Claiming Her (Renegades & Outlaws) (25 page)

“They are coming, Aodh,” he said as they burst into the lord’s chambers. “They send messengers and emissaries, but they do not commit. Oh, a few have, but not the major clans.”
 

Ré began lighting candles as Aodh tossed the windows open. Blue-black twilight poured in. “They are wary,” he explained, turning to the hearth, which had been set and stoked less than an hour ago. He gave the coals a push with the iron rod and tossed more fuel in, then waited for Aodh to do as he always did, stand directly beside the flames, so close he was practically
in
them. But he did not come.
 

“Why are they wary?” Aodh asked as he unbuckled his sword belt and tossed it on the table, then tugged off his tunic.
 

“They want to know where Katarina is.”

He reached for a washrag. “Why?”

“They think perhaps this whole thing is some trick, some ruse.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Aodh plunged the rag into the stone cistern set in the far wall, where fresh water sped down from the rooftops, then he wrapped a cake of soap inside the rag and swiftly washed his torso.

Ré dropped into a chair and put his boots up on the table. “Indeed it does. Either she has been sent away, or she has joined the rebellion. But she has, apparently, done neither. No one has seen her face, nor heard word of her leaving. I warrant that’s making them uncomfortable.”

Aodh lifted an arm and laved his armpit. “So she is respected. I knew as much.”

“Or disdained for being the queen’s paw. But in either event, she is a polarizing force. And a female, which makes a few of them more wary than if she were a viper. But no matter where they come down on the matter of female rulers, Aodh, the fact that she is here, amid us but not
with
us, is making them mightily uncomfortable.”
 

Aodh snorted as he stripped off his breeches and, splashing the soapy rag into the water again, washed between his legs.
 

“And there are rumors,” Ré added significantly.

Aodh paused, eyebrows up.

“That she’s been imprisoned.”

He flung the rag into a bucket and began rinsing with clean water.
 

“That did not sit well, Aodh, even among those who do not want a woman in command. If she stands amid us but against us…we may as well have a lit fuse in our cellar.” Their eyes met. “Or our tower.”

Aodh reached for a clean tunic and finished dressing in silence. He shoved his boots on, then, as he slid his sword belt off the table, ready to buckle it back on, he went still.
 

He stared straight ahead for a moment. “Where is the sword?”

Ré dropped his boots off the table. “Sword?”
 

“The short sword, that lay here.” He pointed to the pile of Katarina’s weapons he’d had brought back in and left in a heap on the table, a constant reminder of what he was up against. The danger of her. The fuel. The fire.

Ré shook his head. “I have not touched them, and no one else has been allowed in your chambers whilst you were gone. Only this evening was the door unlocked again.” Ré glanced at the pile of weapons, then said, “I did see her little urchin darting around the other morn, but was unable to catch him.”

Aodh turned. “Was he abovestairs?”

“That he was.”

Aodh was silent a moment, then said in a low murmur, “Oh, Katarina.”
 

Chapter Twenty-Three

KATARINA EYED the bathtub warily.
 

It was not the first bath Aodh had had sent up. There had been one a day for the last four days. But Walter had never overseen their preparations before. She shifted her wary glance to him.

 
Her clerk stood in the doorway, arms crossed as he directed the servants. His face was silently reproachful as buckets of water came in, hotter than any before. Even more water was being heated at the fire. Fresh soaps were laid out, and piles of folded towels.

He might be fretful, but Walter was an excellent manager.

Katarina waited until the servants finished pouring the bath, and began filing out, before she said quietly, “I see you are still at liberty, Walter.”

“I have work to do,” he replied stiffly.

“Such as standing down my men?”

For a moment, his eyes met hers, then he gestured toward the bath. “There are soaps.”

“I see.”

He moved the direction of his pointing finger. “And towels.”

“I see them too.”

He frowned. “See that you use them.”

“I shall do my best.”

“One holds out hope.”

They were growing positively sarcastic with one another. She said in a low voice, “One might be forgiven for thinking you forget whom you serve.”

The bushy eyebrows on his forehead lifted. “I recall quite well, my lady. I serve two masters now, you and the Hound.”

He turned and left the tower.

Tendrils of scented steam wafted up from the surface of the tub, and finally succeeded in drawing her attention off the door. The tub was set beside the hearth, and flickering orange flames burned through the mists, so it looked like a fiery swamp. She eyed the scene with a mixture of longing and deep suspicion. As if the tub itself were up to some mischief.

Aodh had sent it. Mischief enough.
 

Surely it was unwise to relax even the smallest bit. But Aodh was gone, the sun had set, twilight was evocative, and the evening breezes were so very soft and alluring.
 

In the end, though, it was the soaps that did her in.
 

She examined one cake, then reached for it and lifted it to her nose. A wave of weakness went through her. So fragrant. So silky smooth.

Abruptly, she snatched a towel off the top of the pile and turned to the steaming water. Behind her, the pile of towels toppled over.
 

It was a hardly noticeable event, the towels being so soft, the fall so short. Indeed, she would not have paid attention at all, if there had not been an unexpected thud as it hit the floor.
 

She stopped and looked over her shoulder.
 

There, visible at the edge of the towels, poked the tip of a decorated sheath, and the edge of a buckle.
 

Her sword.

Dickon.

She caught her breath and knelt for it, grabbed the belt and unsheathed her sword with surprising affection; she’d trained with this sword for years. It was as dear a friend as Susanna, and she had not realized how much safer she felt with it close to hand. But as soon as her hand curled around the familiar hilt, she felt better.
 

Pistols were good, but they were obstinate and fickle and did not always aim well, and if you were not careful, or sometimes even if you were, they were as likely to shoot off your hand as the other man’s head.

But her sword…oh, she’d trained with it, had its hilt specially made to fit her hand, and her bias for beauty, so that it was inlaid with an image of tiny harps and England’s crown, traced with the faintest silver, to bind the two, as they were bound here in Rardove.

A small nub of discomfort knotted in the center of her chest.
 

She had no plan for the sword, but having it made her feel safer. It was enough.
 

Laying it along the rim of the tub, she slid her hard boots off and stepped onto the fur pelt Walter had ordered laid. Her toes sank into its plush silky warmth, another luxury of Aodh’s. She unlaced her gown and slipped into the warm, enveloping steam.

Softly scented, the hot water closed around her. The fire crackled beside her. She tipped her head back, and let her eyes close with a deep breath. From the bailey below came the muffled snort of horses and the ring of horseshoes on stone.
 

 
A relaxed breath slid out of her. She washed herself, the soap fragrant and luxuriant. She worked it through her long hair then, holding her breath and screwing up her eyes, she ducked under the water and rinsed the soap from her hair
 

She had a great lot of hair, and when she came up for air, she was sputtering.
 

That’s when she felt Aodh in the room.

 
He spoke, low and dark behind her. “A sword?”
 

Terror gripped her. She slammed her hand down around the hilt of her sword a second before his came down on top.

Beating him to the hilt made absolutely no difference, for he simply clamped his hand over hers and pressed down, pinning her hand to the hilt of the sword, and to the rim of the tub.
 

She jerked and tried to rise, but he stretched his other arm out and trapped her other hand to the rim of the tub too.
 

She was immobilized, arms stretched out, one impotently clutching the hilt of a sword.
 

His voice came beside her ear. “I underestimated you, Katy.” He sounded very, very angry.

She tried to struggle up again, to no avail. Warm water sloshed around her breasts as he held her down.
 

“I should have known.” His mouth brushed her ear, light and terrifying.
 

“Aodh…” she whispered.

“What were you going to do with it? The sword?”

“Naught, I swear to you. I simply feel safer—”

“Who? Who brought it to you?”

She tightened her jaw, shook her head.
 

He made a soft sound. “I cannot allow such defiance, Katarina. Surely you can see that.”

She shivered. It sounded like a prelude to something. A warning.
 

“Aodh, I vow…”
 

Her words, already weak, trailed off as his lips brushed her ear. Her mundane, utilitarian ear, never tended until Aodh and his tongue. “What, Katarina? What do you vow?”

“I am, I am sor-sor—”
 

“Och, are you going to tell me you’re sorry?”
 

His words were hot mockery, a taunt at best, but her body responded as if he’d touched her somewhere secret and private. Heat rolled through her, and shivers marched like armies across her skin.
 

“I’ll take your apology, for a start. ’Twill not be the end.”
 

Murmuring, whispering, frightening, arousing, his mouth moved down her wet neck, her hands still trapped on the tub. Her breasts bobbed in and out of the water, her nipples breaking the soapy surface, then sliding below. The alternating sensations of warm water and cool air added to the mad pleasure. Her head dipped back to rest on his shoulder, her arms still stretched out on either side.
 

He shifted to the side and slid his mouth down the front of her, to her slippery breasts now pushed up out of the water. He stroked his tongue over her nipple with a growl of possession. She was already wet, warm from the water, but the nudge of his tongue exploded a firestorm between her thighs.
 

He let go of one of her hands but kept the other clamped firmly under his.
 

“Do not move,” he commanded as he slid his hand into the water. His tunic sleeve was drenched at once, turning the cobalt-blue fabric so dark it looked black. His hand curled around her inner thigh and pulled it to the side. Without preamble, he pushed up inside her. She watched his painted fingers enter her flesh, and her mind shut down.
 

Her hips bucked up, pushing him in deeper. She tipped her head back as far as it could go, turning to the side, reaching behind her with her free hand to curl around the back of his head, and pull his mouth to hers. He took her in a savage, demanding kiss.

Wicked to be so trapped, to be so aroused at being so trapped, to be so worked by this man, stripped of everything but her desire.
 

“I am going to be inside you soon,” he growled against her lips. “You’re going to beg me.” It was a masculine promise, a fierce, beautiful threat.
 

“Not if we must wed,” she whispered, dizzy, ragged and broken, but certain of this one thing: she was not a traitor.