Page 29 of The Lone Wolf's Bride

‘Oh Murray, there are so many things I have not seen. I dearly long to go to London someday, to travel, to have adventures and have some life beyond these walls, as you have.’ Her face was alight now, with longing and excitement.

‘Do not wish for London Ilene, for it’s a hellish, stinking place, a sewer of thieves and cutthroats, sinking in desperation and loneliness. The air is thick with the stench of the butchers and the tanners and the horse shit. There is no clean air to be had, the streets are riddled with beggars, with the poor and there are so many people, all pressed up against each other in narrow filthy streets, crammed in with the rats. I could not wait to leave.’

‘As you cannot wait to leave Cailleach, to take up that land my father has offered you?’

‘Yes, a great kindness on his part, which I aim to repay a thousand times over.’

‘Perhaps it’s not so kind for I hear it is a wild place and dangerous.’

‘Aye, that’s true, but I can be my own master there, in control of my own destiny and answerable to no man.’

‘Apart from my father.’

‘Aye, apart from him.’ Ilene looked down at her hands as they twisted the bloody rag, round and round.

Boldly he asked, ‘Ilene, will you miss me when I am gone?’

‘It will be very dull around here without you to scandalise everyone. And Murray won’t it be awful, to be alone and so far away amongst strangers?’

‘I have lived amongst strangers all my life and I can stand my own company better than most. But I’m glad to hear you’ll miss me?’

‘More than you could know Murray.’

His heart skipped a beat. Could she actually care for him, like him, want him? It was too much to hope for. ‘You will forget me soon enough, I am sure, once I am gone out into the world again.’

‘At least you have seen it. I know nothing and I see nothing and as a woman, I doubt I ever shall know much beyond these castle walls, unless I have a man to show me the world.’

‘So you would welcome wedlock then? Take a husband to escape your bonds?’

‘Yes, when the right man comes along. But he would have to be the equal of me. I could not stand being shackled to a preening fool in fine clothes who can barely sit a horse or hold his own in a fight. I want a strong man who can protect me.’ She smiled and Murray’s pride surged. She had not said ‘someone like you’ but the implication seemed to be there. Reaching up to wipe the blood from his face, she put her hand on his cheek to steady him, her face inches from his, her mouth so near that he desperately wanted to taste it.

Up close, he would have expected to find some flaw, some taint, but she had none. Her skin was smooth like silk, her lips a soft, moist pink. She bit the lower one in concentration at her task, and he suddenly longed to do the same. When did his feelings tip over from brotherly affection and friendship to admiration, and then outright desire? It had hit him so hard and so swiftly, first terribly jealousy over Aidan Gran, then this burning need to look at her all the time, to touch her, to seek her out.

As she turned from him to rinse out the rag, he noticed how long and elegant her neck was. A strand of unruly hair had escaped her bun, silky black, it lay in a soft wave along the smooth line of her collarbone. He wanted to trace his finger along it, to press his mouth to it. When she turned back to him her eyes were warm and there was a kind of longing there.

He could smell the warm, sweet scent of her and imagined himself lying with her, being kind and gentle. One small movement, one impulse surrendered to, and he could pull her body against his, mouth tasting hers, his manhood taut against her soft belly. As these thoughts ran through his head he became as still as a statue, willing himself not to move towards her.

Better that she not touch him again, as the feel of her soft hands on him made him hard. God, how he wanted to take her now, even though it would open his wounds like red blooms to bleed anew. It would be worth the pain of it, in return for the pleasure he had begun to dream of at night.

‘Thank you for caring for me, Ilene,’ he said.

She stared up at him from under thick eyelashes and delicate brows, fine, like the smooth sweep of an ink quill across paper. She had soulful eyes, dark and gentle. A man could fall into them and be pulled down never to resurface. Was he imagining the look on her face, almost of pleading, of expectation? It was as if she were offering herself up to him, laying something before him and waiting for him to take it up.

He was on the brink of asking her to go with him, to a quiet place, where he could take her in his arms and hold her and ask her if she felt for him even a fraction of the raging desire he felt for her.

‘Why did you come back to us Murray?’ she asked.

‘I can’t say for sure though I am glad that I did.’ The world seemed to stop for a moment and everyone else in it ceased to exist. He hesitated for a moment before speaking again. ‘You are the reason I am glad, you know that don’t you. Deep down, we both know that.’

‘I can help Murray now.’ Ailsa’s voice broke the spell between them. ‘Leave him to rest now lass.’

Ilene got up unsteadily, her head bowed. Ailsa smiled at Murray as she took Ilene’s place and he winced at her touch, which was far more brisk than Ilene’s. Her face revealed nothing, but she was no fool, and Murray felt guilt creep upon him as if he had been caught doing something he should not.

He watched Ilene walk away. Long ago she had wormed her way into his heart and she sat there still, ever twisting and pulling at it. Perhaps it was time to end this torture and go after what he wanted. Having watched her patiently these past weeks, and hearing the whispers that Aidan Grant would not be coming back to claim her, Murray had begun to feel that Ilene was within his reach. A curious possessiveness had taken hold of him so that in his mind she already belonged to him. It was shameful, this urge which drove him to look at her all the time, secretly, like some creeping lecher. But some madness had taken hold of him and refused to let go. Better to just bide his time a little longer, so that he could be sure of her feelings. But he wanted her. So why wait?

Chapter Ten

Ilene stood beneath the huge oak tree. It was her favourite place of solitude, her place to think. Its wide canopy of leaves protected her from the drizzle which had begun to fall, softening the hills and woods around Cailleach with swathes of white mist. To Ilene in her torment, the world was anything but soft. It was a jagged, brutal place, and life had become almost intolerable.

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