The Taken Bride: A Medieval Romance Page 5

  “Oh, all right.”

  “You can probably use the soup pot and take a standing bath, if you’d like.”

  She shivered at the thought, “It might be too cold for that.”

  “Well, I would suggest heating the water first, but that’s just me.”

  She giggled. “Yes, of course. But the room is so cold.”

  “Well, I can’t help that. I think that might be your best option.”

  The next day, when William had left for whatever errands he did while the sun was up, she filled the soup pot from the barrel outside and started a large fire in the stove to heat it up. In one of the boxes, she had lucked upon a bar of soap and she tore a corner off one of the blankets to make a rag.

  Once the water was warm, she checked outside to make sure no one was in the vicinity, and she carefully laid her garments on the bed to stand naked in front of the stove. It was surprisingly warm with the fire raging and she started to dab and bathe herself.

  After she was finished, she walked back over to her clothing. But as she picked up her slip, the door swung open and William strode in purposefully. He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the naked blonde woman bending over the bed. Elizabeth squealed and tried to snatch up her dress but not before William caught an eyeful of absolutely everything.

  He stuttered some sort of words but could not look away as she pressed her dress up against her damp skin, causing it to outline every swell and curve of her body. Her full breasts heaved as she gasped for breath.

  He walked up to her and she gasped at the thoughts that raced through her mind. He silently picked up the blanket from the bed and held it up in the air level with his own chest so that she was hidden behind it. She yanked the slip and the dress down over her head and turned away to hide her pink cheeks.

  “I-I-I thought… I didn’t know what…you…” She was breathing hard through her nervous words.

  He looked at her carefully, now that she was clothed again. He rested his hands on her shoulders and pulled her closer to him. She could smell his fresh woodsy scent and the solidness of his chest pressed against her.

  He whispered in her ear, his warm breath tickling against her skin.

  “I have no intention of taking anything from you. But mark my words, some day you will ask me to share the bed with you. And I won’t tell you no.”

  She stared at him, wide-eyed and silent, her shyness outweighing any indignant response and counteracting any attraction she felt towards this bear of a man.

  That night, as she curled up on the bed and listened to him snore on the boxes, she could not help but wonder what this heat was that she felt growing inside her body. Henry had been her only companion in the bedroom, and he never once caused these stirrings.

  Chapter Seven

  When the sun peeked through the window the next day, Elizabeth struggled to remember why she had felt uneasy as she fell asleep. Then, like the fog over a lake, it rolled back through her conscious thoughts. William had walked in on her while she was changing, and although she had been aghast at first, she had not really minded.

  And the fact that she did not mind worried her.

  She wrapped herself in an old coat she found hidden at the bottom of one of the boxes, and went to fetch eggs for breakfast. By the time she returned, William was awake and had started the fire in the stove. They looked at each other awkwardly, but neither could find the words to express anything so they went about their morning motions in silence.

  William left the house, still in silence, and Elizabeth wrapped her hands around a warm metal mug of hot tea while she contemplated the changes in her life over the last week. She had grown up privileged and had married thusly, never really having to worry about being taken care of. She certainly did not mind picking the vegetables or gathering the eggs, but she was not sure if it was a long term lifestyle she could enjoy.

  She enjoyed her fine clothes and her hearty food, not to mention having servants and attendants to take care of all of those things. She was worldly enough to know that life outside of the estate was hard and fraught with perils she had never imagined. First and foremost, she had been lucky in her capture that William turned out to be a gentleman instead of a true highlander raider. There was no telling what fate would have befallen her had another group taken her.

  She tidied up from breakfast, and made the bed. She also carefully folded the blankets that William had been using to pad the boxes. In the tiny cottage, there was not much housekeeping to be done.

  After she put another log into the stove fire, she crouched down to study the three locked boxes that neither of them had ever mentioned. She was curious and tried to lift the lids to peek inside. She had no luck as they were cinched tightly. She started to dig around in the other boxes to see if there happened to be a key lying around, but again no luck was on her side. She sat on one of the locked boxes and studied the inside of the cabin.

  There were small chinks and gaps between the stones as well as between the walls and the wooden ceiling. She wandered over to one and realized that she could easily fit three fingers inside. Elizabeth moved from gap to gap, feeling around inside until luck finally found her. Inside one of the gaps, she located a small metal key. As she clicked it into one of the locks and started to turn it, she heard rapid hoof beats approaching the house. As quickly as she could, she ran to stick the key back into the same gap and pretended to be busy stoking the fire.

  The heavy wooden door flew open and William was standing there breathless and disheveled.

  “They’re close behind me,” he panted, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  He grabbed the side of his arm and she noticed that he was bleeding.

  “William! Are you okay? What happened?”

  “We’ve got to go,” he huffed.

  “Go? Go where? Who’s here?”

  Elizabeth ran to the window and immediately recognized the four horsemen that pounded in their direction.

  “How did they find us?” she marveled.

  In a flash, William was next to her at the window and with both hands on her waist, he turned her abruptly towards him.

  “I need to know, do you want to stay or do you want to go?”

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  “Do you want to stay with me or do you want to return home?”

  “Stay,” she whispered, her heart speaking before her brain could calculate what she was saying.

  Without a word, he slid his hands around to the small of her back and pulled her to him, kissing her deeply and ferociously. His tongue sought the warmth of her mouth just as the rest of his body yearned to seek her other warmth.

  As the horses outside grew closer, he darted to the wall, snatched the metal key from its hiding place, and grabbed her hand as they raced out the door. He tossed her as gently but as quickly as possibly onto King’s back, and they raced off into the trees that surrounded the cabin.

  Chapter Eight

  King ran as quickly as he could with both of them on his back but not far from the cabin, William pulled him to an abrupt stop.

  “Wh-What are you doing?” Elizabeth sputtered, still startled by the sudden flight.

  “They will search the immediate area, but they did not see us flee on horseback. You and King will wait here until I return. I have to go back and keep an eye out for when they leave. Then I will come back for you.”

  “You’re going to leave me alone out here? What if they find me?”

  He grinned down at her frightened upturned face.

  “Then you will end up back home, and no worse off than you were before.”

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. She was certain that if she did return, Henry would blame her for letting herself be taken, and he would take out his frustration on her body in one way or another. She finally consented to being left behind with King, and William headed back to the cabin on foot. She watched as he darted from tree to tree in a crouched position and marveled at his stealth despite his large s
ize.

  She settled down on the ground near King and waited. As the time rolled on, she started to wish she had grabbed some food on the way out of the door, but there just had not been time. In the distance, she thought she could hear the sounds of fighting but she told herself she was just imagining things.

  The painful waiting ordeal gave her time to finally think about how she had answered William. It had been a quick answer in the heat of the moment, but in the peaceful silence of the trees, she knew it had been the right one. If there was an option outside of Henry and his estate, then she had to take it. And it was hard to ignore the fact that William had displayed more breeding and manners in the few days as his captive, than Henry had showed during their entire courtship and marriage. William’s shaggy dark hair, sparkling brown eyes, and muscular shoulders certainly made a young woman take notice.

  Elizabeth was not sure how long William had been gone, but suddenly he popped out from behind a tree nearby.

  “Oh!” she gasped loudly, “you startled me!”

  “I wouldn’t be a good criminal if I wasn’t good at sneaking around,” he laughed breathlessly. “I think we are good to go back. If you’re up to it that is.”

  “S-S-Sure. Are you certain they are gone?”

  “Yes, I sent them home with their tails between their legs.”

  She grinned at the thought of them returning to Henry empty-handed.

  William helped her off the ground and then up onto King. He mounted the large black horse after her and slid up so that he was pressed up behind her. She tried not to notice his closeness but the sheer strength and size of him was invading her every thought.

  He could smell the soap in her hair and twitched his head as the stray curls tickled his nose. From his vantage point behind and above her, he had a view straight down the loose top of her dress and he bit his bottom lip at the sight of her full breasts swelling and falling with her breaths.

  He leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “When we get back, you’ll have to answer a question for me.”

  She could feel her skin erupt in goosebumps from his warm breath on her skin and she was not naïve enough to think he did not notice. She was not unfamiliar with the male anatomy and she was almost certain that she could feel something stirring against her lower back as the horse jostled them together on the slow ride back.

  It was not far, and they arrived more quickly than Elizabeth wanted. William slid to the ground and then reached up to grab her by the waist. As he lifted her off King, he held her close to himself so that she slid down the length of his torso as she approached the ground. He did not remove his hands from her waist when her fee hit the grass. Instead he left them there and held her against his body.

  “William…” she said softly.

  “Yes, Elizabeth?”

  “You had a question for me?”

  “That I did.” There was a lilt in his voice but his lips did not smile.

  “What was it?”

  She was holding her breath as she stood so close to him.

  “Can you explain your answer to me? Why you want to stay here?”

  She blinked at him with her deep blue eyes and answered without a word. She simply rested her palm against his broad chest and slid it upwards to the back of his neck.

  This time she knew she felt the stirrings against her as he closed his mouth around hers. His kiss demanded her to yield and she gave willingly. He parted his mouth to let his tongue taste her lips and she exhaled with a soft moan.

  As his lips slid from her lips to her neck, he whispered into her ear. “You have yet to ask me…”

  “Ask you what?”

  “I told you at the beginning that I would not take anything from you that you did not give willingly. But you still have to ask so that I’m clear.”

  “William?” she murmured softly. “Will you share the bed with me tonight?”

  He picked her up easily and carried her through the doorway, lips locked in passion and desire. His large hands cupped the curves of her hips as he set her down on the bed. In a flash, they snuck up under the long skirt of her simple dress and found a heat that neither of them expected.

  “Oh God,” he breathed against her skin as his lips teased her breasts through the thin material.

  His tongue and teeth taunted her, causing her nipples to crinkle and peak under in her dress. He broke their contact long enough to whisk the dress over her head and to toss his own clothing on top of the puddle of cotton. They scrambled to wrap the blankets over them and he ran his hands over the swell of her breasts, the indention of her waist and the arch of her hips. In her years of marriage, she had never had someone express such desire for her or to even touch her that way.

  She could feel the heat inside her body growing, like stoking the fire in the stove. And when William finally lay on top of her, she felt his urgent cock pressing against the damp opening between her legs. She wrapped her legs around his trim waist and pressed him forward with her heels.

  He groaned deep in his throat as he entered her warmth and dug his fingertips into the sides of her hips for self-control. He had been torturing himself with thoughts of her since he first laid eyes on her heaving breasts cowered in the corner of the estate, and had been taunting her with the earlier comment about asking him to share the bed.

  But now as he felt the need and desire in her body, he could not find the self-control he sought. He drove himself into her time and time again, the sweat glistening on their bodies as they gasped for air.

  Elizabeth did not know that it could be enjoyable, that she would have ever felt such pleasures as when William claimed her body for himself. The heat kept rising and it flushed her cheeks and chest pink. She raked her nails down his muscular back and moaned something against his chest.

  He grunted loudly and she felt his fluid fill her. The heat inside her own body boiled over and she tightened her thighs around his waist as she fell into her own peak of pleasure.

  He collapsed on top of her and gasped for breath.

  “Heaven help me,” he groaned softly.

  “I never knew…”

  “Never knew what?”

  “That it could be…well, that it could be good.”

  He laughed. “That’s a Scot versus a Brit for ya.”

  She giggled, and held his body closer to hers as sleep claimed them both.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning, the sun beamed through the window and through the gaps in the walls. They stirred on the bed, legs and arms still entangled. He woke with a start when he realized they were still naked in bed. He tried to slip away but she cooed and stirred next to him.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I thought I would start the fire,” he offered.

  She grinned up at him, and pulled his face to hers. Her lips tickled his neck as she teased him. “What sort of fire did you have in mind?”

  He felt the first stirrings of his cock, but knew they had to get on with their day. He knew in his heart that they would have plenty of mornings to take it easy and enjoy the pleasures of each other.

  They both dressed and went about the normal morning routines of breakfast and tending to the things around the cabin.

  “We may not want to linger here at the house anymore,” he said, “now that they know where we are.”

  “Very true,” she agreed. “But now what?”

  “I have a, ahem, confession.”

  “Now? Now you tell me you have a secret?” She indignantly grasped at the dress that she had so easily surrendered the night before.

  He laughed at her wide-eyed response.

  “Nothing like that. But I think it’s only fair to tell you that I am not what you might call a regular rogue. I’m just out and about, but I have to get home.”

  “What home?”

  “Scotland of course. My father will be expecting me. You see, my father is associated with the fathers of all of the band here. And they are all expecting us to report ba
ck in the near future.”

  “I see…”

  He fished the small metal key from the pocket of his trousers, and knelt before one of the locked boxes. He opened it with a flourish and brandished a small leather sheaf of papers.

  “This is the proof of my family. I don’t travel without it, just in case I run into trouble.”

  “Proof of your family?”

  “My father is at least as wealthy as your husband, if not more. And together, with the fathers of my friends, they own almost all of northern Scotland.”

  She gasped. “William! What secrets you’ve been hiding!”

  He opened the other locked boxes to reveal treasures they had accumulated, as well as the finer clothing of a nobleman. The stock included two dresses like the one she had discarded upon arriving at the house. She gently fingered the fine brocade and filmy lace and smiled at him.

  “You would prefer me in these?”

  “I would prefer you in nothing,” he growled as he sunk his teeth into the delicate skin of her throat.

  She moaned softly and felt her body warm to him again.

  She had never been fully undressed in front of Henry but without a second thought, she tore off the grey housedress and let William carry her back to the bed. He ravaged her again and she moaned his name over and over, letting her body tell her exactly what she needed.

  Once the passion subsided, he helped cinch her into the layers of corseting and dress and she twisted her own hair up on top of her head, to present herself as fully a lady again.

  Within moments, his clansmen arrived with the carriage in tow. They gathered everything from the cabin that was worth taking, and packed into the carriage to leave. She made sure to take all of the food that would travel, since they now had an entire group to feed.

  Elizabeth made sure to politely acknowledge the gentlemen that were going to escort them away. As she climbed into the carriage, she knew she offered them a full view of her ample cleavage, and smiled to herself when one of them winked at William.

  The trip to William’s home was completely uneventful. After all, no one would suspect this nobleman and his “wife” to have been a rogue kidnapper and his willing victim. Elizabeth was thrilled to find herself welcomed into his household, complete with wedding ceremony and family blessings.