Chapter Eleven
All sennight long Madeline fretted. Her nerves were too much. Her stomach felt ill, butterflies constantly upsetting it. One moment she was happily recalling Teàrlach’s mouth moving over hers, and the next moment she was snappish, warring with guilt inside her, her failure to remain chaste, and the fear of Laird Moreville discovering her behavior.
But she could never go back to complete innocence. She knew the heat that swelled within her, her pulse that thumped hotly, just at the thought of Teàrlach MacGregor. She saw him in everything. Each morn when she awakened and donned her chemise, she relived that first night when he had helped her change. She envisioned his broad back as he waited patiently to protect her modesty, secretly hoping he would kiss her instead. Each time she ventured onto the roof, she hastened away again at the thought of Teàrlach in the yard, his chest broad and bare, inviting her to look at him and appreciate his physique. Each day as she watered the rows and rows of seedlings, now sprouting, she saw him sowing the seeds, toiling without his shirt, his muscles rippling, his sweat clinging to his brow, making him look slick.
Lord help her before He pitched her straight to hell, but she had seen that part of him, the part men mated with, thick, heavy, and massive with arousal in his trouser leg as his eyes had burned into hers. He had professed his discontent with her marriage suit, and God above, he had said how he wished he could be the man to teach her about bedding. She wouldn’t have thought it possible that a plain, small-breasted lady such as herself would ever catch a man’s attention, especially a man such as Teàrlach, but she had.
She sat in the kitchen now. He had said he would arrive as the sun broke today. She had counted the days until his return. Counted with every breath of every waking minute, and today was the day. Dawn had yet to break but she couldn’t sleep, tossed and turned, woke up hot and sweating as Teàrlach invaded her dreams and flipped her heart around and around her chest like a bean bag. She had been awake for more than a couple hours, a tray of twenty-four tarts baking sweetly in the oven as she held her reader beneath the candlelight and allowed the soiled pots, dirty from boiling the berries and mixing the pastry dough, to sit unwashed in the basin.
She could read all the words. She had practiced and practiced. The ones she couldn’t comprehend at first began to make sense as she thought about their sounds while working in the garden, laundering, or using her new bolts of fabric to make another gown and chemise. And now she could read them. She still had to think about them, and granted, she could only read what words had been placed in that book, but somehow each time she read those words, she would hear Teàrlach’s voice echoing in her mind. L. I. P. S. Lips…just before he’d kissed her lips… Goodness, but she had just lost her train of thought again.
She squirmed on her stool, the heat of the oven distracting. Or mayhap it was the heat of those words. Or the heat of those memories. Glancing into the oven, the tarts were brown across the tops, dark juice from the newly sprouting wild berries she had harvested from the surrounding hills bubbling through the crusts. The smell of the honey she had used to sweeten them was so strong, she was tempted to eat one straight off the tray, just as Teàrlach had said he and his brothers had eaten them as lads. It would no doubt burn her fingers, but it might be worth it.
No. She resisted. She took up the rag at her elbow and pulled out the tray, setting it upon the tabletop and draping a cloth over them. She wanted to present them to Teàrlach as a gift of thanks for such a wondrous excursion on Latha Bealltainn, and it would indeed paint her as a glutton to leave a gaping hole at the corner of the tray.
She heard a faint knocking through the open kitchen shutters and furrowed her brow, flipping shut the reader and taking up the candlestick to move out into the great hall. She opened the main door, listening. The knocking came again, an unobtrusive tapping from afar. It was at the gates outside. Worry spread through her. The sun still had a couple hours before it would rise. What if the person at the gates had malicious intent? What if there were many of them and they wished to overcome her and steal from her all the supplies Teàrlach had brought to her a fortnight earlier?
You’re being ridiculous. If the early morn had been so silent that she could hear a faint tapping, she would have certainly heard several horsemen’s steeds converging at the gate. She glanced at the stairs. Greta and Fingal were dead asleep still. The knocking came again. Whoever it was, they were clearly persistent. She took a deep breath and lit the only lantern she had, stowed beside the main door, and stepped out into the darkness, leaving the door to creak to a halt on its hinges.
Pattering across the dirt, she listened. It sounded as if no one was there. No sounds of many horses waiting, grunting. She came up to the gates, the two doors shut and barred with a heavy beam that somehow Fingal could still lift even in his old age. Her palm sweat as she gripped the lantern handle and she shivered, thinking she should have thrown her Crawford tartan around her. She swallowed, took a deep breath, and spoke.
“Who goes there?”
A sigh so loud she could hear it through the gates followed, then the low voice of her visitor. “’Tis I, Teàrlach.”
It was. His rich, deep voice rolled over her skin, causing both relaxation and a quickening pulse to afflict her at the same time. He was early. Was something the matter?
She set down the lantern and with a massive heave, managed to shove the wooden bar through the hook so that one of the doors was free. She drew it back and there he stood, dismounted, King behind him hitched to a cart, the tunic she had made him hanging loose and untucked as if he, too, had just risen. His lips turned up in the dimness of the lantern light and he nodded a greeting, looking around behind her no doubt for Fingal.
“You’re early,” she said. “Is anything the matter?”
His warm gaze rested on her and he nodded.
“Whatever has happened?” she continued, feeling the burn of his eyes land upon her neck and travel over the bare skin of her chest. She looked down too and blushed. I haven’t just come outside in my nightshift, have I?
“I couldna sleep.” He shrugged like a lad fessing up to a transgression he didn’t feel overly guilty about. “And I wanted to see you sooner rather than later.”
“You did?” she asked. Lord, but her voice sounded small. And her pulse was racing again, galloping away from her at his confession.
He chuckled. “I take it Master Fingal and Greta have yet to depart for their daughter?”
She nodded.
He took a step closer to her. “Did I wake you?”
She shook her head, her reply sounding ragged. “Nay. I could nay sleep either.”
He took another step. “Did I wake them?”
She shook her head again. “Nay. They sleep still.”
He was now in front of her and took up both her hands in his. “Good. They won’t see me do this then.”
He pulled her hands up around his neck and took hold of her waist, dipping his head to hers so swiftly she didn’t know what was happening. His lips touched hers, a euphoric release escaping them both. Her arms suddenly clenched him, and he didn’t have to tease her lips with his tongue for entry. She was already kissing him back, her once-timid tongue touching his in an earnest plea for him to kiss her thoroughly.
…
She had missed him, he realized, and he obliged her request with predatory release, pent-up frustration, and more than a sennight of loneliness avalanching off him. A guttural growl escaped his throat as he walked her backward, his arms clenching her waist as she stood on her toes to gain as much height as she could to embrace him. Her back collided with the wall. His hands came up to hold her wrists, ripping them from his neck, pinning them to the wall beside her ears, planting his pelvis against her stomach, devouring her mouth, swallowing the soft mew of satisfaction and sighs of invitation forming in her throat before she could release them. He tore away from her mouth, his lips sliding over her cheek, across her skin to her ear. He grabbed the lobe between his teeth, giving her a nip, suckling it, making love to it, his breath escaping into it with a rush that made her knees seem to tremble.
“I could nay wait to see you,” she whispered on a cry of ecstasy.
“Nor I you,” he said, his whisper gruff, and his lips now traveling from her ear back to her lips. “God, lass. A sennight nearly killed me.”
“Goodness…whatever you’re doing…do nay stop.”
So she liked that? Liked him suckling on her ear? He could almost taste the heat emanating from her as she arched into him, could almost smell her arousal. He groaned and bent over her, and she worked her wrists free of his hold to grasp his shoulders, yoking his neck with such intensity he could feel the bite of her nails. He dragged his lips back to hers. He was acting like a brute, pillaging her mouth, but she was inviting him, encouraging him. He could feel her squirm against his groin and Christ…but what sort of reaction did she expect, answering his knocking in nothing but her nightshift? The garment was draped so obviously over her two perfect breasts. Just glancing at them, he could tell she was cold.
Fok, he thought, knowing he should draw back from her, instead feeling his hand travel up her waist at the thought of the chill she was feeling, knowing he could ease her discomfort.
His hand came to rest beneath the weight of a breast, his thumb pressed into the underside of the soft flesh while his fingers extended under her arm. She sucked in air, so much he realized there was no more air for him to breathe. Her greeting was welcoming to him, but dammit, he needed to stop, pull back, remove himself from her. Such a reaction from her was something he had only dreamed about. She had missed him, just as he had missed her with every fiber of his being.
He had reflected all sennight long on the connection burgeoning between them. He had worried incessantly every day about her safety, alone at Dungarnock with only a gate barred by a mere twig of a beam to protect her from raging lunatics roaming the countryside in search of a fine morsel of a woman to sate their lust. He had worried so much and worked himself into such an angry state, that by the time the end of the sennight had come, Duncan had complained that he should get himself bedded on his day of leave and come back rested, for it was clear that something tense was on Teàrlach’s mind, making him a bear from whom to take orders.
He supposed he had been gruff with them. Just embracing her, he could feel his tenseness ebb away. This was where he belonged. With her. She was calming his sore heart. And dammit! he bellowed in his head as he kissed her lips and plundered her mouth. She was already given to another. What a jest to be played upon him. The impact of that realization never failed to slam him to a frozen halt, every damn time the thought entered his mind. John would marry her. He would not. He stopped kissing her, resting his forehead to hers, feeling her flattened to the wall beneath his weight, feeling the rise and fall of her chest as he held his hand tightly beneath her breast.
His heart was pounding. His breath was raging. He was boiling, despite the morning chill.
“I’m sorry,” he sputtered, still pinning her where she stood, still resting his forehead against hers. “I just…I thought of you every bloody minute.”
She breathed in, out, in, out, the gentle wisp of her breath’s heat warming his lips. And then her biting grip upon him relaxed. One of her slender hands slid around to his nape to hold his neck, the other gliding over his tunic to his face to cup his cheek, her fingers ever so gently kneading his hair behind his ear. It felt so sweet, so good.
She smiled. “And I you…” The kneading continued for a moment and he stood still, basking in it, until finally her hand slid away. “Come. I made you something.”
She slipped out from between him and the wall, her hand feathering down his shoulder and arm to snag his fingers at the last minute and pull him onward. Once she was satisfied that he walked, she let go and led the way to the door. He went to King who stood disgruntled on the other side of the gate with the hated cart still harnessed over his back and around his neck.
Leading the beast through the gate, he closed it and rebarred it, sliding the wood into place with one hand. Madeline was in the doorway now, her body a silhouette with the dim candlelight behind her. For some reason, the image pleased him deeply. She was burning a candle instead of extinguishing it in fear of wasting it. And her shape…
It was as if she were his wife beckoning him home.
After unharnessing King and letting him wander freely to nip at the grasses growing in patches along the walls, he joined her. She wrapped a Crawford plaid around her, her hair braided from sleep hanging over one shoulder in a thick cord. The aroma hit him before he had even crossed the threshold. He smiled as he entered and she pushed closed the door.
“You made tarts,” he remarked. She made tarts.
“Aye, an entire tray. Come.”
She took up the candlestick, grabbed his hand, and he allowed himself to be dragged toward the kitchen like a pup on a lead. The smile upon her face was almost giddy, one of the most genuine expressions he had seen on her face thus far. As they entered the kitchen, she set the candle back down on the worktable and stood back, proudly motioning to the tray.
Her hands twisted with each other, anticipating his reaction. Warmth expanded his chest, opening his heart to all she had to give him. Be damned, he had never been in love with a woman, but indeed he fully accepted that he was now.
“Oh, it might help if you could see them,” she muttered, embarrassment splotching her cheeks as she drew back the cloth placed over them. A whole tray. Twenty-four. “You said you and your brothers could clear a tray, so I thought it best to make many. I spent all sennight testing different concoctions and discovered a balance I thought was good. I hope you like them. Here, try one,” she rambled, picking one up, cupping a hand beneath it to catch the pastry flakes.
Still unable to speak, he nodded once, his typical curt nod, and took it. It smelled so warm and sweet, the aroma alone was making his mouth water.
“You had to have risen in the midst of night for these to be just finished now, Maddie,” he finally said, and brought it to his mouth.
His eyes closed as he sank his teeth into it. Heavenly. He shook his head back and forth, his eyes still closed, took another bite, then popped the rest between his lips before opening his eyes again, swallowing, and seeing anticipation eating her alive.
“Ah lass, ye ken they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, aye?” he remarked, his Highland brogue pronouncing itself in his euphoric state.
“Does that mean you liked it?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.
He took another tart, popped it into his mouth whole so his cheek bulged out, a smile lifting the corner of his lips again as he chewed. He swallowed, his eyes still watching her, and took a third tart, doing the same, watching her eyes settle on his face as she giggled. Picking up another, he tore it open, the berries oozing out.
Without asking, he placed it to her lips so she had to lick it up before it dripped on her nightshift. She caught a clump of berries in the cup of her hand, laughing, dark juice upon her lips rolling down her chin as she placed the messy morsel in her mouth. He popped the rest in his mouth, swallowing, setting her portion on the tray. Eyes dancing with dark intent, he leaned down to her, sensing her increased breathing, and licked his tongue up her chin, swiping the juice with it. Arriving at her lips, he rolled his tongue over them too, his caress transforming into a kiss, sucking her lips between his teeth. His fingers, glazed in tart filling, came up to hold her face and slide across her cheek into her hair. The smear on her face hardly made her blink, meaning she was just as engrossed in the moment as he was.
He pulled slowly apart, using his thumb to wipe at the smudge of sweets across her cheek, grinning as if he had just stolen a prize and gotten away with it. “The sweetest, richest, most delicious tarts I’ve ever eaten, lass. Pray I get to eat many more. I’ll turn fat and lazy.”
“Milady?” came Greta’s voice from behind them in the doorway.
“Oh!” Madeline jumped, whirling around.
Teàrlach turned casually over his shoulder, as if he belonged in a maiden’s kitchen before the sun could rise, his hand resting on a dagger hilt.
“Madam,” he greeted, offering nothing more but his head nod.
“Sir MacGregor,” the old woman said, her posture relaxing as Madeline grabbed her tartan, throwing it around her. “You’ve come mighty early this morn…before the lady has had a chance to make herself presentable, it seems.”
“I’d hoped to take Maddie on a picnic, to make the most of the day,” he replied, as if it were the most natural reaction to being caught flirting.
“‘Maddie,’ eh?” Greta remarked, a smile twisting her lips. “A picnic before daybreak?”
Madeline ducked her head, bundling herself to the neck within her tartan, and scurried from the kitchen on a mutter. “I’ll just, eh, go…”
Greta watched Madeline disappear across the darkened hall, racing up the stairs without her candle. She turned back to Teàrlach who slouched against the worktable, his arms folded. If Greta cared at all for her mistress, Teàrlach expected a counsel from the old woman regarding his behavior. And he would accept it, even if he had no intention of stepping back from Madeline.
“It seems our Madeline is fairly well love-sick for you, sire,” she smiled, still in her sleeping gown herself, with a woolen shawl around her. “She spent the whole of this sennight so engrossed in her baking, her reading, her sewing, it seemed to us she could hardly wait until today. Lord, but the lass has gossiped and gossiped about you.”
He watched her, offering no reaction. But knowing Madeline had pined for him made his heart swell even more, as well as his ego. And barely keeping his swelling heart at bay was her kerchief, the favor he had taken, still strapped across his left pectoral. Aside from washing or changing his clothing, he had kept the fabric close at heart with no intention of giving it back. Madeline might marry another, but he possessed her favor.
“And if I’m nay mistaken,” the woman continued, “you seem to hold affection for her, what with coming to call before the sun has yet to rise.” When Teàrlach failed to offer any words, Greta sighed. “Obviously, judging from just now, you’ve grown quite comfortable together, no?”
Still he waited, his arms folded, his leg kicked out with his other crossed at the ankle.
Greta sighed again. “Do nay forget, sire, that whilst her kiss is sweet, those kisses belong to another. And unless you plan on usurping the king and running away with her, you must have care, for her heart will only crumble when the day comes for her to go to her betrothed.”
He nodded once, indicating he still had nothing to say. She was watching him carefully, then turned to leave him alone. Once she was gone, Teàrlach noted the book upon the work surface, noted the candle still not extinguished, the food she had made. It would seem she had come alive.
He ought to be concerned that Greta spied them. One word to Moreville, and the man would know he employed a bastard at the helm of his guard. Fingal and Greta had allowed Madeline to go to the fair with him, aye, but they had also trusted him. Clearly, licking berry juice from her face indicated he was less than trustworthy.
Of course, he should be embarrassed, but he wasn’t. He picked up the other half of the tart, the center now spilled onto the tray, and finished it in a bite, smudging the remaining goo onto his thumb to eat that, too. They really were delicious. His mind conjured her, her hair woven back, her belly rounded with his seed, standing in the kitchen, rolling out pastry dough, and he having just returned from a long day of work in his fields, leaning against the archway to watch her bonny backside. What a beautiful life it would make. He would walk up behind her, lean over her, rest his massive palms against the fullness of her belly, caressing their child, bending his lips over her neck as she paused in her toiling to let him kiss the specks of flour from her cheeks, his hands now shimmying up her gown…
Ah, but he just had to take such a sweet encounter into the realm of debauchery, didn’t he? Still, he would do it. And though a bairn was already firmly planted in her womb, he would make certain to demonstrate his ability to keep putting them there with each encounter.
Of course, he should never imagine taking the daughter of an earl from behind like a barnyard stud. Yet lady or nay, he’d be damned if he backed away from her. And a child…just the thought of wee fingers gripping his large ones, knowing the child was his offspring, a merging of the affection he and the child’s mother shared, sent yearning shooting through his heart. He would protect such an innocent life with his own.
The faint sound of pattering was coming across the rushes. He picked up another tart, eating it as well, wanting to shake his head at himself. Lord, but he might be a trained, controlled man, no longer a lad tearing through a kitchen with his brothers and dogs at his heels, but he clearly still lacked self-control around a tray of sweets. And the only reason he wasn’t devouring them like a rabid wolf now was because he had no competition to outdo.
Madeline reentered, fully dressed in an old, plain gown, her hair still braided simply, and her tartan. She began scurrying around the kitchen, gathering her book and depositing it in a basket beside the hearth. She hastened to the washbasin to begin the task of scrubbing her cooking tools. She refused to look up. He noted for the first time, shame. Being caught kissing had made her deathly ashamed. So ashamed she had donned her ugliest gown and left her hair coiffed in its mussed braid from sleep.
He walked up behind her as her shawl slouched in the bends of her elbows while she began scrubbing a bowl with a coarse rag. Settling both his hands upon her shoulders, he sensed her tense, pause, and yet relax. It was the strangest phenomenon. He bowed his head down beside her ear and placed a chaste peck upon her cheek.
“I’m nay ashamed, if you’re nay,” he said. “I’m sorry to embarrass you so, but make no mistake, you’ve nay a need to be embarrassed. Gather some food, woman,” he added, withdrawing back to the worktable and picking up yet another tart, scolding himself to quit inhaling them. “Let us depart to begin the day.”
She turned to look at him as he licked more tart from his fingers. She stared at the tart filling, watched his mouth, red blooming up her neck and over her cheeks. He wanted to chuckle, reading the unabashed desire in her eyes as she processed what he was doing, remembering what he had just done to make her so embarrassed.
“Depart?” she finally asked, dragging her gaze upward from his mouth to his eyes.
“Aye. You and me. Let’s leave to watch the sun come up. ’Tis my favorite part of the day, when the world still sleeps and I have it to myself.”
She gazed at him, and he realized his remark sounded poetic. He was a fighter, a warrior, a man who acknowledged people with curt head nods. But he did like the sunrise. He liked to watch it come up for no other reason except that it was enjoyable. On his words, she set aside the rag and went to the pantry for food and a vessel of watered wine. She placed them in the basket with her book while Teàrlach gathered a couple more tarts and wrapped them in the cloth she had draped over them, placing them in her basket, too.
She looked up at him and her gentle smile returned to her lips. “They’ll be nothing but mush by the time we get to them.”
He grinned. “They’ll taste the same, love. Are you ready?”
She nodded, apparently, still unsure of the day’s plan, but she had clearly resigned herself to discover it. It made him proud. Humbled him. She trusted him. And after being raised by her father, she ought to trust no man who showed up knocking on a betrothed woman’s gates when the morn was so early it could still be called night.
Guiding her outside, a whistle brought up King’s head and the horse plodded back cross the yard to his master. Bareback, Teàrlach lifted her onto the beast, retrieved his tartans and a blanket wrapped in a roll together, his flask, and a leather pack from the cart he strapped to his back. Fingal had come outside now to begin readying to leave for the sennight’s end and had already unloaded the wealth of supplies brought from Glengarnock. Teàrlach made no indication of stopping to talk to him other than a head nod and a short but friendly greeting.
He took a couple leaps and jumped over King’s rump, sliding with a jolt against Madeline who grabbed the horse’s mane to stay aloft. She sucked in air and he smiled. He had smiled more since he started spending time with her than he could ever remember doing as an adult. And Lord, if it didn’t feel good.
Reaching around her, he, too, gathered the horse’s mane and gave King a nudge to trot. Madeline grabbed his arms. He tightened his hold about her, pinning her to his chest. They left the tower behind, trotting out through the open gates. If only he could keep on riding, never stopping, until they had reached the MacGregor stronghold…
Climbing through the grasses and shrubby trees onto the ridge overlooking Dungarnock, he stopped the horse, dismounting, taking Madeline’s basket and then her. She stood uncertainly in the darkness, looking up at him, then up at the stars expanding overhead. He watched her eyes widen as she took in the sight, as if she had never seen such wonder.
“I love to look at the stars. I like to pretend I see pictures in them,” she confessed.
He gazed at her, then glanced up at the heavens. “You know, the ancients drew maps of the stars and named constellations out of them.”
“Constellations?” she asked, furrowing her brow.
“Aye. Pictures in the sky. What do you see in them?”
She shrugged and looked away, then traced an outline in the sky. “I suppose I see a pig…up there.”
“A pig?” He smiled.
“’Tis foolish,” she muttered.
“Nay, ’tis of humor, but nay foolish. If you see a pig, you see a pig.”
He withdrew the blanket roll from the basket, unclasping the leather straps and shaking it out. He draped it across the ground, gesturing for her to sit as he set his horse to wander. She did so. He did, too, plopping his pack beside him and withdrawing his tartans to use against the chill. She tucked her feet under her skirts, pulling her Crawford plaid around her shoulders, and Teàrlach stretched out on his back, propping his hands under his head.
“In actuality, your pig is part of the constellation Orion the Hunter. Right there, those three stars, they mark his belt.” He lifted an arm and traced the shapes.
“Now I do feel foolish,” she muttered, glancing away. Teàrlach didn’t need it to be light outside to know that her face was red. “Everyone is so learned except me.”
He gazed at her, letting his arm fall. She fixed her eyes on her lap, sitting silently, almost as if she couldn’t wait for their picnic to be over. He reached out a hand and encased hers in his palm.
“Ho there, lass,” he whispered. “I want ye to think on something for me.”
She glanced at him.
“Do you remember at the fair? You said you felt daft and I proved that you were nay?”
She paused, not answering the question. He lifted an unyielding eyebrow.
“Aye,” she replied, casting her eyes back at her lap as he caressed the back of her hand with his thumb.
“I care nay if this angers you, but I’ll say it anyway. Your faither was a piece of shite. I did nay like a single moment working for him, and I hated being his first man.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why then did you stay?”
He swallowed, and for a moment he looked away before gazing up at her. “Because of you.”
She didn’t seem to know what to say, just stared at him.
“I never thought to know you,” he continued. “Never dared utter a word to you…” He sighed, now gazing back up at the sky. “You feel foolish, because he refused to teach you anything, refused to let you out of his sight, kept you ignorant so you would never know anything and couldn’t rebel like your sister did. When your sister, tutored as she was, ran away from Castle Ayr, he cursed her very name. Had you challenged him, too, he would have been one thread away from snapping and beating you. I would nay have been able to remain loyal to him had he done so.” He swallowed again, darkness entering his voice but he did not look back at her. “I would have killed him.”
Her fingers were clenching his. Her eyes watered, and she blinked a tear down her cheek. “Teàrlach, had I known I had a champion all that time, it would have made a world of difference—”
“I…” His voice cracked. He cleared it. “I know you’re smart. I know that if I can teach you to read, you’ll be able to learn about anything you want. It’s a late start for ye, but nay too late. You could even read about the stars. Here. Come.”
He dragged on her hand, pulling her sideways. The emotion in his voice was too thick, and he refrained from saying anything further. She laid her head beside him and he let go of her hand, careful not to make any advances, at least for the time being. When she was situated, he pulled his tartan across his chest, feeling the heat of her beside him, then lifted his finger again. “There, ’tis the bull of the night sky. Some call him Taurus. That cluster of stars there. And of course, Orion the Hunter…”
His voice drifted off in his mind, though he knew he kept talking to her as he painted pictures with his finger. But as the dawn turned the eastern horizon dim blue, he could feel her relaxing beside him, leaning on him, as if she knew she was finally protected. He brought his arm over her head and worked it underneath her so she rested upon it. A gentle nudge brought her against his chest. She rested her cheek against it. It was comforting, and soon, tucked against him as she was, as the sun began to peek over the edge of the earth, after being up since well before the roosters, she drifted to sleep and he never wanted to let go.
He quieted his words, glancing down at the crown of her blonde head. Lifting his tartan, he draped it over her so they both lay beneath it, then he closed his eyes, too. A sennight of pent-up worry about her safety, wishing he could see her and hold her, evaporated from his mind. And surprisingly, he wasn’t growing hard as a pike at the thought of lying with her beneath his clan colors. There was no lust, but there was definitely love.
Thoughts of how Henry de Moreville had been stealing from her still angered him, and he was biding his time until the right way to inform the king of his constable’s deceit presented itself. But at least his anger was momentarily assuaged. He might not have Madeline Crawford forever, but he had her now, and he sensed, beneath the warmth of his MacGregor plaid, that he had her heart, too. God above, I never want to let go, and God help him, but he hoped that when she lay beneath John de Moreville, allowing him his rights, that she would think of him, Teàrlach, and remember how sweetly he was holding her now.