Hannah Howell Read online

  “Where to once we are on the ground?” she asked.

  “Head to the blacksmith’s,” Revan answered even as he piled what little furniture there was in front of the door. “The horse will be tethered in back of his forge, saddle at hand. It seems the blacksmith smells the stink of treason in the air and wants no part of it. Go, Tessa. I will follow in but a moment.”

  She cautiously climbed out of the window. It was necessary to tread warily for the roofs were of thatch. By the time she lowered herself from the last roof onto the ground, Revan was nimbly following her. She turned to start on her way to the blacksmith’s—and saw the woman.

  Tess knew, instinctively, that it was Mary. A twinge of jealousy tore through her as she quickly surveyed Revan’s old lover. Mary was fulsome, possessing the sort of full, tempting curves Tess doubted she would ever have. Seeing what Revan was accustomed to, Tess began to seriously doubt her chances of holding on to the man. She was yanked from her dark thoughts by the sound of Revan jumping to the ground from the roof. Mary looked terrified.

  “Ye betrayed me, Mary.” Revan grasped Tess by the arm, knowing he had no time to deal with Mary but needing to strike back in some small way. “Ye came here to listen to my death screams, but now ’twill be yours that will rent the night.”

  “Nay, they forced me to tell them where ye were.” Mary held out her hands in a gesture of pleading as she cowered against the ivy-swamped wall of the inn. “I swear it. I had no choice.”

  “How quickly and smoothly the lies fall from your lips. I have no time to deal with ye now, but I willna forget this betrayal. And, my greedy whore, by this act ye have placed yourself upon the side of treason against the king.” He nodded when she gasped in terror and fear. “Aye—treason. The Douglas plots against James the Second, and ye have just aided him. ’Twill be no simple, merciful hanging for the likes of you.”

  “Nay! I didna ken their reasons for wanting you,” she protested. “I would never betray our king.”

  “But ye just have. I hope your petty vengeance was worth the cost ye may yet have to pay.”

  Revan heard the bellows of the men as they finally crashed into the room above and stumbled over all the furniture he had set before the door. Yanking Tess along after him, Revan sprinted toward the blacksmith’s. Mary’s pleas for forgiveness and pity were soon overridden by the cries of the men hunting him and Tess.

  His horse was exactly where the blacksmith had promised it would be. Revan saddled it, securing the cinches even as Tess secured their belongings on the back of the animal. They had just mounted, Tess seated behind him, when four armed men rounded the corner of the smith’s forge. Revan spurred his horse right toward them, causing them to scatter out of the way. He heard their cries for mounts as he thundered toward the forest and, he prayed, safety.

  Tess was more asleep than awake when she felt Revan rein his mount to a halt. Rubbing her eyes, she looked around. They were still surrounded by trees, but she was not sure which wooded area they were now sheltered in. She was not even sure which direction they had ridden in or for how long. That, she decided as she dismounted, was Revan’s concern and could remain so. She would only get them lost.

  As Revan tended to his weary horse, she sat down. She had looked forward to a night in a real bed. It made her feel even more weary to have been thrust out of it into the night. The thought of another night spent on the ground was enough to make her want to scream.

  That inclination increased tenfold when she glanced down at her dress. It had not been the finest of gowns, but it had made her feel like a lady for a little while. She had seen the appreciation in Revan’s eyes. There would be none there now. Her new gown was ruined. It was splattered with mud and torn in several places. It looked worse than her too-large boy’s attire. She looked a poor ragamuffin child again.

  The urge to cry became achingly overpowering. Tess struggled against it as she tried to brush off some of the dirt upon her gown, but it was difficult. In her mind was the image of Mary and how very womanly she had appeared. The reminder that Mary was certainly a whore and had betrayed Revan did not help to dispel the image or ease the sadness it inflicted Tess with. She had wanted to be pretty for just a little while, to show Revan that she could do him proud. Instead, she sat there on the leaf-covered ground mud-splattered, ragged, and smelling like a horse. The quivering in her chin and lip told her she was rapidly losing the battle against tears. She cursed, for she badly wished to be strong, yet also ached to have a good wailing cry. Her hope that she could pull her tattered emotions together before Revan joined her proved a vain one. He strode over to sit at her side and stare at her.

  “I fear we dare not light a fire.” Revan frowned as he studied her, trying to see her expression clearly in the dim light of a three-quarter moon. “Are ye all right, Tessa? Did ye hurt yourself climbing down from that window?”

  Tess only shook her head to answer no, sure that her urge to cry would be clear in her voice if she tried to speak.

  Revan reached out, gently grasped her by the chin, and turned her face directly toward him. He could only see her expression a little more clearly. Despite that he knew she was upset. To his surprise, and with a touch of dismay, he realized he could sense her mood, could almost feel it himself.

  “I am sorry we were driven from our fine room at the inn. I truly thought I had paid Mary enough, aye, and threatened her enough, to silence her.”

  “She recognized you, didna she?” Tess wondered if she would get the full truth about Mary now, and if she really wanted to hear it anyway.

  “Aye, she did.” He grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. “One’s past can sometimes be a troublesome thing and return to haunt one at the most inconvenient of times. Many months ago she and I spent a brief time together. I traveled to and from Edinburgh a great deal, and she was my lover there.”

  “Edinburgh? Then why was she serving ale at a poor inn in a wee village?”

  “She has kinsmen here, it seems, and she needed to flee Edinburgh. I didna ask why. That was of no interest to me. From what little she did say, it had something to do with her protector, his marriage, or mayhaps his new wife. ’Twas clear that she thought to take up with me again.”

  “She was fair. And fulsome,” she muttered, unable to resist a brief glance down at her own small, slender body.

  He put his arm about her shoulders and tugged her close. There was the hint of jealousy in her mood, and Revan discovered that he appreciated it. After the deep fear and rage he had experienced when Thurkettle’s men had planned to rape her, it was soothing to see that she, too, could suffer from the twisting bonds of possessiveness. At the moment, however, hers was breeding sadness, a sense of unworthiness, as she looked to herself and found herself lacking. It was nonsense, yet he found that he understood it. Inwardly he shook his head over his own vagaries.

  Common sense told him to make some bland remark, some mildly flattering nonsense she would know meant nothing. He knew he would ignore common sense. Her sadness touched him, and he needed to soothe it.

  It was yet more proof of what he had begun to suspect back at the inn. The suspicion had been born when he had turned aside Mary’s invitation. Mary was fulsome and skilled, a woman he would have bedded without hesitation before meeting Tess. Then he had seen Tess in her gown. There was no denying the sort of emotion that had gripped him then. He cared for the girl. It could be even worse than that, but he shied away from that knowledge.

  “Aye, Mary is fulsome, but she is also a whore.” He kissed the tip of Tess’s nose when she glanced at him. “Ye dinna have the same curves as she, but that doesna dim the beauty of what ye do have. Aye, and I think it is perfection.” Although she blushed, she gave him a look of mild disbelief. “Did I not turn from that fullness to come to you? Mary couldna raise a spark of interest. All I thought on when I espied her was how to shut her mouth. I didna do that very well, either.”

  “And so we had to run for our very lives yet again.”


  “We shall be doing that until we reach the king.”

  “Well, at least we have shaken this pack of hounds.”

  “So it would appear, but I still do not dare to light a fire. The dark hides us, but it can also hide them. I dinna wish to give them a pretty beacon to follow straight toward us.”

  “Nay, of course not.” She sighed and stared at the tattered hem of her gown. “That ride ruined my gown, poor old thing though it was.”

  “Ye looked beautiful in it. If our fine supper had not been due, I should have shown my appreciation far more swiftly than I did.”

  Tess was able to smile. He spouted no flowery phrases; his flattery was simple and unencumbered by any grand protestations. It made it much more believable. So did the memory of how he had looked at her when he had first seen her in the gown. His ardent gaze had made her feel beautiful. That was worth more than any pretty words.

  “I am sorry I spent your coin without asking first, but when I saw it, I so wished to have it, I couldna resist. Just once I wanted ye to see me dressed as a lady should be, to see me as a woman.” She frowned when he slowly grinned, as it was an odd response to her soft admission.

  “Tessa, after the first night we spent curled up together beneath the blankets, I have never had trouble seeing you as a woman. In truth, after my first surprise over seeing a lass dressed as a lad, I never gave much thought to what ye were wearing.” She shivered slightly, and he stood up. “I will fetch our blankets.”

  She watched him as he got the blankets and spread one out upon the ground. It was nice to know that he felt no shame over her appearance. Yet, she was not sure it was particularly good that he had apparently paid little heed at all to the matter. Indifference was certainly not what she was longing for.

  When the blanket was properly laid out, she moved to sit on it and tug off her boots. She lay down on her back and watched as Revan did the same. He settled himself at her side and spread two blankets over them. She smiled faintly when he next tugged her into his arms.

  “Did ye truly take no notice of what I wore?”

  “I will confess that I am not a man who pays much heed to fashion anyway. But I doubt that ignorance would make much difference. I truly gave it little thought. Occasionally I did think it more suitable for the trials we have been forced to endure.” He idly nibbled her ear. “One thing I did think on when I saw ye in this gown, besides deeming ye very lovely, indeed, was how ye should have chests full of fine gowns.”

  “Chests full?” She began to unlace his doublet.

  “What should I ever do with so many?”

  “Blind near every man in Scotland, as is your right, a right Thurkettle and his cursed daughter have denied you.”

  “At the moment that is the very least of their crimes.” After he gave her a little help in tugging off his doublet, she began to unlace his shirt.

  “There are times I think it the greatest of their crimes,” he murmured.

  For a little while they said nothing, just quietly worked to undress each other. Tess was moved by his honest concern for how poorly she had been treated by her Thurkettle kin. Even better was that there was not a hint of pity, only outrage on her behalf. She did stir more than his passion. It was not quite the depth of emotion she wanted, but it was enough to give her hope.

  The moment she had him undressed to his braies and she wore only her linen shift, she moved to sprawl on top of him. Tess decided it was past time to do more than hope. She was going to work a little more assertively to reach his heart. And, she mused, if she still hadna won his heart at the end of this travail, at least she would have set herself firmly in his memory.

  “And this Mary was skilled, was she?” She brushed her lips over his.

  “Aye, as any whore must be. But ’tis not necessarily skill that can fire a man’s blood, lass. What ye may lack in skills, ye make amends for in the honesty of your passion. In truth, at times your innocence stirs me more than any practiced hand ever has. Now and again I have even found myself wishing I could have come to your arms with an equal innocence,” he whispered, cupping her face in his hands and stealing a fuller kiss before she neatly eluded his grasp.

  “That would have been nice,” she murmured against his neck as she encircled it with soft, teasing kisses and light strokes of her tongue. “However, ’tis probably best that one of us kenned what we were about.”

  His chuckle caught in his throat as she moved her warm caresses to his chest. She was being unusually daring tonight. He threaded his fingers through her silken hair and wondered just how daring she might become.

  Tess felt him tremble as she touched her lips to his stomach. He groaned softly when she drew idle patterns upon his muscular abdomen with her tongue. The way he was shifting slightly beneath her revealed his growing desire as well. That knowledge increased her sense of daring. If passion was all he could give her, she would learn how to take all he had to give. She was also discovering that actively stirring his passion was having a heady effect upon her own.

  As she covered his strong thighs with kisses, she neatly removed his braies. He groaned his approval when she curled her fingers around his erection. Recalling how he had loved her back at the deserted crofter’s hut, she hesitantly replaced her hand with her mouth. The way his body jerked beneath her kiss made her think she had gone too far, but when she started to pull away, he tightened his grip in her hair, silently urging her to continue.

  Revan felt a shudder of intense delight ripple through his entire body the first time her soft warm lips touched his staff. He tried to tell her what he wanted but was not sure he was coherent. Despite that, she did everything he could hope for. When she took him into her mouth, he lost all sense of time and place, knew only Tessa and the exquisite pleasure she was giving him. He fought for some control over the desire raging within him.

  Finally, knowing he could not restrain himself much longer, he grasped her by the arms and pulled her up his body to neatly, swiftly, unite them. He cried out his pleasure at the warmth he found there, the sweet heated proof that her passion was as hot as his own. She needed no help from him but rode him with an instinctive skill that brought them both to the blinding release they craved. He caught her in his arms when she sagged against him, holding her tightly as they both trembled and sought to catch their breath. It was a long time before he eased the rich intimacy of their embrace, tucked her up against his side, and pulled the blankets over their cooling bodies.

  “Ye still have your shift on,” he muttered after several moments of contented silence.

  “Well, I canna think of everything.” She rubbed her cheek against his chest, enjoying the way he combed his fingers through her hair.

  “ ’Tis a good thing, too. They no doubt heard the result of that thinking clear into Edinburgh.” He shook his head. “We had best save such delights until we are more certain of our safety.”

  “So, ye found it a delight, did ye?” She inwardly cursed her own doubts yet was driven to voice them.

  “For a clever lass ye do ask some very foolish questions.” Revan laughed softly and kissed the top of her head.

  “Mayhaps. My cousin, Tomas, always says not to let the fear of appearing foolish stop ye from asking questions. He told me that a wee bit of embarrassment was easier to endure than ignorance or doubt.”

  “And ye have a doubt or two, do ye? Sweet Mary’s tears, dearling, if anyone had stumbled upon us just now, I would have had trouble recalling my own name. I was so blind to all about us, I howled my pleasure to the moon. If Douglas’s men had been with a mile of this place, they would have found us easily. Aye, and I would have been too weak with delight to even try and save us. Does that answer your doubts, Tessa? I have never kenned such pleasure before,” he murmured when she lifted her head to look at him. “Ye make it very difficult for a man to keep his mind upon his duty.”

  “I think ye have been diligent. The king should reward ye well. Aye, especially after he has paused to hee
d those lies about you. I dinna ken how he can even once think that ye would betray him.”

  “Everyone else has, or so he believes at times. Dinna forget, his father was cruelly murdered. As a child, James the Second was used as a pawn by Livingston after that man violently abducted the young king and his mother. The Douglases have ne’er ceased to be a trial. Nor have the lords of the Isles. Even some of James’s allies, such as the Crichtons, have doubted him at times. Nay, he has a right to his suspicions. It stings to have them directed my way, but I can understand it.”

  “Mayhaps. Well, soon ye shall prove to him just how firm an ally ye have been.”

  “Aye, but in doing so I must mark your kin, the Thurkettles, as traitors.” He lifted his hand and smoothed away the tangled hair from her face. “ ’Tis a mark that isna easily washed away.”

  “Ye dinna put it upon them falsely. They take the chance themselves by dabbling in treachery. If the name is stained, ’tis their own fault. Aye, it sorely troubled me at first, for their blood runs in my veins and my mother was one of them. But, one cannae take on the guilt of all one’s kinsmen. ’Tis their crime, not mine nor my mother’s, and they must pay for it.”

  “True, but not everyone will think like that, dearling. Ye will be made to pay for your Thurkettle blood, in small ways, at least. I shall be the cause of painful words, mayhaps even a slighting or two.”

  “Nay, ye willna be the cause. Uncle Fergus will be.” She brushed a kiss over his mouth, touched by his show of concern and unnecessary guilt. “He commits this foul crime. Ye but bring him to justice, expose his treason, as ye must. Dinna fret over me. I have more kinsmen left than most think is proper or wise, and there is no stain upon the names of Comyn or Delgado. Well, not since the Comyns sided with England in the Bruce’s time.”

  “Too many others did the same for that to weigh too heavily anymore.” He gently pressed her head back down against his chest. “Sleep now, lass. We must be away at dawn’s first light.”