Until the Knight Comes (14 page)

Or a very determined one.

Intrigued, she ran a finger along the crack. Her probing loosened a few pebble-sized bits of walling that tumbled to the floor in a puff of stone dust. At once, Cuillin squeezed close, his large body pressing her against the wall.

A wall she would’ve sworn moved beneath her weight!

“Have a care, laddie!” She righted herself, slanting a narrowed glance at the dog.

But he ignored her and thrust his head forward to sniff the fallen masonry and nudge at the crevice.

Nay, not a crevice, but a gap—and one that grew ever wider, screeching and shuddering as only stone can.

Especially when Cuillin gave the wall a great shove and the heavy door swung inward, revealing a secret passage beyond.

A musty void filled with shadow and damp, its crudely cut steps circling down into darkness, the only sign of life being a pair of tiny, black-glowing eyes that stared at them from the third step before the mouse gave a startled
squeak
and sped away into the gloom.

Mariota’s heart skittered, her breath catching as she looked down the spiral of ancient stone steps.

Cuillin barked.

And from somewhere uncomfortably near, steadily approaching footfalls heralded someone’s imminent arrival.

Familiar footsteps.

Smooth, and confident . . . knee-wateringly masculine.

“Mercy!” she swore as she scraped her hands and broke fingernails tugging the door-of-stone into place.

And not before time, a faint shifting in the air minded her.

The selfsame crackling disturbance that always alerted her to his approach—and proved the futileness of any attempts to resist him.

“Lady,” came his deep voice behind her, just moments after the secret door fell into place with a quiet
clump.
“One of my younger knights tells me you might be suffering from the ague?”

“I want you, Nessa.”

Deep in the blackness of the autumn night, the garrison captain’s words hung in the cold air, vibrating off the snug walls of the tiny cap house, a remote hideaway at the far end of Cuidrach’s least frequented wall-walk.

Sir Lachlan and Nessa’s sweetest haven.

Swept clean, and freed of cobwebs, the guardroom now boasted a fine-burning brazier, a plump, heather-stuffed pallet wide enough for two, and a good supply of fine and warm woolen plaids.

A retreat the lovers sought so often as chance and duty allowed. Here, away from the ruckus of the hall, they indulged their need to touch, taste, and enjoy.

Their privacy assured because the Keeper of Cuidrach would ne’er disrupt his most loyal man’s pleasure.

And the others wouldn’t dare.

Erstwhile first squire to Duncan MacKenzie, the Black Stag of Kintail, and later household knight to the Black Stag’s friend, Sir Marmaduke Strongbow, Lachlan Macrae commanded respect.

As he also attracted feminine . . . esteem.

Even if now, his heart belonged to only one.

Full naked and straddling his hips, his chosen heart-mate stroked his bare back, easing her hands across his broad, well-muscled shoulders, then caressing down his arms to his hands, lacing her fingers with his. Squeezing tight.

She gave a throaty sigh, quite certain she’d soon not be able to contain the joy he gave her. Just breathing in his scent, all clean, musky male, filled her with hot, languorous ecstasy.

Heat sluicing through her, she released his hands to glide her palms over his back again, absorbing the feel and texture of his skin, drenching herself in his essence.

Desperate craving tingling at her core, she shivered, anticipation clenching inside her. “’Tis good that you want me,” she breathed, aching for release. “I could not bear it if you did not!”

“Ach, Nessa-lass, I do more than want you. I burn for you. And have done from the first moment I saw you—as well you know!” he vowed, his voice husky with need. “And dinna think to stop what you are doing, for if you do, I swear the sun shall not rise on the morrow.”

“The sun always rises, my lord . . . as do you!” She looked down, admiring how the brazier’s glow sent bands of light and shadow across his gleaming, naked flesh. “But ne’er you worry—I shall not stop.”

As if she could!

But she did pause long enough to lower her sleek, female heat directly onto the sensitive small of his back and rub his smooth, warm skin with slow, sinuous circles.

Just enough to let him feel the hot, fluid moistness of her arousal and know beyond all doubt that she desired and wanted him with equal fervor.

“You are a man like no other,” she purred, keenly aware of the moisture damping her inner thighs. “I have ne’er—”

“Ahhh, but you spent moments this day gazing on a man who truly is . . .
other
than the most of us.” Flipping over, he seized her hips, guiding her slick female heat right down against the thick, hot length of his hardness. “Did the sight not stir you, my lady?”

He
stirred her, his own male-parts so beautiful at full-stretch, and well enough made to send sheets of fire racing through any female appreciative of the delicious burning a masterful lover could ignite in a woman.

“I await your answer,” he said, shifting his hips just enough so that his tarse brushed even more intimately against her tingling heat. “The lad told us what happened—all of it.”

Nessa wet her lips, the feel of him throbbing so hotly against her, stealing her breath. “’Tis true we saw more than his . . . great size,” she admitted, a new kind of heat searing her cheeks. “But, nay, he did not rouse me—save to make me thank the saints I must not take my pleasure likewise!”

“Jamie needn’t trouble himself again, either—for a while, leastways,” he told her, sliding a hand down between them to thread his fingers into her damp nether curls.

He toyed lightly with them as he spoke. “There is a lusty widow just o’er a few hills from here—Gunna of the Glen. Kenneth has ordered Jamie to pay her a visit!”

Nessa lifted a brow. “And yourself?”

“Myself?” Astonishment flooded Lachlan’s face. “Do you not ken how well pleased I am . . .
here
?” he asked, slipping his hand deeper between her thighs, stroking and caressing.

“As I hope are you!” he added, with a knowing touch to a certain especially sensitive place. “A thousand beckoning joy wives could not lure me away.”

“From me?”

“Aye, from you . . . the sweetest, most lush bit of womanhood I have e’er had the pleasure to claim,” he vowed, his middle finger circling.

Nessa sighed, parted her legs another few inches.

Ripples of intense pleasure streamed out from where he rubbed with such focused concentration and her sighs became moans, her body tightening and trembling with bliss. But even through the haze of arousal one word haunted her, hovering on the edge of her pleasure until it burst to the front of her mind.

Joy wives.

The word took hold of her, and not because of her own darkly handsome knight, but because of another, equally beautiful man—mayhap even a bit more so.

A knight she hoped would soon take his
joy
with her lady!

“Lachlan,” she said, her voice sounding distant as she struggled to speak through the pleasure clouding her senses, “this joy wife, Gunna of the Glen, does Sir Kenneth pay her visits?”

She flushed furiously, but she had to know.

For her lady’s sake.

In especial, because she suspected Hugh Alesone’s betrayal with Elizabeth Paterson was still a lancing pain in Mariota’s heart, the memory tainting her judgment, not letting her trust a
good
man.

Leastways, a man Nessa believed was good!

And apparently he was, for Lachlan snorted, his dark eyes lighting with amusement. “Kenneth take his ease with a joy woman?”

He looked up at her from between her legs, his chin hovering just a hot breath above her pulsing heat. “Sweet lass, Gunna of the Glen is widowed—not a joy woman,” he explained, drawing a slow finger up and down the very seam of her as he spoke.

“She is lonely, aye, and welcomes a tumble. But Kenneth has no desire to sample her charms.” He dropped a light kiss there, where his finger stroked her. “He wouldn’t visit her if she were cut of such cloth. He’d sooner slice off his best piece before he’d lay a hand on a . . . fallen woman.”

Nessa blinked, an unpleasant iciness slanting though her.
“A fallen woman?”

Lachlan nodded, his dark gaze on the exposed vee of her womanhood, his questing finger busy again. “Ach, pay him no heed, sweeting,” he said, passion thrumming in his voice. “I’d fight beside him till I was felled, but he has queer notions about women—only beds widows.”

“But not this Gunna of the Glen? She is widowed.”

Lachlan looked up at her, blew a hot breath across her trembling flesh. “He wants
your
widow,” he said, his dark gaze locking with hers.

“Lady Mariota?”

He nodded. “The very one. She has ruined him for all others—not that he will yet admit it,” he observed, and licked her. “Sakes, just the other night I heard him tell her he means to find her a husband. If so, he’s said naught of it to me.”

Nessa’s eyes widened at that, but she had other, more grave concerns.

Ones she wasn’t privileged to share.

“But why does he bed only widows? Why does he keep himself from other women?”

“Not other women, but the specter of one. ’Tis a long tale,” Lachlan told her true, and took another taste of her. “I’ll share it with you after I’ve sated myself on you—and not a moment before.”

“But—”

“No buts
,
my lady, only your pleasure.”

And with that, he looked back down at the lush feast spread so lavishly before him and resumed his . . . attentions.

Chapter Nine

“T
he ague?”

Mariota spun around, pulled in a sharp breath, her heart slamming into her throat. She stared at
him,
guilt rendering her incapable of more than those two words.

“So I said, my lady.” The Keeper of Cuidrach folded his arms across his chest and gave her a dark look, the intensity of him swirling into the anteroom, filling the tiny space, making her go soft all over.

“Aye, the . . . ague,” he repeated, looking right at her, his gaze burning her. “You did not mishear me, nay.”

“But I do not understand.”

She looked back at him, genuine confusion warring with the way his deeply rich voice slid all over her, how the sensual heat of him wrapped round her, filling her until she almost couldn’t breathe.

And he hadn’t even stepped into the room.

He simply stood in the doorway, bold as night and darkly magnificent, his provocative presence claiming possession.

Unsettling and . . . exciting her.

“Och, come, lass, what is there not to understand?” He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “Dinna tell me you’ve ne’er heard of the ague?”

He stepped from the shadows then, a strange light in his eyes, an almost-smile playing at his lips. “It makes people . . . sneeze.”

“Oh!” Mariota’s eyes flew wide, comprehension flooding her.

“Aye, my lady, you were seen.” He came closer, flashed her an amused-looking smile. “Seen, and heard.”

Mariota’s mouth went dry. Her heart squeezed with embarrassment.

“We did not go to the burnt mound with ill intent—I swear it,” she choked, seeing no point in lying.

Or telling him it’d been Nessa who’d sneezed.

Though she did consider hiding stinging nettles in a certain guardroom pallet if that one e’er again sneezed so inopportunely.

Her heart thundering, she lifted her chin. “We only wished to bathe,” she added, trying not to see how his eyes glittered, pay heed to the nervous flutter in her stomach. “We will both apologize to the lad if you think we ought?”

“O-o-oh, nay, that would not be wise.” He shook his head, the amused-looking smile now turning disarming. “Some things are best left as they are. I dinna think young Jamie would appreciate being reminded of his . . . folly.”

And her folly?

His words minded her of it—how often she’d imagined coming across
him
in such a state and what then might’ve happened.

“As you wish then,” she said, well aware her face was flaming. “I have brothers as I’ve told you. I know young men suffer such . . . discomforts.”

“Only young men?” He arched a brow, traced a finger along the curve of her jaw, the fullness of her lower lip. “As a widow, you ought ken that all men have such needs?”

She swallowed, his mention of her supposed widowhood making it impossible to speak, his nearness and the way he kept sliding his finger back and forth across her lips, making
her
needs dampen and pulse.

And with the urgent pulsing came sanity.

Enough to step away from him and draw a shaky breath. “Did you seek me just to tell me you knew I witnessed Jamie’s
discomfort
or was there another reason?” she asked, her voice sounding more clipped than she would have liked. “Perhaps that you’ve sent a word to this Strongbow paladin?”