” she began, and the old crone held up her hand.
“I see what I see, my lass,” she told Adair. “I do not understand it myself.”
Conal Bruce pressed a copper into the fortune-teller’s hand. Then he held out his own. “And what do you see for me, Gypsy?” he asked her.
The old woman took up his big hand. “I see great happiness for you, my lord, provided you do not spend too much more time considering your problem.” She nodded slowly. “You have already found the answers you seek. You have only to admit to it. That is all I see.”
He laughed and gave her another copper before they moved on. “She speaks in riddles,” he said to Adair, but he had understood exactly what the old woman was saying to him. He had found love with Adair, and he knew it. If only he dared to admit it to her. They stopped at a booth selling ribbons, and he bought her a length of
scarlet silk for her dark hair. “And I promised you a hairbrush, lass. We’ll go and find one now.”
She looked so pretty today in her light wool skirt of red Bruce plaid, which came to her ankles. With it she wore a linen shirt, its laces open at the neckline, for the day was warm. About her waist was a wide leather belt, and on her feet were black slippers.
Adair smiled up at him, surprised. It was the first gift he had given her. “I should like a brush,” she said, “and I thank you for the ribbon.”
They stopped at a booth selling small bits of dough that had been fried in oil and dusted with cinnamon.
Together they devoured a plateful of the delicious confections. As they turned to go from the booth they were confronted by Lord Home, the Hepburn of
Hailes, and a party of men, among them a very tall and handsome young man with bright blue eyes and red hair. Conal Bruce immediately sensed who the young man was, although he had never before seen him or met him.
“My lords,” he said, and bowed, waiting for Lord Home to introduce him.
“Bruce, ’tis good to see you again. We have come to join the games to be held later today.” He drew the young man forward. “My lord, this is the Bruce of Cleit.
And this, Conal Bruce, is Scotland’s hope.” He did not say the handsome young man’s name.
“You honor me, Your Highness,” the laird said, bowing low.
“Alexander Home has told me of his recent visit to your keep, my lord,” the prince said. “I am pleased to meet a man who is loyal to the crown.” The blue eyes twinkled in friendly and amused fashion. The prince was a young man in his mid-teens.
“Your Highness must understand my need to be prudent,” Conal Bruce replied.
“We all have a need to be prudent these days,” the prince responded. Then his eyes turned with interest
toward Adair. “And who, Conal Bruce, is this fair creature?”
Before the laird might speak Adair did. “I am Adair Radcliffe, Your Highness.”