Medieval Ever After (118 page)

A few more thrusts and strokes with his fingers, and he felt her shudder and quicken around him as she came undone. She cried out her pleasure. It was enough to send him careening over the edge and into paradise after her.

She pulsed around him as they both came back down to earth, breathing hard. He eased out of her and sank onto the bed, completely spent. She turned on her side so that she could rest her hand over his still-hammering heart.

A few minutes of bliss-induced silence stretched between them.

“You like to be in charge, don’t you?” she finally asked with a small smile.

He smiled back and closed his eyes for a moment, savoring what they’d just shared.

“Aye, I do. Though I’m not so much of a despot that I don’t enjoy ceding power either.”

He cast a suggestive look at her, and she exhaled, likely remembering their encounter in the study again.

“I suppose I could get used to ceding power occasionally, too,” she breathed, holding his gaze. But then her face darkened slightly. “Do you…do you wish me to be more…yielding outside our bedchamber also?”

He sat up and propped himself on his elbow. “Nay, Rona, I don’t.”

She broke their gaze, so he gently took her chin in his hand, bringing her eyes back to his.

“I mean it, Rona. Sometimes your stubbornness and willfulness drive me crazy, but I don’t want you to be any different. You’re smart and strong and capable. I count myself the luckiest man in the world to be your husband.”

She blushed and the corners of her mouth tugged up.

“I know I can be…difficult sometimes—”

“As can I,” he interjected.

“—But I’m glad you accept me, temper and stubbornness and everything else. After all,” she said, lifting one eyebrow suggestively, “I do enjoy getting a rise out of you.”

To make her double entendre even clearer, her eyes took on a wicked light and she let her gaze flick down to his manhood.

He scooped her up in his arms and tickled her for her petulance. Once she was squealing and breathless, he stopped his feather-light attack, but instead of releasing her, he pulled her onto his chest. Within minutes, she was fast asleep. He felt the pull of tiredness, but before it claimed him, he thanked the heavens for his good fortune. They were finally on their way to the kind of marriage he’d never before let himself hope was possible.

HIGHLANDER’S RECKONING

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

For what felt
like the hundredth time, Rona pricked her finger with the needle she held. Barely suppressing a foul curse, she sighed and raised her head from the needlework in her lap. She glanced over at Alwin, who sat serenely working the needle. Both Meredith and Jossalyn also had their heads bent over their own work. Little Jane lay sleeping at Alwin’s side, the model of serenity and contentedness.

Rona stood and just managed not to fling her needlework across the chamber. Instead, she set it down in her chair and walked to the window. The women were gathered in her old bedchamber because the light was better here than in the other rooms. The furs on the window were pulled back, and gray morning light poured in.

The week since the wedding celebration had flown by happily enough. The men spent most of their time training in the yard or locked away in Daniel’s study, no doubt planning their siege on Dunbraes. The ladies had busied themselves with indoor pursuits, as the weather had been temperamental and wet. It gave them all ample opportunity to talk and get to know one another, which was a joy. Never before had Rona had female companionship aside from old Agnes.

But Rona had suffered through about as much tidying, needlework, and meal planning as she could stand. As she stood at the window, longing tugged at her heart. She glanced up at the sky. Though the clouds were still thick overhead, they were breaking up to the west, revealing patches of faint blue.

“What is on your mind, Rona?” Alwin said, not glancing up from her needlework.

“I was thinking of flinging myself out this window if it would save me from having to pick up that cursed needle again,” she replied bluntly.

All the women burst into gales of laughter, and Rona couldn’t help but smile.

“You’ve carried on nobly this past week,” Alwin said once she caught her breath again. “You fooled me into thinking that you merely
disliked
the duties of the lady of the keep, not that you’d rather die than set another stitch!”

They shared another round of chuckles, but Rona’s heart sank slightly at Alwin’s words.

“I know I should be better at all this,” she waved her hand around the chamber to indicate a lady’s responsibilities in running a castle. “I just…never took to it.”

She returned to her chair and slumped into it, not even bothering to move her needlework.

Jossalyn fixed her with a knowing look. “Even though I was supposed to run the keep of the man to whom my brother was going to marry me off, he never saw to my training. I don’t take to it either. The only reason I’m any good at this,” she said, holding up her perfect embroidery, “is because it’s like stitching up a wound!”

Meredith gasped, and a grin settled on Alwin’s face.

Rona considered Jossalyn for a moment. This past week, she’d lumped the three other women together in her mind, telling herself that they were all proper ladies while she was inept at sewing, didn’t give a fig about meal planning, and hadn’t ever cracked open the castle’s ledgers to make sure all was running smoothly. But these women were more like her than she initially thought. They had all been flung into unusual circumstances, had found a way to overcome, and had made the life they wanted.

Unconsciously, she glanced out the window again.

“We all make do with our situation and our strengths,” Alwin said warmly to Jossalyn, though Rona suspected the words were directed at her. “I happen to love running Roslin Castle, but I had to fight Robert for the control and freedom to do it.”

“Really? You and Robert fight for control? I would have never guessed,” Meredith said evenly, though a smile played at the corners of her mouth.

“Indeed,” Alwin said with a roll of her eyes. “I can only hope that Burke’s good temper and easygoing nature will rub off on Robert during this visit.”

That sent Meredith into a fit of laughter.

“So Jossalyn can embroider a man back to health,” Alwin said, a knowing smile on her face. “Meredith maintains a harmonious household by having Burke wrapped around her little finger. And Robert is no match for my skill at outmaneuvering him when it comes to running Roslin. What is your secret gift, Rona?”

Suddenly the room grew quiet and three sets of eyes gazed at her. She swallowed, and her eyes fluttered to the window once more. Of course she couldn’t tell them about Bhreaca or her love of falconry. Was that her special skill, her secret gift as Alwin had called it?

“Perhaps the answer lies outside that window, beyond the castle,” Alwin said quietly. The woman had an eye sharper than Bhreaca’s, Rona was sure of it.

The room settled into a congenial silence as the women returned to their needlework. Rona again stood and strode to the window. The patches of blue to the west were growing larger. She felt her heart tug toward the southwest, where Bhreaca waited for her, where Ian and Mairi would hug her warmly, where she would fly in her mind’s eye with her falcon.

So lost in thought was she that she didn’t hear Meredith move to her side.

“I’ve grown accustomed to taking walks around Brora Tower almost every day, even in the winter,” Meredith said quietly as she gazed out the window. “I grow restless being cooped up indoors like this.”

Meredith’s sweet, unassuming presence had been a balm to Rona from the moment she met her. Now she felt her kinship with the quiet woman grow deeper.

“You must enjoy being outdoors greatly then. I hear you’ve had a hard winter in the north.”

“Aye, we have. But I got out nevertheless. It’s my time to see the animals,” Meredith said with a smile.

Alwin and Jossalyn had begun chatting, which covered their conversation, but Rona lowered her voice nonetheless.

“Animals? What do you mean?”

Meredith leaned in conspiratorially. “I go walking for hours sometimes just to watch a doe eating or two young foxes playing together. I even draw them when I can.”

Rona’s eyes widened. “Really? Why?”

Meredith shrugged. “It makes me happy.”

Rona’s mind flew to Bhreaca. The falcon made her happy. It was as simple as that. And she hadn’t been to the Fergusons’ cottage in over a week.

Meredith would understand. She had a kindred love of wild creatures.

“Do you also enjoy watching birds?” Rona asked cautiously.

“Oh, yes! Linnets and sandpipers and—and golden eagles! I’ve sketched them a dozen times, but it’s so hard to capture them in motion.”

Rona’s heart surged. “I have something to show you then.”

“What is it?” Meredith asked quietly, though her voice was filled with anticipation.

“It will be a surprise. But bring parchment and a quill. I must speak with Daniel first, but can you be ready in an hour?”

Meredith nodded, her cheeks flushed with excitement. She hurried out of the chamber and toward her own room.

Rona followed, feeling Alwin and Jossalyn’s curious gazes on her. She shot a quick glance over her shoulder and caught Alwin’s knowing grin before she closed the chamber door behind her.

She took the stairs two at a time as she made her way to the study. Without bothering to knock, she pushed open the door.

“But with the tower keep built in the northeast corner—”

All four of the men in the study snapped their heads up at the sound of the door banging open. Garrick immediately moved so that his large frame blocked the view of the map spread on Daniel’s desk.

Daniel relaxed slightly when he saw that it was Rona, though the study was still taut with tension, both from their planning and from the intrusion.

“What is it, Rona?” Daniel said tightly.

Daniel watched as Rona’s mood suddenly shifted from eager giddiness to sour annoyance. Her smile slipped and she crossed her arms defensively.

“Forgive me for the interruption. I suppose you all are up to something that must be kept secret from me again?” she said tartly.

Garrick raised a dark eyebrow at her tone, Burke coughed, and Robert actually quirked a smile.

Daniel sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.

“Nay, wife, it’s not a secret—at least not one we’re keeping from you.”

Garrick turned his hard, quizzical look on his younger brother, but Daniel went on.

“We’ve been poring over this map of Dunbraes Jossalyn made for us, but we’ve yet to find a suitable point of attack.”

“Will your siege start so soon?” she asked cautiously, taking a step forward. She dropped her crossed arms from her chest, which Daniel was learning was a good sign.

“We got word from the Bruce this morning that he and his army are about a week’s march north of Loch Doon,” Daniel said. “We want to be ready to start the siege shortly after that.”

Rona frowned and took another step forward. Garrick still blocked her view of the map on the desk.