Helena. A trial was double-edged. So easily it might lead to the word guilty being placed on Keir’s name. There was much to condemn him and little to clear his name. Fear dug into her, raking its claws across the fragile hope she had kept cradled against her heart. As more days had passed, it had become harder to keep her hopes kindled against the amount of time that passed without Raelin being recovered.
“When, McKorey?”
“Tomorrow. I figured those English wouldn’t tell ye until ye were standing before them.”
Keir scowled.
“I didna do it.”
Alarik shrugged. “Of course ye didna. Ye’re a Scot. Ye’d have snapped his neck with yer own hands, or I’ll rip that kilt off ye myself.”
“It’s a relief to have someone who understands me at last.”
Both men chuckled, making Helena shake her head. Men did not make sense. Their humor was incomprehensible. But that left her with nothing to ponder but the coming trial.
Keir tried to kiss her the moment Alarik left.
“Don’t.”
She pushed past his arms and he frowned at her.
“’Tis good news.”
She turned on her husband. “How can you say that? Without Raelin, there is no witness.”
“Ye’re assuming the lass will have something to say that will point the finger at the man who paid for the crime.”
Helena frowned.
“’Tis most likely that yer brother was slain by an assassin that those English lords will say I paid. A trial has always been the only end to this.”
He crossed his arms over his chest in a pose that she recalled too well from their first few days together. The man was fixing to be immovable.
“I am strangling in this waiting noose, Helena. I’ll face every peer they line up to judge me and gladly.”
“They may return a guilty verdict.” Her voice trembled in spite of her effort to contain it.
“Better some decision than this.” He opened his hands to indicate the chamber. “I willnae live like this just to hold onto life. ’Tis no life, Helena. I want to take ye to Red Stone, nae babble about it like some old man who is too broken by age to step outside any longer. Time will do that to me soon enough. What is the point of growing old if I have nothing to talk about except these walls when I get there?”
He meant it. Rage flickered in his eyes but it was the frustration that punctured her own temper. He nodded and closed the distance, reaching out and pulling her into his embrace in spite of her protests. They were only halfhearted ones. In her heart she understood that the man she loved was dying in front of her eyes.
“I cannae bear to think of ye growing round with my babe in this place.”
And he wouldn’t tolerate her thinking him coward enough not to face what was to come. Of course not. That gallant man she had first been attracted to could never hide in a prison because it allowed him to draw breath.
“I love ye, Helena. But I am nae content to hide.”
She reached up and placed her fingers against his lips. “Let’s not speak.”
He kissed her fingers, agreement shimmering in his eyes. But there was also a glimmer of anticipation. He was eager for the battle. Of course he was. So she would be as well. Instead she reached for him, her fingertips far more familiar with his form now. For all the horror that the chamber might have seen, in the last month it had been a place where they had become lovers, where they laughed and teased, doing all of the things that time had not allowed them to do.
Keir threaded his fingers through her loose hair, pleasure lighting his eyes. Here she left it hanging down her back because she knew he loved it that way. He pushed the dressing robe off her shoulders, leaving her in her chemise. He bent his head, angling it so that his lips might be pressed against her throat. He kissed the smooth skin and she gasped at the heat. It rippled over her skin and down her body. Only a loose chemise covered her and she made a little sound of delight when he pulled her against his own shirt-clad body. Her breasts were free to enjoy the way they compressed against his harder body. His cock was hard and it pressed against her belly.
But her husband lingered on the column of her throat, teasing her with unhurried kisses before gently biting her. It was a soft