“Come here,” Quinton said, his voice sounding lower-pitched than usual, as if it nearly had not made it out of his throat.
“Perhaps,” she said again, her fingertips still moving gently as she reached with her other hand to untie the lacing. The opening of the shirt gaped. It was wide enough, she knew, to slip off her shoulders. Idly, she trailed her fingertips up toward her neck, playing with the narrow lace edging. With her other hand, one aglet at a time, she pulled the lacing free, letting the opening gape wider and wider.
Quinton watched, transfixed. She saw the tip of his tongue slip out to dampen his lips, and she saw, too, that he was becoming as aroused as he had been at the river. No longer was he looking into her eyes. He was watching her hands.
Slowly, slowly, she eased the shirt off one shoulder, then the other, letting it slip down her arms till the soft upper portion of her breasts showed above the lacy edge of the opening. Then, without another word, she lowered her arms and let the shirt slide down them and drop to the floor.
Quinton was practically panting. Already he was reaching for the buttons on his doublet. She smiled and stepped forward, naked. “Let me,” she said.
His eyes widened, but he did not speak, taking his hands away and letting them relax at his sides. She unbuttoned the first button, taking her time, knowing that the longer she took the more aroused he would become.
He did not wait for her to finish. When she reached for the third button, he grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, hugging her tight and claiming her lips with his. He moaned deep in his throat when she responded, and a moment later, he picked her up and carried her to the bed.
She lay there and watched while he cast off doublet, breeks, and boots. His hunger for her was so plain that she wondered if he would fling himself on her and take her swiftly. Right up to the moment when he stood naked, looking down at her, she thought—even hoped—that he would, and her own desire ignited accordingly.
He climbed onto the bed, but then, with a wry little smile, he hesitated. “You should take care, lassie,” he said, “lest you get yourself hanged for witchcraft.”
“Art going to talk or make love, sir?”
Chuckling, he licked a finger and touched it to the tip of one breast.
She gasped and reached for him, but he leaned back. “It is my turn,” he said.
Grinning, she said, “Do your worst, then. I’ll survive it.”
His hand left her breast and moved lower to her belly and below. She closed her eyes, letting the sensations flow through her until his lips and then his tongue replaced his fingers, and she could no longer remain still. Following his lead, she began to try things she had never even imagined doing before, and when he claimed her at last, she felt as if they had tempted the flames of hellfire, but she did not seem to care. All she cared about was Quinton and what he could make her feel.
He took her twice before they were sated, and when they lay back against the pillows at last, she felt as if every ounce of energy had drained from her body.
“I’ll never move again,” she murmured sleepily.
He did not answer for so long that she thought he might have fallen asleep. Then he said lazily, “Don’t count on that.”
“Again, sir? So soon?”
“Nay, but I’ve acquired a taste for your favors, lass, and I have missed you sorely. I’ll want to savor them again very soon.”
“Good.” She did not have enough energy to say more, but when rhythmic scratching at the bedchamber door interrupted the silence, she started to sit up.
“Stay where you are,” Quinton said. “I’ll let him in. I’ve missed him, too.”
He let Jemmy in, then got back into bed and, pulling her closer, drew the covers over them. A soft thump at the foot of the bed and a purr announced that Jemmy had joined them, but Janet barely acknowledged him. Her head had settled into the hollow of Quinton’s shoulder, and a moment later she slept.
Janet awoke to a tickling tingle that radiated through her right breast. A teasing finger caressed its nipple, and the tingling flowed through her like a river in spate. As she stirred in response, warm lips touched hers, and she opened her eyes to see her husband’s face against the gray light of dawn illuminating the room.
“Good morning,” she murmured against his lips. “I don’t suppose it matters, but I was sleeping.”
“It is time to wake up,” he said, as one hand moved over her belly and down, following the flow of the tingling river. His fingers teased for only a few moments before he was inside her and her body was stirring in response. When he relaxed again, he said, “This is a much more satisfactory way to wake up in the morning than Scrope’s way. I am very glad to be home.”
Deciding that her tactics had worked wondrously well, she said demurely, “Then may I take it, sir, that you have decided not to beat me after all?”
“I shall have to think about that,” he said, “but I believe I can collect all you owe me without a switch. I will enjoy growing accustomed to certain of the things you did for my entertainment last night that you had not done before.”
Feeling heat in her cheeks at the memory, she said, “Perhaps we can make an agreement then.”
“It is not agreement we need, sweetheart, but practice.”
Hearing laughter in his voice, she said, “We can do as you like, sir, but take care that you do not overstep your mark. Recall that my temperament is not placid.”
“Thank God,” he said.
“There is one thing that I should tell you,” she said.
“While I am in this exceptionally good mood?”
“Aye. I talked a bit with Hugh yesterday after…”
“Aye, and…?”
“And he misses me, he says. He would like me to visit Brackengill. He says that he misses the music and the laughter.”
“And you, Jenny lass, do you miss Brackengill?”
“Not enough to want to return and live there, but I would like to visit from time to time, just to see that all is well.”
“Do you trust him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then we will think on it together and not make a decision straightaway.”
She nodded. “That is a good notion, I think.”
This accord between them continued; however, ten days after their return from Carlisle, a messenger arrived from Hermitage with a disturbing message from Buccleuch.
Sir Quinton and his lady were sitting companionably in the master’s hall, while she mended one of his shirts and he looked over his accounts to decide whether to subject one of his fields to the plow. After hastily reading the missive and dismissing the messenger, he said, “Apparently, Scrope sent his own version of the raid to Elizabeth and she is demanding Buccleuch’s head.”
“Buccleuch?” Janet exclaimed. “I knew such a thing was possible, of course, and he did plan the raid. Still, it hardly seems fair for her majesty to be angry with him when she cannot know that he did and when he was not even there!”
“According to Scrope, not only was he there but he led the raid himself and did all manner of damage to Carlisle. Scrope told Elizabeth that Buccleuch was the fifth man into the castle, that he was actually heard to cry out threats to the garrison. Furthermore, Scrope wrote that there were five hundred in the raiding party, that they undermined the postern and got in and out before resistance could be made.”
“He should be ashamed of writing such lies to his queen,” Janet said indignantly. “None of that is really true.”
“There’s more,” Quinton said with a wry smile. “I am said to have given my word not to escape, which certainly is not true, and he blames the Grahams—”
“The Grahams! Does he even blame Hugh?”
“Nay. At least Buccleuch does not say so, and I doubt that Scrope would. He says Scrope called the Grahams caterpillars who gnaw at their own countrymen and a ‘viperous generation.’ And,” he added with a glinting look at her, “he suggests that it was a female Graham who learned the exact whereabouts of his prisoner. We have not yet discussed that particular venture of yours, have we, sweetheart?”
“Did Elizabeth write directly to Buccleuch?” Janet asked hastily.
“Worse,” Quinton said with a look that told her he knew she wanted to divert him from the subject of that first visit to Carlisle. “She sent her complaints to Jamie, and apparently Jamie has suggested that Buccleuch should answer them in person.”
“In person!”
“Aye. According to Buccleuch, who seems to be treating the entire matter as a jest, Elizabeth called him ‘God’s curse’ and even suspects him of popish” plotting. She demands that he be jailed forthwith.”
“Godamercy, James will not cast Buccleuch into prison, will he?”
“Buccleuch does not think so. He believes that we can trust Elizabeth’s ambassador, who is a shrewd and capable chap, to explain to her that Scrope understandably neglected to mention his own incompetence in representing himself as a mere victim of Buccleuch’s villainy. I doubt that anything will placate her, however. A royal fortress was breached, after all. She will not easily forgive that.”
“What will she do?”
“Most likely, she and Jamie will enjoy a debate that will occupy them for some months, but in the end his need to give her contentment may well result in his ordering Buccleuch to London to face her.”
“Godamercy,” Janet said again. “Well, if he goes, I must go with him.”
“You will do no such thing!”
“But I must. It was as much my doing as anyone’s, and so I must tell her.”
“And what about me? Do I accompany you or remain safely at home?”
“You can’t go!” In her haste to assume some of Buccleuch’s blame, she had not thought of that. “What if she clapped you into the Tower?”
“I suppose it would be better if she clapped my wife up instead.”
His tone was sardonic now, and she knew that he was growing angry again. Swallowing hard, she held her tongue, unable to think of anything to say that would soothe him or make him understand her feelings.
After a long moment, he said, “What would you say to her if you did go?”
“You’re teasing me now,” she muttered resentfully.
“Perhaps, a little, but you have a habit, sweetheart, of acting first and thinking afterward, and once you get a notion in your head, it isn’t easy to get it out again. Imagine yourself in London with Buccleuch. Imagine him facing Elizabeth, telling her that he did not lead the raid, that in fact it was Lady Scott who did.”
“But he would not! Indeed, it was Hob the Mouse, and the Laird of Todrigg, and Gaudilands—”
“Just imagine it,” he said sternly as he stood up and assumed a royal posture with his arms folded across his chest and his feet apart. “I shall be Elizabeth. What will you say to me after Buccleuch betrays your part in the matter?”
His eyes narrowed, and in that instant he looked as fearsome as any monarch might, and she saw how absurd her suggestion had been. She had never seen the queen, but she had heard much of her temper, and she could not, in her wildest fantasies, imagine the powerful Buccleuch offering his cousin’s wife up as a sacrificial lamb.
“Lady Scott,” Quinton said in that daunting, royal manner, “is it true that you led the Borderers who attacked my castle at Carlisle?”
“Aye, madam,” Janet snapped, deciding to play his silly game and see how far he would take it. “’Twas all my doing. The men rode because I asked them to.”
The gimlet gaze narrowed even more. “Rise, Lady Scott, and approach. One does not remain seated in the royal presence if one wants to keep one’s head.”
Setting her mending aside, Janet got up and made a deep curtsy. What began in a sense of mockery, however, suddenly no longer felt like just a silly game. The Queen of England carried the power of life and death in the flick of a royal finger.
“Approach, Lady Scott,” Quinton repeated softly.
Janet obeyed, coming to a halt a few feet away from him and trying to control fluttering nerves by reminding herself that it was just a game.
“You are our subject, are you not?”
Forcing calm, she said, “It is true that I am English by birth and breeding,
madam
, but I married across the line. My husband claims my loyalty.”
“Very prettily said. Did your husband command you, then, to lead that impertinent raid against our castle at Carlisle?”
Janet hesitated, worried less about what an imaginary queen might think of her reply than what Quinton would think. She would not prevaricate, however. She said, “My husband commanded me to leave everything to Buccleuch, but when his diplomatic efforts failed, I took matters into my own hands.”
“Indeed, madam. We wish to know how you dared to undertake such a presumptuous venture against the queen’s peace, particularly when you acted in direct opposition to your husband’s will.”
Straightening, Janet lifted her chin and said firmly, “What does a woman not dare to do when her honor and all else that matters to her is at stake?”
The harsh look on Quinton’s face eased, replaced by a reluctant smile.
“Well said, lass. Such a declaration might well sway Elizabeth. Indeed, Buccleuch could do worse than to say much the same thing to her when our Jamie orders him off to London to face her.”
“You do think that will happen, then.”
“Aye,” he said. “She is a cantankerous old woman who likes to get her way about things, and Jamie is determined to placate her for the sake of peace.”
“Do you not wish to placate Jamie?”
“I don’t care a whit for Jamie’s feelings,” he retorted. “My loyalty is to Buccleuch and to our Borderers. When Buccleuch wants peace, we will have it.”
“Here, too, Quinton? Will we have peace at Broadhaugh?”
He looked thoughtfully at her, and in that moment she knew that if the English Queen held the power of life and death in the crook of her little finger, Quinton held the power of happiness or misery in the twitch of an eyebrow. Her heart pounded, for she knew that his answer mattered more to her than she had thought it could.
He said, “Is it true that everything that mattered to you was at stake in Carlisle?”
“Aye, sir,” she said quietly. “I knew that my going would make you angry, but I could not sit meekly at home and wait for others to decide your fate. Are you still angry with me for taking part in the raid?”