The Raven's Wish (28 page)

Now, opening the secret passageway in his room, Duncan moved up the stone steps toward Elspeth's chamber, feeling along the wall for the door leading to her room. He knocked, then pushed the door open carefully.

The dark room showed only a soft orange glow from the hearth. Stepping soundlessly into the chamber, Duncan felt cool air sweep gently over his bare chest, where his shirt gapped open, as he approached the bed.

She slept soundly, lying on her side, her breathing steady and soft. Placing his hand gently on her bare shoulder, he felt the lift and fall of her body. Safe. The feeling swept through him. She was safe—and he felt unaccountable relief, for logically he knew there was no threat.

He wondered at the impulse that had sent him here, as if compelled by some irresistible instinct. But he had unrelenting pride, and would not ask her forgiveness, having committed no offense; nor would he coddle her childish anger.

Sighing, he took his hand from her shoulder and turned to leave.

* * *

Elspeth opened her eyes and saw him in the shadows, as if he were part of her dream. "Duncan?" she breathed.

"Aye," he whispered. "Sleep now."

But she sat up, shaking away sleep, wrapping the sheet around her nudity, and halting as she remembered the day's events. She was married now—to Duncan. She curled her arms around her knees under the sheet. "What do you want?"

"I had a foolish dream," he said, standing in the darkness. "I came to see that you were safe. That is all." He stepped back.

She reached out quickly and touched his arm. He turned, caught her hand in his, a desperate, sudden, needful grip that rushed keenly through her body like lightning. She looked up, her hand in his. He loomed there, tall and wild and powerful.

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Stay," she whispered. "Tell me your dream."

"Foolish. Likely the result of Flora's posset."

"Dreams are rarely foolish. There is always some meaning to them. I was dreaming too, when you came in—by the small door? I locked the other," she added.

"Did you dream about holding your temper?" he asked in a wry tone.

"My anger is properly deserved—by all of you."

Duncan reached down and took her by the upper arms, pulling her upward so that she hastily scrambled to her feet, dragging the linen covering with her, so that she grabbed at it.

"I have heard enough of your indignation," he said. "I accepted the marriage, and expect you should do the same, for it is done, and with good reason if not good method. Your cousins love you well and want the best for you. Yet you behave like a spoiled and truculent child."

"The marriage is not even legal." She glared up at him, masking the hurt she felt at his harsh and honest words.

"I will register it as soon as I can, if it bothers you. Odd for a Highland girl who goes reiving in the night to moan about legality."

"Odd for a lawyer to ignore it. Perhaps you have been too long with the wild Scots."

"Wild Scots indeed." His grip tightened on her shoulders. "The MacShimi could have let you go to Ruari MacDonald, or give you any husband—a total stranger." His eyes were night-dark blue, intense and deep. "What your cousins schemed was brashly done, but it was well meant. They know you will be safe with me. Am I so poor a choice in your eyes?"

"I did not want to marry." She glanced away, for that was not entirely so. This man made her think otherwise, and all unexpectedly. Yet her stubborn pride held her to her argument.

"But we are wed now, and we may as well accept it."

She scowled at him. The heat of his hands on her shoulders seemed to burn through her skin. Through the nubby linen sheet she could feel the hardness of his chest against her, could feel the distracting pulse of his heart so close to her own. She sighed then, frustration, yearning, all of it rushing through her.

"How can I accept what could bring you harm?" she asked.

"That threat of the heading block does not bother me," he said. "Understand that. Or is there more to this damnable vision of yours, so that our wedding worries you so?"

"You will only be safe if you leave Glenran, and me."

"
Mo cuachag,"
he murmured. "You do deserve that name—cuckoo, for you repeat this warning, though I do not need to hear it. Stop, now."

"Will you listen? Will you leave, for your own sake?"

He sighed, set her down on the bed, where she sank into the feather-stuffed mattress and grabbed the sheet against her. Duncan sat beside her, his weight pushing down the bed so that she leaned against his arm. "Speak then," he said. "If there is more to this, best say it all. Tell me the whole accursed thing."

"I cannot tell you all of it," she said. "Just the warning."

"Elspeth," he said, his voice a low rumble, "tell me."

Chapter 17

`Your faith and troth ye sanna get,

Nor will I twin with thee,

Till ye tell me the pleasures o heaven,

And pains of hell how they be.'

~"Sweet William's Ghost"

"Whatever you saw, I want to know it," Duncan said again. "Ravens and their wishes for me, phantoms in the sky—none of it frightens me. Just say it out."

"But it is an awful thing to hear of your own death."

"You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met. This fear of yours will not destroy me—though it could harm you, your own self, girl. Do not give this thing such power. Tell me."

She watched him for a long moment. Then she drew a breath and began.

He listened, brow furrowed, watching her in the darkness. While she spoke, he nodded, silent, strong and solid beside her, without comment or condemnation, and she poured out what she had withheld from him—the ravens she had seen that first morning; the appearance of the dark man on the horse; the startling image in the streambed when she had seen Duncan with his head bound, his shirt pulled down, an axe behind him. And she revealed more.

"I saw myself at your shoulder," she said low. "And I felt that somehow I would be the cause of your execution." She whispered the last.

"You could never me to come to the headsman," he said softly.

"I felt it, so strongly"—she inhaled, a half-sob—"and I knew you must leave, and that we must stay apart. But Bethoc told me that we would marry. She saw that, and more."

"What else?"

Elspeth lifted a hand to his chest, tracing the path of the scar that ran from his heart to his shoulder. "I touched you here and saw men, dirks, and terrible killing." Beneath her fingertips, she felt the thunder of his heart. "Bethoc saw the same, and felt the sorrow in your past. Men in steel helmets, too, riding with lances." She glanced up. "Border reivers?"

He lifted a brow, silent. She went on. "Bethoc said"—Elspeth paused, looked away—"that you were my destiny. That you are my heart, and I am yours." She blushed, but felt relieved to say it aloud.

Duncan smiled and placed his hand over hers on his chest. "There she speaks the truth. You are my heart.
Mo cridhe
." He cupped her cheek, and she leaned her head there. "And did Bethoc see the grim headsman for me?"

"She did not, but she thinks my vision is a true knowing."

"Elspeth, listen." He sighed. "Do you know the conditions set for a human pledge?"

She frowned. "I know that you are both the cautioner and the pledge for our bond. You gave your personal promise that the Frasers will keep to our signed word."

"And a human pledge is held responsible if the signed party does not honor the bond. This system works well with the Highland Scots, who have little regard for the law, but who do care about their kinsmen and friends."

"A fine might be asked of you if the bond is ever broken," she said.

"A large fine. And the pledge can be executed in payment of the debt."

"Executed." The words hung in the air between them. "Duncan, I am afraid."

"Do not," he murmured. "The bond will never be broken." His voice was velvet deep, a comfort as he leaned down, his face so close to hers that she angled gently for his kiss. His lips touched hers, his hand slid along her cheek. The graze of his fingers sent a shiver through her. Their lips clung and held. He traced his lips to her ear. "I am not afraid of your vision," he whispered. "And I want you to dismiss it."

She slid her arms around his neck and closed her eyes, resting her forehead on his shoulder. "I cannot."

Circling his arms around her, he sighed and stroked her hair. "Listen. Before I came here, the Council sent your clan word of my arrival. You may have heard something of bonds and pledges, perhaps in discussions with your cousins. I think that you put it all together, and imagined my execution."

She shook her head, pressed against his shoulder. "I did not imagine it. I am a seer, Duncan. My visions prove true, though you do not believe that."

He hesitated. "I will admit that you seem to be able to know some things with your seer's mind. Things from the past."

"You admit that?" She blinked up at him.

He nodded. "When you touched my back, and described a night that happened years ago—I was startled. But perhaps the past is like a well. Seers draw knowledge from the waters."

"I see the future as well as the past."

"It is not easy for me to believe that anyone can see the future." He blew out a breath, thoughtful. "When I first came to Glenran, just the lawyer you expected, you could have guessed there was a risk I might lose my head for the Frasers and their bond."

"I knew nothing of pledges and bonds before you came," she said. "You do not believe me." She straightened away from him, though he did not release her.

"And if I believed you," he said softly, "would I run from you to save my neck? You have been warning me away for weeks. Have I gone?" He waited, and she shook her head. "Nay, and it is because some charm about you makes me want to stay."

"You do not consider warnings," she said.

His hands tilted her face upward. "There has been a pull between us since the first moment. We both feel it," he murmured.

"We do," she said softly. "I fear for you if you stay. Yet I do not want you to leave."

"There is nothing to fear. I will not leave you."

"Duncan—"

"Hush you," he said. His lips traced along her cheek.

She moaned on a soft, low breath, and turned her mouth to seek his. His lips met hers fully, his mouth moist and warm on hers, starting a rapid pulsing deep inside her body. His fingers skimmed along her jaw, down her neck, dusting over her upper chest. Shivers waved through her body, delicate, airy.

He lay her back on the bed, his lips drifting over her face, along her throat, finding and holding her mouth again and again. She opened her mouth to his tongue, tasting the heat and moistness there, easing back her head as he moved to kiss her throat.

The sheet that had been tucked around her torso slid away as she shifted in his embrace. She felt the cool drift of the night air on her skin, and then his warm hands covered her. Slipping down the curving length of her torso, skimming over her breasts and along her abdomen, he swept his hand over her hips and back up again to rest over her breasts, the light touch increasingly firm. Lifting her arms around his neck, she arched toward him.

Closing her eyes, she sighed deeply, her hands resting on the firm planes of his chest. The soft hair there cushioned her palms, and she felt his heartbeat, took it into her own.

He circled her breasts with his hands, smoothing, stroking, coaxing the center buds to harden. She sighed and arched her back, reaching to draw him down to her. His body was warm and hard and solid over hers as she drew him closer.

Warm, hard, solid and real. She embraced him with a growing fervor, wanting something fierce from him, something so strong it would drive off the fear inside her, and replace it with the deep comfort and safety she felt in his arms. He sensed no doom in his future. She wanted to feel the same; she wanted to draw strength and surety from him like water from a well, as he had said; she wanted to know only the present moment, wanted to forget visions and fears. And she wanted to share his courage, share love and loyalty, let that flourish and spring within her.

He kissed her again, and as his hands soothed over her, she arched closer to him, wanting him so badly in ways she could not define, wanting him to ease the desperation that troubled her, wanting him to fit into her heart as she was fitting into his arms, where her soft curves met his taut torso. She felt a deep quivering within that needed—demanded—release and expression. A subtle shift of her hips brought his body closer to hers, immediate and real, and his hard firmness pressed to her softness, and she knew then that she was where she belonged, and need not fear.

Time could not spin away from her here; time and worry did not exist in this moment, in these sensations. She had him here, now, to love, to treasure with kisses and caressing fingertips as their bodies eased together. She could love him here without dreading the next day or the next, wondering when and if the vision would come to fruition.