Page 24 of Wicked Passions

After the chamber door closed, Isla counted to one hundred, then bounded out of bed and discarded her shift. From the bottom of her trunk she pulled Callum’s hose and shirt that she had kept for this purpose, and after donning the hose, stood with her arms outstretched as Morag expertly bound her breasts with a length of linen bandage.

“He’s a handsome one, that Glennoe,” said the servant with a sly grin. “You should have told me it was him you liked. Leith says the king praises him often. Learned and steady. That is the kind of man a wild lassie needs; he can cool you, and you can warm him.”

“Oh, hush,” said Isla, rolling her eyes. Naturally, when she’d approached Leith for assistance, he’d told his wife. But not even they knew all of her mischief at the cottage.

All of her wickedness.

Leith and Morag had half the tale: a bold lady liking a laird and deciding to help him with sword lessons in secret. They certainly didn’t know she’d spied on that laird being pleasured by his squire. Or that the laird had licked her cunt until she screamed in ecstasy. Or that she’d then touched herself while watching that laird suck his squire’s cock and swallow his seed.

Not even her two loyal servants would assist if they knew that. Breaking the king’s rule about assisting an entrant was bad enough, but doing so and disobeying her coldly pious mother and father to swordfight and perform lewd acts with two men…that was far too much troublemaking, even by Isla Sutherland standards.

“There,” said Morag as she fastened the end of the bandage with a small knot. “How does that feel? Firm enough?”

Isla nodded and pulled the shirt over her head. After Morag braided her hair and twisted it into a tight ball at the nape of her neck, Isla donned a short cloak and one of Leith’s soft velvet caps. “Young lad?”

“Aye. Now run. Leith has more messages than he thought; the king asked if he might add a few private letters to his satchel. I believe one is for the bishop. If you don’t leave now, you’ll be out for the entire evening and then your mother will have all our heads on a pike.”

Leaning forward, she wrapped her arms around Morag. “I wish you were—”

“Here now, don’t be sniffling all over me,” the servant replied, patting her arm. “I’ve mending to do and a large dish of marzipan to eat. Away with you.”

Blowing her a kiss, Isla dashed across the chamber before peering out the door into the wide, torchlit hallway. About twenty feet away, Leith leaned against the cool stone wall, his fingers drumming impatiently against his satchel, and she closed the chamber door, then hurried over to him.

The silver-haired man smirked. “You’re looking remarkably well for someone with belly gripes.”

“Shhh,” she replied archly. “You’re as tart-tongued as your wife.”

“Except she gets a roaring fire and a dish of marzipan. You conceded to all her demands, didn’t you?” Leith said with a mournful sigh.

Isla shook her head at the theatrics and dug into her cloak for a large handkerchief-wrapped square. “I brought you some, before you groan like an old oak tree in the wind.”

He brightened, tore the handkerchief away, then devoured the entire sweet treat in two bites. “Mmmm.”

“May we proceed?”

“We may,” said Leith happily, as they descended the steps and crossed the inner close of Stirling Castle.

The sun was just beginning to set, giving the golden lime-washed gleam of the Great Hall a peach hue. Deliberately, Isla lifted the collar of her cloak and widened her step as the lads did. The last thing she needed was someone glancing out one of the windows and recognizing her.

The armed guards at the gate made her throat as dry as a desert, but they merely inclined their heads and waved them through with a polite, “Leith. Laddie.”

When they were far enough away for privacy, Isla exhaled unsteadily. “That was easier than I thought.”

Leith shrugged. “I come and go frequently with messages for your father and mother, but now the king is making use of my fine thoroughbred legs, the guards are especially courteous.”

“I’m convinced Morag wed you for those legs alone.”

“Quite overcome at the turn of my calf, she was,” he agreed fondly. “And my hedgerow eyebrows.”

Not for the first time, envy surged at the deep, abiding love Leith and Morag had for one another. Twenty-five years they’d been wed, and although she knew their lack of children hurt their hearts, it had never stopped them lavishing care and affection on each other, or waifs in their path.

Could she have a marriage like that? With a man like Callum, it certainly seemed possible. Aside from Leith, he was the kindest, warmest soul she knew, with a magical tongue and a brilliant brain. Alastair would be quite a different husband; protective, earthy, and raw. He wouldn’t softly chide a tart wife, he’d be a stern master who ordered her onto her knees to take his cock in her mouth until she swallowed every drop of his seed. Or tease her swollen pearl mercilessly with his fingers while whispering lewd things in her ear, but withhold release until she begged and begged…

Isla nearly stumbled on the path.

Saints alive. Where had that thought come from?

She was a strong, unconventional young woman, as Morag had said, in need of a learned, steady husband. Not a rough and brawny squire with blue eyes to drown in and paw-sized hands that could both tenderly caress a cheek or possessively grip the back of a neck.