Fenella's face registered the proper amount of interest and awe. Then she said, "Fuzzytail had her kittens while you were away. Would you like to come and see them? They have just opened their eyes today."

"Oh yes!" Fiona replied excitedly.

"The meal will be on the table shortly," Fenella said. Then she took Fiona off to see the new kittens.

Iver took brought them goblets of mulled wine and took their capes away. Together the laird and Alix sat down upon a settle next to one of the hearths, the heated spiced wine in the goblets warming their hands. They remained silent for a few minutes, the crackling of the fire in the fireplace the only sound.

Then the laird said, "Are you glad to be home, lambkin?"

"Aye, I am," Alix said.

"Queen Marie would have gladly had you in her household," the laird noted.

"But I prefer the company and life at Dunglais," Alix responded.

"Why?" he asked her pointedly.

Alix considered a moment. Then she said, "Are you not happy to have me here, my lord of Dunglais?"

"Of course I want you here!" he said half-angrily. "Do you think otherwise?"

"Why do you want me here?" she inquired, neatly turning the tables on him.

"You are good to my daughter," he answered her quickly.

"Is that all, Colm?" she replied.

He was very quiet for what seemed a long time, and then he answered her with another question. "Do you love me, Alix?" His gray eyes searched her face anxiously.

"Aye," she answered him without hesitation. "Do you love me?"

"Aye," he responded as quickly, gazing into her hazel eyes, and his heart leaped with pure happiness at the look of joy upon her sweet face at his answer. He took her two hands in his and kissed them passionately. "You will marry me!" he said. He didn't ask. It had been a statement pure and simple.

"Aye, I will!" she told him, laughing. Then she grew serious. "But what of Sir Udolf of Wulfborn, Colm? He still seeks among the families on both sides of the border for me. Does the dispensation he carries require my obedience? Must I marry him unless he frees me of the obligation?"

Malcolm Scott looked puzzled. "I do not know," he admitted, "but if we have wed according to the laws of Holy Mother Church in Scotland, can the rite be denied by the church in England?"

"I am not a scholar," Alix said. "We must ask your priest. Until then say nothing, my lord. And after we have had the benefit of clerical counsel I would like us to tell Fiona first. She should be consulted also if you propose to make me her mother."

At that moment Fiona came running into the hall cradling in her hands a small white kitten with a tiny pine tree of a tail that was both black and white. "Look!" she said. "This is Fuzzytail's daughter. She has two brothers, but they are not nearly as pretty as she is. Can I have her, Da? Please!"

The laird looked to Fiona. Then he looked to Alix.

"I think Fiona is old enough to have her own cat," Alix said. Then she turned to the girl. "But the kitten is not ready to leave her mother, ma petite. She is still just a wee babe. You must take her back to Fuzzy tail until her mama can wean her from her teat and teach her to hunt. But you can certainly visit her every day and play with her."

"What will you call her?" the laird wanted to know.

"Bannerette," Fiona replied.

"Bannerette?" The laird looked puzzled.

"It is very clever, Fiona," Alix told the child. "I think it a perfect name."

Fiona beamed proudly. "I will take her back to Fuzzytail now, Alix."

"Hurry, ma petite. I see they are about to serve the meal."

Fiona ran off with the kitten.

"Bannerette?" the laird repeated.

"The kitten's tail is like a little black and white banner. When she grows up, it will be more obvious. And since she is a female, she is Bannerette, not Banner," Alix explained to him.

"As Fiona grows, I understand her less and less despite the fact I adore her," Malcolm Scott said. "But you understand her completely."

Alix laughed. "She is a girl. Of course I understand her."

The laird pulled Alix into his arms and, caressing her face, he said, "You are the most perfect woman, lambkin."

"And you are the most perfect man," she responded, gazing up at him adoringly.

He kissed her tenderly, wondering why it had never been like this with his wife. But he had been given a second chance, and he was going to take it. He loved her, and she loved him.

"I will give you all the children you want, Colm," Alix told him. "A son, however, will displace Fiona as your heir. Will you mind?"

"You want more children?" Was he pleased? Of course he was pleased!

"Don't you?" She looked concerned by his question.

"Aye! I do! But if you did not want to have them…" His words trailed off.

"Of course I want children!" Alix exclaimed. "Why would I not? Son or daughter, my father did not care. But he and my mother had both agreed that they would only have one child. My mother did not want to give up her duties as one of the queen's ladies. Now I wonder if perhaps she had and we had gone back to Anjou, she would be alive today. But if that had happened, I should not have met you, Colm," Alix decided.

"You would have been wed to some wealthy merchant's son," he decided with a grin. "And you would get fat with his children and good cheese."

Alix laughed. "Now I will get fat with your babes. What is it you call them?"

"Bairns," he replied. "You will get fat with my bairns. And I intend plowing a deep furrow with you tonight, lambkin, and every night thereafter until you bloom with my bairn." The laird found her lips again and kissed her hungrily. "I did not like sleeping in a sleeping space at Ravenscraig while you lay alone in a tower chamber."

"I was not alone, my lord," Alix reminded him breathlessly. "I had Fiona with me, but for a wee lass she takes a great deal of space, and she kicks. I am quite bruised."

"I shall kiss those bruises away tonight," he promised her.

"Come to the board," Fenella said, and they realized that the hall was rilling up with the men-at-arms and the servants.

And to Alix's delight the meal was a hearty venison stew filled with chunks of meat, carrots, and onions all swimming in an herbed brown gravy. There was crusty bread, butter, and cheese as well as baked apples with cinnamon that had burst their skins and oozed into the serving dish surrounded by thick yellow cream. The wine in their goblets was heady. Fiona fell asleep at the table. She was quite exhausted from her journey. Alix picked the little girl up and took her to her chamber, where she undressed her, tucking her into bed. Kissing Fiona's head Alix went to her own bedchamber.

To her surprise, Fenella was there overseeing some of the men as they brought hot water to fill a tall oak tub. "I thought you would like a bath," the housekeeper said.

"I could certainly use one," Alix admitted. "I have not had a proper wash since we left Dunglais almost a month ago. And I am surprised I do not have nits in my hair."

"While you bathe more than most," Fenella said, "I will admit a good bath tonight will not harm you. Downwind you do bring the flavor of the court."

"Where is the laird?" Alix asked her.

Fenella smiled. "Still in the hall," she said.

"I think he might use a bath too," Alix murmured.

The serving men had filled the tub and departed.

"Give me your clothing for the laundress," Fenella said.

"Where is Jeannie?" Alix wanted to know.

"Her mother is ill. She's been at her cottage caring for her and her brothers. I'll send for her on the morrow," Fenella replied.

Alix removed her traveling garments and left them for Fenella to sort through as she climbed into her tub. The water was blissfully hot. She washed her long honey-colored hair first, then took up a cloth and washed herself. She could almost feel the layers of dirt sloughing off as she scrubbed herself. Fenella had disappeared with her clothing. Briefly Alix enjoyed her solitude, and then the laird came into her bedchamber through the door that connected to his.

"Fenella says you think I need a bath," he said.

"You do!" Alix told him. "I'm through."

"Do not move from that tub, lambkin," he growled. "I expect you to wash me." He quickly pulled off his boots and his clothing. Then he climbed in with her. The water was dangerously near the top of the oak tub. He smiled a wicked smile. "Bathe me," he said.

And when she did so most efficiently, he was surprised. She washed his hair, and then she washed his face, his neck, his shoulders. "In olden days," Alix explained, "it was the castle chatelaine's duty to bathe her important guests. My mother told me that it was a custom still practiced in more rural areas of Anjou. She said bathing a man was like bathing a baby, except everything was bigger on a man."

"Much bigger," he agreed, taking her hand and drawing it beneath the water to where his long thick cock bobbed.

Alix's fingers closed about him. She fondled him, her hand moving up and down the turgid manhood. She leaned forward and kissed his mouth with her open mouth. Her tongue traced a path about his lips. "Is such a thing possible?" Alix asked him, and he knew exactly to what she referred. "We mustn't spill water on the floor."

"It is indeed quite possible," he told her. "And if we are careful we will not spill a drop of this water. And you have made the act a necessity with your wicked fingers, lambkin." Reaching down, he clasped the delightfully plump cheeks of her bottom as Alix wrapped her arms about him. He raised her up, carefully impaling her slowly on his eager cock. Her legs had clasped him about the torso with primitive instinct. Slowly he backed her against the tall sides of the wooden tub.

Alix had gasped with unadulterated pleasure as he filled her. She wanted it to be just like this for the rest of her life. The one small interlude they had enjoyed a few days ago had but whetted her appetite for him. "Fuck me, my lord!" she whispered in his ear, licking the flesh, nipping at the lobe. Then she gasped again as he began to comply. Alix could feel every inch of him as he delved into her depths. She sensed his high lust as his manhood grew even firmer within her wet heat. The beast throbbed, and it quivered with its desire. Alix could hardly breathe now, so great was her own excitement.

"Yes! Yes!" she hissed in his ear.

"Tell me when, my sweet lambkin!" he groaned back.

"Not yet! Not yet!" She trembled in his arms as he vigorously used her, and then she screamed softly, "Now, my lord! Now!"

He felt the tremors racking her as his manhood satisfied itself, and she collapsed, sighing, on his neck. "There will be more tonight, lambkin," he told her as her legs fell away and his hands released her buttocks. "I have a new delight to teach you soon."

They exited the tub and dried each other before climbing into bed. The servants would remove the tub in the morning. Malcolm Scott drew Alix into his arms and kissed her forehead. "Whatever happens," he told her, "you are mine, lambkin. I will not allow this Sir Udolf to have you. I will kill him first."

Alix snuggled happily against her lover. For the first time in months she felt really and truly safe. Whatever the church said, she would not marry the English baron. But perhaps it would never come to that if he did not find her. How likely was it that Sir Udolf Watteson would come to Dunglais? And certainly when he learned she was the laird's mistress, perhaps even when or if that time came, his wife, he would give up. Wulfborn was a fine estate. Now that Hayle was gone there had to be some good family with a daughter Sir Udolf could marry and get children upon. But she would not be that woman. "What is it that you would teach me?" she asked the laird.

"To suck my cock," he told her. "And when you have mastered that talent, I shall reward you in kind," he promised her. "But not tonight. We have traveled long and I will admit to needed sleep now, lambkin."

"I am content," Alix told him. Their water sport had been vigorous, and she was sleepy too. She was glad to rest. And then in the gray of very early morning she awoke to find him stroking her body with gentle hands. Alix sighed and stretched herself, almost purring. He said nothing as his hands fondled her breasts. Spoke not a word as his lips brushed the nape of her neck. She could feel him hard as he pressed against her. Alix turned, her round naked breasts pushing against his smooth warm chest. Their bellies and thighs meeting, flesh upon flesh.