Until the Knight Comes by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

few as gifts for his allies.”
    “Then so be it,” Kenneth decided, too aware of how the top swells of her breasts shimmered in the torchlight to wonder overlong why she hadn’t mentioned a connection to Jamie’s clan before now—and excusing the coming dent in his coffers with the smile on young Jamie’s face.
    Much pleased himself, Kenneth stood. “The matter is settled,” he declared, lifting his voice. “Macpherson cattle it shall be. This very afternoon, I shall secure sufficient coin to please Munro Macpherson, no matter his demands.”
    And, he promised himself as the hall broke into a great stir, he’d use the opportunity of retrieving the siller to seek a much needed
remedy
of his own!
    One that wouldn’t endanger his heart.
    And hopefully skilled enough to cure the itch plaguing him!
    He turned to frown at that
itch,
but found her gone, vanished as swiftly as she’d appeared.
    Only her scent remained, its faint echo teasing and beguiling him, making him want more.
    Enough to lose and drown himself in—and propel him from the hall before his men noted his discomfiture and guessed the reason.
    A
reason
that slipped from the shadows so soon as he rounded the screens passage and stepped into the curving passage beyond.
    He stopped short. One brow arched and his entire body tightened. So much so he risked giving her a slow, deliberate smile.
    But she disregarded the warning signs and came right at him, stepping so close that her breasts brushed his chest. So near that her scent swirled around him, inflaming his senses and blotting all thought . . . save dark ones!
    “Lass—you dare much,” he said, so hard he could scarce breathe.
    “I know,” she admitted, surprising him. “That is why I waited for you—to tell you the truth away from your men. Especially Jamie.”
    Kenneth blinked.
    This wasn’t what he’d expected.
    His heart thundering, he gripped the back of her neck, tipping her head so she couldn’t look away. “What does Jamie have to do with . . .
this
?”
    This time she blinked. “W-with what?”
    In answer, he dropped his gaze to where her breasts pressed against his plaid.
    “Oh!” She blinked again, moistened her lips. “I lied about Jamie’s father’s cattle,” she said in a rush. “He looked so . . .
besieged
when the others were baiting him and I . . . I wanted to help him.”
    “And you did—most cleverly,” Kenneth owned, snaking an arm around her when she made to pull away. “But I wonder if the lie was worth the risk?”
    “The risk?”
    “Oh, aye—a great risk.” Kenneth nodded. “The one you took in coming so close to me,” he said, tightening his hold on her, drawing her closer still. “See you, lass, I am going to kiss you now,” he added, already lowering his head.
    “Kiss me?” she murmured, even as his mouth slanted over hers. “Knowing you mean to marry me off to someone else?”
    “Even then,” Kenneth asserted—just before his tongue glided hotly against hers.
    Later that day, in the soft light of the gloaming, Kenneth drew rein at the thick, circular base of Dun Telve, one of several hollow-walled brochs nestled deep in the woods of his beloved Glenelg.
    Russet-colored bracken and great clusters of wet, late-blooming heather pressed against the broch’s ruined walls, the wild tangle of undergrowth nearly blocking the low, stone-linteled entry passage, a sight that reassured him.
    Dun Telve looked . . . undisturbed.
    Relief sliding through him, he released the breath he’d been holding.
    Truth tell, save the differences wrought by the turning seasons, little had changed since he’d last visited this silent remnant of Scotland’s distant past. A night he’d sought shelter, a place to secure his coin.
    A fortune earned during his toil as a merchant seaman, his years spent as a successful if reluctant gatherer of seabird oil, one of the most highly prized commodities in all Christendom.
    His chest tightening, he touched the three vertical