His Duty, Her Destiny Read online

  Fergus’s beautiful house on Holyrood Wharf was strangely silent after the departure of Nicola’s family, though not the same kind of silence she had encountered as a child when, almost invariably, she had known the deep despair of being left alone and nettled by their too-rough horseplay. On this occasion, the one most responsible for those particular childhood grievances was by her side, holding her hand in an unmistakably possessive grasp even after the boat carrying her family had dwindled into a speck on the gold-washed stretch of river.

  ‘Better if they return by barge,’ said Fergus. ‘It’ll be safer at this time of day, and more comfortable. And the tide’s just on the turn, so they’ll make good time on the current.’

  ‘What about the horses?’ said Nicola.

  ‘They can stay here overnight. The men will take them back in the morning.’

  ‘Fergus,’ she said, hesitating, ‘there’s something on my mind.’

  ‘About tonight, you mean?’ He smiled, swinging her arm gently.

  ‘No, not exactly. About us. You in particular.’

  He saw the slight frown as she watched the craft on the river scudding through the sunset. ‘What is it about me you want to know, sweetheart? Relationships?’

  ‘Not past ones, no. That’s your affair. What I want to know, I suppose, is whether you’ll want to stay with me after we’re married. I don’t particularly like the idea of being left on my own while you go off round the world as soon as I’m…we’re…you know what I mean. I saw so little of my father, Fergus. I expect he came down to London for…well…for some relief, once there was a child on the way.’

  Fergus put an arm around her, smiling at her concerns and wondering who had put such notions into her head.

  ‘Well,’ she said, sensing the impending laughter, ‘I think it’s sad if a man can’t contain himself for nine months while his wife is bearing his child. I suppose there was some excuse once my father was widowed, but…well…I just wondered.’

  Fergus’s arm tightened around her waist, pulling her off-balance so that she had to walk with him towards the house and away from the shouts of sailors and dock-hands, ferrymen and messengers, away from the rocking masts of ships being loaded. He was laughing. ‘You are a delightful innocent,’ he said. ‘Do you think that, once a woman finds herself with child, she ceases to go to bed with her husband? Eh? Do you?’

  Nicola blushed, suspecting that he was about to tell her what her mother should have told her years ago, if only she had been there. This was the kind of detail that not even her Yorkist guardians had explained. ‘I don’t know what I think,’ she whispered, ‘but from what I’ve heard so far, that’s how it looks.’

  He stopped as they reached the wooden porch that led into the shady house, a place where lavender and marigolds crowded around the pillars. Holding her against one of the carved wooden posts, he made her escape impossible, lowering his head to whisper against her brow. ‘It may be so with those who have no desire for each other,’ he said. ‘Then their duty is done until the next time. But for couples like us, sweetheart, lovemaking can continue as long as the pregnancy lasts. Not fiercely; more like the way I shall show you tonight…and tomorrow…in bed. Carefully. Slowly.’

  Her face burned. ‘You talk of dutiful couples, but is that not what we are?’

  ‘Not exactly, no. We are fortunate. We can oblige our late fathers at the same time as pleasing ourselves. Were you pleased, Nicola? Just a little? Was it wrong of me to have taken you there, like that?’

  ‘No, it was not wrong. You did what I asked of you. I had my reasons. You must have realised by now that there has been nothing ordinary about this agreement of ours, neither in the wooing nor in the resolution. I am not in an ordinary frame of mind, Fergus Melrose. I never have been when you were around, and I still don’t know whether I’m doing this for all the best reasons or for reasons that are simply the strongest ones at the moment. I can only pray that I don’t regret it too soon.’

  ‘Love, you mean? Is it love you’re talking about?’

  The shake of her head was the merest movement that caught the low sunlight in her dark lustrous eyes. ‘No, that’s not what I’m talking about. There is duty involved, despite what you say. Obligations to others. It’s no use pretending otherwise. But there’s something else, too.’

  ‘What? What else is there?’

  ‘It’s too difficult to explain properly. Something to do with…you know…the way things used to be. I know I should have put it behind me by now, and I thought I had, there in my little house on Bishops-gate. But you’ve brought it all back, and I find that I cannot go meekly in a straight unwavering line to the altar, as you expect me to do. I cannot!’

  ‘You need say no more, sweet lass. I know what you mean. And you have every right. I hurt you, I treated you shamefully, and now you need to be sure of me by getting some of your own back. It’s natural. That’s partly what that was all about, isn’t it?’ His dark close-cropped head tipped towards the three dark masts of his carrack out there on the shining river.

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Not at the time. But now I know. I’d expected to take you in my own way and in my own time, and you decided to stop me, even at the risk of being hurt, or disgusted, or both. You tried to take the lead in our games more than once, didn’t you, rather than be left behind? And I wouldn’t let you beat me in the fencing either. Tch! That was churlish of me. Shall we try it again, then? Tonight? Winner takes all, and no recriminations?’

  ‘I don’t want you to let me win out of pity,’ she retorted, hotly.

  ‘I won’t. I’m not so stupid. I intend to win as much as you do.’

  ‘All right. Winner takes all. After supper?’

  ‘I shall keep you plied with wine.’ He smiled, standing upright and taking her hand. ‘If I have to fence with sore ribs, it’s only fair that you should have a woozy head.’

  Having been warned about the wine, Nicola was careful to drink only spring water that Fergus obtained from Malvern, after which she was reasonably confident that his sore ribs would be such a handicap to him that she stood a good chance of winning the contest this time. And when she won, she intended to deny him her bed, not because she did not want him there, but because it was time the score was evened in her favour. That was the theory.

  The reality was rather different, for he staged the event to look so like the first that she was set back in time, seeing him as she had then with her heart thudding to the same uncertain rhythm. He lent her some lad’s breeches and a shirt to wear, and she had told Rosemary and Lavender to stay out of the way until she should send for them and, instead of the morning sun to light their way, they had tones of apricot across the bare floor, long shadows, and an atmosphere of drama. The hall was larger than hers, and the long table had been moved to one side, the silence of his entry alerting her to his mood of quiet determination.

  As before, he advanced with the tip of his rapier describing irritable figures of eight just ahead of his toes and, for a disquieting moment she was assailed by doubts that she could, after all, best him in this when not even her brothers had managed it. He was stripped to his long-hose, soft boots and shirt, exuding fitness and strength in spite of his injuries, his eyes darkly unreadable, his wide straight mouth unsmiling. ‘On guard,’ he whispered, extending his rapier towards her. There would be no facetious chit-chat.

  This time, Nicola was cool and more in control of herself than on that earlier occasion. This time, she knew what to expect from him, more prepared for the clever subtleties of his attack and defence, for the way he would lure her forward and drive her back. But this time was different too, when every so often he took on the role of fencing-master, correcting her, advising, showing her how best to breach his guard, how to defend herself better, how to deceive him. Once or twice he actually lowered his weapon to explain to her what she could do and then, when she learned faster than he expected, settled grimly into the contest with no more tutoring, no more concessio
ns, and she would never have guessed by the skill of his sword-play that he was in pain.

  In the end, it was as it had been before when his stamina exceeded hers, when her legs ached unbearably from the strain and her arm failed to respond with anything like the speed she required of it. A moment of extreme weariness together with a lapse of concentration, and the point of his rapier spiralled round hers, lifting it out of her hand just as she had done to the surprised young swain at Bishops-gate. With a noisy clatter, her rapier flew across the floor, leaving her at his mercy and no sign of humour to soften the humiliation.

  Panting, she knew the kind of panic that a rabbit feels when it can flee the stoat no longer. Nor did he lighten the defeat with condolences, but held her at bay with the point of his rapier just touching her breast, backing her slowly against the wall and closing in on her before she could summon the strength to fight him off. This time, she was too weak to lift an arm.

  He did then what he had wanted to do after their first contest and with no more gentleness than he would have done then, had she not been wounded. Taking her loosened plait in his grasp, he steered her face to meet his, holding her still while his kiss slanted across her mouth, disregarding her exhaustion and taking his fill from her lips as if this, and only this, had been on his mind since the beginning.

  Without a word being spoken, her hand was being clasped in his and she was taken, almost at a trot, first to collect her rapier and then out of the hall and up the staircase, past the maids’ small closet to the chamber she had been allotted.

  Fergus’s manservant had been instructed to furnish the lady’s chamber with quantities of hot water and, as they entered, the steam rising from two deep brass-bound buckets swerved away from the draught like a swirling mist. Whatever Nicola had expected, it had not been that.

  In her large tile-floored room, one wall of which was almost entirely taken up by a stone fireplace, was a wooden chair, several chests and a large green silk-covered bed, the canopy of which was suspended by ropes from the rafters. Diamond-shaped glass panes reflected the soft glow of two lanterns while the sky on the other side had turned to deep purple. They must, Nicola realised, have been fighting in near-darkness.

  Fergus drew her further into the room. She was still breathless and damp from her exertions, her legs quaking with fatigue, and she was sure he could have brought the contest to an end much sooner if he had wanted to, for he was sweating but certainly not exhausted. Removing the rapier from her hand at last, he placed them together on the chest then, taking a folded sheet that was lying there, he shook it out with a crack and laid it on the floor, lifting the steaming buckets into the middle.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  He held his hand out, pulling her forward. ‘Take off your slippers. There, now come over here. It’s bath time.’

  She was in no position to argue. He had always done things his own way and surely he was enough of a gentleman to leave her to bathe alone. His eyes roamed over her, noting the damp patches that clung to her body. ‘Undo the breeches,’ he commanded.

  ‘Er…’ she stammered, ‘I can manage to bathe on my own.’

  ‘This time we shall do it my way. Undo them. Slip them off.’

  She watched his hands, willing them to stay away. ‘Yes, but I can send for Lavender and Rose…please…’ she whispered, catching at his hand.

  He caught hers instead and held them away. ‘Nicola,’ he said, ‘we agreed that the winner takes all, did we not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I won.’

  ‘Yes, damn you.’

  He smiled as she swayed wearily towards him, catching her soft body as her hair fell in a thick veil around her bowed shoulders. ‘Shh, honey. I used to walk away laughing, remember? Not any more. Now I stay with you and reward you. I wash you down after a contest. If I can do as much for my horses, why would I not do the same for a future wife? The main difference is that I don’t make love to them afterwards. Come now, sweetheart, if the winner takes all, he needs to take a look at his prize. And I’ve waited long enough. Stand still…let me help.’

  Too spent to protest any more for the sake of modesty, and now trembling at the touch of his fingers, she stood with her head bowed as he peeled the breeches away, leaving her with only the linen shirt to cover her nakedness. ‘Arms up,’ he said.

  ‘No…I…no, Fergus…please!’

  Taking her wrists from across her body, he held them up in the air and plainly expected them to stay there. Instead, they dropped to his shoulders while he lifted the shirt up over her head, turning her to face the buckets so that she could not tell where he was looking. And though it passed through her mind that this could have happened sooner, if he’d had a mind to it, she knew that she would have fought him tooth and nail if he’d laid a finger on her then.

  ‘Step into the bucket. Go on, into the water. It’s not too hot.’

  Her elbows were supported by his hands as, reluctantly, she stepped into one of the broad-based buckets and felt the soothing water steal up her shins, and she wondered how many times he had done this for a woman before taking her to bed. But she was not allowed to dwell overlong on aspects of his past, or her modesty, for already his hands were twisting her hair into a rope that he held on top of her head. ‘Hold it up there,’ he said, expecting no resistance.

  Closing her eyes, she did as she was told, feeling the gentle touch of his wet fingers upon her neck and throat, the trickle of water being sluiced over her, the sweep of his hands over her skin. And there was no chatter to interrupt his concentration. Although not as vigorous as those used on his favourite stallion, the ablutions were not lacking in direction along every surface of her back and beautifully rounded hips. Sloshing the water in cupped hands, he reached her buttocks and thighs at which moment the hair was suddenly dropped and one of his hands caught.

  ‘Fergus!’ she gasped, ready to step out of the bucket.

  ‘Yes, I know. Stand still.’ He held her with one brawny arm round the waist and continued, his feet wide apart as he bent to wash her lower reaches, and she was obliged to remain there with her feet trapped, shaking at this unprecedented familiarity until he had finished and gone round to the front of her so that she had no need to turn.

  He started again with her face, carefully wiping along her brow and cheeks, kissing her closed eyelids to open them and to show her the desire and hunger in the now charcoal-grey eyes. Resting one hand on his shoulder, she watched as his head ducked to reach the other bucket and swing back up to her level while his hand poured water over her throat, following it down to her breasts, grooming and smoothing so slowly, erotically, that caresses now took the place of cleansing. ‘Fergus…no more!’ she whispered, trembling.

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ he said, kissing the long pink pencil-line scar that ran down one curve. He lapped water from the tip of one nipple, arousing it.

  ‘Please stop.’

  ‘Take one foot out.’

  She had been prepared to step out with the other one also until she discovered that there were some places he had not yet attended to, and now her eyes closed in ecstasy as he sluiced the water over those parts that, earlier that day, had received his most vigorous attentions, parts that now felt used and experienced. Gasping at this intimacy, she caught his wrist yet again, holding it as it continued the foray into her softest folds, washing and salving while water trickled down her legs on to the soaking sheet. Purposefully, his hand lingered, drawing forth a moan from her throat, and she closed her eyes as his lips found hers, almost swooning with the ache that consumed her. ‘Not yet,’ she murmured against his mouth. ‘It’s my turn, Fergus. Let me…please?’

  It took all her efforts to remember what she had to do. Holding on to him, she stepped out of the water and tugged at his points to unlace his hose, then, dragging his shirt off over his head, she threw it aside. ‘Off,’ she said. ‘Take off your boots, man.’

  Laughing at her commands, he shed his cl
othes in two quick moves while Nicola saw, for the first time, the full extent of the injuries he had received upon his beautiful hard-muscled body, the awful blue-black, red-green weals and cuts where boots had kicked and fists had punched, the long cut where a dagger had caught his shoulder blade, still beaded with dried blood. And for the first time also, she began to understand the full cost he had paid on that day and the pain he’d had to suffer since then, far worse than hers. But for her, he would still be recuperating slowly. But for her, he would have been spared the difficult ride through crowds this morning, the fierce coupling on the ship, and the duel this evening that had lasted far longer than it need have done, for the sake of her pride. And after all that, he had tended her as if she had been the one who needed it most.

  ‘Oh…oh, my God…Fergus! What in heaven’s name…? Why did you not tell me?’ she whispered, appalled. ‘I should have known about this.’

  For once, he had no ready answer. It would have taken too long.

  Shaking her head, she brushed her hand lightly like thistledown across his ribcage and felt the flinch inside him, saw the sharp parting of his lips. Here was the shapely and superbly fit Fergus Melrose, now outwardly marred by injuries that would take weeks to mend and, internally, some that would take longer. How could she not have realised?

  Overcome by guilt, contrition and pity, she drew him towards the two buckets, poured the contents of one into the other, and then began to do for him what he had just done for her, well aware that she was affording him a view of herself in action that she had been reluctant to reveal until now. Punctuating the process with kisses to his wounds, she washed every part of him with extreme tenderness, drying him with her mass of hair and pouring water over the soft bristles of his head that had darkened with new growth since their first meeting It was the most sensuous lesson she had learned in her life, for until now she had not known which bits of a man’s body were hard and which were soft, or whether the dark mat of hair on his chest and down his stomach would be rough or silky. She found that his navel was not quite like hers, nor were his buttocks, though his sensitivity was indeed very similar. There was yet another marvel to be witnessed lower down which, in her innocence, she did not know how to address, whether to ignore it, or to appeal to its owner to exercise some control over it while she dried him.