Ann Lethbridge (15 page)

‘As always, I am at your service.’ His words, while spoken matter-of-factly, strummed a chord low in her belly. A deep visceral reaction.

A startling response. A moment later he was tugging at the laces, slowly exposing her back to the cool evening breeze. Every time his warm fingers touched her chilly skin, shivers danced across her shoulders and her breasts. Little thrills that tightened her insides. Unnatural heat flashed through her body. A head-to-toe blush.

Most unnerving. Cold water suddenly seemed like a very good idea.

‘All done,’ he said, moving away and picking up a towel to dry his hair. ‘In you go.’

She let the stays fall to the ground and then untied her petticoat and dropped it, too.

She sat down on the bank to remove her shoes and stockings, then with the bar of soap in hand, she dipped a toe in the water.

‘Ugh. It’s freezing.’

‘The longer you dither, the harder it gets.’ His back was firmly turned away. No peeking for him. Clearly a woman’s nakedness held no novelty.

‘You speak from experience,’ she said, staring at the swiftly rushing water, bracing herself to brave the cold.

‘I can tell you that my older brothers never let me linger.’ On those words, he came up behind her and picked her up with his hands at her waist and stepped down into the water as if she weighed no more than a feather.

‘Hurry up,’ he said, ‘or we’ll have Sean coming to find out what is taking so long.’

His words had her scrubbing at her arms and legs, working the lather up through the fabric of her chemise, using his shoulder to balance on one foot as needed, while he kept his gaze averted. ‘I wish I could wash my hair.’

‘Do it. I’ll hold you.’

She glanced at the rushing water. She’d trusted him with her life—this was nothing by comparison. He took her under the arms and lowered her into the water. It wasn’t quite as cold as she’d first thought. Working quickly, she lathered until her scalp felt clean. He helped her rinse out the soap, one large hand supporting her back, while the other rubbed and squeezed until her hair squeaked.

‘Enough,’ she said.

He lifted her up and set her on the bank. She wasn’t a big woman, even so, he lifted her as if she weighed no more than a child. Yet he treated her so gently. He did not make her feel weak, or helpless. Just... Just cared for.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and forced herself to concentrate on drying herself.

‘You must take this off,’ he said, plucking at the chemise.

He was right. It was clinging, wet and cold, to her skin. She could not put clothes over it.

‘Here, let me.’ He took it by the hem and she lifted her arms above her head, and he swept it away. She covered herself with her hands, but he wasn’t looking—he was using one of the rags to pat her back dry while she rubbed at her front. In less than a moment or two she was glowing all over.

‘Here,’ he said, passing the blouse and skirt. ‘Put these on. We will dry your hair at the fire.’

While he dressed, she slipped into the full skirts and laced bodice fashionable a century ago. Clothing she’d seen on poor village women all her life, although these seemed more brightly coloured. She dried her hair as best she could with one of the rags. When she was done, she saw that he had gathered their clothes and was washing them in the stream. She joined him.

‘They can dry by the fire,’ he said, looking up.

She knelt to help, scrubbing at her gown and petticoats with the soap and rinsing them clean. Side by side on the bank of the stream, she felt like a peasant woman with her man. It felt strange, yet oddly familiar. As if this was where she belonged. She wrung out her clothes and laid them on the bank, then sat back on her heels and looked up at the sky, purple on the horizon, black velvet overhead and sprinkled with stars. Never had she seen a more beautiful night.

‘That should do it,’ Niall said, rising to his feet, gathering up their clothing into the bundle. ‘Let’s go. I am starving.’ He took her hand and they walked back towards the fire.

Never in her life had she felt so free. Like a wild creature. Part of the landscape. Free of obligation and duty. High in the sky, Venus winked and twinkled at her as if enjoying the joke.

A laugh bubbled up. She held up her arms to the sky and twirled, set free by the life pulsing in her blood, caring for nothing but the moment. ‘Let us never go back,’ she cried. ‘We could live with the gypsies. Wander the Highlands, doing just as we pleased.’

‘Jenna,’ he whispered. He caught her and held her close, inhaling deeply as if he could breathe her right into his body. ‘You are so beautiful. You have no idea how much I am tempted.’

The longing in his voice was painful to hear. It tugged at her heart, when she was not supposed to have one. Not if she was going to do her duty.

She reached up and stroked his cheek, feeling bristles rough and rasping against her palm. An exotic roughness. ‘Oh, why can’t we be two ordinary people, no one depending on us, no responsibilities, just Niall and Jenna?’

‘Oh, lass, it would still all be there waiting for us.’

An insistent clanging made them jump guiltily apart. ‘Sean,’ Niall muttered.

She laughed. ‘Getting impatient by the sound of it.’

‘Aye, and my stomach is nigh to touching my backbone, I’m so hungry. It scarcely remembers we ate bread and cheese last night.’

He took her hand and they ran through the heather, the scent of it rising up around her, mingling with the clean scent of soap and night.

Sean looked up at their approach. ‘Dinner is ready.’ He gestured for them to sit and they stared in wonder at the meat roasting on skewers over the fire and the aroma of coffee brewing.

‘Where did this come from?’ Niall asked.

‘While you slept, I hunted a little,’ Sean said, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

‘Ah, yes,’ Niall said. ‘Sleeping. I want a word with you about that.’

‘It smells wonderful,’ Jenna said, preferring to keep the peace until they had eaten.

‘Everything smells wonderful to hungry children,’ Sean said,

‘I’m no child,’ Niall growled, but not in an angry way.

‘Is it not children who play in the stream instead of washing?’

Niall bristled. ‘You had no business—’

‘I heard you laughing.’

Grunting his displeasure, Niall hung their wet clothes over nearby gorse bushes. ‘You hear too much,’ he said.

Sean chuckled. ‘Eat. Then we talk.’

Niall sat beside Jenna. ‘Promise me this, Sean. That if we eat this meal we will not find ourselves sleeping night and day.’

‘There is no need,’ the gypsy said, flashing his grin. He handed them each a skewer and a slice of bread sprinkled with salt.

Jenna stared at him, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it around a morsel of meat. So delicious. Eat first. Talk later.

Chapter Eleven

R
eplete with food but far from content, Niall sat with a tin mug of coffee warming his hands and Jenna leaning against him. He eyed the gypsy across the fire. ‘I thank you for your hospitality, Sean. But I am still wondering how you found us.’

‘
Gadjo
, he is always suspicious. I told you, I had a dream.’ At Niall’s glare, he opened his hands wide, his face somewhat bemused. ‘I can’t explain it. Between waking and sleeping, things come to me. I have learned never to ignore them.’

‘That’s rubbish,’ Niall shot back.

A knife appeared in the gypsy’s hand, flickering red steel twisting and turning in his quick clever fingers. ‘Do you give me the lie, Mr Gilvry?’

Niall cursed himself for not keeping his pistol with him. No doubt he would find it gone from where he had left it under his pillow.

Jenna put a calming hand on his arm. ‘Stop it, Niall. Please, Sean, won’t you tell us what you know?’

The knife disappeared. ‘I overheard them talking in the barn at auld Tam’s tavern. He serves me a dram as long as I stay out of the taproom.’

That Niall did believe. Dreams were something else entirely. ‘What did you hear?’

‘They were angry. Complaining about not being paid until the job was complete.’

‘Paid by whom?’ Niall asked.

‘They did not speak his name.’

‘What else?’ Jenna asked.

‘They spoke of Tearny’s widow being far enough out of town. Of a lad to deliver a note.’ He glanced at Niall. ‘So I followed them. Not close. But close enough to guess where they were going when they took the boat.’

‘I’m grateful for it,’ Jenna said.

‘I am, too,’ Niall said. ‘I just don’t understand why you didn’t take us back to the castle.’

The gypsy shrugged.

Impatience ripped through Niall at his apparent indifference. ‘Tomorrow we go to Carrick.’

‘Then you go on foot,’ Sean said.

‘If necessary.’ Niall narrowed his eyes. ‘Perhaps I’ll help myself to your horse.’

The knife was back, still this time, balanced on the tips of strong fingers. ‘You can try.’

‘Will you kill me for it?’ Niall let his lip curl.

‘No. Feel free. Try to lead her one foot from where she stands.’

He should have guessed the man would train his animal to follow only one master.

‘So then we must walk.’

‘You must. The Lady Jenna comes with me.’

Jenna looked at Niall, then at the gypsy. ‘It was wrong of you to mislead us, Sean. If Mr Gilvry says we must return to Carrick, that is what we must do.’

‘It is not safe for her in the castle,’ Sean said.

‘Don’t tell me,’ Niall said bitterly. ‘You saw it in a dream.’

The gypsy’s face split in a grin and the knife disappeared. ‘You learn fast,
gadjo
.’

‘Not fast enough, I am thinking.’

‘Mr Hughes is expecting you,’ Sean said as if it would clinch the argument.

‘Ah, another of the Lady Jenna’s suitors.’

‘Sean,’ Jenna said, shaking her head at him. She pressed her lips together and looked down at her hands. ‘Whatever Mr Gilvry decides is what we will do. He has my best interests at heart.’

Longing filled her voice, but she had signified her trust in him. And didn’t he feel like a fraud. He’d done nothing but endanger her life. By being stubborn about not going to Braemuir, he might be risking it further, if there really was danger at Carrick.
If
there was. He just did not trust this man who owed no one allegiance but his band.

‘How soon can we leave?’ he asked Sean.

‘When the moon comes up. The tracks are hard to follow in full dark.’

‘What tracks?’ Niall said, looking around.

‘Ancient pathways only the
fowki
can see.’ He rose nimbly to his feet and went to the cart. He returned with a fiddle. ‘While we wait, we will have some music.’

He sat cross-legged before the fire and began to play a haunting tune that filled the air with sadness. It made Niall think of Drew and his mother’s mourning. Jenna sighed and by the light of the fire, he could see she was also thinking sad thoughts.

All at once, he felt a dreadful foreboding—as if what he had decided was wrong. What the hell was wrong with him? ‘This is dreary.’

Jenna felt Niall’s restlessness, his impatience. He was right. The music was too mournful. It made her long to go home with painful intensity. As the last notes died away, she clapped. ‘How about something more cheerful, Sean?’

He bowed his head over his bow and began a merry tune that started her toes tapping and her hands clapping time.

Niall looked into her face and smiled. ‘Would you care to dance with me, Lady Jenna?’

‘I’d love to.’

He stood up and helped her to her feet. He looked over at Sean. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve a waltz in your repertoire, do you?’

The music changed instantly to the strains of the popular dance. Niall took her in his arms. He smelled like smoke and night-time as he waltzed her around the fire. His arms were strong and she had no fear of falling despite the rough ground.

‘I had no idea you were so accomplished, Mr Gilvry,’ she said, laughing up at him, the stars spinning above her head, the firelight glinting in his eyes. ‘You dance delightfully.’

‘You are too kind, Lady Jenna. You dance like a wee wicked faery.’

Wicked. Her breath caught in her throat. Yes, it was wicked to be held in his arms while they danced in firelight. But tonight she wasn’t Lady Jenna, she was just a wild gypsy girl without a care in the world. Tomorrow she would return to her duties and responsibilities.

The tempo of the music increased and the dance became a wild whirling romp. Quite shocking and dangerous, until they were both laughing so hard, they had to beg Sean to stop.

‘You dance like true gypsies,’ Sean said, grinning at them, but he slowed the tempo to a gentle crawl.

A gypsy. If only she was. It would be wonderful to lead a life without obligations, with the freedom to wander the hills. She clung to Niall’s hand, closing her eyes, letting the music drift over and through her, carrying her along on a gentle river of sweet-flowing sound. After a very long time, she realised the music had stopped and she was swaying in Niall’s embrace to the rhythm of his heart, their feet barely moving, their breaths mingling, their bodies touching. A waltz no hostess would ever approve of.

And she didn’t care. She leaned her cheek on his chest and felt his chin drop to the top of her head, and both of his hands come to rest on her back, stroking and caressing.

Her limbs felt liquid. Her blood hot. She tipped her face up for his kiss and his mouth took hers, his tongue stroking hers and plunging deep, and inside her was a great deep tremble of longing and desire.

She cupped his face in her hands, feeling the hard planes of his cheekbones, the strong set of his jaw. ‘Niall,’ she breathed at long last.

He raised his head, glancing to the place by the fire. ‘It seems we are alone.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Jenna...’ He shook his head. ‘We—’

She touched a finger to his lips, felt the warmth of his skin, of his whisper of breath. ‘Don’t say it. Tonight I am just me, Jenna, a gypsy woman, and her lover carried away by wild music beneath the stars. With no tomorrow to worry about.’

He groaned. ‘You are sure about this?’

‘Very sure.’

He swept her up in his arms and carried her into the cart, somehow manoeuvring around the baskets and boxes to lay her down on the mattress where the lantern cast the tiny space with its jewel-tone cushions in warm light. She gazed up at his face and saw the strain and the desire and she smiled up at him and held out her hand, catching his to bring him down beside her.

Slowly, he took her mouth, feeling the warmth and the velvet softness and tasting salt from her tears. She parted her lips, opening to his tongue, offering her mouth like a gift from the gods. And he took the gift and slid his tongue along hers, silken, slippery heat. His heart banged against his ribs, blood roared in his ears and gentleness was forgotten as she wrapped her arms around his neck and arched into him, pressing against his length. Even through the thickness of their clothes he could feel the soft swells of her body crushed against his, and the jab of pain from his ribs was nothing compared to the pleasure of holding her as she plundered his mouth with her tongue, taking what she wanted with wild abandon.

As they kissed, he unlaced her bodice and loosened the ribbon at the neck of her blouse, hoping she would tell him no, praying she would not. She did not. He lifted himself on his arms to look down on her. He had seen her naked at the stream, like a wood nymph, shy and wary. Now she lay abandoned on the cushions, her limbs relaxed, her green eyes heavy lidded and her mouth red and ripe and sultry with passion.

No woman had ever looked so tempting. His gaze took in her shape beneath the cotton blouse and shift. She was lovely. A small woman, beautifully formed with swells and dips in all the right places.

Slowly he ran a finger along the edge of the cotton garment, dipping it into the valley of her breasts and his body tightened as her breath hitched and her small white teeth caught her full bottom lip. What wouldn’t he give to feel that mouth on him.

His shaft hardened and strained against the fabric of his trousers.

He cupped one hand to her breast, felt the swell of it in his palm and felt her arch against him. His Jenna. His? No, and nor could he take what could never be his. But there was one gift he could give her. He cursed his weakness and broke the kiss, intending to stop this before things went too far.

‘Don’t stop,’ she said with a pout of rosy lips. ‘You make me feel warm, from the inside out.’

And he was lost. ‘I am yours to command, my lady.’

This was not about him. Could not be.

He raised his gaze from her small high bosom to her face and saw she was smiling nervously, licking her lips with anticipation and fear. But it was courage he saw shining in her eyes, amid the desire. She put him to shame.

He took a deep breath. ‘I cannot be the ruin of you Jenna, but...’ he swallowed ‘...it would be my honour to bring you great pleasure.’

Honour. He was going to die of honour. Please God she said no. No, he wanted her to say yes. He wanted to be the one to have her die in his arms. To die of pleasure.

A pulse beat wildly at the base of her throat. ‘I am not sure I take your meaning.’ Her voice shook. But not with fear. She feared nothing.

‘It is not something I can describe, my sweet lady, but believe me, I can bring you more pleasure than you can imagine.’

A crease formed between her brows. ‘And I would not be ruined?’

‘No.’ Though it killed him to know she would afterwards belong to another.

She swallowed. ‘I think it might be wise,’ she whispered.

Wise? Nothing about this was wise. But nothing could stop what was about to happen. Not him. Not her. Whatever had happened tonight, out there in the dark, dancing under the stars, it was some form of gypsy magic and no mortal man could resist it.

He kissed her mouth and once more she melted beneath his touch. When, breathless and aching, he finally pulled away, she pressed her palm to his cheek. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Please.’

He almost groaned out loud. He must be a glutton for punishment. First a cliff and then this, but he’d made a promise and he would keep it.

Slowly he pressed a trail of kisses along her jaw, then below her ear to the music of her indrawn gasp of breath and, finally, to the rise of her breast. With quick fingers he unlaced her stays and weighed one full round breast in his hand. He drew the nipple into his mouth, suckling.

She gasped with shock.

He stopped, thinking he had gone too far.

‘No,’ she moaned. ‘Don’t stop. Not now.’

A passionate woman, his Jenna, he thought with a smile as he paid attention to her other sweet mound of flesh, while his hand slipped up her calf to her knee, to the silken flesh of her thigh. She parted her legs as if she instinctively knew what was wanted.

He smoothed his hand up her leg, pushing up the hem of her shift, while his tongue teased her nipple and she writhed beneath him. His shaft was so hard it hurt. He longed to free it from the confines of his trousers, to press his hard flesh into her soft wet heat. Yet he had promised he would not ruin her.

He rose up and knelt between her knees, looking down at her loveliness, the rise of her delicious breasts, the swell of her hips, the wanton parting of her legs revealing the rosy pink flesh of her sex in its nest of auburn curls. His breath caught in his throat at the beauty of her, then he leaned forwards and trailed kisses down her belly, feeling the velvet skin beneath his lips, and with one hand lifted her softly rounded bottom.

The sweet sweet flesh in his palm of a woman made of the bright steel of courage.

He trailed a finger through the tight curls and gently parted the delicate folds of her flesh.

‘Oh, my,’ she said breathlessly. ‘That feels—’

He kissed her, right there, tasting the honey of her desire and the heat of her need for fulfilment. He dipped his tongue between the folds and heard her cry out, teased her little nub of pleasure with his teeth and felt her body turn to liquid, and sucked.

She shattered in a helpless series of little whimpers and cries that broke his heart, even as he was filled with a fierce kind of joy and reached inside his trousers to bring himself to release before he collapsed next to her.

He lay there, exhausted, bliss-numbed. He was a cur. The lowest of the low, to take advantage of her innocence. Gypsy magic it was not. It was lust, pure and simple. His only comfort was that he had not gone too far. Never would he regret giving her the gift of pleasure even if he did have a sense of cold dread that he brought it at the cost of his honour.

If he told the truth, to him it had been a thing of wonder. Too soul-shattering for regret.

But he must not let base urges overcome him again.

And with that in mind, since Braemuir was closer than Carrick, they would go there.

* * *