The Firebrand (36 page)

“I’ve suffered, too,” she said softly, still looking down. “And I should have sought out your help. I just thought your time more valuable--”

“There is nothing more valuable to me than you.” He touched her cheek and brushed away the tears. He lifted her chin and looked into her blue eyes. “I am asking you to forgive me, Adrianne.”

She closed the space between them, walking into his arms. “I am the one who should seek forgiveness.”

“By God, I have missed you.” he growled, his arms gathering her so close that there was not a breath of air left between them. “I have missed you at my side—and in my bed.”

“I have, too,” she whispered against his lips before he took her mouth in a kiss. She pulled away a moment later, breathless. “I slept in the room above this one, thinking of you every moment, soaking my pillow with the tears of longing. And then this morning, hearing of you going away, of your journey--”

“Enough talk of that.” His lips tasted the delicious skin of her throat. “I want to make love to you.”

“But we cannot,” she said with alarm, putting a hand to his chest. “At least, not now. There is something I have planned for tonight, and I need your help.”

“‘Tis only afternoon. There are hours left until tonight.”

“But there is a great deal that still needs to be done. But I have to tell you about what has been planned, for I--”

“You can tell me now!” He leaned back against the desk and drew her to him. “But I’ll die if you deprive me of the pleasure of holding you.”

Reaching up, she threaded her fingers through his short hair, and her gaze drifted over his face, settling on his lips. “There
will
be time for this later.”

“Not enough time.” His hands moved down her back and over the curve of her bottom. He could feel the flesh, firm and smooth, through the green velvet cloth of the dress. He pulled gently until she was snugly pressed against his body. “Three days. You have made me suffer for three days.”

“And do you think you have suffered more than I?” She smiled up at him. “Do you think I can just forget the way you make me burn?”

“Do I make you burn, my firebrand?” He slid his hands upward, reaching for the laces of the dress.

Her soft hands framed his face. “You are a rogue, Wyntoun MacLean, for you very well know the answer to that.”

“My memory is not what it once was. Why don’t you remind me.” He tipped her toward him and pressed her lips to his.

Words were forgotten. Angling her head she took charge of the kiss as he opened the back of the dress and touched the bare skin beneath. As he slid the dress and shift over her shoulders, Adrianne’s tongue tangled with his, teasing him. His desire grew as he heard the quiet murmurs of pleasure in her throat.

“Let me see you,” he said huskily, breaking off the kiss and forcing her to stand away from him. He tugged at the front of the dress and watched it slip down just beneath her breasts, pushing the delicate buds upward. “By the saints, Adrianne, you are perfection.”

“You only say that because I am your wife, and you have missed me. I have many physical flaws. A scar on my knee. A cut on my back. A small birthmark by my hip.”

“Och, such a negligent husband I am. So much that I have missed.” He kissed her mouth again as her fingers dug into his hair and he felt her shiver with delight as he trailed a line of kisses from her jaw down the length of her neck to the swell of her breasts.

She leaned against him, her eyes smoky with passion. “You are right! Tonight is not enough.”

He suckled one breast, and her fingers dug into his shoulders. Wyntoun used one hand to unfasten his sword belt, dropping it to the floor.

Taking her by the hand, he led her to the carved wood chair by the hearth and drew her down onto his lap. She shivered again as he lifted her skirts and slid one hand along her leg, lightly touching the inside of her thigh. “I wanted to do this to you last night when you were so intent in ignoring me during the supper.”

She gasped sharply as his fingers entered her, finding the sensitive nub of her womanhood. “It would have been my undoing.”

Wyntoun shifted her on his lap, turning Adrianne until she straddled him. Pulling his kilt out of the way, he pressed his erect manhood into her moist folds. He watched her lips part slightly as he slid into her.

He kissed her chin, trying now to think of anything but his intense desire to drive repeatedly into her. Adrianne’s hands gripped his shoulders, and her skirts billowed like a blanket around the two of them.

“Never do that to me again. Never walk away.”

She moved closer as her lips settled on top of his again, tormenting him. He throbbed within her.

“I never will,” she whispered a moment later.

Lifting her easily, Wyntoun slowly eased back into her, more deeply this time. He smiled as she gasped with pleasure at the sensation.

“We are made for each other. Here…” He reached down and touched where their bodies joined. “And here.” He touched their hearts. “Everything else we will work out.”

She blushed, drawing back to look into his face. The movement made his control slip another notch. She slowly lifted herself on his lap and lowered herself again, taking him even deeper.

“Forever!” she whispered.

He held her by the waist and gazed into her incredibly blue eyes, smoky now with desire. As if by some unspoken agreement, the two had resisted uttering words of affection before. Their lack of a clear future had called for such restraint, and they both knew it instinctively. But now, hearing the warmth in her voice, suddenly those utterances were the very things Wyntoun too wanted to say to her…and hear from her. Whether he deserved them or not.

Indeed, there was another desire, stronger than the carnal one that held him in thrall at this moment. It was a dream that had been nagging him—plaguing him—since he had made Adrianne his own in the stables more than a fortnight ago. It was the burning desire to end the war between his head and his heart.

She squirmed on his lap despite his tight hold on her waist. Framing his face with her hands, she brushed her lips gently across his. “You already know me better, Wyntoun, than anyone else ever has. I cannot hide my feelings. I have to do and say as my heart bids me.”

“That is who you are, my love.”

He saw the welling of tears in her eyes.

“I know you consider me rash and reckless. But I will try.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I will try to be a deserving wife.” She moved again on him. Her lips again brushed lightly across his. “I love you, Wyntoun. I love you more…”

Her proclamation was his undoing. He took possession of her with the force of a tempest. His mouth was bruising as it took hers in a deep and searing kiss. But she punished him back. Her fingers were insistent. Her body arched as she strained to take him deeper into her body.

With smooth and agile power, Wyntoun rose to his feet. With her legs wrapped around his waist, he took the few short steps to his desk. Placing her gently on the edge of the smooth wood surface, he abruptly withdrew from her. Wordlessly, he knelt on one knee and kissed the inside of her leg before moving his mouth to the juncture of her thighs. She cried out with a startled gasp at the shock of the intimacy, and her entire body jerked up toward the ceiling. But he pushed her back and continued his sweet torment.

He could not tell her everything that was in his heart. He would not reveal a truth that was so tainted with fraud. For now, at least, he had to wait until the wrong he had done would yield a better situation. Only when her mother was returned to her would his guilt be washed away. Then—only then—could he declare his love for her.

But for now she would know of the passion he felt for her.

“Oh, Wyntoun!”

Her body shuddered in wild waves of release and her hands clutched desperately at the edge of the table. Kissing the inside of her thigh once again, he stood up and guided his throbbing manhood to the place where his mouth had been. As he buried himself deep within her, Adrianne’s cry of pleasure rang out in the chamber. Holding her hips steady with two hands, he slid out and thrust into her again and again. Faster and faster he drove, and when his own release came, he heard himself call out her name.

As his breathing slowed, he found her wrapped in his arms. Her lips placed kisses on his neck.

His eyes focused. Just above her head, the pouch containing the maps to Tiberius lay on the table. The oiled leather gleamed in the firelight, accusing him of the treachery that he’d brought to this marriage.

Wyntoun MacLean held her tighter in his arms, knowing the time was running short for setting that wrong to right.

The appreciative cheer of the gathered clan continued to ring from the rafters of the Great Hall, and the look on Auld Jean’s face was one that Adrianne knew she would cherish until the day she died.

Standing between Wyntoun and her husband, John, the midwife stared in disbelief at the full Hall for a moment before her emotions broke through. The tears that sprang from her eyes ran down both cheeks. Shaking hands reached out to hug the first person who approached her from the throng of smiling and laughing clan folk that now encircled her.

Adrianne stood at the side of the Great Hall and wiped away her own tears as the older woman was led to the dais and the seat of honor at the laird’s table. Jean sat beside a beaming Alexander MacLean, and John sat beside Lady Mara.

“When you asked me to tell Auld Jean a lie for you, I never guessed the extent of your plans.”

She smiled at Wyntoun as he brushed a tear from her face with his thumb.

“Was it difficult to get her up and about?”

“Not once I told her you were ill. John and I put her up on my horse, and she started giving orders like the abbess herself. As I started up to the castle, she had John run back into the cottage for a dozen herbs and a satchel of oils. Told him not to stop and chat with anyone on the way up, either.”

Adrianne laughed at the thought of it.

“Oh, this is for you.” She held up a necklace of silver-painted acorns on a leather thong and looped it around Wyntoun’s neck.

“Silver acorns?”

She gestured to her own necklace. “All the people who Jean ever helped or healed or cared for are wearing silver.” She pointed to the large number of clan folk wearing gold acorns as well as silver. “And all the folk that she helped to bring into this world are wearing gold-painted acorns.”

“I see. ‘From the tiny acorn the mighty oak doth grow.’ It signifies all she has done to make the clan thrive.” His fingers entwined with her own, and she blushed at his look of admiration as he raised her hand and brushed a kiss on her fingers. “Well done, Adrianne. You’ve planned well and carried it through. You’ve done so much to make Auld Jean see that she is still needed and loved.”

She looked down. “I didn’t do it all. I had plenty of help. But this gathering...this is not only for the purpose of Jean to see the faces of her real children. ‘Tis for them, as well.”

Adrianne turned to face the dais as an oak tree twice the height of the MacLean was dragged into the Hall on a pallet and placed before the healer’s chair. John and the laird supported her, and Mara accompanied them to the edge of the dais.

“’Tis like the old beliefs and the sacred oak. She stands for the mother of the world, and we are her children.” Wyntoun nodded and grinned at her. “I think, my dove, that you did not learn this from the monks in Yorkshire.”

Adrianne smiled and clutched her husband’s arm tighter as all the people with gold acorn necklaces approached the tree first. Young and old, women and men, they all stood before the healer and kissed her hand before hanging their necklaces on the branches of the oak. There were words of gratitude spoken. Laughter would ring out as Jean would remember something or other about the time when someone had been a bairn or a child. There were invitations made for Jean and her husband to come and visit someone’s croft or cottage.

“And they all mean it,” Wyntoun whispered to Adrianne. “These are good people. They just had to be reminded of the treasure that they have taken for granted.”

She nodded but then felt the heat of his gaze. She looked up and found his green eyes looking on her with more passion than she’d seen in his chamber this afternoon. In those eyes she saw more affection than she’d thought he could ever have for her. She felt something flutter in her chest.

“‘Tis your turn, master.” Someone’s voice behind them broke the moment. They both looked at the dais and found that the clan folk with gold-painted acorns had finished presenting themselves.

“Ready, m’lady?” Wyntoun offered her his arm.

Adrianne, suddenly unwilling to trust her voice, nodded through a blur of tears as she moved beside her husband to the dais. They hung their necklaces on the tree with the others.

But as the healer joined their hands together and touched their faces in a silent blessing, Adrianne knew that they had crossed a threshold toward a new beginning.

****

As the candle beside the bed flickered, Wyntoun looked one last time at the beautiful curve of Adrianne’s bare shoulder showing from under the blankets. A black lock of hair curled across her cheek as she slept, and he fought the urge to push it back and kiss her lips one last time. Memories of their fervent lovemaking by candlelight rushed back, filling his senses and causing his loins to tighten by instinct.

But it was not just that. There had been real love between them in the night. It was in her words, her sighs, her actions. The feeling had surfaced, taking hold of them both like some great hungering need.

He had known this would be their last night together for a long while, and he had savored each precious moment.

Adrianne Percy was his treasure. His love. In a lifetime of searching, he would never find another like her. She had captured him with so unexpected a passion…that it still surprised him. He looked forward to the day when this journey would be behind him. That would be the day when he would open his heart to her.

It was Wyntoun MacLean who smiled at his wife one last time, a sadness ripping at his chest. By God, he didn’t want to lose her. Ever!