Reckless by Hannah Howell
5
Ailis stared at the man sprawled at her feet. When he groaned and began to move, she felt a mix of relief and fear. It was evident that she had not even put Sir Alexander into a satisfactory state of unconsciousness. Nevertheless, she discovered that she was heartily glad that she had not injured him, either.
She stepped gingerly over him, grabbed his fine linen shirt off the bed, and put it on. It was far from decent, did not even fully reach her knees, but there was little else right at hand. She could not fret over modesty now. Knowing that her time to act was swiftly passing, she dashed out of the room. She had to reach Jaime and help him before Alexander could stop her.
Barra and several other MacDubh men were just stepping out of the great hall as Ailis raced down the narrow, winding stone steps. They gaped at her, and a quick glance in a mirror on the wall as she careened to halt in front of them told her why. Ailis doubted that the men had seen many half-naked lasses, with waist-length raven hair in wild disarray, racing through the hallways of Rathmor. Ailis easily shrugged aside the pinch of modesty she suffered. She was far too concerned about Jaime and about Alexander’s impending pursuit. Kate then stepped out of the great hall to join the men in their astonishment. Even Alexander’s bellow from the upper chambers did not move the men to act.
“Where is Jaime? Tell me how to find him,” Ailis begged of Barra as she kept a nervous watch for Alexander. “Tell me, ye gape-mouthed idiot!” she cried when Barra just continued to stare at her.
“I can tell ye, mistress,” Kate said and stepped forward.
“Ye wouldna try to trick me?” Ailis did not really trust such a quick offer of help.
“Nay. I ken that whatever troubles ye concerns Jaime and that this isna some game ye play to try and escape.”
“Well, please, let us hurry, then,” Ailis urged even as Alexander could be heard running along the upper hall toward the stairs.
Kate rushed toward the dungeons, and Ailis followed her. She had just grabbed a torch from its place upon the wall and handed it to Kate, who started down the steps to the dungeons, when Alexander reached his men. Ailis knew that from hearing the curses yelled out in Alexander’s distinctive voice. She clutched at Kate’s hand as, with as much haste as they dared to use, they made their way down the steep, narrow steps into the bowels of Rathmor. They had barely gone half a dozen steps when the sounds of Jaime’s terror reached their ears, his deep manly voice only adding to the pathos of his cries. Ailis did not need to prompt Kate to try and move faster.
“Why arena ye going after her, ye great fools?” snapped Alexander, and his men quickly reacted, rushing after the two women without any further hesitation.
One glare from Alexander’s hard blue eyes told Barra that it would not be wise to reveal how much humor he found in the situation. He faltered on the steps with the others when the eerie, unsettling sound of a grown man’s torment echoed up from the dungeons. A harsh oath from Alexander got them all moving again. Ailis’s clear, even voice was soon added to the din rolling up from the cells beneath Rathmor as she sought to calm Jaime.
Both Kate and Ailis cried out in sympathy and alarm as they reached Jaime’s cell. The huge man was moving incomprehensively as he made a continuous circuit of his cell. His big hands were bloodied from his blind, frantic attempts to find a way out. While Kate grabbed the ring of keys from a hook embedded in the dank gray wall and sought the one needed to free Jaime, Ailis talked to him. She tried to break the hold terror had upon her friend, but it was hard, for there was nothing but a small barred window to speak through and that was above her head. Jaime needed far more than her voice in the dark. When Kate finally opened the cell door, she handed Ailis the torch, but Alexander was already there. He grasped Ailis by the arm when she started to step inside the cell.
“He isna in his right mind,” Alexander warned, eyeing Jaime warily. “Ye had best not go in there.”
Ailis ignored him and, pulling against his hold, walked deeper into the cell with her torch held aloft. “ ‘Tis Ailis, Jaime,” she called to her friend. “Look—‘tis no longer dark in here.”
With his wide back pressed to the wall, Jaime stared toward Ailis, his gaze fixed upon the torch light. “L-light.”
“Aye, my poor friend, light. I have come to take ye out of this place.”
“I am in the hole. ‘Tis the hole. He has buried me again.”
“Nay, Jaime. Ye arena in the hole. Ye arena in that box. See the light? ‘Tis Ailis and I have come to take ye out of this place.” She stepped closer to Jaime when Alexander reluctantly eased his grip on her. “Can ye see me, Jaime? ‘Tis Ailis.” She set the torch into a holder on the wall before stepping up to the shaking man and placing a hand on his wide chest. “I will take ye out of here now. Ah, my poor bedeviled Jaime, what have ye done to your fine hands?”
Jaime was soothed by her voice and the light and began the slow crawl up toward sanity from the depths of his fears. He frowned at his much-abused hands, and his stutter was very thick as he said, “I was t-trying to d-dig out. I had to d-dig out of the hole.” He wept silently as he met her gaze, fat tears rolling down his beard-shadowed cheeks. “I canna b-bear it, mistress. I tried, truly tried, but I c-canna b-bear it.” Kate tore strips from her petticoat and began to bind up Jaime’s hands.
After giving Kate a look of gratitude, Ailis told a still-agitated Jaime, “ ‘Tis all right now, Jaime. Can you see? Now there is a light to chase away the dark. Ye arena in the ground, ye arena buried in that box, ye are in a cell and now the door is open. ‘Tis unlocked and open. Ye arena shut in here any longer.”
He looked toward the open cell door, was recovered enough to see the men crowded around it, and hung his head. “I have shamed ye.”
“Nay,” Ailis protested in a soft voice as she reached up to pat his sweat-dampened curls. She did not wish him to lose the confidence she had been able to instill in him after rescuing him from his cruel family. “There is nary a person here who doesna have a fear of something. Aye, and if they had the cruel bastard ye had for a father, they would act as ye do. I dinna think any the less of ye for this.”
“Nor do I,” murmured Kate. “Ye need some salve on these hands, but this bandage will do for now.”
Jaime cast a shy glance toward Kate, then asked Ailis, “Am I to be let free now, mistress?”
Alexander had to suppress a smile when Ailis looked his way. Her glance dared him to say no. He nodded.
“Aye.” Ailis smiled at Jaime. “Ye are to be freed. Come along, my friend.”
“I will see to the laddie,” Angus offered in a subdued voice as Kate and Ailis began to lead Jaime out of his cell.
“Laddie?” Alexander choked out the words as he gave Jaime a sardonic look.
“He canna be more than twenty no matter how big he is,” Angus muttered. “He willna be doing much with those hands of his for a wee while, either.”
“True.” Alexander caught hold of Ailis’s arm as she came abreast of him. “Ye heard us. Angus will tend to Jaime. Ye will come with me.”
Jaime turned to look at them, his eyes widening as he suddenly realized how little Ailis was wearing. “Mistress,” he gasped, “where are your clothes?”
She could not really tell her overprotective friend that her clothes lay in shreds upon the laird’s chamber floor, for she feared how he would react. So Ailis grew evasive. “I spilled some wine on them.”
Looking at Alexander with narrowed eyes and wrinkling up his nose, Jaime muttered, “I ken that ye were sloshing it about a fair bit.”
The sound of badly stifled laughter assaulted Alexander’s ears, and he snapped at Ailis, “Come along, wench.” He ignored the angry looks he got from Jaime, Ailis, and, to his well-hidden astonishment, Kate, as he dragged Ailis out of the dungeons.
As soon as Alexander and Ailis were gone, Barra started to laugh. “God’s teeth, ‘tis a poor time to be laughing, I ken it—but I canna help myself. Did ye see our fine laird?” He laughed even harder as others began to join in.
Alexander heard the sound of laughter following his retreat. He did not appreciate being the source of such amusement to his men, especially not because of some tiny, dark-eyed female. As he towed a wisely silent Ailis back to his bedchamber, he muttered curses under his breath. His act of rightful vengeance should not draw laughter. Once in his bedchamber Alexander slammed the heavy door shut and pushed Ailis toward the bed before he moved to wash up.
Ailis continued to stay quiet, a course of action she knew to be the wisest and safest. She silently edged toward the table, where the remaining jug of wine and her goblet stood, then helped herself to a hearty drink. As Alexander rinsed out his wine-stained golden hair, she managed to down two more goblets full and tip herself out a third. Then he saw what she was up to. He spat out an oath, strode over to her, yanked the wine jug from her, and had a long draft. With a calm she knew was heavily supported by wine, Ailis decided the fine-looking Laird of Rathmor could use a few lessons in simple manners.
Her blasé attitude well restored, Ailis sprawled on her back on the big bed. “Go easy on that wine, sir. I dinna care to lie down with an insensible man.”
Alexander nearly choked on his last swallow of wine and glared at a softly chuckling Ailis. “Ye have dirty feet.”
She frowned at him in confusion, for, even though a glance at her feet confirmed their filthy state, she thought his remark odd and unrelated to what she had been saying. “I didna think ye made use of my feet in what is to come.”
He blinked at her, then burst out laughing. Even though a small voice in his mind told him that her ability to make him laugh was dangerous, he ignored it as his anger melted away. He kept chuckling as he busily washed her feet, tossed the damp cloth in the general direction of the washbowl, then laid down on the bed next to Ailis. Alexander turned on his side and, propped up on one elbow, cupped his chin in his hand. He studied her closely for a moment, savoring the way his body tightened with desire for her.
“Ye are very calm for a lass who is soon to be ravished,” he murmured. “Or—is it the wine?”
It was undoubtedly the wine, but Ailis had no intention of admitting that to him. “If I weep and wail and cower at your feet, will that stop ye from carrying out your plans?” She tensed slightly when he began to unlace the shirt she wore.
“Nay, none of that would matter save that I would need to be rough with ye.” Alexander discovered that he had absolutely no wish to be rough with her even if she denied him, but he prayed that she would not guess at that weakness in him. “Tell me, why is your big friend so afraid of that cell? He spoke of a hole? Was he trapped in one at some time?”
“Aye. His father and other kin often shut poor Jaime up in a box, and sometimes they buried him. Oh, not so it would kill him, as they needed his strength to do the work they should have done. But they did it often enough and from a young age. Now poor Jaime has such terror of being in the dark or being confined.”
“Aye. ‘Tis understandable. I put him there to save his life. I felt he might not be able to hold to his word and we would be forced to kill him. I now ken that he would rather we did that than put him back in the dungeon.”
“That he would. I think Jamie would commit the sin of dying by his own hand rather than go into some closed, dark place.”
“And he will keep his word to stay his hand.”
“He will.”
Alexander slowly trailed his fingers down the opening of the shirt she wore, watching the color creep into her face and her eyes darken nearly to black. That indication that he could stir a passionate response in her had Alexander suddenly short of breath. It disturbed him a little, for it was a strength of reaction he had never tasted before, but he relished it. Although he had lately scoffed at the tales of women who made the bedding of others a mundane chore, if not actually distasteful, due to the fullness of the act when shared with them, he had always envied the men who had claimed to have had such an experience. He could not stop himself from wondering if he was finally going to taste something akin to that. For the first time in far too long it became important to him that the woman in his arms reacted, strongly and honestly, and did not just act as a tool to relieve his needs in some superficial way.
Ailis fought desperately to attribute her reactions to his touch to nerves and fear, but she failed. Nerves and fear would have made her push him away, but she held herself still, tried to drink her wine, and awaited his next move with an aching anticipation. His eyes, which had warmed to a deep, captivating blue, held her spellbound. The way he trailed his long, softly callused fingers between her breasts caused a sweet warmth to curl around her loins. That tempting warmth spread like a fire in dry grass when he moved his elegant hand over her slim legs from toe to thigh and back again. She was certain that she could not blame the wine for that.
“Take the shirt off, little one,” he ordered her in a thickened voice. He ached for a fuller view of what he would soon possess.
For one brief moment Ailis contemplated denying him, but realized he would simply tear the shirt off, and she did not want even the mildest form of violence to intrude. She tossed off the rest of her wine, set her heavy goblet down, and, taking a deep breath, removed the shirt. The heat of a deep blush flooded her face as Alexander stared at her. No man had ever seen her so exposed. She tried to hide her breasts from his gaze with her arms, but he easily thwarted that attempt at modesty. To her shame she discovered that his blatant appreciation excited her.
“God’s beard, lass, ye are lovely,” he murmured and slowly ran his hand down her side to rest upon her hip. “Ye feel like silken gold. Dinna be afraid.”
The only reply she could make was a soft noise deep in her throat as he brushed his lips over hers. He tantalized her mouth by tracing its full shape with his tongue until she was tempted into begging for a fuller, deeper kiss. Alexander granted her silent demand with a leisurely thoroughness that pulled a low moan from deep within her. He lightly pinned her to the bed with his tall, lean frame, but she knew such gentle restraint was unnecessary. The sweet seduction of his kiss was chain enough. His kiss left her wanting more when he finally moved away. It was then that she realized fighting him was the very last thing on her mind, and her heart sank.
“Touch me, lass,” he whispered in a hoarse voice as he traced the dainty lines of her small ear with his tongue. “I want to feel your hands against my skin.”
A voice in Ailis’s head commanded her not to give in, but its warning was easily ignored, quickly drowned out by the loud cry of her own wants. Her intention had been to acquiesce to his demand, to make herself less of a tool of vengeance. Instead she found herself not only surrendering to his touch, but participating in her own dishonoring. As that thought flickered through her mind, she found that it was also easy to discard. It left the moment she moved her hands over the smooth hard skin of his torso. All that really concerned her now was that the delicious feelings he created would continue.
She began to eagerly move her hands over his broad back, tracing his taut muscles and the hard ridge of his spine with her fingers, before slipping her hands around to his strong chest. There was very little hair on his chest, but she enjoyed the texture of the small blond triangle. She lightly rubbed her palms over his nipples, feeling them harden beneath her skin. When she slowly trailed the fingers of one hand down the thin line of fair hair leading beneath the waistband of his hose, she felt him tremble. A soft groan escaped him as he brushed kisses over her long neck, and she knew that he was caught up in the same sensual whirlwind that she was.
Alexander began to fear that he would not be able to go slowly, as he knew he should. Her shy but deft touch was swiftly breaking his nearly legendary control. The way she was turning to fire beneath him was intoxicating, stroking his own passion to a height he had never tasted before. It both pulled at him and alarmed him.
“Sweet, so very sweet,” he mumbled as he cupped her full breasts in his hands and lathed the tips with his tongue. “Say my name, lass. I want to hear ye say my name.”
“Alexander.” She groaned with a mixture of plea and pleasure as he continued to torment the hardened crests of her breasts. “Ah, it aches.”
“Aye, and I ken what for, Ailis.” He covered the hard nub he had been idly torturing and began to suckle gently.
A soft, purely sensual sound escaped her as sensation flooded through her. She arched her body, seeking to touch her hips to his. When Alexander shifted his body and the hard proof of his own arousal was pressed against her, Ailis trembled. She wrapped her legs around him as she fretfully fought to pull him closer. Her cry was more of relief than shock when he edged his hand between their bodies to caress the heated center of her need, easing her wanting even as he deepened it.
When Alexander stood up to shed the last of his clothes, Ailis made no attempt to flee. The prison his touch and kisses had placed her in was made all the stronger by the sight of his lean, hard body. Despite that, she shivered a little at the sight of his fully erect manhood. A touch of fear seeped through her passion. She greedily accepted him back into her arms, for the return of his warmth swiftly began to soothe her fears and press her back into unthinking desire. It was certainly far more pleasurable than fighting with him or worrying about some future sense of shame.
“Ah, now that feels lovely,” he murmured as he savored the way their forms and textures blended.
He moved his hands over her slim body as he devoured her mouth with his. The way she moved her hips, searching out his in a clear sign of her honest hunger, intoxicated him. Finally his body told him that the time had come to fully possess her. He kept his gaze fixed upon her desire-flushed face, watching for signs of tension or fear as he prepared to end her girlhood. Either feeling could dim the blaze, something he was eager to avoid. So, too, did he recall his promise to Barra not to hurt the lass. If he could pleasure Ailis, he would certainly be honoring that promise.
Slowly, gritting his teeth with the effort needed to restrain himself, Alexander eased himself into her body. She clenched her fingers, her nails digging into his hips, and she pressed her lips together tightly to muffle a cry as he breached her innocence. For a moment he was still, hoping to allow the pain she tried to hide to fade, but also to savor the feel of her and the strange exultation he felt over the knowledge that no other man had found that haven. He realized it was a first for him, although a few women had attempted to trick him into believing he had taken their virginity. Even as he hesitated, however, he stroked her with his hands, unable to resist touching her and wanting to rekindle the fire her pain had briefly doused. He needed that fire he had briefly tasted in her to return in full.
“The pain will ease soon, lass,” he said in a soft, gentle voice as he stroked her thigh.
“It didna hurt,” Ailis lied even as she felt the sensation of being torn asunder begin to fade.
Alexander smiled faintly. “Aye? Then why did ye turn ghostly white and nearly bite your tongue clean through?”
“ ‘Twas from revulsion.” She gasped as he cupped her breast in his hand and teased the crest until she shook with need.
A low husky chuckle was all the response she got from him. She decided that his rich seductive voice had to be a sin. It could not be right for a man’s voice to be so much like an intimate caress. She also thought that he was far too arrogant, but she was too caught up in her returning passion to really care.
She cried out with a desire she could not hide when he drew the hard tip of her breast deep into his mouth and began to suckle, drawing on it with a slow greed that devastated any vestiges of resistance she had tried to cling to. At the same time he began to move. Ailis needed little urging to wrap her legs around his taut hips and to parry his every thrust. She clutched at him, all thought save for what was happening to her body fleeing her mind. Some lingering sense warned her that she was being watched, and she quickly opened her eyes to catch him staring at her. She wondered how such blue eyes could look so hot.
“Ah, Alexander, it aches so.” Ailis clenched her body around his, trying to draw him deeper inside of her. “Canna ye cease? I will go mad.” She gasped as that ache suddenly changed and a wild, blinding feeling swept through her body.
Alexander cupped her face in his hands, watching in fascination as her desire peaked and hurled her past all thought and reason. The tremors that shook her, inside and out, grabbed hold of him as well and dragged his release from him. He collapsed on top of her, shaking from the strength of that release, her name a hoarse cry upon his lips. The echo of his name, called out in her passion-thick voice, still delighted him. It had been all he could have hoped for and more.
Ailis stared up at the ceiling. She felt torn between horror and wretched self-disgust. It was one thing to be ravished by one’s enemy, but quite another to squirm with vocal delight while it was happening. She cared little about her lost innocence, for there was no man she truly loved and for whom it should have been saved. In truth, she was glad that Donald MacCordy would not have the pleasure of tearing it from her. However, the warmth with which she had responded to Alexander MacDubh troubled her deeply.
She could not honestly say that Alexander had forced that passion from her with his widely reputed seductive skills, for it had come far too easily. In fact, she did not want to believe that she was so foolish as to succumb to some artful seduction. Nor could she convince herself that it was the wine’s fault. Confused and distraught by what had just happened, Ailis began to think that her uncle Colin MacFarlane was right in his oft-repeated belief that her mother’s Spanish blood made her a whore by nature. At the moment that seemed the only possible explanation for how she had welcomed the touch of a stranger, of an enemy, of a man she had been taught to hate.
As he rose from her arms, Alexander watched Ailis with a keen wariness. Her silent staring up at nothing began to worry him. He looked down at the bed and winced. He had never possessed a virgin before, but he did know that they were apt to bleed. Blood upon himself or upon the linen had always been the ploy used by women who had tried to deceive him. However, he knew this to be real and, to his uknowledgeable eyes, he thought there was more blood than there ought to be, especially for a lass of such a delicate build.
Suddenly Ailis became acutely aware of the fact that she was being looked at and that she no longer had any covering on her body. She sat up with a gasp, intending to grab the covers and hide her nakedness. Even as she got ahold of them, she looked where Alexander was staring. She gave a soft cry of shock, certain that she had lost too much blood. Even reminding herself that she could easily be overreacting to the sight of her own blood could not ease her agitation.
“Ye have killed me,” she accused Alexander, then she groaned and fell back onto the bed with the covers still clutched tightly to her chest. “I kenned it, but then ye made me think that I was wrong. Now I ken that ye have split me in twain just as I had suspected.” Her voice raised slowly to a dramatic wail as she added, “Ye might as well have run me through with your sword. I am finished. I will bleed my life away in my enemy’s bed.”
Her dramatics eased Alexander’s concern, although he knew he would be hard-pressed to explain why. If naught else, he mused with a smile, if she were truly bleeding to death, she would not have the strength to carry on so. He did not even try to hide his grin as he rose from the bed, moved to wash himself off, then returned to the bed with a damp cloth in his hand.
Ailis screeched in shocked surprise when he yanked the covers off her. She tried to grab them back only to find herself firmly pinned to the bed with one strong hand planted firmly on her chest. A groan of embarrassment escaped her as he washed away the last traces of her shattered innocence. The man had no respect whatsoever for a woman’s modesty, she decided. She refused to admit that she felt much better when he was done. She glared at him as she repossessed the covers, sprawled on her stomach, and hid her face in the pillow. Despite all her efforts not to do it, she burst into tears.
Alexander sighed, snuffed all the candles except for the one near the bed, and slipped beneath the covers. He watched her for a moment as she wept and told himself that it should not matter to him if some MacFarlane wench drowned in her own tears. When his bitter anger toward her clan and toward women failed to encompass her completely and he still felt disturbed by her crying, he scowled and gave her a brief rough shake.
“Cease your wailing, lass,” he snapped. “Tears willna bring back what ye have lost this night.”
She slapped his hand away from her shoulder and replied in a shaky voice, “I weep not for that, ye great fool, but for myself. My uncle was right.”
The latter was said with such a wealth of despair that Alexander felt compelled to ask, “Right about what?”
“My Spanish blood.” Her tone of voice implied that she had just contracted the plague, but she was unable to soften that.
“Ah,” he murmured and now understood the source of her somewhat unusual coloring. “What about it?”
Little by little the tone of his voice penetrated Ailis’s misery. His voice held an air of mild condescending interest that stirred her anger, pushing aside her self-pity. It was entirely his fault after all, she thought furiously. No one else amongst the overardent men she had fought off in her life had so exposed this wantonness in her. If Alexander MacDubh had not turned his pretty and lustful eyes her way, she could have continued on in blissful ignorance of her own failing. Still clutching the linen sheet to her breasts, she sat up to glare at him, seeing him as the true cause of all her misery and trouble. She ignored the small voice of rationality in her head which whispered that she was being unreasonable. At the moment she simply did not care.
“My uncle says that the Spanish are a hot-blooded, licentious people and that blood will tell.” She wondered how Alexander, so clearly a man of some worldly knowledge, could be ignorant of this truth.
“Oh, aye? I never believed your swine of an uncle would ever say a word I agreed with. ‘Tis glad I am to be proven right.”
She saw the reply as hard proof of the man’s total lack of understanding, as well as exhibiting a callous attitude toward her shame, and Ailis grew even angrier. In the tongue of her grandmother, the source of the Spanish blood her uncle so bemoaned, she railed at Alexander. She derided his fine looks, slandered his ancestors, scorned his abilities as a lover, and shredded his manhood in terms that would have made the coarsest stablehand blush. When it all worked only to increase his impudent grin, she heartily cursed men in general and lay back down.
Alexander leaned over her, placing a hand on either side of her head. He was fully aware now of what bothered her. Due to some time at court spent in the company of two Spanish noblemen looking to hire mercenaries, he also had a clear idea of how colorfully she could turn a phrase, but he felt he would keep that knowledge to himself. It could serve him well at some later time. If she thought him ignorant of the language, she would probably use it when she felt a need to say things she had no real wish for him to hear.
“There isna any people who are more or less hot-blooded than another, only those who dinna try and hide their nature,” he said. “Ye bear no shame for this.”
“How can ye say so?”
“Ye could do naught to stop it. What harm, then, if ye can find pleasure in that which ye canna change?” He watched as she thought over his words and he subtly eased the covers from her loosened grip so that he could have a freer access to her soft skin.
Ailis knew she believed his words mostly because it suited her to do so. She finally nodded her agreement, but then frowned at him. Despite how his touch was stirring her blood, she grasped his hand as he slid it over her stomach.
“Now that ye have what ye wished of me, where am I to sleep?” she demanded. “I am weary and I wish to seek my bed.”
“Your bed is here,” Alexander lied, for a bed in the chamber next to his had been prepared for her, as his habit had been to send a woman away once he had his fill of her.
“But ye have had your vengeance.” She felt a trickle of alarm, for she sensed a real danger to her emotions in such enforced proximity to him.
“Aye, I have taken what should have been MacCordy’s, but I find that vengeance has a very sweet flavor, and I mean to taste of it again.” He covered her mouth with his, using a deep kiss to silence any possible protests.