“I am sorry for what I will have to do to you.”
“What… what do you have to do?”
He cupped her cheek and chin and lowered his head as she stared at him with wide eyes. His lips closed on hers in what was her first kiss. She did not know what to do with her mouth or with her mind for that matter, but Rikiar made it easy, sliding his hand behind her head and holding her in place as his warm lips pressed against hers, slowly massaging her mouth with an insistent motion that soon saw her lips parting. Rikiar’s tongue teased hers as his hands wound about her waist and stroked her back, pulling her close against the hard line of his body. She sighed against his mouth, little noises drawn from her by his expert touch.
“So soft,” he said. “So innocent.” He looked into her eyes and for a moment, seemed sad. “You have no idea the trouble you’re in, do you?”
Aisling shook her head slowly. “No, m’lord.”
“You should hate me,” he said. “You should be screaming and cursing and fighting me for all you’re worth.”
“Why?”
“Because men stormed your home and carried you off to be sold. Then you were purchased and taken halfway across the country.” He raised a brow. “You’re not simple, are you, Aisling?”
“It is the lot of a princess to be carried off by rough men,” Aisling said. “Either I would have been married to a man of my father’s choosing, or I would have been chosen. It seems the latter has happened.”
Rikiar frowned slightly. “So you have resigned yourself to your fate before so much as knowing what it is?”
“Would it make a difference if I did not? If I screamed and pleaded to be let go, would you let me go?”
“Well,” Rikiar said. “No.”
“Precisely. Whatever you mean to do is whatever will happen.”
He frowned. “It is difficult to conquer someone who does not care if she is conquered.”
Aisling smiled slightly. He was not wrong. For many years she had been confined to her tower. Her life had never been her own. At an early age she had learned it was best to accept that her life would always be at the mercy of another. Her mind was all she had control of, and at that moment her mind was quite pleased to be seeing something and someone outside the closely guarded confines of Claddaugh Keep.
Rikiar gave her a keen, piercing look. “You have surprised me, Aisling. Perhaps even shamed me.”
“Shamed you?”
“I was once captured myself,” he said. “I wish I had possessed even a little of your composure.”
“It is easier to be captured when you are a woman,” Aisling said. “Women are used to being controlled.”
A muscle twitched in his cheek. He gave her a look of vague amusement. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose they are.”
Already it was one of the longest conversations Aisling had been permitted to have with a man. She was quite surprised to discover that she enjoyed it almost as much as she had enjoyed Rikiar’s kiss.
“Would you like some wine?” He took her by the hand and led her across the room to a small table containing a vessel of wine and two goblets. He poured her some wine and gave it to her, but she did not drink it at first. She sat, nursing the goblet in her lap while Rikiar looked at her with a half-curious, half-concerned demeanor. “You do not miss your family?”
“Family? I had a nurse,” Aisling said. “I never knew my mother and my father was busy being the king. We were not so much family as casual acquaintances.” She looked about herself. “This is the most interesting thing that has happened in a very long time.”
Rikiar snorted into his wine. “Are you enjoying being kidnapped, princess?”
Aisling supposed she was. She had not enjoyed it at first, not at all, but now she was warm, well clothed and being entertained by a handsome man who was taking an interest in her. This was preferable to being bolted away in the tower for yet another tedious evening alone.
She sipped her wine and nodded slightly, earning one of those deep chuckles. “This is certainly not going as I had planned,” Rikiar admitted.
“What had you planned?”
His brows lifted slightly, his eyes gleaming. “To ravish and impregnate you.”
“Oh.” She blushed and cast her gaze down demurely. She knew what men did with women, of course. Her servants had seemed to speak of little else.
“I would have been rough with you,” he said, the gravel of his voice sending little thrills racing down her spine. “I would have plundered your body and left your belly full of my seed.”
“But…”
“But you kissed me back. You kissed me as though I were your long-lost lover. And you looked at me as the lamb looks at the lion and I knew I could not tear that sweet veil of innocence from you.”
“Ah,” Aisling said, taking in the information as best she could. “Why did you plan to be so cruel?”
“I said before that I had once been captured. The man who captured me was your father.” Rikiar took a long swig of his wine. “It was not a pleasant experience,” he said in the silence following the swallow.
“Oh!” Aisling exclaimed, putting her hands to her mouth. “I am so sorry.”
“I intended to make you sorry,” he confessed. “I intended to wreak my vengeance upon the one thing I knew for sure he held dear. I was ready to throw the lives of dozens of men away for the chance to get to you. Now I have you and my plans are ruined. You are too tender for this world, Aisling.”
Aisling sipped her wine nervously. “Maybe you are too good a man for the revenge you seek?”
“I am many things, Aisling, but I am not a good man.” Rikiar’s smirk was dangerous.
Aisling believed him. There was nothing about Rikiar that spoke to him being good. Except for his kiss. The kiss that had changed the course of both their fates.
He finished his drink and drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “What to do with you now,” he drawled, half to himself.
His golden eyes swept toward the bed, then back toward Aisling. She clamped her legs together beneath the blue silk and bit her lower lip. Maybe he was thinking about ravaging her again.
“Nothing, when you look so much like a startled fawn,” he sighed. “You take the fun out of it.”
“I’m sorry, m’lord.”
“Your apologies are sincere, that’s the strangest thing,” Rikiar snorted, toying with the ring on his right middle finger, a great thick band of gold and garnet. “You are sorry your sweetness has deprived me of my revenge. Even as your lids droop with exhaustion, you are willing to sacrifice yourself on the altar of duty.” He stood up and extended his hand to her. “Come. Let me taste you again.”
Aisling rose and took his hand. He drew her close and pressed another kiss to her lips, another kiss that soon deepened, taking her heart with her lips. His hands on her body were firm, pulling her close with a masterful strength that she would not have been able to resist even if she’d wanted to. Again, the little pleasure sounds rose in Aisling. Her lips began moving against his in little needful motions.
A deep growl rose against her mouth. “I cannot do this,” Rikiar said, frustration plain on his face as she looked up at him. “By the gods, I cannot.”
“Have I displeased you?”
“No, Aisling. You have not.”
He drew her toward the bed, pulled back the coverlet and bade her get in.
Aisling obeyed. She found the mattress soft and the sheets cool.
“The day will soon be dawning, but you must sleep,” Rikiar said. He leaned over and placed a chaste kiss upon her forehead, then drew the covers up to her chin.
“You will not sleep with me?”
“Not this day, Aisling. This day, you will rest.”
Aisling did as she was told.
* * *
As Rikair left his chambers, still very much enchanted by the princess who had claimed his heart with little more than the sweetness of her aspect and a trusting nature which he could not bring himself to tear asunder, he spied a mop of gold, hiding not very surreptitiously behind a statue. Now there was a wench who knew neither sweetness nor trust, who apparently thought nothing of violating the privacy of her chief either.
“Mara!” He barked the young woman’s name. “Come here!”
There was no response. Perhaps she thought she was hidden. Or perhaps she was simply being difficult. Mara very rarely acted in a sensible manner when she found herself in trouble.
“I can see you, little witch,” he growled. “Front and center. Now!”
A slim, comely woman came out from her hiding place and wandered toward him without the slightest sense of urgency. Her demeanor seemed to say ‘yes, and what of it.’ No question had yet been asked of her, but defiance was in every line of her attractive frame.
“What were you doing?” Rikiar asked the question, then held his hand up to stay the inevitable response. “Spying, I’ll warrant.”
“She’s beautiful,” Mara confessed without any guilt. “I wanted to see you take her.”
“Shameless!” Rikiar declared. “If you wish to experience such intimacies, you need only report to your betrothed.”
“My betrothed is not a princess,” Mara smiled prettily. Oh, Mara was naughty and got away with far too much. As a member of Rikiar’s household, her discipline came under his purview, and he had clearly been too forgiving of late, for he did not sense even a glimmer of remorse.
“There have been too many complaints about your behavior,” he said, “and now you do this. Come with me this instant.”
“Come with you?” Mara’s brows rose and she covered a laugh behind her pretty hand. “I see you do not wish to beat me here, lest your lady love hear.”
“Come now, Mara,” Rikiar growled. He strode to the room where he made ready for hunt or for battle, a room with all manner of weapons on the walls. Mara was not intimidated by any of it, for she knew very well that she was only there to meet his palm.
“Bend over that stool,” Rikiar ordered.
She obeyed, but with an expression of insolence, which made raising her skirts and baring her naked cheeks all the more satisfying. Clamping one hand at the back of her slim neck to ensure her continued cooperation, Rikiar laid his palm across her pale bottom once, twice, three times with the fullest of force.
Mara’s squeals came quickly. He was not showing her any leniency whatsoever and he imagined the powerful swats would cause quite a sting in her rump. The jiggling cheeks with their instant red shade was testament to that.
“You, Mara, need to learn your place,” he lectured. “And it is not creeping about outside your chief’s bedchamber, or stealing suet from the kitchen, or passing over your duties in favor of going to the market. Do I make myself clear?”
He accompanied the question with six hard slaps delivered equally to each of her cheeks. Mara wailed her assent, but he knew it was likely more for show than a result of any real contrition. He repeated the treatment, spanking her deserving bottom until she danced in place, her cheeks swaying and jiggling like two bouncing apples upon a tree caught in a high wind. Mercy was lost on Mara. He had been merciful many times before and as a result she had continued to be a most disobedient little wretch.
When her cheeks seemed to have taken all the spanking they could bear, he turned his attention to her upper thighs, swatting them until she jigged and squealed and promised good behavior on the graves of all her ancestors.
“Do not desecrate the good reputations of your forbearers,” Rikiar advised as his great brawny arm carried yet another swat to her heated flesh. “You have made many of these promises and broken them each time.”
“Pray, my chief, clemency!” Mara wailed. “Please! I shall not be able to sit, nor sew, nor eat, nor sleep, nor…
Ow
!”
Her shriek came as a smirking Rikiar slapped her across both cheeks. Her pleading was good, but only because she had so much experience doing it.
“If I catch you but once more engaging in this disobedience, I will take a leather lash to you until you are welted from buttock to thigh, do you understand?”
“Yes, my chief! I do!” There was a new note in her voice; it sounded of panic. Oh, Mara did not like the lash, not one little bit. It did not stop her from earning it on many occasions, but a hot bottom coupled with the threat of that burning hellfire might just be enough to remedy her behavior for a day or two.
Rikiar released his hold on his servant and stood back, watching as her hands flew to cover her cheeks as she began a circular hopping dance during which she rubbed furiously, buttocks and bosom both bouncing as she tried to rid herself of the effects of his ire. Fortunately for Mara, she was really quite cute, both before and after chastisement.
“Run along, Mara,” he said with the indulgent fondness that never seemed to fade no matter how many times she got herself into strife. “Try to be good.”
Mara wisely took the opportunity to scamper out of his presence. He noticed that she made no promise to be good. It was just as well. Better not to make promises one could not hope to keep.
Chapter Three
When Rikiar rose the next morning, Berner, his closest friend and redheaded cousin, was waiting outside the great house. He was amusing himself with his trusty ash wood bow and a plethora of arrows, which he was shooting into a bristling straw-filled dummy. Berner didn’t need the practice. Amongst all Rikiar’s men, he was the best shot. He could put a barb into a bee’s bottom at a hundred paces if necessary.
“Rikiar!” Berner boomed, lowering his bow and returning the arrow held between forefingers to the quiver at his waist. “Is the deed done?”
Rikiar shook his head curtly, hoping to avoid discussion on the matter.
“No? Did you not find her pretty?”
“She is exceedingly pretty.”
“Ah, she begged you and you relented.”
“She did not beg.”
“Haha! Then you could not muster the desire,” Berner guffawed. “The chief’s snake did not rise to the occasion.”
“It was none of those things,” Rikiar replied. “And no more need be said.”
Berner scoffed and handed Rikiar a small, dirty rolled-up piece of parchment. “This came by raven an hour ago. Merla the witch wishes to see you.”
“Have we not crossed the crone’s palm with enough silver?” Rikiar unrolled the missive and read the words.