He kissed the side of her neck, his hot breath sending strands of her hair flying.
A knock came against the door, and Isla jumped, bumping her foot against the wall.
“Ahh!” Her cry of pain was muffled by Alexander’s hair, now escaped from the tail it had been tied back into, as the door cracked and someone coughed tentatively from the other side.
“What!” Alexander cried as he frowned, clearly annoyed with whoever had the gall to interrupt them.
Isla thought of Alpin and pressed her hands over her heart, afraid it would thump its way right out of her chest.
God, don’t let it be him!
Alpin’s eyes flashed in her memory, cold and murderous.
“It’s me, Alex,” a woman’s voice called meekly, melting Isla’s fear away.
Alexander rolled to a sitting position on the side of the bed, smoothing his kilt as best he could over the significant bulge that had risen beneath it.
“Och,” he said. “Well, what is it?”
The door opened a little more and a dark-haired head poked in, quickly followed by a round, matronly body and a tray that was laden with a pot of tea and stacks of little cakes. Isla recognised the aproned woman who’d emerged from the kitchen to witness their handfasting.
“The Lady sent me,” their visitor explained, proffering the tray apologetically.
“And I suppose she expects ye to return with more than an empty tray?” Alexander asked knowingly.
The woman nodded. “Aye, I’m afraid so.” She cast a curious glance at Isla, who seized a blanket and used it to cover herself better than her thin shift did.
“Dinnae fash yourself, Mrs Mary,” Alexander said. “I was goin’ to call for ye anyway. My wife has got a broken foot.”
Isla’s heart swelled a little at hearing Alexander call her his wife. Yes, they’d handfasted, but it hardly seemed real yet. Rather, it was like a dream—one she feared she might awaken from. She wondered when the reality of the situation would settle in. Maybe tomorrow, when she and Alexander would ride to the nearest kirk to be married properly by a priest, as he’d promised her during their ride to Benstrath. She flinched slightly at the thought, imagining what her father would say if he knew she intended to be married by a papist. Probably nothing—he’d just have a quiet apoplexy instead.
Mrs Mary, as Alexander had called her, bustled across the room with a worried expression on her face, pausing only to shove the platter of snacks into Alexander’s hands.
“She’s got something of a reputation for mending wounds,” Alexander said, turning to assure Isla over the steaming tray.
Isla winced as Mrs Mary lifted her left foot from the bed, where it protruded from the blanket she’d covered herself with, but the woman’s touch was gentle as a mother’s.
“It looks fair swollen,” she said with a frown. “How’d it happen?”
“Her horse came down on her foot, spooked by thunder,” Alexander explained.
Mrs Mary
tsked
to herself as she gingerly felt the top of Isla’s foot. “Well, I can bind it for ye, but it’s only time will heal it.”
Alexander nodded, and Mrs Mary hurried from the room, exiting into the hallway and clattering down the stairs on her quest for bandages.
Alexander took one of the cakes from the tray she’d left with them and stuffed it into his mouth. Then he held the platter out towards Isla with his free hand. “Hungry?”
Isla nodded. “Fair starved, now that ye mention it.” She promptly seized a cake and ate it with a little more grace than Alexander had managed. Its sweet crumbs felt like soft boulders, tumbling pleasantly in the empty canyon of her stomach. By the time Mrs Mary returned, half the cakes were gone, and as much of the tea had been drained. Isla had drunk several cups of it, relishing the way it dissipated the damp chill that had seeped down into her bones over the course of the stormy day.
“Ready now?” Mrs Mary asked as she pushed the door open again, carrying an armful of white cloth. She settled on the edge of the bed without hesitation and lifted Isla’s foot again. “Hold it for me,” she instructed Alexander, who grasped her ankle gently as Mrs Mary relinquished her hold and picked up a soaked cloth instead. Slowly, carefully, she wiped away the dirt and debris that had accumulated on Isla’s bare foot. While the warm water she’d soaked the cloth in was soothing against Isla’s skin, even the weight of the washcloth made her foot twinge. She gritted her teeth and endured it, eager for the bandages to be on and the ordeal to be over.
Mrs Mary set the washcloth aside and began to wrap Isla’s foot in strips of pale cloth, tying the ends in a neat bow at her ankle. “Ye shouldnae be able to move it accidentally now,” she said when she’d finished, surveying her work with a critical eye. “Mind ye keep off your feet, though, or you’ll only make it worse.”
Isla nodded, lying back against a pillow and staring up at the ceiling as she searched for Alexander’s hand with her own. She found it and he gave hers a reassuring squeeze as Mrs Mary turned to him.
“Och, I almost forgot,” Alexander said. “Your hand.” He lifted her palm aloft, examining the long, narrow cut that ran along the side. “What do ye think, Mrs Mary? Does it need stitchin’?” Isla stomach plummeted. Stitching? She shuddered. Her hand had stopped bleeding back in the forest. Surely it didn’t need to be sewn shut. Her stomach threatened to empty itself of the cake and tea she’d downed just at the thought.
Mrs Mary took Isla’s hand and examined it with as much care as she’d shown her foot. “I dinnae think it needs stitchin’,” she finally said.
Isla breathed a sigh of relief as Mrs Mary gently washed the dirt from her hand with the warm cloth. “What about your hand, Alexander?” she asked. “And…and your chest wound.”
She hadn’t forgotten the sight of blood dripping from his wrist and fingers as he handed her his dirk, nor what she’d done to him with her own knife. Her heart ached at the thought, as much for his selflessness as her own horror at his willingness to let her slaughter him.
“Och, it isnae anythin’ serious,” he said, much more flippant about his own wound than he had been about Isla’s. She was touched by his concern, but also worried by his nonchalance. Though his hand hadn’t bled for long, she could still see crimson streaking his fingers in her mind’s eye. The spring water had clouded with red when he’d dipped his hand in it, leaving a visceral token of his presence as he washed himself.
Fortunately, Mrs Mary would not be dissuaded from looking. “T’would be hard to keep the stiches from poppin’ out,” she said thoughtfully, examining the long, neat cut that crossed his palm, deeper than the cut across the side of Isla’s hand. “But I dinnae think ye truly need ‘em anyway. Just mind ye use the hand carefully, so it doesnae start bleedin’ again.” She pulled a spare length of bandage from her apron pocket and began to wind it around his hand.
Alexander nodded wordlessly and picked one of the last cakes from the tray as Mrs Mary bound his hand. When he popped the morsel into his mouth, he started an awkward silence as he chewed.
It was Mrs Mary who broke the quiet several moments later. “I dinnae think it will go over well,” she said earnestly, her face lined with worry. “Your marriage, that is. They’ve gone fair mad with the news downstairs, and the Lady has sent young John to tell your father.”
Alexander frowned. “Well, tell them I’ll speak with them in the morn.”
Mrs Mary drew breath as if to speak, but Alexander cut her off. “They mustnae disturb us tonight.” His face was stern and his eyes were as piercing as ever. Isla pitied Mrs Mary, the sole subject of his gaze.
“Well I dinnae think that will satisfy them…” Mrs Mary began, and trailed off, appearing mildly flustered. “Och, verra well—I will tell them what you hae said.” She stood, smoothing her skirts.
“Leave the tray, if ye dinnae mind,” Alexander said as she started from the room. Mrs Mary nodded, cast one last look over her shoulder at him and left the room.
Alexander frowned at the door after she’d left.
“Is something wrong?” Isla asked. She felt foolish as soon as the words left her mouth. Of course something was wrong—at least as far as the rest of the Gordons were concerned. Alexander, heir of Benstrath, had come home with a strange, temporarily crippled Forbes and declared her his wife.
Alexander’s mind still seemed to be on Mrs Mary, and he answered Isla’s question after a brief pause. “I amnae proud of leaving her to fend them off by herself. Mrs Mary has worked here since I was a bairn, and I amnae as fond of most of my own blood relatives as I am of her. But I’ll be damned if I cannae have a night alone with my wife.”
He turned to Isla and pulled her against his chest. She shivered as his damp clothing pressed against her skin and shift.
“Sorry,” he said, releasing her and standing to remove his clothing.
She watched as he stripped off his shirt, revealing arms and shoulders that still glistened faintly with dampness. Dried blood matted his dark hair where she’d cut him below his breastbone, and she cringed at the sight, biting her lip until she tasted her own blood. How could she have come so close to killing him? Doing so had seemed to make sense at the time, had seemed to be her only way to redeem herself from the shame the Gordons had heaped upon her, but now…
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I wounded ye, Alexander.”
“Dinnae be sorry,” he said, taking a step towards the bed. “If anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I’m ashamed of what my kinsmen hae done to ye, and my life would be but a pittance to pay for your salvation.” He reached out and cupped her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. “But as it is, I’m glad it worked out this way instead.”
“Why?” Isla asked. “Did ye marry me only to ease your family’s guilt, then?”
She felt guilty herself for asking. And what if he had? People married for lesser reasons, and she should be glad of his kindness in any case. But at the same time, she’d felt sure there had been more to it than that when they’d made love at the spring. She would have sworn then that he’d wanted her badly for herself, and guilt be damned. Could she have imagined it?
Alexander shook his head. “No. You’re the most beautiful lass I’ve ever seen, Forbes or no. When I stole those kisses from ye by the roadside, I didnae think I’d ever have another taste of ye. When you agreed to marry me—to let me make love to you—I didnae think twice before doin’ either.” He stroked her jaw, catching a lock of her hair between two of his fingers and wrapping it gently around them. “If ye ask me, I think it was a mistake that ye were born a Forbes, to a family who didnae deserve ye. I think ye were always meant to be a Gordon.”
Isla blushed beneath the intensity of his gaze and looked away, blinking. That morning, such a claim would have infuriated her. But now, the only thing it seemed to bring was tears, which she fought to hold back. The thought of facing the rest of the Gordons made her stomach churn, but here in Alexander’s bed, she felt as if she belonged.
“Ye make me blush so that I think my face is aflame, Alexander.”
“Aye,” he said. “I like the sight of it.” He brushed her cheek with his hand, baring it as he tucked her hair behind her ear and settled onto the bed beside her. “Will ye touch me, then? As ye did in the woods?” He traced the back of her hand lightly with his fingers.
“Aye, I will,” she replied, finally dropping her gaze to his groin, where his cock had risen once again beneath his kilt.
Chapter Five
Alexander pulled his tartan from his body. It slid over his hips and to the floor.
Isla blushed as it fell, and what it revealed sent her heart racing. Before, she’d explored him by touch, under the cover of his kilt. There, in the secrecy of darkness, she’d become acquainted with his body. Then, she’d seen his cock only momentarily as he’d slid between her legs, and though she’d certainly
felt
every inch of it, the sight was still a shock now. It was as hard as it had been then, reaching towards her as if to beg her touch. His skin was flushed with the blood that filled it, and deep blue veins spanned the length beneath its surface. It was a brighter red in some places than his arousal accounted for, stained by her blood. Seeing the evidence of her surrendered maidenhood thrilled her in a way that she didn’t totally understand, and the flesh between her legs tingled at the sight. She extended her hand, reaching for him.
He sighed loudly as she closed her fist around his cock, and she did, too, as the nest of dark hair that grew at its base tickled her hand. She shifted her grip, eliciting another sigh as she went. Alexander reached out and cupped her face in his palms as she slid her hand back down the length of his erection, pressing her mouth hard to his and kissing her. She gripped him harder as he slid his tongue over hers.
When their lips parted, he removed his hands from her face and placed them instead on her thighs, where he caught up the hem of her shift and yanked it upwards, pulling it over her head in a spray of white linen and red waves of hair. Then he grasped her by her bare waist, pulling her close against him, careful to let her foot slide off the bed, where it hung safely in the air as he parted her thighs with his knee.
He placed a hand against the small of her back, forcing it to arch beneath his touch so that her breasts were raised and her head tipped back. He traced the curve of her neck with his lips, moving slowly downwards until his mouth touched the swell of one breast. He moved over it slowly, kissing, tasting her skin with his tongue. When he closed his mouth around her nipple, she gasped, and it hardened against his tongue. She arched her back further as he pressed his hand against the small of it, pulling her so hard against him that she found herself straddling one of his thighs, her body dampening his skin and the dark fuzz that covered it. He moaned and released her, allowing her to go limp in his arms, pressing her flushed cheek against his chest.