“Isla…” Alexander breathed, burying his fingers in her hair and kissing her again.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, his name on her lips as soon as they parted from his.
“Alexander…”
He grasped the round curves of her arse and pulled her against him so that her belly met his; soft flesh against hard muscle. His cock was caught between them, the thick tip of it pulsing in the hollow of her bellybutton. She reached down and touched it, remembering how it had felt inside her, and a shiver ran down her spine.
He lifted her high enough that he could kiss her without bowing his head, and his cock fell between her legs, pressing tantalisingly against her wet slit. He lowered her as she kissed him back, parting her slick folds with the head of his cock and sliding slowly, deeply inside her.
Her gasp broke their kiss. He pulled her tightly against his chest, so her breath warmed his shoulder and her hair brushed his chin. He flexed his hips and she wrapped her arms around his body, digging her nails into the flesh of his back as he pressed, deeper, deeper…
Footsteps sounded outside the door. Isla jumped—or made a motion as near to a jump as possible given her current position—which sent a jolt of sensation up through her belly and down to her toes as Alexander’s cock shifted even deeper inside her. She pressed her mouth against his shoulder, stifling a moan as the footsteps drew closer. They stopped, and Isla imagined someone standing at the other side of the door, poised on the brink of entry just as she was poised on the brink of…
“Ahhh,” she sighed, digging her raw fingertips so hard into Alexander’s back that they hurt, still raw from holding so tightly to Briar’s reins earlier that day. At the same time she pressed her mouth harder against his shoulder, biting down in a vain attempt at silence as climax seized her and her core erupted into a series of contractions so intense that they left her suddenly lightheaded. She let her head rest against his shoulder and clung to him as her body tightened around his cock, urging him to join her.
He cupped her arse, a cheek in each hand, and emitted a low grunt of satisfaction as his hips laboured beneath hers.
The sound of breath being drawn and exhaled in a perturbed manner came from the other side of the door, and the footsteps sounded again, leaving. Alexander held Isla hard against him and cried out as he finished, careless of who might hear. When his hips were finally still, he lifted her again, lowering her onto the mattress and curling beside her, sheltering her body in the curve of his, breathing into her hair and holding her close with an arm across her breasts.
* * * *
Isla awoke before sunrise the next morning, stirred by the sound of tartan rustling against skin and feet against floorboards. She rolled onto her side and found the other half of the bed still warm and hollowed where Alexander had laid. What was he doing, up before the sun and in such a hurry he hadn’t paused even to kiss her? After all, it was their first morning together as husband and wife. She hadn’t expected him to be so hasty to escape their bed. Blinking sleep from her eyes, she turned her gaze upon him.
He was already mostly dressed—his tartan hanging from his hips and crossing his chest and shirt in a wide sash, his sporran already in place. He was just stepping into his hose, his dark hair swinging freely around his jaw, when he looked up to meet Isla’s curious eyes.
“Up already?” she asked.
He straightened and raked a hand through his thick, dark hair. It was loose yet, and tousled by sleep. The effect wasn’t unbecoming.
“Aye. There’s somethin’ I must tend to straight away.”
She pushed an errant lock of her own hair out of her eyes. “What is it?”
He frowned.
She eyed him pointedly.
“I dinnae ken if I should tell ye just yet,” he finally said. “I thought ye’d still be asleep when I left.”
“Well, then ye shouldna hae said such a thing, for now I must ken what you’re up to.” She rested her chin on a fist and gazed at him levelly. What was so important—more important than the wedding he’d promised her today?
He pulled his hand from his dishevelled hair and placed it instead on his hip, as if he were reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. “I must challenge Alpin to a duel.”
Isla felt the colour drain from her face, leaving a cold feeling in her cheeks and the pit of her stomach as alarm began to creep through her veins. “A duel?”
He met her gaze levelly, his eyes a steely blue in the faint pre-dawn light. “Aye.”
“With your own brother! Ye cannae be serious!”
His eyes narrowed. “I am.”
“But…why?”
“For what he has done to ye. I cannae pretend it didnae happen.”
Isla sat up abruptly, her foot aching as she swung her legs off the bed and perched on its edge. She hardly noticed the pain, panicked as she was. “Alexander, ye dinnae have to do such a thing. I’m your wife, and that’s enough. I dinnae want to cause any more strife for your family than I already have, or to see ye lose your own brother.”
Or to lose ye…
She quickly tried to shove the idea from her mind. The thought was unbearable.
He snorted as he stepped into his shoes. “It wouldnae be a loss to weep over.”
She gripped the edge of the bed. “What do ye mean?”
“Well, he’s only my half-brother, and to tell the truth, I wish he wasnae even that.”
“Half-brother?”
“Aye. My mother was my father’s first wife. She died in giving birth to me, and my father remarrit. My stepmother was jealous of my mother when she marrit my father near twenty-five years ago, and she held on to that jealousy, even after my mother died and she herself became my father’s wife. She has always hated me, and her own son, Alpin, shares her sentiments.”
Isla’s stomach seemed suddenly full of rocks. “Ye mean ye would have let me take your life—or taken your own life—to pay for the crimes of a brother who hates you, who wouldnae have shed a tear over your death? Why did ye not tell me?”
Her head span, and tears stung the backs of her eyes. She stared at Alexander’s chest, as if she could see through his tartan sash and white shirt to the wound she’d inflicted on him. To think she’d come so close to killing him for the crimes of their mutual enemy was agony—though at least now she knew that Alpin’s hate wasn’t due entirely to the fact that she’d married Alexander.
He shook his head dismissively, his dark locks brushing his jaw and shoulders. “It didnae matter what Alpin would hae thought. If takin’ my life would hae been enough to redeem ye in your father’s eyes, it would hae been worth it.”
Isla stood suddenly, wincing and wobbling as her foot hit the floorboards, and proceeded to hobble towards him.
“I cannae believe you! Ye should hae told me, Alexander!” She stopped when she reached him, pressing her hands to his chest, as if her touch could heal his wound. “Ye mustnae go on with this foolishness of challenging Alpin to a duel.”
“I must, Isla.” His eyes were like blue coals, burning with decided intensity. “Your honour is mine to defend now.” He took her right hand in his and traced the thick scar that started at her wrist, eventually disappearing beneath the sleeve of her shift. “Your scars are mine to avenge.” He bowed his head to kiss the raised flesh, moving his lips gently over the pale stripe.
“Some things are more important,” she insisted. “Would ye extend the hand of salvation to me, only to pull it away and leave me alone in a den of lions the next morn?”
His mouth curved into a wry smile, and he let out a low chuckle. “Even if I lost the duel, ye wouldnae be in a
den of lions
, Isla.” He lifted her chin with his hand. “Dinnae forget, you’re my wife now, Isla Gordon. My father is a good man. He would see that ye were taken care of if I died.”
She took his hand in hers, her fingers tightening convulsively around his. How could he speak so casually of the possibility of his own death? Did he have any idea what it would do to her, how it would damage her? They had only just become one flesh, and to be torn so permanently from him would feel like death, she was sure. She’d already experienced enough loss to last a lifetime. “Why cannae this be a day of happiness? Why must ye stain the first morn of our marriage with blood?”
“I’ve already told ye. I willnae live and labour beside a man who has shed the blood of my wife without delivering justice.”
Isla clung to his hand, her eyes shining with tears she refused to shed. “Please, Alexander. Come back to bed with me.”
He sighed. “Isla, did ye not see the murder in Alpin’s eyes when we handfasted? Ye know better than anyone that he’s capable of it.”
She forced herself to speak calmly through her panic, forcing away images of Hamish, lying dead and bleeding at her feet. “Maybe t’was only that he didn’t take the news of our marriage well. He might hae calmed now that he’s had a night to absorb the shock!”
Alexander shook his head slowly and began to roll back his sleeve. “See that?” he asked, pointing to a faded scar that stretched across his elbow. “I was thrown from my horse. Found half a dozen burrs stuck to the bottom of the saddle blanket.”
He stooped and yanked down his hose, revealing a large, round spot of white, slightly raised flesh on the back of his calf. “Alpin ‘accidentally’ shot me while hunting. If the bullet had done any more than graze me, I might hae lost my leg—and perhaps my life.”
He pressed a hand against his side, laying his fingers over his ribs. “There isnae a scar, but at one time several of my ribs were broken when I fell from the hayloft. I never saw who came out of the dark behind me and pushed me, but I know it was Alpin. So ye see, he hasnae become such a devil suddenly, but has always been so.” He grimaced, drumming his fingers against his ribs.
Isla’s head span as she eyed Alexander, checking the exposed parts of his body for scars. What else might she have overlooked? What sinister explanation might lie behind the fine white scar that crossed his knuckles, for example? Suddenly, Alpin seemed more demon than man. Apparently, his actions had left a trail of blood and brutality through the lives of all whose paths he’d crossed, even his own kin. And he’d always worked in the shadows of cowardice, never seeking a fair fight. Now Alexander, her husband of just a few hours, intended to give him one.
“Please, Alexander, isnae there another way?” She met his eyes imploringly, her vision blurring with tears.
Damned Gordons
.
As stubborn as goats, and only half as intelligent.
She had to say something, anything, to get him to abandon his intentions. Honour be damned, she wanted her husband whole and unbloodied.
“Those things were but a boy’s cruel tricks, and the violence against my family was born of years of mutual hatred and feuding. He would never harm ye—nor me now that I’m your wife.”
He pulled her tightly against his chest and sighed into her hair. “Where’s the spitfire I met along the road yesterday gone to? I could do with a bit of her sharp tongue at the moment—your pleadin’ makes me weak.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed. “She’s gone, and ye’ve only yourself to thank for that. Now please, say you’ll stay in bed with me another hour, and then we’ll ride to the kirk as ye promised.” She turned the full force of her gaze upon him, begging with her eyes. “It’s the only wedding present I ask of ye.”
* * * *
The kirk was a modest stone structure set against the heather, which grew there in abundance. The mist that lay across the ground caused the building to all but fade into the countryside, giving more of an impression of a building to the approaching party, rather than a distinct outline. Dark clouds hung menacingly overhead as Isla and Alexander rode towards it with a small party of Gordons, including Alexander’s father.
There’d been no sign of Alpin that morning, and his mother had also elected to stay behind at the estate, a fact for which Isla was grateful. The presence of his father warmed her heart, though. She was glad to know that at least two other Gordons—he and Mrs Mary—would accept her as one of their own.
“Another dreich day,” Alexander said as he dismounted, pausing by the side of the mount he’d shared with Isla to help her to do the same.
“I dinnae mind,” Isla said as he swung her from the saddle. “After all, it’s a storm we have to thank for the fact we’re here in the first place.”
“Aye, well when ye put it like that…” He bent his head to plant a kiss on her lips as the faint rumble of distant thunder sounded overhead.
A large hand clapped down on Alexander’s shoulder.
“Save it for after the ceremony, lad!” His father spoke gruffly, but his blue eyes shone and his mouth curled into a hint of a smile above his dark beard.
“Ye look bonny,” Alexander said, smiling as their lips parted. “The dress suits ye.”
Isla stared down at the gown she wore. Mrs Mary had brought it to Alexander’s bedroom and helped her into it. It was beautiful, made of soft, cream coloured satin, and trimmed with blue at the bodice, sleeves and hem. When she’d asked where it had come from, she’d learnt that it had been Alexander’s mother’s—the very dress she’d married Alexander’s father in. It had fitted Isla well after only minor alterations, made by Mrs Mary, who’d proved to be just as skilled at stitching satin as wounds.