The Pledge (15 page)

“ ’Tis permissible indoors. Of course, I can don it—”

“I would choose that you never cover the ebony fire of your tresses, love.”

“You would?”

He nodded. “You’re quite lovely, wife, in all parts and altogether.”

She inhaled a shuddering breath. “Thank you.”

With a slicing look he sent the troubadours, the attendants, the food servers on the run. More than one giggled or guffawed
as they left.

With a mix of mirth and trepidation, Morrigan’s mouth trembled into a smile. “And what do you do if they disobey?”

He grinned. “They don’t.”

“Why?”

He tipped his head. “Because I’m answerable to them. As chief I must see to their welfare and that of their families. They
trust that I’ll do the job. I can’t betray them. Though they comprehend the enormity of the work they respect that the well-being
of the clan is to the best interests of all. So, because I’m their chief, they will honor my chores, and give me fealty. If
I let them down…”

When his voice trailed, she tilted her head. “What happens?”

“They have the right to choose another. I can either honor their choice or make war.”

“What would you do?”

He grinned. “I’ll not face the choice. Keeping one jump ahead of just doing well will keep me in place.”

“And you represent what’s best for the clan?”

He nodded. “At this point, yes.” He leaned toward her, kissing the corner of her mouth. “Not that I don’t love our discourse,
Morrigan, I do. If the gods are good we will have long turns of the sun to discuss every facet of living. I’m eager for it.
At this moment, I will admit something else holds my attention.”

She swallowed. “And that would be?” A shaking began in her innards, spreading up her legs to her chest and along her arms.
She wanted to hold him, to tell him about their night of love, how beautiful it had been, how much she wanted it to happen
again.

“I want to be with my wife this night.”

The trembling increased at her thighs and between. “ ’Tis your right, though ’Tis not full moon even as yet.”

“The sun won’t betray me,” he told her in lazy heat.

“Will it not?”

He shook his head. “Like the sol it is, it will drop behind the hills and let me have a long night.”

“You are used to having your way, gaining your wants in most everything, including this,” she told him, her voice unsteady.

“Only with your blessing. I’d not frighten you since we’ve not been together.” He kissed her ear. “Though I know you’re not
unversed in the ways of coupling, I would that you want it, too, with me, as I want it with you.”

She turned and looked into the eyes so close to her own. “ ’Tis true, I’ve known this coupling—”

“I don’t ask for details,” Hugh interrupted, a flash of anger there.

She hid a smile. His words released her from her growing anxiety about telling him. It could be put off since he’d rather
not hear. One explanation would course into another, then another, carrying them back to Rhys’s birth. She wanted him to know
the truth, even if she was leery of explaining to him. Would he resent her secrecy? Would it change the warmth growing between
them? If only she could explain the pledge she’d made to Gwynneth, how important it was to protect Rhys.

When he touched her cheek, she smiled at him. She wouldn’t bare her soul now, not taint this fragile moment of their relationship.
A burgeoning relief filled her. Mayhap she would chance it on the morrow.

Neither would she question his irritation. It gave her a wispy sense of power she’d rather not dwell on at present. It was
a joy to be released from revealing her deception. If truth were told he would, no doubt, disbelieve it anyway, so why stretch
the thin thread of closeness. It would be too brittle not to shatter if she told him; it was stretched to breaking as it was.
“Then I’ll give none.”

His smile twisted. “Good.” He moved closer on the bench. “ ’Tis too busy here.”

“No one is about, sirrah.” She turned her head and scanned the great room.

He leaned forward again, pushing aside her silken
tresses and putting his mouth at her nape. “I know, but I would seek our couch, wife. What say you?”

Her body flamed, as did her face. “I would not gainsay you.” She looked up at him. “Nor would I find it displeasing.”

He was speechless.

“No answer, milord?”

“I can’t phrase one,” he told her, his voice hoarse.

She reached up and touched his mouth. “And are you so poleaxed, Hugh MacKay, by what I said? To hear the women of this castle
discourse on you, ’twould seem you have a coterie of females each night, and never the same one.”

Hugh grimaced. “They don’t say that.”

Morrigan was beginning to enjoy herself. “Shall I tell you what they say of your private parts?” She thought them quite beautiful,
but she couldn’t reveal that. When he looked even more taken aback, she chuckled. “Very colorful descriptions.” It delighted
her she’d shocked the mighty chief of Clan MacKay, that he stared at her more than a little dumbfounded. “What say you?”

Hugh glared. “You make sport of me.” His smile was feral as he leaped to his feet, then leaned down to scoop her from the
bench. “You’re a most shocking lady, Morrigan MacKay.”

She clutched his shoulders, not sure what he planned. “I’m surprised you would think anything shocking.”

He strode across the great room, laughing, his elkskin boots making little sound on the stone floor. He stepped
up into the entry, eyeing Dilla. “My lady has need of a tub of the hottest—”

“ ’Tis been done, laird, and has been waiting this age. Twice the hotness has been refreshed,” Dilla admonished, one eyebrow
elevated. “The boy has been bathed and put to rest.” Dilla inclined her head. “ ’Twill be a miracle if our lady doesn’t catch
the ague.”

“No, no, really, I’m fine.” Morrigan pushed at Hugh to no avail.

“I’ll see to it that she stays healthy, Dilla,” Hugh told his attendant.

Dilla sniffed and stalked down the hall to the kitchen.

“She’s annoyed with us,” Morrigan whispered.

“Nay. Not with you, with me. She’s ready to skewer me,” Hugh said with a chuckle.

Morrigan watched him as he climbed the stairs, seeming as unaffected by her weight as by Dilla’s words. He was the chief,
but he took rebuke as his men would. She might never understand the wild Scot with the strange outlook who happened to be
her husband. Not that she hadn’t heard of him in Wales. Ballads were sung about him. Poets regaled one and all about the exploits
of the great MacKay. No one had ever underscored his sense of fairness, only his ruthlessness, his canniness, his ability
to conquer. No scribe had ever told of his goodness, his strong sense of justice and total commitment to his clan. The MacKay
she knew had many more parts than the scholars could ever guess.

“Planning to help Dilla, wife?”

She chuckled as he threw his shoulder at their door, banging it open. “Oh, you’ve found me out. A spear through your middle.
Foolish me. I thought to surprise you.”

He smiled.

“The many women didn’t describe you well enough, I’m thinkin’.”

“How’s that?”

“They didn’t tell me of your versatility in handling them.”

Hugh kicked the door shut, then strode to the middle of the room, his eyes on her. He paused near the bed, his head thrown
back, laughter spilling out of him. “Christ’s blood! What all did they prattle about me?”

Morrigan bit back a smile. “Methinks I should say nothing, else I shock you again.”

“Worried about me, are you?” He let her slide down his body.

She nodded. “I would spare your sensibilities, good chief.”

“Has anyone ever said you have a cutting tongue?”

Morrigan pretended to ponder. “Not more than a legion, I’m thinking.”

Roaring with mirth, he looked down at her, a delighted look on his face. “Just when I think I know you, you show me more wondrous
faces, Morrigan.” He frowned.

“What bothers you?” Her words were out of breath because he’d begun removing her raiment.

“There’re times when I’m almost sure I’ve known you.” His brow furrowed. “Unlike the witches of Orkney and the priests of
Rome, I don’t believe in another life, except perhaps Valhalla, yet I have the surety I’ve seen you in my dreams even before
I saw you on our nuptial day.” His scowl deepened. “I’ve seen you since… during my illness. Fever can do that.”

Morrigan caught her breath. He thought it’d been a dream he’d had, not the truth of the greatest lovemaking in the world,
the most unforgettable moments of her life. She longed to ask him if he’d been swirled into the whirlpool of love as she had.
If only she’d known that this day would come, that she could come to love and trust Hugh MacKay, she would’ve talked to him
before the poison had taken him. She was more than sure she loved him now. Should she trust that love and tell him of Rhys’s
heritage? Nay, not yet. Soon, when they would sit together and talk. She’d not pondered a time when there’d be trust between
them. It was a fool’s game to conjecture. She’d been too afraid before their wedding of any Scot, especially the chief, to
have ever confided anything to him. If only…

“What do you ponder that wrinkles your brow, wife?”

“Sometimes we feel a connection to another on first meeting.” Such dissembling! Tell him. Words rose in her throat, then fell
back again when he cupped her chin in his hand. “What?” she faltered.

“I want to look at you and be close to you.”

“You may.”

“I want you to want our joining as much as I.”

Her skin trembled with the need to tell him how much she wanted him, how the night with him had changed her life, given her
a belief that they could deal very well as man and wife. What would he say if she told him she longed to have his child? She
lifted her hand to his face. “Shall not our feelings manifest themselves as… we…?”

“Love each other?”

She nodded.

He smiled, then stepped back, letting her undergarments slide to the floor, pooling at her feet. He stared. “You’re too lovely,
wife.” He looked toward the steaming water in the copper tub. “I would gainsay this, but ’Tis for your good, and you must
have your tub.”

Disappointment rattled through her. “ ’Tis a most alarming tub. How does one drain such a large one… that could hold two?”

His head swung back to her, his smile widening. “I hope I read your meaning, sweet one. I would want to hold you in the hot
water until we grow hotter than the fire behind the tub.”

She shook with the boiling in his gaze, her body reaching out for him, though she hadn’t moved. “Doth sound most dangerous
and intriguing,” she said in Celtic. They were making love with words! She was wet for him already. Just the thought of the
many times they’d loved that night, of all the ways he’d pleasured
her and taught her to pleasure him. She felt weak and so very eager.

He leaned toward her, his mouth touching her nose. “You’ve no need to wish for it, wife. I promise ’twill happen. But, if
you wish, I would seek a boon first.”

Startled, she gazed up at him, feeling dizzy. He held her so tight in his gaze it was like another intimate embrace. “That
would be?”

“I would have you call me Hugh.”

A chuckle of relief escaped her. “I would grant that, sir… Hugh.”

He laughed and caught her under the arms, bringing her close.

He carried her over to the tub, still holding her when he leaned down to test it. Then he lowered her, and stripped off his
own raiment. Water sloshed over the side when he settled behind her. He began to lave her with the soft bits of fleece he
took from the nearby washstand.

Feeling daring she took a section and turned, washing him with the fragrant soap, smelling of attar of roses, urging him to
turn his back. He leaned against her, looking up at her.

“I don’t usually wash with that soap.” He scowled at what she held.

She laughed. “Don’t growl, mil… Hugh. ’Twill fade before the morrow.”

“Do not speak of the morrow. I want the night.” He
leaned back, staring at her as she leaned over him. “I have a great heat for you, milady.”

“You do?”

He nodded. At her wide-eyed look, he shook his head. “Don’t fear this, Morrigan. ’Twill be right between us.”

“I don’t fear.” She couldn’t look away, feeling a sweet entrapment in his gaze. When his mouth moved upward, hers descended.
It seemed to take forever; it was too slow for her. Reaching down, she caught his lips with her own, clinging.

The water swirled around them, the laving forgotten in the everlasting enjoyment of touching each other, of sliding limbs
in and around the other. The slickness of their bodies was a heady inducement to more of the same.

Hugh groaned, feeling his body explode with want, the sensations wilder and hotter than the steaming water surrounding them.
He caught her to him. “I want to go slowly.”

Out of breath, she leaned against him. “Nothing with us has been slow.”

“What do you mean, wife?”

Though his voice was husky with emotion she caught the puzzlement and stiffened. She was tempted once again to explain, but
she was quite sure this wasn’t the time. “I—”

“Never mind.” Hugh muttered something else, then locked his mouth to hers.

Rising like Poseidon from the sea, he clasped her to him, spinning around, frowning.

“The laving cloths are there,” Morrigan said, pointing to the stack not far from the bathing stool.

Hugh stepped out of the tub, grabbing a bunch and casting them over her as he carried her to the fire. “I’ll not let you chill.”

“I’m warm.”

“I’m hot,” he said.

She tried not to laugh. In truth it caught in her throat. When she looked up, he was grinning.

When he let her slide down his body, she reached for the drying clothes.

“No, let me, wife. I would relish the chore.”

She didn’t answer. Taking a cloth of her own, she began to minister to him in the same way.

Eyes met and locked as though there was no other in the world but the two of them.