By Grace Possessed (16 page)

He lowered his arms, took a quick step toward her. “What is it?”

“I can’t…” She stopped with a helpless gesture, unable to speak.

“What?” he asked, in hard certainty that she meant to deny him this night. It seemed, now he thought about it, that something like a bright shimmer of anger lay in her eyes, like fire in water.

She swallowed, tried again. “I can hardly believe we’re here, that you are here.”

“That damnable curse again,” he said, moving to take her shoulders in his hands. “Have I not told you it’s nothing more than superstition?”

“Yes, but so many others died.” She met his gaze a scant second before looking away again. “Are you sure you don’t…don’t care for me, that it hasn’t taken you?”

“Cate.”

“That is known to make it harmless. It would explain why you…why you escaped not only Trilborn’s attack but the dangers of the hunt and an assassin’s skill.”

She had not used the word
love,
yet it hung there between them. Did he love her? Was it possible?

Suppose he did—and he was by no means sure of it—how could he say so when her bewilderment might be caused by his escape from her scheme to see him dead? By all the saints, he had no wish to believe it. And yet he’d seen her slash the outlaw leader in the forest, had recognized the lethal anger that drove her blade then, the
fiery resolve that she could summon at will. She wanted no husband, had thought never to have one. How could he believe she had changed her mind? Was he to be fooled by the age-old female lure, her smile, her taste, her soft yielding to his need?

Ah, yes, his need. He wanted her, and everything else was shadows and darkness. None of it mattered. Another time it might, but not here, not now.

“I escaped because of luck and a cautious nature,” he said with deliberation. “What matters is that I am here, as you pointed out, and so are you. You are my wedded wife and I want you in my bed. Take off your clothes.”

The order snapped her out of her odd bemusement, as it was meant to do. She stiffened in his hold, lifting her head. “Just like that?”

“How else?” he asked, his voice tight in his throat. “Unless you’d like me to do it for you?”

“You will have to,” she said with precision, “as you sent Gwynne away.”

So he had, and a fine arrangement it was, too, now that she was free of her girdle. To strip her naked was his most perfect wish. In fact, he had never wanted anything so desperately in his life.

He loosened his hold, sliding his open hands from her shoulders down to her breasts, which rose and fell with the quickness of her breathing. He skimmed the twin mounds, molding them briefly with his fingers. Her bodice of embroidered green velvet was laced with silk cord held by gold hooks. He gazed into her wide eyes as he freed each one with precision so the bodice edges spread open, then fell away, along with the overskirt at
tached to it. Her heavy oversleeves had been sewn to the edges of her gown, but the long stitches gave under his quick tugs. He slid them down her arms and tossed them aside. Quickly then, he unbuttoned the two large rounds of gold that held her skirt, and shoved the heavy folds of velvet down over her hips so they made a puddle around their feet. And there she was in her embroidered shift, slender and pale and vulnerable to his every wish.

He spanned her waist through the fabric, drew her closer and smoothed his palm down her spine and over the swell of her backside. He pressed against her, almost groaning at the feel of her, then nudged her with slow and deliberate movements, watching her face turn rose-red with her recognition of what rubbed against her soft belly. Gathering warm linen in his hands, he drew up her shift in back, higher and higher, until his hands encompassed bare flesh, and he smiled a little, deep inside, at her shivering gasp. Releasing one deliciously full sphere with reluctance, Ross tangled his hand in her hair, drew her head back and took her mouth.

Dear God, but she was sweet and fresh and warm, so warm. Though the corners of her lips trembled, she took him in, twining her tongue with his with such delicate acceptance that he was nearly undone. The need to push her down onto the bed and fill her was so strong it was an agony. So virulent was the impulse that he barely noticed as, one-handed, he jerked her shift up until it was caught under her armpits.

He broke the kiss in order to draw the garment over her head and down her arms. It joined her skirt on the floor as he set his hands on her rib cage, holding her away
a few inches while he stared down at the sculpted perfection of gently molded shoulders, high, tip-tilted breasts, not overlarge but beautifully formed and delectably pink at the nipples; also a sweetly curved waist and hips that blended into sculpted thighs and calves to rival those of a marble goddess.

“You are mine,” he said with a growl as he lifted his gaze to her face again. “My wife. Mine.”

“So I vowed before the priest,” she answered, her eyes richly blue and her voice a strained whisper. “But you are also my husband, and mine alone.”

The words were like a brand, and yet he didn’t mind. Nor did he mind when she lifted her hands to his belt and unfastened it and his sporran, so his plaid fell free. More nimble than he by far, she opened the braided edges of his doublet and shoved it from him, slid his shirt up his torso and brushed his arms upward with a quick gesture so she could strip it away.

When he turned back, they were naked together in the firelight, unprotected by the trappings of modesty and pretence. And she looked at him as if she could not quite tear her gaze away, as if she’d never seen the like.

Mayhap she had not. Surely she had not.

It stirred Ross far too much, forced him to movement, so he caught her up in his arms and turned with her to the bed. He laid her upon it and joined her on the mattress. Though goose bumps pebbled her skin, he did not cover her, but lay on his side with his head propped on the heel of his palm as he skimmed his hand over her from knees to her waist to her throat and back down again, sliding over breasts and belly and the silken curls at the meeting
of her legs, enjoying the satin smoothness of the skin at the tops of her thighs. Yes, and between them.

While he busied himself below her waist, she put her hand on his chest, trailing her fingertips through the hair that veiled it, touching the flat brown circles of his nipples while watching from under her lashes as they tightened. She brushed her palm over his shoulder, down his biceps and along his elbow. Dropping her hand to his hip bone, she smoothed the backs of her fingers over the flat surface of his abdomen, again and again as if that unremarkable hardness enthralled her. Then slowly, she inched toward the jutting hardness of him until her knuckles grazed his fevered flesh. She uncurled her fingers, fastened them around it.

He covered her small, sweet mound with his hand and pressed a long finger into her folds.

Her fingers flew open and she inhaled sharply, snatching her hand away from its prize. He shook his head, probing deeper. “Take it,” he said, “if you want it.”

She was innocent as yet, but not without imagination. She caught the implication that he had in hand what he most desired. As lightly as a butterfly then, she reached to grasp him, holding carefully as he jerked in that gentle imprisonment.

His vision blurred and his breath whistled in his throat with the sudden need to be clasped tighter, more firmly, with movement. She was learning him, however, tracing strutted veins, thumbing the smooth tip. Mindlessly, he plundered what he held, circled the silken nub at the apex of her soft folds with his thumb until she moaned. He leaned to lick a pink nipple as if tasting a berry, took
it between his teeth, suckled in rhythm to her discovery of the gliding motion of skin over skin where she held him.

She was moist and molten hot, and he was blind with the restraint he clamped upon his responses. Until, suddenly, his control was at an end.

Catching her close, he leaned over her and then rolled to his back, pulling her with him so she lay full upon him, stretched out atop his long form. Her legs were spread open and he nestled against her, so close, yet not where he belonged.

“As you will, my lady,” he said against her hair, “when you will.”

She put a hand flat on his chest, raised herself enough to drag her other arm up and brace it upon his shoulder. Her hair twined around her, around them both, like fine gold wires binding them together. She moistened her lips, the look in her eyes intrigued yet determined, poised yet uncertain. “You mean…”

“Exactly,” he answered, pressing a little against her warm and open wetness to make his meaning clearer.

She was still for long seconds, measuring his will, mayhap, for he felt it stretch to its utmost reach. Then, with a hesitant dip of her head, she hitched higher and pressed her lips to his.

It was sweet, that kiss, but so far from what his body clamored for that he nearly devoured her with his mouth. His heart thundered in his chest, so fiercely she must surely feel it. His brain felt on fire, and his lungs strained for air.

She lifted her head, squirming upon him in a way that
put a catch in her breath and caused his arms to tighten around her of their own accord. “I’m too heavy,” she said in breathless protest. “Let me off.”

“Nay, never. You’re a mere feather. Only take me inside you, if you have any mercy. Take me inside you now.”

She stilled an instant, and then moved down to allow a bare inch of penetration. “You mean…like this?”

“Exactly, only…” She was killing him. Was it, could it be, deliberate?

“This?” she said, wriggling lower.

“Aye,” he breathed, and would have begged for more, except she shifted to brace her hands upon his shoulders and raise herself, getting her knees under her and adjusting her weight until she sank home, so fully that he shuddered with the piercing gratification of it.

She was vise-tight, but relaxed by slow degrees so he was seated even more deeply inside her. She altered the angle a degree to accommodate him, dragging a hissing breath from her lungs that he echoed in full.

“I’m hurting you,” she insisted, lifting as if she would dismount.

“Nay, don’t move. Don’t stop,” he commanded, catching her hips and holding her in place while he pressed upward.

“Don’t stop what? I’m not doing anything. I don’t know what to do.”

He liked the frustration in her voice. In fact, he adored it. “Do whatever pleases you.”

“This?” she asked, easing forward and then back again.

“Aye, God, aye,” he managed to say.

She took him at his word, clutching his shoulders as she began to ride him. And her efforts set her hair to flailing him like a thousand tiny whips. She flung it behind her shoulders, leaning her head back with her eyes closed. Her breasts jounced in a most enticing fashion and she panted, her rose-red lips parted.

Ross watched her with fierce wonder and a curious ache in his chest. He aided her with a firm grip, forced her onward when she would have faltered, grasping her so tightly he feared he’d leave bruises, though he could not let her go. And when at last he felt her internal muscles clench around him, pulsating, he raised his head and took a nipple into his mouth, suckling strongly while he bucked under her.

She cried out, went rigid as her body surrendered to infinite pleasure. He released her breast, burying his face between the twin mounds as he thrust upward with hard power, again, again and yet again, until his world dissolved and the bursting brightness behind his eyes was like a small and glorious death in the midst of perfect life.

“U
p, milady! The bell for prime has rung, and we must be gone. You’ll not want to keep the horses standing, for ’tis cold as a witch’s teat, and snowing besides.”

Cate moaned at the sound of Gwynne’s voice, for it seemed she had only just fallen into sleep. The night past was a hodgepodge of images and sensations in her mind, most so incredible she blushed to recall them. She had never dreamed there were so many ways to make love, most of them sinful, according to the holy fathers who condoned one position only and that with as little touching as possible. Ross surely had pagan leanings, for he brushed aside all such prohibitions. Any way of seeking such joy was good, he said, and priests who preached otherwise merely begrudged their parishioners the pleasures denied to them.

Turning with a grimace due to soreness in muscles she’d never dreamed she might use, Cate opened a single eye. Her voice husky with sleep, she asked, “What horses?”

“Those readied for your travel, of course. We leave the instant you are dressed.”

“Leave?” she asked in confusion.

“For Braesford Hall? Did yon Dunbar not tell you?”

Cate gave a slow shake of her head.

“Just like a man, to leave the telling to someone else. Doubtless he’d no wish to hear you moan.”

That was not true at all, Cate thought, closing her eye. Ross had seen to it that she moaned and cried his name any number of times in the night. He had encouraged it, reveled in it, from what she remembered.

Abruptly, the sense of what Gwynne was saying penetrated her fog of satiation and weariness. “Braesford? We’re going to Braesford and Isabel?”

“Have I not been telling you? Come now, there’s no time to waste. Up with you, wash your face and let me dress you. Lady Marguerite is already waiting in the great hall.”

The day was a wretched one for a journey, just as Gwynne had said. Cate discovered exactly how miserable it was the instant their cavalcade emerged from the protection of the palace and the snow-ladened wind struck them. By the time they were beyond the town, they were chilled to the bone in spite of fur-lined mantles of boiled wool with layers of padded clothing underneath.

Holding the hood of her cloak over the lower portion of her face, squinting into the white pall, she envied the armor worn by their escorts, and even the cuirass worn by Ross, for the breastplate must surely ward off the wind and hold body heat inside it. She was also certain Gwynne, riding pillion with her arms around the waist of a man-at-arm, was better off for the extra warmth of her companion, not to mention for his broad bulk as pro
tection from the sheets of blowing snow. Cate, mounted on Rosie, had no such shield, nor did Marguerite on her own palfrey.

They stopped often to rest the horses and heat cauldrons of ale and wine over the fires lighted to warm them. It was little comfort. No sooner were they back on the road than the chill found them again. It was an excellent thing the Great North Road was well marked or they might have lost it in the swirling whiteness.

“What can be the king’s purpose in commanding our travel in the teeth of a winter storm?” It was Marguerite who posed that question in disgruntled complaint during the third rest of the day, standing with her back to both the wind and the fire. Smoke swirled around her until she appeared like some witch being burned at the stake, but she did not seem to regard it.

“Quietly, my dear,” Cate said, with a quick glance toward the men-at-arms around their separate fire.

“Why, because I may be taken up for treason? What odds, when we’re being sent to our deaths, anyway?”

“’Tis a matter of security,” Ross answered.

He stood near Cate. Accident or not, his wide shoulders blocked the worst of the wind and smoke from reaching her. His fur-lined cloak was a gift from Henry, a part of his wedding raiment he had scorned to wear until driven to it by the biting cold. He had even donned hose under his plaid.

The additions gave him more the look of an Englishman. Oddly enough, she was not sure she approved.

“His royal majesty’s security, I’ll be bound, for it cannot be ours,” Marguerite muttered.

“What else? It’s the first priority of kings, protecting their realms.” Irony laced Ross’s voice, though his gaze was on the men-at-arms who were melting snow at a separate fire, using it to water the horses. “Though the fewer who know of our journey, the better our chance of getting through with his orders.”

Cate glanced up at Ross. When she spoke, she kept her voice to a murmur. “Orders for Braesford?”

“Aye.” Her husband answered just as quietly.

“Henry suspects a threat from the sea?”

“So it would seem. The order is that Braesford man the pele tower attached to his manse, ready to kindle the fire atop it that will warn of invaders.”

At least he did not scorn to answer her, or tell her to hold her tongue and leave such matters to men. “Sent by the Yorkists, I suppose, but I fail to see…”

“The dowager duchess of Burgundy despises Henry, views him as the Antichrist himself. She froths at the mouth to see him dead.”

Such talk concerning the lady, once a princess of the house of York, had been current at court for months, but Cate was too grateful for Ross’s protection just now to point that out. “So she has provided recognition of the pretender. Can she really believe he is her nephew?”

“Who can say? She stirs this particular pot with a long spoon, as she is still in Burgundy. Whoever the poor little sod being made much of in Ireland turns out to be, he’s still no more than an excuse for toppling Henry. True prince or not, he’ll serve as a cat’s paw for those who would snatch the crown when he falls.”

“Such as John de la Poole, once Richard’s appointed heir?”

Ross inclined his head. “A noble malcontent who feels he was done out of his due when Henry took the crown at Bosworth.”

“There will be fighting,” Cate whispered, as the realization struck her. “Oh, aye.”

“And you are now expected to aid Henry.”

Ross tipped his head with its Scots bonnet in assent. “I’m to begin gathering men and arms.”

“So you’ll do it?” She searched the hard lines of his face, shivering a little at the implacable look in his eyes.

“So long as Scotland stays out of it.” His accent was stronger, a sign of his disturbance of mind.

“And if King James does intervene?”

“We’ll see when it comes to it.” Turning away, Ross called for the fires to be doused, and set the troop back on the road again.

Toward midafternoon, the snow began to thin. It soon ceased altogether. The sky remained gray and heavy, however, and the wind picked up the snow disturbed by their passage, and scattered it like fairy dust behind them. The land lay white and near silent, an endless sea of snow with the tops of hedgerows winding through it, and rounded humps where brambles and old haystacks were covered over. Nothing moved other than their thudding, jangling column with Henry’s official banner fluttering above it. The houses of the few villages they passed were closed up tight, with wisps of smoke drifting over snow
smothered rooftops, and barking dogs the only signs of life.

Their party lost their way due to a marker buried in the snow, so had to backtrack for several leagues. The extra effort sapped their endurance and strained tempers. Some small distance ahead was the monastery where they could expect to find shelter for the night. As the early winter dusk began to draw in, they listened for the vesper bells that would lead them to it.

They still had not heard them when they approached a ford. It was a gray-purple and steep-sided runnel, overhung by leafless trees with ice-coated limbs that clacked and rattled like dice played on a marble floor. The stream at the bottom was almost certainly frozen, under snow that appeared deep enough to touch the bellies of the horses.

Ross led the way down the bank. Half the complement of men-at-arms followed close behind him, with Cate and Marguerite among them. The remaining men-at-arms, including the man with whom Gwynne rode pillion, brought up the rear. The footing was slippery, and Cate gave close attention to Rosie as the palfrey picked her way over the unseen ice.

A shout rang out as she started up the opposite slope. Mounted men charged from right and left. All was confusion as yells and curses rang out and snow was thrown up by flying hooves.

Ross and the men-at-arms with him swung to form a protective cordon around Cate and Marguerite. Their swords whined as they drew them. Hoarse calls and grunts echoed around them.

The horses, wall-eyed with terror, screamed and reared, slamming into friend and foe alike as they fought for purchase in the slippery ford. Swords whistled, clanging on metal like an insane, cracked-bell dirge.

An armored man, a dark shape in the boiling fury of snow and ice, flailing blades and struggling horses, reared his mount and forced his way through the tumult. He shouldered Rosie away from the others and leaned to grab for Cate’s bridle.

Her poniard was in her hand, though she had no memory of drawing it. A quick stab at the gloved hand that held Rosie’s head, and she was free again. She jerked the palfrey back inside the protection created for her and Marguerite, and then gave her attention to making certain she remained there. Ross and the others could not fight so mightily if they had to watch that she wasn’t caught up in the melee, or worse, snatched away beyond it.

Swinging her head to search for Ross, she saw he was looking in her direction. His eyes blazed through narrowed lids and his mouth was set in a grim line, but he gave her a hard nod of approval. Her heart throbbed and her breath was hot as she jockeyed and backed her mount, yet wild exhilaration sang in her veins. Meeting the gaze of the warrior who was her husband, she tipped her head in return.

A bloody gash opened on the flank of Marguerite’s horse. Maddened with pain, the beast leaped and curveted. Cate feared her sister would be thrown, but she managed to control her mount. In that same moment, a man reached as if to snatch her to him. Marguerite whirled on him with a shriek, using her rein ends as a
whip across his face. The man drew back sharply. Then he wheeled to stare toward Cate.

Ross thrust his destrier between them. The man was forced outside the cordon once more.

By all the saints, was that what this was about? Could it be another try at abduction?

Cate, her mind afire with white-hot logic, could see no better explanation. It seemed no mere robbery attempt; the assailants were too many and too well armed. And who would dare such a thing other than Trilborn?

Yes, but to what purpose? Why, what else except rapine to spite the Scotsman, to sully his bride and so sting his pride? Or was the purpose to force Ross to come after her, the better to kill him?

She would not be taken. She would not.

But suppose that was not it at all? Trilborn’s first aim could be to slay Ross in this vile ambush. Then he could ride away with her to some isolated keep, there to make sure she rued her rejection of him.

Marguerite and Gwynne could not be left alive to tell the tale, nor could a single man of their escort. Cate’s heart constricted in her chest as that obvious fact came home to her.

Rosie pitched and shrieked, and Cate fought with strength she scarce knew she possessed to control her. A man-at-arms went down, his blood splattering bright red against the pure white of the snow. Ross slashed at the attacker who slew him, connecting with a body blow that sent the man reeling over his charger’s neck as the horse bolted for the upper bank.

Three of their assailants converged on Ross. He gave
battle like a demon, his eyes narrowed upon the blades that came at him as he swung his mighty sword, so much longer and heavier than those used against him. It shrieked with vicious purpose as it bit into metal, clanged against armor, thudded into the side of one man with the sound of breaking bone.

Abruptly, the way before him was clear. “Cate!” he shouted, and whirled his mount to find her. “To me! To me!”

She was beside him in an instant. He collected her sister and the man who had Gwynne with a single commanding glance. And then they were plunging ahead, thrusting their way up the slope toward the open track that lay beyond.

They reached it and kicked their horses into a run. The other men-at-arms of their party fought free, streaming out behind them. Their pursuers followed like dark, thundering shadows.

The galloping column plunged through rolling yet open country as the day closed in around them. Lavender and purple shadows smudged the snow, turning dark gray in the hollows.

Then it came, the sound they most longed to hear. For somewhere just ahead, over the brow of the next hill, rang out the melodious and infinitely welcome chimes of vesper bells.

The monastery came into view, a low building of yellow-brown stone attached to a modest chapel and protected by stout stone walls. The instant it was sighted, their pursuers fell away. Ross did not slacken the pace, however, but led Cate and the others on. They breasted
drifts of snow, driving through until they reached the great wooden gate, which swung open to receive them.

Pigeons flew up from the monastery eaves, wheeling against the darkening sky, as they clattered inside and pulled up in the cobblestoned court. Dim light shone through cracks in the shutters of a long chamber that ran along one side of the ancient structure. There was no brick here, no glazing, no stained glass in the chapel windows. Norman arches in the squat structures suggested the place had been protecting travelers since the time of William the Conqueror, however. The gate that crashed shut behind them, closing out their enemies, was as thick as a man, and strapped and studded with iron.

They were safe.

Cate slewed around in her saddle to stare at Ross. His face was streaked with blood, his cloak spattered with it, and his gloved fist red to the elbow. Worse, his knee was covered in gore where it was protected only by hose.

“You are injured,” she exclaimed. “Where? Get down, and let me—”

“Nay, sweet wife. The blood is that of other men. And you?” He rode close and removed his glove, leaning to take her chin in his hand and rub his thumb over an itchy spot on her cheek. “Were you cut?”