The Firebrand (20 page)

The thick forest of ancient oaks that ran nearly to the rocky shores of Loch Dan had lost most of its leafy foliage, and the darkness of the trail was lit by the great white moon that still hung so high in the western sky. But Wyntoun could have ridden this track blindfolded, for he knew these woods as well as he knew Duart Castle itself. He could hear the hoofbeats of Adrianne’s mount close behind his own, and in a few moments they broke out of the woods into the open moorland.

As he turned to see her ride into open ground, the moonlight was so bright that the smile on her face fairly glowed. Putting the spurs to his steed, he raced ahead toward the rolling hills that led to bluffs above Loch Spelvie, his bride keeping pace and pressing him at every opportunity.

She was a skilled rider and a clever competitor. But it wasn’t her competence in handling the sleek steed that he found so breathtaking, as the way her approach to riding reflected the way that she seemed to approach everything in life—with brashness and spontaneity, with a reckless kind of courage, and with passion. Always with that same fiery passion.

At the top of a bluff, Wyntoun reined his mount to a halt, gesturing for Adrianne to do the same. Her face was flushed with the exhilaration of the heady ride, and the flecks of sweat on her horse glistened in the moonlight as she patted his neck and murmured so soothingly.

Beneath them, the waters of the loch sparkled, and the dark peaks of Maol Ban and Druim Fada rose in the distance beyond. Wyntoun stared at Adrianne’s profile as she straightened in her saddle and gazed in open awe at the sight spread out before them. The hood of her cloak had fallen back long ago, and silky tendrils of loose hair were dancing in the wind, teasing her brow, her delicate ear. As the puffs of mist continued to escape her parted lips, Wyntoun found himself suddenly hungry for the taste of her. The cold, the exercise…none of this had done anything to diminish the tantalizing image she’d conjured before they’d left their chambers at Duart Castle. To have her. To sleep with her. More. Looking out at the shimmering waters, he tried to tell himself this must all be the effect of too many cups of wine. What had happened to all of his good intentions, his sound reasoning? All that seemed to matter so little, now.

Wyntoun drew a deep breath and looked up at the moon, at the starry formations. He knew he would never again discourage Adrianne from talking him into something as ludicrous as riding out in the middle of the night in the dead of winter. The bracing salt air, the savage beauty of the land, the unadulterated thrill of night riding, all combined to satisfy some deep need in him. In five hundred years, he told himself, no one would remember that Wyntoun MacLean and Adrianne Percy had ever existed. There would be no record of this night. Who would know or even care that the two of them had breathed this air? That the two of them had felt this ground beneath them? That the two of them had looked up at that shining white disk coursing across the black night sky?

No one. Now was their time to live.

And he wanted her.

“Ready to start back?”

“We’ve only just arrived!”

“You
must
be tired by now.”

She gave him a half glance and smiled. “Not very!” Her attention turned back to the scene before them. “This is absolutely beautiful. The reflection of the moon on the sea—the brightness of the night—‘tis as if the fairies have lighted a road to heaven. I am certain that I can see the gates sparkling way up there...between those two blue stars.”

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her face. In the soft light of the moon, she was far more beautiful than stars.

“Is it always like this? So serene? So lovely?”

“Serene? Hardly! But lovely...charming...ravishing...all those words work at times. But there are moments when no words sufficiently describe the beauty one sees.”

She took a deep breath of cold air and seemed to hold it in for a long time. She then turned in his direction and found him watching her.

“I suppose, for someone of your experience, there is no magic in stars like these. To spend as much time as you spend at sea, there is probably nothing new and exciting to see.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” He pushed his horse forward until his boot bumped her knee. He pulled off a glove and held out a hand in her direction. She gave him a shy glance and stared at his outstretched hand for a moment before uncoiling her own from the horse’s rein, pulling off her glove, and placing her hand in his.

Her skin was as soft as the finest silk. He felt her shiver as his thumb traced a path on the back of her hand.

“You are cold.” He reached over and took her other hand in his, as well. Carefully, he pulled her other glove off of her fingers. The horses shuffled their hooves, bringing them closer.

Clasping her smooth hands between his own, he brought them to his lips and blew his warm breath on them. She shivered again.

“This will not do, Wyntoun.” Before she could further voice a complaint, he reached over and took her horse’s reins, tying them loosely to his own. Her eyes were huge when she realized his intention.

“I...I am...I am fine where--”

As easily as lifting a pile of feathers, he pulled her onto his lap. “I cannot let you end up getting a chill on our wedding night.”

“I was not cold.” She argued softly as he settled her against himself. He tucked her cloak around her, making sure she was well protected from the cold. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it as he cupped her face with one large hand.

“Tell me again that you are not cold.” The silky skin of her face had the feel of ice. Her blue eyes—the color of a midnight sky in the moonlight—gazed into his own. He touched her brow lightly, her cheeks, the outline of one perfect ear. He ran his fingers down the barely exposed line of her throat. Grazing softly across the skin, his fingers traced the edge of her bottom lip, where rose met ivory, and heard her breath catch in her throat. He watched her eyelids close slightly.

He didn’t pause, he didn’t think it through, he did the only thing that his body commanded him to do. He crushed her lips beneath his.

She was sweeter than he remembered. Surely, this was the taste of the forbidden fruit.

Her hands were fisted for a moment, but then they fluttered open against his chest. As he pulled her tighter into his lap, he felt her softening, melting, her lips parting, yielding to his. He swallowed her soft moan of surrender as her body molded against his.

Wyntoun’s hands were rough as they traced her back, pressing her to him so hard so there was not a breath of distance left between their bodies. He heard himself groan in frustration though as her tongue started shyly tangling with his, her arms moving up and encircling his neck. He let his lips travel along her cheek, her temple. He saw the way she looked at him, the way her desire and curiosity were carrying her along. When his mouth finally returned to hers, she was waiting, eager, ready to kiss him the way she had been kissed.

The wrong versus right. The unleashing of desire against reason. The battle brewing inside his head was short-lived as logic quickly bowed to passion.

She was already his wife. What else mattered?

Her tongue traced the line of his lips, urging him to continue where he’d left off. What she lacked in experience, she made up for in passion. And this was all the encouragement Wyntoun needed. With raw animal passion, he took possession of her mouth, devouring her lips, seemingly unable to get enough of her.

A sudden gust of wind swirled around them on the high cliffs, wrapping them in a spiral of desire.

“Still cold?” he asked unsteadily as her lips moved over his face, his skin, as his lips had done earlier.

“What cold?” she whispered, kissing him on the chin. “I feel...feverish...as if I am being scorched by the sun on a midsummer’s day.”

Wyntoun’s mouth again took momentary possession of hers. His hands moved beneath the wool cloak and caressed her slender shoulders and her back, moving downward and feeling the curve of her buttock. He pulled her hip tighter against his hardening manhood.

“I never knew kissing could be this...this breathtaking.” She nipped at his lips, teasing him, daring him to kiss her deeply again. “If there is this much pleasure...one gets from just kissing...why does anyone choose to go any…any further?”

Wyntoun groaned as much with pleasure as frustration as his hands traced the curve of her full breast through the thick wool barrier of the dress. He wanted to take her here--now. The desire that was driving out all other thought was that he wanted to be buried inside her. To feel her warmth all around himself. But she deserved better than this for her first time, and he physically forced back his own carnal desires.

“There is far more pleasure to be given…and received…than what we feel now.”

She pulled back slightly and stared, in her gaze a hint of suspicion and yet wonder, as well. “More than I feel now?”

Her wondering question made him smile as he kissed her again, thoroughly, deepening the kiss with every thrust of his tongue. His fingers slid over her hardened nipples, teasing them through the dress. Then, he moved his hand slowly downward, feeling her body arch to his touch. Through the wool he pressed, urging her to part her legs and, as she did, he cupped her mound.

Gasping with surprise, she tore her mouth away from his. “I...these feelings...the tightness in my belly...this is more…more pleasure.”

He suppressed his smile, placing gentle kisses on her face, all the while keeping the pressure on the juncture of her thighs, stoking, caressing, waiting for her body to take over its response to his probing fingers.

“This is far more.” She leaned her brow against his lips. “This is so confusing...like some race...and I do not know how to reach...the end.”

He kissed her brow again, her face, her mouth. No woman had ever put into words these things to him before. No woman he’d ever known had been anything like Adrianne.

“Tell me,” he whispered in her ear, his mouth feasting on any skin that he could lay hold of. His hand continued its mission. “Tell me more of how you feel.”

“Faster!” she moaned softly. “I have to go faster...the heat…the colors…but there is too much…too much clothing...my skin is...I need to feel--”

He too was aroused, his own breathing not much better than hers. When her beseeching and clouded eyes lifted to his, he savagely claimed her mouth. His one hand held her steady around the waist as the other pulled at her skirts. The layers of clothing were a nuisance, but he found his way. His fingers, creeping up along the silky skin of her thigh, were soon engulfed with the wetness and the warmth of her mound. He didn’t know which of their gasps of relief was the louder.

She wrapped her hands more tightly around his neck. “I am...I cannot...”

He slipped a finger into her tight sheath. “Let it go, Adrianne.” He kissed her with a need beyond control. “Let it go.”

The moment before her release was almost frantic, her body writhing against his hand, and then she exploded with a cry of ecstasy beneath the starry sky.

For a long, long moment he could not think clearly. All he wanted was to take her, to bury himself in her, but instead he simply held her tight, soothing her with words of affection, kissing her with all the tenderness that she’d awakened in him.

Then, abruptly, Wyntoun found himself wheeling his horse about and spurring the steed toward Duart Castle with Adrianne wrapped tightly in his arms and her horse trailing behind them. Moments passed before she recovered enough to utter a word.

He wanted her more than anything else he’d ever wanted in his life. He desired her with an ardor and a desperation he’d never experienced before. But he would not take her here in the heather and the bracken or in a forest of oaks…devil take him! This was still her wedding night, and he would do it right.

Her head was tucked into the crook of his neck. Her warm breath and soft lips a welcome torture on his skin. She had one hand tucked inside his tartan and shirt, caressing the bare skin of his chest. For her sake he so hoped she wouldn’t slide those fingers lower, or his intentions of waiting until they reached their warm bed would be all for naught.

“Where are we going in such haste?” she asked as the forest loomed ahead.

“Back to Duart Castle…to our own chambers.”

He felt her head lift from his shoulders. Looking at her, he noted a pretty smile threatening to break across her lips.

“But there is still so much time left until morn. You do not seem ready to retire for the night...to sleep, I mean. What...what will we do until the sun rises?”

He pulled her tight and nipped at her lips. “There might be a thing or two I could suggest once we get there. A thing or two we could try out...you
did
mention ‘compromising positions’ earlier. I’ve just thought of some.”

Her blue eyes rounded with surprise. “But what of the things
you
said earlier. Of your condition of--”

“To hell with everything I said,” he growled. “Making love to my wife is the only condition I am interested in any longer this night.”

This time Wyntoun was the one to miss the look. Anticipation mingled with blissful well-being on Adrianne’s face as she tucked her head onto her husband’s shoulder.

Although everything was in place, Nichola Percy knew that timing the incident incorrectly would surely cost her own life.

Already, she had nearly broken her neck dragging the cot up on end against the crumbling mortar and stone and climbing up on it to stuff her blanket into the narrow window slit high on the chamber wall.

The cot was now leaning against the wall, a few steps from the door, another blanket draped over the knotted cords and wood frame. She would be hiding there when they entered the chamber. With any luck the smoke would be so thick that they wouldn’t see her slip out, she told herself, sweeping a few more of the floor rushes into the loose pile she’d constructed.

Nichola stood back and frowned at her handiwork. The straw-filled mattress that she’d propped up would burn readily enough; she just hoped there would be enough smoke created to fill the chamber. She glanced up at the timbers. The smoke from the brazier was already hanging amid the blackened oak. The blocked window was having an effect.