Amanda Scott (31 page)

Kintail shook his head, still smiling. He said only, “What is in the goblet?”

“Just a wee posset o’ warm wine and milk,” Mauri said, eyeing him warily now. “I…I thought that a bath and a warm drink would
help the mistress relax after such a…a long day. I can help her undress whilst ye’re below.”

“Leave the goblet,” he said, “but take yourself off. I’ll help with her bath.”

“But the water still be too hot!”

“Then we’ll think of some way to pass the time whilst it cools,” he said. Shooting an oblique, teasing look at Molly, he added,
“I don’t think I dare trust my bride yet with a bucket of cold water in my bedchamber.”

Molly knew she was still blushing, and Mauri hesitated, looking from her to Kintail. When he frowned, Mauri yielded.

“Very well, then,” she said, shooting a sympathetic look at Molly.

When the door had shut behind her, Molly drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She is just trying to be kind, sir.”

“She’s being a damned nuisance,” he retorted. “Art nervous, lass?”

“Aye,” she said honestly. “You do fill a room.”

“I expect I do,” he said, grinning. Then, he turned his head sharply.

“What is it?” she asked.

“My mind playing tricks,” he said. “I thought I saw movement toward that window, but there is no one here but us, so let’s
get your clothes off and get you into that tub. I’ve never played maidservant before, but I believe I can learn.”

Feeling uncharacteristically bashful, Molly wanted to tell him she had bathed before the wedding and that she would prefer
to have Doreen or Mauri help her if he expected her to bathe again before bed (although surely, one would have heard of such
a strange custom if it existed). But she knew where her duty lay, and she still felt the weight of the priest’s numerous exhortations
regarding wifely obedience. Moreover, Kintail seemed different in this mood, less intimidating.

When he turned her around to remove her garland and kirtle and loosen her lacing, she remained as he placed her, but her heart
pounded so hard and fast that she wondered why they could not both hear it. Her bodice laces were quickly loosened, and the
ties of her skirt yielded similarly to his deft fingers. In moments, the lovely pale blue gown lay in a heap on the floor,
decked by myriad blue and silver ribbons and Molly’s garland, and she stood in only her shift. He pulled her back against
him, his hands gently cupping her breasts from behind. She felt his warmth through the thin material of her shift.

“So soft,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck until she felt his lips caress her, sending fire through her body. His right hand
tensed on her breast.

She had trouble finding her voice. “Is…is something wrong?”

He chuckled, and his breath ticked the back of her neck, firing tremors of heat to her midsection and lower. “Touching you
makes me tingle,” he said.

“M-me, too,” she said.

He held her against him, stroking one bare arm lightly, then more firmly, before his fingers moved toward her breasts again.

“What of your clothing?” she asked hoarsely.“Does only the bride take off her clothes?”

He chuckled again, put both hands firmly on her shoulders, and turned her to face him. “Do you want to take a bath or not?”

“Not,” she said. “I bathed before the wedding. Mauri knew that, too,” she added. “She cannot have been thinking only that
I might be nervous. She must have worried that I might be afraid.”

“Are you afraid?” he demanded. “Tell me truly now, lass.”

She considered the question seriously for a long moment, then said, “I don’t think so. I am a little nervous, perhaps, but
all brides must be nervous.”

“Then suppose I put you in bed with Mauri’s posset to sip whilst I get out of my clothing. You can play maidservant to me
another night.”

Without waiting for a reply, he picked her up again, shift and all, and although the bed was but a few steps away, he carried
her there.

“But this is excellent,” Catriona said, settling her slender but enticingly curvaceous body comfortably against the cushion
in the window embrasure. “We can watch everything from here.”

“I dinna think we should be here,” Claud protested, unable to take his eyes off her despite his concerns. “It isna proper.”

“I do not care,” she said, patting the place beside her invitingly. “I want to see, and after all, if Kintail had not forbidden
all others to come, his bedding would have had a much larger audience.”

“Aye, but he did forbid it,” Claud reminded her.

“You may leave if you think you are intruding. Of course, if you do, I probably shall not speak to you for days,” she added,
stroking his upper thigh.

“Catriona,” Claud groaned.

“Hush,” she said. “Watch now. Why is he just standing there by the bed, holding her? Does the great daffy not know what to
do next?”

Kintail had reached the bed and was about to set Molly down when he paused, stiffening, suddenly alert.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I thought I heard voices,” he said, looking around as if he expected to see someone step forth from the shadows.

They both remained silent for a time, but in the flickering light, only the shadows moved, and all Molly could hear was the
crackling of the fire.

“Mayhap Mauri is returning,” she said.

“She would not dare.”

“Then your friends. Mightn’t they dare?”

“Doubtless it was just my imagination,” he said, setting her gently on the bed where she could lean back against the pillows.
Then, fetching the pewter goblet, he handed it to her, saying, “Don’t drink that too fast now.”

She sipped, watching him strip off his clothing, aware that he, too, was accustomed to having a servant help him, but his
movements were deft and sure. That he was in a hurry was plain. He cast off the last article of clothing and turned toward
the bed.

Molly stared.

“Oh, good, very good, indeed,” Catriona said, sitting up straighter and removing her hand from Claud’s thigh.

Hearing such a strong note of approval in her tone, Claud wandered if she were wishing that she could bed the huge man rather
than himself.

“He’s all right, I guess,” he said with a glance, “for a mortal.”

“All
right
?” She did not so much as flick her intense gaze away from Kintail. “The man is magnificent!”

Fin stopped in midstride, certain that this time he
had
heard voices, a female and a male. They seemed to float on the air from nowhere in particular, but glancing at his bride,
he could see no sign that she had heard them.

She was staring at him, round-eyed, and he could not blame her for that. Even if she had seen a naked man before, she probably
had never seen one in his present state of lust, a state, admittedly, that had slackened at the sound of the voices but was
improving again rapidly with each second that he feasted his eyes on her enticing beauty.

With one candle alight on a nearby chest and the fire’s diminishing glow to guide him, he moved to the bed, took the goblet
from her, and set it on the chest beside the candle. Then, pulling back the coverlet, he resisted the temptation just to stand
and gaze at her and slid gently in beside her, gathering her into his arms.

“I am going to take off your shift,” he murmured a few moments later, reaching for it. “I want to kiss you all over.”

“All over?” she sounded half intrigued, half fearful, as she wriggled helpfully, shifting her weight to make it easier for
him to take off the thin garment.

“Aye,” he said, casting it aside without a thought as to where it might fall. “Mind you, lass, my body is telling me to take
you swiftly and be done with it, but I’d like you to know some pleasure, too.”

“Pleasure?” She seemed surprised.

“Aye, like this,” he said, beginning to caress her body from tip to toe with his lips and hands. As he moved upward again,
intending to savor her full, soft breasts with his lips, he had to fight a renewed urge to take her swiftly. Her skin was
so soft, so smooth, and the scent she used filled the air around them with its enticing aroma, filling his mind with delightful
images of what lay ahead.

The soft glow of firelight made her body look golden, the tips of her breasts so inviting that he moved to take the right
one between his lips. As he did, he cupped the breast in his hand, letting his fingertips stroke it gently as he focused his
attention on the soft, berrylike nipple. Involved as he was, it took a moment to realize that his stroking fingertips had
encountered something unusual.

Curious, he shifted his position so that light from the candle fell on her breast, and he saw then what his body’s shadow
had hidden from him before. The oddly shaped mark was not as long as his little finger, but it was dark red, rippled, and
slightly raised, a rough blemish on her otherwise perfect skin.

Gently, he touched it with one finger, stroking it lightly as he said, “This is an odd sort of a birthmark. I swear it makes
my fingers tingle when I touch it.”

“It is not a birthmark,” she said. “The night Angus took me from Dunsithe, my mother marked me with a red-hot key.”

“Faith, what sort of mother would brand her own child?”

“She said that she did it so that people would always know me as the true Maid of Dunsithe,” she said with a grimace. Then,
more cheerfully, she added, “Maggie says it will fade away to nothing in time, that such marks do.”

“Who is Maggie?”

After a momentary silence, she said, “Just someone who looked after me. Different people have done so, you know, for I was
not yet six when they took me from my mother. Even before, I spent more time with my nurse than with her.”

“I think it is as well that I do not know your mother,” he said.

“I do not know her either,” she said. “I never saw her after I left Dunsithe.”

“Do you have any other memories of Dunsithe?” he asked. He had never thought to ask if she knew anything that might lead to
finding her fortune. He wondered if anyone had ever asked her. Someone, sometime, must have said something, given her some
clue to help her find it when the time came to do so.