12
IT WAS SO romantic—although I thought my mother was going to faint right there, she turned so red.” Tilda giggled beside her on the bench. Margaret knew she belonged in the middle of the hie burde next to her husband, but she’d taken her usual seat below the high table beside Tilda instead. She thought it would be easier to sit next to someone she could talk to rather than someone she couldn’t. His mother and father were only too happy to accept her offer to have their son to themselves, without their regrettable daughter-in-law in the way.
But for once Margaret wasn’t in the mood for Tilda’s cheerful chatter. She was too anxious about the coming conversation, and her husband’s attempt to explain the inexplicable. She needed answers. But more important, she needed him to prove to her that she hadn’t made the biggest mistake in her life.
She glanced down the table, and was glad to see that after the bath, shave, and meal, the dark circles under his eyes and the lines of weariness etched on his face had faded. But there was still something different about him—other than the added bulk and what looked to be one or two new scars on his face. He looked harder somehow. Fiercer. Darker. Even more intense than she remembered. Different from the man she’d married.
Tilda hadn’t noticed her unusual quietness. She shook her pretty golden brown head. She had the same coloring as Eoin and Neil. The two other siblings, Marjory and Donald, were darker like their mother. “I’ve never seen Eoin do anything like that,” she said. “I knew he must love you very much. He would have to turn his head away from the battlefield or one of those boring old folios for more than a few minutes. I hope one day I will marry a man that will take one look at me and carry me up to the bedchamber.” She sighed dramatically. “You are so lucky.”
Lucky? Margaret was lucky she wasn’t drinking her sweet wine (the syrupy wernage was a suitable lady’s beverage) or it might have been “uncouthly” spattered all over the pretty linen tablecloth. She mumbled something intelligible in response, which must have satisfied Tilda, because she resumed her soliloquy on the “romantic” events of earlier.
Margaret wished she could see it the same way as Tilda. But to her, the frenzied lovemaking had seemed more a cry of desperation and a release of pent-up emotion and pain than a romantic expression of love.
She would never deny the passion she felt for him, but lust wasn’t romance. Romance wasn’t sharing a bed, it was sharing a life. It was trusting someone. Having someone to share your thoughts. Knowing that the person lying next to you would do anything for you because you would do the same for them.
It wasn’t disappearing for five months without explanation. It wasn’t being kept in the dark. And it wasn’t being left alone and miserable among people who thought you weren’t good enough or smart enough for the “brilliant” young warrior with such a promising future.
Perhaps some of that misery showed on her face. Eoin caught her eye, said something to his father, and stood. Lady Rignach looked in her direction, and for once Margaret thought she detected sympathy.
She discovered why a short while later. Margaret sat on the edge of the bed, while the man she’d given her heart to stood before her and stomped all over it.
He calmly explained that he’d been at Lochmaben in Dumfries with the Earl of Carrick and turned her world upside down.
“But you said you were doing something for your father.”
“I was,” he said. “Am. Bruce is the rightful king of Scotland. My father believes that as much as I do.”
“Rightful king of Scotland? Only because he rid himself of his rival by killing him in a church!” The news of the Lord of Badenoch’s murder last month had spread across Scotland like wildfire. She’d been shocked—horrified—and sad for his son. John Comyn was too young to have such a weight on his shoulders. But ironically she’d thought the murderous act would help Eoin make the decision to fight with her clan. Never had she imagined Eoin . . . Oh God! “Please tell me you had nothing to do with it.”
His mouth tightened. “I was not there when it happened. It was regrettable, but Bruce was provoked.”
Margaret couldn’t believe this was happening. The nightmare was only getting worse. Her absent husband had come home, but he’d done so in full-fledged rebellion. He’d chosen to fight not only against her family, but against the most powerful man in Christendom. How could he have kept this from her?
“You can’t do this, Eoin. You have to reconsider. Think of what happened to Wallace. King Edward will do far worse to Robert Bruce—a man whom he trusted—and his followers. You will be hunted like a dog. And what of my family? There will be a civil war, and my father will never forgive you if you fight with Comyn’s murderer. I thought you loved me. How can you choose Bruce over our marriage?”
He frowned. “This has nothing to do with you or our marriage. My decision was made long before I ever met you.”
She stared at him wide-eyed. “But I thought . . . We discussed . . .” She looked up at him. “You let me think you would consider fighting with my family.”
He shook his head. “You let yourself think that. I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”
Was that supposed to be some kind of excuse? “So I’m to have no say in the matter? You will make enemies of my family, put your life at risk, and I’m allowed no choice?”
“You made your choice when you agreed to become my wife.” He eased the harshness of his words by kneeling down before her and taking her icy hands in his. Big and warm, with more calluses than she remembered, they seemed to swallow hers up. “I know this is difficult for you, and I never wanted to hurt you, but you are my wife. Your loyalty belongs to me now.”
Her heart wrenched in her chest, as if it were being twisted in two different directions.
But he was right. No matter how much she didn’t want to hear it, she had made her choice when she married him. But she never realized what she would have to give up. With no discussion and no say.
“I love my family. You can’t expect me just to forget them.”
He shook his head. “I would never ask that of you. But I am asking for your support and loyalty. I’m asking for you to trust that I know what I’m doing. I truly believe this is the best thing for Scotland.”
“More war is the best thing?”
“If it sees Scotland’s rightful king on the throne and an end to Edward’s overlordship.”
“And you think Robert Bruce is that rightful king?” Half of Scotland—including her clan—would disagree.
“I do. I’m not asking you to believe in him, I’m asking you to believe in me.”
Her heart squeezed. “I do.”
The politics weren’t what mattered to her, it was keeping all those she loved alive.
“I didn’t know it would happen like this,” he said in earnest. “I thought we’d have more time together before war broke out. Believe me, if I didn’t have to leave—”
He stopped suddenly, as if realizing what he’d just said.
“Leave?” she repeated thinly, through lungs that had just had all the air sucked out of them.
His expression turned grim. “Tomorrow. I’d hoped to have longer, but we were unavoidably delayed. We will be racing across Scotland as it is to make it in time.”
She was too shocked to question him about “we.” She shook her head. “No.” She shook her head furiously, panic rising in her chest. “You can’t go. You can’t leave me here alone.”
“You won’t be alone, my mother—”
“Your mother despises me. She and Marjory can barely stand to be in the same room with me. You don’t understand how horrible it’s been since you left. Everyone hates me here.”
He looked genuinely taken aback. “I know it must be difficult adjusting to a new home, and it might seem that way, but—”
“Don’t tell me I’m exaggerating or imagining things, I’m not. They think I’m some kind of wicked strumpet who forced you into marrying me.”
The circumstances of their marriage unfortunately had followed them to Kerrera—as had the disparaging stories of her clan and the fair “maid” of Galloway.
He frowned, clearly taken aback. “If someone has said something to offend you . . .”
“No one has said a thing. It’s the way they look at me. The way they stop talking as soon as I come into the room. I’m a MacDowell, Eoin. To them I might as well be heathen dancing naked around the fires of Beltane. I can’t even go to a convent without gossip and speculation. Half the people here, including your mother, think I’m doing something illicit. Do you know that Fin followed me today? He practically accused me of seducing a priest!”
Eoin frowned. “I’m sure you misunderstood. Fin told me what happened. He was only doing what I asked him to do. You shouldn’t be going back and forth to Oban by yourself.”
Margaret tried to rein in her temper, but it was quickly slipping through her fingers. “I did not misunderstand. I’m sorry, but I cannot like him, Eoin. I’ve tried, but there is something about your foster brother . . . he makes me nervous.”
His eyes flared with the first real sign of anger. “If Fin has said something or done anything to hurt you, I’ll kill him. Damn it, I thought that business with the race was forgotten. But if he’s holding a grudge . . .”
“It’s not like that. He hasn’t done or said anything. I just don’t trust him.”
“He’s my best friend, Maggie. I’ve known him since I was seven. I’d trust him with my life.”
“And yet you told him nothing about where you were going either.”
His mouth fell in a hard, grim line; he clearly wasn’t happy to have that pointed out.
He was hiding something. She’d known it, and now she had proof.
“I will talk to him. But you do not need to worry about Fin.”
“Why?”
“He will be leaving with my father and brothers as soon as war breaks out.”
The look of relief on her face told him that maybe there was more than a young girl’s loneliness and penchant for hyperbole at work.
Damn Fin to hell. Eoin suspected his foster brother had just as little regard for his wife as she did him. Maybe it had been a bad idea to have Fin watch over her, but he’d hoped they could become friends.
What a mess. Eoin had never felt so helpless in his life. Exaggerated or not—people didn’t hate her, they just didn’t know her—he could not deny that Margaret was miserable and believed it to be true.
He hated that he hadn’t been here for her to help ease the transition. Hated that she’d had to go through her first few months at Gylen alone. But what the hell was he supposed to do? It was an impossible situation. He shouldn’t even be here right now.
He took a chance and got up off his knees to sit beside her on the bed. When she didn’t shirk away from him, he put his arm around her and drew her against him. She melted into his chest, wrapping her arm around his waist, and he felt the first flicker of hope.
“I wish I could make it easier for you,” he said. “Tell me what I can do to make it better.”
She looked up at him, her beautiful eyes glassy. “Don’t go.”
He was surprised how much the soft plea ate at him, and how much he wished he could stay with her. “If I didn’t absolutely have to go, I wouldn’t. But I’m needed.”
“It’s more than that though, isn’t it,” she accused. “You want to go.”
The lass was too perceptive. “I would stay here with you right now if I could, but if you are asking whether this is something I want to do the answer is yes. You knew who I was when you married me. I’m a warrior, Maggie. Warriors fight. And this opportunity—” He stopped, realizing he was treading too close to the truth. “This is something I’ve been preparing for my whole life. There will be challenges and the chance to do something different—the chance to make a difference.”
“So you are choosing war over me?”
Damn it, that wasn’t what he was doing at all. It didn’t have to be an either-or—not unless she made it that way. “I’m not choosing anything. What would you have me do? Ignore my duty? Would you ask your father or brothers to do the same? Would your mother have demanded your father stay with her rather than fight for King John?”
He could see the answer shimmering angrily in her eyes.
He took her chin, tilting it toward his. “Do you love me, Maggie?”
He didn’t expect her to hesitate. When she did, he realized how close he was to losing her, his gut checked hard. Hell, it scared the shite out of him.
“Aye,” she said finally.
“Then don’t give up on me. I know it’s been difficult for you, but if you could just try a little longer, I know you’ll win them over.” He smiled wryly. “Don’t tell me all these new gowns and veils have made you soft.”
A furrow appeared between her finely etched brows. “Soft?”
He shrugged. “I thought you didn’t care what people said and would not be defeated so easily. What happened to the girl who donned lads clothing and bested one of the best horsemen I know in a race? Was all that MacDowell pride a bunch of bluster?”
He felt like he’d hung the damned moon when one corner of her mouth lifted. “Are you suggesting I wear breeches to break my fast tomorrow morning?”
He laughed. “Good God, no. I wouldn’t want my mother to expire of shock.” He sobered a little. “I know she can be difficult at times, but once you get to know her, you’ll see that she just wants the best for my brothers and sisters and me.”
“Which is exactly the problem.”
“You are the best for me. She just hasn’t realized it yet.”
She smiled, and it wasn’t like he’d hung the moon—it was like he’d hung the sun. Warmth spread over him like a bright summer day. This was why he loved her. She was fun and lighthearted, outrageous, knew how to make him laugh, and reminded him that not everything was the life-or-death stakes of war. This was why he needed her in his life. She was the light in a world that sometimes became too dark. The past months of doing—thinking—nothing but battle fell away.
“Really?”
“Really.”
And he set about proving it to her. Slowly. With a kiss that told her exactly how much she meant to him. They had all night, and he was going to make damn sure she knew how much he loved her. He didn’t want to think about how long this might have to last.
Following his lead, she responded to the long, slow strokes of his tongue with a deft tenderness of her own that made his chest ache. He’d never imagined a kiss could be filled with so much emotion—or express so much feeling. But he felt the longing, her desire, and love that matched his own, with every sigh, every stroke, and every soft caress.
When he’d finished worshipping her mouth with his lips and tongue, he went on to worship the rest of her. He kissed her jaw, her throat, the tender place below her ear, and finally, once he’d paused long enough to remove her clothes, the berry-pink tips of her nipples. Aye, he took plenty of time with those, circling his tongue around the puckered edges, flicking the rigid points, and sucking them deep into his mouth until she squirmed and moaned.
She tried to undo his surcoat, but he stopped her. “Not yet, sweetheart. If you touch me, it will be over too soon. I want to give you pleasure. Let me do this.”
She nodded, and he went on exploring. Her body was a fantasy, and he took his time savoring every cock-hardening inch of it. He couldn’t get enough. She was so soft and sweet, her skin dissolving against his mouth like honey. She tasted so damned good he wanted to taste all of her. He wanted to give her the kind of pleasure he’d never given another woman before. He wanted to put his mouth between her legs, slide his tongue inside her, and feel her come apart against his lips. And if the way she was pressing her hips against him was any indication, she was close.
He skimmed his hand over the slender curve of her waist to her hip. “Tell me what you want, Maggie.”
Her half-lidded eyes met his in a sensual haze of passion so dark and deep it threatened to drag him under. God, she was beautiful. He’d taken the time to remove not just her veil this time, but the pins from her plaits, and her hair spread over the pillow behind her head like a fiery blaze.
“You. I want you, Eoin. Inside me.”
A fierce swell of satisfaction surged through him; he loved the boldness with which she told him what she wanted. There was no false maidenly modesty with Margaret.
He brushed his fingers between her legs, feeling the silky dampness sliding between his fingers like warm honey. “Do you want my hands, my cock, or maybe my mouth?”
She gasped, the haze clearing from her eyes as they met his. She was clearly shocked, but she was also clearly aroused by the idea, if the fresh rush of dampness spreading through his fingers meant anything. So warm and silky. “Should I kiss you right here?” She gasped again when he pressed against her mound. “Should I slide my tongue inside you like this?” She cried out when his finger plunged and circled. “Shall I do that, Maggie?”
She was no longer looking at him. Her eyes were closed, her head moving side to side on the pillow. “Yes. Oh God, please, yes.”
He gave her what she wanted. What her body was weeping for. But he took his time, teasing out every sensation, every drop of pleasure, as he kissed a slow trail down her stomach.
When he reached the delicate place between her legs, he lifted her hips, wrapped her legs around his neck, and brushed feathery kisses along the inside of her thighs until she started to shake. Finally, he nuzzled her softly with his mouth, applying the lightest amount of pressure where he sensed she needed it most. Only when her thighs started to tighten and her heels dug into his back did he give her the pressure she wanted. Gently at first, and then harder as her pleasure peaked. As her body started to quiver and contract.
She tasted so good he couldn’t get enough. His tongue plunged deeper and deeper, his mouth sucked harder, and finally he had his reward when he felt the hard spasms of her release against his lips.
But he gave no quarter, bringing her to the peak again and again. All through the night and following day, in between short periods of rest and food, he made love to her—with his hands, his mouth, and his cock. The only time reality intruded was when he removed his shirt, and she noticed the bandage he’d wrapped around his arm to cover the new tattoo that he must hide from her, and when he slid out and moved between her legs instead of inside her as he took his release.
Shortly before he had to go, he woke her for the final time. She looked like a debauched angel, with the sheets snaked around her bare limbs, her fiery hair streaming around her shoulders, and her skin rosy—all over—from the scrape of his beard, and was clearly exhausted, but he didn’t have time to wait. God knew how long they would be apart, and now that she knew pleasure, he had to make sure she knew how to find it without him.
Taking her hand, he moved it between her legs and told her what he wanted her to do.
Her eyes widened. She shook her head and tried to pull her hand away. “I couldn’t.” She blushed. “It’s wrong.”
“It’s not wrong,” he said firmly, keeping her hand where he wanted it. “I want you to think of me. Pretend it’s my hand that is touching you. My fingers that are stroking you.” Gently, he moved her fingers under his, showing her what he wanted. “That’s what I’ll be thinking about.”
She looked surprised—and maybe a little intrigued. “You will?”
He nodded. “It will drive me crazy thinking about you touching yourself. Please, sweetheart, let me watch. Give me something to remember.”
Slowly, he removed his hand.
She stared at him self-consciously, a soft blush staining her cheeks. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Whatever feels good. Close your eyes.” She did as he bid and he nearly groaned at the first tentative strokes of her dainty fingers against those pretty pink lips. He only realized that he’d taken himself in his own hand when she opened her eyes, and her gaze followed him there.
Slowly, he started to stroke himself, matching the rhythm of the tentative fingers moving between her legs. “That’s it, sweetheart. A little faster now. Rub yourself a little harder.” He tightened his own grip and started to pump faster. “God, doesn’t that feel good? Look what you are doing to me.” He was big, red, and straining in his fist. “Are you wet yet? Are those soft pink lips quivering?”
He was rewarded with a soft moan and the gradual lowering of her lids as the heavy veil of desire began to descend. He felt it, too, the erotic intimacy of the moment wrapping around him. He wove the sultry web tighter, talking her through every moment of the awakening as she took control of her desire—as he gave her the power of knowing her own pleasure.
“When you close your eyes, I want you to remember how my mouth felt on you. How my tongue felt inside you.” The strokes were intensifying now. Her body was straining toward release, her back arching, her hips grinding hard against her hand. “Think of my hand on your breast.” He groaned as her hand followed his unconscious bidding, cupping her own breast and squeezing. “Pinch your nipple, sweetheart. Oh God, just like that.” He felt the pressure at the base of his spine and couldn’t hold back. His teeth clamped down as his arse clenched and the muscles in his stomach went rigid. “I’m going to come. Oh God, Maggie, I’m going to come.”
He felt the first spurt right as she broke apart. She shattered right alongside him, her body contracted in spasms that matched his own.
When it was over he took her in his arms and held her until the sunlight streaming through the shutters softened.
Slipping out of bed, he started to put on his clothes.
She rolled onto her side to watch him, bringing the bedsheet up to tuck under her chin. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. Her eyes swam with a heart-wrenching combination of longing and despair.
By the time he’d finished strapping on his armor, the guilt was so intense it felt like a rock was sitting on his chest. Damn it to hell, why did this have to be so damned hard? Why couldn’t they have had more time?
He bent down to give her one last kiss. For a moment her arms latched around his neck and held so tightly he didn’t know if she’d let him go. But she did.
He smoothed a tear that slid from the corner of her eye, wishing it were as easy to erase the acid eating its way through his chest. He tipped her chin to look at him. “I’ll be back as soon as I am able.”
She was fighting to control her emotions and could only manage a nod.
God’s blood, how could he leave her like this? “It will get better, Maggie. Trust me. Just give it a chance. Promise me you’ll try. Can you do that for me?”
“I’ll try,” she whispered. “If you promise to come back to me. No matter what happens, just come back to me.”
It was a promise they both knew he could not make. God and the battlefield might have other ideas. “I will do everything in my power to return to you as soon as I am able.”
It was the best he could do, and she seemed to understand that. With one last glance that would carry him through the long months ahead, he left.