Legacy (28 page)

From the time Edward was fourteen years old, women came willingly to his bed, grateful for his attention for as long as it lasted. Occasionally he wondered if seduction came as easily to every well-favored man who wasn’t king of England. Just once he would like to find out for himself what it felt like to be an ordinary man alone with a pretty maid.

He swallowed. “You are very lovely.”

She did not blush or simper or even look away. “Thank you,” she said instead.

“Are you betrothed?”

She thought of David Murray and the excuses she’d come up with over the years to put him off. Deep in the furthest recesses of her soul, Mairi knew that she would not marry him. Not now. “Not really.”

“What does that mean?”

“Only that I’ve been asked and, until now, had considered the possibility.”

“What changed your mind?”

She looked directly at him. “You.”

He stared at her, aghast. “Lass,” he croaked, searching desperately for a safe reply. “I can’t—I didn’t—”

Her eyes danced with laughter. “You needn’t panic,” she teased. “I won’t post the banns until you are completely well.”

Drawing a deep, restoring breath, he settled back against the pillows. “You are a minx, Mairi of Shiels,” he said when he could trust himself to speak again. “Have you no scruples? You nearly stopped my heart.”

“Would it be so dreadful?” she countered.

Once again heat rose in his loins. His eyes moved from her face to the sweet curve of her breasts. What would it be like to take her here and now, when the singing of her blood reached out to him, demanding fulfillment? It wasn’t possible. He hadn’t the strength for it. The scent of roses wafted from her hair. She was direct and unafraid. He would be direct in return. “Are you a maid?” he asked gently.

She did not look away. “Aye. Does it matter?”

“The issue is of some importance,” he replied. “There are those to whom an untouched bride is a necessity.”

“What of you, m’lord?”

He considered her question carefully. For purposes of succession, virginity was required in a queen. He thought of his wedding night with Eleanor. Three lords, the high chamberlain included, had waited and listened outside the cloistering bed curtains. The consummation of a royal marriage was an affair of state. He had acquitted himself admirably and taken her no less than three times that night. Poor lass. She hadn’t enjoyed it nearly as much as he had. Not that the night had been particularly memorable for him either. Untouched virgins were not the most satisfactory of bed partners. Edward preferred lustier wenches who knew what a man expected between the sheets.

Mairi’s expression was serious as she waited for his answer. Her eyes held a question in their depths and something else that could not be denied. Suddenly, it meant a great deal that she had never known another man. Edward felt the racing of pulse. Blood drummed in his temples. What had come over him? He was no debaucher of innocent virgins. He was the king of England, and Eleanor waited for him in London. Mairi of Shiels wasn’t a woman to be tumbled for a single night’s easy sport, and he knew, without a doubt, she would never agree to be any man’s mistress. His eyes moved over her face. It was no wonder he had considered it. A saint would be tempted by this woman with the face of legends.

He cleared his throat and answered her question. “Virginity is less important to me than loyalty. It matters little whether a woman has known another man before she takes her vows as long as she knows only her husband after.”

“Well spoken,” said Mairi, her smiling lighting the still beauty of her face. “If all men had your tolerance, more women would be happy in their marriages.”

He sighed with relief. The moment of tension had disappeared and with it the necessity of confessing his own marital state. He did not intend to bed this fascinating woman, but he saw no need to disclose his true identity or the fact that he already had a wife. Mairi would never travel to London, and he would never see the gates of Traquair House again. No one would be harmed if he carried on this flirtation for a bit longer. It suited him to be an ordinary man cosseted by a pretty maid.

***

Edward awoke for the second time that day. He could see from the light in the small window above his bed that it was no more than dusk, but it would be dark soon. Night fell quickly on the borders. He was no longer tired, and for the first time, hunger cramped his stomach. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hungry. It was an unpleasant sensation. God’s blood! Where was Thomas?

Cursing loudly, he threw aside the blankets and sat up. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and his shoulder ached. For a brief moment, he considered giving up his quest. But the low, demanding growl of his stomach spurred him on. His breeks and boots and a freshly washed tunic lay over a nearby stool.

Carefully, he pulled on his garments, leaving the tunic unlaced at the throat and walked out of the room to the landing. Night had fallen, and the only light came from the evil-smelling torches mounted on the wall. Slowly, so as not to jar his wound, he descended the stairs and followed the light into the hall. His eyes widened at the picture before him.

Reclining on a wolfskin rug before an enormous fire, a look of rapt adoration on his face, was his squire, Thomas Droune. Mairi sat across from him, her hands fingering a small wooden instrument that resembled a lute. Edward waited, hidden by shadows, as the sweet, piercing notes filled the room. His guess had been accurate. It was a lute but unlike any that he’d heard before. The music quivered, trembled, and rose, exquisitely clear, heartbreakingly pure, until the very walls vibrated with the aching sadness of the border ballad. Horrified, Edward felt his eyes sting. Blinking rapidly, he forced back the suspicious wetness gathering at the corners. By God, the woman was a witch. She could charm the spirits from their netherworld haunts.

When the last of the notes died away, he moved out of the shadows and made his way to the fire. Thomas noticed him first. Jumping to his feet, the boy stammered a garbled apology. “My lord,” he gasped. “I—you—”

Edward ignored him. His mind was completely occupied with the woman before him. Slowly, as if in a dream, she stood and faced him. The fire threw an arc of light against the blackened walls, highlighting her face in its golden glow.

She stared back at him, saying nothing, her eyes noting the pulse in his brown throat, the golden hair straying from the laces of his shirt, and the tightly clenched hands that gave away more, much more, than she knew he wanted her to know.

Thomas backed away. The once comfortable room welcomed him no longer. The two had not even touched, but he felt as if he were an intruder in a moment of such intimacy that the scorching heat between them would consume anyone caught in its path. Holy God! He had never seen such a look on the king’s face. This development could be dangerous for the both of them. Mairi of Shiels was the daughter of the late laird of Clan Maxwell. An insult of this nature would not bode well for England. If the Maxwells sent the cross throughout Scotland, not a clan in the entire country would support Edward. Doubt clouded his boyish features as he slipped, unnoticed, from the room.

A log snapped in the fire. Sheets of driving rain found their way down the long chimney. The flames hissed and curled around the life-giving drops, shriveling them into smoke. Edward spoke first. “Will you play for me?”

Mairi shook her head. The music had left her. There was room for only this man, lean and predatory, standing like a golden lion in the firelight. She swallowed.

“Do you want me to leave you, lass?” His voice was thick and rough in his throat.

Again she shook her head.

He knelt before her on the wolfskin and held out his hand.

Mairi allowed him to pull her down beside him, her eyes intent on his face.

“You should not have left your bed,” she whispered. “The wound needs rest to heal.”

He shrugged off her concern. “It will heal.” Her hair pooled like silk on the floor around her. He could not resist fingering the shining strands. “I wish you would sing. ’Tis a lovely voice you have, Mairi of Shiels.”

She tilted her head, considering his words as if to gauge whether they were flattery or truth. Finally, she smiled. “I can sing no more tonight, my lord, but if you like I’ll tell you a kelpie tale of the Highlands.”

He stretched out on the rug, his sound arm behind his head. “I should like it above all things.”

“Very well then.” She leaned back on her hands and began to speak. “Once, the land beyond the Grampians was occupied by Celts, small, dark people with wisdom in their eyes and purity in their hearts. Some say they dealt in magic, but others insist their power lay in the earth goddess they worshipped above all others.”

Her voice had a hushed, mystical quality that Edward had heard in only the most skilled bards. He listened carefully, caught in the web of her words.

“A young girl was born into one of the northern tribes. From the beginning, all who knew her saw that she was different. She spoke to the wind and rain and the animals and all growing things, and they answered her. The earth goddess was growing old, and there were those who believed that Ceilith, the young girl, was destined to take her place.”

Mairi stared into the sputtering flames. Edward watched, enchanted, as the firelight played across her face, shadowing the hollows of her cheeks, highlighting the thin nose, the elegant bones of her face, and the faint dusting of freckles on her skin.

“One spring day,” she continued, “when Ceilith was gathering herbs on the moors, a stranger came to the Highlands. He was tall and fair and rode a dark stallion. Caught by Ceilith’s beauty, he captured her and took her far away, beyond the sea. There he made her his bride. She was very unhappy. She could not eat nor drink, and her song that called up the sun each day dried in her throat. Ceilith’s people mourned her. In the Highlands that year, the spring and summer were short. In the land beyond the sea, darkness descended, and the people were afraid. Finally, Ceilith’s husband realized that she would die. Although his heart was sore, he brought her home to her beloved Highlands and, there on the moor where he found her, bid her good-bye. At first Ceilith was happy. Flowers bloomed, grain grew plentiful, and brightness covered the land. But soon, Ceilith was sad again. She hated the frozen north, but she loved a man. She longed for the man who was her husband. She loved the Highlands and the people of her tribe, but she was lonely.”

Mairi was silent for a long time. Finally, Edward prodded her. “What happened? Did she leave her people and return to him?”

“No.” She wet her lips. “He was a king, you see, and a king needs an heir. When Ceilith’s husband left her, he returned home and married a woman of the north. Ceilith died of a broken heart.”

Edward’s heart stopped. Had she found him out or was Mairi’s tale an incredible coincidence? The silence lengthened. He could bear it no longer. Gently, his hands slipped beneath her chin to her throat, turning her head so that she looked directly at him. Those shining gray eyes were incapable of deception. Her face was inches from his own. He could smell the rose-petal scent of her hair. Her breath caught in a quick, sharp intake, and he was lost. The flickering heat in his loins blazed into a roaring inferno. Involuntarily, his hand clenched as he fought his desire.

“Edward,” she choked, “you’re hurting me.”

Cursing himself and his newly found strength of character, he released her and stood up. There were finger marks on her neck. Tomorrow they would be bruises. “Forgive me, lass,” he muttered, “I forgot myself. You are a gifted weaver of tales, but I fear you were right. My wound needs resting.”

Mairi watched him leave the room, a thoughtful expression on her face. He did not look at all like a man who needed rest, more like a lion kept too long at the end of a leash.

Edward belted his tunic and looked around for his scabbard. It was nowhere to be found. He grinned and tucked a small dirk inside his sash. The lass was too intelligent to allow a stranger free use of his sword. Mairi of Shiels was an unusual woman. An astute mind lay beneath her lovely face. He opened the door and walked down the hall to the stairs. No one was about. The air was cold, and he drew a deep cleansing breath into his lungs. He’d never quite grown accustomed to the foul-smelling herbs that were inevitably strewn across all sickroom floors.

He walked down the stairs to the great hall. The door to the entry was open. God’s blood! Where was everyone? Didn’t the woman have servants? He opened his mouth to call for Thomas, then remembered he’d sent him back to London bearing the message that the king still lived. Hunger and the tempting smell of spice propelled him out the door and across the yard to a small dwelling he was sure would be the kitchen.

Edward pushed open the door and stepped inside. A rush of pleasure caught him by surprise. She was here, overseeing the preparation of apple tarts. Her black hair, held away from her face by a strip of velvet, hung down her back. Her cheeks were red from the heat and a smudge of flour marked her nose. His mouth watered. He wasn’t sure whether it was the smell of food or the incredibly appealing sight of Mairi of Shiels dressed in the simple clothes of country maid.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” she chastised him.

He grinned. “I had nothing to occupy my time. You haven’t been to visit me in two days.”

“There is more to running an estate than dalliance,” she said.

His grin broadened. “’Tis glad I am to hear it. I was afraid you’d been avoiding me.”

She lifted her chin and looked directly at him. “Don’t be absurd. Why would I do that?”

Edward promised himself he would leave the lass pure, but his time was growing short. A bit of flirtation wouldn’t harm her. “Perhaps because I was ungracious enough to refuse your proposal,” he said.

The cooks’ ladies stopped in midair as they turned to look at their mistress in astonishment.

“Of course not,” Mairi said hastily. “You must know I wasn’t serious.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” replied Edward. “If you don’t wish to marry me, perhaps you’ll agree to feed me instead.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. “Sweet Mary, ’tis past time for the noon meal. I forgot.” She turned to the cooks. “Why did no one remind me?”

“Pardon me, mistress,” a plump, apple-cheeked girl spoke up. “But often times you have no appetite in the middle of the day.”

“I’m afraid ’tis so,” Mairi confessed.

Edward folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the door jamb. He was so tall his head brushed against the ceiling. “I know how to bring back your appetite,” he said. “We shall have a picnic.”

She frowned. “A picnic?”

“A meal out of doors,” he explained. “Surely you’ve done it before.”

Mairi shook her head. “I don’t think—”

His smile was brilliant. “You needn’t think, lass. Just pack up some bread, a bit of cheese, and a flask of wine, and we’ll be on our way.”

Who could argue with such enthusiasm? Certainly not Mairi. She knew, with a sinking feeling in her chest, that he was not a man to accept refusal easily.

He watched her efficient movements with fascinated interest as she gathered the food, stuffing it into a flour sack and knotting it firmly at the top. This was a lady of the manor that he had no experience with. Her capable hands had the slender fine-boned lines of an aristocrat, but her nails were clipped short and he’d felt the calluses on her palm when she’d touched his chest. Mairi of Shiels was not afraid of hard work. For some reason, the knowledge pleased him. Manual labor was something Edward was unfamiliar with. The idea that this border lady with the light-touched eyes was proficient in areas he was not challenged him.

Mairi untied the linen cloth from around her waist. “Shall we go?” she asked, embarrassed at the obvious interest of her servants.

“Aye.” Edward pushed away from the door and held out his hand for the sack.

She gave it to him and waited until he stepped outside before she followed. They walked for several minutes in silence. He spoke first, “You didn’t want to come with me, did you?”

A smile played across her lips. If he could be direct, so could she. “On the contrary. I wanted to very much.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The wind tugged at her hair, tangling the fine strands into tiny knots. She brushed it back away from her face so that the pure line of her jaw was exposed to his gaze. “Believe what you wish. We both know the truth.”

Intrigued and yet slightly annoyed, Edward reached for her hand. She stopped and faced him, her back very straight. She was tall for a woman, but nothing compared to his great height. Her head came up to his shoulder. “What is the truth, lass?” he asked gruffly.

Edward knew she would not dissemble. He was not disappointed. She looked him straight in the eye and spared nothing. “I know you want me, Edward of Durbridge,” she said softly, “and I know that you do not intend marriage. You are also a knight, and English knights do not seduce virgins.”

He had asked for plain speaking, but he was not prepared for the effect of her words. Like a boy with his first maid, he stared down at her, tongue-tied and red faced, unable to defend himself. No one had ever read his character as clearly as this leggy, half-grown girl he had known less than one week. The air caught in his throat. Holy God, she was lovely beyond belief. But it was more than her beauty that drew him. It was the uncompromising honesty in her gaze, the regal set of her head, the straight dignity of her back, the graceful play of her hands, and the glorious, heart-shattering purity of her smile.

Edward had never considered marrying for love. His marriage to Eleanor had been a political match, debated for hours in the chilly halls of Westminster and the Tower. It had never occurred to him to wonder how his wife’s mind worked. God’s wounds! He could barely remember what she looked like. What he wouldn’t give to be free at this moment, to offer everything he had to this woman who intrigued him more than any other had before her.

The blood burned like fire through his veins. A tic twitched at the corner of his mouth, a sign of the effort it took to control his emotions. Dropping her hand, Edward walked on. He could offer her nothing, not even the truth, and it shamed him.

She caught up with him near the black oak overlooking the burn. “A surly companion is not what I’d expected when you suggested a picnic, m’lord,” she teased him.

Her smile was sweet and beguiling, like wild honey. Happiness flooded through him, warming the chill around his heart. He took her hand and drew her down beside him. “’Tis as good a place as any for a picnic.”

“Aye.” Mairi looked around her at the green-gold beauty of the hills. The sky was a deep, piercing blue, and the clouds hung so low she felt as if she could pluck one with her fingers. At her feet, the burn rushed clear and cold. The water flowed gold colored from the sun and the brown peat stones it crossed on its way to the sea. She sighed. The day was perfect. She was grateful she’d allowed him to persuade her out of doors.

“I had no idea your country could be as lovely as this,” he said.

She looked at him, surprised. “Surely you’ve been to Scotland before this?”

He nodded. “Aye, but only to take part in battle. My mind was not on the landscape.”

There was much she wanted to say but decided against it. Their time together was too short for recriminations. She did not want this Englishman’s last memory of her to be that of a woman with a shrewish temper. “Is your home very different?” she asked instead.

He leaned back on his hands, his eyes closed, his face turned toward the sun. The carven beauty of his mouth made her throat go dry.

“Aye,” he said carefully. “I live in London most of the year, but even in the south of England, the land is dryer with fewer trees.” He opened his eyes, and his voice dropped. It was lower, more intimate, caressing. “I would show it to you if I could.”

“Why can’t you?” Deliberately, she kept her question light.

A sound, almost a groan but more muffled, came from within his chest. “Lass, have you learned nothing of maidenly decorum?”

“I am Mairi of Shiels,” she said with quiet dignity. “I have no need for decorum.”

Her hand on his cheek undid him. He turned toward her touch to find her gaze upon him. Searching her face for the smallest sign of regret, he found none. “God help you, my heart,” he murmured. “May He forgive me for the sin I would willingly commit.”

“I’ll warrant it will not be your first,” she teased him.

He did not smile. “Lass,” he whispered hoarsely, “you cannot do this.”

Her expression grew serious and the cool, light-struck eyes widened until they seemed to fill her entire face. “I know not what brought you here, m’lord, but from the first I knew how it would be between us.”

“Sweet Jesu.” He damned the emotions within him that demanded honesty at such a price. “I am not who you think.”

“Hush.” She laid her finger across his lips, down his chin and throat into the crisply curling hair escaping from the top of his shirt. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Mairi,” he groaned, throwing out his final and most damning argument. “I have never known another woman like you. I would wed you if I could, but I am not free.”

Her exploring fingers had unlaced his shirt and were making shockingly intimate forays down his chest. Her question was a whisper against his ear. “You are betrothed?”

“Nay, lass,” he confessed, cursing the hunger surging through him. “I am married.”

Her hand was on his rib cage, her touch more sensuous than any courtesan he had ever known. She could not have heard him for she did not draw away.

“Mairi,” he began and stopped. Her face was close to his own. Her hair smelled like roses and her skin, bathed in afternoon sunlight, was flawless. Her lips parted ever so slightly, and he heard his own harsh intake of breath. Of their own volition, his hands reached out to caress her throat, her cheeks, and finally to thread the silken strands of her hair between his fingers while he gently cradled her head. She closed her eyes. Her lashes rested like dark half-moons against her cheeks. Her mouth quivered in silent invitation.

“I am a man, not a saint,” he murmured. “By all that is holy, I swear you shall not regret this.” With that he lowered his head and touched his mouth to hers.

Whatever Mairi had expected, it wasn’t this piercing sweetness, this exquisite, aching fire that started in the pit of her stomach and traveled through every nerve until she hummed like a branch struck by lightning. Who would have guessed that a man as tall and hard as a mountain had lips softer than angel’s wings, whose sheltering arms held magic in their touch, whose words of love muffled against her throat could heat her blood to fevered heights? Her hands slid up his back, reveling in the hard strength and hot male flesh stretched so tightly across the bunched muscles. She raked him lightly with her nails.

“My God, Mairi,” he groaned, lifting his head to look down at her passion-flushed face. “Tell me you want this. Let me hear your words before ’tis too late to stop.”

Something deep and elemental blazed to life in her eyes. When she spoke, her voice sounded nothing like herself. “I shan’t stop you, Edward. I want it too, more than anything.”

His hands trembled as he molded them over the sweet rise of her breasts and stroked their tips with his thumbs. When he felt her response, he untied her kirtle and pushed aside the bodice of her tightly fitting tunic. Her arms were bare and the thin linen of her shift revealed the outline of her nipples and the darkness between her thighs. Edward’s breathing altered. He was no longer in control. Even if she wanted him to stop, he couldn’t. She was too lovely and he’d thought of nothing but burying himself inside her warmth for a seemingly endless length of days and nights.

He tore his gaze from the enticing roundness of her breasts to look at her face. She was staring at him, unembarrassed and unafraid. There was hunger in her eyes and something else, something that reached out and touched him with a longing that left him shaken and wanting. When his mouth took hers in a searing kiss, her lips opened, and her tongue eagerly sought his. White heat flamed through him. He moved over her, pressing himself into the triangle of her thighs. He had never been so hard. He feared he would hurt her, but there was no help for it. Mairi of Shiels lay beneath him, open and welcoming. Only God Himself had the power to stop this coupling.

Mairi did not feel the coolness of the air or the pebbles rubbing against her skin as her shift was lifted over her head and thrown aside. She did not hear the squirrels chattering and scolding one another in the trunk of the great black oak that sheltered them. She did not see the single whaup circling overhead or hear the shrillness of its lonely cry. She felt only a firm mouth on her lips and a man’s hands on her skin. She heard only the wild singing of her blood that promised her this first long-dreamed-of taste of passion.

Again and again Edward moved against her with all the skill of a man familiar with the secrets of a woman’s body. He stirred the dormant embers of her need into leaping flames of desire. Her skin ached and her nerves throbbed against the insistent coaxing of his hands and mouth. When he parted her thighs with his leg, she was more than ready.

He moved over her, breathing heavily. The turgid length of his sex probed at her. Mairi looked up through her lashes. His eyes were open, their blue-green color more brilliant than the sky that framed his head. He stared down at her with a look of such yearning hunger that she could not bear it. Reaching up, she touched his face.

With a harsh cry, he surged into her, forgetting his resolve to go slowly, to exercise control, to bring her the greatest pleasure she had ever known. The cords on the side of his neck swelled. He buried his face against her throat. Taking in deep gulping breaths, he willed his raging heart to slow its beat.

Mairi concentrated on the sensations she was feeling. It was not an unpleasant feeling exactly, just different. She felt stretched and full. Edward was a large man, and she was slender. The sharp end of a pebble stabbed into her hip. Experimentally, she shifted her hips. He stiffened.