Susan King - [Celtic Nights 01] (30 page)

Chapter 18

The fire flared, and sparks floated like faery lanterns. Around it, the little room spun. Alainna blinked and watched as the earthen floor and low rafters seemed to tilt, along with the table, the benches, and the loom. She wished she had not finished the heather ale so quickly after supper.

Beyond the fire's glow, Esa and Sebastien stood beside the huge loom that dominated the center of the single chamber. The reds and deep greens in the weaving stretched there shone rich in the firelight. All the colors around her seemed saturated and luminous. Sebastien's hair, she thought, was like molten gold, his eyes like silver. Just like the golden warrior in her dream, she told herself... but he did not want to be that for her.

She sighed as she remembered the feel of his arms about her, the taste of his lips on hers. She watched as he spoke with Esa, but the room only tilted more. She put a steadying hand on the floor beside the pallet upon which she sat.

"It is just as well the snow storm kept us here," Sebastien said quietly, glancing at Esa. "Alainna looks ready to fall asleep. She would never have made it back to Kinlochan."

"I would," Alainna protested, curling up on the floor beside the hearth. The fire was so warm, and the pallet beneath her, two thick plaids layered over a dense mat of heather and straw, felt as comfortable as her own feather-stuffed mattress. She rested her head on her folded arms. "I could walk down those hills faster than you if I had to do it."

He chuckled. "I am sure you could." He came over and knelt beside her to pull another plaid over her, settling it about her shoulders. "Now rest."

"Do as he says," Esa told her. "Rest. The night will be long and quiet, with the snow falling so thick out there. If it is not too deep, we can go to Kinlochan tomorrow. We will have to bring the goat and the ewe. I will not leave them here."

Alainna yawned and snuggled down, and Sebastien reached out to brush strands of hair away from her brow. "Sleep," he said.

She closed her eyes under the caress of his fingers. His hand rested on her shoulder briefly, then he stood. She heard him murmuring with Esa again.

"I notice that you wear a plaid of my own weaving," Esa said. "But you do not wear it as a
breacan."

"I am not a Highland man," he murmured.

"You remind me of one. You are much like my own Ruari
Mor."

Alainna propped her head on her bent arm and watched, knowing that Esa would never reveal Ruari's secret. In the hours since Esa had learned about Ruari, her natural beauty had deepened to radiant, and the shadows had left her face.

"I have heard that your husband was a great warrior."

"A great man," Esa said. "Brave and kind. Handsome and strong. You are fair, and he... was black-haired and blue-eyed. But you make me think of him." She considered Sebastien for a moment. "It is the quality of gentleness beneath great strength, I think. Strength of heart as well as of body. Not every man has that, and only the best have it so strong in them that it shines like a vein of gold in solid rock."

Sebastien inclined his head. "I thank you for such a fine compliment. But if there is any vein of gold in me, it only shines because of the reflected light of two such beautiful women." He smiled, a sparkle dancing in his eyes as he looked first at Alainna, then at Esa.

Esa laughed with delight. "Indeed, you are very much like my Ruari," she said. "If you two knew each other, you would be fast and loyal friends."

Sebastien said nothing, but his gaze slid toward Alainna. She watched him steadily, and her heart fluttered to see him look to her so naturally, so intimately.

She rested, listening as they talked, their laughter soft and genuine, their friendship forming and strengthening. She felt a small pang of jealousy, knowing that Sebastien had fallen under Esa's spell, as did most men who gazed upon her beauty, and discovered her warm and wonderful soul.

Yet she could not envy the attention Sebastien gave to Esa. Her kinswoman had a fine, stubborn spirit, and was not afflicted by pride, which Alainna knew was her own shortcoming. Esa had given her heart to Ruari, and thinking him gone, had retreated into solitude. The love between them was rare and beautiful, and Alainna felt tears spring to her eyes as she thought of that joy restored to them.

"Look," she heard Esa say. "Alainna has fallen asleep by the fire. I meant to share my bed with her, and to give you that hearthside pallet. But we cannot wake her to move her now."

"I can lie down in any corner."

"Rest beside Alainna, close to the hearth," Esa said. Alainna opened her eyes quickly in surprise. "You two will be handfasted soon," Esa went on. "In our custom, promised couples often rest together, even share the same bed, when the girl is swaddled in blankets, as Alainna is now."

"It is not—" Sebastien began.

"It is good for you to be alone and to be close before you are joined in marriage," Esa said.

"That is not the way of it," Sebastien said.

"Is it not?" Esa asked gently. "I have seen the way you look at each other."

Alainna's heart thumped hard as she waited, eyes now closed. Sebastien's reply must have been wordless. Next she heard Esa's footsteps as she crossed the room.

"Good night to you, then," she said. Alainna heard the sliding sound of the iron rings on the curtain that closed off her bed from the room.

Alainna waited, motionless. She heard Sebastien stir, heard the thump of his boots as he took them off. Then he knelt beside her and stretched out as she lay on her side facing the hearth.

She kept still as he shifted and pulled a plaid over himself. His breathing was soft and steady, and his hand curled close to her back, bridging the narrow space between them.

The fire crackled, the wind whirled, their breaths fell into a rhythm. His quiet strength wrapped around her like a mantle, but she could not sleep. Her awareness of him was too keen. The handspan space between them felt so palpable that she could have dipped into it like a flowing stream.

After a while, his hand shifted. She felt his fingers glide up her backbone, down again. Her heart pounded hard, and small shivers cascaded through her. This was not the effect of the ale, she knew. Only his touch could stir her like this. She ached to turn into his arms, but lay still, uncertain.

His fingers glided over the mass of her hair, caught back with a thong tie. Then his gentle caress stopped, and his hand rested again at her back.

She tried to rest, but sleep eluded her. Growing uncomfortable on her side, she shifted to her back, turned her head, and opened her eyes.

He watched her, his face close to hers. Firelight illuminated the lean structure of his face, turned his eyes silver. She gazed at him, her breath quickening.

His fingertip touched her chin, and he leaned toward her. She tilted her face as he kissed her, quiet and slow. His unshaven beard felt rough, but his mouth was silken on hers.

The kiss seeped into her blood like heated wine, spilling throughout her body. She drank in his lingering kiss, and felt herself open like a flower, heart and body and soul.

His fingers brushed her cheek and trailed down her neck and shoulder to settle upon the upper swell of her breast. She lay still, though her heart beat like a storm. If she moved, if she shifted, she feared that this beautiful moment would end.

Tilting her head to accept his deepening kiss, she opened her mouth to his exploring, gentle tongue, felt his fingers drift over her breast. Delicate shivers slipped through her, and she arched eloquently into his palm, giving him her silent assent.

His hand soothed over her breast, shaping the pearl, finding the other, sending such exquisite sensations through her body that she gasped low. He kissed her harder, deeper now. His hand glided down her abdomen, moving over the curve of her hip to the top of her thigh. Her heart jumped, her breath caught.

She shifted, hungry for more, quickly aroused by the power of his languid but deliberate touches. Her body thundered for him.

She slid her fingers through his thick, silky hair and glided her hand downward. His body was hard and warm beneath his tunic. She traced over the firm curves of his back, his flat hip, the strong line of his muscled thigh.

He wrapped his arm around her and drew her closer until her abdomen pressed against his. The hard power of his arousal was evident, and she found herself neither surprised nor shocked. Moaning softly, moving against him as he kissed her again, she felt his own breathy groan slip into the recess of her mouth.

His hand spanned her hips and rolled her against him. She melted within when his lips trailed over her cheek to her ear. She craved deeper touches, deeper kisses, craved the merging of her body with his with a sudden, ravenous hunger. She gasped into his mouth and writhed against him, pleading, her hands sliding over his back.

He sighed, and separated his lips from hers, rolled his body away from hers. The heated layer of air between them seemed to pulsate. Alainna opened her eyes and met his gaze.

"Not now," he whispered. "God. Not now." He brushed his hand along her face, and she leaned her cheek into his palm.

"Why?" she breathed in protest, suddenly certain what she wanted, what she needed.

"Turn away," he whispered, his hand on her shoulder. He rolled onto his back, raising his forearm to rest it over his eyes.

She whirled and lay on her side. His words echoed, and she closed her eyes in anguish. She stiffened, hurt by his rejection, her heart and blood pounding.

After a while, he shifted, wrapping his arm around her as if in silent apology. She stayed rigid, but his embrace was comforting though chaste, his chest firm at her back. Relaxing in spite of herself, yearning for passion to simmer again between them, she soon succumbed to sleep.

* * *

The next day, Alainna was the quietest of the three as they journeyed back to Kinlochan. Their descent went far more quickly than the long climb upward, even with a thin blanket of snow on the ground. The sheep and the goat came along with them, guided by calls and firm pushes. Esa was filled with smiles and dazzling charm, and Alainna knew that it was the thought of Ruari that made her beauty so breathtaking and gave her mood such sparkle.

Sebastien spoke often enough with Esa, although he said little directly to Alainna. She did not join much in their chatter, although she saw the concern in his quick, sober glances. Her heart leaped whenever he touched her—a hand to her arm as they negotiated a rocky slope, a tug to settle her plaid when it slipped down.

When they at last sat in the warmth of Kinlochan's hall, Alainna watched her kinfolk lavish an affectionate welcome on Esa. They included Sebastien in their family circle for supper, and thanked him repeatedly for helping to bring their kinswoman back into their fold. Alainna smiled and shared their joy, but part of her felt distant and pensive.

The handfasting would be upon them the next day, she knew. The priest had been invited, venison had been hunted for the feast, Una and the women had worked hard all day to prepare the hall, and Lorne had kept to the isolation of his poet's bed during the day to hone his story skills for the celebration.

She felt as if she hurtled toward something unpredictable and breathtaking. Handfasting with Sebastien would veer her life in a new, thrilling, passionate direction—or it could lead them both to devastation. She did not know, and she could not express her fears or her hopes to anyone.

First, before any of that must be faced, there remained a task to accomplish in secrecy for Ruari and Esa.

* * *

"Aenghus mac Og, god of love and youthfulness," Lorne said, as he settled in his chair beside the hearth, "fell in love with a maiden one day. And when the god of love succumbs to the spell himself, it is a powerful weaving of souls indeed."

Alainna leaned forward to murmur a quiet translation as Lome spoke, changing his words into English for the knights who had fallen into the habit of taking seats near her so that they, too, could listen to the evening stories. Robert and Hugo sat to either side of her, and several other knights were nearby.

Sebastien, she saw, had taken a seat in the shadows once again, a place he seemed to prefer. She glanced at him as she spoke, discovering that his gaze was already upon her, a gray and steady caress. Her cheeks burned in response.