Bride

by Stella Cameron

  Struan caught her wrists and held her hands against his chest. “You do not understand, my love. There are so many things you do not understand. I am going to return you to your rooms, and I want you to—”

  “I will not go.” To emphasize her resolve, she pressed her face to his chest, her bared breasts to the backs of his hands. “I will not.”

  His cheek came to rest atop her head, and Justine swallowed a sob. “Listen to me,” Struan said. “There are matters we cannot speak of. Know that I love you. I have told you so and I do not trifle with such words. Remember them. Hold them in your heart. But do not press me—not now—perhaps never.”

  Emotion poured upon Justine as a warm wind bearing daggers of ice. Confusion. Joy and despondency. Hope and fear—desperation.

  “You believe everything my grandmother said.”

  Struan caressed her shoulders, her back, her waist, with trembling hands.

  “Don’t you?” Confusion fled, leaving cold clarity in its wake. “Don’t you, Struan?”

  “I will not speak of it.”

  She raised her head and found his eyes tightly shut. “You will not speak of the truth? But I think you should. My misguided grandparent has persuaded you that should you become my husband in the only true sense, it may cost me my life. She—”

  “I insist you do not speak further of this.”

  “And I insist that I do. And that you listen. Your concern is that you may hurt me.”

  When he opened his eyes they shone black in the shadow. “That and more,” he admitted.

  “Just as I thought.” She drew a deep breath. A bold idea formed. “Especially you fear making me with child.”

  “No more, Justine. Do you understand?”

  “Do you understand that you have nothing to fear?”

  There was about him a glazed quality. “Come,” he murmured. “To your rooms and I will ensure you are warm there.”

  “I shall be warm here. With you. Your body will keep me warm. You need not fear that I shall die from childbirth. It is clearly impossible.”

  He stared at her and his gaze gradually became acutely clear.

  Justine pulled his neckcloth loose and removed it. She kept her eyes upon his and worked his jacket from his wide shoulders and down his arms until it fell away.

  Struan frowned.

  She undid his shirt, pulled it from his trousers, and sent it the way of his jacket.

  “I find I prefer you without clothes, my lord.” Once more she drew close, pressed her breasts to his rigid chest, and surrounded his waist with her arms. “Would you not feel more comfortable without the weight of your trousers?”

  His response was the oddest sound.

  The course she had embarked upon was reckless. “If I were likely to bear a child I should undoubtedly already have done so.”

  Muscle grew solid beneath Justine’s hands, and she closed her eyes. Whatever she did, she must not appear nervous. Breathing slowly through her mouth, she smoothed his buttocks and let her touch rest there.

  “What are you saying?” His voice held an edge of steel. “Be careful how you explain yourself.”

  Justine forced a laugh. “I only tell you to allay your foolish fears. You did not imagine Lord Belcher would offer for me out of simple generosity, did you?”

  “I imagined nothing at all about Lord Belcher except that he was the fop you described. And that he was ninety.”

  With her eyes lowered, Justine shrugged out of her robe. His trousers were complicated, as complicated as they were unfamiliar in construction, but she accomplished their unfastening.

  Struan gripped her shoulders and shook her. “Justine?”

  The trousers slid past his hips easily enough. “Ah, I see you have reason to thank me for my efforts,” she told him as his manhood sprang free and full. Her heart thundered now. Blood pounded in her ears and she feared she might faint away entirely.

  “Explain yourself.”

  She would try. Within the bounds of her scant knowledge, she would attempt to convince him of a lie. “Lord Belcher is considerably younger than ninety. I do not like him, but neither do I entirely abhor him.” Tugging Struan’s trousers past his muscular thighs was a taxing task, and made the more difficult since her concentration threatened to fly away.

  He stopped her at his knees and set her firmly away from him. In seconds he stood before her naked, his legs braced apart, his hands on his hips. “Satisfied, madam?”

  Hot and cold by turns, Justine could not respond. Struan, Viscount Hunsingore, was a magnificent man. If she was indeed an unnatural woman for thrilling to the searing desire he aroused in her, then she wanted to be forever and increasingly unnatural.

  Struan moved before she could react. He seized her by the waist and swept her from the floor. A few strides and she was deposited atop the counterpane on his ebony bed.

  All air rushed from her lungs. Some intense emotion haunted his eyes, the lines of his face, the set of his entire body.

  Anger. No, not anger—fury. Struan pulsed with fury.

  “I—”

  “Enough, Justine,” he said, his lips barely moving. “How many times?”

  Quelling the urge to try to cover herself, she scooted to the far side of the mattress. “Come.” She smoothed the space beside her. “Hold me.”

  “My God, I have been a fool. Tell me how often you’ve been with him.”

  The question seemed odd, but at least she could answer it honestly. “Many times. His visits to the area were not frequent when I was much younger. He was a boon companion of the Prince of Wales. Then he fell from the Prince’s favor after the old King’s first great illness—when the King recovered—something to do with having cast his political lot with the King and causing the Prince to give him the cut direct. Lord Belcher returned to Cornwall some time prior to the late King’s death, and since then I have been in his company often.”

  “Often?” His tone faded to nothing. Slowly, he approached and climbed to sit, looking down at her. “Yet you pretended you detested the man and you allowed me to marry you thinking you an innocent—as you should be. You allowed me to play the fool with your damnable book. Did it amuse you to have me explain what you already knew?”

  She had done what she set out to do. He believed she had done It with Lord Belcher. Justine suppressed a shudder of revulsion. If a woman were capable of bearing a child it would be as possible with one man as another. Therefore, had she been with Lord Belcher she would be as likely to increase as if she became wholly Struan’s wife.

  Justine smiled and felt muscles in her cheeks quiver. “I pretended nothing. You did not ask about such things. And I did—do need your help with certain aspects of my book. But that is not the issue here. Since I believe my grandmother is correct in saying you do not need more children, it seems to me the sooner we dispel your fears of my producing them, the sooner we can get on with the business of being husband and wife. Don’t you agree?”

  He did not answer.

  She should withdraw the lie at once. Such falsehood was unfair to Lord Belcher, and she had accomplished nothing but evident disgust in Struan.

  “Take off the gown.”

  Gooseflesh rose along her limbs. “No. I think it better not to—”

  “Take off the gown.”

  “You are angry. I do not want you to be angry.”

  “Do as you are told.”

  His stillness turned her stomach. He was as some great, dark animal, its strength coiled, ready to leap upon her.

  Struggling, Justine got to her knees. The room was chill but she did as he asked, pulled the gown entirely from her shoulders and pushed it down about her hips. “I have been wrong, rash and—”

  “Say no more, I beg of you.” Struan rose to his knees also. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he lifted her to strip away the gown, then set her down once more so that they knelt, thigh to thigh, his shaft an iron pressure against her belly, her breasts pressed to his chest.

 
Justine’s hand went to her hip.

  “How unfortunate your modesty is a false thing,” Struan said. He bowed his head, but not before she saw the darkness of pain cross his features. He said, “What I have longed for does not exist—gentle honesty. I mourn its absence.”

  “It is not absent,” she told him in a rash. “Not anymore. I have misled you.”

  “Indeed you have.” His lips descended upon hers with little finesse, yet her eyelids drifted shut and she did with her tongue what he did with his.

  He touched her everywhere, rubbing, pressing, probing her most sensitive places until she panted and felt herself grow slippery. Embarrassment mingled with anxiety, but if he as much as noticed she saw no sign of disgust.

  He would not let her speak. Each time she opened her mouth, he filled it with his tongue. And he held her where she knelt, pushed her thighs apart and, amazingly, thrust That part of him between to rest against pulsing flesh.

  Justine shuddered. And she felt an answering shudder in Struan. His skin grew heated and slick and his breath came in great drafts.

  It must be almost over. A wonderful, terrible, intoxicating and shattering thing. If he did not allow her to admit her lie—and forgive her—at least she would have been with him once, and if she were very fortunate there might be a child.

  “You are so very wet, Justine,” he said against her ear. “Wet and hot, my dear. A passionate woman. How could one expect you to live the life of a nun?” His sudden burst of laughter was wild and near-crazed.

  “Struan, please.” She plucked at his hair, attempted to pull his head away, to remove his mouth from its fierce sucking at her breast. A sheet of fire burst from beneath his lips, seared downward, tightened her legs against his shaft.

  “A nun,” he sputtered. “That’s rich. A nun and a…” Rather than finish, he made a simple chore of lowering her to her back, pushing her heels close to her body and burying his face in that “hot, wet” place.

  Justine convulsed. She thrashed and pushed impotently at his shoulders. No words would form, only sounds with no meaning.

  His tongue did There what it had done to her mouth, but with more devastating results. Those parts of her swelled, they swelled as her breasts seemed to swell and throbbed as her breasts throbbed. And another sheet of lightning heat burst beneath his mouth once more.

  “Struan!”

  Her hips jerked from the bed, but he did not stop.

  She did not want him to stop.

  The great building pressure exploded, shuddered until she cried out and was helpless to stop her legs from splaying wide.

  Struan’s mouth left her. Damp and throbbing, she struggled for breath and heard him extinguish the light.

  “Now,” he said, his voice the voice of a stranger. “Now you shall allow me what you allowed Belcher. I would make him pay for this, but such an action would make me a hypocrite, and that I will not be.”

  He had lost his mind. Nothing else could explain his senseless babbling. She managed to say. “You must banish Lord Belcher from—” Something… The end of his manhood pressed to the opening into her body! “Struan!”

  His lips silenced her. He rocked over her, pushing That against the sensitive place, sensitive and still pulsating from the amazing act he had performed with his tongue.

  Struan forced himself inside her body. Justine cried out, but she cried out into his mouth and the only noise was a moan trapped in her throat.

  He was huge and hard—and heavy. She clutched at his shoulders and tried to pull away. Struan only rocked more urgently, drove deep into her until she felt he would tear her in half.

  For an instant he paused, raised his face a fraction. She thought she heard him curse.

  Justine shifted. Rather than curse, he shouted this time and delivered a fierce burst of fresh penetration. He thrust into her again and again, breathing as if he were in a desperate race and might fall before reaching safety.

  Pain receded. Small frissons of sensation exploded like reflections of the wonder she had already felt. So this was It. Foolish tears welled and slid free. By deception she had caused him to join with her. By truth she must explain and then persuade him to accept that she would rather die with him than live without him.

  Abruptly, he grew still.

  Yet caught by the power that had grown within her, Justine stifled disappointment at its waning. She was not ready for his stillness.

  Something had filled her. Something warm. Her eyes flew open in wonder. Part of Struan, from inside him, had entered her. She felt an inexplicable rush of ecstasy.

  “Justine,” Struan said. He pulled out of her and lay, one heavy arm and leg pinning her to the bed. “Oh, Justine. You lied to me.”

  “No. I didn’t lie—not until tonight.”

  “But you lied tonight.”

  “Yes, I never—”

  “You were never with a man before. And you didn’t know enough to realize I would feel that you hadn’t been.”

  “Feel?”

  “Feel. Your sainted grandparent mentioned breaching your maidenhead, remember?”

  She couldn’t respond.

  “I just breached your maidenhead, and if you had been with the odious Lord Belcher, that would already have happened.” Justine swallowed with difficulty. “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “I tried to take back the lie, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “You made certain I was beyond listening, my sweet. I am merely a man. And you are a very desirable woman.” “I liked It,” she said in a small voice.

  “I rather gathered you did, damn it all.” He sat up in the darkness. “And if I am honest, I’ll confess I doubted your wretched little story.”

  The loss of his embrace left her shivering. “Then why did you—”

  “Why did I make love to you? Hah! Because I snatched the excuse you handed me. And now I must pay for it.”

  Justine reached for him.

  At first he didn’t move, then he gathered her into a crushing embrace. “Curse my own weakness. Pray to God I have not caused the unthinkable.”

  “You have not. No, Struan, it will be all right, I know it will.”

  “Nothing will be all right without a miracle. Without a storm of miracles.”

  “We shall do well. We shall be happy.” Justine smiled against the smooth hair on his chest. “I am cold.”

  “And I am a heartless failure. I have failed at everything.”

  Struan left the bed and put Justine beneath the covers. She waited for him to join her. When he failed to do so she called, “Struan,” very softly.

  “Sleep.”

  “Not without you.”

  “I cannot lie with you, Justine.”

  “But—”

  “As I have told you, I am merely a man, merely human. I do not trust myself.”

  She sat up and peered to see his silhouette against the window where a white moon demanded entrance. “This is our wedding night. Surely what has happened was as it should be.”

  “When did you last bleed?”

  Humiliation stole thought and word.

  “When? I must know.”

  “Sometime since,” she whispered. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

  “Because I must. When you bleed again, tell me at once.”

  She covered her face.

  “Justine?”

  “Very well.” Later she would understand. He would explain everything when he became more accustomed to their new state.

  “Listen to me carefully,” Struan said. “And please do not ask for explanation. It will be easier for both of us. There are reasons why it would not do for others to think I bore any affection for you.”

  Justine’s throat closed.

  “Do you understand?”

  She managed to say “No.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Perhaps it may even be better if you don’t understand. Merely accept that this will be the case. I have no desire to hurt you—the reverse. Shortly, wh
en I have tended you and you are rested, I shall return you to your rooms. In company we shall maintain a distant relationship.”

  Justine’s stomach ached with tension. “As you wish, Struan. I’m sure you will tell me the reason for this in time.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “As long as we are together in private I do not care for anything else.”

  The sound she heard was the thud of Struan’s fists on the casement. Against the moonlight she saw that he bowed his head.

  “Pray,” he said. “Pray for our deliverance from evil. Pray for us all.”

  Justine’s hand went to her throat. “Tell me about this evil.”

  “It’s enough that you know of its existence. If you care for any of us, you will not press me further.”

  He frightened her. “Hold me, Struan. Come and keep me warm.”

  “Sleep,” he ground out. “This night has been a mistake. The fault is as much mine as yours. Even more mine.”

  “No. Struan—”

  “I shall remember what has passed between us. And I shall long for you with every breath I take. But we may never lie together as man and wife again.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Cold. Whipped by the wind, her hair bound her eyes. She heard his footsteps but could not see him. “Wait! Wait for me!”

  The beating wind tore her words away, pressed her back, clawed at her bare, icy feet on wet and rotting leaves.

  Her hair streamed behind her and she saw him, his cloak filled with the wind He moved so rapidly—never looking back—that she would not catch him.

  She could not stop trying.

  Struan would take her with him if he knew she was there, if she could only make him see her. If he went from her sight he would go, never to return, and believe she had decided not to come this night, not to meet him as they had planned How she had hurried her breath ragged in her throat, desperately trying to meet him at the appointed time and place. But she had been late.

  He had said that if she proved her love by coming to be at his side on the journey, all would be well The past would be forgotten. They would be forever one in their love—but he would not wait.