Torn (The Handfasting) (8 page)

"I
don't want you fearful, Maggie. You're safe here, you can count on that."

She
didn't want to worry him, chose instead to distract. "I know," she
smiled as she raised her hand to cup his cheek. "Show me."  She
leaned up to tease his lips with hers, "Show me just how close you can
get, to guarantee my safety."

"You're
a dangerous minx."

"Am
I?"

"Aye." 
He lowered his mouth to hers, willing to be distracted, to blind her from the
terror of the darkness.

She
felt his lips first, as they brushed against her own, teased until she leaned
up, further into the kiss, demanding an order that Talorc was quick to obey. It
was more than a kiss, he suckled and laved her mouth, her neck, the inside of
her arm, all the places she thought quite ordinary and none of the places that
should have made her shy. And in his doing her hunger rose until she tormented
him in turn, with her own lips and tongue and nips of teeth.

They
rolled, taking turns in submission, sometimes meeting in the middle.

"Oh
Bold," her words caressed his swollen hunger, as she dared to be bold
herself and lave and suckle that part of him that separated who they were.

He
groaned, hard and loud. "Did I wound you?" she teased. He hitched her
up his body.

"Aye,
you wound me to the core and I want revenge!"  He lifted her hips and
plunged deep into her softness. As he sheathed himself he pressed the heel of
his hand against their joining. Maggie could no more hold back the moan that
came from the depths of her, than she could stop the convulsive rhythm of their
union, her desperate reaches to match his thrusts until her cry mingled with
his hoarse shout, his shudder of release toppling her pulse of the same. She
landed hard upon him, the fierce beat of their hearts against each other’s
chest. Her hair fell like a silken wave around them both.

He
caressed her derriere, eased them both to their sides, still tangled, still
one.

When
he spoke, his words were no more than a series of pants. "Tell, me wife. Tell
me what you dreamed."

But,
like so many dreams, it had dissolved with only a few reminders. She frowned. "The
babe, Talorc, it's not young Ian. Not yet."  And she let sleep claim her
to a night of restless darkness.

Talorc
left William and Padraig to stand by the door of the low sod building, while he
waded into the stream, to fetch a bucket of water. The river was frigid, would
have iced, if the current hadn't kept it moving too fast to form any covering. He
welcomed the way it numbed to his knees, for it sent a shock of alertness to
his senses.

He
turned back to find both of his men had shed their clothes, ready for the steam.
Talorc reached them, handed over the bucket so they could go in before him. He
rid himself of his own garments, and ducked under the low lintel.

William
ladled water onto fiery rocks mounded on top of coals nestled in a small
depression in the middle of the dirt floor. Around it there were low benches,
with slightly taller ones behind those. Talorc grabbed the sheet he had left
there, and wrapped it around his middle, so he wouldn't burn his backside when
he sat.

He
breathed in deeply, of the steam, of the mint that had been added to the fire
and felt every passage in his head clear. "Aye, this is what I
needed."  He adjusted the sheet so he could lie back upon the bench. "But
where is Aed?"

William,
happy with the amount of water he had put to hot rock, finally sat down himself.
"He's with your lady wife. Seems she had a dream of sorts, wanted to ask
him about it."

Talorc
grunted. He didn't like her with the storyteller, their heads close together in
discussion. Not that he didn't trust Maggie, despite her peculiar caring for
puny men. He couldn't deny her dream last night, or the way it terrified her,
had her grabbing at her belly.  

He
shook it off. A dream was merely a dream. There were other, real problems, to
sort through.

Paraig
doused himself with a ladle of the frigid water until it dripped from his hair,
to his nose down his massive beard. Like a dog straight out of the loch, he
shook it off. Talorc lifted his forearm over his eyes, to protect himself from
the slash of water.

"You've
watched all the boundaries?"

"Aye.
Winter or no, there’s been activity.”

"Any
sign of one of ours meeting them?"

William
no longer smiled. “Ours and theirs cross each other. But no sign that they stop
to chat.”

"What
did you learn from Old Micheil,” Paraig asked, “when you were closed up with
him all day yesterday?"

"Says
the same as you, there are comings and goings out east.”  Talorc ran a hand
down his face. “He's too close to the Gunn boarder for my comfort but he’s too
stubborn to stay at the keep for longer than a report."

"There
are others closer to the boarder."

"Aye,
Seonaid is out there. She claims it's quiet like, but then she's a woman, and
not trained to look for problems."

“Tracks
skirt her, but don’t go near.”

"She's
the one you have to move closer to the keep, laird.”  Paraig argued, “A woman
and child on their own . . . it's not good."

Talorc
doused himself with the frigid water, felt his muscles bunch with the shock of
it. He knew the truth of what Paraig said, but it was not that easy. "She
doesn't want to come."  And my relationship with Maggie is just that new,
just that fragile, he thought. It was no secret that Talorc didn't want the
other woman near enough to cause a problem. "I tried to get her to join up
with Nail’s people, but she doesn't want to move. Says it was her father's
croft, and it's rightfully hers.”

“As
if we would take it from her."  William grumbled.

"She
needs to marry."  Paraig kept to the woman like a dog to a bone. "That
would keep her boy safe."

Talorc
looked at William and they both laughed. It was not a humorous sound. Neither
explained their reaction, but William did offer, "Her cousin Roger and his
family live close."

"And
what has he said?"

"Signs
of too many intruders.”  The burly man looked at Talorc, “He thought we had
gone that way, when we went to fight the Gunns. He was that shocked when he
heard we hadn't. He's thinking of moving his family closer in to the keep. Maybe
they can convince Seonaid to move with them.”

"You
think?"  Paraig brightened.

"No." 
Talorc shook his head and frowned at Paraig. Seonaid was too independent, too
eccentric to fit in with those at the keep. That's why she liked to stay by
herself. As for the rest of it, Talorc was beyond thinking. He'd thought and
thought and all he did was bite the tail of an idea, only to find he was right
back where he started.

“You
have to move her to the keep, laird.”

So
that was the way of it. “She’s gotten to you then?  As if you don’t know
better.”

Paraig
kept his eyes on the fire. “Maybe she would marry me.”

William
barked with laughter. “She’ll not marry any but the Bold , and well you know
it.”

“I
visit with her, when I watch the land. She’s no’ so cold.”

Both
Talorc and William shot Paraig a look. It was William who asked, “Does she know
when to expect you?”

“Great
Gods!”  Paraig bellowed, “I’m not green you know. What I do, how I do it and
when I do it is for my mind. Woman or no, sweet or no, I keep my actions to
myself, without sign of order.”  He scowled at Talorc. "Do you see any one
as the betrayer, Bold?"

He
shook his head.

"Beathag?" 
William asked but Talorc was quick to shake his head against that one.

"I
thought it, it made sense. She still thinks I murdered her poor lass, but she's
not the one."

Paraig
argued. "Why?  Why do you say she's not?"

Talorc
drew in a deep breath of the minty air, as William poured more water on the
rocks. "Remember when we rode out, to chase the Gunns off our
borders?"

They
both nodded.

"Well,
I told Conegell to keep a watch on her, then I had Brock mention, in front of
Una, that we missed the southeastern crag when there were problems there."

"So
you think Una's the one?"

"No,
but she can't keep a secret in her head, and as her Conegell was always near
Beathag, Una tends to find reason to be around Beathag."

"Una
told Beathag."

"Aye,
and Conegell, good man that he was, faced me with the truth of it."

"Could
you imagine having to be owning up for your wife's blabbing?"

"Well,
if he has a fault, it's in his silence."

"So
what happened?"

 Talorc
couldn't quite make heads of it. "Beathag went to my Maggie, and told her
she knew we had a weakness by the southeastern cragg, and with Gunns about, it
should be sorted out. Maggie sent men over there straight away."

"Do
you think she knew she was being watched?"

"No,
Una didn't know that much."

Both
of the other men grunted in understanding.

Aed
popped his head in the door. "Room for another," he smiled broadly. Talorc
motioned him in.

"Your
wife is a lovely woman, Bold.”  Aed had too much energy for someone thick in
the heat of steam. Talorc frowned. Aed, oblivious of the animosity, settled
himself on the bench and continued. “Very brave, what with the dreams she has
and all."

Talorc
grunted. It was enough that he thought Maggie lovely, better than lovely,
beautiful and spirited and feisty as a Sidhe. He didn't want other men to take
such notice. He looked at Aed’s bony protrusions. All skin and bone and no meat.
What did Maggie see in such men?

"Did
she tell you of her dream last night?" 

"Aye,
she did. I think it means the boy is not ready to come over yet."

"She
said he couldn't."  Talorc admitted. His worst fear, his worst nightmare,
was that the boy child was meant to be someone else's. Which meant he couldn't
come over, because his true father had yet to mate with his mother.

"Aye,"
Aed settled his skinny butt on the bench, his arms and legs like thin tree
branches, making Talorc wonder if a man like that could father a son to Maggie.

He
stood, abruptly, and wondered why he was standing.

Aed
didn’t stop his rambling. "The boy can't come yet, because you're to have
a lass. That's what it all looks like to me, Bold. Can't have a lad when it's
meant to be a lass."

"A
lass?"  Talorc sat down hard. "You're telling me the dream means
she's to have a lassie?  A wee little girl?"

"Sounds
like that to me, but you can't be certain with these things. Not if you don't
remember them clear from waking."  Aed shook his head with frustration,
"She said she got distracted by the night, and forgot much of her dream. What,
do I ask you, can so distract that one forgets the importance of dreams?" 
The storyteller shook his head as if the world did not make sense.

The
shelter grew quiet, an uneasy silence. Aed looked up, confused. Paraig and
William coughed. For Maggie's sake, Talorc kept his mouth shut. She was a mite
shy about some things.

He
changed the direction of his thoughts. "She spoke of water, her brother
Ian."

Aed
perked up and smiled. "Makes sense, doesn't it?  Her brother is on the
other side. She would have to go out in the water to get near enough to hear
him."

"Aye,"
Talorc nodded slowly, but as the thoughts rushed in, his head bobbed with more
earnestness. He slapped Aed on the shoulder, hard enough to pitch him toward
the stones. "Sorry, man," Talorc righted him, brushed at the ash on
his arm, "Sorry."  Aed was puny, but smart.

A
lass.

Talorc
let out a bellow of laughter. A sweet lass, just like her mother . . . well,
more tart then sweet.

She
would enchant him.

He
had been troubled about Maggie's dream, but with the ease he felt more open to
listening.

“Aed,”
definitely more amicable, “I was thinking, mayhap in your stories, in our
history, you know of any who might just hold bad feelings for his people.”

Aed
screwed up his face as he thought. He had a repertoire of stories that outlined
the history of the clan. Legends of warriors who had fought under Talorc's own
father and before. Accounts of lovers and loves crossed. He was even bold
enough to tell the story of Seonaid and her boy, despite the frowns that Talorc
threw his way.

Maggie
said she would find out who the father of Seonaid's child was, but so far she
had only drawn more questions. It was best that way. Seonaid, for the few
moments she had been here, refused to talk to Maggie. Diedre, on the other
hand, was not shy of speaking about the two. About how Seonaid and the Bold
were such close friends. Of how he had saved her once, when a Gunn snuck up to
her farm. Of how he always traveled to the woman’s farm, even if it was out of
his way. And how he talked to her about everything.