Fire Along the Sky Fire Along the Sky

  “No,” said Simon Ballentyne. “You don't know it, not really. You want me to take you back home so you can see for yourself that he lied to you. And you hope he didn't.”

  She hadn't admitted that much to herself, but once the words were said there was no way she could deny them, to herself or to Simon.

  He crossed the room to her with such a furious look on his face that she drew back in fear. But he took her by the arms and raised her up to him and kissed her once, hard.

  “I'll take you home,” he said. “But I've a condition of my own. Once you've seen your precious Nicholas Wilde and learned the truth about him, you'll marry me.”

  Lily studied his face for a moment, the fierce purpose there and the anger he held in check. It was a dare, and one she might well lose. She could agree to this and find herself bound to Simon Ballentyne for the rest of her life. The idea felt so odd that she wasn't sure what to do with it.

  “But what of your family . . . connections? What about Angus Moncrieff?”

  He made a face at that, and she saw doubt flicker across his face. He was thinking of Luke, who had made his concerns known, and of her own father, whose reaction he could not predict. Nathaniel Bonner might feel as strongly, or more strongly, than Luke did about such a connection.

  “Were this Scotland, then aye, that would be a problem. But your father is a fair man, is he no?”

  “Yes,” Lily said. “But he has a long memory too, and the things Moncrieff did—”

  “Are unforgivable,” Simon finished for her. “But I hardly knew the man, and I'm nothing like him. Your brother can attest to that. I'll do what must be done to convince your father that I'm worthy of you. Do you doubt that I'm able?”

  “No,” Lily said, quite honestly. “I don't doubt that you could convince him, though it might take some time.”

  “Well then, I'm waiting for your answer, Lily Bonner. And let me say this: I'll no ask again.”

  “Yes,” she said, and started to hear her own voice so firm and unwavering.

  He looked at her hard. “You'll marry me, then?”

  “If . . . if things are as they seem at home. And if my father and my mother agree. Yes.”

  In her relief to have this settled—to know that she was going home—Lily relaxed against Simon and felt him tremble, his body responding to hers in a way that was unmistakable, and anything but unpleasant. For a moment they stayed just that way, eye to eye.

  “I must take you back to Iona,” he said, and set her down on the bench with a thump. Then he sat next to her, breathing as hard as a man who has run a mile uphill.

  Unable to meet his eye, she examined her own hands. “But there are details to discuss.”

  That earned her a sharp and suspicious look. “Details,” he echoed.

  “Well, yes,” she said. “When we'll leave and the rest of it . . .” Her voice trailed away, because he was grinning at her. Defiance was the only weapon she had to hand, and so she used it. “And it's really very early, still.”

  “Ah,” said Simon Ballentyne, and pulled her back into his lap as if she weighed no more than a feather pillow. “It's talk you want? Are you sure of that?”

  She struggled a little, and in response he held her tighter. “Must you be so . . . so . . .”

  “Honest?”

  And he kissed her before she could find the words to admit he was right.

  Later, when they were both so heated that they could hardly breathe, when Lily's bodice was off her shoulders and loosened to her waist and her breasts so sensitive to his touch that she thought she must scream, Simon pulled away from her.

  “What?” she said, her voice rough.

  We must stop, he would tell her now, and he was right.

  Lily thought of Iona, waiting for her. She thought of her mother and the words she had written. I know you to be an intelligent and sensible young woman.

  Simon Ballentyne said, “'Gin I dinnae take ye hame, lass, then I mun take ye tae ma bed. Tell me noo, which shall it be?”

  “You're speaking Scots.” She pressed her mouth against his throat. It thrilled her to feel him shudder.

  “Aye,” he said. “And ye havena answered ma question.”

  His hand was on her breast, callused fingertips exploring in light circles. A sound escaped her, a harsh sound that he caught up in his mouth, tongue against tongue. Sometime later he cupped her through layers of skirt to rock her on the heel of his hand. Behind closed eyes colors flashed, and she arched against him.

  “Shall I take ye hame?”

  “Please,” she said. “Don't.”

  He picked her up and carried her up the stairs. In the dark she could just make out a bed, a single chair, a shelf. He put her down on the coverlet, made a sound that meant she should wait, and left her for a moment. The air was cold enough to show her breath, coming too fast; her skin erupted in gooseflesh and she pulled the coverlet over herself.

  Then he was in the doorway with the candle painting his face in flickering golds and shadows. He looked at her for a moment and Lily thought, He's going to change his mind, he's going to take me home, and, I should go, and, God help me, I want this.

  Simon put the candle on the wall shelf where it threw a circle of light onto the very middle of the bed, and then he sat down next to her, close but not touching.

  “Lily Bonner,” he said roughly. “Have ye heard the expression ‘all's fair in love and war'?”

  She nodded. “I have heard it.”

  “Let me tell you then what it means to me. I'll do what I can to make you my wife, and that means I'll spend every minute in this bed doing my best to get a bairn on you. Now will you be sensible and let me take you back, or will you stay?”

  She was shaking, in fear and arousal and a little anger too, that he should put it before her like this, should rob her of the lovely fog they had spun between them. And he meant it; she could see it in his face. She wanted him, she wanted this, but the why of it slid away from her when she tried to make sense of it all. Nicholas, she thought, Nicholas and Jemima Southern, and then, Is that the only reason?

  No, it wasn't, truly. But was what she felt right now, what she felt when Simon Ballentyne put his arms around her, was that reason enough to risk the rest of her life?

  He was a good man and a kind one, a man who loved her, and made her laugh, and would take good care of her. A man who had hung a painting on the wall because it was her work, and never mentioned it to her. A man who seemed to understand her body better than she did herself, and who might do just as he threatened and start a child inside her, if she would not be sensible.

  When she got up from this bed again, she could be pregnant. A shocking thought, but she made herself contemplate it, thinking of the way women talked together, when no men were nearby.

  Once Lily's courses had started they had allowed her to stay and listen, and it had been a revelation to her. Women who would not speak in front of their husbands, who cast their eyes down rather than reveal what they were thinking, those women put their heads together and laughed, talking boldly of things Lily had only dimly imagined. Her own mother, while she said little, smiled into her lap and blushed in the way of a woman who is satisfied with her lot.

  Lily thought of girls who stood up to say their wedding vows with rounded bellies; she thought of others who had not married at all, but raised a child without a father. Such things happened often enough for Lily to know that she was not the first woman to find herself in this situation.

  She thought of the women who came to Curiosity or Many-Doves for medicine that would start a child, or keep one from coming. There were no simple answers, but some things seemed constant: there was a rhythm to a woman's month, good times and bad ones, depending on what she wanted.

  “Not every coupling starts a child,” she said, remembering the most important point suddenly, and with some satisfaction. Then she saw Simon's face. “And don't you dare laugh at me. It's true. I grew up in a household with books and I was
encouraged to read and ask questions. I know a little bit about these things. One coupling doesn't mean a child.”

  “Ah, but lass,” he said, running a finger down her arm so that she shuddered. “What makes ye think that either of us wad be satisfied with just once?”

  At that she could say nothing. She opened her mouth to chide him for such arrogance and then shut it again, because he knew more of this business than she did, and it was a point she could not argue.

  “Will ye stay?” he said again, calm now, so calm that she could barely contain her anger. Could not contain it. She leaned forward and cuffed him, hard, once and again, until he caught the offending hand and then flipped her over onto her back, held her there with the whole long length of himself.

  Against her mouth he said, “Will ye stay or shall I take ye back to Iona?”

  “For God's sake—”

  “Ye'll no draw the Almighty intae this, ye wee heathen. Bide or gang?”

  It took all her power, but she quieted herself, pulled in deep, even breaths, and made herself go calm.

  And he waited, studying her as she studied him: the dark eyes under heavy brows, the shadow of his beard, the shock of dark straight hair shorn short, so different from the men of her family. Her father and grandfather and brother went to great length to keep themselves clean shaven; they wove their long hair into plaits.

  Simon Ballentyne wore the hair on his head short, for ease, he told her, and cleanliness, as did the Roman soldiers of old. More than that, he was proud of his beard. She had noticed that early on.

  Lily said, “There are two things you must know. First, even if I do have a child, my mother and father might not approve this match—and without their approval I will not marry. The second thing is a condition.”

  He was looking at her very solemnly, all his attention on what she would say. Lily made herself breathe deeply, not knowing what she was hoping for: he might laugh and see her home, or give her what she asked for.

  She said, “If you will shave your beard, I will stay. And if—mind, I said if—we are to . . . make a life together, then you must stay clean shaven.”

  Maybe he had read her mind, for he showed no surprise at all. Instead he rolled away to stare at the rafters. “You must do it for me then,” he said, in English now. “And you must do it straightaway, before I lose my nerve.”

  They lit all the candles and the lamp that hung over the table, stoked the hearth and heated water, sharpened the straight razor and scissors, found a pannikin of soft soap and beat it into a lather, and finally Simon Ballentyne sat bare-chested on a chair with a piece of toweling around his neck and his hands fisted on his knees.

  “You have a pelt like a bear,” she said in a conversational tone, trying not to look too hard at his chest, well muscled and broad, the way his shoulders sloped away from a strong neck. His body hair was fine and straight, and it feathered across his chest and stomach and arms too, though there was none on his back, she was relieved to see. She said, “The Kahnyen'kehàka would call you Dog-Face.”

  “I've been called worse,” he said. “And for less reason. Get on with it, lass, or I'll bolt.”

  Lily went about the task as she did all her work: quickly, neatly, with no wasted motions, exchanging scissors for soap for razor, standing back to study her work and sometimes adjusting a candle for the light. After a while she began to hum a little.

  “You needn't enjoy it so,” Simon grumbled openly, and she stopped, razor poised, to look at him.

  “And am I not worth a little hair, Simon Ballentyne?”

  He reached out for her but she danced away, moving around the chair to work on his other cheek, the razor making rough scraping sounds as it revealed stripe after stripe of pale skin, such a contrast to the sun-darkened forehead and cheeks that she realized now how strange he would look, at first.

  Standing in front of him she said, “Sit forward, I have to be here to do your throat properly.”

  At that he raised an eyebrow, but he did as she asked and she stood between his open knees and tipped his head back to expose the long stretch of his neck, the prominent Adam's apple bobbing nervously beneath the shorn beard.

  “Don't swallow,” she warned him and instead he broke into a sweat.

  “There,” she said finally. “As smooth as a—”

  She hiccupped her surprise when his hands closed around her wrists. The razor clattered to the floor and the chair thumped. He lifted her bodily and settled her astride his lap.

  “But you've upset the bowl,” she scolded. “You've spilled the water.”

  “Damn the bowl,” said Simon, rubbing his freshly shaven cheek against hers, “and damn the water too.”

  He kissed her for a long time, his fingers busy on her ties and buttons until her bodice was loose once more, cold air on her skin and a warm mouth. A sound came up from deep inside her, from the knot of wanting that was centered low in her belly. She was frightened, mortified, and aroused beyond all imagination.

  She touched the hair on his chest and said, “Wait, wait . . .”

  “Will you keep the bargain we struck?” he asked her, all seriousness.

  She bit her lip and nodded, and at that he laughed, a full laugh from deep in his belly, and pressed her against his chest until Lily began to wonder if perhaps chest hair was not such a bad thing after all. He grinned at her as his hands worked her clothes and his own.

  “Simon Ballentyne,” she said, trying to slow things down at least a little. “You have dimples.”

  He paused then, raised a hand to a cheek and looked first surprised and then—oddly, sweetly—abashed.

  “Great deep dimples,” she added, tracing one. He grabbed her hand and held it away.

  She laughed. “You can't have forgot about your own dimples. That's why you grew a beard, isn't it? To hide the dimples because they make you look—”

  “What?” His hands moved to her back, hands so big that they covered her from nape to the small of her back, warm and sure, moving lightly, fingers curving around her ribs, thumbs stroking. “What do they make me look?”

  His grin returned and with it his intention, for he caught her mouth before she could have thought what to say.

  When next he let her catch her breath she said, “The bed?”

  “Damn the bed, most of all.” His hands moved under the tumult of her skirts to cup her bare buttocks. She started, and then settled.

  “Here?” Lily asked, feeling a little faint and wide awake, all at once.

  “Right here,” said Simon. “To start.”

  Later she hobbled up the stairs—refusing to let him carry her, out of embarrassment and confusion and so many other feelings she did not want to examine closely—and collapsed on the bed. It was then that Lily saw a different and entirely unexpected look on Simon Ballentyne's face.

  He drew back the blankets and the comforters and settled her into the feather bed, tucked her in and clucked softly, kissed her on the cheek and studied her as though she were burning with fever.

  “You never said you were a virgin.” There was regret in his tone, and accusation too.

  Lily said, “I thought you realized.”

  He frowned at her. “You and Wilde—”

  “No,” she said shortly. “We did not. He was married.”

  He is married, to Jemima Southern. Is it like this for them when they come together? The questions presented themselves and she pushed them away.

  Simon let out a great sigh and lay down next to her, his hands crossed on his chest. “On a chair,” he said, shaking his head. “What a bloody great idiot am I.”

  “Simon Ballentyne,” Lily said, turning on her side to face him. “If you're an idiot, what does that make me? Have you heard me complain?”

  He sent her a sidelong glance. “Ye squealed like a grumfie.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes and she brushed at them angrily. “What a disappointment I must have been, to make noise like a grumfie. Whatever that might be.” br />
  He sat up so suddenly the bed rocked. “Listen to me now, Lily Bonner,” he said, every word pronounced very carefully. “It's myself I blame. You did nothing wrong.”

  “And nothing right, either, it seems. You don't seem to have enjoyed it very much.” She was fishing not so much for praise but simple encouragement. Because, she admitted to herself, she wanted to ask him questions about this whole mystifying business.

  “Och, I enjoyed it,” he said, smiling. “You just took me by surprise. I'm an aye fortunate man, Lily Bonner, to have been your first, but I regret the pain I caused you. I would have been more gentle, had I known.”

  “Enough of that,” Lily said, irritated now and strangely heated, too, by the conversation. She said, “Do you always speak Scots when you're . . . you're . . .”

  “‘Aroused' is the word I think you want.”

  “Aroused.” She cursed herself for blushing.

  He thought for a minute.

  “I suppose Scots is what comes to me first when I'm in extremity of one kind or another. Surely when I'm angry, for English is far too weak a tongue when a man has a true temper on him. As far as this goes—” He ran a hand over her hip and rocked her a little. “That's a question you'll have to answer for yourself.”

  “So no one has ever mentioned it to you before,” she said, a question of course and an impertinent one that he would not answer, she was sure. And yet she was curious.

  He was looking at her, his brow creased. “Do you want to have that conversation, Lily? It's your right, though you might not like it, in the end.”

  She pushed herself up on an elbow and the comforter fell away. Cold air made the flesh on her back rise into goose bumps.

  “Sometime,” she said. “Not now.”

  “But there is something you want to ask, is there no? I can see it on your face.” His hands had begun to explore beneath the bedclothes, light touches on the inside of her thigh that made her catch her breath and tense.

  She struggled to make her tone casual. “It won't always hurt, will it?”

  At that he loomed over her and showed her the dimples he had kept a secret for so long.