Parris Afton Bonds by The Captive

Author:The Captive [Captive, The]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paradise Publishing
Published: 2013-12-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Enya threw open the shutters. Gray-pink rays tinged the predawn heavens. The scent of crystal- tipped grass stirred thoughts of happier times, childhood times in Ayrshire, when the worst she had to worry about was her brothers' teasing. Both Gordon and Andrew had plagued her with frogs until Elspeth would chase the two boys with a rug beater. Later on, Enya chased them herself through dew-wet grass.

Now Gordon and Andrew were dead—and she felt like the walking dead. She had to remind herself that she was human and not a wild beast, caged. Even Thane, still asleep by the fire, fared better than she with their master.

Behind her, Ranald stirred. “What—you—?" He leaned on one elbow, bare-chested. Sometime during the night, he had stripped off his clothing. She couldn’t remember seeing a chest so broad, naked or clothed. The coverlet lay dangerously low around his hips. "You’re still here.”

"Aye." With only the faint light of dying embers, she had dressed. She crossed now to the Turkish chair, and, bare feet tucked up under her, drew on a briar pipe. Mutinously, she exhaled a wreath of smoke. The eddying circle expanded, grew more indistinct.

“Where did ye get that? Me pipe?"

“From the drawer of your writing desk."

He propped his back against the wall and, head canted and arms crossed, watched her. “Me grandmother smoked a pipe.”

“Did your grandfather know?”

One side of his mouth cocked a grin, completely obliterating the pleat on that side of his face. “She taught him. She was from the Clan Ranald. He was the Cameron’s official piper and was charged with playing the call to battle.”

She smiled through the haze of smoke. “So the bagpipe was the closest your grandfather ever came to a pipe—until your grandmother.”

“Smoke is mysterious,” he mused. "Like a woman."

"Let me stay."

"What?”

‘"Tis not my shame you want, is it? Or else you would have made it much more unpleasant for me. Like last night, for instance.”

His brows lowered. His pleats deepened to menacing grooves. “Don’t underestimate me.”

"I think 'tis my husband you—"

"I explicitly recall your announcing to all that you weren't married.”

“—Simon Murdock you want. I'm merely the bait, aren’t I.”

He shrugged. “So?"

"Do you expect me to entice him up here?"

"No. I expect to meet him on the battlefield. You are not me bait. You are me trump card."

She uncurled her legs and leaned forward. “Then you have nothing to lose by giving me your protection as long as I am under your roof."

Now the pleats curved ever so slightly. “Why should I?”

"Because you need someone you can trust. You see, I know someone in the castle wants to betray you.”

He uncoiled from the trappings of the coverlet and strode toward her. His blatant nudity—and his indifference to it—shocked her. She yanked her gaze from his swaying genitals and fastened on his face. His expression was more brooding than Buachaille Etive. "What makes you say that?”

She maintained her indolent position. "A letter.”

Arms akimbo, he asked, "What did it say?"

She found it very, very

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