Lady Miracle (27 page)

“They must be. It seems that Ranald acquires some of his goods from English merchants willing to overlook their king’s mandate. Then he can charge exorbitant fees to Scottish merchants, claiming he got the goods from Irish ports and paid dearly for them. I would guess he’s making a nice coin here for himself.” He watched for a moment in silence. “I wonder what else he has arranged with England,” he mused.

She glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind. What the devil are they doing now?” He inched forward, and Michael looked too, feeling bolder with Diarmid’s hand safely on her shoulder. They watched as the three boats disappeared, one after the other, into a deep crevice in the rugged, seamed cliff face.

“Where are they going?” she asked. “The sea cave entrance is the other way.”

“Apparently there is another sea cave hidden in that crevice. A perfect spot for smuggled goods.”

The swirling water below the cliff reflected an eerie glow from the torchlight within the crevice. “It must be a large cave,” Michael observed.

Diarmid nodded. “I would like to look around in there.”

She grabbed his arm in protest. “You cannot go down there! And we must get back in the castle before Ranald sees us,” she added hastily. She abhorred the thought of Diarmid going down to the sea cave while the other men were there. “Do you think the guard told Ranald we were out here? Will he know Ranald’s business tonight?”

“I paid the man well to keep silent,” Diarmid said. “I doubt Ranald paid him. And MacSween is alone. Likely he wants few to know his business.” He shifted backward and rolled to his side to look at her. “I agree that you should get back to the castle. Will your legs work now, do you think?”

She shimmied backward. “I think so.” She rose to her hands and knees, then to her feet. Diarmid stood and took her arm to run with her toward the castle. They followed the outer wall, moving against the force of the wind. Michael held on to her billowing cloak and tried to keep up with Diarmid’s long, easy strides. Within a few yards of the gate, he stopped.

“Wait,” he said, placing a hand on her arm. “If the guard knows why Ranald was out here tonight, he might be suspicious of us. We will need some good reason for being outside.”

She looked up, worried. “What can we tell him?”

He swept an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Let him think we had an assignation in the moonlight.” He bent his head and nuzzled her cheek. The scrape of his beard, the warmth of his breath, made her heart pound. “Do you think he is watching?” he murmured, as he drew her into step beside him.

“I do not know,” she answered breathily, raising her head to his, putting her arm around his waist.

The portcullis door swung slowly open.

“Kiss me,” Diarmid whispered. He lowered his face to hers. In one swift motion, he took her mouth with his, and took her heart forever.

As his mouth softened gently over hers, Michael gave herself into the kiss and felt her knees buckle beneath her. Diarmid held firmly into his arms, dipping his head, slanting his mouth like heaven over hers. Soon, too soon, he broke away and straightened.

“Come with me,” he whispered.

She would go with him anywhere, for any reason. Breathless, silent, hardly able to think, she moved alongside of him in the circle of his arm.

The guard swung the door wide and gave Diarmid a knowing grin. “Fine evening for a stroll,” he said, and snickered.

“Fine indeed,” Diarmid said. “My dear, watch your step,” he murmured, as Michael stumbled over the raised frame of the door.

“That one is tired,” the guard said. “You had best get her to bed.” He laughed. “If she will let you, eh?”

Michael opened her mouth to reply indignantly, but Diarmid silenced her with a quick kiss. “Come ahead,” he whispered. “Let him think what he likes.”

He kissed her again to cover their retreat into the shadowed corridor that led to the great hall. Michael glanced back at the guard and saw him peer after them. Diarmid saw too, and caught her around the waist to draw her around the corner.

There, he halted and touched his mouth to hers once more, deeply, soundly, rocking a thunderous surge of desire through her. She forgot the guard, the ruse, the need to move ahead, and felt only his glorious, capable mouth on hers. All that existed was the warmth of his lips, the brace of his arms, the solid press of his body. Their curves and angles met comfortably, easily, as if shaped for each other.

Diarmid pulled back a little. “Jesu,” he breathed raggedly. He dipped his head again and took her mouth greedily, as if he could not take in enough of her, then traced his lips along her cheek. “Ah, Michael,” he whispered in her ear.

Michael moaned softly and tilted back her head as a wave of pure joy bubbled through her. His lips, his hands began to sweep away the hurt he had dealt her earlier. She looped her arms around his neck and smiled as his lips caressed her cheek, her eyelids, and found her mouth again. The hunger, the poignance of his kiss showed her that he, too, was ensnared in the magic that had caught her. She wondered if either of them could stop.

She did not want to stop, craving the feel of him, wanting more of the swirling waves of pleasure that surged through her. She would not think about whether they should pursue this. Reason would smother the wondrous joy that moved in her.

He took her hand and drew her quickly toward the stairs, and she ran lightly up the turning steps ahead of him. They hurried along the corridor, their footsteps moving in quiet, quick harmony.

Outside her door, he turned her and framed her face in his hands, then took her mouth again. The pretense that had begun outside had long since fallen away; she knew they were both caught now in the passion that stirred between them. She leaned back against the thick door and met his lips fervently, crushed against his chest, her arms high over his shoulders, fingers deep in his hair.

He sighed out and laid his cheek to hers. “What are we doing?” he whispered. “I do not think—”

“Do not think,” she whispered, sliding her fingers through the richness of his hair. “Do not think, do not speak. Love me if you will.”

“Micheil,” he whispered, and swept his arms around her, nearly drawing her off her feet to kiss her again. She circled her arms around his neck, feeling an overwhelming hunger for the touch and taste of him, each kiss deepening, quickening, until her heart pounded like a drum.

A scraping sound broke into the rhythm they made of breath and touch, and then repeated: footsteps. Michael pulled away, and Diarmid looked over her shoulder. She heard his breath, as ragged as her own, as they waited and listened.

“Ranald,” he whispered, and opened the door, shoving Michael inside and slipping in after her just as Ranald’s boots sounded on the upper steps.

Diarmid held the door open a crack, watching. Michael remained silent, resting her hand on his wide back, feeling the strong thud of his heart. She closed her eyes and leaned her head briefly against him.

After a few moments, he closed the door and turned to her in the dark. “He has gone into Sorcha’s bedchamber,” he whispered.

She breathed out a sigh of relief and looked up. The faint glow of the peat fire made an amber and black silhouette of his head and shoulders as he stood watching her. She tilted her head slightly, her heart thumping with tension, with passion.

Diarmid placed his hands on the wall, to either side of her head, and leaned forward until his brow touched hers. She waited for his kiss, tipped up to receive it, but he only watched her.

“God, I want you,” he whispered. “You do not know how much. It burns inside of me.”

Her heart soared. “Diarmid,” she murmured, and touched her mouth to his. He groaned, faint and low, and took her mouth, then drew back, forehead to hers, his gaze steady.

“I want to carry you over to that bed”—he breathed deep, full, fast—“and do what I will with you.”

She sighed out in ecstasy at the images those few words painted in her mind, and she arched back her head, closed her eyes. The nearness of his mouth, his breath hot on her sensitive lips, dissolved what remained of her ability to stand upright. She circled her arms around his neck for support and found his lips, nuzzled them, pleaded silently.

“—But we cannot—“ he murmured against her lips.

“We can,” she breathed into his mouth, hardly knowing what she said, hardly caring. She tilted her head to deepen the kiss.

With a low groan, he delved, his tongue licking the seam of her lips, slipping inside. She gave a wordless, joyful cry, and tightened her arms around him. His hands fell gently to her waist, pulling her against him, pressing her hips to the hardened core of his body.

With nimble fingers, he undid the loop at the neck of her cloak and shoved it aside, dropping it to the floor. He slipped his hand over her silk-covered breasts, drawing a quivering gasp from her as she pebbled instantly beneath his palm. His fingers stroked one straining tip as he touched his mouth to her throat. Then he lowered his head until his breath blew hot and fervent through the silk.

Gasping softly, she arched, her shoulders pressed against the stone wall, her back curved, her hips pushing instinctively against him. She felt his mouth open hot and sweet over her nipple, and a heavy ache began deep inside of her. Her body writhed against his in a silent, eloquent motion of longing.

He nuzzled aside her chemise and took the raised nub of her breast in his lips, wetting the pearl, suckling there. Groaning at the exquisite shock of the contact, she raked her fingers through his hair, fingered the whorl of his ear, ran her hands along his shoulders. Her fingertips explored his textures, the warmth of his skin, the rasp of his beard, the rough silk of his hair.

Wanting the contact of her skin to his, she slid her hand inside the loose neck of his shirt. His chest was warm, solid, its muscular smoothness softened with hair. She found the flat nub of his nipple, and heard him catch his breath sharply; she slid lower, her fingers grazing over the hard, wide cage of his ribs and tight, rippled muscle.

Her heart pounded, her breath deepened as he lifted his head to kiss her again, as he shifted her arms over his neck and drove his hips against hers. She had never felt urges like this, with a craving passion that swept thought, breath, time away and replaced them with a torrent of pulsing sensation.

Feeling his hands graze over her waist and hips, she arched against him as he nourished the surging need inside of her. When his hand traced over her abdomen and his fingers feathered over the mound hidden beneath the silk, she made a little sound of desperate need and moved silently, eloquently.

He touched her deeply through the silk and she moaned into the warm cave of his mouth; he stroked, silk pulling, and she twisted against him, her hands shoving at his plaid, sliding beneath to find the tight muscle of his hips.

His groan now slipped into her mouth, and he drew the silk high, shifting his hand. His fingertips found her, caressed her, raising liquid fire in her. The heat and the dance of his fingers melted her, and she quivered and dissolved in his supporting arms.

Sensing his driving hunger and his need, and feeling the urge of her own desire, she shifted her hand beneath the wool and took the warm, rigid length of him fully, languidly. He was velvet over steel in her fingers. His breath grew ragged against her mouth, and she moaned softly, arching against him, letting the sway of her body show him that she wanted him fully, desperately.

He took her mouth fervently, sliding his hands over her hips, slipping the warmed silk higher, higher. She breathed out and pushed her hips against him as a sweet demand pulsed through her, a plea of body and soul.

He felt it too, she knew; he pressed toward her, his body achingly hard against hers. She felt the heavy rhythm of his heart pound through her. He took her hips and lifted her, the motion pushing silk and wool aside. She gasped out as she felt his warm flesh against her, and she circled her legs around him.

Her body undulated, craving a deeper joy. His kiss immersed her in him, his hands caressed her, but that was not enough, not now: she had to follow the thunderous tide that flowed between them. She surged toward him on a pleading, fluid cry.

His low answering groan was anguished, soul-deep. She softened, opened for him, and he slipped inside, and thrust. Utter pleasure rushed through her like poured joy, and she pressed forward, circling her arms tenderly around him.

He gasped, as if he struggled against the will of ecstasy. His rhythm quickened within her, and she felt the exquisite ripple of his surrender. She kissed him, swayed with him, nurtured his need and her own with every motion of her body.

He sighed out, a long mist of relief and something more, a drift of sadness. Silently, he set her gently on her feet, slipping her chemise down to cover her legs. She held onto his muscular arms, her legs trembling so much that she could not stand on her own, and looked up at him.

”
Ach Dhia
,” he murmured. Cupping her cheek in one hand, he gazed at her, his eyes glittering deep in the low light. He drew a long breath, and another, and sighed out. “Michael, I am sorry—“

She touched a finger to his lips. “Hush,” she said. “Hush. Neither of us could help it.”

His thumb caressed her cheek. The touch sent shivers through her, a delicious echo of what had swept through her like a thunderstorm only moments before. “I have wanted to bed you, and I have held myself back,” he said. “But I cannot resist the feel of you. I am lost when you are near, a drowning man.” He paused, closed his eyes, shook his head.

“Hush,” she whispered. “Do not regret this. I do not.”

“I do,” he said huskily. “I had no right.”

“I gave you the right,” she murmured.

“It never should have happened,” he said, leaning a hand on the wall, looking down at her. “I swear to you it will not happen again. I swear it.” He moved back. Cold air swept in to chill her skin.

She looked away as the pain of his words plummeted through her. He was wed. They had both forgotten that. Passion could not be allowed to burgeon and burst between them. He meant to smother it.