Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 02] (23 page)

Especially when her needs would benefit the laird’s brother, Iain the Doubter, whom she knew to be anything but a doubter these fine and bonnie days.
“Well?” The laird arched a dark brow at her.
“I need a skilled leatherworker,” she began, counting off her wishes on knotty-knuckled fingers. “A goldsmith or jewelworker, a fast-footed gillie, and passage for him on your swiftest galley.”
Donall MacLean couldn’t quite hide his surprise. “Am I to learn why you need these men?”
Devorgilla pursed her lips, her eyes twinkling as she shook her head. She loved secrets and intrigues, and she thoroughly believed in the divine place of magic and meddling in the world . . . so long as it was done for someone’s good.
And she’d done a lot of good in her time, as the MacLean laird ought know.
The slight upward tilt at the corner of his mouth showed her he did. “Does this have aught to do with my brother?”
Devorgilla gave him her most mischievous smile and shrugged. “It might,” she conceded, doubly pleased when keen interest flashed in the bonnie laird’s dark eyes.
“Have you had word of Iain?” He narrowed his gaze at her. “Is he well?”
“Some victuals and a place to lay my head this night?”
the
cailleach
bargained, well aware Donall MacLean knew the game and would indulge her.
Shuffling closer to him, she touched gnarled fingers to his hard-muscled arm and slid a telling gaze across the darkened hall to where a line of sleeping men already snored on their pallets. “’Tis too late an hour for one of my great years to be a-traipsing across the heather.”
The laird nodded and patted her hand. “All the roast gannet and bannocks you can eat. My best ale, too.”
“And the pallet?”
“In my own solar abovestairs . . . away from the snores of my slumbering kinsmen.”
Devorgilla cackled and rubbed her hands together, mightily pleased. But not so much as to grovel her appreciation.
Such boons were her just due as resident crone.
“And when will you require the services of these men?”
“Soon. As soon as you can spare them.”
“Consider it done.” Donall gave her a nod, his lairdly assurance he’d grant her requests.
He, too, had his role to fulfill.
But then the hard set of his handsome face softened, his mouth curving in the faintest of indulgent smiles. Just enough for the crone to glimpse the spindly-legged laddie who’d once been too frightened of her to venture anywhere near her thatched cottage for fear she’d make him drink liquefied toad spittle.
Or worse, turn him into one of the slimy-backed creatures.
“I’ll send the men with you on the morrow,” he promised, the caring warmth behind his words assuring her the boy had grown into a fine and worthy laird.
“Rob the goldsmith can take you before him on his garron,” he added. “That will spare you the trek across the high moor and bogs.”
“You are kind,” the
cailleach
said, more touched than she cared to show.
“And Iain?” The laird pressed his own concerns again. “Have you word of his well-being?”
Devorgilla almost blushed.
She’d had better than
word
of Iain the Doubter, now known in some quarters as Master of the Highlands.
She’d dreamed of him!
And, och, what a dream it’d been, for she’d glimpsed him and his new lady in very fine fettle.
But she’d keep
those
secrets to herself and simply answer Donall MacLean’s question with the expected dignity of her station.
“Your brother is more than well. Truth be told—and I have seen it—’tis fair swollen with pleasure he is of late,” she said, and allowed herself another wee chuckle.
She’d let it to the laird himself to catch the double meaning of her words.
His knitted brow said he didn’t, and Devorgilla wasn’t surprised.
Men could be so blind.
Chapter Thirteen
O
UTSIDE THE LITTLE ROOM at the Shepherd’s Rest, the sliver of a crescent moon shone dimly through racing storm clouds, and the rumble of thunder grew distant. Chill winds still buffeted the alehouse, bringing with them sheets of drifting rain and the muffled sounds of chaos from the ale-yard as men struggled with the felled alestake.
Deep blue-gray shadows filled much of the room’s interior save the feeble light cast by the red-glowing brazier and the rack of candles on the bedside table. Thick silence stretched and preened in the inky corners, a crouching presence swallowing the patter of rain on the stone window ledge but not quite overlaying the hard and fast pounding of Madeline’s heart.
It hammered so loudly against her ribs she could scarce believe Iain MacLean could not hear its racing beat. Truth to tell, it roared in her own ears with such ferocity, she could hear naught beyond its thudding and the echo of the few words that set it to thundering in the first place.
Truths that spent her glorious, blinding hope.
Her shadow man was widowed, not married.
His braw heart given and claimed . . . but by a dead woman.
Closing her eyes for a moment, Madeline breathed a silent prayer of thanks. In her darkest hour, the fates had smiled on her after all, blessing her with a fine and shining ray of hope.
And she meant to embrace that hope with the whole of her heart.
No flesh-and-blood woman held Iain MacLean’s affections.
Immense relief, stunning in its intensity, swept her. Ne’er could or would she be any man’s leman—the bane to cause another woman pain.
Even at the cost of her own.
But much as she loathed sharing even a wee corner of her shadow man’s heart—his
love
if she could win it— sharing him with the memory of a dead wife was a burden she’d be glad to take on her shoulders.
She sighed, his beautiful golden warmth surging through her, sweet and dear. Iain MacLean, her braw and bonnie Master of the Highlands was free.
And so now, too, was she.
Feeling almost giddy in her relief, she stretched most sinuously atop the chamber’s curtained bed, full naked but for the gauzy-thin slip of her ruined undershift and the length of rough drying linen she’d wrapped around her damp hair. She watched him, wondered if her heart showed in her eyes.
He stood before the table, fussing with his bowl of sphagnum tincture. “Do you trust me, lass?” he asked suddenly, turning to face her, a deeper question than his words implied mirrored in his dark eyes.
Madeline blinked, confused. “I would not lie here thus, nigh fully unclothed, if I did not.”
Stepping close, he skimmed the backs of his fingers across the bared skin of her shoulders, the light caress sending a rush of delicate shivers cascading down her back. “And
that,
your own near naked state, has much to do with what I would ask you, lady dear,” he said, a new huskiness to his voice.
A deep, mellifluous note so rich and smooth it did strange things to her belly.
Delicious
things that made her keenly aware of the transparency and thinness of her gauzy undershift.
“Aye, ’tis of nakedness I must speak,” he said, and for one heart-in-her-throat moment, Madeline wondered if he were blessed with a similar gift as her own.
Before she could reply, he pulled back the folds of his plaid to reveal his padded leather hauberk and the two belts slung low about his hips, his waist and sword belts. His money purse dangled heavily from the first, his sheathed brand from the second.
“Even Masters of the Highlands do not sleep fully clothed, sweetness.” He gave her one of his tilted, heart-clutching half-smiles. “What I am asking, is if you trust me enough to allow me to sleep as I am usually wont to do?”
Madeline blinked. She knew exactly what he meant.
He wanted her permission to sleep naked.
She moistened her lips, hoped her answer would not come out as a croak.
She’d love for him to sleep bare-backed!
Truth be told, she’d already seen him thus many times over in her dreams. Seeing him unclothed here before her, in flesh and blood and not cloaked by the shadowy wisps of a dream, would be a treat beyond measure.
“Through my duties as laird’s daughter at Abercairn, I have seen the bed-nakedness of many men, and shall not mind yours,” she said, well aware
his
nude body would prove vastly different than any other man’s she’d seen.
Young lads and squires mostly, cavorting in the lochans near Abercairn in the summer’s heat. And older knightly guests, come to visit her father. Men she’d been expected to spend the courtesy of assisting in their nightly ablutions.
But ne’er a man even halfway comparable to Iain MacLean.
“So, nay, sir, I do not mind nakedness.”
Especially not yours.
He nodded, his eyes seeming to darken a shade as he reached for the clasp of his sword belt, unlatched it.
His gaze slid to the bowl of steaming sphagnum tincture. “And if I tend your aches thus?”
“I will welcome your touch be you fully garbed or otherwise,” Madeline said, the trickling heat beginning to pool low by her thighs chasing any other response from her tongue.
Thoughts of his nude body stirred her in most unlady like ways.
Decidedly delicious ways.
“Then so be it,” he said, and jerked free his second belt, the intense way he watched her as he did so almost making her forget to breathe.
He discarded his plaid with equal speed, his dark gaze never leaving hers as he then unlaced his hauberk and drew the heavy leather garment over his head. Tossing it aside, he made short shrift of his shirt and boots.
His trews followed as quickly, leaving him naked but for his loose-fitting, linen braies. Only then did he hesitate, his hands hovering at their waistband.
He lifted a questioning brow. “You have my word I shall not attempt to touch you unseemly,” he assured her. “’Tis only that I have slept bare-bottomed since I was a wee laddie, and I doubt I’d find a decent night’s rest clad otherwise.”
“I—I understand,” Madeline answered, hoping he wouldn’t notice the hitch in her voice . . . or the excitement coursing through her. “Most men at Abercairn sleep thus. I have seen them about at times.”
He lifted a questioning brow, the slight narrowing of his eyes telling her he’d caught the hitch.
Hopefully, he’d missed the excitement part.
“I would not offend you, lady.” He turned narrowed eyes on her, studied her face. “You are certain?”
Madeline nodded . . . her mouth too dry for words.
For truth, it mattered not a whit if he removed his flimsy-clothed underhose or nay. She could already see the whole of him in quite bold detail. The thinness of the fine linen of his braies left nary a secret.
“Pray remove your braies as well . . . if it pleases you,” she got out, the weighty warmth pulsing deep in her belly almost intoxicatingly sweet.
He inclined his head. “I am indebted,” he said, and the underhose vanished.
Seemingly as easy in his nakedness as he was fully clothed, he turned his attention back to the sphagnum preparation. He stood quite unashamedly at the table, the whole of his masculine glory proudly displayed, the sight sending shiver upon shiver tumbling down Madeline’s spine.
She took advantage of his preoccupation with the tincture and let her gaze travel over him. Candle glow fell softly across his wide-set shoulders and muscled back, highlighting the hard planes and contours of his well-trained body, but revealing, too, the silvery tracks of several long-healed battle scars.
Badges of honor.
Madeline’s already-racing heart skittered a few beats. Her shadow man was indeed a bold and brave man. The kind another man would welcome at his side in battle. The kind a woman could rely on to keep her and their children safe, their home well guarded. His scar ridges, valiant reminders of the daring he’d displayed upon rescuing her at St. Thenew’s Well.
And, oh sweet Mother Mary, but her breath quickened just looking at him.
In particular, looking at
that
part of him.
At the thought, her gaze snapped right there. She tried to wrest her attention back upward, but couldn’t. Looking away from the thicket of springy, black hair at his groin and the magnificent piece of masculinity cradled there proved impossible.
Thick and long, his maleness hung heavily between his thighs and the large ballocks dangling behind it were equally impressive. Enough so to make her most feminine place explode in a burst of pure, pulsating heat. An intense, shimmering wash of tingles so exquisite they bordered on being painful.
Over and over again, they raced across her woman’s flesh, growing in intensity until she almost moaned. The languorous weightiness pulsing in the lowest part of her belly became almost agonizing in how
good
it felt.
“Oh my,” she breathed.
“Not quite what you expected?” His voice, so smooth and rich, only increased the tingling.
“Nay. Not at all,” she owned, speaking the truth.
She just didn’t add how magnificent she found him. How much he intrigued and stirred her.
But she suspected he knew because he’d tilted his head to the side and was peering curiously at her. Flickering candlelight glinted off the sleek spill of his hair, and a breathless craving to comb her fingers through the black-gleaming strands seized her with such force the tips of her fingers itched.
Ne’er had she seen a more beautiful man.
His dark masculine beauty proved even more heart-catching, more scorchingly alluring than in the sweetest of her dreams of them together.
“The tincture is ready,” he said then, watching her intently as he dipped a length of folded linen into the steaming bowl. “You shall soon be quit of your aches.”
Madeline nodded, feeling almost as inept at speech as he was e’er claiming to be. She’d almost blurted that seeing him unclothed had given her a whole slew of
new
aches.
Aches of a sort she would ne’er have believed existed. But oh had she hoped they did. And now she knew.
Faith, but he stole her breath.
“We shall speak of my plan to help you while I apply the tincture,” he promised, wringing excess moisture out
of the linen.
“You truly have one?”
“A plan?” He glanced at her. “I have said so.”
“I do not see how you can hope to help me.” Madeline curled her fingers into the softness of the feather mattress, suddenly needful of something to
hold.
“I have told you. All is lost at Abercairn.”
“But is it, fair lady?”
The words hung in the air, almost a challenge.
Madeline’s head shot off her pillow, and she looked sharply at him, something indefinable in his tone making her heart thump heavily. “I do not understand.”
To her surprise a faraway look flitted across his hand some face, and his eyes darkened with a trace of the sadness she’d felt with her gift so often in the weeks before they’d met.