How fervently she’d prayed for his safe return, dreamed of him as she’d dozed.
Vivid dreams of passion and love.
Love?
At once, she remembered. Everything. And with the realization, she almost burned her fingers on the candle flame she’d been holding to the wicks of the extinguished cresset lamp.
“Ouch!” She set down the offending candlestick and thrust the tip of her smarting finger into her mouth just as the door swung wide.
“Ouch?” Her champion stepped inside with his usual lordly grace, pausing only to drop the drawbar in place before bending down to scoop Leo into his arms.
Leo wriggled with glee, squirming wildly as he welcomed Sir Marmaduke with enthusiastic little dog kisses. And all the while her champion regarded her with a look that could only be called smoldering.
Smoldering in a sensual and practical sense, for patches of his hair appeared singed, as did one eyebrow. Setting Leo on the floor, he crossed the room with great strides, the little dog running circles around him.
“You are burned,” she cried, her eyes widening.
“My lady, it is nothing. Truly…” He gathered her in his arms, crushing her to him. “It is over,” he murmured against her hair, his voice tired but thick with some emotion she hadn’t heard before. “Kinraven is no more and Sir Hugh has breathed his last.”
Caterine pulled back to look at him, an odd mixture of relief and dread coursing through her. Relief that he’d returned, dread at knowing he’d now see his purpose here fulfilled.
“I thank you,” she managed, her gratitude sincere even if the words sounded hollow.
He shook his head. “Nay, my lady. It is your companion and your sister we must thank,” he said, clearly meaning something entirely different from Sir Hugh’s demise.
“Those fair ladies and perhaps one handsome devil of a Highland laird,” he added, his good eye crinkling in amusement.
Caterine’s gaze flickered again to his singed hair. “You are not injured elsewhere?” she asked, skimming her fingers across his right eyebrow.
“Nay.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “The saints only protect me from sword cuts. Swords and other sundry arms of evil.” The mirth in his voice assured her he bore no more serious hurt than patches of frizzled hair. “They never promised to keep me safe from flying embers and sparks.”
He quirked a blackened brow at her. “I’d hoped if I bathed and washed before I came abovestairs, you’d not notice.”
Marmaduke cringed inwardly at the grave understatement.
He’d taken greatest pains to comb his unmarred hair over the singed patches, had even rubbed some of Linnet’sbeauty treatmenton the crinkled spots, all in the hope of disguising the damage.
Apparently in vain.
But to his vast relief, a tiny smile curved his lady’s lips and she pushed up on her toes to brush a kiss against his ruined eyebrow. “It doesn’t matter, my lord,” she said, reaching for his hand.
“Come, and let me give you a proper welcome home,” she added, leading him to the bed.
And Marmaduke gladly followed.
The morrow would be time enough to tell her it was indeed time to go home.
Home to Balkenzie.
Chapter 46
Agood while later, as the dark night wrapped itself around Dunlaidir and the rest of the world slept, Sir Marmaduke tossed in a tangled whirl of satiny bedcoverings and his lady’s silken thighs, and dreamed.
Of dark, smoldering passion and throaty, sated sighs.
Of sensual ecstasy, tight and winding, the shattering glory of his lady’s release.
The thundering spill of his own.
