by Reece Butler
“Would you accept Tearlach MacDougal as your husband, lass? I could give you to any number of men eager for my favor.”
She was being given a choice. Better a pair of devils she knew than one she didn’t. She curtsied deeply, her eyes on the MacDougals.
“Thank you, Your Majesty, for the kind offer. I would have Tearlach, if I may.”
“So be it. You’ll wed on the morrow.”
Both men slumped, in relief she hoped.
“Thank ye, Yer Majesty,” said Tearlach. “Duncladach will do well with Lady Isabel there.”
“Duncladach?” asked the king.
“Yer Majesty, I wouldna presume ye’d give my wife Calltuin. I said I’d have her as she stands.”
“We will speak on her dowry another time.”
Tearlach and Rory bowed once more before rising. They were ushered out. One man took each of her elbows and urged her along. They were silent until they found an alcove. Tearlach backed her into it. Two huge, dark, blue-eyed men grinned down at her in triumph. She hadn’t had an orgasm in far too long. One more night and they’d belong to her!
“Yer arse will be red tonight,” said Rory gleefully. “And yer puss—”
“Hush! I wish sommat else than yer hand on my arse. I want—”
“What is this?” demanded Rory, acting far too outraged to be serious. “A wife telling her man to hush, and demanding what he do with her?”
“I am not yer wife, nor will I be.” She cleared her throat in the silence. “I will be Tearlach’s wife.”
“’Tis the same thing,” replied Rory. He slid his palm over her back cheek and patted gently. “Do ye think we’ll get our wee wife to do as she’s told, brother?”
Tearlach looked down at her, eyes hooded. She didn’t understand why one look from him could make her tingle and throb. She wanted more than hot looks. She wanted their cocks, tongues, lips, and fingers caressing and filling her.
“Aye, Isabel will learn to obey my orders. It may take a wee bit of…convincing.” His feral grin and flared nostrils said he was as aroused as she. He bent his elbow to her. “Come. We’ll escort ye to the Fraser chambers.”
“And then what?” she asked, near breathless with need.
“And then we’ll have a wee chat with Herald Murray while Lady Fraser instructs ye on the duties of a wife.”
They would leave her there? She bit back a complaint. There were other ways of getting back at them for arousing and then abandoning her.
“I already ken the duties of a wife,” she said as they escorted her down the corridor. “A wife should bedevil her men all she can so they ken how lucky they are to have her. She should tease them, waggling her arse and showing a hint of her bosom to make them hot and hard. And the first duty of a husband is to bring his wife pleasure—”
Tearlach’s hand came down hard on her arse. She squeaked, craving his touch.
“Nay, wife,” he growled. “The first duty of a husband is to make his wife obedient. Methinks ye willna be sitting much the first few days after we wed.”
“Aye, brother. We’ll be cock deep with her on her back, her knees, bent over, and—”
Isabel elbowed both of them at once. She wanted them, now and forever. “Dinna tease me, husband!”
“’Tis no tease, wife,” he growled. “’Tis a promise.”
Epilogue
“The MacDougals will die,” promised Laird Gordon Graham to himself.
“What of Isabel?” whined Roderick, cradling his hand. “She told the king that name and now I’ll be laughed at.”
“I ken what she told the king!” He turned on his third, most useless, son. “I didna give you permission to visit Calltuin,” he said, his voice like ice. “I didna give you permission to tell her she wasn’t a penniless orphan who owed me her life.”
“You said I could have her!”
“When it was time!”
He forced the rage down. Roderick was a liability that must be managed. He should have fostered the boy out. While he was away doing what was necessary his stupid wife had spoiled the brat. For thirteen years he’d looked forward to getting Isabel’s dowry. He’d promised he’d take his wife to Edinburgh to spend some of it. He had an agent looking to buy a townhouse. Now he couldn’t even afford to rent one!
Worse was what would happen when the Earl of Menteith arrived in Stirling. What would his clan chief do to him for bringing the king’s eye onto the Grahams?
“But, Father, she hit me with—”
“Silence!” Graham glared. He should have given Isabel to his fourth son. Lundy was smart enough not to take her before the trap was sprung. Roderick’s pout was even less attractive than when he’d been ten and badly whipped their best mare for kicking him. Graham now wished he’d kept the mare and slit his son’s throat instead.
“MacDougal near broke my wrist!”
“You pulled a naked blade in front of the king, you fool!” He glared in contempt. The boy was too much like his mother. Weak. “I should have let him toss you in his pit with the rats!”
Roderick blanched. “Nay!”
“Aye!” He curled his lip. “I had to beg King James to save your miserable life.”
And oh, had it burned him to do so. He’d lost face as well as land and coin. In return the MacDougals would die.
He’d used a fairly quick poison on Isabel’s parents. He’d like to use a poison on the MacDougals that would eat their bellies from the inside, taking agonizing months to kill them. Unfortunately, it would be too obvious if such a pair of young, healthy men died that way.
They’d have to die violently, by the hand of another. He had a few ideas…
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Early jobs cleaning cages for a veterinarian, scrubbing floors in a hospital, and working as a waitress helped Reece Butler realize she was more of a thinker than a doer. An office keyboard kept her occupied for many years while her family grew. Once she discovered the romance genre it was a short step to reading erotic romance. And, since she has an active imagination and is fascinated with people, she began writing …
She now spends most of her time writing, reading, researching, editing, plotting, creating characters…and eating dark chocolate.
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