by Amanda Scott
Nevertheless, he was not fool enough to make that declaration now.
Instead, he said, “We can talk about that later. Art finished eating?”
“Not yet,” she said, shooting him a speculative look.
Ignoring it, he signed to a gillie to pour them some wine and asked another to bring back the meat platter. Then he said, “Mayhap you will tell me more about your people as we eat. I have met your father’s steward, Malcolm Wylie, and a number of the others. But who is that red-headed chappie who whistled so well?”
Lina was happy enough to talk about Pluff and the Wylies.
Ian seemed fascinated to learn that Pluff watched the postern gate and helped tend the animals inside the wall, so she cheerfully answered his other questions. Still, and despite having evidently drunk a goblet and a half of wine, she felt as if only minutes had passed when Andrew said abruptly, “Annie tells me that your chamber is ready, Ian. So ye should take your lady wife to bed.”
“Aye, sure, sir,” Ian said as he stood and extended a hand to Lina.
She began to rise but paused when Muriella said, “Prithee, Father, not yet!”
Murie got up so hastily then that she would have knocked over her stool had Lizzie not caught it. Heedless of Lizzie’s action, Murie said coaxingly to Andrew, “I am going to tell the tale of how Sir Ian rescued Lina and Lizzie. Liz told me all about it, and I know that everyone else will want to hear it, too.”
Lina stiffened, but Ian gave her hand a squeeze and drew her upright.
People began to cheer again, but they broke off abruptly when Andrew raised his hands, palms out. “We’ll have nae tales tonight,” he said. “This night belongs to the bridal pair, and I’ll allow nae hindrance. D’ye hear me, all of ye?”
Someone began to clap then. When others joined in and still others stomped their feet, Ian waved and bore Lina off to the service stairs.
“I trust this stairway will take us where we need to go,” he said, grinning at her. “I don’t trust those men enough to parade you across the hall to the other one.”
“We can go this way,” she said. “We’re to use Mag and Andrena’s room. It’s at the top of the stairs, above the solar and just under the ramparts.”
“Good,” he said. “I know I’ll fit with you in Mag’s bed. I was thinking I might have to sleep in one with my feet hanging over.”
The image his words created made her smile. But when he urged her to precede him up the narrow stairway, her nerves began to tingle and her heart to pound. Not only was she more aware than ever of his presence behind her but she also felt unsure of what lay ahead. She had heard people talk of coupling and had helped Andrena prepare for hers. She also had a vague idea of what happened when men and women coupled. But she had never seen the act performed.
Ian’s confidence assured her that he knew much more about it than she did. The thought gave her pause to wonder but did little to steady her nerves.
“Here is their room,” she said when they reached the landing below the door to the ramparts and outside the large bedchamber that had, at an earlier time, contained pallets for men-at-arms who now slept on pallets in the hall or in cottages outside the wall. When she opened the door, she half-expected to see Tibby rushing about, attending to last-minute details. But although the room was aglow with soft golden candlelight, it was empty. The bed, turned down, awaited them.
Hearing Ian bolt the service-stair door and watching him cross the room to bar the main door, she said, “I must fetch a fresh shift from my room for the morning, sir. Tibby forgot to leave one out for me here.”
“Never mind that,” he said. “You won’t need it tonight. Forbye, I feel safer with the doors locked. I’d not put it past those others or your father—”
“Nay,” she said. “You heard him. He will brook no hindrance, which means no intrusion. He said it as much for you and me as for the others. Faith, sir, if he were the sort of man to let them disturb our bedding, Mam would not permit it.”
“Even so,” he said, leaving the bar firmly in place, “whatever you need tomorrow, your Tibby can fetch then.”
She had not thought about Tibby entering their bedchamber. “Will your man, Hak, come in here, too?” she asked.
“Not until I send for him,” Ian said, looking around as if to memorize every detail. “Come to that, I don’t know where your steward put him.”
“Mag’s man sleeps in the wee room across the landing from this one. So Malcolm or Peter Wylie likely put Hak in there. Do you want him?”
“Not now,” he said. “I just want to be able to shout when I do.”
“Well, you can go and look, but I’ll wager he is there, because female guests sleep in the room that Lady Margaret has now, across from the one where Lizzie and Muriella are sleeping. And male guests usually sleep across from the solar, where Rob MacAulay is. But Tibby sleeps in a tiny room downstairs near the kitchen.”
“Then, if she hasn’t come up on her own when you need her, I’ll send Hak or Rob to fetch her,” he said, moving toward her.
The sudden intent look on his face made her more nervous than ever. But a lady did not allow such sensitivities to show. Doubtless, she thought, Lady Aubrey had gone to her wedding-night bed with nerves of steel.
“I haven’t kissed you properly yet,” Ian said, taking Lina by the shoulders and drawing her slowly nearer, tantalizing himself with lusty images as he did.
Someone had lit a cresset on a corner table and several branches of candles, so he had light enough to see her eyes widen and her pupils enlarge.
Her dusky eyelashes fluttered lower.
The bed—invitingly large—stood behind her, its dark red curtains tied back to show that someone had turned down the covers for them.
Putting two fingers beneath her chin, Ian tilted her head up and touched her lips gently with his as he had earlier. Feeling her tremble, he pressed harder and eased his free hand from her warm shoulder down her back. Then, he urged her closer, wanting her to feel the length of his body against hers for the first time.
“I think I’ve dreamed this,” she murmured against his lips.
“Have you?” he murmured back. “I hope not all of this. That would be most unseemly for a maiden, lass. Did you dream this part?” he added, sliding his tongue into her mouth. Then, moving the hand at her chin to cup the back of her head, he held her so that she would not pull it back.
As he explored her mouth with his tongue, he deftly removed her veil. Then, casting it aside, he wove his fingers into the thick, silky coils of her hair. His tongue continued working busily, tantalizingly, in the velvety confines of her mouth.
He felt her soft breasts swell against him.
When she moaned softly, he eased his fingers through her hair, finding pins and loosening the coil and then her golden plaits. His free hand drifted from the small of her back to the curve of her bottom.
“You taste like honey,” he murmured against her lips. He savored the taste and tasted again.
She was silent but wonderfully submissive as if she were willing to learn as he explored her, and once again, he marveled at her calm. But it stirred him, too, as it had in the past, when it had stirred him to mischief. Now, it stirred other senses.
He wanted her even more than he had anticipated. But, his father had often said that a marriage was a long and often thorny relationship. One did well to remember that and not proceed as if one had just received a new plaything.
“I see that you have set me a new challenge,” he whispered in her ear.
“What?” Her breath touched his neck, sending blood coursing through him.
“To make you want me just half as much as I want you.”
With a little gasp, she pulled back enough to look at him, her rosy lips softly, sensuously parted. Her eyes warmly reflected the golden glow of the candlelit room.
Sure of himself now, he reached for her kirtle laces.
Lina stiffened when he tugged at her laces. But he had said th
at he wanted her, and the sensations he had stirred all through her when his tongue had plunged into her mouth were still going strong. She did not want them to stop.
Since his hands were at her laces, he no longer held her head, and she was nearly certain that he would not seize it again if she tried to pull away.
How do you know that? the voice deep in her mind asked. For once, the voice was too distant to heed. The sensations were stronger, especially when he put his hand on her bottom and pressed her hard against him. She could feel his body move and harden in a place she had not known could harden.
He kissed her again, thoroughly, even playfully, encouraging her tongue to dance with his in her mouth. Before she was ready to stop playing, he eased his tongue out again and murmured teasingly, “Well, have you?”
Feeling strangely bereft, she blinked, then swallowed. “Have I what?”
Chuckling, he said, “Have you dreamed all of this before?”
Trying to collect herself, she said, “I… I don’t know. I only felt as if I had dreamed of you, or perhaps someone else, holding me so. Have you not had moments when you’ve felt as if you had dreamed what is happening to you?”
“I never remember my dreams,” Ian said, knowing it for a lie but reluctant to admit to her that he remembered the sexy ones. He had not dreamed of her. But he was as certain as he could be that, after touching her, kissing her, and doing the other things he would do with her as soon as possible, he would dream of her, often.
Her hair smelled of summer and felt like silk. He had not yet completely undone her plaits, and he wanted to see how long her hair was. More than that, he wanted to measure himself against her and for her to be naked and in his arms.
On that thought, he parted her laces, giving himself access to the shift beneath, which had its own silken ties. To his delight, it was the kind of shift that, once untied, would open wide enough to slip down over her shoulders and her hips.
Suiting that thought to some action, he untied the bow and spread the loosely gathered neckline wide open. When she shivered, he said, “Art cold, lass?”
“Nay, but I do not know what I am supposed to do.”
“You need do nowt yet,” he said, baring her breasts. “I want to look at you.”
Her lips parted in a gasp, and he needed no further invitation to claim them and keep them busy while he dealt deftly with the narrow chain girdle at her hips, released its clasp, and let it fall with a jingling sound to the floor.
Then, pushing her bodice and shift lower yet to see the smooth skin of her midriff and waist, he held her away a little to see how her breasts looked so. They were full and firm with rosy tips, their nipples hardening as he watched.
“It does not seem fair for you to take my clothes off whilst you keep yours on,” she said, eyeing him reproachfully.
“I am your husband now. And I want to undress you.”
“Another husbandly right, aye,” she said. “Is it not my right to undress you? Sithee, I do not know. Mag was undressed when the men shoved him in here.”
“You saw Mag naked on his wedding night?” He grinned at the image she had produced for him. “I thought maidens were barred from such events.”
“Murie was there, too, and Mag had managed to keep his shirt,” Lina said. “He held it in such a way that we could not see all of him.”
His breath caught with those last few words, when the amusing image of Mag abruptly shifted to a pulsing desire of his own to see all of Lina.
He stepped back a pace and said, “Push your kirtle and shift all the way off now, lass. I want to see you, every beautiful inch of you.”
At those words, Lina’ muscles contracted in unusual places and surprising ways. But she could not make her hands obey him. Cool air caressed her bared torso, making her nipples feel as if they led secret lives of their own.
“Look at me,” he said.
She didn’t want to. She wanted to savor the feelings his voice stirred in her body, the invigorating way it reacted to his commands. When an irresistible urge within her made her look at him, his gaze captured hers and held it.
“Push them off, or I will strip them from you myself,” he said, his voice low, compelling, and with a vibrant note now that stirred responsive vibrations in her.
Still unable to look away, despite a sudden blaze raging through her body that stirred new feelings everywhere it touched, she obeyed him. Standing in the pool of clothing, she experienced more stimulating contractions when he reached for her. A light touch on her breast made her shiver again. But she was not cold.
He stroked her breasts gently with his fingertips, his expression intent, his breathing faster than before. His fingertips were rough enough to make her nipples leap in response to their touch. He seemed pleased with what he saw. Her whole body reacted no matter where he touched her. She could hardly breathe.
“Now,” he said, his voice harsh, even raspy, “turn around and walk away from me to the bed. I want to watch you climb into it. Don’t pull up the covers.”
Every fiber of her had come alive. If she had ever been aware of his presence before, it was nothing to what she felt as she obeyed him. She could barely feel the chilly floor. Every skin cell, every tiny hair of her body was tinglingly aware of Ian.
“Stop and shake out the rest of your plaits. Show me how long your hair is.”
She did that easily, quickly, just as she did whenever she brushed her hair. Then she stepped toward the bed again, feeling her hair brush against her bottom.
“Pull your hair forward now,” he said, his voice even lower, raspier. “I want to see all of you, and it’s in my way.”
Reaching back to do his bidding, she felt her breasts rise and tauten. She had never been so aware of her body as she was now, knowing that he watched her.
She was one of those rare women who were more stunningly beautiful naked than clothed. Her skin was like gilded ivory by candlelight, and smooth. He had known she was slender but not how exquisitely so or how soft and smooth her luscious curves would be. The Fates had formed her hips perfectly. Her firm bottom was a delight to the eye and an undeniable temptation to touch and squeeze.
Her legs were slender, well formed, and exquisite from her firm thighs to her delicate ankles, feet, and wee toes. The play of her muscles when she reached the high bed and climbed onto it took his breath away. She had tensed just before putting her right knee up, telling him that she felt a little uncomfortable. But she did as he had bidden her anyway. Looking heavenward, he prayed that the rest of his wedding night—sakes, his entire marriage—would proceed in the same way.
“Now lie back, leave the covers as they are, and wait for me,” he said. He wasted no time but stripped off his clothes and strode to the bed, deciding to let the candles gutter. He wanted to watch her as long as he could.
Lina watched Ian, wholly content to let him tell her what to do, since she was enjoying it and, otherwise, would have had no idea what he wanted from her. Also, if she let him have it all his way now, he would surely be more conciliating when she explained how necessary it was that she return with him to Dunglass.
He was in a hurry now. He had pulled off his boots and stripped off his plaid, tunic, and breeks at a speed that she might have thought impossible for any man.
Then he straightened and faced her, rampant.
Gasping, she nearly bolted upright. Surely, what she had believed must happen when they coupled could not.
As he stood looking at her, he seemed to grow larger there before her eyes. Then, he moved to the bed and stood there, gazing down at her.
A draft across her breasts made her tremble.
“Prithee, sir. You look as if you mistake me for a tableful of food at a feasting, as if you are trying to decide what to taste first.”
His eyes opened wide at that. He choked back a laugh, and they twinkled merrily. “You are impatient,” he said, grinning. “I like that in a lass. Move over a wee bit more, though. I’m larger than the space
you’ve left for me.”
As Lina scooted over, Ian watched to see how she managed her hair. The flickering candlelight played on it, intriguingly rearranging shadows and highlights. The long tresses did not appear to concern her, though, as she made room for him. When she had settled into place again against the pillows, revealing that the wee hollow of her throat was dewy, he decided to taste that first.
Then his gaze shifted to her breasts, which were moving gently up and down as she breathed. They were medium sized but fully enticing, suggesting that a man’s head might pillow itself between them. But he had other plans in mind first. He had experience with women but not with maidens, since knightly honor forbade trifling with any but the most willing and experienced females. But he was no dolt. He had asked those women many questions and considered himself knowledgeable.
Accordingly, he proceeded to tease and caress her, kissing and stroking every part of her body that he could reach without contorting her or himself or penetrating her. By paying close heed to her every movement and moan, he soon satisfied himself that although she was shy, she enjoyed submitting to him. So when the time came for him to claim her, he took advantage of that.
Deciding that she was ready for him at last, he said, “I am going to do something different now. You must lie perfectly still.”
He had one hand on her belly then and fingers of the other tickling one of her nipples. Moving to claim that nipple with his lips, he eased his hand to the fork of her legs and tickled the opening there.
When she stiffened, he said, “Relax, lass. Breathe in and let it out.”
Although she obeyed him, she moved her thighs closer together.
“Spread your legs more,” he murmured. “Not all of this will be pleasant. But it is necessary, and I want to prepare you well.”
This time, she took a deeper breath and let it out more slowly and completely. He felt her relax beneath his hand.