King's Warrior (Renegade Lords)

She considered this a moment, her lips pursed thoughtfully, then went up on her toes and touched her lips to his.

“Never fear,” she whispered, and he smiled against her mouth, at her thinking to comfort him. “Messages take a long time to travel through the snow. By the time Sherwood receives them, you will be long gone. As for getting through the gates… Well, I have Gustave, don’t I?”

He scowled.

“He wouldn’t say a word to harm me,” she told him, and Tadhg rolled his eyes, “and as for payments….” She smiled. “Well, I have Master Edwin’s coin and a pouch of a safe passage writs, do I not?”

“Contraband?” He shifted in front of her, spread his feet and curled his palm around the nape of her neck. “A nice lass like you? I’m shocked.”

She leaned into his touch. “Oh yes, there is no end to the things I’ll do now.”

“Thank God,” he said softly, and kissed her then, slowly, up against the side of the building, leaning her back and lazily stroking his thumbs down her neck, as if they were youths beside the barn door on a summer’s day, not full-grown fugitives on a winter’s night, him standing bare-assed naked in the snow.

Her hands slid down to the region in question, and she straightened in astonishment. “Tadhg, you’re naked.”

“Just my arse,” he clarified, taking her hand in his.

She laughed as he pulled her away from the door. “Why are you naked?”

“I thought you’d left. I was coming after you.”

She smiled a little. “Naked?”

“Saving time.” He drew her back inside the warm, fire-lit hut. She was laughing as he laid her down on their bed of hay. “We must arrive at Saleté de Mer in the deepest of night,” he said, lying down beside her.

“When no one is about,” she agreed, rolling toward him.

He pushed up on an elbow. “That gives us all day.”

“And the sun has not even risen yet,” she said with a brave smile. “Let us make it a very long one.”

“I shall make it the longest day of your life,” he promised, and she laughed as he leaned down to her.

“Oh, I wish…” she whispered fiercely, against his lips, then nothing more.

He whispered, “Don’t say it,” and kissed her.

They made love again, slowly, throughout the day, several times stopping without climax, to whisper about the stakes of his terrible burden or the flowers in Ireland, sometimes to feed the fire or themselves. But finally, at some point, after the sun had set, he set her free from the piling, mounting tension, like a cloud made of steam and flame, and found his release in hers, his joy in her pleasure, when she came, watching him, her body bucking, crying his name.

Tadhg had known many women in his life, high-born and whore, widowed and virginal. They had come to him with their arms and knees wide, come to the charming, half-tamed Irishman, to the king’s right-hand man, to the warrior and the knight.

But he had never come to them. His heart had stood aloof, distantly watching, muddied and ambitious for more. Not one of those women had kindled his spirit the way Maggie did.

Brave, earnest, innocent Maggie, who’d fallen in love with an outlaw who’d done nothing but use her, because she’d seen something better in him.

He knew now that even if he never saw Ireland again, he’d still somehow found his way home.

And tomorrow, he would leave her, for to bring her would mean her death.

This was his fate then: to leave home, and shred his heart as he tore free.

Chapter Thirty-Four

IT WAS SIMPLE to get back in through the gates of Saleté de Mer. The Twelfth Night revelries were at their height, and couvre-feu meant nothing. Candles and fires were burning all across the town, in the streets and inside homes, windows shining bright. Song and music drifted from homes and inns and taverns. Packs of men and boys were out, dashing through the streets wearing devilish masks.

Gustave was alone at the gates, reinstated to his post, happy to see Magdalena and exultant to take another bribe.

The moon swung huge and white over their heads as Gustave told them how Sherwood and his men had galloped away in a cloud of snow and mud yesterday morning after a small, almost violent delay at the gates, when no keys could be found to allow them through.