Many hours later, in the most silent depths of the night, Caterine slipped from her bed and into the ante-room. Her champion hadn’t yet sought the rough pallet he’d made for himself on the tiny chamber’s cold, rush-strewn floor, and the saints knew where he held himself.
She suspected he walked the ramparts.
Or perhaps he’d found pleasure in the arms of a fetching kitchen maid? A hot-blooded lass eager to air her skirts for one of his dimpled smiles and few fair words.
More bothered by that possibility than she cared to admit, she frowned at the pallet. Lumpy and straw-filled, it loomed empty but held the imprint of his braw self as surely as if he sprawled on it in all his well-hewn glory.
Not wanting to think about him, she left the ante-room only to discover that, somehow, his presence commanded the whole of her quarters.
Not just the small portion he’d claimed for his own.
She couldn’t even take refuge in her own great four-poster bed for every time she slipped into its curtained confines, rather than sleeping, she tossed and turned, her mind drifting to him.
Which was why she’d fled her bed’s cold depths in the first place. And dared to do so as bare-bottomed as she slept.
Surprised by her boldness, heat swept up her neck even as the fresh night wind poured through the opened shutters. Merciful saints, she’d risked having him awaken and see her hovering unclothed in the ante-room, and that was worrisome.
Wondering what ailed her, annoyed because she suspected she knew, she snatched her chemise off the chest at the foot of her bed, and yanked it over her head. Not that its thin linen could shield her from the anticipation rippling through her.
Sensations put there by the damning knowledge that, soon, she would stand naked before him. And the truth was, despite the reservations of her heart, her woman’s body, so long starved of affection, would joy in his attentions.
Revel in having him tend an ache she no longer cared to deny.
Her senses reeling, she considered crossing the room to watch the remainder of the night drift by from one of the his-and-her seats carved into the sides of the chamber’s largest window embrasure. But she couldn’t seem to move, her gaze seemingly latched on the strongbox.
The iron-bound chest drew her, freezing her in place, its pull irresistible.
Calling to her.
Or rather, the cloth-covered clump of granite inside the chest, beckoned.
The Laird’s Stone.
Her blood pounding in her ears, she stared at the innocent-looking strongbox. Legend claimed the Laird’s Stone measured a man’s prowess and chivalric courage when recognizing a new Master of Dunlaidir. So shouldn’t the Sassunach’s bold claiming of her quarters, the sheer power of his stalwart self, influence the stone’s allegiance?
Cause it to weep?
If indeed it could.
Before she could stop herself, she dropped to her knees, fumbled with the cold iron of the lock, and raised the chest’s lid.
Not that she believed the tales.
But on the wee chance the legend did have some truth, the stone’s tears would mean Sir Marmaduke would remain at Dunlaidir as its master, his valor and strength assuring the good of them all, his virility as her soon-to-be-husband slaking the burgeoning needs he’d awakened in her.
Carnal desires she could indulge without regret.
So she glanced at the door, and strained her ears for approaching footsteps, but the only sound she caught was the crackle of the hearth fire and the dull thudding of her own heart.
Dunlaidir was silent, its stout walls and those within, at peace.
Even Leo slept. The little dog lay curled on his bed, as unaware of her turmoil as the cold and dark night outside her windows.
Caterine released a long breath.
No one would witness her folly.
Glad of it, she gathered her courage and lifted the Laird’s Stone from the strongbox.
