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Elias searched everywhere for Bertram, even on top of the reeve’s large house. He found Millie and John, dead from having their throats cut, as well.
He had to find the man. He and Lily were fighting to keep people alive and here Bertram was killing them for no other reason than his own sick desires. Elias had to stop him.
He left Lily with Father Benedict, who looked a bit stronger tonight, while he searched. He checked behind every bush and knocked on the door of everyone left alive in the village. He searched the shop and the empty homes of the dead, but Bertram was nowhere to be found. The bastard had once again eluded him.
When he returned to the priest’s rooms behind the church, he wanted to smile at Lily and wash her in compliments. He wanted to tell her how delighted he was that she’d injured Bertram. But there was no time now.
They hurried home to make certain Simon and the children were safe, though Elias had no doubt Simon could take on the taller Scotsman. Like Eli, he’d been trained in the art of battle by the three MacPherson brothers and was quite deadly for a man of God.
He was surprised Lily had agreed to go on their promised walk, though they didn’t go far and they didn’t use their torches so as not to alert Bertram where they were if he returned.
“What passes through the mind of a hardened Highland warrior,” Lily asked him under the moonlight, “that can soften his face and make him smile in the midst of a battle?”
He slipped his gaze to her and let his smile widen into a slow grin. “Ye watch me too closely, Woman.”
“You are easy to read without your mask.” She pulled down hers and smiled back at him. “Is it a lass? Someone from home?”
He laughed at her madness and looked up at the full moon. “Nae,” he said, sobering a bit when he thought of home. “I was thinkin’ of takin’ Charlie home as my son and teachin’ him how to fight.”
Her expression went utterly soft and Elias watched as her defenses that she’d built long ago began to crumble.
“You mean to…make him your son?”
He couldn’t help but gaze at her like a soldier seeing home after a long battle. She radiated, outshining the moon. “Aye, and Annabelle, too, of course.”
She nodded and brought her palms to her belly as she walked. “Annabelle, of course.”
“Lily.” He took her hand and stopped walking, stopping her with him. He pulled her gently into his arms, afraid to squeeze too tight. But this woman, though she appeared as if she might shatter, never would. She never had. She stood bravely in the face of a devil and had never broken down.
He enveloped her as the treasured lass she was to him and let his lips steal slowly over hers. “And ye.”
He kissed the breath from her, molding her mouth to his, sweeping his tongue across her lips and coaxing them open. He suddenly stopped and withdrew enough to look at her. “I’m goin’ to put my tongue into yer mouth. Dinna bite it off.”
“Your tongue?” she asked a bit nervously, tempting him to smile at her innocence.
“Ye will like it,” he promised on a whisper and dipped his head to kiss her again. Her lips were soft, her mouth sultry and pliable. He parted her lips with his tongue and she opened to him and then stopped and withdrew.
“Why would you think I would bite off your tongue? Did Father Benedict tell you that I cut off Bertram’s nether…sword?”
Elias stared at her for a moment and then stepped back, letting her go and bringing his hands to his groin. “Did ye say ye cut it off?”
She nodded, visibly upset that she had frightened him. But after a moment and a good, deep breath, he let his smile shine on her. Still, he was in too much disbelief to speak. This was Bertram they were talking about. She’d cut off his—how? When? He asked his questions numbly.
“I added a mixture of valerian and nightshade to his ale every night with his supper to make him sleep and keep him away from me. One night, when his men were on a mission doing I do not know what, he struck me and left me by the fire and made his own drink. I awoke later to find him atop me, trying to have his way. I snatched his dagger from his belt and reached between our bodies to grab hold of it in my hand. He did not know what I was about to do. I slipped my other hand between us and sliced it off with all my power.”
Elias stared at her in the moonlight, marveling at her courage. “Ye are fierce, lass.”
“I did not feel fierce. I still do not.”
“’Tis instinctual to want to stay alive, stay safe. When that is taken away, some crumble under the weight, some stand up and even if they go down, they go down fightin’. To me, those are the lion hearts. That is who ye are, Lily. Ye have the heart of a lion. But why did ye not kill him with yer herbs?”
“’Tis not my place to take someone’s life.”
“Nae,” he agreed. “‘Tis mine.”
She smiled and lowered her head. He put his index finger under her chin and lifted it. “Come and be my bairn’s mother, the only woman who shares my bed, and my heart, and all that I have.”