Chapter Seventeen

“How did you know?” Malcolm leaned from his saddle close to Tansy’s ear and spoke the question.

The day had grown old. Catha, refusing to delay for fear of what torment Mercien might suffer through another night, had insisted on leaving that very noon. They now traveled in a small troop that included the three most trusted members of her guard.

Dun Ballan lay a day and a half’s journey on. They would arrive tomorrow night; Malcolm should be thinking of means and strategies. Instead, he seemed able to focus on little but the wee lass with the wild black hair, who rode beside him.

He still ached to throttle her—almost as much as he ached to couple with her again. His body, despite its wounds and weariness, despite his anger, craved her. Oh aye, he wanted to murder her, but he longed to enjoy her first.

She lifted her brows at him. “Eh?”

“Catha. That she’d be willing to sacrifice herself for Mercien, if she heard the truth.”

Tansy inspected him slowly, taking her time with it. “I am a woman. I understand what desire might do.”

“Desire? Or love?”

“Both. You heard her; she loves him. More than hersel’.”

“As do I.” More than his conscience.

“Master Mercien is a fortunate man. Not at the present moment, I allow, but in his friends. I canna’ help but wonder how ’twould be, to be held in such regard.”

“Mistress—”

“Now I ha’ won your anger, which is no’ what I wished. But my own choices were few: let you pursue your crack-brained scheme…”

“Crack-brained?”

“Did you truly suppose Latham would let you—and Mercien—ride awa’ out o’ there, prey to your consciences, knowing you might tell what he’d done?”

“Mayhap.” Mayhap not. “It would no’ matter then what we said. They would ha’ been wed.”

“And you likely dead.” Her uncanny gaze seared him. “You maun see, I could no’ let that happen.”

“I see ’twas no’ up to you. I trusted you to keep my confidence. Instead, you rose straight from my bed and—”

“Aye, so I did. If you canna’ see why—”

Catha’s mare came nosing in between them. “Bairns, bairns, you grow overloud. If you wish to present your quarrel to the ears of my guard…”

“We do no’ quarrel!” Malcolm declared furiously. “I do but reprimand her for—”

“You ha’ no right to reprimand me. I am no’ your servant nor your wife. If I went to your bed, it was voluntarily. And you may be sure it will no’ happen again.”

“So it will no’.”

“My loves, we maun think o’ Mercien. Malcolm, whatever scheme you hatched in your head is no longer viable. We need a new one.”

“One that includes Latham’s death,” Tansy put in.

“Aye. If I wed and then kill him…”

“You will appear before the King, who will then pronounce upon you a sentence o’ death.”

“Aye,” Catha said softly. “But even then, Mercien would be free.”

“And heartbroken.” Malcolm thought on it. If these lasses opted for honesty, so should he. “Do you think he will wish to live wi’out you, Catha, any more than you wi’out him?”

Catha lit as with inner flame. “We maun, I think, prove devious—more so than Latham himsel’.”

“A lofty ambition.”

“Aye, but I ha’ Mistress Tansy on my side. Do I no’, Mistress Tansy?”

“You do.”

“So she and I will put our heads together and come up wi’ a plan. You, Malcolm, will keep right out o’ it.”

“What?”

“I agree,” Tansy said quickly.

Malcolm drew a breath. “Now, wait just a—”

Catha spoke to Tansy and not him. “We are clever enough, are we not, to best Latham at his own scheming?”

“So we are.” Now Tansy leaned in to Catha. “I ha’ a secret to tell you, one that may just serve.”

“Nay,” Malcolm cried.

Both women eyed him. With a jerk of her head, Tansy told Catha, “He knows the secret already. ’Tis tied to how we met.”

“I would love to hear how you met.”

“So you shall. Just as soon as we pause for the night. Then you and I will make our plans.”

I am in deep trouble, Malcolm thought, his heart sinking, for they have joined up against me.

****

Malcolm took another gulp of thin, sour ale and eyed the women at the table opposite his, wondering how his life had slipped so far out of his control. The inn—a poor one, but dimly lit and with abominable accommodations—lay less than a day’s ride from Dun Ballan. Tomorrow would see launched the scheme the two women hatched together.

Without him, if they could manage it.

Who would have thought the two of them, so different, would fall into easy confidence, even ready friendship? But so they had. Ignoring their poor dinner, they sat, the light head and the dark nearly touching, speaking ferociously.

Now the hour grew late. Malcolm, abandoned by Catha’s guards, who had all gone to bed, brooded alone, unable to take his gaze from the two women.

Quite plainly, the blame for all of this lay at his feet. He never should have rescued Tansy, back at Slurt. Then she could not have enchanted him—thinking on it, he felt sure she had, after all—and she would no’ have been able to influence Catha and awaken in her this terrible defiance.

Aye so, he’d known Catha for a strong woman, but this far outdistanced his expectations.

He scowled at Tansy’s back—the most he could see of her—and fought his frustration. Had he not rescued her from that post, she’d likely be under questioning by now. He’d never have touched her. Kissed her. Tasted and plunged into her, felt her wild heat. He’d have that lack in his life.

He’d also have his wits and full sanity.

If she hadn’t enchanted him there at the crossroads, she’d surely done so the first time they coupled together for, do his damnedest, he could not stop thinking on it, no matter how angered with her he became.

And he had become flamingly angered.

He longed to step up to their table, interrupt their cozy conversation, and declare ’twas he whom his father had sent to free Mercien. But even in his head that sounded too much like the whining of a seven-year-old.

He could not recall the last time he’d whined. Mercien would laugh at him for it—were Mercien still able to laugh.

He slammed his tankard on the scarred table and got up at last. The room, deserted but for the three of them, lay so quiet the women could not miss his movements. Tansy’s shoulder twitched, but she did not look round.

He stomped to their table and stood until they both raised their eyes to him. Unsettling, for their eyes, though nothing alike, held similar expressions, cool and calculating.

Catha gave him her sweet smile. “Going to your bed? We mean to retire soon also.” The two women were to share a chamber—Malcolm had one of his own.

“I will no’ leave you down here by yoursel’s.”

“Why? The place is empty.”

“Will you no’ allow me into your discussion,” he asked wryly, “seeing as how this venture lies under my dominion?”

They exchanged maddening looks. Catha got to her feet. “You are right; ’tis over late. We will discuss it in the morning, Malcolm.”

Frustration crawled up his chest and closed his throat. He cast a hard look at Tansy before whirling on his heel, snatching up a candle, and climbing the narrow steps that led to his assigned chamber, while whispering curses.

He’d no sooner stripped himself down and slipped into the lumpy and malodorous bed than the door of his chamber opened. Tansy sailed in.

He sat up with alacrity. “I hope you ha’ come to share wi’ me the plans you and Catha made.”

“Something like that.” She sounded breathless. “I have come to share.”

“Let me strike a light.”

“You and your lights. I need none. I know you now by touch.”

Malcolm’s body sprang to immediate attention. “Eh? Tansy, we canna’. Not wi’ Catha in the house.”

“Catha is in her own chamber, and I am in yours. Ha’ you any objection?”

He had thousands, starting with the fact that she and Catha refused to confide in him, and including the fact that he, not they, had been entrusted with Mercien’s rescue. Not to mention Tansy’s failure to keep her vow of obedience. But he did not seem able to speak.

He heard her approach the bed, though he could barely see her in the dim light filtering through the narrow window. Cursed if he did not want to see her, though, as her garments peeled away one by one. Her slender, lithesome body, those pert high breasts seemingly made to fill his mouth, the graceful legs that had a tendency to anchor him to her.

The vile mattress tilted as she planted one knee on it. “Do you, my fine knight, mean to send me awa’?”

“Aye.” He spoke it like a man pushing a boulder up a hill. “This is no’ wise.”

“Wise?” She gave a hiccough of a laugh. “What is wisdom when we may no’ be alive tomorrow? When I may ne’er have this chance again?”

Never again to hold her, taste her, ignite her heat—suddenly his whole being desired it. She did not lie. They went to Dun Ballan tomorrow. That did not mean they would ever ride away from there.

She gave him no opportunity to ponder it further. Planting her palm in the center of his chest, she pushed him down where he sat and climbed on top of him. Her legs fastened tight around his hips and pertinent parts of their bodies came together, a screaming agony of pleasure.

“Tansy—”

“Speak my name again. I love how you speak my name.” She whispered the request against his lips.

“Tan—”

As soon as he opened his mouth she plunged her tongue inside. His resistance melted in the heat of it like frost before the sun.

Oh, holy sweet Jesu. She would kill him with her passion. A fine end.

She stretched her body atop his in a luxuriant move, skin on skin, breasts abrading the hair on his chest, arms sliding up around his neck, and deepened the kiss. If she went any deeper, she would claim his heart.

He twisted his hands in the wealth of her hair and held on. She began to move slowly, cleaving her body to his, tormenting but not quite granting admittance.

He groaned in protest and she broke the kiss. “Want me, Sir Knight. I want you to want me.”

“I want you. Shall I show you?”

“Show me.”

He flipped her on her back in one strong move. She may have assumed control of Mercien’s rescue, but he was in charge here, tonight.

“Tell me what you want.” Now he trickled the words into her ear and felt her shiver as with fever.

“You. This.”

“How?”

“I want you inside me. Need you ask?”

“Inside you—where?” He wanted to plunge into her so much he could scarcely breathe; he wanted her to acknowledge him, more.

“Anywhere. Everywhere.”

“That,” he assured her, “I can surely do.”