Page 79 of Tempted
“A sensual woman can do anything. You usually taste of whatever you’ve been eating. Drink a lot of fruit juice, then taste yourself.”
Tina climbed from the scallop shell and rubbed herself vigorously with a towel.
Ada gave her a sidelong glance. “Have you never wanted to put your mouth on him?”
For a moment, Tina didn’t take her meaning, but when she did, the idea shocked her to the soul. She immediately changed the subject. “Did you get around to dividing one of my riding skirts?”
“Yes, I did a couple of them so you can ride astride. Are you going out again?”
“Yes, the Gypsies are camped a couple of miles east on the flat ground by the River Urr.”
Tina took only her Kennedy groom as she rode off to visit Heath—she wanted no tales carried back to Ram Douglas. Her eyes soon picked out the tall figure she adored as she rode pell-mell into the Gypsy camp. “Heath! Heath!,” she cried happily as he picked her up, swung her around, and kissed her. He set her feet back to earth and searched her face for long minutes. “I’ve been worried about you, love. Are the Douglases treating you well?”
Heath had been furious when he learned she’d been forced to a hand-fasting with Black Ram Douglas. He wanted to hear from her own lips that she wasn’t being mistreated, or he knew he would have to commit murder.
“You can see for yourself that I do very well, thank you.”
“I can see the outside. What I want to know is how you feel on the inside,” he said low. They sat on the steps of his caravan and shared a coney he had roasted on a spit over a fire.
“Are you sure this isn’t a hedgehog?” she teased.
He looked at her with open tenderness, and she knew she must share her inner feelings with him as she always had. She shook her head. “I thought I had everything so well planned. I was almost at the altar with Patrick Hamilton, until Fate took a hand.”
“The marriage with Nan Howard didn’t take place. We were in Edinburgh. Old Meg provided her with an aborti-facient.”
Tina looked at him oddly. She did not question his knowledge of court affairs. “So … Patrick is still free to marry?”
Heath nodded. “But you are not.”
“I am free!” she said passionately. “I will be free,” she amended. “I’ll never marry Douglas!”
“What if there’s a child? He has pledged to marry you.”
“That’s my revenge—my revenge for everything. They took Davie prisoner and burned him terribly. Then when I freed him, Black Ram Douglas came to Doon and wrought vengeance upon all of us. It was the most humiliating, humbling experience for the Kennedys, but that wasn’t the end of it. When the king ordered a blood bond between our clans, my father had to pay Hotspur to take me. Even then he wouldn’t wed me. Humiliation is a burn that never comes out.”
“Valentina, the game you play is too dangerous. Old Meg told me she provided the poison that was used on Damaris all those years ago. She also told me in whose hands she placed that poison.”
Tina stopped breathing. She wanted to scream a denial of the knowledge he was about to impart. Finally she whispered, “Ramsay?”
Heath nodded.
She flung the bone away and ran down to the river. Mad Malcolm’s words echoed in her brain “It was the other young swine”
Heath slowly followed her. “Tina, there’s something else I must warn you about. The borders are unsafe. We traveled from Edinburgh to Berwick following the route we’ve always taken, then along the border through the Cheviot Hills. The English have been mounting raids in the east and middle marches.”
She shrugged a shapely shoulder. “Border raids and cattle lifting are a way of life”
“Nay, these are no cattle raids The English are committing the most heinous crimes. They are pillaging and burning, raping and murdering Promise me you’ll not ride out alone again like this?”
She remembered the raid shortly after they arrived at Castle Douglas. Ram had told her very little, but he had certainly been in a vicious swordfight. “Promise me that you too will take care,” she begged him.
“We usually winter in England, but this year we may not. We’ll stay around Dumfries at least through the autumn.”
“I suppose I must get back before dusk,” she said wistfully.
“Come on, I’ll ride back with you.”
“Wherever did my groom get to?”
