Authors: Bertrice Small
“I had no idea that you were so ambitious,” he said slowly.
“All women are ambitious when it comes to their bairns, Conal,” she answered him with a small smile.
“We do the best we can, but we always want better for our bairns, my lord. It is in our nature, I fear.”
Now it was his turn to laugh. Then he said, “I will leave all of this in your most capable hands, my honey love, for the truth is I am naught but a humble border lord of no particular importance who has obviously married far above his station.”
They stopped once to relieve themselves and rest the
horses. They chewed on oatcakes to still their hunger pangs, and sipped whiskey from a flask to force some warmth into their bodies. Adair could no longer feel her feet, and her hands holding the reins of her horse felt icy and stiff. Not to mention her bottom, which ached. She wanted nothing more than a hot bath, which she knew she would be unlikely to obtain in a house full of guests come to be with the king.
Finally, as the winter sun was setting over the western hills, they reached Hailes Castle. It was not a large dwelling, but it was certainly bigger than Cleit. Their horses clumped across the thick wooden drawbridge, which lay over a frozen moat, and into the courtyard of the castle. Patrick Hepburn himself came to greet his guests as their horses were taken away to the stables.
“Welcome to Hailes,” the Earl of Bothwell said.
“Come into the hall, all of you.” The sweeping gesture of his arm included the Cleit men at arms. “There’s food and drink for all.” He kissed Adair’s little gloved hand.
“I apologize that my wife is not here to also greet you, but she is near her time and unwell. She awaits us in the hall.” He ushered them inside.
“I was not aware you had a wife,” Adair said quietly.
“Aye, Janet Douglas. She’s the daughter of the Earl of Morton. We wed earlier this year, right before Sauchieburn,” the earl said.
“And she is not well? I am sorry,” Adair replied.
They entered Hailes’s great hall, with its two large fireplaces burning high and bright. It was warmer here, Adair was relieved to find, than the corridors of the castle. Still, she thought it would be a day or two before she completely thawed out from their long ride. She followed the earl to one of the hearths, where a young woman sat in an upholstered high-backed chair, a small black-and-brown terrier at her feet.
“My angel,” the earl said. “This is Conal Bruce, the laird of Cleit, and his wife, Adair. They have come to pay you their respects.”
The Countess of Bothwell looked up at them and smiled a warm but wan smile of greeting. Adair understood why her husband addressed her as
my angel
. Janet Douglas Hepburn was petite and fragile, with pale blond hair and light blue eyes. Her belly was enormous with the child she was carrying. “You are most welcome to Hailes,” she said in an almost ethereal voice. “I do not envy you the ride you have had this day. Even here inside the castle I feel the winter’s cold.”
The laird bowed, and Adair curtsied to the earl’s wife.
“When is your bairn due?” Adair asked her, and saw out of the corner of her eye that her husband and their host were moving away.
“Shortly, the midwife tells me,” Janet Douglas Hepburn replied with a sigh. “Sit down and keep me company, unless you wish to join your husband or the other ladies who are all crowding about the king.” Her blue eyes twinkled. “He has been eagerly awaiting your arrival,” she said.
“I think I will remain with you, madam,” Adair responded. “Conal is a jealous man, and has grumbled at me the entire ride over the king’s kindness to me.”
The Countess of Bothwell laughed, albeit weakly.
“Jamie has charm, I will admit. He is a really wicked laddie. He attempted to seduce me into his bed just before Patrick and I were wed, the young wretch.”
“I am relieved to say he has not approached me in that manner,” Adair lied.
“Yet,” the Countess of Bothwell said with another twinkle. “Sit down, my lady Adair, and keep me company, as you are not of a mind to join the others. Have you bairns of your own?”
“We lost a daughter, Jane, last winter,” Adair said.
“But we are so recently wed that there is time for others. Conal said we could not come if I was with child. So I never told him I am. He will come in late summer, I imagine.”
Janet Douglas Hepburn laughed softly. “You are a
strong lass,” she said. “I wish I were, but I am not. ’Tis most unusual for a Scotswoman. Patrick should really not have sought to wed me, for I am frail, as you can see.
My mother did not want it, but I did. I fell in love with him the first time he came to Castle Douglas and I saw him. I pray daily for a son, for if this bairn does not kill me it is unlikely I will ever have another.”
“Oh, madam!” Adair cried. “Why would you say such a thing? My stepmother, Queen Elizabeth Woodville, was petite and dainty like you, and she gave my sire ten bairns.” She crossed herself quickly. “This is your first child, and you are concerned.”
The young countess reached out and took Adair’s hand in her own. “You are kind, my lady of Cleit, but I
know
what my fate will be. You are King Edward’s daughter? Tell me how that came about.”
Adair briefly related her history to Janet Douglas Hepburn. Her companion was wide-eyed with fascina-tion, for it all, she remarked to Adair, sounded like one of those adventurous tales that the minstrels sang about. By the time she had concluded her story it was time for the meal. The earl came to escort his wife to the high board, where to Adair’s surprise she and Conal had been seated. But then, looking about, she saw that there were really very few guests. A servant had taken her long wool cape as she stood to repair to the high board.
Beneath it she wore a simple yellow wool gown with a high neck and long sleeves, each with a row of tiny buttons carved from wood and stained dark. About her hips was an embroidered girdle of cloth of silver.
“You look like a spring flower, cousin,” the king said.
He was seated at the earl’s right hand. “Come and kiss me in greeting. You have not done so yet.”
Adair went to the king’s chair and dutifully leaned down to give him a quick kiss upon his ruddy cheek, but James Stewart turned his head, and Adair was shocked to find her lips meeting his. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she sprang back before the kiss could become
something it shouldn’t. A swift glance told her Conal had not seen, and her sigh was almost audible.
“Another time, cousin,” the king murmured mischievously.
She laughed. “I think not, Your Highness,” she told him primly, and then sought the seat to which she had been assigned.
The earl had invited a distant cousin, Eufemia Lauder, an attractive woman with dark red hair and brown eyes. She had been widowed twice, and was delighted to have been chosen by her relative to be his guest and the king’s bed partner. Eufemia was a practical and discreet woman with no pretensions. She would satisfy the king’s lust with enthusiasm while he visited the earl, and not weep when he departed, or beg to know when he would come back. She would accept the gift he gave her with good grace, and then return to her own home. But most important of all, she was respectable enough to be accepted by the Countess of Bothwell and Adair. While Patrick Hepburn knew his king’s needs, he would never insult his wife or another woman by forcing them to associate with a woman of dubious reputation. The king did not have a mistress at the moment or else he would have brought her to Hailes. There were two other gentlemen in the hall tonight. One was the earl’s brother-in-law, James Douglas, and his wife. The other was the earl’s younger brother, Adam, and his wife.
The meal was good, Adair thought, but not as good as those of her own house, and that thought gave her great satisfaction. She was going to tell Conal tonight that she was expecting another child. They were here, and there was nothing he could do about it. Fortunately, other than breaking her link with the moon, she was showing no other signs of her condition. In fact, she felt outrageously wonderful. It was not like the first time, when she had been sick from the very beginning.
When the meal had been concluded they left the high
board and gathered about the countess’s chair by one of the hearths. The earl’s piper played for them, and the men danced together while the women watched from their seats. Finally the earl and the king sat down to play a game of chess. The other three men sat together talking. Adair was glad that they had come, and she suspected that Conal was too. He was laughing with the others, and seemed quite at his ease, though he had thought he wouldn’t.
A servant came and asked if she might show the ladies to their bedchambers, which Adair took to mean that the evening was over. She arose with the others and curtsied to the countess. Then the women followed after the serving woman, who brought them to a high floor in the castle and directed each lady to her own chamber.
The room was not large by any means. There was a small hearth, which was burning brightly. A tiny window was shuttered with a thick wooden shutter, and a heavy curtain was drawn across it to temper the wind that still managed to come through the shutter’s cracks. There was a large bed. A single chair. Nothing more; nor could anything else have fit within the space. Their saddlebags had been laid carefully upon the bed. Adair drew out her two new gowns, shook them, and laid them over the chair. Then she hung the bags on a hook that stuck out of the wall by the fire. Undressing quickly, she washed her face and hands in the basin that had been set on the edge of the hearth, and climbed quickly into bed to wait for her husband.
She was almost asleep when Conal came in. He undressed swiftly and climbed into the bed, reaching out for her. “I’m glad you insisted we come,” he said softly, and then he kissed her lush mouth, running his tongue around it teasingly. His hand reached out for her breast, which he kneaded as he spoke to her.
“I like the countess,” Adair said to him.
“Patrick is fearful she is going to die with the child,”
Conal said.
“All first-time fathers worry foolishly. Fortunately, those with more experience do not. We’re going to have another bairn, Conal. In late summer.”
“You lied to me then,” he said, his voice tight.
“I did,” Adair admitted, totally unashamed. “I wanted to come. There was no harm in my riding right now. But you would have not trusted me to know myself, and then we would have fought over it. Neither of us would have been happy about the outcome, Conal. I can already tell that this is not like the first time. I feel strong.
The bairn growing within me is strong. Don’t be angry, my honey love,” she cajoled him.
“I should beat you,” he told her grimly.
Adair snuggled in his embrace. “Ohh, would you spank me?” she teased. Reaching for one of his hands, she drew it around her and placed it on her bottom, wiggling against the hand. “Have I been a bad lass, my lord?” she asked him in a singsong little-girl voice, rubbing herself against him in an outrageously provocative fashion. His manhood was already hard against her thigh.
“You are incorrigible,” he said, trying not to laugh.
Jesu!
He was hard as iron. “What if you harmed yourself? Or the bairn?” He was putting her on her back as he spoke, pushing up her chemise as she pushed up his.
“It’s too early to be dangerous,” Adair told him. “Oh, hurry, hurry, my honey love! I am so hot for you tonight!” She drew him in close, wrapping her legs about him as he slowly entered her wet heat with a groan.
He shivered as his length sheathed itself within her.
Would he ever grow tired of this woman? Nay. He would not. No matter how many times he possessed her, each time they coupled was like the first time for him.
The excitement of pressing his manhood deep, of feeling her yielding to him—it always seemed new and different. He felt her tighten herself around him, and groaned again. “Witch,” he whispered into her perfumed black hair. “I love you!”
Adair let the sensations he engendered within her blossom and grow. She loved the feel of his thick length as he slowly, oh, so slowly sheathed himself within her.
Every fiber of her being seemed to meet in that single spot inside of her body. Liquid, fiery, honeyed heat engulfed her until she was burning up. She moaned his name. “Conal! Conal!” And then he began to piston her with long, measured strokes of his lover’s lance, and her head was thrashing wildly against the pillows as she whispered over and over again her love for him. Her head was spinning with the incredible pleasure he was giving her. She cried out, unable to help herself. Stars and moons swirled behind her closed eyes, and she flew until she could fly no more. It was then that she tumbled into a velvet darkness that seemed to reach up to enfold her in its warm and tender embrace.
Conal plunged over and over again into her liquefied heat. No matter how hard he worked himself he couldn’t find release at first. But then her small hands closed around his buttocks. Her nails dug deep into his flesh, and he felt his passions roaring up to overflow within her. He could not prevent the cry of pleasure that emanated forth from his mouth. A primitive howl that burst forth from his throat surprised him even as they met ecstasy together. And then they slept, entwined in each other’s embrace.
When the morning came and they prepared to go down to the hall, the laird of Cleit took his wife into his arms and kissed her a long, slow kiss. “You are a bad lass, Adair, but I do trust you,” he told her.
“And I’m sorry I did not tell you I was again with child. But you would have argued with me, Conal. You know you would have,” she said.
He laughed ruefully. “Aye, I would have,” he
admitted.
“And then I would have had to ride off without you, and you would have come tearing after me,” she said.
“Aye,” he agreed again, “I would have.”
“So it really was better that I waited until we were here at Hailes to tell you,” she concluded.
“Aye, it was,” he said, laughing as he kissed her nose.