Their mouths met again, tongues intertwining, and he was pushing her skirts above her thighs that he might mount her. “Look at me, my passionate wee spitfire,” he growled fiercely.“Look at me!”
Arabella’s light green eyes flew open to stare deeply into her husband’s dark green ones. Her eyes widened with pleasure, never looking away from his gaze even as he pushed deeply into her. “Ahhhhh,” she sighed once more, and then smiled at his answering groan. “Tell me you love me, Tavis Stewart,” she said softly.
“I love ye, Arabella Stewart,” he answered her, smiling down into her face. “Aye, I love ye, and ye well know it!”
“Aye, I do,” she whispered against his mouth, and then her eyes closed slowly as she floated away on a cloud of pleasure that the wonderful union of their two bodies brought her.
“Ahh, spitfire,” he moaned, driving them both hard in his own quest for fulfillment, and when his passion broke, he was, as always, careful not to let his weight harm her delicate form. Rolling off her, he pulled her into the comfort of his embrace, covering her beautiful face with kisses.
Arabella sighed with contentment. “Is it always this way between husband and wife?” she asked him.
He thought a moment, and then he said, “Nay, ‘tis sad to say, ‘tis not, lovey. We, however, are nae just husband and wife. We are lovers, my wee wife, and there the difference lies.”
“Then ‘tis different with each woman?” she queried.
“Aye.”
“How?” she demanded.
“My passion for ye is tempered by my love for ye,” he said slowly, choosing each word with care so she might understand. “There are women who may arouse a man’s baser nature so that he desires to futter them, but he wants nae more of them than that. The same holds true for certain women. They wish but one thing of a man—that he be a lover. No more. For us ‘tis different, for nae only do I love ye wi’ all my heart, lassie, I desire ye as well, and I seek to gie ye my bairns. Do ye understand that?”
“Yet men give women they do not love children, do they not, my lord?”
“Aye, yet men give women they do not love children.”
“You have, my lord.”
“I hae been more careful than most,” Tavis Stewart answered honestly, “but ye know that I hae three bairns by lasses in my villages. There are two lads, and one little lass.”
“Do you ever see them, my lord?”
“When I am in the neighborhood, aye. I hae denied none of them, for having got them on their mothers, they are my responsibility,” the earl told his wife.
“You are such a good man,” she purred in a deceptively sweet voice, and then rolling over, she raised herself up, looked down into his face with a smile, and grabbing a handful of his dark hair, yanked it with all her might. “There will be no more lasses in the villages, my lord, lest you incur my undying wrath!” She pulled his hair a second time for emphasis.
“Owww!” Tavis Stewart yelped, for she was not gentle.
“Say it, my lord!No more lasses!”Arabella demanded.
“No more lasses,” he agreed with a rueful grin, reaching up to caress her bare breasts. “How could I want any other, spitfire, when I hae ye for my wife?” The softness of her skin, the fact that her pretty nipples were puckering with arousal, set his own pulses racing. Wrapping an arm about her waist, he tumbled her onto her back once more and drew her skirt and petticoats off. Naked now but for her stockings with their ribboned garters, his wife was a most fetching sight.
“The fire’s gone out,” Arabella said softly, “and the chamber is chilled, my lord.”
The earl arose from the bed, and going to the fireplace, rebuilt the blaze. Then turning, he removed his shirt, his kilt, and the rest of his garments. “I’ll warm ye, lovey,” he replied low.
Arabella Stewart held out her hand to her husband. “Come to bed, my lord,” she told him. “Ye’ve scarce begun to welcome me home.”
With a smile of delight, the Earl of Dunmor joined his wife.
Chapter Thirteen
Pope Innocent granted the petition of King James III of Scotland in the matter of Coldingham Priory. After all, had not King James sought out and then sent abroad to learn their art the finest musicians in Scotland? He had. Did not King James encourage the collegiate churches to form choirs and to craft instruments, all of which were promoted as an inspiring part of the church services to the greater glory of God? He had. The pope, being advised of all of this, as well as the king’s own devoutness and the devoutness of his late queen, Margaret, was favorably disposed toward Scotland’s king.
The king had also requested of the pope that he have the authority from Rome—Scotland being so far from it, and from the Rota—to choose and select for himself all aspirants for ecclesiastic offices, and to have domain over the funds attached to those church appointments. His earls would no longer have the opportunity to use the church’s authority for their own designs. This, too, the pope granted King James III.
Suddenly, like a master games player, the king was exerting his royal authority, and his earls, for the most part, did not like it. For all their complaints, they were more comfortable with an indecisive James Stewart, for it gave them the excuse to run wild in defiance of the king’s wishes. ThenewJames was not at all to their taste. He threatened their authority in matters that they had always considered to be in their own personal jurisdiction.
The king, however, had the enthusiastic support of his parliament for probably the first time in his entire reign. There were some among the nobility who agreed with his stand, and the clergy were certainly on his side, but it was from the members of the Third Estate within the parliament that the king received his strongest support. These upright representatives of the growing middle class and the poor were greatly encouraged to see the king taking charge and attempting to put his realm in order at last. They had for too long suffered at the hands of the earls.
