Duty of the Chieftain - a Highland 'Lord's Right of the First Night' novella (Clan MacKrannan's Secret Traditions #3)

by Jonnet Carmichael

  He took the bedhead in both hands, and kept watch over Elinor's closed eyes and open mouth. And he stretched back a little, continuing to stroke into her but denying her his total length.

  "…Watch her hands at work on my arse, for she'll demand the whole of me when she needs it."

  Encouragement was not enough. Demands be damned. She needed him closer, all of him as deep as she could pull him into herself. She took fresh hold of him and dug her fingers into his flesh, straining her hips off the pillow to meet him. And the Chief seemed to know what she had to have, and rocked deeper into her.

  "…Aye, aye, here it comes! I now take full control. Ye'll hear from the bride if I time this exactly..."

  The pleasure built in waves synchronized to each stroke. He was far more insistent and moved faster in and out, conquering her into addiction to his mastery. Her hands fell away to clutch at the bedsheet. He knew where she must go now, and how to take her there. She'd been anxious that he'd withhold his moving and here he was moving all the harder as if nothing would stop him.

  Every slap of his sac against her was another step on the path. Her body left her own control and gave itself up to the delightful assault. One moment it was loose and tingling and the next it began to tighten up in a most frightening manner. She did not know what the peak was until her body began to seize hard and she squealed, her insides cramping to keep her in the bliss there.

  "…god's… teeth… she is the tightest… in her clenchings… I have known!" he exclaimed, finding it required much extra effort to move his cock now, yet keeping up the rhythm through her bliss even as her squealings began to fade into loud exhalations of every breath.

  Only when she opened her eyes in amazement did he slow his pace, just to talk to her.

  "Ye've come back to us now, have ye, Elinor?"

  He stroked a long one, this time a full shocking thrust.

  "…And how do ye feel, sample bride?"

  Again he gave her a fast thrust from near out to beyond full in and watched it jolt her up the bed.

  Elinor could think of nothing sensible to say, for words were none so important as the feelings stirring again inside her.

  She clutched at his hair, and her eyes were hungry. "…More…"

  "Nay, nay! I stay in ye only because this would be yer husband's time to spend, and he would be moving a whole lot harder in his urges. A bride must realise that, and obey his needs."

  The Chief gave her one more battering thrust of the kind she should expect, just by way of education, and then pushed at her hips to free himself. He clambered off the bed and fetched a carved basin of warmed water from the fireside, and some cloths from the neatly folded stack beside it. He paid no mind to his cock, though it pulsed yet and glistened.

  Elinor lay quiet as the Chief replaced the pillow under her bottom with a cloth. He washed her as gently as he'd taken her at first, and her skin tingled as he worked in all the places his hands and manhood had been.

  "Take note, Ishbel, that I have spoken no words while I washed her parts and everywhere I have touched. I just smile at her, as if we share a secret, and hush her if she speaks. And then I would kiss her for the last, and call for Ginny to come in and dress her and tidy her up for sending home."

  "And yerself, milord?" said Hessa. "Do ye dress yerself at the same time?"

  "Nay, I stay bared until both have left the chamber. The sight of the Chief in his regalia so soon after the breach would embarrass her something hellish. I just lay on the bed while she is being dressed and tell her again how bonnie she is, and wish her well and suchlike."

  Hessa peered at Ishbel's list, checking the phrasing of the final question. "And what about your lustful condition, milord? Does it usually recede during the time of the washing and dressing, or do you leave it upstanding?"

  The Chief's cock showed no sign of receding at all, she saw. It had regained its full color after being blanched a little by the unusual tightness of the sample bride's channel, and had stayed upstanding ever since.

  "A fair question, Hessa. Too many factors dictate the outcome of that to give ye any standard answer. What matters is that the lassies never bother either way, for a bride is by then consumed with thoughts of what awaits her at home with her new husband. My duty is done, and my cock my own business."

  He slapped his thigh. "And there ye have it, ladies. This bride has been full readied for her husband in the way of the customary Lord's Right, with many MacKrannan additions, and yer own ideas now incorporated."

  And before the Wisewomen could speak, the Chief said, "…Agatha, a helping hand, if ye please."

  He dropped his legs over the far side of the bed, and sat with his back to Elinor and the Wisewomen. Lady Agatha's cheeks bloomed a little as she arose and walked swiftly around the bedposts to kneel in front of him. Seeing the Lady Agatha's position, Beatrix thoughtfully delivered a little basket of kerchiefs for which she was most courteously thanked before being abruptly dismissed.

  The Wisewomen did not know where to look, but kept looking anyway, just in case this needed recorded.

  Elinor's only recourse was to pretend she wasn't there, and she lay shimmering in the last throes of her bliss and intimate washing while the featherbed began jerking around her.

  She could not think how Lady Agatha could bear to do such a thing in front of others. This had nothing to do with the Bride's Right, which had officially ended. The Chief was merely using his wife to provide him with ease as an afterthought.

  Mercy, could they not go to their own chamber? Elinor's whole body was now being jostled around on the bed, and her humiliation knew no bounds.

  The Chief spoke throughout the time his wife took in her manual ministrations.

  "…A pity to waste… more of yer input… since ye are here… Aye, that way and harder…"

  The women heard his breathing grow increasingly laboured.

  "…My goodly wife… hard as ye can manage, my dear… AYE, like that… and a tremendous help ye were… Agatha with the rousing… AYE!"

  All in the chamber saw the Chief's back stiffen and heard his teeth click shut, and a gutteral gnashing escape his throat as Lady Agatha reached for a kerchief with one hand and pumped all the harder with the other. And in the calm of the aftermath, when the Chief's shoulders had slumped forward and then straightened back to normal, they also heard an exchange they were perhaps not supposed to, it being muttered so low.

  "…Little wonder that our Ranald spent in her, him being exhausted and no' at his best. I had a hell of a job myself to keep from spending when she blissed."

  "There's both of ye have now said of her tightness."

  "And his control as fine already as mine will ever be! I will bid him do the duty of the First Night more often, for the practise."

  And then the rustle of Lady Agatha's robes as she stood, and some kerchiefs discarded, and the tilted heads of kissing in between the naked Chief's growling words of love to his much-appreciated wife.

  The Wisewomen again sighed like a choir.

  Elinor did not join them. She felt quite the harlot to even be present in the chamber during this tawdry ending, let alone right next to it on the bed. The Bride's Right had been a beautiful ritual made of purity and learning and bliss, and then suddenly this vulgar act! What she had shared with the Chief was special. She'd hold onto that.

  Hessa the Grandam's cottage was so hectic that she'd started an appointment system. The Chief ignored such impudence and strode in during the Wisewomen's evaluation of his own performance.

  Ranald was fair glad to see his father, for the indicators were marked so high out of ten that his own failings with Elinor were becoming more apparent by the minute. Even worse, Elinor was there discussing the Chief's deflowering program test phase like a professional and comparing the detail with his own real activity.

  "We were just talking about the oil, Sir Thommas," said Elinor. "Hessa says that the full body oiling seemed to take much extra time to remove when you washed
me. I have no comparison with that, of course, not having being washed by Ranald."

  Ranald had no' even gotten as far as the washing. Elinor had been out the door the minute he'd spent in her... aye, spent, to his shame, yet his father had withdrawn after the bride had blissed. Blissed, b'god. He had no' even given her that. Several times damned.

  "I wouldna worry yerselves," said the Chief. "Times I will take longer at the washing than I take for the breach and bliss anyway. It's the winding down time, and making sure the bride is recovered from her ordeal and ready for her husband..."

  He turned to Elinor and asked, "And how is our sample bride this fine day?"

  Elinor did not even blush, for her expression was one of contentment after an exceptionally sound sleep. Although still a little piqued at what Thommas had done at the end, the memories of the bliss which had taken over her body had been more than enough to ensure her dreams were pleasant.

  "I am well, Sir Thommas. Very well indeed."

  "Good. Right, I believe the Wisewomen have questions on the finer points. Fire away."

  Ranald, by a simple process of elimination, had deduced long before the event that it must be his father who would test the Bride's Right with Elinor. What Ranald had not foreseen was the swamp of jealousy he now felt at the easy way Elinor looked at his father, as if there was some secret between them.

  This brought Ranald to a state of mild unease.

  Elinor and himself were almost strangers yet. Most of the week and more since they'd coupled – and then officially met – had been taken up with his five-day absence to see the king. He'd spent far longer on horseback journeying between castle and court and back again than he'd spent with the woman who became his wife yestreen… the same woman bedded by his father last eve, with tuition from his mother, and in front of the three Wisewomen.

  Something about the whole situation seemed a bit off, no matter that it saved his heritage as chieftain, and he was now being forced to listen to Elinor providing the gathering with more of his own shortcomings.

  "…and Ranald had not shaved, so it was quite a peculiar sensation having his face on me compared with his father's fingers with the oil…"

  Elinor was rather enjoying the power she had to make Ranald uncomfortable, as he clearly was. She was the star of the moment, and she wanted him to envy what she'd received as the sample bride. There was one other thing she could say that would really get a reaction from him.

  "…Ranald nearly blissed me using just his tongue," she said, full of mischief. "But then he stopped and said 'Your mouth on me! NOW!' so I had to do that instead."

  A nasty silence came over the cottage like a prickly blanket, and Elinor knew she'd gone much too far. All eyes in the room turned to Ranald.

  The chieftain had taken just about enough comparisons that found him wanting. "I do no' recall saying it like a demand, Elinor," he said with narrowed eyes. "It was said as a question, an offer of the next part of the bride's tutoring. Ye had chance to cry off if ye wanted."

  The flame of a candle sputtered and blew out.

  "I didn't mean to infer…"

  A goddess statuette toppled from the mantel, bounced off the hearth and landed face down at Ranald's foot. The Wisewomen began muttering positive affirmations to little avail.

  "Aye, ye did, Elinor! And just so that ye know, elsewhere ye'd no' be getting the chance to cry off any part of the Lord's Right. Hell's pit, it's the talk of the royal court that the new Earl of Aldcanton sits with his cock in his fist while his mistress breaches the bride with four fingers in a leather glove. Dinna go telling folks ye've been hard done by, and acting like ye're the latest expert!"

  Ranald slammed down his tankard and stormed out the cottage.

  Heritage be damned. He'd sooner trade places with his brother in Ireland than put up with this nonsense.

  And to hell with that idea as well. Elinor Keirston had done enough damage since she came here. She'd no' be losing him his place as chieftain with her bloody scoring system.

  He'd get this sorted once and for all. Feisty was a good thing in a wife, but using it to debase her husband in public was the worst of all misdemeanors.

  The Chief looked at the door shaking on its hinges, and then raised an eyebrow at Elinor.

  "My apologies, Sir Thommas. Perhaps I was a little insensitive."

  "A bride is never allowed to bliss afore she is breached. Never."

  "Oh… I had forgotten that… I wasn't told so until recently…"

  "Ye must beg Ranald's forgiveness, Elinor." He took her hand and rubbed it, and an intimacy loomed between them.

  "I am so sorry."

  "I know, lass. It's a mistake ye'll need to fix, though."

  The Chief was riled, and paced awhile. Elinor had just kicked his son in the ballocks with her words and shamed him in front of the Wisewomen. The Scold's Bridle had been put on women for less, the chieftain's wife or nay.

  The clan had a problem here.

  When he finally took Ranald's vacated chair to reconvene the meeting, he could see that Elinor was clearly much agitated by the affair. Best to let the matter rest and revisit it when all had calmed down. Other topics needed reviewing with the Elinor and the Wisewomen, and it was to these that he directed the focus now.

  "We will stick with the detail of last eve's sample bride scenario. Wisewomen, how was it for ye?"

  Hessa the Grandam spoke for all three. "We are honored to do duty by acting witness henceforth, milord. Yer checking for a maidenhead is important. We worry that a bride might even be early with child when she weds."

  "That happens once in a while," said the Chief. "The Bard has record of the times I have discovered that very fact and called the husband in to verify."

  "Exactly so, milord. But of course most brides, as ye have said, have maidenhead intact. Have ye given more thought to how we may record what ye've found at the time without yer saying it aloud?"

  "Aye. A hand signal of crossed fingers for a portcullis intact, and an 'O' made with my forefinger and thumb if her gate is already open."

  "An excellent method, milord. Ishbel, add that to the formal instructions, if ye please."

  The Chief put Elinor out of her misery by involving her again now.

  "And what of yerself, the sample bride? Did ye enjoy yer first bliss?"

  Elinor was relieved by his kindly tone. Her whole face lit up at the memory. "Oh very much so, Sir Thommas. It was absolutely exhilarating! Rather like the first time I galloped on a horse!"

  "Good, good! Anything else a real bride might like or dislike?"

  She should have quit when ahead. Instead she threw herself deeper into the hole that the Chief had just dug her out of.

  "Well… technically I was a real bride, Sir Thommas, having wed Ranald that day."

  "Maybe so," said the Chief with much caution, "but I will no' be making a habit of bedding my sons' wives. Ye do understand this was for the Bride's Right only, and done as part of yer service instead of the customary Tradition called the Coupling of the Chieftain?"

  "Absolutely," said Elinor, with a flick of her hand, dismissing the most important part as if nothing. "Anyway, perhaps I shouldn't mention this, but it was just awful to be there while Lady Agatha came to you afterwards and I think that part definitely needs reviewed."

  The Chief's voice came from a gravel quarry. "A bride would no' be there by that time. I needed my wife and saw no reason no' to have her help in that simple way, considering all that had gone on. And I expected ye would take it as an extra lesson for what Ranald might need from yerself when he performs his duties in this Bride's Right. Better that than him spending in any brides now he is wed to ye."

  The chilly silence was not one that needed filled with anything except Elinor's total retraction, but she kept going anyway.

  "Still, maybe you could make sure everyone else has left the bower before you… before Lady Agatha begins to… well, it was most embarrassing to be so close to… I could see her arm movi
ng with the utmost rapidity, you know! Or better still, you could keep it for later in the privacy of your own chamber?"

  An arrangement of crystals hanging from the ceiling began to chime discordantly and still Elinor thought to justify her viewpoint further. "It's not part of the Bride's Right by then, you see, it's only… well…"

  A heart-shaped ornament engraved with the word 'PEACE' fell from the wall and shattered on the stone floor. Elinor saw the Chief's eyebrow raised in expectation and finished vocalizing her thoughts. "…Well, it's just seems a needless indulgence. I can see why it would be better than a lord spending in the bride but I worry it might be construed as a lack of self-control on his part."

  The Chief's face appeared to have frosted over, despite his smiling nod.

  "Hmmmph. Let us remove yer worries, then. Ishbel, take note, if ye please. The MacKrannan doing duty in the Bride's Right will henceforth always be a married man. His wife will be present and witness throughout and do formal duty also. The wife's duties will be in the tutoring of the bride and in the easing of her husband's… let us call it 'tension'… after the bride has left the bower. Hessa the Grandam, would ye say that wording would be sufficient for the purpose?"

  Hessa hummed and hawed a little, but her misgivings were not about his lack of consultation with the Wisewomen before making such decree.

  "Milord, I would venture that ye could word it in blunter terms. The vocabulary in the record is already highly specific, for we dare not have anything which could be misinterpreted."

  "I thank ye, Hessa. Then let the duties of the lord's wife be recorded thus... At the lord's behest, the lord's wife will come to the bed and tutor the bride in the manual arts of husband-pleasing until the lord himself cries halt. And once the bride has left the bower, the lord may call upon his wife to to ease him to full spend in whatever way he chooses and with the Wisewomen present to witness both her actions and his spillage..."

  Ishbel's quill sped across the page, drips of ink flying off in all directions.

  "...Is that better, Hessa? I'm saying 'may call' for it's no' every time I would bother."