His stepfather’s piercing look was almost more than he could bear, knowing Ramsey, his mentor and more, was a man of honor and his word was his life, something Lyall had almost believed in, back in halcyon days of naïve youth when he thought it was possible to live down his name. “I rode ahead of you by days,” Lyall answered without emotion. “And I convinced Glenna and her brothers I was you and there on your mission. ‘Twas simpleto take your weapons from the armory, one of your shields, the message and proof of the king’s demand sent you by Sutherland.”
“I know what you did. But I would know why,” he’d paused and his spoke with less rancor. “I cannot believe it was only for Dunkeldon. Tell me, son.”
But Lyall knew he was not Ramsey’s son. The name of Ramsey carried no shame. He could barely remain standing from the monstrous wave of bitterness that came over him, battling with the shame he carried in the black cold impregnable place where hope had once, long, long ago, lived and breathed within him. Long moments passed as his stepfather waited. “What does it matter?” Lyall said coldly. “Neither of us can change what I have done.”
“I do not like your tone.”
I cannot speak and still hide what I feel.So he stood before his stepfather, stonily quiet, refusing to speak again because there was nothing he could say, and speaking from his heart was not an option. He had no defense to make.
Even now, in the middle of the night as he lay in thought amidst the Ramsey men, words and reason escaped him, even sleep alluded him. He stared overhead. The coals in the waning fire beyond turned everything red as if limned by hell. Nearby, a man sighed and shifted, and another snorted and mumbled a curse before he quieted. The fire snapped and popped…a log fell. Again something flashed in his periphery, and he looked the side window, where Glenna’s head suddenly popped into view for barely a heartbeat before it disappeared.
What was she about? How in the name of all the saints did she get outside?
He was on his feet and feigned stumbling drunkenly over to door. Bracing a hand on the wall, his head down, he growled, “I have to piss.”
The guard let him pass, and a few steps away he found her waving him over as she huddled behind some barrels beneath thewindow. He squatted down. “What are you doing?” he hissed. “How did you get out of that room.”
“Quiet! Not here.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him down at the sound of voices from beyond and behind the inn.
She was mad as he was.
They huddled together behind the large barrels, bodies close and still, her breast resting softly against his wrist, their breathing so shallow it was like holding a breath. Some of Ramsey’s trusted guards crossed the path near the inn’s back kitchen, their boots crunching on the rock, their voices muted, until one of them laughed quietly.
Glenna was still as a rock. His heart pounded in his ears. The men circled past the barrels to the front of the inn, and stopped at the corner to talk. He knew there were men sleeping outside, and others in the stables.How foolish was this!
In time, a hundred heartbeats, a thousand? The men disappeared.
“Quickly,” she whispered and stood, forcing him to follow her to the east side of the kitchen shed, where she shoved him through a door and down into a cold room dug into the ground. The scent of brined meat, dairy and onions filled his nose, and the temperature dropped to that of a mid-winter day. She closed the door behind him and threw her arms around his neck. “Kiss me,” she said.
He grabbed her wrists firmly and pulled her arms from around his neck, setting her back from him. “We are surrounded by guards.”
She grinned and bit her lower lip, then admitted with a wicked gleam in her eye, “I know. Makes the idea of what we are about to do all the more keen, does it not?”
His head filled with the image of them swivving against the wall whilst guards walked by, stood at doors unknowingly, and slept soundly overhead.
Lyall groaned her name.
“Do not make the grand risk I have taken all for naught. Kiss me, Lyall. I want you to kiss me.”
He came back to reality, took a long breath and said evenly, “First I will have an answer from you. How did you get out?”
“Maggie,” she paused. When his mouth had barely formed the word who, she added, “The maid. I told her the horrid, long and trying tale of how we were being kept apart by our cruel, cruel fathers. She was terribly sympathetic.”
He shook his head and could only imagine her vivid words of their great and troubled romantic history. “I imagine with your glib tongue she was sympathetic.” Most likely whipped up into a state of tears, he thought.
“She showed me a hidden staircase from my room down to just above here.” She pointed to the dirt ceiling. “Now I would kiss you with this glib tongue.”
“Glenna….”
She slid her hands flat against his chest and rubbed him, murmuring his name.
Looking down at her was his perdition, for she looked up at him dreamily, still innocent yet seductress. Her heart was clearly his and she understood her power—he had taught her well. She was all dark eyes that sparkled and beckoned as did the stars over the River Tay, lashes long, with black tips like marten fur, lips moist and dark and sweet as the flesh of a ripe plum at summer’s end. There was nothing in the world he wanted more…and he wondered at the God whose hand ruled the fates of men.
A strong and honorable man would have had a hard time turning away from her when she begged for exactly what he wanted…and more, when she offered herself to him so readily, so easily. Could something he desired in his treacherous and stormy life truly be his so simply?
Her body was against him, all softness and woman, so different from his, the fullness of her breasts in his hands, the tightness of the small tips when he ran his thumbs over her, her palms flat on his chest, and so hot was her touch he had theinsane thought he could feel Eve’s temptation in the outline of her fingers.
He slid his hands down to press flatly against the softness of her bottom, to bring her against him. His mouth and tongue ravaged hers and he walked her back, pinned her to the wall and held her up with his thigh between her legs. Their hands moved over each other. Sweat began beading on his brow and down his back despite the temperature in the cold room. He was on fire for her, burning hotly from the inside out.
