But she would give the beggar a role in her life, or, at least speak of him as if of someone who had truly mattered. “I met him on the street one day.”
“When you lived in the orphanage?”
“No. I had run away. He offered me food and a smile. I trusted neither.”
Patrik remained silent.
Spinning the options in her mind, she chose the dream she’d never dared to speak, a notion that would never be. “He remained in town several days. With each one, he’d come to where I worked and talk to me. Nothing more. Just talk.”
“About?”
“The day. The scents coming from the market. Where the ships in the port would travel.” A wisp of her dreams crept into her voice, the longing for them to somehow come true.
“You wished to travel?”
A cold laugh fell from her lips. “At the time, my vision was more to escape.”
“Because of your life in the orphanage.”
The bubble of her imagination burst. “Yes.”
“So you married him?”
Emma hesitated. “What?”
“When the stranger asked you to be his wife, you agreed?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“But you never loved him?”
That answer was simple as a husband didn’t exist. “No.”
He exhaled. “I am glad.”
Confused, she turned. Within the moonlight she found him watching her. “Why?”
“Love is something one should not easily give.”
Mouth dry, she stared at him, too aware, wanting him too much. “Have you ever loved a woman?” Why had she asked? This night, once he fell asleep, she would steal the writ, then leave, break the trust she cherished. Still, she found his answer important.
Patrik stared at the sky, but she caught the shadows of sadness on his face. His gaze met hers. “Never has a lass made me feel a heart’s tender yearnings.” He lifted her chin with his thumb, gave her a gentle smile. “But then, never have I met a woman like you.”
His breath, whisper soft, teased her, his gentle hold as if a caress. Emma shuddered.
“You are cold?”
“ No.”
Satisfaction shimmered in his gaze. “Tell me what you feel.”
“You know.”
“Do I?” He skimmed his mouth along the curve of her jaw. “Tell me.”
Her pulse raced. “I want you to kiss me.”
Slowly he lifted his head, his gaze hot and his mouth but a breath away.
God in heaven, he’d not kissed her lips, but Emma’s body burned as if tossed into a fiery pit. As he stared at her, the desire in his eyes fed her own.
“Now,” he whispered, “I will taste you.” He covered her mouth, his kiss, hot, hard, erasing all coherent thought. In a deft move, he lay back and pulled her on top of him, drawing her body flush against his.
Heat pulsed through her as he pressed intimately against her. “Patrik, ’tis indecent!”
“Aye,” he said, laughter in his eyes. “Because we are both dressed. A fact I will be taking care of posthaste.”
“What if I do not wish you to?” she asked, the sheer wantonness of his intent seducing her further.
His expression grew serious. “Then I would be leaving you untouched.”
“And I would ache terribly from the wanting of it,” she confessed.
“Ah, lass.” On a groan, he stroked his thumb over the curve of her face, then drew her against him for a soft kiss, a slow, easy melt, a soul-tearing kiss that had her wishing for the impossible, one that left her aching for this one last joining, for memories to take, to cherish in the barren years ahead.
“Make love to me, Patrik,” she murmured against his mouth. “I need you desperately.”
Dark eyes searched hers, raw with desire. “Do you now?” he teased, the hardness of his body evidence he played no game.
“Yes.”
Challenge sparked in his eyes. “What would you be wanting me to do?”
He was giving her control. She shuddered at the gift. “Touch me.”
“Where?”
Memories of where his hands and mouth had made love to her filled her mind, the easy kisses, the frantic need. “Everywhere.”
He groaned, but she caught the edge of a smile on his mouth. “Sounds like this might take the entire night.”
A smile touched her mouth. “It very well could.”
Chapter 9
A soft mouth skimmed across her skin, tasting, nibbling, lingering until her body ached with need. “Patrik,” she breathed, her eyes fluttering open.
“Mornin’, lass.”
His deep burr curled around her in a sultry cloak. Emma sank into the warmth, then froze. Morning? It couldn’t be! She tried to sit, impossible with Patrik’s muscled body atop her.
“Do nae move,” he murmured as his mouth skimmed along the column of her throat, lower, along the sensitive swells of her breasts. “You are interrupting a warrior laying siege.”
“Patrik—”
He covered her nipple with his mouth.
Sensations exploded within, her words lost in a soft moan. He used his hands and tongue, stroking her, sliding wave after wave of delicious heat over her already sensitized skin. She gasped, arched against his erotic play, fighting for coherent thought.
He didn’t understand. She’d planned on taking the writ and leaving last night. Except, with the darkness blanketing them, he’d touched her, tasted her, had savored her more than she would have ever believed possible. Sated, exhausted, and content within the safety of his arms, she’d fallen asleep.
Even now, her body hummed with the heated memories. “After last night,” Emma said half in a moan as he angled himself more intimately against her, “you should be dead.”
“A warrior I am.”
Soft laughter tumbled from her mouth. The hard press of him assured her he was more than prepared for his erotic intent. “I am not a battle.”
“Aye, but you are. As worthy to claim as any stronghold to be seized.”
“You are comparing me to a castle? I am not sure if I should be honored or insulted.”
“’Tis my belief that you are thinking over much, an error I will be fixing.” He covered her mouth a split second before he sank deep within her, again sweeping her into heady bliss.
A long while later, Patrik rolled to his side, drew her against him, her body still trembling from her release. The gentleness of his embrace, as if he held a precious gift, tore through her soul. Never had anyone treated her as something cherished.
Unbidden, tears came to her eyes. A traitorous drop slipped and fell upon his chest.
In the flicker of dawn, worry roughened Patrik’s brow. “I have hurt you?”
“ No.”
He shifted back, took a full look at her, lifted the salty drop with the pad of his thumb. “What is wrong?” At her silence, he gave a soft scowl. “Tell me.”
“’Tis embarrassing.”
“After we made love most of the night, with me touching, tasting your body everywhere, you are embarrassed ?”
Heat stroked Emma’s cheeks. “You make me sound foolish.”
“Nae.” He tilted her chin with his thumb. “I am but trying to understand what has upset you.”
Her heart ached. “What we shared was so beautiful. Never had I imagined being with a man could be like this.”
Male satisfaction etched his face, but tenderness as well. “The joining is not always so intense, or steeped with so much emotion or satisfaction.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“When making love, if you care for the other, the act is more than bodies joining.”
It’s a joining of the soul, she silently finished. Emma remained quiet, thankful when he didn’t say more. Tears threatened. Through sheer will, she pushed them back.
Patrik glanced at the heavens where hints of gold crept through the sky, then sighed. “We have lingered too long.” He shot her a playful wink. “Something we seem to be making a habit of.”
“I—”
He silenced her with a hard kiss, and then he pulled away. He frowned; his body had hardened with desire.
“You will be the death of me.”
She laughed despite herself.
He scowled, except naught but wicked delight lingered on his face. “Come, lass, we must make haste.”
Emma quickly dressed, took one last look at his muscled body before he shielded it with trews and a tunic. Another day. One more they would share together. A day she’d not planned. Somehow, before the next dawn, she must take the writ, then leave.
Throughout the morning Patrik avoided any sign of a trail or clearing regardless of the extra travel it caused. Leaves whispered overhead as he glanced at Cristina. A pace away she pushed on in silence.
The lass was a mystery. Four days with her had but whetted his appetite to learn more, her each action but reshaping the woman he believed her to be.
After her near rape, when she’d first climbed from the bush and stood before him wearing her tattered dress, she had seemed emotionally strong, though scared. But at times since, within her confident eyes, he’d caught shadows.
Her recounting of her past explained a portion of what had put the darkness there, but questions as to what else she hid lingered. He still could not understand how Cristina had never heard of the fey or the Otherworld, the fairy’s magical homeland. Her explanation that no one had cared enough to take time to explain such whimsy rang true. Still, after she’d struck out on her own, how could she never have heard talk of the fey?
And though the priest may have instructed her on how to wield a knife, instinct assured him another had taught her the skills he’d witnessed during the fight.
More unsettling, where had she gained such in-depth military knowledge of both the English and the Scots?
Patrik thought of Bishop Wishart, his immense influence as well as his knowledge of the military struggles throughout the world. Aye, her priest could have held extensive military insight, but by her account, he had died years ago. The information Cristina shared of Lord Carrick’s floundering loyalty was recent. Doubts she had indeed overheard guards discussing Robert Bruce crept through Patrik.
Saint’s breath, with the important writ he carried, the lives it affected, he could allow no doubts of anyone around him. So what was it about her that lured him, made him step past boundaries he had no right to break?
Heat pulsed against his chest.
He glanced at the halved gemstone and frowned. It had warmed, as it had within the cave when he’d struggled with his feelings toward Cristina. An image of the MacGruder brothers’ grandmother gifting him the halved malachite upon his being knighted wavered in his mind as did the whispers of her having the second sight.
Unease trickled through him. Nae those were but whispers. Regardless, she was dead, her abilities long since passed.
A stick snapped in the distance.
Patrik withdrew his dagger as he glanced toward the sound.
A wash of brownish red flickered through the brush. A fox.
His body eased, and he secured his blade.
At the next rise, Patrik took in the sun sliding from its zenith. He paused within the shadows, scanned the roll of woods ahead.
Cristina halted at his side. “There is smoke to the north.”
He scanned the tree-lined sky. Cursed.
“An English encampment?”
“I doubt they would halt this early in the day.”
“Do you think the English have torched another Scot’s home?”
“Aye. Likely so.” Anger welled inside him at the image of a scene he’d too often beheld. He drew a calming breath. “If ’tis the English knights’ doings, I must see if anyone still lives.”
She cast a somber glance. “And if no one survived?”
“Bury the dead.” He started forward; she fell into step at his side. “Once we are near, you will hide until my return.”
“I am going with you.”
He cast her a cool glance. “You will not. If I know you are safe, I will not worry.”
She angled her head. “But you will not always be here to protect me.”
“Nae, but I am here now.”
Emerald eyes darkened, but she said no more.
He damned the image in his mind of her killing the knight. Did the confidence in her voice hint that yesterday’s act was but an example of her skill? If so, exactly how well trained was she? Or were his doubts feeding complications that didn’t exist?
Still, she’d had a weapon, one she’d kept hidden until yesterday. “Where is your dagger?”
Her stride never faltered. “Secured at my thigh.”
“You hid it from me.”
“I will not apologize for having learned to protect myself nor for concealing a weapon.”
“When I first saw you encircled by the English, I saw no sign of a strap.”
“Before you arrived, the men had found and relieved me of my weapon. When you attacked, I used the distraction to grab the dagger before I fled.”
That she could think so clearly despite her panic impressed him, but also deepened his suspicion. “Where was your weapon when we made love? I stripped you and should have found it.”
“Behind a nearby rock. And just barely.” A smile edged her mouth. “You, Sir Patrik Cleary, are a man who moves very fast.”
Though she teased him, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something about the lass he was missing.
A man’s voice echoed ahead.
Patrik hauled Cristina behind a clump of brush. Blood pounding, he scanned the dense forest. “Stay here.”
“Let me go with you.”
“Nae. I will be back in a trice. Once I see who is ahead, I will return.”
Worry shadowed her face, and she nodded.
He slipped from the thicket.
At the next knoll, he glanced back. The dense wash of green hid Cristina. Keeping to the shadows, using the thick bushes as a shield, he made his way forward.
Ahead, a break in the trees exposed an open field. Amidst the sea of green, interspersed with patches of heather and broken by wildflowers, stood a crofter’s hut. The smoke they’d seen came not from charred remains, but swirled out of the chimney.
Still, he would take no chances. Though normally a home to Scots, he knew neither to whom they swore their fealty, nor whether English knights lay within.
A solid thunk had him glancing east.
Another had him slipping along the edge of the forest toward the sound. A short distance away, a burly man wielded an ax upon a felled tree. By the man’s garb, he was a Scot. Still, he’d assume nothing.
Patrik remained hidden a while longer to ensure the man was alone. Then, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, he emerged from the woods.
The burly man made to take his next swing, halted. Eyes narrowed, he lowered his ax, but he didn’t let go. “Ho there.” Caution sounded in his words.
“Good day to you,” Patrik said.
The red-haired man made a quick scan of the words behind Patrik, then studied him with a wary eye. His gaze flicked to his sword. “You a Scot?”
“Aye.”
“A contingent of English knights rode through this morn. They were seeking a man and a woman.”
So, the English still pursued them. Not surprising since he’d left four of their men dead. “What did you tell them?”
He capped his hands upon the top of the ax. “That I had seen no one.”
“And now?” Patrik asked.
“The same.”
“Are you loyal to Scotland?”
“Aye, though the English believe otherwise.” Hard eyes watched him. “And you?”
“Until my last drop of blood stains the earth.”
The Scot scanned the edge of the forest, then met Patrik’s gaze. “And the lass?”
“Hidden.”
He grunted. “As well she should be. My name is Fergus. Bring her to sup. My wife would be enjoying another woman to talk to. And I have a daughter as well.”
“The English have left you unharmed?” Patrik asked, stunned.
The burly man crossed his arms, grunted. “With each visit, I have kept my family out of sight. So far, the knights have only watered their horses and taken a sheep or two when they pass.” He paused. “But I fear for my family’s safety.”
The red-haired man went on. “Bring your lass, you both can stay the night.”
“My thanks. If your wife can spare it, she will be needing a gown.”
The Scot arched a brow.
A muscle worked in Patrik’s jaw. “English knights tried to rape her. I killed them.”
“The bloody bastards deserved to die.” He nodded. “A gown she will be given.”
“My thanks.” Patrik turned and slipped into the cloak of trees.
Heart pounding, Emma eyed the sturdy woman at the doorway of the crofter’s hut, her pale golden hair braided down her back, her weathered skin at odds with the smile in her eyes. She’d found no solid reason to give Patrik as to why they couldn’t remain with the Scots overnight.