“We should do the king a greater service and save his treasury if we saw that Ramsay of Balmain died in the fighting,” Adair said dryly.
Conal Bruce looked sharply at his wife. “I had no idea you could be so fierce, my honey love,” he told her.
“Did you not, my lord?” Adair arose from her chair and settled herself onto his lap, kissing his mouth softly as she did. Her fingers unlaced his shirt, and her hand slipped beneath the linen to caress his warm flesh. She pushed the shirt open as wide as she could and, bending her head, began to lick provocatively at his nipples.
Sliding a hand beneath her skirt he trailed it slowly up her leg to the junction where her thighs met. He played across the warm, silky flesh, finally pushing a single finger between her nether lips to tease her sensitive little love jewel. He yelped softly as her teeth nipped at him. His lance was at the ready. “Ride me, you wicked witch,” he murmured into her ear, licking it for emphasis. Moving his hand from under her gown, he enclosed her waist with his hand, and positioned her so that she sat facing him. Pushing her skirts up, he waited eagerly for her to free his manhood, and when she had she mounted him. He groaned as he felt himself slowly entering her hot, wet sheath.
Her palms flat upon his shoulders for balance, Adair encased him within her fevered body. She had kept him at arm’s length since Robbie’s birth some three monthsago, but now she was ready once again for passion. She felt him unlacing her gown to pull it down to her waist.
He fondled her full breasts eagerly, and she leaned back with the pleasure beginning to flow through her. He bent his head and took a nipple in his mouth. The jolt that tore through her surprised her. Her nipples were so incredibly sensitive. She moaned and began to ride him slowly, slowly, until he released her nipple and found her mouth with his, his lips possessing hers in a heated debate. Their wet tongues entwined themselves about each other as she continued to ride him. She could feel him within her, swollen, throbbing, and oh, so hot! Her eyes closed. She leaned back to let him go deeper, little mewling noises coming from her throat as she approached the apex of her pleasure. And then she felt that almost imperceptible quiver as his manhood stiffened a final time. They both cried out as they met at the pinnacle. Then Adair fell forward onto his neck and, his own head pressed against her shoulder, he enclosed her in his arms.
Finally, after some moments, he said, “Will you always do this when I give you your own way, my honey love?”
“Always,” Adair promised him, laughing weakly.
“God’s blood, I have missed our couplings!” She arose from his lap on weak legs, falling back into his arms.
“Lace my gown,” she said. “We are fortunate not to have been caught at our pleasure by anyone.”
He complied with her request, saying, “It is not too late to retire to our bedchamber, my honey love.”
“You wish to continue this interlude?” she said with a small smile.
“Aye,” he replied.
“I will tell Annie to take our bairn and his cradle in with her tonight,” Adair said.
“Who the hell is Annie?” he asked.
“The wet nurse,” Adair answered him.
“Then most certainly tell Annie to take the lad and his cradle with her. I’ll even move it myself. Where does she sleep?”
“There is a small chamber upstairs at the end of our hall,” Adair told him. “It is cool in summer, and warm and cozy now that the autumn is on us.” She held out her hand. “Let us go and tell Annie,” she said.
The passion between them had returned stronger than it had ever been. And true to his word, the laird sent messengers out the following morning to his allies; Hercules Hepburn, Andrew Home—one of Lord Home’s sonsand Duncan Armstrong arrived the day afterward.
When Andrew Home heard what Adair wanted to accomplish he nodded in agreement. “My father tells me that there have been rumors of a plot to kidnap the king and take him to England. Then they will place his little brother, the Duke of Ross, upon the throne with a regent chosen by the English king. The plot is said to orig-inate with Ramsay of Balmain, but no one knew where he was hiding. The king is not concerned, but my father and Bothwell are. And your knowledge of his where-abouts, my lady, is the last piece of the puzzle for us.”
“Then here is another reason for us to go to Stanton,”Adair said.
“You would go?” Young Home was surprised.
“I must go,” Adair told him.
“There will be fighting, more than likely,” Home said.
“It will be dangerous.”
“I will stay on the hills above Stanton, observing,”
Adair responded. “When it is over and you have slain this traitor, then I will come into the village, and you will help me to do what I must do to salvage my family’s good name, and that of Stanton. Not a stone must be left to indicate any habitations were once there. Next spring the grasses will grow again in the little valley that was once Stanton, but it will be gone. And with it all traces of the Radcliffes, but for the burying ground where my mother, my father, and their ancestors lie. And one day all traces of that place will be gone as well too. But KingHenry will never again use my lands for his treachery against Scotland, my lords.”
“Your cause is just, as is ours,” Andrew Home said.
“We should ride soon,” Hercules Hepburn remarked,
“in the next week or two, before the weather turns toward winter.”
