"I'm sorry," she said simply.
"You said that afore."
"It needed saying again."
"If you say so."
"What are your plans?"
"For what?"
For me. For us, her heart cried out. But what she said was, "For Jamie."
He shrugged.
"Are you happy about being a father?"
He didn't answer immediately. When he did, she could tell that he was trying to hold some strong emotion in check. "Yea, I am happy to be father to Jamie. He's a fine boy, despite… well, he's a fine boy. But I am not happy to have lost five years of his life."
"Oh, Rurik! How could it have been any different? Even if I'd informed you, I was married by then. I had never actually told Kenneth about how Jamie was conceived. Be honest. I was nothing to you. A bairn would have been an inconvenience."
He shook his head. "I would have wanted to know. Even if I could not have taken an active part in his life, I had a right to know. I would have looked out for his welfare… even if only from afar."
Maire could understand that sentiment. "What will you do now?"
"About what?"
Me? What about me? What about us? "Will you stay in the Highlands?"
"I cannot. I must go to the Hebrides to… well, suffice it to say, I have a… uh, job to do there."
A lump the size of the rocking boulder formed in her throat. "You will allow yourself no time to become acquainted with your son?" she choked out.
"Mayhap… mayhap I could take him with me."
Before his words were out, Maire cried, "No!"
"Not forever," he offered in a voice that was soft and conciliatory. "Just for a short time."
"No!" she repeated adamantly, then added quickly, "I could not leave Scotland with him, even for a short time."
Rurik's face pinkened with embarrassment.
Maire tilted her head in question, then realized her mistake. Rurik hadn't invited her. Just his son.
"You are not taking my son from me," she declared firmly. "Do not even think I would allow you to do that."
"Not even if it's for Jamie's own good?"
"What good could there be in taking a child from his mother?"
"Young boys are sent away to foster all the time."
"Not my boy!"
"Perchance this is a decision best left to the boy. Ask him, Maire. Ask him what he wants."
"This is my decision to make, and mine only."
"Nay, you are wrong. 'Tis my decision, too. I am his father."
"You told Cailleach that you are incapable of love."
"Cailleach has a big mouth."
"That is neither here nor there. Jamie is only five years old. He needs love."
"He has it," Rurik said flatly.
"You love him? Already?" Oh, this was worse than Maire had envisioned. If Rurik loved him so soon, he would never abandon the boy to her sole care. Never. "Rurik," she pleaded, "it would kill me to lose my son."
He pushed away from the tree and brushed past her as he returned to the path leading back to the keep. Over his shoulder, he informed her in a voice so muted she could scarce hear, "Just as you are killing me."
"Seduce him."
"Wh-what?" Maire shrieked, jumping with fright. Cailleach had come up behind her where she stood on a small knoll overlooking an inlet on the loch behind the keep at Beinne Breagha. Rurik was alone, swimming… swimming hard… the kind of energetic exercise a person engaged in when he had a demon riding on his back… or a witch.
"Ye heard me. Seduce the Viking. It won't be the first time."
Maire's face warmed with embarrassment at the idea that Cailleach might be aware of exactly what she'd done to seduce Rurik the last time they'd been together. But she couldn't know that. Could she? "What good would that do? It will take a lot more than a bout of lovemaking to solve our problems."
Cailleach rolled her eyes. "For a witch, betimes ye are mighty dumb. It might open the door a crack, girlie, and that's all ye need. A crack can be as great an opening as a wide-open door in some circumstances."
Maire knew Cailleach had only her best interests at heart, but could she really seduce Rurik again? That business with the chain mail had been an inspiration. She had no more tricks up her sleeve.
"You need no tricks, Maire," Cailleach said, as if reading her mind. "Just you."
Maire was about to question her old friend some more, but the witch was gone in a whirl of dust. So, Maire turned back to her study of the loch, and the swimming Rurik, and already she was walking downward, murmuring to herself, "I… can't… believe… I'm… going… to… do… this. I… can't… believe… I'm… going… to… do… this. I… can't… believe…"
Rurik couldn't believe his eyes.
Maire was walking gingerly into the lapping waters of the loch… naked as the day she was born… except for the amber necklet. Her hair was plaited off her face into a single braid down her back. She shivered, then dove into the cool water. When she came up out of the water, like a red-haired sea nymph, she didn't even glance at him. She just began swimming toward him with firm overhead strokes that propelled her swiftly to his side.
If Rurik could have run, or swum away, he would have. But there was nowhere to go, except toward the shore… and her. He stood his ground in abdomen-high water and waited. She arrived moments later, splashing water around her like a puppy just learning to swim.
He was not going to be amused.
"What are you doing here, Maire?" he growled.
She stood wobbily and brushed some loose strands of wet, red hair off her face. As she panted for breath, her breasts heaved where they were barely covered by the blue water. Droplets of water rolled down in a mesmerizing path from the amber pendant toward the enticing cleavage between her breasts.
He was not going to be mesmerized by her breasts.
"I came to seduce you," she informed him, finally answering his question… not that he recalled precisely what his question had been.
He was not going to be seduced.
"Why?" he asked, and his question sounded lackwitted even to himself.
She blinked at him, the wet clumps of her lashes oddly endearing. Her lips quivered slightly, as if she were unsure what to reply. And the water continued to lap about her breasts.
Really, he was not going to like her clumpy eyelashes, or her trembling mouth… even if it did look moist and kiss-some… and he most definitely was not going to notice those bobbing breasts.
"Because I want to," she said boldly, "… to seduce you, that is. Because it seems to be the only way to break through that wall you've erected around yourself. Because I'm so sorry, and I want to make it up to you. Because it's not right for the parents of a little boy to be so at odds with each other. Because I'm afraid you'll leave suddenly, and this might be my last chance."
He was not going to… oh, to hell with the inner protests!
He didn't know what to say, being drawn in two different directions as he was. Anger and the need for revenge were powerful emotions, even when offset by a soul-deep yearning to surrender to her seduction… not to mention an erection, luckily hidden underwater, strong enough to float a boat.
Tears welled in Maire's green eyes as he waited too long to respond, and she spun around, proceeding back to shore with steady, proud steps.
"Oh, all right," he called after her. Rurik didn't know where those words came from. They just emerged, and he had to admit, they felt good… as if he'd just shrugged off a huge weight.
She stopped in her tracks, and waited.
He couldn't find the right utterance to please her; so he decided to act, instead. Diving underwater, he came up quickly behind her. Wrapping his arms around her knees, he dragged her underwater with him, hearing her squeal of surprise through a watery filter.
They rolled around together, underwater, as each tried to wrest control from the other. Legs entwined, arms around each other's shoulders, they pressed their lips toget
her, then let the waters float them to the top.
For a minute, they stood, just staring into each other's eyes, afraid to speak, not wanting all their problems to intrude. Maire's hands were still on his shoulders, his were at her waist. Her breasts ebbed and flowed against his chest hairs, and he could see that the nipples were turgid from the cool water.
He was about to tell himself that he was not going to be aroused by that erotic sight, but that would be a lie. And Rurik was not about to risk the fate of a lying Viking… especially not at this instant.
"Wrap your legs around my hips," he urged in a sex-husky voice.
Without speaking, she did as he asked.
He took her buttocks in each of his palms and eased himself into her sheath. "You are so incredibly tight… and welcoming," he whispered against her exposed ear, as he adjusted himself inside her.
"You are hot marble," she whispered back. "How can you be so hot when the water is cold?"
"You heat me, heartling." Rurik had no idea where that endearment came from when moments ago he had been hating her… or thought he'd been hating her. But he could tell that the endearment pleased Maire because she moaned softly and repeated the endearment back to him. He had to admit, he liked the sound of it on her lips.
Then he showed her how to move on him. And, Holy Thor, she was a fast learner. By the time he lowered his mouth to hers, he was voracious in his appetite. His hands were everywhere at once. His lips were alternately pressing and gentling her, his tongue plundering, then licking. As his peak fast approached, he wanted to end his torment, and he wanted this agonizing pleasure to last forever.
"Aaaaaahhhhhhh!" he cried out, his head reared back over his arched neck as his orgasm arrived in deep waves that seemed to suck the very life out of him. And Maire's insides continued to clench and unclench him as she arrived at her own peak and shattered with little sobs of, "Oh… oh… oh… oh!"
He stood stock still in the water, her face buried in his neck, his arms wrapped tightly about her lower back as he kissed the top of her hair. What had just happened?
He'd been seduced, good and proper, and in a humiliatingly short period of time, that's what.
He should have been angry, he supposed.
Instead, he smiled.
"Uhmmmrn, Rurik," she inquired, leaning back slightly, which caused his "Lance" to take new interest in her shifting channel, "you did not pull out before the end. Do you suppose that spilling your man seed inside my body while we are in a loch will prevent me from conceiving? Will the water wash it away?" Her face was flame-red as she asked her question, but it was an important one… one he'd obviously not thought of.
"I have no idea," he answered truthfully. "Later, I will probably be alarmed by that fact, but for now I cannot care. I am more interested in what 'Lance' is up to." He waggled his eyebrows at her and flexed himself inside her body.
She laughed… a most frivolous, joyful sound. "Up being the most important word, I presume," she replied impudently.
"Precisely." He was about to show her just how far up he could go, when he heard an odd sound. Close by. And it sounded like… a dog.
Swirling about, with Maire still in his arms, and Lance still in his element, Rurik almost fell over with astonishment. It was a dog, all right, who was swimming rapidly toward him, his tongue lolling out with excitement.
" 'Tis Beast. My pet wolfhound," he informed Maire.
"But how can that be? Isn't he in Northumbria with…"
They both looked toward the shore, and groaned simultaneously. Standing and sitting astride horses were a vast array of finely dressed folk: Tykir, Eirik, Selik, and their wives, Alinor, Eadyth, and Rain, not to mention a large number of children. And witches were swooping forward, too. And a slew of Scotsmen. And his comrades-in-arms, Bolthor, Stigand, Vagn, and Toste, including Jostein.
Lance immediately drooped and slipped out of his safe harbor. Maire drooped and slipped down into the water till it covered her up to the chin.
"Do something," she ordered him, as if this were all his fault.
He did the only thing he could think of.
He waved.
Rurik was sitting at one end of the great hall, sipping uisge-beatha with Tykir, Eirik, and Selik, who declared the beverage a gift from the gods, and determined to carry barrels of it back with them to their estates in Northumbria and Norway. All five of his Viking comrades were there in the background, indulging equally, even Jostein, who was full of himself for actually succeeding in bringing Rurik's three friends back with him, along with a troop of fifty men, even if their services were no longer needed. The soldiers were camped outside on the hillside of Beinne Breagha, none the worse for wear, especially since they'd been given rations of uisge-beatha, as well.
Eadyth was off examining some natural beehives with Nessa. Eirik's wife was an expert in raising bees and selling their products in the markets of Jorvik, including what she called the world's best mead. It was.
Alinor, Tykir's freckle-faced, red-haired wife and the most pestsome woman this side of Niflheim, had one of Maire's weavers in hand and had trotted off to an outbuilding, where she was examining the looms. Already she had mentioned a new pattern they might not be familiar with. No doubt, she would be inspecting the sheep, too. Alinor thought she knew every bloody thing in the world about the wooly-headed animals and their products. She probably did.
Rain, a noted healer and wife to Selik, was in the kitchen, where a line of patients had already formed for her medical diagnoses. Everything from ringworm to the lung cough.
Beast, the traitor, was off trailing after Rose, of all things. Eirik had told him with disgust that Beast was too fastidious by far and had declined to breed with his bitch wolfhound, Rachel. Fastidious, hah! Not when he'd developed an affection for an ugly cat!
And Maire was an even worse traitor. She'd left him to face all his friends alone. In fact, she was probably biding somewhere, hoping she wouldn't have to come out till everyone was gone, which was not bloody likely. He'd been the one who'd had to walk out of the loch bare-arsed naked, to the laughter of one and all. He'd been the one to carry her garments out into the water so she could cover herself. He'd been the one to shoo everyone away so she could emerge in dignity. And how did she thank him? By running away and leaving him to face the jests of his old friends. And that was just what they'd been doing for the past hour… making mock of him.
The most persistent teasing related to the witches.
"Ne'er have I seen so many witches in one place in all my life," Eirik proclaimed as he watched through the open door, wide-eyed and gape-mouthed, as a half dozen of the old hags practically flew by in the courtyard, chasing after a herd of black cats, which were chasing after Beast, who was chasing after Rose. "Not that I have ever really witnessed witchery in the past." Eirik sank back down into his chair and directed a gaze of astonishment at Rurik.
"Do they all live here… born and bred?" Selik inquired with equal amazement. "Are they your witches, Rurik? Or do you have a habit of drawing witches to your person… like the one who marked you?"
"Nay, they are not my personal witches. They're here because of Maire," he explained with a frown on his face.
"Maire called up this vast array of witches?" 'Twas Tykir who spoke now, and his tone implied that Maire must be daft.
Now, Rurik had considered Maire daft on more than one occasion, but he did not like others suggesting the same thing. So he defended her by saying, "It was an accident. She only wanted one witch… Cailleach, her old mentor… to come, but her spell went awry… and all the witches in Scotland somehow arrived." The explanation sounded rather daft, even to Rurik's ears.
Rurik hoped his explanation, daft as it was, would satisfy Tykir, who was the most persistent fellow when he got a bug lodged in his… well, body cavities.
"A spell? Gone awry? Is Maire really a witch, then?"
He should have known Tykir would not just drop the subject.
"Yea, she i
s a witch. Nay, she is not a very good witch. And, afore you ask, yea, I have made love with the witch again. And, nay, she has not turned other body parts blue."
Everyone raised his eyebrows at the excessive explanation.
"I see you still have the blue mark," Eirik remarked, not even trying to hold back the smile that twitched at his lips.
Rurik's only response was a growl of displeasure.
"But Rurik Campbell?" Tykir asked with that infernal grin on his face. And, really, Tykir had the most irksome grin in the whole wide world. Besides, what the Campbell name had to do with his blue mark, he had no idea. He suspected his old friends were jumping from one distasteful subject to another, just to throw him off balance. 'Twas a tactic he'd employed with them on more than one occasion.
"How could you… a fierce Viking warrior… become a Scotsman?"
"I told you," Rurik hissed. "It was a misunderstanding. I did not become a Scotsman."
"I suppose you will be eating haggis now," Tykir commented with an exaggerated sigh, "and playing the bagpipes."
"Nay, I have not developed a taste for haggis, and Bolthor is the one who has taken on bagpipes as his weapon of choice."
"Odin's Balls! Do not tell me," Tykir said in an aside to Rurik, so as not to offend the skald. "Bolthor is playing the bagpipes… and reciting poetry?"
Rurik nodded and plastered an evil grin on his own face. "And I can guarantee you, he will be doing both for you back at Dragonstead this winter."
Tykir looked as if he'd been poleaxed.
"But you have a son," Eirik pointed out, still belaboring the Campbell appellation that Rurik had been given by Maire's clan, "who will one day be a Scottish laird."
"Yea, but being father to a Scots-boy does not make me a Scotsman. Oh, what's the use! You men will believe what you want anyhow."
"Rurik is right." It was Bolthor coming to his defense, to Rurik's surprise. "He did not become Rurik Campbell because of Wee-Jamie. He became a Campbell because he is their hero."