The moon was higher in the night sky when Lyall turned at the sound of the door and there she was. “Glenna,” he spoke aloud, her name coming naturally from his mind to his lips. She was not a ghost of the woman who had haunted him, that he had seen around every corner as he tried to hide from her and what he felt.

Flesh and blood Glenna stood inside his bedchamber, a royal daughter in a deep green gown, fitted to her body and with gold embroidery along the neck and in panels at the sleeves, looking like an angel, a siren, and a witch, the beautiful sorceress placed in this earth to test his mettle.

He had known she would keep pushing, that he would see her again, but not now, not when he was tired of living with himself, and the disappointments of those who should matter in his life.

Not now when he’d been tested all day by face to face encounters and still tried to feel nothing. He could not find release from how he felt. And here she was. He was all too aware of the determination in her manner, the gleam in her eye. She came to him in the way a knight charged after the quintain. He took a deep and long-suffering breath. Her scent filled the air, that of a summer field full of flowers, reminding him of moments when he had held her. He crossed the room putting some distance between them, and he blew out a candle, then pushed aside the chair and braced himself against the edge of the table, crossing his feet at the ankles and acting as if she did not affect him as she did. “I know why you are here.“

“And you are not pleased,” she said moving near a chair, where she stood on tiptoe and took a candle from the wall prick, using it to light another.

“You wish to save me.”

“Someone has to. They will not dare to hang you as my husband, and were anyone to try, I would go to my grave fighting for you. “ She moved by the bed and lit more candles, one, two, five, six… “ ‘Tis the simple plan, Lyall.”

When she faced him, he saw she truly thought ‘twas all so clear and sensible. But nothing in his life was simple. She stood before him, a Trojan horse in the guise of a small black-haired woman who would be his champion.

“Aside from that,” she admitted. “There is another reason. I have a selfish motive to save you.”

He gave a short laugh. “Because you gain a husband who will not bury you alive.”

“Aye. There is that,” she agreed.

“So you imagine I am safe. I think your father, his councilors, and my stepfather all would argue that point, sweetheart.”

“I do not care,” she said stubbornly.

“But I care.” He straightened and turned his back to her, unable to look her in the eye with what he was about to do. “With all of your grand ideas you have not considered one thing.”

“What would that be?”

“Why should I exchange one shackle for another?”

She paused about one heartbeat, then laughed at him and did not budge.

Stubborn, mule-headed and foolish woman!

“Oh, Lyall, really. What a poor liar you are.”

“You should leave, Glenna.”

“Perhaps I should, but I cannot. I dare not leave you again. I love you too much to let you keep running away from this…from me.” She came close and stopped next to him, so close he could hear her breath, and she lit the candle he’d blown out. “From who we are together.” She looked at him from beneath the darkest thick lashes, a sultry look that was far beyond her experience. She pulled the gold combs from her hair and shook her head, and her hair tumbled down as black and shiny as a rook’s wing.

The king’s daughter was bent on seduction. Her eyes met his and the gauntlet was down.

“You are only afraid of who you are and what you’ll have to face, of your father and his decisions,” he said truthfully. “I am merely the simplest answer to your problem.”

“Aye,” she nodded without hesitation. “That too is true. Convenient is it not? I can save you and you can save me.” She smiled at him, a smile that was easy and free and unconcerned, a smile that drew him unwillingly into the charms of it. “Seems the simplest of all solutions. I expect that you would leap upon this opportunity if you cared nothing for me.”

Her words struck. That she knew him so well was different, and not so very comfortable.

“You claim you are a selfish coward,” she continued. “But a true coward would never walk away from the simple answer to a problem. I think you are no coward. Why do you do this but for my sake?”

He had no answer because she spoke the truth. And that was how he was caught in his own game. He could not do with her what he did with others in his life: act as if he didn’t care. She saw him for exactly who he was, not on the surface, but deep, deep inside, the place scorched by all the hurts in his life.

“The more you balk, Lyall, the more you prove that you love me more than yourself,” she said.

He chewed it over—this whole thing between them. It was a long time before he admitted, “You are a thorn in my side. A stone in my boot. A pain in my--”

“Aye,” she agreed easily.

He looked into her eyes, so clear and trusting, so unafraid yet he was scared for her. All she felt for him was revealed in her look, open, loving, and there was nothing more he could hide from her. “You do not give up.” He shook his head and sank into the chair with almost no fight left in him. “What a warrior you are.”

She smiled and moved into his lap, linking her arms about his neck and her head lay softly and easily on his shoulder. Her breath whispered against his neck and for a long time neither of them moved. They sat as they were, her nestled against him as a great sense of peace came over him, and with it waned the one thing that had held him back, his will and need to save her from himself. “We should not be here.”

Her lips brushed his neck, then his jaw.

“Leave, sweetheart. Leave while you can. Run away and save yourself.”

When she did not move, he pulled back and she grabbed his tunic in her fists, her face a handsbreadth away, suddenly full of emotion. “Oh lud! Do not dare put me through this again. Do not dare choose a higher road, Lyall Robertson! What I do need is not for you to decide to be honorable and walk away from me, or for you to send me away again all because you have some kind of hairy idea--foolhardy at best--that I am too good for you.”

He merely looked at her, searching for some strength and losing. To which, she crossed her arms, tossed her chin, wiggled her bottom, and glared at him.

What was not being said made the silence louder. Then his burst of laughter was like a clap of thunder; it echoed and rang and was honest and contagious. He pulled her to him. “My Glenna. My warrior,” he murmured softly against her lips, perhaps to himself more than to her, and he kissed her without hesitation or any feelings of regret.

When he was done with her mouth, he pulled back and capitulated with a sigh. “Do not fret, I am still the coward. I am still selfish. I surrender. If I do not, you will harangue me, chase me, seduce me, tease me, flog me with wet towels for all eternity. In the face of that and with all my weaknesses, I have not the courage nor inclination to commit the most noble of acts—that of protecting you from your poor choice of a husband.”

“Lud, I would hope not.” She eased back against his arms. “After all we’ve been through, I would hate to think I misjudged you and found myself bound to a man of morals.”

“I have no morals, love.

“Someday we will discuss the root cellar at that inn,” she said with a half-smile and glint in her eye that promised more than retribution.

Laughing, he spun her around and began working at the ties on her gown. “Let’s rid ourselves of all this clothing.”

She turned back and did not stop kissing him, small light touches of her lips along his neck and jawline, distracting him from his task at the ties of her gown until he tore them apart and the sound of rending fabric made him groan and her laugh, giggling with her lips against his mouth. She cupped his face in her hands. “For a man so quick to leave me, you seem to have little patience with my clothes.

“A cursed thing, these clothes,” he said, scooping her up in arms and he carried to the bed, pulling back to draw open the heavy bed curtains so he could see her completely in the amber candlelight.

“You have on more clothes than I. Take them off,” she said, laying back with her ebony hair spread out behind and beneath her, blending with the furs on the bed, a dark halo framing her pale skin and dark eyes, her wine-colored lips, moist from his kisses, her arms raised as she lay there calling to him in ways he could not name, but only feel.

He pulled off his tunic and linen chainse.

Her eyes did not leave him. “More,” she said, and he stripped off his hose and loincloth and stood before her, bare of body and bare-souled.

Overwhelmed by the sight of her and needing her body against his, he crawled onto the bed and rolled over with her wrapped in his arms, pulling apart her clothing. First her gown, tugging it down over her buttocks and she kicked it off, then he grabbed the thin chemise with birds stitched carefully along the neck, and she stopped him.

“Do not tear it! Please. See the birds? Mairi stitched it for me. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever worn against my skin,” she said reverently.

He slipped it off her shoulders, one at a time, and down to her waist. Turning over, his hands spread open on her ribs, amazed that they were so small, then slowly his hands moved upward to take her breasts, thumbs stroking. She sucked in a breath, and he lowered his head, her hands splayed in his hair and held him to her, her breathing in small gasps.

They kissed each other in every way, mouths seeking and tasting, lips touching, tongues and hands, discovering new ways to give and take pleasure. Desire was a force beyond them and they rolled all over the bed and each other, absorbed beyond thought in the wild vortex of it, soft breast to hard-muscled chest, the tease of tight curly hair brushing against soft skin, a strong knee between her legs and they touched and found each other’s secret places, learning the textures and scents, the soft and hard places where sensation lived inside their bodies.

On his back, Lyall kissed her deeply and wrapped her long hair over them, and it cloaked them like the shadows of the night. And when he looked at her, her face was flushed with love and her eyes misty with passion. There were men who traveled leagues and whole lifetimes, across mountains and seas and hot desert sands, in search of miracles, and yet here he had found his. Glenna…his Glenna.

“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever had against my skin,” he told her.

“Lyall,” she said his name.

He gripped her soft buttocks and rolled over, settling inside her legs and he kissed his way down her body and back, tasting and pleasuring, her skin so soft he could lose himself in her. Drawing up her knees, he slowly sank into her and they became one heart.

“My love,” he murmured. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

She opened those black eyes of hers. He braced himself on his elbows and held her head in his hands. “You are almost mine. Almost.”

“Take me. Fill me.”

He thrust forward catching her sharp cry with his mouth, and he did not move, but waited. At that moment, so sweet, so pure, so deeply inside of her, he was someplace he had never been, almost like heaven. I could stay here forever. And he had no idea he’d spoken aloud until she laughed and smiled softly before she said, “I doubt we would get much done in our lives.”

He laughed then, dropping his brow to her chest. “Do you think we would care?”

“Nay,” she said. “Kiss me. I love your mouth over mine.”

“You and your kisses.”

“Aye, me and your kisses.”

At her wit, he smiled, this joy inside him a foreign thing, then as the moment passed into passion, into desire, and their looks melted into one another. “‘Tis the moment.” He grew serious. “I am going to make you mine completely.” Gently at first, he began to move. “I am going to swive you slowly, stroke inside you and thrust until you cry with joy, my love, and spill my seed deep into your womb.”

He moved with exquisite slowness, feeling each sensation, sliding into her as she grew hotter and he stroked faster, their breathing rapid and their bodies moving together, a timeless rhythm. She began to whimper and clutch, growing closer to completion, and he kissed her open-mouthed, his tongue mimicking his staff, again and again, and she cried out his name and clutched him with deep spasms. He came hard, spilling inside her, and he shouted his love for her, his voice like an echo in his own ears.

I love you, I love you, I love you…

Some part of him was dying and he arched his back, taking all of her deeply until it was done. As he lowered his head to the crook in her neck, he felt all that he doubted leave him, all that he hated disappear, and all of the past fly up and away and out of the present. His life, for what it was, had at that moment, begun again.

* * *

Glenna awoke to the odd silence of dawn and new twinges and small aches she had never felt, in places virgin before, proof what she’d experienced was not a dream. Sighing she slid a hand across the bed linen, but there was no hard muscled body beside her, so she sat up, the warm furs falling to her side. The heavy bed curtains were open to reveal his silhouette at the window.

He wore nothing but the pink light of dawn, and she could study him without scrutiny, his tall form and wide shoulders, his narrow waist and muscled buttocks, the sinew of strong leg that belonged to an experienced warrior, a man who could control a great and wild war horse with his thighs and knees, or use the same to pin her to the mattress and love her all night long.

There was a white scar along his hip. She knew that now. The secrets of his body were hers, the touch of his hand and lips, his skin, his scent and the sound of his voice when he said ‘I love you.’

He is thinking about us.

Tossing the covers aside, she left the bed and joined him, slipping an arm around his waist and he shifted so she was tucked safely against his side, her cheek touching the short curly hair on his chest and her hand resting on his strong, broad ribs.

“See that tree down by the bend in the river?” he said.

“Aye.”

“When I was young, that first summer here, I used it for target practice with a bow and arrows until the bark was all gone and the trunk was chipped.” He laughed softly. “I cannot believe it still stands. One good wind should have toppled it years ago.”

"A bow and arrows?"

"Aye."

"A bow and arrows," she repeated indignantly.

Laughing he said, "If you only had your--

"-- bow and arrows," she finished and smiled, her mind’s eye imagining the determined and strong-spirited brother Mairi had told her about.

Below, a dairy maid in a work gown and blue apron, wearing wooden clogs moved across the bailey toward the dairy byre swinging empty milk buckets on a wooden yoke. A laundress came out and another followed, talking as one lit a fire under a huge, black clothes kettle with an oil torch that made the air smell like the grease from roasting meat Moments later they carried out overloaded baskets of dirty linens and laundry they stacked between the clothes poles and the cooking kettles, still chatting amiably. Their work day was beginning, as was her life.

That new beginning sun was whole now, balancing precariously on the edge of the horizon, fiery and colorful. A sharp whistle made her gaze follow the sound. In one of the crofts beyond the wall, dog trailed after a shepherd boy with a long pole who was skipping and side-stepping as the hound barked and happily frolicked after him.

She took a long and quivering sigh and closed her eyes for a moment.

“I’m sorry about your hound,” Lyall said quietly.

“Fergus?” she said and he looked down at her.

“Aye. Would that it had been safe to stay behind. But ‘twas not.”

Can you not even call him by his name after he is dead? But she could say nothing aloud after Mairi’s story about her brave brother and a hound named Atholl. She leaned her head against his chest, because that was where she felt comforted. “I miss him.”

“I know, sweetheart.” And she understood he knew better than anyone else. His hand slid up and down her back, soothing her with a tender touch. They stood like that, arms about each other, holding together, the day dawning before them in light the color of the flesh of a salmon, each lost inside their own thoughts. He turned to her, lifted her face with gentle hands and kissed her.

The chamber door flew open with a bang and the baron filled the doorway.

Lyall turned her away to shield her from view with his body. “Get out.”

“What did you say?” The baron’s red face turned redder. “I am the lord of Rossi.”

“You should know to knock at a closed door,” Lyall said unfazed. “Else I will have to find another place to sleep.”

Ramsey angrily pulled the sheet from the bed and tossed it to Lyall. “Cover her.”

The Lady Beitris came rushing in, tying a belt at the waist of the thick, damask robe she wore over her sleeping gown. About her head was a tight silk cap that still hid half her face behind a deep blue sarcenet veil. She looked at them, naked and in each other’s arms, and her hands went to her bright face as she said. “Oh, Lyall no… You did not!”

Those few words held such disappointment that Glenna flinched slightly and looked down, staring at the pale, golden hairs at the bend in his spine. She felt Lyall’s hands tighten on her.

“See how your son defies me under my own roof?” Ramsey gritted and stormed from the room.

Lady Beitris looked from Lyall and Glenna to the bed. She walked over and picked up her chemise and held it out to her, her voice unemotional, “Get dressed, Lady Glenna.”

“We are husband and wife, my lady,” Glenna argued from behind him.

“Do as she asks, love. Trust me. This is not yet done.” Lyall turned and his hands were soft on her bare shoulders. He gave her a slight shove towards his mother.

Glenna obeyed and slipped the chemise over her head. When she slid her arms into the green gown it gaped open in the back, and Lady Beitris pulled the pieces of torn ties together, knotting them in each eyelet again and again, tightening them before finally clucking her tongue. “Really, Lyall. This gown is just made.”

“I would advise you to make future gowns with fewer ties, Mother.”

Glenna glanced at him over her shoulder, and they exchanged a private look. She thought he might smile, something like one teased the corners of his mouth, but his stepfather came back in the room followed by three armed men.

“Shackle him,” the baron ordered.

“Donnald!” Lady Beitris rushed to her husband, her hand on his arm. “Nay. I beg of you. Do not do this.”

But the baron spoke directly to Lyall and ‘twas clear his rage had not waned. “I have somewhere else for you to sleep,” he said, throwing Lyall’s defiant words back at him. “You are under the mistaken impression that you have the freedom to leave. You do not.” The baron turned to the men who were standing by Lyall, holding his arms as the other clamped thick iron manacles on his ankles and wrists.

Lyall stood there with his head up and his eyes unseeing, not showing that he was vulnerable, wearing nothing but the iron clamps and chains. But Glenna could see something else. For a man so strong and tall and acting emotionless, something about him he tried to hide from the world was fragile as spun sugar, ready to crack and shatter into a thousand small pieces.

“Take him to the cellars and lock him up.”

“Nay!” Glenna cried “You cannot! He is my husband. I am his wife,” her voice caught and she felt her throat tighten.

The baron looked at her, startled, and his eyes cooled and his expression softened. “That decision will be for the earl of Sutherland when he arrives, my lady. Until then, my stepson will remain locked in the cellars.”

“Donnald,” Lady Beitris said quietly, her voice filled with emotion. “His clothes.”

Glenna ran to Lyall and locked her arms about his waist, her cheek to his skin. “You cannot take him.” She clung to him.

“Do not, sweetheart,” Lyall said softly.

“You must take me, too!” Glenna said firmly and she looked up at Lyall.. “I will not leave you.”

Mairi came in the room, frowning. “What is this?” She faced her mother, then looked at the baron and Lyall. “What is happening here?”

“They were together after your stepfather forbade Lyall to touch her,” Beitris stated unemotionally.

“But ‘twas I!” Glenna cried out, looking back and forth between Lyall’s parents. “I came to him! Do not blame him. We are wed.” her voice cracked. “ ‘Tis the law! You cannot deny ‘tis the law. We have a right to share a bed.”

“Beitris, Mairi,” the baron said firmly. “Take the Lady Glenna to her chamber and see to her needs.”

Tears burned her eyes and she looked up at Lyall. To her horror she felt them spill down her hot cheeks.

“Do not cry, love. Go.”

“Nay, Lyall. I beg you. I love you.” She was sobbing now and could not stop, her breath hiccupping in her chest.

“Go,” he said softly and full of emotion, as if watching her was torture.

They gently pulled her away from him, but still she reached out, “Nay.. Nay…” Her crying bordered on hysteria, her breath hardly there, the noises coming from her mouth and throat pitiful, and yet she had no pride when it came to him. She would do anything. “Please do not take him. Do not blame him...”

The baron looked away from Glenna and threw a coverlet over Lyall’s shoulders, and gave Lady Beitris a look of concession, before he said, “Take him away.” And he left the room.

Behind him, the guards led Lyall out, her love, her husband, in chains, and Glenna slipped out of the women’s arms and sank to the floor crying, left with nothing that mattered.