Other days, he ties me to the bedpost, or to a rack meant for hanging meat down in the depths of his cellar. On special occasions, he does not tie me to anything at all, but brings out his riding crop and rides on top of me like his dirty little horse. On other days I’m his cow, and he pulls at my udders, trying to draw out the milk that I know is not long now coming.
But I am probably telling you too much. The Duke says stick to the sights, sounds and smells, to bring the story to life. So I will tell you only this: the sight I am currently witnessing is the maidservant, washing my Duke’s meat as he stands watching me write this letter, reading out choice sections to him, making his meat nice and hard and big, giving the maidservant a juicy treat. The sounds I am witnessing are the soft moans of my husband as the maidservant’s sponge touches his skin, as well as the scratch of my quill upon this parchment. And the smells… they are no longer the same smells I used to smell. I smell of lilies, of roses, of fresh violets and soap… but there is still something there on my skin. Something that will always make me smell like me: the blacksmith’s daughter.
PART THREE
THE LAIRD'S NEW BRIDE
Chapter 15
Ever since I’d been a wee lassie, growing up in my father’s Highland manor, I’d dreamed of one day being presented at the Assembly Rooms in the capital city of Edinburgh during the social season. Anyone who was anyone would head to that beautiful city of Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle, to waltz through the grand portico entrance, and surround myself with such finery as Corinthian pilasters, drapes, mirrors and crystal chandeliers. In 1822, King George IV himself had attended the assembly rooms! It had been said that the sudden rush of carriages and the roaring of coachmen was quite the spectacle to behold, and I for one wanted to be a part of all that glittering wealth and aristocracy in the near future.
Of course, growing up in my father’s household, it had always seemed as though it would only be a matter of time before it was my turn to be wooed and seduced by some rakish young fellow at the Assembly Rooms. My family came from old money, my grandfather having being married to the Marquess of Lothian, and as an only child, I’d known that it was my duty to carry on the family line by being married to another old house, maybe the MacGregors or the MacFarlanes. I had been sent to the oldest and finest finishing schools that money could buy, had been taught poetry, ceilidh dancing, and decorum by some of the finest etiquette teachers in the whole of Scotland.
But on my eighteenth birthday, all of my hopes and dreams came crashing down like cheap pottery. I was told to report to my father’s study at my earliest convenience by Buchanan, the butler, and so I did, after having taken tea in the front room with mother.
‘Ye mustnae get upset at anything yer father might divulge tae ye today, Caitlin,’ said mother, sipping heather and sage tea from a bone china cup. ‘He’s tried his best to keep everything stable for ye, despite particularly difficult circumstances.’
‘Aye, o’ course,’ I said, not really knowing to what my ma was referring.
I felt unduly nervous as I took the familiar walk to father’s study, past the bookshelves and antique sculpted ornaments. My family had always had expensive tastes, although our collection of artworks had rather diminished in size over the past few years. I’d wondered why it was that father had been selling off the old portraits and sculptures, but had presumed that it had been due to changing tastes or fashions or suchlike.
I struck father’s old oak door thrice as I had done ever since I could remember, and he called me in. ‘Come on in, Caitlin, I’ve been waiting for ye.’
I was rather taken aback by my father’s appearance behind his desk. He had large, dark bags beneath his eyes, and his normally carefully oiled moustache was lacklustre and drooping; his eyes were bloodshot and there was a general pallid quality to his skin that I’d never seen before.
‘Caitlin,’ he said, sighing heavily, ‘I’ve let ye down, hen.’
‘Father,’ I said, ‘what’s the matter?’
‘I’ve tried to keep it from ye for all these years, tried in vain to make ye a happy wean, to give ye a happy childhood and a contented life, but now that you’re eighteen, you need to know. We are in debt. A suffocating, monstrous amount o’ debt. For years I’ve struggled to reconcile our paltry incomings with our huge outgoings to no avail. If I didnae do somethin’ aboot it, we’d be oot on our bahookies this time next year, without so much as a hoose to our name.’
At this, I gasped.
My father continued. ‘Now I need to tell ye somethin’ important, Caitlin. I’m afeart that ye willnae be going to enjoy the season in Auld Reekie next month. I’m afeart that yer fate will be quite different.’
I felt the shock grip my body like a frozen vice, and I thought for a moment that I was going to swoon, faint right in front of my da. How had they kept this from me? How could he take this away from me like this, after having led me to believe for all these years that becoming a socialite in bonny auld Edinburgh was my destiny?
‘Father, I,’ I said, trying to hold back the tears which I felt pricking warmly at the corners of my eyes, ‘what will be become of me?’
‘I’ve committed tae something terrible,’ he said. ‘I’ve agreed, in principle, to yer marriage.’
‘My marriage?’ I asked, beside myself with wretched rage.
‘Aye lassie, yer marriage,’ said my father. He drew himself up a little, shuffling in his seat, before adjusting his collar. I saw beads of sweat on his brow and then, finally, when he was ready, he uttered the words: ‘you’ll be merrit to the Laird of Elgin.’
‘Elgin?’ I cried. ‘But, but that’s miles away! That’s even further north than Inverness!’
It took a second for this to truly sink in, and then when I finally knew what my fate was, I felt a surge of adrenaline beat round my body. My legs began to shake, and my breast heaved in my bodice as I struggled to breathe. Then, when the cold realization hit me, I felt consciousness slipping away. Everything went black.
Chapter 16
In the following week, I learned a lot about my family, which had been kept secret from me over the years. All of our dirty wee secrets, my father’s gambling and my mother’s drinking, grandfather’s whoring debts and the scabrous clean-picked bones of countless other family scandals. And it fell to me to settle the family’s debts, of course. My maidenhood was the only thing of any worth around here, so of course it had been sold off to the highest bidder. The Laird of Elgin.
His was a name that I knew well. Indeed, it wouldnae be an overstatement to say that he was quite famous. Or, to be more precise, I should say that he was infamous.
The Laird Of Elgin had a reputation for unbridled cruelty and perversion amongst the landed gentry of Scotland. Scarred in a horrific accident when he’d been but a wee lass, there was no-one in the whole country who lay with more harlots, who drank more liquor, who fought in more duels. There where whispered rumours of his perversions, the sort of thing which those in polite company dare not discuss with each other. I’d overheard the maids talking about him as I bathed one evening.
‘They say he brands his wenches,’ said the older one, cackling like a mad old goat.
‘Aye, and he likes ‘em young an’ all, that filthy auld pervert,’ said the other, as she scraped the laundry along the washboard.
‘Mind you, if what they say about ‘is sausage is true, I wouldnae mind a nibble!’ The two wretched old hags fell about themselves laughing, and I closed the cracked door fully, once more on the verge of tears.
The following day, after begging my forgiveness over and over again, my father had explained to me the terms of the engagement into which I’d been sold. Because the Laird had never seen me, he was going to perform an ‘examination’ on me the following Monday, to ensure that the ‘goods were to his satisfaction’. I could hardly believe the way that everyone seemed to be talking about me, objectifying me as though I were nothing more than a slice o’ hagg
is. Even my father was involved in the lewdness, in the unbelievably uncouth goings on.
‘Ye are,’ he paused, trying to come up with the right words, ‘whole, aren’t ye? Ye know, doon there?’
This time, there was no stopping the tears.
‘If ye mean have I let some nobody take my maidenhood, the answer is no! But I damn well wish I had, now that I know for whom I’ve been protecting it. I wish I’d laid with the gardener, or the butler, or anyone at…’
My father flung his hand round and skelped me hard across my face. I felt the shock and the shame of it more than the actual pain. He’d never so much as laid a finger on me before.
‘Now listen here, you glaikit lassie, there’s a lot about the world that ye dinnae understand. We’ve fed and raised ye since the day ye were born and all ye’ve ever done is asked fer mair and mair, and got what ye wanted, I might add. It’s time that ye paid yer way, and the only talent ye’ve got for sale is right there, between yer legs!’ His face was a mask of fury. I searched my heart, trying to think of something to say to him, but I knew, deep down, that he was right.
‘Now make sure that ye wear this fer yer meeting with the Laird,’ he said, throwing a slim cardboard box down onto the table in front of me. I saw a lick of pink lace fall out from under the lid. ‘He’s given express instructions that ye must be wearing that dress.’
‘Aye father,’ I said, still feeling the shame of the slap burning my face.
Chapter 17
The arrival of the Laird was the talk of the entire estate. I had everyone from the cook to the stable lad ask me whether I was excited, or nervous to be meeting my new husband. I gave the same answer to everyone who asked: ‘We’re not merrit yet, and he mightnae even like the way I look, so let’s not be too eager to call him my husband, shall we?’
On the morning of his arrival, I sat in my chamber as I always did in the early part of the day. I opened once again the wee box which contained the dress that the Laird had asked me to wear for his inspection. It was a quite ludicrous garment, more befitting of a set of underwear than a proper lady’s attire. It was a short, frilly thing, with wee straps over my shoulders (which would have been on complete display if the dress was the only thing I would be wearing). The skirt of the dress was so short that it barely reached my knees, and it was so puffy that it stuck out from my body almost at right angles.
I’d come up with a bit of a trick. The Laird had of course requested that I wear the dress for his inspection, but he hadn’t stipulated that I was not to wear anything else as well. So, I decided that aye, I would wear the wretchedly ugly wee thing, but that I’d wear an overcoat as well, so that my entire body wouldn’t be on display for him. Of course, my father had been in to my chamber to make sure that I was wearing the dress, but he’d since gone out to collect the Laird, who apparently had since arrived. I looked at the opulent surroundings of my bed chamber If the Laird was happy with me, soon I’d be living a different life, somewhere else, somewhere cold and dank and drookit up north. I mean really, it rained enough in the Highlands, without having to move up to Elgin! Mainly, though, I hoped that the rumours of the Laird’s cruelty were overstated, and that he wasn’t as much of a cruel beastie as everyone seemed to say. I mean, nobody could be that bad, could they?
I pulled on my overcoat, and sat on the bed waiting. Finally, after what felt like hours, I heard a deep, rumbling voice outside my door, saying a few words. Then, the door handle turned and a figure stepped in.
He was taller than, I think, a man had any right to be, and dark as well. His kilt revealed more of his legs than my father’s did, and I could see the thick, study trunks of his thighs creeping below the tartan fabric. I suddenly remembered what those filthy old hags had said about the Laird’s ‘sausage’, and couldnae help my eyes from trailing down to his sporran… just in case I could catch a keek.
The Laird didnae seem as old as I’d imagined a Laird to be. He can’t have been that much older than forty years or so. He had hard, dark eyes, which sat in a slim, hard face, and his lip, underneath a thick, shiny moustache, had a cruel curl to it. I noticed that he was scarred, just as the rumours would have had me believe; an ugly, ragged wound ran up from his chin to his forehead. Maybe it was for that reason that his mouth curled the way it did. Maybe he was trying to smile. I wondered the scar had been caused by the dagger in his own sock… Perhaps an angry wench grabbed the dagger and sliced his face one day… Perhaps I would do the same one day in the near future.
‘I see that ye have a twisted sense of humour, lassie,’ he said. His voice was deep, and coarse, like the bark of a hunting dog which had just smelled a kill.
‘I…’ I started to say, but I felt a shiver of a blush start in me.
‘Would ye kindly remove yer coat, so that I may conduct my inspection of ye, young lassie? I’m a very busy man, and I must say that you havenae made a particularly good first impression.’ He stood with such authority, such mastery of his surroundings that it almost felt as though I were in his chamber, not the other way around. I felt a surge of blood pump around my body. He was certainly a commanding presence, that was for sure.
‘Of course…’
He held up his hand. ‘For the time being, it would be proper for ye to address me as yer excellency,’ he said.
‘Very good, yer excellency,’ I said. His expression, as I stood and started to remove my coat was completely unreadable. If he was impressed, he certainly wasnae letting on. The coat dropped to the floor, and I twisted a little, left and right, letting him see the naked flesh of my legs, my shoulders, the start of my cleavage.
‘Braw,’ he said, ‘the dress suits you fantastically.’ I felt a sudden, unexpected rush of happiness to hear him give me a compliment. I couldnae believe that a man as stern as this might like me. ‘O’ course, the way you have yer hair is utterly inappropriate. I hope that ye dinnae think a haircut like that would be acceptable should I take ye as my wife.’
‘No, yer excellency, no–’
He again stopped me in mid-sentence. ‘Ye need to dress yer age, Caitlin. Ye are a young lassie, barely out of girlhood, are you not? We need to preserve this youth for as long as possible, do we not?’
I found the certainty and authority with which he spoke to be quite intoxicating. I’d never met a man like this. He made my father seem like a glaikit wee wean.
‘Aye, sir, we do,’ I said, blushing bright under his gaze.
He took a step closer, and looked straight at me, straight into my heart, into my soul.
‘Has any man ever touched ye, Caitlin,’ he asked. ‘Doon there?’ He looked down at my groin and then back up at my eyes. ‘Has anyone deflowered you? It is important that I know. If you lie to me, I will find out.’
‘No, your excellency, no-one. I am a maiden still.’
He bowed deeply, took my hand and kissed it.
‘Thank ye, and I apologise for the coarseness of my questions.’ Then, he turned and left my room. I didnae hear anything from the Laird for a month.
Chapter 18
When the letter finally came that I had been accepted as the new Lady of Elgin, my father’s reaction was rather more positive than mine.
‘Och, that’s braw!’ my father cried, holding the letter above his head like a trophy, ‘Finally, ye’ve done somethin’ good, lassie. Well done!’ I didnae know whether I should feel good about the way my father spoke to me, but I decided to take what little praise I could get.
With a wee bit of help from the house servants, I was packed and ready to go in next to no time. I couldnae believe how quickly my life was changing. All I had to look forward to now was the Laird’s odd way of talking and a strange, loveless marriage.
Of course, I thought a lot of having to lie with the Laird. He was older than me, and I had almost no experience of being with the opposite sex whatsoever. From time to time I found myself thinking of his… sausage. What would it be like? Would he expect me to open up
to him straight away? I found the thought of fitting something so big into my tender wee opening to be quite terrifying. Of course I had touched myself there on several occasions, despite the teachings of our chaplain, who was adamant that onanism was a direct route to fire and brimstone.
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