Kendra's heart felt light as they rode back. She'd heard a warmth in Trick's voice that made her feel perhaps he was finally opening up. When she smiled over at him, he smiled back, raking her from head to toe with those amber eyes. A glimmer in them assured her that he liked what he saw, and her body reacted immediately.
How many more hours until they could sneak up to their chamber at Duncraven tonight? She'd never thought she'd look forward to anything in that gloomy place, but they had five long weeks to make up for.
Back at the ruins, she tethered Pandora and followed Trick into the dungeon, shivering a bit as she descended the narrow, cold staircase in the slanting light of the open trapdoor.
He turned to her at the bottom. "You're not still frightened, are you?"
"Maybe. A little." The candles had all guttered out. She hurried to get her cloak from the manacle on the wall.
He blocked her path and grabbed her around the middle, leaning to give her a kiss.
Just like that, her fear melted away. As his mouth slanted over hers, a dizzying cloud of his sandalwood scent surrounded her, overwhelming the dungeon's mustiness and reminding her of what she'd been thinking earlier. Her senses spun wildly, and before she knew what was happening, he'd lifted her by the waist.
"Oof! What are you doing?"
His only answer was a raised brow as he walked forward, then sat her in the open cage, letting her legs dangle out where the door hung loose. He gave the ugly black thing a push to start it swinging.
The metal felt cold beneath her skirts, and the swinging chain made an awful grating noise. Holding tight to the opening, she gave a shaky laugh.
He grinned. "See? It's not scary down here at all. Not with the sunlight and the company. And it must not have been scary to my mother, either, considering it was her special place."
Trying to be a good sport, Kendra reached her toes to push off again. The chain moaned a protest. "I can imagine her coming here to think," she told him, swaying to and fro. "The way you go to the cottage at Amberley."
He hesitated, then nodded his head. "Aye, just like that."
Pleased that he'd admitted as much, she pressed for more. "You write there, don't you?"
"Sometimes." He gave the cage another shove, sending the chain to its screeching song.
"I wonder if your mother wrote here?"
"I never saw her write anything other than letters. But I'd lay odds she came here with Hamish when they were younger—and not to write." He pushed her again, flashing a grin or a leer, she wasn't sure which. "Aye, I can picture them here, all right. I bet they came here to secretly make love."
A little tingle started in the pit of her stomach. "Make love? In here?"
"It's private enough." He cocked a brow. "I was conceived here. I can feel it."
"That's ridiculous." But intrigued, she looked around. "There's no bed."
"What makes you think we need a bed?"
"W-we?" Her fingers clenched the iron bars. "You cannot be serious. I cannot imagine—"
With his hands on the bars that flanked her head, he stilled the cage. "Ah, lassie, it's not really so hard to imagine." His wicked smile drew her attention to that tiny, charming chip on his tooth, and he took advantage, reaching down to flip up her skirts.
"Trick! What—" He was fumbling with the laces on his breeches. "Oh, my God."
"This would be easier in that kilt," he muttered.
And suddenly she had no problem imagining at all. In fact, her imagination was becoming reality. Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart began to hammer in her chest.
Kendra watched, riveted, as Trick ripped the lacing from its holes and stuffed it into his pocket. The front of his breeches gaped open.
"Oh, my God." She gripped the iron bars even tighter. "You cannot think—"
"Aye, now that you mention it, I
am
having trouble thinking." Tossing his hair from his face, he stepped close, a lethal look in his eye with a grin to match. "My head feels a bit light."
"Oh, my—"
Cutting off her words, his mouth came down on hers. Hot and frantic, his tongue delved inside immediately, and all at once, her head felt light, too. His hands spread her knees, and he stepped between them, pressing close. His warmth teased hers, and a shimmer of melting sensation rippled every nerve in her body.
Just like that, she wanted him inside. Part of her had been waiting for this from the moment he'd given her that lust-threaded look the first time they were down here. The saner part of her had gone into hiding.
He kissed her chin, her throat, the broad expanse of her cleavage exposed in the yellow gown's low neckline. Down below, she strained against him. "Oh, my God." She wiggled forward, wanting him, craving him. She needed him to fill her. "Now, Trick. Please."
With a low groan, he shoved his hips closer, and the cage swung away.
Suddenly bereft, she hung there in space—such a loss, the heat of his body. When the cage swung back, she released the bars to grip him tightly.
"Hell,
leannan
, this won't work."
"It has to." A fire burned inside her—how instantly it had flamed! She hadn't known it could happen so fast. She wrapped her legs around him, straining closer, a hot ache in the place she wanted him to be.
As her hands roamed his back, she groaned, irked to find so much clothing covering his body. A surcoat, a shirt, a cravat around his neck where her lips wanted to nip. "Your skin," she whispered, nipping his earlobe instead. "I want to touch you."
She tugged at the knot at his throat, managing to loosen it, ripping at the laces beneath. But the placket wouldn't allow enough access to make her happy, so she tugged the shirt out of his breeches in the back, slipping her hands up underneath.
"Jesus, lass." He rocked his hips closer again.
And the cage moved right out from under her.
The forward force of her body made him stumble back, but he managed not to drop her or fall. She clung to him, arms and legs wrapped tight.
"Hang on," he grated out. Capturing her mouth in a kiss, he walked forward, every movement an exquisite friction in that small unclothed area where her body met his. By the time he sat her on the rack, she was gasping for breath. He eased her onto her back and made to climb up—but the ancient, rickety contraption shuddered beneath them.
At the ominous sound of cracking wood, she twisted and jumped off, having to rip her skirt free of a large splinter. She frantically glanced around. Once this space had been filled with nice, solid chests, but now nothing was left to support them.
"The floor is dirt," she moaned.
"Easy, lass." Reaching for her, he raised a devilish brow. "We've no need to lie down." His hands warm on her shoulders, he backed her up until she was flush against the wall.
She couldn't envision how it would work, but she didn't care, so long as they could finish what they'd started. And when he took her mouth in a heated kiss, thoughts fled her head entirely. As the caress deepened, she raised her arms, intending to wrap them around his neck—and one of her hands hit an unhinged manacle.
At the muted thud, they both looked up, their ragged breathing the only sounds in the deserted dungeon. The expression in his eyes made her heart leap, made her remember him holding her hands above her head in the tunnel at Duncraven. Watching for his reaction, she wriggled her wrist into the open oval.
"Nay." His hungry gaze went down to her raised breasts, then back up, darting between the manacles on either side of her head.
Her own gaze followed.
"Nay," he said again. A more frustrated laugh she'd never heard. "It may be every man's fantasy, but you're not ready for that,
leannan
."
She was burning for him, and never in her life had she imagined herself fulfilling a man's fantasy. "Please," she whispered. She wrapped her free arm around his neck but left her other hand half-cuffed as she went to her toes for another kiss.
The kiss deepened, and she could feel his heart pounding against her breasts, her own blood rushing to match the wild cadence. "Please," she repeated against his lips.
A soft murmur vibrated from his body into hers, a sound of capitulation mixed with unbridled lust that made her knees threaten to buckle under her.
Lifting his head, he locked his gaze on hers. "Do you trust me,
leannan
?" His amber eyes fluttered closed and then opened, burning into hers, the most fervent, forthright gaze she'd ever seen. "Do you trust me?"
"Oh, yes," she breathed.
And she did. No matter that he robbed Puritans and didn't seem to trust
her
, in his own unique way he was the most honorable man she'd ever known. It seemed he always—always—wanted to do the right thing.
She waited, willing him to believe her, until finally he reached up. Cold metal circled her wrist, a grating creak in her ear and a
bang
as the manacle closed.
"Oh, my God, Trick."
"It's not locked. Just tell me if you want out." When she didn't cry off, he lifted her, fitting her legs around his middle before he reached for her other arm. "The offer stands—I can have the cuffs open before the words pass your lips." His voice turned hurried, frenzied. "Keep your legs wrapped,
leannan
. I don't want any weight on your hands. I would never, ever want to hurt you."
Snap
.
Another bracelet around her second wrist, black iron instead of amber. Pressing her against the wall while he reached between their bodies, he tugged her skirts up and tucked the hem behind her shoulders. And with a quick upward thrust, he drove into her.
"Oh, my God." Her eyes slid shut, and she struggled against the restraints, not hurting or frightened—he hadn't locked them, after all—but just frantic with the need to touch him. In her few lessons on love, she'd enjoyed the giving as much as the taking.
Although she wanted to gift herself over to him, it was so hard to only succumb.
But as his hips initiated the rhythm her body craved, succumb she did. She clenched her fists against that urge to touch, her fingernails digging into her palms. Helpless to participate, she could only feel. Her skin prickled, her heart raced, and her whole world centered where her body met his.
It was agony, but sweet, so sweet.
As his tempo quickened, she felt a throbbing, and she couldn't tell if it was hers or his. Then it grew, until she knew it belonged to them both. Until she felt him pulsing within her and responded in a burst of exquisite glory.
"Oh. My. God."
"Are you all right,
leannan
?" Panting, he moved to release her wrists. Her legs straightened, reaching for the floor, and she slid down his body, her gown still wrenched up between them.
As she stood there on trembling limbs, he brought her wrists to his mouth and kissed them, one and then the other, so cherishingly that she thought her heart might crack at the tender look in his eyes.
"I think maybe I got carried away there," he confessed in a husky whisper, circling her wrists with his hands. Rubbing. Warm, and so gentle. "Are you all right?"
She gave him a shaky smile. "I don't believe I've ever been better."
His hands stilled, and the beginning of a grin tipped a corner of his mouth. "Are you sure,
leannan
?"
"Dear God, I've never been more sure in my life."
The ride was hardly short, but Kendra was still glowing with aftereffects when they walked through the tunnel and into the great hall. Their hands were joined, and she looked down to her wrist. A bracelet of amber and the faintest pink line, not enough to hurt or even feel, just enough to remind her of the glorious afternoon.
Seated at a trestle table with a hearty meal before him, Hamish's gaze went to their joined hands as well. He smiled, a sigh escaping his lips. "You two put me in mind of my Elspeth, you do. Happy newlyweds you are, and glad I am of it."
It was true they were happy. True for Kendra, and as she met Trick's gaze, she knew it was true for him, too. Perhaps the matter of his parentage was disturbing, and perhaps she wasn't finished climbing the wall he'd built between them. But they'd turned a corner in that dungeon—they had laid the foundation for trust. A foundation they could build on in the days and weeks to come.
"The first time Da's been downstairs in weeks," Niall told them with a grin. "Join us, will you? Da has been trying to puzzle out what happened. Did you find any clues?"
Trick handed him the key. "Not much," he admitted, emptying his pockets. "Just this scrap of cloth"—he gave it to Hamish—"and this piece of glass." He set the shard on the table with an audible
clink
, then seated himself.
Kendra sat beside him, and plates were set before them. Seeing nothing sweet on the table, she took a wedge of spinach tart while Trick eyed a platter of meat slices swimming in onions and a savory-smelling sauce.
"What is this?" he asked.
"Mutton," Niall told him. "Scotch collops."
"Sounds good." He transferred a piece to his plate.
"Homespun." Hamish fingered the dark fabric. "It could have belonged to anyone, but most likely a common worker. Certainly not Elspeth or myself. As for this"—he picked up the glass—"it looks to be part of an old bottle. Wine, I'm guessing. We broke our share of them down there over the years."
Feeling her face heat, Kendra exchanged a look with Trick. And a secret smile. Maybe he
had
been conceived there.
And they could have conceived there themselves, she realized with a start.
He turned back to his father. "We also found many footprints—they looked to be of four different people, clustered around the chests as they lifted. Three larger sets of prints and one smaller." He polished off the mutton and reached for another serving. "So more folk than Niall supposed must have known about the treasure."
"More folk know about it now," Hamish corrected. His mouth straightened into a grim line. "After the original folk enlisted their help in this crime."