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Tavish healed quickly, and all too soon he was back out in the bailey, training with the king’s men and their squires. James took his vow to Tavish to heart, and when he wasn’t with Tosia or in attendance with the king, he was outside, his practice sword raining blows upon Tavish without mercy.
Tosia was pleased that her brother was coming into his own, finding his place with James and the other soldiers. Yet, at the same time, the sight made her stomach tighten in a hard knot. He didn’t need her anymore, and she’d miss the adoring brother he’d been.
“Are ye ready, lad? If ye are, then we will make certain ye are more than ready for the next time we ride for battle.”
James had stripped to nothing but the plaid that swirled around his thighs as he circled the yard adjacent to the stables. Several of the men abandoned their duties to watch and offer advice to and tease Tavish. The kitchen maids who’d fawned over Tavish for the past sennight also gathered around, their faces alighted at the excitement of watching their present love interest exert his manliness in mock battle.
Tosia stood behind the lassies and cast a cursory glance at her brother who seemed somehow larger and more vibrant after his injury. A crooked smile pulled at her lips — it was obvious to Tosia what the cause of his radiance, and they stood before her, sighing. She bit back a giggle as her gaze shifted from her brother to the powerful dark man striding half-naked around the yard.
“Come on, ye laddie. Ye’ve lazed about the keep long enough. Do ye even recall how to hold a sword?” James taunted, and Tosia bit back another laugh.
The sky was overcast and warm, and a thin sheen of sweat coated James’s back and chest. The dark hair on his head had started to grow back where he’d had it shorn, and the hair on his chest was rich, trailing across his sculpted chest and down the flat planes of his belly. He lifted his sword over his head, and the muscles in his arms flexed and bulged. So much power and strength that he contained, and a dizzying tremor engulfed her. The memory of his words, of belonging to someone, rang in her head and she smiled to herself. This mighty warrior, he belonged to her.
As much as she wanted to keep her eyes fixated on James, it was more his sword, his movements and those of her brother that interested in her. Having been kept busy in the keep and with her own sudden marriage, she hadn’t seen any of her brother’s training. A bit selfish, she hated to admit to herself, but she was here now.
Had she even known that he was receiving any training? What exactly did squires do after all? And in truth, what did James do when he left with the king to do battle with the English? How did he manage to return every time, when so many men had given blood and life for the Scottish cause?
Her interest piqued, Tosia pressed her way into the throng of onlookers to observe the training in action.
Neither James nor Tavish moved right away, which Tosia found odd. Wouldn’t one want to defeat their opponent swiftly?
Tavish took small steps to his right, moving in a slow circle, with James following his steps. Then, in a shocking burst of frenzied moves, James launched an attack. His muscles bunched and clenched with smooth precision in his explosive movements. The flurry of overhead and underhand swipes at Tavish left Tosia gasping for breath at her only recently recovered brother. And Tosia had held a sword before — no wonder James’s back and chest were corded with muscle. How much strength it took to keep up those sweeping moves with so heavy a weapon!
She shifted her gaze to Tavish, whose own lean muscle had increased since their arrival, but appeared naught more than boyish when compared to James’s thick chest and arms.
A sudden shiver overtook her as she continued to look upon her husband. Such power, indeed — a power that was, as James told her nightly, at her complete disposal. The space between her thighs grew damp as she recalled those heated moments.
She cleared her throat, certain that those nearby must feel the flush of her heated skin and see her pinked cheeks, but no eyes were on her. Everyone’s attention focused on poor Tavish and how he might combat James’s attack.
“Do ye see where ye were weak, lad?” James asked, his breath calming as he rested his sword tip in the dirt. The way he handled the weapon, ‘twas a natural extension of his body. Tavish, on the other hand, had yet to grow so comfortable with his broadsword, and still held it awkwardly in his hand.
“I was no’ ready,” Tavish admitted sheepishly.
Tosia knew it couldn’t be easy to train and admit one’s failures in front of an audience. She hoped her encouraging face might give him a measure of comfort.
“Aye, ‘twas obvious. What did ye miss because ye weren’t ready?”
“Weel, ye could have killed me easy with that overhand strike.”
James nodded. “How might ye have known I was ready to make my move? I knew the most opportune moment to unleash hell upon ye. How might ye know the same of me?”
Tavish dropped his gaze, his face scrunched up as he pondered the question. The audience of lasses held their collective breaths in hopes that their champion might know the answer.
Then his face smoothed and brightened. “Your jaw,” Tavish answered. “With ye being clean-shaven, I could see your jaw clench before ye lifted your sword. Ye had to clench those muscles in your shoulders to lift your weapon.”
He spoke as though he amazed himself for having an answer, and pride welled in Tosia’s chest for her brother. Smart lad, she said to herself. Then again, Tavish had always been a deep thinker.
“Aye, well done. And if I was no’ clean shaven? If I was as bearded as our king?”
Tavish studied James for a moment. To help him answer, James moved slowly, lifting his sword over his head again, this time in an exaggerated manner.
Tavish’s eyes lit up like a torch. “Your shoulders! I can see those muscles shift under your tunic!”
James smiled widely. “Good lad. Even if your opponent is wearing armor or mail, the plates or links will shift. So ye have more than one way to read your enemy afore he gives attack. Read your enemy well enough, and he will tell you what his actions will be. All ye must do is respond.”
The girls watching tittered at James’s words and Tavish’s accomplishments. At least her brother had the good sense to blush under their attentions.
And James’s lecture told her much of what she had wanted to know about him and his military accomplishments. He must be able to read his enemies very well — then used that knowledge to frame a battle strategy. It explained why he was heavily scarred yet alive when many lay dead in a field under his sword.
Tosia gave one more glance at her husband’s strapping, hardened body, then left him to Tavish’s lesson.
One lingering thought did rise in her mind as she lifted her skirts to step through the soft dirt. Would the day come when he didn’t read his enemy as he should, or worse, when his enemy read him first? Would he come home with scars? Or not at all?
James had been gone from her too long, too many days and nights training or riding into battle with the king, and if it weren’t for the generous company of Lady Elayne, Caitrin, and Caitrin’s mother Davina, Tosia would have been positively alone. Brigid worked well as a chambermaid, but her duties kept her far too busy to be a companion to a lonely new wife. Tavish, too, had his duties to attend. He was no longer the bumbling lad shadowing her throughout the day.
Tosia threw herself into any tasks she might find at the king’s stronghold. She wasn’t one who found joy in boredom. Her mother had often cautioned her about idle hands and what the devil might do with them. Moreover, Tosia enjoyed busyness. Milking cows and goats, scattering feed for chickens and collecting their eggs, preparing meals in the kitchens, and sewing clothes — these solitary duties provided a sense of calm and solace in her new life as the wife of the Black Douglas. The more peace she could find, the better she could provide a sense of solace to salve the emotional wounds of the beast himself, if not his physical wounds.
Yet too much solitude surely wore on a person. A woman needed the company of other women, and Tosia was fortunate in the ladies of the keep. They made sure she was never too alone, where her mind might wreak havoc from all-encompassing loneliness. In fact, one misty summer morn, she had folded her mother’s shift and placed at the bottom of her trunk. Between the ladies of the keep and James himself, she no longer needed that linen memory of her mother where she might see it daily. Rather, she’d keep it safe and sound, taking it out only when she felt the need.
She didn’t mention any lingering sense of loneliness to James, however. His own duties to the king wore plainly on his face — deep lines etched into the hard planes of his face. From worry, from over-thinking, from battle. He slept little, fought much, and it wore on him like the ocean against stone. Eventually, ocean would win out.
On nights when he did find her bed, she wrapped her arms and legs around him, touched every inch of his rough skin to hers, let him sink into her as one would a warm, welcoming bath. Tosia was the balm to James, ensuring he didn’t lose himself over to the violence he thought on and participated in almost daily.
So on a bright summer morning, Tosia was surprised when James didn’t leave their marriage bed early to find a sunrise meal with the king. Instead, he rolled to her, curling around her in a protective embrace.
“Ye have been most patient, my wife. The ladies speak highly of your work ethic, how ye have found a place here, and I pride myself that ye have managed to do the impossible. Keeping me grounded when I’d play the Viking berserker against the world.”
Licking her lips, she tasted the salty memory of his lips on hers from the night before. She turned her gaze to find his gray-green eyes, soft instead of flinty, searching every curve of her face, the swollen expanse of her breasts, down to her hip.
“I have done what the king asked, milord. ‘Twas ye and your kind nature that ye hid from the world that has made being your wife and enjoying our bed what it is.”
The edges of his eyes crinkled as a light smile crossed his lips.
“I thank you for your efforts.”
Tosia grunted and patted his scruffy, black-furred cheek. “Methinks ye thanked me enough last night.”
James shook his head. “Methinks much of our nightly loving is for me. Nay, something outside the bed. A joining of souls in conversation and affection, in addition to our joining of bodies.”
Tosia half-sat, clutching the brown and green tartan blanket to her breast. “Outside? We are to walk the bailey? The gardens?”
James dipped his head with a chuckle. “Nay, more than that. Finish your duties for the morn. I will do the same. Then meet me outside the kitchens near the noontime meal. Inform the chatelaine that ye will no’ be joining them in the hall.”
Tosia’s heart fluttered under her breast, then her smile faltered. “This surprise is no’ what I’d expect of ye, James.”
He levels his gaze at her. “Weel, lass, I’ve made a name for myself doing things that people did no’ expect of me.”
His lips curled into a knowing smirk, and Tosia found her lips mirroring his own. Then she scrambled over him to nab her kirtle, eager to start her day and prepare for James’s surprise.
The woods covered them in a canopy of green, rich with the fragrances of fern and honeysuckle tucked amongst the trees.
“Why are we here? Is this the surprise?” Tosia asked as they walked through the vibrant fauna.
James reached a hand above his head to push away a low-lying branch.
“Aye. Most of our days have been spent in service to the king and his household. We should have some time to ourselves, in the fresh air, away from the bustle of the keep. I thought ye might prefer the calmer scenery here in the wood. Too much singular focus can drive a man, or woman, to the brink of madness.”
Tosia’s lips curled into a slight smile. He’d know about such things.
“I may be familiar with such conceits,” he said with a touch of self-effacing humor in his voice. Tosia giggled.
“Whatever your intentions, I do appreciate the change in scenery. It reminds me a bit of our ride from my croft when you retrieved me for Auchinleck.”
His shoulders twisted slightly against her. “’Tis the only time ye’ve seen the landscape of the lowlands? Have ye never been far from home, lass?”
She nodded, her eyes darting around the lush scenery, trying to take it all in at once. “Aye,” she affirmed. “I was born and raised at my mother’s croft. I only met my father a few times when I was a child, and ‘twas at the croft. Until we rode for Auchinleck, I’d never been more than a few hours’ walk from home, and that ‘twas only to attend the village.”
“The ride to Auchinleck must have been eye opening for ye, then.”
In more ways than one, she thought. “Aye. Ye, though, ‘twas naught more than a day’s work?”
James nodded, stepping around a large stone that blocked their path, guiding Tosia to a more stable footing.
“Aye. I’ve been far from home, from Scotland, for a long time. Across much of France and back.”
“Where ye met Shabib,” she interjected.
James nodded. “He joined me, which made traveling less solitary.”
“How long were ye gone?”
“Years. I had hoped to return to my homeland, claim my stronghold, but . . .” He trailed off with a shrug. Tosia patted his arm in understanding. Tales of the Douglas Larder left nothing to the imagination, and she didn’t want him to revisit that painful memory.
“I’ll admit, I was afeared of my journey to Auchinleck, of meeting the king and ye. Now, I can see it as an adventure.”
“Are ye no longer afeared of me?” he asked, turning to take both of her hands in his. She smiled coyly at his face, one that shined with a happiness rarely seen on his features.
“Nay. Ye made a vow to me, one that I am certain ye will keep, under threat of your king and friend. Ye seem a man who keeps his vows.”
James’s smiled widened, becoming wolfish. “Och, ye have no idea, lass,” he said as he bent low to kiss her.
She pulled away, her face a sultry mask marked with mirth. “Ye did make me an offer once.”
His eyebrow lifted at her guile. “Och, lass, what offer was that?”
Tosia wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and pulled his face as close as he could be without touching her.
“Ye said ye didn’t bite unless I asked ye to.”
His sensuous face didn’t shift. “And?”
“And I’m asking ye.” She lifted her chin to expose the soft underneath of her milky neck. “Start here.”
And he obeyed, his lips and teeth running a ragged path over her inviting skin as he lay her back onto the grass.
