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His mouth went dry at the sight of her.
She had gathered up her clothes and was in the process of dressing, but she had not gotten far enough to impede his view of her soft, feminine curves.
She was lovely. Her hair cascaded in gentle curls over her shoulders, teasing the naked tips of her breasts, but leaving enough bare flesh for Adam to appreciate their soft fullness. Her legs were well-shaped and strong, and the feminine V where they met was shielded by an enticing russet shadow.
It made him ache to look at her this way, to know what lay concealed under her ugly brown kirtle.
As he watched, she pulled on a ragged underkirtle that reached only her hipbones, leaving that most intriguing part of her delightfully, seductively bare. The laces were open, so most of her torso was exposed, as well. He must have groaned inadvertently, for she gasped and moved to cover herself.
Slowly, he dragged his eyes up the length of her gloriously blushing body and caught her own heavy-lidded gaze. He had no doubt that she was as aroused as he, but painfully embarrassed by her nakedness. Neither the tattered underkirtle nor her arms managed to cover her sufficiently.
“Your pardon, my lady,” he said as he stood. His grimace was due only in part to the stiffness of his wounded leg. “I will leave you to your privacy.”
Cristiane stood rooted to the floor as Adam retreated through the door, then she threw on her clothes as fast as she could. She was not going to be caught unawares again!
Yet as she tied the laces of her kirtle, she realized that she had not disliked having Adam look at her. In reality, she had enjoyed the look of appreciation in his eyes. Still, it was terribly embarrassing to have her most private parts exposed to his view.
She wondered if it would have seemed so embarrassing if Adam had also been unclothed. He was broad shouldered and lean hipped, though he had the powerful legs of a horseman. She wondered how ’twould feel to be naked with a man. Unconsciously, Cristiane moistened her lips and speculated that this was one of the pleasures husbands and wives shared. She knew so little of such things. Her parents had been respectful of each other, but Cristiane had never witnessed any special intimacy between them.
Voices in the inn yard below distracted her from these intriguing thoughts, and Cristiane quickly finished lacing her kirtle. She rolled up Adam’s blanket and stuffed it into his saddle pack, then opened the door to leave.
She drew up short when she considered what had happened on the stair the previous night. Would it be safe to go downstairs? Unwilling to suffer a repeat of that incident, she turned back and sat down on the bed to wait for Adam to return. Then she heard footsteps approaching.
“Lady Cristiane.”
“Aye, Sir Raynauld,” she said, sagging with relief as she recognized the friendly voice. She opened the door to Adam’s knight and he took the pack from her. She could not help but wonder where Adam was.
“The landlord’s wife has prepared a meal for us,” he told her. “If you’re ready, I’ll take you down and you can break your fast.”
“Thank you.”
They walked into the common room, where the landlord was setting bowls on the table. Cristiane glanced around in search of Adam, but he was not in sight.
With a sigh, she sat down at the table and began to eat.
Adam returned to the inn, pleased with his purchases. The villagers had been happy to take his coin for their goods, and he’d found a few small novelties to take home to Margaret. He’d also found a woman willing to part with her shoes, since her husband was a tanner skilled in shoe craft.
These he intended to give to Cristiane before they left for the last stretch of their journey to Bitterlee. He had seen how her lack of shoes humbled her, and when the opportunity to acquire a pair had presented itself, he’d not hesitated.
He’d kept his mind thoroughly occupied since his hasty departure from Cristiane’s chamber, fully aware that he had to do all in his power to avoid any more intimacies with her. This morning’s interlude had clearly demonstrated how susceptible he was to her charms, and he knew he had no business fostering any further attraction between them.
For Lady Cristiane had not been oblivious to the heat of the moment, either. He’d seen confusion in her eyes, and embarrassment as well. But underneath it all was the subtle excitement of arousal. And knowing that she felt the same surge of lust made him nearly groan aloud.
Adam did not think he could endure riding several hours more on horseback with Cristiane’s hips wedged between his legs and her back pressed against his chest. And though it cost a pretty penny, he convinced the landlord to part with an ancient mule in his stable. Cristiane would ride separately the rest of the way to Bitterlee.
“Good morn, my lord,” Sir Elwin said as Adam strode into the inn yard.
Adam nodded. “Has Lady Cristiane broken her fast yet?”
“She has, my lord,” Elwin replied as he continued saddling his horse. “She’s still inside.”
Adam continued on into the inn, where he found Cristiane alone in the common room. One glance told him it was a mistake to look at her.
She looked almost ethereal with the morning sunshine glancing off the bright highlights of her hair. She had just stood up from the table and gathered her oddly shaped satchel against her breasts when she looked up and met his eyes. Her lips were parted, her nostrils slightly flared. Neither of them moved for a moment, though Cristiane blushed delightfully.
She was remembering.
Even now that she was shabbily, but decently, dressed, Adam could not keep his eyes from roving over the length of her, or forget the alluring picture she’d made that morning in their room. At the time, her Scottish blood had not mattered in the least.
He cleared his throat and set his package on the table.
“I found these for you,” he said.
Cristiane looked down at the bundle, then back at Adam with questions in her eyes. “What…?”
“Just a…” he began, then shrugged. “Open it.”
She bit her lip and unwrapped the string from the package, then pulled the burlap apart. “Shoes,” she whispered, gazing up at him. Her eyes grew suspiciously bright, and though she blinked quickly, there was no mistaking the sheen of moisture there.
Not one tear fell, though—for which Adam would be eternally grateful. Yet her humble gratitude made his belly clench with some strange emotion.
“The tanner is a shoemaker of some skill,” Adam said as he watched Cristiane lift one of the shoes to admire it.
“I…I had shoes at home…” she said. Her voice was soft and wistful, and she sounded more English than Scottish. “Gylys the Bald took them from me the day my mother died. He said his w-wife had greater need of them than I…”
Adam controlled his reaction to her revelation. He was appalled to think that a mere villager would presume to confiscate the belongings of the laird’s daughter, and he was dismayed to consider how alone and defenseless Cristiane had been in St. Oln.
He made a silent vow to see that she suffered no further abuse or humiliation while under his protection.
Cristiane sat down on the bench, and before she could put on the shoe, Adam crouched in front of her, taking it from her hand. He lifted her foot and carefully slipped the shoe on, past delicate toes, over the heel and arch.
“It fits,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.
Not daring to look at her face, he laced the shoe, then reached for the other, repeating the process.
After her feet were clad, Cristiane put one hand on Adam’s shoulder and leaned forward. He looked up, and as he felt her move closer, he anticipated the touch of her lips on his. He could imagine how soft they’d feel, how enticing the intimate contact would be. He could not take his eyes from those lips, full and inviting, moving toward his own.
Then she shifted slightly and kissed his cheek.
Before Adam could react, Cristiane stood and dashed out of the inn.
“’Twill be a much more comfortable ride for you,” Sir Elwin said as he introduced Cristiane to the notion of riding the mule that stood before her. “Lord Bitterlee acquired him for you earlier this morn.”
Cristiane felt a pang in the pit of her stomach. She had never been on horseback in her life, except for the hours she’d spent on Adam’s horse—with Adam.
And now he expected her to ride this mule—this animal whose back was higher than Adam’s destrier—the rest of the way to Bitterlee.
While she knew he’d been wise to put some distance between them, she did not know if she’d be able to handle this beast all the way to Bitterlee.
She did not know if she’d be able to handle it to the end of the lane.
With Elwin’s help, she mounted. Adam was nowhere in sight, but that did not delay Elwin and Raynauld, who flanked her as they rode out of the inn yard. Though Cristiane felt more than a little insecure perched alone atop the mule, she could not resist breaking her concentration to look down and admire the lovely leather shoes Adam had gotten for her.
Adam rode ahead all day. He’d traveled this route two years before, riding in the back of a wagon, wounded and out of his head with fever. He couldn’t remember much of that journey.
Then he’d arrived home on the isle and learned of Rosamund’s death only a few days before. Even through his fog of pain and fever, the shock of that terrible news was something he’d never forget.
Adam wondered if he could have prevented her suicide had he remained at home rather than answering King Edward’s call and joining the English army in Scotland. He also wondered if his impending return had driven her to seek her own death. ’Twas a question that would forever haunt him.
Beyond her maladjustment to marriage, Rosamund had not adjusted to life on Bitterlee, either. Everything about the isle had been too harsh, too stark, too unforgiving. After Margaret’s birth, Rosamund’s spirits had sunk ever lower.
Yet for the first three years of Margaret’s life, the child had doted on Rosamund. She’d worried and fretted whenever her mama was unwell—which was often—and wanted naught more than to be allowed to play quietly in her chamber. It seemed an unlikely way to rear a child, though Adam knew little of these matters.
A sense of bitter sadness took hold of him, as it always did whenever he thought of Rosamund. She’d been so distant and fragile. He’d never quite known what to do with her, or about her, from the time they’d met and wed. He’d been paired with her through the efforts of her sire and his own, with nary a thought to how satisfactory a match was being made, or how well Rosamund was suited to the place or the man who would become her husband.
Adam presumed his own father had decided that any young woman of noble birth would suffice, as long as she was capable of bearing his heirs. Adam’s father could not have been more wrong, but the earl had not lived long after the marriage had taken place. He hadn’t witnessed Rosamund’s growing despondency and subsequent withdrawal.
By the time Adam returned home from Falkirk, life at Bitterlee had changed dramatically. Rosamund was gone. Mathilde, the stern old nurse who had come to Bitterlee with Rosamund, had taken Margaret in hand, and seen to her care. Adam’s uncle, Gerard, had taken charge in a harsh and incompetent manner, looking after matters on the isle. Luckily, Penyngton had been there to see that his excesses caused no harm.
Unfortunately, a great number of Bitterlee men had gone to Falkirk with Adam—and not returned home. Too many fields lay fallow now, for lack of farmers. And too few fishermen plied the seas with their nets.
Upon Adam’s return from Falkirk and the carnage there, he’d had a difficult time mustering the strength to reclaim his demesne and his daughter. He knew he’d left Gerard too long in charge. And little Margaret shrank away from the stranger who was her father—the man with the terrible scar across his jaw, and the ungainly limp.
He knew he must seem a monster to her now.
It had taken Charles Penyngton’s persistence to show Adam that things must change. The seneschal had helped Adam reclaim his rightful place as lord of Bitterlee, gently relegating Uncle Gerard to his favorite pastime—overimbibing the castle ale and wandering the isle at will. Gerard sometimes stayed for days in one or another of his many secret places on the island.
Penyngton had also managed to convince Adam of the need for a wife. A new lady of Bitterlee.
Adam would find one. Soon. ’Twas quite unfortunate that Cristiane Mac Dhiubh would not do—that her Scottish side overbalanced the English blood that must run in her veins. But he was determined not to err again in his marital duty. Though the woman managed to stir him in ways he’d all but forgotten, she was wholly unsuitable for Bitterlee. Naught less than a gently bred, English lady would do.
Still, he would not shirk his responsibility toward Lady Cristiane. On Bitterlee, he would see that she was clothed properly, then assign an escort to take her to her uncle in York. ’Twould be no hardship for two or three of his knights to make the journey. Spring was upon them, and travel would be easy.
As for this short journey to Bitterlee, Adam knew Elwin and Raynauld were entirely capable of protecting Lady Cristiane, so he felt no qualms about keeping his distance from her. Now, if only he could keep his mind as far from removed from her as his body was…
’Twas no use trying to keep his thoughts on Bitterlee. She had an untamed beauty that enthralled him, but a vulnerability that was frightening. He did not want another sensitive female under his care. Certainly not a bloody Scottish one.
The day continued fair and sunny, and Cristiane grew accustomed to the rhythm of the mule’s gait. They did not travel fast over the woodland path, but made good progress south. She could smell the sea to her left as they rode, and she wondered if they would camp near water as they had on their first night out.
She also wondered if they would meet up with Adam before nightfall.
Though Elwin and Raynauld were good company, Cristiane found herself wishing for Adam’s presence. She sighed quietly as she thought of his strong, capable hands, lacing the shoes he’d acquired for her. She’d never noticed any other man’s hands before, but something about Adam’s caught her eye.
They were large, but well formed, with dark hair on the backs and thick blue veins prominent under smooth skin. His clean nails were neatly trimmed. Cristiane would feel safe in those hands, if he ever chose to touch her again.
Which he would not. She was certain of that.
She’d seen something in his eyes that morning while she dressed, something that even now brought a blush to her cheeks. But he’d withdrawn from her. He’d made a point of staying away—other than during those few short moments when he’d fastened the shoes on her feet. Clearly, he had not experienced the same rush of heat she had. Whatever had been in his eyes, it had not been a wave of lust.
More likely embarrassment.
’Twas foolish to ruminate over it now. Adam’s lack of interest was of no consequence to her. She would not tarry long at Bitterlee. ’Twould be a mere fortnight or less, she guessed, before she continued her southward journey to her uncle in York.
She felt fortunate that she at least had shoes for her arrival in York, but wished she owned something to trade for better clothes. Her belongings were meager, and of them, the only possessions of value were her two books, which she’d managed to hide away in her cave. Cristiane did not think she could part with them, even for the finest of kirtles. For they’d belonged to her father and she’d learned so much from them.
Nay, she would just have to arrive looking a pauper…as she truly was.
“Not much farther to go, yer ladyship,” Sir Elwin said. “We’ll meet Lord Bitterlee just over that rise.”
Cristiane was surprised by that news. She’d had no idea where Lord Bitterlee had gone off to, but her heart beat a bit faster, knowing she’d soon see him again.
“He stayed ahead of us all day,” Raynauld remarked.
“Why?” she wondered aloud.
“For safety’s sake,” Elwin replied. “After our encounter with last night’s raiders, he did not want us to be riding headlong into another ugly situation.”
Cristiane had not thought of that, but she was glad Adam had. The idea of running into those English marauders again made her blood run cold. She did not care to repeat her reaction to the violence on the stair the previous night. She’d been incapacitated, and her mind had taken her back to the battle in which her father had been killed.
Prior to this, she’d only seen his violent death in her worst nightmares. Never while she was awake.
“We’ve kept up a good pace,” Sir Elwin said, turning her mind from the possibility of danger, “so we’ll be reaching the Isle of Bitterlee before nightfall on the morrow.”
“The isle?”
“Aye,” Raynauld replied. “Bitterlee is an island in the North Sea.”
“Oh!” Cristiane said with wonder. “No one told me that Bitterlee was an isle.” She could hardly imagine standing in a place where she would be surrounded by water. What a wonderful thought. There would be birds, and tide pools and wee sea creatures…
“Aye,” the knight continued. “With Lord Bitterlee’s castle perched high on the cliffs overlooking the sea.”
“’Tis a fair wondrous place in summer,” Sir Elwin added. Then he frowned. “But our winters are harsh. ’Tis not a clime for the fainthearted.”
Cristiane thought Elwin would have said more, but he stopped himself, and Raynauld took up the discussion.
“Besides our lovely summers,” he said, “we’ve always got food to spare, even when the grain harvest is sparse….”
“Aye, Bitterlee’s fishermen are England’s best.”
“We feast on codfish and whitynge year-round!”
“’Tis how we fare in St. Oln, too,” Cristiane said, though many fishermen had died recently on battlefields. So had farmers. Food was now scarce in her village. ’Twas one more reason they wanted her gone.
She did not notice the look that passed between the two knights, but rode on, wondering when they would meet with Adam and stop for the night. Every now and then the sun broke through the trees, but they could see that it rode low over the horizon. Night would soon be upon them.
Cristiane was weary. The day’s ride had taken its toll. She was more than ready to lay her head down for the night and rest her sorely tested muscles.
They’d been riding through a dense forest for several hours, but when they reached the crest of the hill that Elwin mentioned, the land below was clear. From their perch, the sea was visible in the distance.
