Tristan shook his head and stared at him. “And ye ask me why I want to kill him? No more questions. We are goin’ to Oxford to see yer cousin. Ye will help me get inside his castle if ye want to live.”
This could work to his advantage. Bertram didn’t care about his cousin, Louis, all that much anymore. They had been close as children, but Louis had become a pompous ass who thought he shyte gold. Bertram wanted Lily. He wanted to drag her through her precious village by her throat. First, he had to get to Sevenoaks.
“I know a MacPherson,” Bertram told him. “Elias. We call him Lion Heart.”
“My cousin.” Tristan took a good look at him and gave him a doubtful smirk. “Ye are friends with Elias?”
“Aye, he is a friend,” Bertram told him confidently. “I am a bit concerned that he might be in trouble.”
“Why?” Tristan’s brows dipped low over his eyes, making them appear darker, like roiling storms gathering in the distance. “Where is he?”
“In the middle of the plague.”
The killer pulled another dagger from somewhere on his person and held it to Bertram’s throat. “Ye are goin’ to show me where he is.’
Bertram pointed south and then thought of different ways to kill Lily as MacPherson set their horse toward Sevenoaks.
#
Another day and no one woke up ill. Could it be over? Was it possible that they were both truly going to come out of this alive? They and the children? Elias would have laughed at her. Of course he’d never doubted it for a moment.
“You gave me hope, even when you were ill,” Lily whispered across his chest. They had made love in a quiet house—thanks to Eleanor asking to keep the children for their wedding night.
“Ye have more courage than I, lass,” he replied, running his fingers over her bare back. “When I thought ye were infected, I didna think I could go on.”
“But you would have.” She nestled closer into him.
He nodded and spoke in a quiet tone. “I had to face what I didna even understand was such a terrible fear for me until I thought ye were dead. I had to stand against it as I had done with so many other fears. I couldna run and hide, though I wanted to.Anythin’ was better than goin’ back to Sevenoaks without ye. But ye lived and I was spared.”
She lifted her head and gazed at him. “And now you will be cherished and adored beyond measure by your wife and your children.”
He smiled at her and leaned down to kiss her. “Then I shall need nothin’ more.”
“You are terrifying, Elias,” she told him and licked his taste from her lips. “I have never seen a man fight that way you fought the bishop’s soldiers at the inn. I can see why you were a commander.”
“That is a part of me that will never come against ye, my lady. With ye, I am the gentleman knight ye deserve.”
She giggled and gave his nipple a little tweak.
He yelped out and sat up, folding her shoulders and head between his chest and thighs.
She squealed with laughter and leaped from the bed. She turned for the stairs and made a step to run but his arm shot out and took hold of her. He yanked her back to the bed and climbed on top of her.
He looked into her eyes while he pushed her thighs apart with his knees and then sank deep inside her. She cried out. He scraped his teeth along her neck and moved his hips, withdrawing and thrusting, tightening his buttocks on reentry. She held them and guided him with gentle squeezes and salacious little slaps.
“Ye are bold, lass,” he groaned and then erupted inside her, surging against her.
She watched and then rolled them over and took him from on top in the last moments of his rapture.
Aye, she was bold, and unafraid, and adventurous with his body. She worked her hips, undulating and pushing, impaling herself on him. She spread her body over his much bigger, much harder one, and trembled when he closed his arms around her, holding her waist in his hands.
He pushed her up, almost off him, then pulled her back down. He stayed hard enough to take her to the edge of passion and satisfaction and then leaped over the side of the precipice with her in his embrace.
They both slept until the middle of the night when Elias woke up hungry and padded down to the kitchen. He was quiet, but after only a few moments of sleeping in an empty bed, Lily woke up and followed him down.
They baked bread together and Elias took her from behind while they kneaded the dough. He moved slowly, naked against her backside. She cried out his name and sapped the last of his seed when she straightened and lifted her arms around his neck.
Later, they ate the bread, slathered in butter and washed it down with ale.