By Honor Bound Part 15

surely in a much simplified way. Knowledge of the art of ruling men would be an excellent thing for the child who might one day be King of Alba.

Lulach's physical growth and ability to learn had been slow compared to other boys of his age until the past summer. Now he was so newly-sprouted tall, with his bony wrists and knees and his awkward attempts at playing adult, that Elen felt a surge of tender affection for him. She wanted to put her arms around him and hug him as she used to do, but she feared his youthful masculinity would be insulted by any suggestion of coddling.

"You have become a man, my prince," she said, feeling suddenly old."I know," he replied gravely, and she repressed a smile."Do you miss Patric?" he asked suddenly.Elen realized that she had not thought of Patric since she had been robed for her wedding. After last nightwith Talcoran she could never think of any other man. Talcoran. At the memory of him, her body stirredwith that strange, aching need. Perhaps Lulach was right and she would soon be with child. Perhaps ithad already happened. Talcoran's child.

"I hardly remember Patric," she said, and thought she spoke the truth.

Lulach appeared relieved at her answer.

"I'm glad. He's a traitor to Macbeth. But at least he took Malcolm away. If I met Patric again, I'd thank him for that before I killed him."

"Let us hope," Elen said fervently, "that neither of us will ever meet Patric mac Keith again."

It was early evening before Macbeth and Gruach returned to their chambers. Talcoran

arrived soon after, to report to Macbeth on some matter.

Elen observed her new husband closely as he spoke with the king. Why had she never realized before that in his own harshly rugged way Talcoran was handsome? How smooth and sleek was the dark hair that hung to just below his ears. How beautifully straight his nose was, how fine the high cheekbones above his thick beard. And his hands-those slender, sensitive fingers that had lit unexpected fires in her body-how strong and beautiful they were.

She saw him looking at her with a glowing expression in his eyes. Drawn by an irresistible force, she crossed the room to him, moving lightly, as though her feet skimmed above the rushes on the floor and never touched it at all. She wanted to throw herself into his arms. She knew he had read her thoughts. She expected to feel herself blus.h.i.+ng, but oddly, there was no disconcerting rush of blood to her face, only a warmth at her heart as she smiled at him.

Perhaps, she thought, I cannot blush now that I am a wife.

Then Talcoran, who in public had always been so cold and self-contained, bent toward her and kissed her lightly on the mouth.

"I'll join you soon," he whispered, before he followed Macbeth out of the room.

"So," Gruach said behind her, "it goes well after all. Your hair looks lovely pinned up like that. Very becoming. Did Talcoran give you the ornaments?"

"Yes." Elen looked after the men, the fingers of one hand lightly pressed to her softly parted lips, as if she would bring back Talcoran's kiss. Gruach's arm was about her waist.

"I was right about him. I knew it. Are you content now, cousin?"

"I think so. It is not-" Elen hesitated, unwilling to say too much, lest the spell that Talcoran had woven about them should be broken. "It is not at all what I expected," she finished.

"It never is." Gruach's grey eyes were misty. "I remember when first I wed my Gillecomgan, all of the world was suddenly strange to me. And strangely beautiful."

"And Macbeth?" Elen could not resist the question.

"I was not an innocent girl when I married Macbeth, nor was he a boy. We were both full grown, man and woman together, and he is magnificent, splendid, a great golden lion. A king." Gruach's breast heaved with emotion. "There is no one like Macbeth, or ever will be again."

How different this night was from the previous one. Then she had been numb and fearful. Now she waited with urgent expectation for Talcoran to appear in their bedchamber.

Wrapped only in a loose, flowing robe of deep green wool that opened down the front, Elen leaned back in Talcoran's wooden chair while Ava unbound and combed her hair. The golden ornaments, Talcoran's gift, lay on a table beside her. She fingered them, feeling their delicately chased surfaces, admiring the way they shone in the candlelight.

She looked up as the door opened and Talcoran came in. He stood watching her, his eyes following Ava 's hands as she drew the horn comb through the heavy smoothness of her mistress's hair.

No one spoke. Talcoran was a quiet man, and Elen could find no words to express what she felt at the sight of him. He unbuckled his heavy leather belt and laid it, and the broadsword that hung from it, carefully on top of the wooden chest in the corner. He pulled off his tunic and folded it neatly, placing it next to his belt. His boots followed. Clad now only in his narrow woolen breeches, he sat on the end of the bed, watching the women until Ava had finished with Elen's hair.

"Leave us," Elen said at last, and Ava scurried out.

Once she was gone, Talcoran rose and removed his breeches, then came to stand behind the chair. He began to stroke Elen's hair with gentle, caressing motions. He picked up the heavy, fragrant weight of it and buried his face in it.

Elen felt excitement mounting in her. When his arms went around her, she laid her head back against his waist. His supple hands brushed along the length of her slender throat, then moved lower to push her robe apart. She felt his lips against her hair and then his cheek on hers as he sought the sensitive spot at the base of her neck. His hands never stopped, up and down on her throat, up and down, moving lower with each stroke until his fingers slid around her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and rested there. One thumb flicked across a nipple. She caught her breath. He chuckled softly and pulled away from her. He moved around the chair and bent over her, one hand on each wooden arm. Intimidated by his naked strength and the rapidly growing evidence of his enormous desire for her, she would have retreated, but there was no place to go.

His mouth tasted her sweetness, withdrew, returned again. Her lips parted, and when next they met his, received his tongue. He began a tantalizing exploration of her inner mouth that left her weak. She made futile moaning sounds deep in her throat.

When he had begun kissing her she had grasped his wrists. Now she raised her hands to push him away so she could breathe. She shoved at his shoulders once or twice before she found her fingers had become entangled in his hair. With a groan, she gave up her effort to separate herself from him. When he would have pulled back, she held him there, and now she tasted his mouth, sucking at his tongue, pulling him more deeply into her, giving back all that he had given her.

They broke apart at last, both gasping for air. Talcoran straightened and looked down at her with a frown. Afraid she might have done something wrong, she watched him fearfully.

"Elen," he said between deep breaths, "do you truly want me?"

She wondered at his question after her pa.s.sionate response to his kisses. She sensed that he did not want to hear a complicated discussion of the vague longings she had experienced all day. She would be hard put to explain to herself exactly what were her conflicting and tumultuous emotions toward this near stranger who was her husband. How could she hope to make him understand what she did not understand herself? She knew what he wanted of her that night. Perhaps it was enough that at that moment she wanted the same thing of him.

He watched her closely, standing before her in naked masculine splendour, virile and unashamed, waiting for her answer.

"My lord," she began, and stopped. No, there would be no formality here, not in this private place. He had told her on their wedding night to be honest with him. She looked him straight in the eye.

"Talcoran," she said, "I want to do what we did last night, but I don't want it to end. There is something more, something I almost touched. I want to find it."

His smile seemed to light up the room. He bent toward her again. She thought he would kiss her, but he did not. Instead, he caught her at the waist, pulling her up. With awesome ease, he lifted her into the air and slung her over his shoulder. Her robe slid onto the floor in a soft heap, forgotten.

He was so strong that her weight was nothing to him. She was bent double over his shoulder, looking down the length of his back to his heels. Her long hair was dragging on the floor, and he was laughing. She had never heard Talcoran laugh before. She marveled at the husky, joyful, male sound of it.

She tried to turn herself right side up as he carried her the few steps to their bed. She pushed herself up and clutched at his shoulder, unbalancing them both.

They went down, landing on the bed, sprawling in a tangle of limbs and hair. They were both laughing now. He rolled over on top of her and held her down while he kissed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and shoulders and her willing mouth.

"Elen," he breathed, "my sweet, dear wife." It was there again, the thing she had felt the night before, and it was growing. It filled her heart and spilled over to create gloriously warm and sweet sensations wherever Talcoran's mouth and hands touched her.

He explored every curve and crevice of her body. He began with her mouth. He had prepared her well before they reached the bed and she was eager for more. Her lips opened like a dewy, coral- pink rose, and he a.s.saulted them with loving brutality, not letting her turn away until he had driven her to the edge of a sweet, moaning anguish that begged him to stop and pleaded for more at the same time.

He moved on, to her throat, finding again the pulse in the hollow there and teasing at it with tongue and lips, while the blood surged ever more strongly through her veins in a pounding, throbbing rhythm of growing desire.

He found her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and played there a while, nibbling and sucking, smiling with pleasure when she arched her back and thrust the sweet mounds at him and begged him not to stop.

He moved lower, his own feverish intensity growing ever more apparent. She began to realize how great had been his self-control the night before, even when she thought he had lost it. He had kept himself under tight rein as long as possible, trying not to hurt her, and perhaps sacrificing some of his own pleasure in that effort. Tonight there would be no holding back.

She ceased to think. She became a writhing, moaning creature of desire, driven by the fires that now he lit in her. She felt his hair beneath her fingers, but she did not know she pulled at it. She clutched his shoulders, not realizing she raked great b.l.o.o.d.y scratches on them. He lifted his head with a startled cry and her nails tore at his face in her frenzy.

He caught her hands, holding them securely at her sides while she thrashed and cried and begged him with broken, nearly incoherent words, to help her, help her.

She whimpered in her desperate need when she felt him pus.h.i.+ng at that place where he had entered her body before. She tensed, expecting the pain she had felt then, not caring if it hurt again.

But there was only the faintest twinge of discomfort as he plunged deep into her burning, heaving flesh.

He released her hands and she wrapped her arms and legs around him, unaware of her actions, intent only on what was happening inside her. There was a core of fire, deep within her being, and with each movement that Talcoran made, each stroke into the interior of her deepest self, he touched that core and sent great molten waves of undulating fire rippling out from the center, through every pore and fiber, every nerve and muscle, until she was fire itself, blazing, burning, searing light and heat, and Talcoran was consumed within her, and they were completely, totally one, an unquenchable flame of white-hot pa.s.sion that burned and burned and would not, could not, end.

They lay spent, wrapped in each other's arms. Talcoran was still inside her, a softer, gentler thing that stirred echoes of fiery pa.s.sion when he moved against her. Her inner body still intensely sensitive, she reacted at once, thrusting against him, and heard him chuckle. His mouth was as sweet as honey when he kissed her. He withdrew from her and lay down beside her, pillowing his head on the dark waterfall of her hair.

"I must remember to thank Macbeth for forcing us to marry," he said, tenderly tracing the outline of one soft breast with a slender finger. "Our king little knew what a treasure he was giving me."

She did not know why it was that his slightest touch was so pleasing to her. She moved until the palm of his hand rested firmly on the curve of her breast, then gave a happy sigh.

"Am I a treasure?"

"Oh, yes." He smiled, and drew his hand slowly from her breast across her abdomen, down to rest between her thighs in a possessive gesture that stirred her deeply. The fire leapt up for a moment, then subsided into a comfortable warmth when he removed his hand. "And you, wife, are you content?"

"You said that I must always be honest with you."

"Yes." He waited, the air between them vibrating with sudden tension.

"Then," she whispered, "I must tell you that I was sorely disappointed not to find you in our bed this morning, for I wanted you then. I yearned for your presence all the day long. A short time ago I thought I would die of wanting you. You may not think it possible after what we have just done, but, heaven help me, I want you again. You look at me or touch me, and I am in turmoil. How can I be content when I feel like this?"

"You do not regret our marriage?"

"Only your absence when I would be with you constantly."

"Elen." He pulled her into his arms with rough tenderness, holding her against his chest. His voice was strained, as if he choked back some overwhelming emotion. "I left this morning because I knew I had hurt you and I feared you would be angry with me. I, who go into battle without hesitation, flinch at the thought of your rage."

She tried to look at him, but he held her head firmly against himself. Perhaps he feared what she would see in his face.

"Then you must care about me," she said. "I thought you disliked me. You said you did not want to marry me."

"I have wanted you since first I saw you," he whispered harshly, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe. "But I am only a rough soldier. I never dreamed you might be given to me as wife. I have never bedded a n.o.blewoman before. I have never even bedded a virgin. I thought you would hate me for what I did to you."

He had loosened his grip on her a little, and now Elen sat up and looked at him. His eyes were suspiciously bright. She wondered if there were tears in them, then dismissed the thought. This, after all, was Talcoran.

"Did you find hatred in your bed tonight?" she asked, and smiled at his expression.

"You did say you wanted me again?" he asked.

She saw that he wanted her. She tried to look calm and unconcerned, though now the flame was burning high in her, too.

"I have promised always to be honest with you, my husband," she told him in mock seriousness. "I cannot deny that I want you."

"Show me," he commanded.

The land of Alba lay at peace during that golden autumn and throughout the silver winter that followed.

Fionna was with child again, along with two other of the queen's ladies-the result, Gruach noted dryly, of soldiers returning home from war unscathed.

Elen had had hope for herself, then was disappointed to find it was not so. Since Talcoran's pa.s.sionate interest in her continued unabated, she had little doubt that it would not be long before she, too, grew rounded and content like the others.

She was surprised to find her husband and the solemn Conal mac Duff becoming fast friends. Mac Duff plainly admired Talcoran's honesty and unaffected manners. When their courtly duties

permitted it, the two couples often spent evenings together, the men bent over a chessboard, the women busy with spinning or needlework, amid quiet laughter, gossip, or plans for the future.

The Christmas celebrations that year were marred only by the arrival of news from Northumbria. Patric mac Keith and the three young princes in his charge had safely reached the English court. Malcolm and Maelmuire were to live with their Uncle Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Donald had been sent to Ireland for schooling.

"Well enough for the present," Macbeth said. "Siward is new to his t.i.tle and is too weak to attack Alba."

"He may not always be too weak," Talcorancautioned."True, but we'll worry about that when the time comes, if it ever does. I have other things on my mind, akingdom to set to rights."

Elen noticed that Fionna slipped away during this discussion. Later she found her weeping in a far corner of the king's reception room and hurried to her friend's side.