“Please,” Cicely said softly, “be gentle, my lord.”
He didn’t answer her. Instead, wetting his first two fingers, he pushed them between the half-moons of her buttocks, inserting them carefully into her forbidden passage.
Cicely wasn’t sure she was breathing.
“Don’t stiffen your body,” he said quietly. “Be easy. I won’t hurt you.” His fingers remained still. “I’m just trying to prepare you, sweetheart.”
Cicely tried to relax.
“That’s it,” he murmured softly in her ear. He withdrew his fingers and, reaching beneath with them, he began to play with her love bud once more. It did not take long for her to react, squirming on his hand, her juices flowing again. He wet his cock with those slick juices, and then, spreading her open, he pressed against her rose hole, applying more and more gentle pressure until it gave way, allowing him entry into her forbidden passage. Slowly, carefully, he inserted himself until he was sheathed.
Beneath him Cicely whimpered. It felt as if she were being impaled, yet he was so gentle that, other than the momentary pinch of his entry, she felt no pain. But she felt the touch of his male pouch against her bottom.
God’s balls!He couldn’t ever remember being enclosed so tightly. He was near to exploding, but he restrained himself, because the sensation was so incredible he wanted to retain it for just a moment or two more. He allowed himself to fuck her three slow and careful strokes, and she squealed a trio of littleOhs!Then, with no instruction being given, her passage seemed to clasp him even more tightly.“Jesu!”Kier gasped, involuntarily releasing his juices, which exploded in tight bursts until he was finally able to pull himself from her. “Madam,” he was finally able to say, “you well and truly unmanned me.” Then, turning her over, he kissed her with slow, hot kisses.
Cicely wasn’t certain that what he had just done was something she wanted to share with him again. But Jo had said husbands sometimes wanted to use their wives in that manner. And he had beengentle, giving her no real pain. And he was going away to war on the morrow, so she had wanted him happy.
“I love you, wife,” he told her, “and so I sense you were not comfortable with what we just did, were you?”
“Nay,” Cicely answered, “but if it made you happy then I am content.”
Kier kissed her on her forehead. “Go to sleep now, and before I leave you I will show you what really makes me happy, sweetheart.” And several hours later he woke her and made tender, passionate love to her that left Cicely breathless, and they were both happy then.
She was up, dressed, and ready to see him off, however. They had gone to Mass together, and then broken their fast with Father Ambrose. And afterwards, with all the men a-horse before the house, almost the entire village gathered, the priest had blessed them, praying aloud for their well-being and a safe return home.
Cicely stood with Johanna by her side, holding Ian in her arms. “Conduct yourself with honor, my lord, and return home to us in one piece, if you please,” she told him.
Orva lifted Johanna up so her stepfather might kiss the child. Then Cicely held Ian out to his father for a kiss and a blessing. They had only just celebrated the child’s first year the week before. She gave her son to his wet nurse, Ella, and, standing on her tiptoes, raised her face up to him, smiling.
Kier bent, lifted her up, and kissed her mouth most thoroughly. “Be a good lass,” he told her with a wicked grin. Then he set her back upon her feet.
“I will try, my lord husband,” she promised him.
The laird of Glengorm raised his hand and, turning his stallion about, signaled his men forward. The lady and her Glengorm folk stood waving and watching until the men disappeared down the road that ran through the glen.
They met Sir William a day and a half later, and the Douglases then rode for Scone to meet up with the king. They were joinedalong the way by many of the other border lords with their troops, Lord Grey of Ben Duff among them, who came with a small party of his clansmen.
Arriving at Scone, they met up with the king and over a thousand clansmen from the west and the east who had answered the royal summons. Then they headed north to the Highland town of Inverness. Created a royal burgh by King William the Lion in the year 1214, the town sat on the banks of the River Ness just where it flowed into Beauly Firth, and from there into Moray Firth. Inverness, considered the capital of the Highlands, had been in existence as long as anyone could remember. It was said that those who came before the Scots, people known as Picts, had lived there. It was a busy market town with many shops, several churches, and even a Dominican friary that had been founded two hundred years prior by King Alexander III.
The townspeople were loyal to the king, and delighted that he had finally come north to visit them. They had worked from the moment he had returned to Scotland to repair for his habitation the one part of Inverness Castle that had not been destroyed by Malcolm III, Duncan’s son, after the usurper, Macbeth, had resided there. They knew that eventually James Stewart would come to them, and they wanted a place worthy of him.
The king reached Inverness before the day appointed for the lord of the isles and his clan allies to arrive. He settled himself within the rebuilt Inverness Tower. The majority of those accompanying him set up a tent encampment around the tower house. He invited into the tower’s great hall for a meal those earls and clan chiefs who had accompanied him north, and he made it a point to greet each man there, be he high or low, by name, shaking their hands and thanking them for their support.
“He’s clever,” Sir William said, low, to the laird of Glengorm. “But he is still making enemies. He’s taken several more earldoms, and sent Strathearn down into England, along with others to stand as collateral for his ransom.”
“The land has been lawless,” Kier replied as softly. “He must be hard in order to gain their attention and obedience.”
“One day someone will kill him,” Sir William answered sanguinely. “I hope his English queen has managed to spawn a healthy son by then.”
The next day the MacDonald arrived, setting up a huge encampment with the several thousand clansmen who had accompanied him. His great pavilion was set directly in the center of the camp. The MacDonald had brought with him his three sons, who were accompanied by their retainers. The elder, and his heir, was Ian MacDonald. His brothers were Celestine of Lochalsh and Hugh of Sleate. The four men possessed over four thousand men among them. And they had brought all of their forces with them.
Kier wondered if this great show of magnificence and men was meant to do honor to James Stewart, or to intimidate him. If it was the latter, the lord of the isles had wasted his time, for the king, while admiring, was not in the least cowed, even when all the clans, pipes playing, plaids blowing in the summer breeze, marched down from the hills to Inverness Tower. James stood atop the tower and listened as his kinsman, the Earl of Atholl, identified the colors worn by the clansmen below.
“The dark green-and-blue plaid with the narrow red and white stripes, that’s the MacDonalds. The red with the broad and narrow green stripes is his son, Hugh of Sleate. The Camerons are the red with the broad green and narrow yellow stripes. The Campbells wear the dark blue and green with the narrow yellow stripe. The MacLeods of MacLeod wear the green with the red and yellow stripes, or the yellow and black with the red stripe. The MacArthurs are the green with the yellow stripe.”
“Enough,” the king said. “I’ll not remember in any event. It’s the men among them I’m interested in, not their garments. They have brought their women and bairns with them, I’m told. Good! Let them see my justice for themselves, so they may report it afterwards,” JamesStewart said with a grim smile. “Allow the MacDonald, his mother, the Countess of Ross, the clan chieftains, and their women into the hall. The rest are to remain outside. I am ready for them, Atholl, although I doubt they are ready for me.”
The gray stone hall in which the king received the lord of the isles had no windows. At one end of the hall was a raised wooden dais with a gilded wooden canopy, beneath which the king sat upon a throne with carved arms and lion’s-paw feet. He sat unmoving, his face showing no emotion whatsoever as his guests entered the hall.
