Border Fire

by Amanda Scott

  An arched doorway with its door ajar revealed another, smaller hall at the next level, and she realized that, like Hermitage, Broadhaugh boasted a master’s hall. It was not as colorful, however, and its furnishings looked dull. Here, then, was where Sir Quinton hoped to benefit from a woman’s touch. She had no time to examine the chamber, however, for he said quietly, “We go to the next level, lass.”

  Aware of his presence behind her as she had been aware of no man before, she hurried on, holding up her skirts, watching where she set her feet, and making use of the rope banister looped into iron brackets on the outer wall. The last thing she wanted was to miss a step and fall. As tired as she was, she might easily do so, and she did not want the most lasting memory of her wedding day to be an image of herself falling against him and tumbling the pair of them to the bottom of the stairs.

  The image produced by that thought made her chuckle, and behind her, he said, “What’s so funny?”

  “Only a foolish thought,” she said, wondering if he would expect her to share it. She did not know much about what men expected from their wives. Indeed, other than what she had gleaned from a few short, formal visits to households other than her own, she had little knowledge whatever of married folks’ habits or customs.

  Whenever she had asked questions about such things, the common response had been that once Hugh married, his wife would tell her all she needed to know. But Hugh, having successfully evaded his guardian’s numerous attempts to arrange a marriage for him before his majority, had found no one to suit him since then. She wondered if he would be more likely to do so now that he no longer had a competent sister to run his household for him.

  That thought had not occurred to her before, but before she could consider it at any length, she reached the next floor. The door there was shut.

  “It is not locked,” he said. “Just turn the ring, and it will open.”

  She obeyed, pushed the door open, and stood still on the threshold to gaze at the room beyond.

  The first thing she noted was that some thoughtful soul had lighted a fire in the fireplace. The scent of burning wood, and the merry crackling of the fire did more to make her feel welcome than had any of the men’s polite comments. She entered, stripping off her gloves and gazing around with interest.

  Even in the dim light, she could see that the arras cloth covering two-thirds of the long wall needed a good shaking and sweeping. But the Turkey carpet near the bed looked as if someone had recently brushed it, and the embroidered blue bed curtains looked as if they had been shaken if not taken down and thoroughly cleaned. The plain blue counterpane was smooth, and the room was as tidy and warm as anyone could expect it to be.

  “No window curtains?”

  He smiled as he set the cat’s basket on the floor just inside the door. “It is not as if anyone can look in at us.”

  “Perhaps not,” she said, “but they would keep in the warmth from the fire.”

  “Also the smoke,” he pointed out. “That chimney is temperamental.”

  “Doubtless it needs cleaning,” she said.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Cleaning? Do you know where that chimney sits?”

  “Do not concern yourself, sir. I will see that someone attends to it.”

  “Without sending them crashing to the stones below?”

  “Aye, I know how it can be done safely.” She watched warily as he turned and shut the door, noisily throwing the bolt into place.

  He turned back, saw her watching, and said with a smile, “Tip, the lad who serves my personal needs, thinks this room is as much his as mine. Until he learns to recall your presence, we will throw the bolt when we want privacy.”

  “What of the food you ordered?”

  “I’ll let them in, never fear. Art hungry, Jenny?” He stepped toward her.

  “Aye,” she said, stepping back. “It has been some time since our wedding feast, and I…I do not even remember what, if anything, I ate.”

  “You ate enough for three women,” he told her, chuckling. “Stand still.”

  Although it took effort to obey, she did. She liked the way his eyes twinkled when he was happy. His smile was irresistible, drawing one from her in return, but hers faded when he reached for the clasp on her cloak. “I can undo it,” she said.

  “I am sure that you can, but I want to do it,” he said, catching her hand with his. He still wore his leather gloves, and her bare hand felt swallowed up in them. He drew it closer till her fingertips touched the rough material covering his chest. With his free hand, he reached again for the clasp and flipped it open. Releasing her hand, he lifted her cloak from her shoulders. “I do like that dress,” he said.

  “It is beautiful,” she said. “I do not know that it was proper for you to have bought it for me, however. My brother should have paid for my wedding dress.”

  “We won’t think about your brother,” he said softly. “I did not mind buying the dress, for I rather like knowing that I own every stitch and bone of you, Jenny.”

  Stiffening at the thought of being owned like a mare, yet knowing that in truth that was the way of things, she said, “I told you before, sir, my name is Janet. No one calls me Jenny.”

  “Now someone does,” he said. “I like the sound of Jenny better than Janet.”

  “Well, I do not,” she said evenly. “Jenny sounds like a little girl.”

  “Nay, then. Jenny sounds like…like a soft and gentle lassie, one who wants above all things to please her husband.” As he talked, he touched her shoulder lightly. Then, slightly frowning again, he paused to take off his gloves.

  Stepping away while he was thus occupied, she turned to face him. “I know that it is my duty to please my husband, sir, but you should know that I have not been raised like other girls. I have run a household that is perhaps even larger than this one, and although I have lived with a temperamental man—”

  “I said that I don’t want to talk about your brother,” he said. He unfastened his cloak, flinging it aside and moving toward her again.

  Janet stepped back, saying firmly, “This is not about Hugh, Sir Quinton. This is about me. You must not enter this marriage thinking that I will be like other women, for I am not. I am sorry if that disappoints you, but I cannot alter the fact.”

  His smile vanished and a stern look took its place. “From what I know about Sir Hugh Graham, you did not run everything at Brackengill, Jenny, my lass. For that matter, I doubt that you won many battles with him. Did you not tell me once that he affords rough treatment to anyone who displeases him?”

  “Aye, and so he does,” she admitted, “but he rarely paid heed to what I did with regard to the household. It was only when I interfered in realms that he considered his own that we crossed swords.”

  “Crossed swords?”

  “’Tis purely a figure of speech,” she said, adding with a sigh, “Not that I shouldn’t like to learn how to wield one. It is most unfair that only men can have weapons. I nearly always carry my—”

  “Females are not suited to bearing weapons,” he said. “Not that lasses don’t wield certain weapons of their own, mind you. Some of those are harmless enough, like a smile or the twitch of a fine pair of hips, but I have seen fingernails long enough and sharp enough to claw a man’s eyes out. Come to think of it, I have not examined yours to see if they require trimming. Mayhap I should.”

  She put her hands behind her. “Please, sir, I do not jest.”

  “Let me see your hands, little wife.”

  Keeping them safely behind her back, she retreated another step, saying with frustration, “Why do men never listen?”

  Gently he said, “Jenny, lass, if one of my men ignored a command the way you are ignoring mine now, I would swiftly teach him never to do so again.”

  Cocking her head, she said, “What would you do to him?”

  He grimaced. “The point has not arisen in years, but I would do whatever I thought best. In any event, what I would do to a man who owes me
allegiance and what I’ll do to a wife who owes me obedience are scarcely one and the same.”

  “Are you threatening to beat me if I refuse to show you my hands?”

  “Jenny, this is our wedding day. I do not want to quarrel with you. Why do you keep backing away from me?”

  “Because I do not know you,” she said. “Because I want to know you better, and I do not want you to believe that by changing the name you call me, you can change my nature. If you do not want me as I am, you ought to have said so from the start. If you enter upon our marriage believing that you can mold me to suit some image you’ve got of a Jenny, I would remind you, sir, that she is as like to be a jenny-ass as to be a jenny-wren.”

  “Very pretty speaking,” he said. “Do you mean to defy me at every turn?”

  “I do not want to defy you at all,” she said. “I want only to make matters clear between us. I want to know what you expect of me, and I want you to know that I am not likely to change my nature merely because you want me to.”

  A thumping noise diverted both of them, and they turned to see Jemmy Whiskers’ head sticking out from under the lid at one end of the basket. A moment later, the little cat emerged altogether and immediately sat down to groom itself.

  With a wry smile, Sir Quinton said, “Now there’s a lad that knows how to look after what’s important. I shall take a lesson from him just to show you that I am not set upon always getting my way. Do you intend to stand against that wall all night, little wife?”

  Glancing over her shoulder, Janet saw that she had nearly backed into the wall near a window embrasure. Outside it was nearly dark, but looking out, she saw that the view encompassed acres of upper-Teviotdale woodland. The Teviot joined Broadhaugh Water far below, and she could hear its merry chuckling.

  “It is beautiful, is it not?” he said, moving to stand beside her. Pride and the love he felt for his home colored every word.

  “Aye,” she said, “though I’ll see it better by daylight. What town is nearest?”

  “The only real one for miles is Hawick,” he said. “’Tis where I bought your gown.” He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer. “’Tis a soft gown, and gey lovely, but ’tis time to take it off, lass. I would look upon you without it.”

  Rivers of heat washed through her, making it difficult to breathe. She did not know what to do with her hands, or what to say. Surely, she should say something intelligent, something wifely, but her imagination failed her. She had no experience upon which to draw. Her lips felt dry, and her breath rasped in her throat. She could feel her heartbeat. Indeed, she could hear it, like a dull thudding in her ears.

  Sir Quinton’s palm cupped the side of her face. “I promise that you have no need to fear me, Jenny. I have never beaten a woman in my life.”

  “It is not that,” she murmured.

  “Then what?”

  “I do not know what I am supposed to do.”

  “You need do nothing yet. First, I shall act as your handmaiden. Just imagine me, if you can, in a maidservant’s cap and apron.”

  The absurdity of the suggestion made her smile.

  “That’s better. If I had been thinking clearly at the time, I would have asked Francis Tailor to reveal the fastenings on this gown. Where the devil are they?”

  “I thought you were the one with experience, sir,” she said demurely.

  “My experience is not so vast as to include all manner of buttons and laces, madam. Will you show me, or must I devise my own way into this dress?”

  “No, don’t! You will tear it, and then I shall have nothing to wear.”

  “Then show me.”

  Reluctantly, she showed him Lady Gaudilands’ clever fastenings. He proved an apt student, and when he reached her corset, she stepped away from the window, unable to believe that no one could see them standing there. He chuckled at her modesty but took the opportunity to close the shutters against the night’s chill. Next he lit candles at the fire and set them in their holders; then he removed his doublet and shirt before returning his full attention to her.

  “Next time I will show you how my clothing must be removed,” he said, slipping her gown from her shoulders. It fell, a velvet puddle at her feet.

  Although she knew she was blushing, she felt more comfortable with him. She had feared that a husband might simply demand that she undress herself and let him do what needed to be done to get a child upon her, but clearly that would not be the case. He seemed to want her to enjoy their coupling.

  His touch continued to stir new and exciting feelings in her body, fascinating and delighting her, and making her wonder what caused them. Could she stir similar feelings in him? Was it wanton to wonder such things?

  Her corset, petticoat, and underpinnings came off next, and she shivered in her thin smock.

  “Jump into bed, lass,” he said. “I’ll stir up the fire.”

  A knock at the door startled her and sent her flying for the bed. He laughed when she snatched back the blue counterpane and dove beneath it.

  Still chuckling, he said, “Shall I let them in?”

  “No! Oh, pray, sir, do not!”

  He was still chuckling when he went to open the door.

  Wondering if she could pull the bed curtain closed from where she lay, she decided in favor of yanking the counterpane to her chin instead.

  “I’ll take that,” Sir Quinton said at the doorway. “You can take yourself off to bed now, Tip. I won’t require anything more tonight.”

  She heard a murmured response, and then her husband’s contagious chuckle. When he kicked the door shut and turned, he was holding a large, well-laden tray.

  “Now here’s a dilemma,” he said, grinning. “Shall we satisfy the hunger in our stomachs first, or that of our lust?”

  Her stomach growled in reply. “I believe I am famished, sir,” she said.

  “Tip did not bring us anything as grand as what Margaret provided at Branxholme,” he said. “Just bread and meat, and I think that pot has soup in it.” He bent his head and sniffed. “Beef broth with bits of something floating in it, and mugs to drink it from, but they forgot to send a ladle.”

  “We can dip it out with the mugs,” she said. “Put the pot near the fire to keep it warm, and we can have the soup later if we want it. All I want now is a slice of bread and beef. Did your Tip bring us aught else to drink besides the soup?”

  “Aye, ale and wine both. Which would you like?”

  “Wine, please.”

  He poured some from the jug into a pewter goblet and handed it to her.

  She sipped, feeling the warmth of it seep through her as she watched him dispose of the soup pot by putting it almost into the embers at the edge of the fire. Then he set the jug of wine within arm’s reach on a side table near the bed. She liked watching the play of muscles in his arms and back as he moved. He was a well-built man.

  At last he carried the tray to the bed, and she shifted her legs so that he could set it on the counterpane, which was something she never would have allowed at Brackengill. What civilized person ate in bed? But she said not a word until he handed her a thick slab of bread with a warm slice of rare beef atop it. Then, with deep sincerity, she said, “Thank you.”

  While she nibbled, trying to keep crumbs from falling into the bed, she watched him cut another slice of beef into strips. He popped these into his mouth, one at a time, chewing while he swabbed up beef drippings from the platter with a slice of bread as thick as the one he had given her. Plainly, he was hungry, too.

  When she had finished her bread and beef, he took the tray away and set it on a chest near the fireplace. Snuffing the candles, he came back to bed. Already it was dark outside, but the fire cast a flickering orange-gold glow over the bedchamber, and when he climbed into bed, he left the curtains open.

  “I want to see you,” he murmured, sliding under the coverlets beside her. “Take off your smock.”

  Daringly, she said, “I thought you were to act the ha
ndmaiden, sir.”

  “Does your maid take off your smock?”

  “If I tell her that she must, she does.”

  He chuckled again, pleasing her, for she had meant to make him laugh. She was coming to know him better, and that pleased her, too. When he reached for her smock, though, she found it awkward to keep changing position to let him take it off, and so she helped, sitting up while he pulled it off over her head. When she moved to lie back again, however, he stopped her with a hand on her upper arm.

  “Don’t move. I want to feast my eyes. Jenny lass, you have beautiful breasts. I begin to think that I have won a great prize in you.” Bending his head, he kissed the soft rise of her left breast, making her gasp.

  While her attention was focused on his moving lips, his right hand cupped her breast, startling her again, but when his thumb brushed across its nipple, she inhaled sharply, amazed by sensations stronger than any she had felt before. She wanted to touch him. Tentatively she moved her hand to stroke his bare shoulder, surprised at how warm it felt. Curious now, she stroked his arm, feeling its muscles tense beneath her fingers.

  “Your hands are soft and warm,” he said. “Mine are not too cold, are they?”

  “No.” The whispered word was barely audible.

  “Ah, lassie, I think that I am going to enjoy marriage after all. Lie back now, and let me pleasure you.”

  Inhaling deeply, hoping to calm her fluttering nerves, she obeyed.

  Chapter 12

  “If foes but kenn’d the hand it bare,

  They soon had fled for fear.”

  QUIN MARVELED AT THE softness of her skin. Her breasts were firm, high, and plump, her waist so tiny, yet her hips wide and womanly. She would bear children well, and he had a yearning to see those children. They would have sons—a dozen sons—and all strong, fine men of whom a father and mother could be proud. It was easy to imagine this bonny lass a mother of strong sons and beautiful daughters.

  She lay naked beneath him, the glow from the firelight dancing on her skin. Her eyes were wide, and he knew that she remained wary of what lay ahead. It was a pity that she’d had no mother to prepare her for marriage, that she had not thought to ask Margaret, or that Margaret had not realized she needed teaching. At the same time, he was glad that he would teach her, that she would learn from no one else.