Page 48 of The Daughters of Avalon
She didn’t know what it was she meant to say… or do… but she would do or say anything to sway him. “Please, Malcom…”
Like an angel’s touch,the hand on Malcom’s cheek compelled him—and even more irresistible was the way she regarded him, with those watery violet eyes.
God’s truth, he didn’t know how or why, but he was bound to this woman, for better or worse, and he was beginning to fear itwould be for the worst. Cael d’Lucy. King Stephen. Morwen. The list of his potential enemies was growing by the second.
A maelstrom of thoughts whirred through his brain—confusing thoughts he daren’t give credence or voice to… but one thing he was not confused about was the way he felt about Elspeth.
She sat before him, as bewitching as any siren, her crimson gown spilling behind her, and her golden-red curls catching the torchlight like copper threads.
When she leaned forward so unexpectedly to press her lips to his, Malcom discovered he couldn’t deny her—or himself—and no matter that he suspected her motives, he pulled her into his embrace, like a man starved. If she were some pagan goddess, bent on seducing him to her will, he would no more refuse her than he could have abandoned her in Wales.
At the touch of her lips, every part of him shuddered. Her kiss aroused a hunger inside him he didn’t wish to deny. Heat suffused his loins as desire consumed him, and by all that was holy, if she had bewitched him, Malcom didn’t bloody care. In that instant, he would have walked through the very fires of hell for her, and he would do anything she asked—anything, including betray his king. After all, if a man was not fighting for his home and his people… who the hell should he fight for?
Kissing her deeply, tasting the depths of her sweet, sweet mouth, Malcom prayed she would not tease him, and, then, somehow, sanity returned, and he managed to get hold of himself and push her gently away, fighting his desire to take her here and now.
Never in his life had he taken advantage of any lass in need and he didn’t intend to begin now.
Suddenly, he didn’t know if he was angrier over the fact that she would tempt him, or that he so desperately wanted to engage her. But more importantly, he would do exactly as she bade him.“You need not pay me in such a manner, Elspeth. I will go,” he said, rising from the bed, abandoning her with arms wide.
Her luminous eyes were glassy with passion, and some part of him wondered how well-versed she was in the art of seduction—certainly she knew her part well enough to seduce him. The evidence of his lust could hardly be missed. He was hard as stone, and not even his tight breeches could hide it. He longed to free himself and feel her sweet lips in places too wicked to say.
His eyes glittered fiercely, but not with malice. And regardless, his words were far from affectionate. “I will do all you ask of me and more,” he promised. “But on the day you lie beneath me, Elspeth, that day you’ll be mine. Heed me well, I’ll not turn you away next time, so think on that whilst I am gone.” He swiped a hand across his mouth, to erase the taste of her lips, afraid that if he could taste her he might refuse to go.
Elspeth sat,reeling.
If she’d meant only to persuade him, their kiss affected her more deeply than she could have possibly foreseen. Through the haze of her passion, she felt his withdrawal acutely like the severing of a limb. And then she realized what he’d said, and her eyes grew round. “You will go?”
“Aye,” he said. “I will go.”
“What will you tell Beauchamp?”
“I will say you are with child—mychild,” he said vehemently. “And having only discovered this fact, I am returning now to fetch your sisters, before we travel too far north. You will have need of them in your confinement.”
Stunned, Elspeth stared at him, her fingers drifting to her mouth. Already, her lips were swelling over the fervor of their kiss, and her body ached for him in ways she couldnot comprehend. And yet, far more than she craved Malcom’s kisses, she coveted her sisters’ safety.
He took a dagger from his boot and set it on the table. “For you,” he said. “I have no cause to believe you will have need for it, or I’d never leave you, but here you are, just in case.”
And then he went after his saddlebag and searched for and found a few silver and gold coins, discarding them, too, atop the table. In all, six coins fell from his fingertips. “Again, should you have need of them.”
Elspeth sank from her knees, watching with wide eyes.
Chapter
Twenty
Driven by something he could not explain, Malcom returned to the bed, putting a hand to Elspeth’s cheek as he asked, “Could you see me as your lord husband, Elspeth?”
“What are you asking, Malcom?”
Of course, he was asking her precisely what it sounded as though he were asking. He would protect her in truth. He would give her his name. If, for whatever reason he did not return from Wales, he wanted Elspeth to have somewhere to go.
He stared at the girl he’d known for so short a time, suspecting that nothing that had transpired since the morning he’d met her was an accident. He was meant to be with her, and if he did not believe this, he would not have claimed her as his wife. Those words had slipped from his tongue as easily as soap from wet fingers. So, yes, he wanted her to be his wife. On a whim, listening to his gut, he got up and pulled the ruinedshertefrom his saddlebag. He tore the hem into one long strip, then ripped that strip in half. Then, with both ribbons in his hand, he moved to the bed and sat so that he faced Elspeth. “I would give you the protection of my name,” he said.
“What—”
He put a hand to her lips to hush her. “Listen to me, Elspeth. Only hear me out. I am a man unwed and now unbetrothed. I have spent the past ten years denying every bride’s name put before me, and I have found fault with every lady with no just cause. When I so easily claimed you were my bride, those words came unbidden from my tongue, and I can only think ’tis because it is meant to be so.” She stared at him, blinking, and he asked her again. “Could you see me as your lord husband?”
Wide eyed, Elspeth shook her head, but he sensed it was her confusion, not a denial, so he reached out to take her hand. “Be my wife. Wed me here and now.”
