“What, lass?” Conall kissed her neck again, nuzzled deeper with his face, pushing the cloak aside. His hand not holding her hair came up to stroke her arm through the thin wool. He could feel her trembling. He hoped ’twas with desire. “You only have to answer aye or nae,” he whispered in her ear. “If ’tis nae, I’ll stop, although I doona want to. I want to kiss you. I want to kiss the whole of you and make you my wife. Will you marry me, Eve?”
“Is it…is it legal?” she asked hesitantly.
“Aye.” He pressed her to him tighter, pulling her arm back by the crook of her elbow so that her back arched and her breasts pressed against the cloak. She gave a little cry. More of her milky leg was revealed, the slit of the cloak widening. He gritted his teeth before continuing.
“If you wish, we can have a priest’s blessing when he comes in the summer. But till then, we say it, and ’tis done. Our words are our vows. So, heed me, Eve”—he tugged on her hair to look into her eyes, his want of her barely held in check—“if you say aye, you are mine. You are bound to me.”
“And you would be mine,” she said, her tone low but bold, as if challenging him even in her submissive position. “No matter what should ever happen?”
Her innocent query fed the flames of Conall’s desire so that he could hardly reply. He took in a long, deep breath through his nose and nodded. “I would make my vow to you now, lass: I, Conall, marry you, Eve.”
He heard the wolfsong from beyond the hut, eerie music to accompany the thunderous rhythm of his heart, the blood rushing in his veins. He felt a vibrating in his core like lightning, and the rumble of thunder in his ears. She was staring at him, her eyes searching his face, her lips slightly parted for her fast, shallow breaths. He worried that she would now refuse him. He shook her once, curtly, and she gasped.
“If you want me, say it, Eve,” he growled.
A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek. She nodded jerkily, the slight movement all her captivity would allow.
“I, Evelyn, marry you, Conall.”
Conall felt a wave of dizziness spin around him and the hut seemed to fade in and out of focus for a moment.
“’Tis done,” he whispered and then flicked away her tear with his tongue.
She glanced at his mouth. “We’re married?”
“We are.” Conall stood in one powerful movement, pulling Eve with him by her hair and arm. The bowl and stool went clattering underfoot and he kicked them away. He let go of her elbow to spin her to face him and wrapped his arm about her, still holding her head captive.
“We are indeed married. And now, you will become my wife.”
Evelyn wanted to weep, to scream, to sing—she had never felt so earth-shatteringly alive as she did in the moment when MacKerrick released her hair and swung her to the box bed. Her skin tingled beneath the ancient cloak, clean and chilled and sensitized to every caress of fabric, every minute pressing of MacKerrick’s touch. Her heart fluttered and snapped like a regal banner unfurled, bravely announcing her new allegiance on this foreign and daunting battlefield she now faced.
He pushed her backward and she would have stumbled except that he was holding on to her arms with bruising fingers.
Why wasn’t he kissing her? Why was he just staring—
“Take off the cloak,” he commanded gruffly. He released her but held his hands only slightly away from her body, as if ready to snatch her up again in the next second.
Evelyn hesitated, the first real shiver of fear rippling through her at the thought of what was about to take place.
She waited an instant too long. Minerva’s old clasp gave way with little protest, the ancient threads shredding like cobwebs as MacKerrick seized the cloak and pulled it apart in one swift, short motion of his hands. The black wool fell away from Evelyn’s naked body and she cried out, trying to drape her arms across her breasts and down her front. She’d never been nude with another person save a lady’s maid the whole of her grown life, and she was now embarrassed of her body. She was so thin now, bony, her flesh still discolored from her fall weeks ago and her illness. Surely this man, so hardy, so strong, so physically perfect, would be repulsed by her.
But he brought his palms back to her arms again with a harsh hiss of breath. His skin felt as hot as one of the stones from the fire ring and Evelyn flinched at his touch. She had gone over the brink now, married to this savage highlander who thought she was someone else. She knew he was going to make love to her and there was no turning back. She was his wife and she would yield to him. She must. A bittersweet penance for her deception, a double-edged payment for her safety. She tried not to think about the possibility that she would get with child.
She tried.
“Ah, Eve,” MacKerrick sighed and drew her close, rubbing his face in her hair at her crown, his fingertips pressing painlessly into the flesh of her upper arms. Evelyn stood stiffly, her arms still shielding her from full contact with his body. “Are you afraid?”
She nodded, her mind tripping over horrifying visions with every thought: her body swelling and then bursting in a wash of blood, screaming herself away to her own death.
“Doona be,” MacKerrick whispered, sliding his palms around to splay over her cool back. He pulled her to him gently. “I’ll go slowly. So slowly…” His brogue trilled in her ear and he pressed his lips there, squeezed her again. “Relax, lass.”
“I can’t. I—” She couldn’t tell him that her fear did not spring from the idea of MacKerrick breaching her body with his own. She knew that any pain she felt would be fleeting and soon forgotten. ’Twas the result of their lovemaking that terrified her.
“I’m cold,” she finally managed to choke out, the plea barely more than a whisper.
“Of course you are,” he said ruefully and guided her backward until she felt the box bed on the backs of her thighs. He leaned to the side and threw back the blanket and then, in a rush of movement, swung her up into his arms. She gasped and clutched at his front, revealing herself fully to him.
MacKerrick’s eyes roamed her body as he bent and carefully placed her on the thin ticking. Evelyn scrambled from her back to her side and snatched at the blanket to pull it over her, but MacKerrick stayed her with one long arm.
