Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03] (16 page)

He gestured to the hearth and its softly glowing turf fire. “As for the fire in this chamber, I’d judge old Dagda and my father keep the tradition not because they fear the wrath of the wee folk, but because they enjoy believing in tall tales.
In magic.
”

“And you do not?”

“Believe in magic?” The twinkle in his eye vanished, its disappearance proving as eloquent an answer as any spoken denial.

“You brought your friend here to sit in your Beldam’s Chair. You must believe in its powers?”

“Oh, I’ll not gainsay the efficacy of all such wonders and ancient observances.” Going back to the table, he poured himself another cup of the potent Rhenish wine. “I simply put more faith in the strength of my arm, the steel of my brand, and what I can see with my own two eyes.”

“But—”

“I have
seen
magic of the Beldam’s Chair, lass. That is why I brought Colin here.” He rubbed a finger back and forth along the rounded side of the wine cup. “And because he has a more trusting heart than Da and Dagda put together.”

“And you, sir? Do you trust your heart?”

“If you ask Colin, he will tell you he has seen enchanted isles rising from the sea only to vanish on second glance,” he declared as if he hadn’t heard her—or chose not to. “He’ll also swear any good
cailleach
worth her salt can conjure up a storm by incantation. Call forth waves so heavy, they’ll smash against the windows at the tops of the tallest castle towers.”

“So you are telling me the Beldam’s Chair will heal Colin because he
believes
it will?”

“Either that, or his own will to be whole again so he can pay proper court to my wee kittenish cousin.” He shrugged great shoulders. “He is sore smitten with her.”

Amicia bristled. “Then mayhap you ought warn him she wishes to sink her claws elsewhere?”

Spinning about before he could answer, she went to the row of tall, open windows. Behind her, she could hear him pulling coverings from the bed, imagined he meant to use them for a pallet.

But she’d be damned if she’d turn around and look.

Not after offering him the comforts of her bed—the unspoken but understood welcome of her arms.

Better to inhale deeply of the chill night air and let its cool embrace douse some of the ire streaking through her.

Extinguish the heat of her passion.

Humiliation twisting through her, she did just that, dragged in great gulps of the cold air, but the husky purr of her rival’s voice grated in her ears, the other woman’s carefully veiled jeers tossing handfuls of ice chips at each glimmer of warmth she’d tried so desperately to cling to ever since Magnus had burst so unexpectedly into her bedchamber.

And the moment she remembered the reason for his presence, guilt assailed her for snapping at him.

But not for resenting Janet MacKinnon.

That, she couldn’t help.

Not after his second reference to his cousin as
wee.
Or more annoying still . . . a
kitten.

Adored by Colin Grant or otherwise.

Her blood rising, she paced about the room, her nerves too flayed for her to even attempt to stand still, though
he
appeared to have turned to stone.

He’d indeed made a comfortable-looking pallet near the hearth and now stood before it, his wide-set shoulders rigid, his hands clenched at his sides.

And, may the Devil take her for noticing in such a stress-fraught moment, but in the flickering light of the fire glow, he looked at once magnificent and vulnerable in his knightly array.

Mostly vulnerable.

Because his warrior’s trappings appeared so incongruous surrounded by the domestic finery of the well-appointed bedchamber.

And saints help her, but each time she glanced at him, that air of vulnerability slid ever so deeper beneath her skin, wrapped its golden cords all the more sinuously around her foolish adoring heart.

’Twas a dangerous peril that banished her anger as quickly as it’d come and made her burn to march right back to him and have done with every bit of ludicrous-looking knightly adornment affixed to his great, strapping body!

A very unladylike moan escaped her, and she clapped a hand to her lips, praying he hadn’t heard.

Not that she’d have been able to withhold the moan even if she’d tried.

The thought of him standing naked before her, knightly or unknightly, roused-to-full-stretch or otherwise, proved too potent a notion for even a feckless MacLean to bear without capitulating.

Her mouth ran dry. Saints, but she yearned to see him in all his bare-bottomed glory!

To touch him.

Put questing fingers to him . . .
there,
where he was most manly.

“Mercy me,” she breathed, fanning her face with her hand as she wore a track in the floor skins.

Her wanton musings warming her more than the heat of ten raging bale fires, she swiped the backs of her fingers across her moist forehead. Then she threw off her clinging
arisaid,
tossing its woolen length onto a three-legged stool.

And if her nipples chose to pop over the low dip of her bodice edging and make another uninvited appearance, so be it!

At least she
had
nipples, and fairly good-sized ones—an embellishment she doubted her small-breasted rival could boast of.

That small triumph buoyed her until she happened to glance downward. For her low-belted gown called attention not only to the generous curve of her hips, but also the ever-so-slight roll of flesh at the top of her belly.

Forcing herself not to grimace, she pulled in her stomach. Then she crossed the room until she stood but a breath away from him.

“So you mean to sleep here?” She indicated the heap of coverlets and furs, and one pillow he’d taken from the bed.

“This night, aye. I told you—tonight you may rest undisturbed.”

And if I desired to be disturbed?

Her hot MacLean blood nigh flung the words at him. But her greater wish to please won out and so she bunched her hands in her skirts and blurted the first thing that came to her mind.

“You said Reginald’s lady wife was doomed. Why was she?”

Because she loved a man whose pride damned her,
Magnus’s heart answered.

He
started, the innocently asked question hitting him like a fist in the gut.

His every instinct warned against venturing anywhere near the old tales—the legend and the curse—but his honor would not allow him to lie to her.

“What have you heard of the legend?” He focused his attention on her face rather than the appealing flush that spread ever so sweetly across the top swells of her breasts.

“Scarce little,” she said, her voice testy, an almost-rebellious glint flashing in her eyes. “No one seems wont to speak of it save to cluck their tongues or bemoan its tragedy.”

“It
is
tragic. A sad and sorry tale. The hearing of it would only distress you,” Magnus said, hoping to dissuade her.

But his words had the opposite effect, for she jutted her chin at him and the glint in her eyes turned fiery. “If I am to be lady of this keep, I would know Coldstone’s heart. The good and the bad of it.”

Then she stunned him by cupping her flushed breasts and lifting them,
offering
him their bounty—or so he thought until she indicated the dried patches of white-rimmed sweat stains marring the fabric of her bodice.

“Do you see these stains?” she demanded, her whole demeanor daring him to speak the truth.

I see the top halves of two of the largest, most delectable-looking areolae e’er to be my pleasure to gaze upon,
he almost said, catching himself just in time to clear his throat and give her a nod.

“Aye, I see them—the stains, I mean. What of them?”

She took a deep breath and a wee bit more of the sweetly puckered reddish-brown flesh welled into view. At once, a sharp-gripping tightness swept across his groin, but he quelled the urgent
pulling,
banning the pleasurably insistent pulsing to a more appropriate time and place—if ever one should arise, which he sorely doubted.

“I bear these stains,” she was saying, “because I was hastening about in a bit of a dither earlier.” She narrowed her eyes as if she expected him to comment.

When he opted for the wisdom of silence, she went on. “Not many a lass would traipse about in such an unladylike manner as to cause this degree of dishevelment. Nor would most high-born lasses allow themselves to be caught in an unflattering condition.”

Unflattering?

Magnus near hooted—and would have, were he not in such a foul mood. She could stand before him soiled with muck and goose feathers and he’d still find her the most fetching creature he’d e’er laid eyes on.

The most desirable.

Aye, she proved an unbearable delight . . . any way she wished to come before him.

Not that he’d admit it.

“The stains matter naught.” It was the best he could do without compromising his pride.

“Ah, but you err, for they matter greatly,” she contradicted, her dark eyes ablaze in the candle glow. “They matter because they prove I am stout-hearted . . .
other
than most. I will not cower and tremble at your family secrets and sorrows—they can be no more grave than some lying o’er my own clan.”

Magnus stiffened, not liking where she was leading him. “Say you?”

She nodded, clearly pleased.

A sickening dread began to pulse through his innards, his every instinct warning him of what she’d do with the tale once she’d heard the whole of it.

How she’d use it.

She stepped closer, all rounded curves and luminous skin, her vibrancy and lightly musked female scent proving equally potent weapons.

Sakes, if she came any nearer, all the strength would run out of him. Already he feared his knees would buckle any moment.

Her gaze saying she knew it, she traced light fingertips down his mailed chest. “Will you tell me?” Her voice held a full woman’s sensual caress, its soft Highland lilt besotting him as soundly as the tempting swells of her breasts. “Tell me of your ancestor and his lady?”

Magnus didn’t even try to smother his groan. “Aye, to be sure,” he agreed, the tops of his ears beginning to burn. “But only after you’ve taken to yon bed and I have settled myself on my pallet.”

“As you wish.” She accepted his concession with an almost-too-casual shrug.

But just as he pulled in a breath of relief, she undermined his small victory by setting surprisingly deft fingers to the lacings of her bodice. And, merciful saints, loosened and low-dipped as it’d already been, she had it gaping open before he could even exhale.

Another moan rose in his throat, louder and more ragged than the first. Hearing it, she pinned him with a knowing stare and eased the gown off her shoulders until it bunched about her waist.

“I told you I am mostly in good heart,” she said, reaching for the delicate straps of her camise. “As you can see, neither am I timid. Be assured there is naught you can tell me, or require of me, that I shall find . . .
off-putting.
”

Magnus inclined his head—his throat, and certain other parts, too thick and tight for him to comment.

“I would deny you nothing, sir.”

That enticement shimmering in the air between them, she slowly peeled down the wispy covering of her undergown until nothing touched her magnificent breasts but the brisk night air and his riveted gaze.

Full, large-nippled, and gleaming beautifully in the glow of the hearth fire, they swayed a bit from the swift workings of her fingers. And they swayed even more when she lifted her hands and began pulling the pins from the glossy black braids coiled loosely above her ears.

The tantalizing motion sent bolts of sheer, white-hot need pounding into his loins, her every movement stealing his breath and setting him like granite. Her nipples began to contract, the large rounds of her areolae crinkling and drawing deliciously tight beneath his stare.

“Jesu God,” he ground out when the hardened tips lengthened, stretching toward him as if begging for his caress, his kiss.

Half-afraid
he’d
soon be reduced to begging, he bit down so fiercely on the inside of his cheek that he tasted blood. But the saints took pity on him at last, for the very urgency of his desire ripped through the spell she’d cast over him.

The knowledge that he was a mere hair’s breadth away from dragging her against him and taking her, mayhap even in standing, braced against the cold, hard edge of the table, restored his sanity as naught else could have.

His lesson learned, he began stalking about the chamber, snuffing the candles one by one. He slid a hot glare at the night taper, flickering innocently on the small bedside table. That flame, too, would meet its end—but only after Lady Amicia was securely ensconced within the massive, canopied bed.

Meantime, he doused every other source of illumination, plunging the room into ever-greater shadow until only the soft glow of the peat fire and the tiny coal-burning brazier lit the murky half-dark.

She
moved about behind him, turning down the bedcovers. Something she did not seem to be doing with all speed.

And he wasn’t about to glance her way to be sure. He deemed it wiser to keep pacing and simply set his jaw against the image of her voluptuous body stretched sinuously upon the linen sheets.

Blessedly, the worst throbbing at his groin receded. But one more glimpse, however fleeting, of even an inch of creamy skin not usually freely visible, and he’d find himself in fine ferment all over again.

“I am abed, sir, and . . . covered.”

The words floated out of the semi-darkness, mellifluous as always but with a slight tinge of defiance.

And that wee suggestion of rebelliousness sent another hot tide of tingles sluicing across his nether parts. Had she perchance divested herself of all her garments? Would she, in her boldness, have
other
sultry delights on display for him?

Perhaps a quick flash of the sooty-black curls he imagined sprang in wild abundance between her shapely thighs?