by Amanda Scott
“Lass, I may not have come eagerly to this marriage, but I do know I don’t want to be your brother.” He spoke with feeling but also with those twinkling eyes.
“I believe you,” she said. “Sometimes, when they are wroth with me, I think that neither Ian nor Mag wants to be my good-brother, even now.”
“That is not what I meant, and I think you ken that fine. Moreover, I do not propose to spend all night talking. We both need to sleep. And before we do—”
“We should consummate our marriage,” she interjected boldly. “I hope you know what to do, though, because although Dree did tell me things about her wedding night with Mag—”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” he said, laughing. “I do know what to do.”
“I don’t think I have seen you laugh before,” she said, rather stunned.
“Ah, lassie,” he said, reaching for her and pulling her closer, “I have not often felt like laughing these past few years, but I think that I may laugh more easily now. And that, madam wife, is a compliment.”
“Is it?” She wrinkled her nose and looked up at the curtain rail, although she knew he was sincere. “It does not precisely sound like a compliment.”
“Look at me,” he said.
Obediently, she shifted her gaze to meet his.
“Raise your chin just a wee bit.”
When she did, he touched her lips lightly with his and reached to untie the white ribbon lacing of her bodice. Soon, the bodice was open, and he was deftly untying the ribbons of her shift to bare her breasts.
Murie watched his face, wondering why such simple acts, acts she had done herself or that Tibby had done for her, had never sent sensations through her body like the ones that Rob’s actions caused. Her breasts swelled, her nipples hardened, and whenever his fingers brushed bare flesh, she gasped at the pleasure of his touch.
He kissed her again. This time his kiss was firmer, far more possessive.
Curious now about the reactions he was stimulating in her and even more curious about what she might stimulate in him, she reached for the buckle of the wide leather belt he wore over his plaid.
“Art sure about this, lass?” he asked.
“Aye,” she said, surprised when her voice sounded hoarse. “I don’t know why you thought I’d be afraid. This is astonishingly pleasurable. Dree did say that some of it was a trifle unpleasant, but I don’t find it so. Do you think I should?”
Rob felt a sudden, utterly unfamiliar sensation deep within him that was warming but not sexual. Again, he felt like smiling. This time, though, instinct stopped him. Her demeanor was earnest and innocent, making him realize that what he felt was an overwhelming desire to protect her and not shatter that innocence.
“I don’t think it is unusual that you should be confused,” he said. “We have only just begun. What Andrena meant is that a maiden’s body takes some time to grow comfortable with coupling. Will you let me finish undressing you?”
“Only if you take your clothes off first,” she said, smiling mischievously. “I shall feel much too vulnerable to be naked with you if you keep your clothes on.”
“That,” he said, “is a request I am happy to grant.”
With that, he stood, undid his belt, and cast it and the sheathed dirk on it aside. Next went the plaid, although he took time to fold it and place it on a nearby stool. When he stripped off his tunic, he heard her gasp.
The sound sent a shiver through him. Realizing that she had likely never seen a rampant male before, he reached out a gentle hand to touch her shoulder.
She slipped nimbly away and to her feet, saying as she did, “You look odd, standing there in only your boots. I hope you won’t keep them on in bed.”
Looking down, he shook his head at himself. Usually, he took his boots off first, if he wore any. He loosened the right one’s tie and removed the wee dirk he kept in a sheath sewn into its side. The weapon was large enough to fit his hand.
“Sakes!” she exclaimed. “Do you always carry an eating knife in your boot?”
“ ’Tis more than an eating knife,” he said. “I usually take it with me if I wear boots, and I took it today in case Pharlain banned weapons at his court. I prefer to be armed in enemy land.” He gestured at her gown. “What are you waiting for?”
Her smile turned impish. “Dree told me that Mag likes to peel her clothes off of her. I thought you—”
“I’d liefer see how a lady disrobes,” he said, although the truth was he did not want to hear about Mag’s choices. “I have never watched one do so before.”
“Aye, then,” she said. “Usually, Tibby helps me, but everything is loose and ties in front, so I can just pull it all down and step out.” She proceeded to do so, and then straightened and looked expectantly at him. “Now what?”
His body stirred sharply at the sight she made, and without another thought, he scooped her into his arms and placed her gently on the bed, shoving the covers further down. “Scoot over, lass, and make room for me.”
She watched, wide-eyed, as he got into bed, but when he took her in his arms and gently kissed her, she opened her mouth to him at once. Smiling against her lips, he proceeded with her first lesson.
He was so big that he took up most of the bed, and Murie wondered how she and Lina had shared that bed for years without sparing a thought for its size. Only after Dree married had they slept in separate beds.
Nevertheless, she loved the way Rob held her, and his kisses stirred her blood in ways it had never stirred before. His lightest touch excited her. His fingers drifted over her skin as if to test her responses as well as its smoothness. When his right hand cupped a breast and his thumb brushed lightly across its nipple, the sensations he stirred were enough to make her gasp. The hand did not linger but seemed to wander where it liked while he continued to kiss her.
Daringly, she touched him, too. With every one of her senses now alert, she tried to sense what he was feeling, to know if what he felt was anything like the feelings his lips and fingers ignited in her. When she brushed her thumb across one of his nipples, she thought he smiled against her lips, but he did not gasp until she stroked his belly and reached lower.
Then he murmured, “You are playing with fire now, lass. I’m nigh to taking you, as it is.”
Instead of making her wary, as he had so clearly intended, his soft-spoken words ignited more feelings than ever, firing her curiosity as well as her sensuality. “Then take me,” she murmured seductively. “I want to know what lies ahead.”
With what sounded like a growl in his throat, almost worthy of Scáthach, he muttered something. Whether it was a prayer or a curse she couldn’t quite tell. Then his hand moved to the fork of her legs and cupped its crux gently.
Slipping one finger inside her, then another, he moved them gently but firmly until she moaned. Then, just as gently, he eased them back again and began rubbing her there in a way that sent flames all through her.
Her own exploring hand also moved lower then. In her passion, she grabbed the first thing her hand came to that seemed to want grabbing.
Rob gasped then, and a moment later he rolled toward her. “You are gey eager for a maiden, lassie. At this speed, you will not be one much longer.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I want to know everything that married people can do.”
He laughed low in his throat. “Since I have been married exactly as long as you have, I can hardly know all there is to know about what married people do. I do know a few things we can do in bed, though. Let’s start with those.”
Capturing her mouth again, he kissed her thoroughly and used his fingers to tease her nipples and stimulate her below until she felt as if her body would explode. Just as she thought it might, he stopped kissing her and moved to adjust his body to hers. Easing his cock to her opening, he slipped it slowly, gently inside.
No longer on the verge of exploding, her body contracted there as if to expel him, but curiosity overwhelmed every other feelin
g or thought. She held her breath, every fiber of her now focused on what was happening below.
“Breathe, lass,” he murmured. “Try to relax. It will make things easier than if you stiffen up like a poker.”
“I suppose you know all about it,” she said, more grimly than she had intended. The thought that he had likely done this with other…
His chuckle stopped that half-formed thought. “I know only what I have heard about women’s feelings at a time like this, mo chridhe. But I suspect that when a male my size invades the body of a female your size, a certain amount of readjustment becomes necessary. I’m being as gentle—”
A much stronger contraction below ended his words in another gasp. He was silent after that but pressed himself farther inside and began moving in and out, slowly and gently at first, until she felt a sharp pang and cried out. Then, instead of stopping, he moved faster and faster.
Murie had all she could do to endure then, let alone ponder what she was feeling. It was over soon afterward, and except for the fact that Rob seemed to have collapsed atop her, she was glad when it was.
“I hope I didn’t hurt you too much, lassie,” he murmured as he rolled off her and pulled her close to him.
“I won’t die of it, but is that all, sir? Because next time I’d like to feel the good things a while longer.”
His body seemed to shake then, or tremble.
“Robert? What is it?”
He rose up again onto his side and looked into her eyes. His were twinkling. “I’ll see what I can do about those good things, lass, but you can call me Rob now. It is your right, and when people call me Robert, I fear that I have vexed them.”
“Never mind that,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“I was just trying not to laugh,” he said. “There is much more that can happen between married people, but this is all that we will do tonight. We both need to sleep, and you will be sore tomorrow, as it is, so let’s get cleaned up now.”
He helped her first and then tucked her back into bed.
She watched while he attended to himself and opened the window shutters. He did not ask her what she thought about that, but she preferred them open herself, especially after her nights in the pitch-blackness of the shed. Rob climbed into bed then, and pulled her close, nestling her against him as if they were spoons.
When she awoke Saturday morning, she became aware of a dull ache inside her where his cock had been. It was not bad, though, and seeing the familiar gray dawn light pouring in through her window filled her with such delight to be home that she could not lie abed. Moreover, she had something important to do before Rob woke, lest he insist on departing for Ardincaple straightaway or, worse, forbid her to do it.
Taking care not to wake him, she slipped out of bed, quickly donned a fresh shift and her moss-green kirtle, and quietly left the room. Stopping just long enough to visit the garderobe, she hurried down to the postern door. Then, taking her cloak from its hook, she flung it over her shoulders and went outside.
As usual at such an early hour, Pluff was helping MacNur and now perhaps Mae or Annabel feed the animals inside the wall. So, with a cheerful wave to the guard on the walkway, Murie opened the gate herself and slipped outside. There was no latch on that side, so she would have to shout for someone to open it again, and Rob would likely be up by then, looking for her. Even so, he had not forbidden her to go out, and if she was going to talk with Annie, she had to do so at once.
Hurrying along the still damp woodland path to the northern river boundary, she followed the path along the riverbank eastward to the Wylies’ cottage.
Knowing that Malcolm, Peter, and Tibby would already be at the tower, seeing to their morning duties, she rapped firmly on the door.
When Annie opened it, Murie grinned, opened her arms wide, and stepped into Annie’s welcoming embrace.
“Och, me lady, ’tis good tae see ye safe home again,” Annie said.
She was half her husband’s size and so skinny that many might have hesitated to hug her too tightly, lest she break. Murie had no such qualms, for she knew that Annie was as tough as an oak branch. Most of the men at Tùr Meiloach believed that if Malcolm displeased Annie—or if any of them did—she would hand him his head in his lap.
Despite graying red hair that was as curly and frizzy as Pluff’s was, and her wrinkled nut-brown cheeks, she was spry and quick-witted. And Murie knew that Annie’s own excellent memory had not faded one whit.
“Annie,” she said as soon as the door was shut, “I may not have much time.”
“I believe ye,” Annie replied with a wry smile. “Malcolm told me ye’d somehow got yourself a husband whilst ye was at Arrochar.”
“I did, aye. He is Master—Nay, he is Lord MacAulay of Ardincaple.”
“So Malcolm did say,” Annie said, eyeing her shrewdly. “Ye must ha’ kent that he would, so ye didna come here tae give me the news. What is it, lass? I ha’ me doots your man will approve o’ ye whiskin’ about in your bare feet now that ye’re a lady wi’ a grand laird for a husband.”
Murie knew that Rob would disapprove, so she could not claim otherwise. She said bluntly, “Annie, do you ken aught of my father’s missing charters?”
Annie’s eyes widened and she said with credible astonishment, “Why would ye be asking me such a thing as that? D’ye think I’m a thief or worse?”
“You know I don’t think anything of the sort,” Murie said. “But I do know that my father came here to this cottage the night he escaped from Arrochar, with Pharlain’s men hunting for him and my mother still on the other side of the river. Malcolm was a shepherd then, and you and he took Father in.”
“Aye, and their sweet new bairn, as well,” Annie said. “But if ye be a-thinking that your da carried them charters wi’ him, ye dinna ken nowt.”
“I know he did not,” Murie said. “He told me as much. He also said that they were already here at Tùr Meiloach. But he trusted you and Malcolm enough to take Andrena to you, so I’m thinking he must also have trusted you with other things. Did you know where he kept his charters? Might Malcolm have known?”
“That’s all ye want tae ken, is it,” Annie said grimly. “D’ye think I’d tell ye such things, even though ye were no mad enough tae put your questions tae Malcolm or tae Himself? D’ye think your da, as canny as he be, be daft enough tae tell anyone else where he’d put such valuable documents as his royal charters? Tùr Meiloach will protect them, Lady Muriella. That be all ye need tae ken.”
“I know that when you call me Lady Muriella, you are angry with me,” Murie said. “But this is gey important, Annie. I’m sure that Father does not know where his charters are, and he has to have them to show the King when we go to Inverness for the Parliament. If he cannot produce them there, Pharlain and his heirs will likely keep Arrochar forever. They may even win Tùr Meiloach, as well!”
“Nay, they will not,” Annie said. “Did I no tell ye that this land protects its own? That doesna include Pharlain or his get, not since he betrayed his rightful chief. What it means is that when them charters do be needed, they’ll show theirselves, another ’n another. That be all I can tell ye about that. Moreover, I hope ye didna defy your laird husband by a-comin’ here, because I’m thinking—”
A heavy double-rap on the door interrupted her, and Murie had no doubt who stood on the other side of it.
Chapter 14
The skinny little woman who opened the door to Rob made him a deep, respectful curtsy, which was the only thing that kept him from storming inside to confront his errant wife. As it was, he had all he could do to remain polite, because he could see Muriella standing a short distance behind Annie Wylie.
He said rather too curtly, “I bid you good morrow, Mistress Wylie. I have come for my wife.”
“She’s here, aye, m’lord,” Annie said as she arose. “I’m that glad tae see her safe again, too. I thank ye, as all here do, for bringing her home tae us.”
“I ken fine that you are
also a storyteller, mistress,” he said quietly, while keeping his eyes on Murie. “If you would show me gratitude, you will not make a song about her misadventure and will discourage her and others from doing so.”
Since he expected the old woman to agree and was still staring sternly at his lady wife, it was with shock that he heard Annie say, “Someone will tell that tale, sir. It be too good not tae tell. ’Twould be better for the truth tae come from her ladyship or them who ken her best. But,” Annie added, turning to address the last words to Muriella, “it must be as your lord husband decrees, must it not, m’lady?”
Noting that Muriella’s consternation was equal to his own, Rob kept silent until she said reluctantly, “It must be so, Annie, aye.”
“Come along now, lass,” Rob said. “I want to get underway as soon as we can. The men are already seeing to the galleys, so if you are not prepared to leave at once, you must make haste.”
She gave him a measuring look, then nodded, gave Annie a hug, and bade her good-bye. When Rob opened the door, Muriella went ahead of him and walked briskly along the narrow path.
Pulling the door shut, Rob strode after her, catching up after just a few steps. “Do you know what you deserve for coming here without a word to me?”
“I know what you think I deserve,” she said, glancing up at him. “You will doubtless add it to what the Brehon decreed for me. Meantime, I had to see Annie, and I did not want to fratch with you or risk your forbidding me to see her.”
“All you had to say was that you wanted to bid her farewell.”
“Mayhap that is true,” she said. “But how was I to know that? I barely know you yet, and for the most part, you have just issued orders or told me that I cannot do what I want to do or be what I want to be. Therefore, when I awoke before you did this morning, I decided to see Annie whilst I knew I could.”
“If it was only to say good-bye, why did you not tell Malcolm or Tibby last night that you wanted to see her? She would surely have visited you at the tower.”