Chapter Twenty-Six

What constituted happiness? Tansy asked herself that question even as she lay beneath the ministrations of Malcolm’s caressing tongue, as he parted her thighs with long, gentle fingers and entered her with a reverence that spoke of something more than passion. It seemed she’d been striving to answer that question all her life. And now, this man came to her with his bright sense of honor, his heavy duty, his scarred yet beautiful body. He rode her and claimed her, black hair flowing back from his forehead and eyes aflame, and she reached for something so priceless and complete she scarcely dared believe in its existence.

This made happiness; Malcolm did. But like all else in life, she feared the state must be fleeting. They might have only this one night to last forever.

So she whispered to him, not just with her tongue and lips but with her heart and the magic that rested at her soul. She unthinkingly wove another spell to bind them, hoping it might endure even if they never saw each other again.

Unbreakable.

The finest use to which she’d ever put her magic, an enchantment so delicate and heartfelt it left her trembling even after he’d emptied his seed inside her and lay gasping in her arms.

“Tansy,” he breathed.

Should she tell him how she loved him? For that certainty now possessed her, even as the enchantment held him—nay, held both of them. She’d never imagined loving anyone as she did this man, with fire and terrifying need.

Perhaps, she thought as she spread her palms across his sweated back and caressed him gently, she’d always known instinctively how frightening love must be. It balanced perilously on a fulcrum, the other end of which was loss. Hadn’t she seen that truth every time her mother’s name came up and she beheld the look in her father’s eyes?

Her father cared, aye, for Bessie. But he still loved her mother, Bellrose, who’d fled him and the life they shared. Or had she but fled this all-claiming intensity?

For the first time Tansy wondered, and felt an odd kinship with the woman she could not recall.

“Tansy.” Malcolm breathed her name so softly it barely stirred the magic that enfolded them. She realized she could see him more clearly than when they began loving. Morning light crept through the window—their night very nearly flown.

“Aye?” She brushed her lips across his cheek rough with beard, and closed her eyes the better to absorb the sensation.

“What ha’ you done to me?” The question held no accusation but a kind of yearning wonder. He too felt how their world had changed.

“I ha’ but loved you, Sir Knight.” As close as she dared come to the truth. Would he understand?

He lifted himself from her, shoulder muscles rippling, and gazed into her eyes. “More than that.” He cupped her face tenderly. “You are a beautiful, enchanting, and vexing wee thing that will no’ leave my mind—like a song, the words running over and over again. Promise me something.”

“Anything,” she vowed rashly, caught by the light in his eyes.

“Promise we will be together again—even though we maun part this morning. Even though I travel far awa’ from you. Promise a time will come when you lie beneath me like this again and I gaze into your eyes, when I feel the woman you are.”

Tansy’s breath hitched in her chest. “Can you feel me?”

“Och, aye—from that wild mind o’ yours right down to your toes.”

Ah, and in binding him to her had she also opened herself to him? But she did not mind. She would offer this man anything, including her very life.

“If you believe you know me, Sir Knight, and want me yet—well, that is something no one else has ever done.”

“I want you, Tansy Bellrose. Whatever comes between.”

“Then I give you your promise. We will be together again—come what may. I will find you. Or you will find me. So mote it be.”

“If you ha’ bound it in magic, wee enchantress, I believe it.” And he buried his face in her neck while the dawn came.

****

The ache born in Malcolm’s chest early that morning when he lay in bed with Tansy refused to ease. Instead, while he saw Mercien prepared for transport and guarded against any treachery from Latham, it increased until he feared he might be dying.

Only now, when they stood ready to leave with Latham standing by, watching their every move like a spider, and among a small army of guards, did Malcolm grasp the truth. The pain he felt came from his heart being ripped out of his chest and given over into Tansy’s keeping.

He feared for her, just as he feared for Catha, who had, indeed, shown her hand by her concern for Mercien. Even now, while they prepared for departure, tears stood in Catha’s eyes, and her gaze clung to Mercien’s every move.

Malcolm half—nay more than half—expected Latham to use that against her, demand that Mercien stay so he might compel her obedience. The arrogant bastard probably believed he needed no such threats against a defenseless woman.

Two defenseless women.

Malcolm’s gaze returned helplessly to Tansy, where she lingered at Catha’s back. She looked like naught so much as a waif, with her feet bare and all that black hair hanging loose down her back.

Mercien touched Malcolm on the arm. He’d insisted on donning all his clothing—though Malcolm could not imagine how he bore the garments over his wounds. The dispenser had bound a stark white bandage over the place where his eye had once been, and cleaned him up, though grime still lay embedded in his skin. No matter—he declared himself able to walk from the keep and to ride away after.

Malcolm had his doubts. He’d seen his brother, aye, endure the worst battles, seen him fight while bearing grim wounds. He’d known Mercien to ride a day and a night only to battle at the end of it. But he’d been close enough to where Mercien now stood to taste his weakness, his bone-deep pain. He knew how the wounds chafed beneath the cloth, could imagine the grief.

Pride might get Mercien away out of Latham’s keep. Enduring the journey home could prove another matter.

Home. Away from Catha, from Tansy. He could not…

The pain in his chest clenched hard as he offered Mercien his arm. “Come, we maun awa’.”

This would be the moment when Latham reneged, if he meant to—called them back from the edge of hope. So had he done time and time again during questioning, letting Malcolm believe the session in pain had ended, only to begin again.

“Go with God,” Catha said.

“May the angels bless and keep you,” Mercien told her, his heart in his voice.

The guards raised the portcullis and freedom beckoned. Malcolm remembered how he’d felt riding from here last time, leaving Mercien in chains. This felt no better now, but he must get Mercien away home to Father.

He looked at Tansy Bellrose Gant. He should have told her how he loved her when he had the chance—loved her with a deep need that surpassed mere affection.

Did she know? What did he see in her eyes?

He turned away, Mercien’s weight heavy on him, and stepped toward the daylight.

A whisper touched his mind, the merest hint of sensation. Or was it the memory of a word?

Love.