get you mead.”
He nodded. “Mead will do.”
Olaf sank down on the pallet. His tired hands barely mastered the straps and buckles as he removed his plate armor and stacked the pieces beside the pallet. Then he waited. If he planned to stay the night, he ought to unpack and change. Sweat from the endless riding stained the linen shirt and braies he wore beneath his travel-worn hose and doublet. He doubted he could tolerate the soiled garments much longer, but quenching his thirst came before everything else.
Minutes later, the timber door creaked open on its iron hinges and Lady Brenna returned, carrying a pewter mug by its handle. A sense of wonder filled Olaf anew. Down in the stables, when he’d watched her shed the bulky helm and the chain mail tunic, her beauty had stunned him into an uneasy silence.
He’d seen her emerge, like a butterfly emerges from its drab cocoon, and an impulse had swelled inside him to stride across the room and tangle his hands in her ebony curls. He was one of three suitors, he reminded himself. The right to touch her might never be his.
Lady Brenna moved forward and came to a halt a few paces from him, leaning down to hold the tankard out to him. Glossy dark curls tumbled past her shoulders, glinting in the candlelight. As she bent toward him, her breasts strained against the thick wool of her doublet. Olaf shifted on the pallet, pretending to settle more comfortably against the wall, when in truth the discomfort throbbed beneath his leather codpiece.
“I’ve heated the mead and put some spices in it,” she told him. “It will help you rest.”
In silence, Olaf watched her. Her features held not only beauty but strength. Bold, straight nose, dark arch of eyebrows, high crest of cheekbones. The full mouth and the sweep of long lashes added a hint of softness, making her appearance an alluring mix of a female warrior dressed in a man’s clothing and a woman with her feminine curves on display. He doubted Lady Brenna was aware of the subtle invitation her figure-hugging attire sent to any man old enough to lust after a woman and young enough to do something about it.
As he continued his survey of her, a trace of color rose to her cheeks, and she spoke in a nervous prattle. “We had the chimney in the center of the tower built five years ago. Before then, we had to suffer the smoke rising from the fire pit in the middle of the floor downstairs.”
Fire pit? Olaf shook his head in disbelief. It might be 1541, but it appeared that in this remote corner of Scotland time had stood still for centuries.
“It’s too early for bed,” he pointed out. “And I don’t plan to sleep here.”
A flash of rebellion skimmed across Lady Brenna’s features. Olaf knew that she’d caught his meaning, understood he was reminding her of his threat to ride out if she hadn’t made her choice of husband by nightfall.
She held the tankard out to him. “Drink and sleep now,” she told him. Her mouth puckered, as if she disliked the flavor of the words on her tongue. “You might not have the chance later,” she added, and Olaf couldn’t decide if she was warning him that he might have to depart soon or hinting at the wedding night to come.
“Drink,” she said again. “It’ll do you good.”
He caught it then—a flicker of cunning that drifted across her features as she proffered the tankard at him. She lowered her eyes, refusing to meet his searching gaze. A frown of guilty conscience pleated her brow, alerting him to danger as clearly as a painted warning sign might have done.
He expelled a tired sigh. It didn’t matter. Death by poisoning, death on a battlefield. If Lady Brenna chose him, at least he wouldn’t have to ride back through those godforsaken moors and, in any case, he didn’t need to start worrying about every mouthful he ate until they were husband and wife, united by law. It wouldn’t make sense for her to kill him unless she could become his widow.
Olaf took the pewter vessel from her and lifted it to his lips. As he downed the first mouthful of the sweet mead, a wave of exhaustion swept over him. He tilted his head back and swallowed, time and again, the liquid burning a hot path down his throat.
When he was finished, he passed the empty tankard back to Lady Brenna. She didn’t leave the room, merely moved a few paces away from him and remained standing there, swaying gently, shifting from foot to foot. One slender hand rose, tangling in her hair, the nervous fingers toying with the ebony curls as she waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Olaf ceased fighting the fatigue that washed over him. His limbs grew heavy, his thoughts hazy. Drowsy warmth enveloped him, pulling him into its peaceful embrace. Just before the darkness of sleep claimed him, his thoughts sprang loose, his control crumbling away.
“I want you to be mine...mine to kiss, mine to wed, mine to bed...” He heard his slurred words but couldn’t stop their flow. “Lands...I want lands...forget lands...I want to taste you...put my hands on you...uncover your naked beauty...”
With the last grain of his awareness, Olaf registered Lady Brenna’s shocked gasp. She took a hasty backward step, retreating deeper into the shadows, but not before he saw a crimson flush surge up to her face.
“I want to be inside you and feel you tighten around me...until my seed spurts out and fills you with my babe....” His voice fell to a raspy whisper. “I want to curl asleep beside you...night after night after night....”
Overcoming her initial reaction, Lady Brenna moved closer, hovering in front of him, straining to hear his words. Olaf tried to reach out for her. An urge soared inside him to haul her against him and press his mouth against her rosy lips, and yet his body refused to move. With a groan of frustration, he slumped down on the straw pallet. Then a black void claimed him, and with it the images of his hopes and dreams.
* * *
Lady Brenna fled the guest solar, her trembling legs barely carrying her. The room opened to a corridor outside the laird’s chamber, and as soon as she’d crossed the threshold, she halted and barred the door. Then she turned around and propped her back against the smooth timber surface, her chest rising and falling with urgent breaths.
Her third suitor had a warm, rich voice, and now echoes of it filled her ears. She tried to forget his lustful ramblings, but her body throbbed and tingled with the sensations his daring comments had stirred inside her. Images of the arrogant, masculine beauty of the golden knight filled her mind, refusing to fade.
What would it be like, to be in love?
What would it be like, to dream of a man’s touch?
What would it be like, to eagerly wait for the night to fall?
A shiver of warning ran through Brenna, shaking her like a winter chill. Romantic love ruined lives. She’d enjoyed the best of it, the safe and undemanding love of her family, and she wouldn’t tempt the Fates by opening her heart to a stranger. Painful memories whispered through her mind. Her mother’s tears when the isolation at Kilgarren got too much for her and she chose to return to France. Her father’s grief, how he’d stormed out to the moors, roaring out his longing for her into the winds after she was gone and his loneliness grew too deep to bear, eventually fracturing his sanity.
Such a fate would not ruin her future.
She refused to let herself fall in love and then have her heart shrivel and die, the way her father’s heart had died when her mother
