The Highlander's Harlot (Sword and Thistle Book 1) (5 page)

“Wonderful,” I said, taking a spoonful of porridge. “It’s very kind of him. Of them both, truly. To take the time.”

“There’s a lull in the season,” Brenna explained. “They’d normally either be farming or fishing or fighting, but now is when the men get restless. And I suppose it’ll do a simple maid like me no good to question what the laird has in mind for you. Especially as he’s sent a dress for you this evening.”

“A dress?” I asked, more excited than I should be over such a thing.

“Aye,” Brenna said, her eyes softening towards me once again. “A pretty one too. Purple like the heather flowers you’re named after. You’re to eat in the main hall tonight, by orders of the laird.”

This was more wonderful than the lessons in reading or the new dress. This meant that I would leave this accursed room where I’d spent more days now than I could count pining for my siblings, wondering if my family was getting on without me, feeling by turns idle and guilty and distraught. But I wished I knew what the laird had in his mind with such an invitation.

The gown was as pretty as Brenna promised. A hue of purple that flattered my coloring and matched the flowers she wove into the braids of my hair. I felt like a princess of the Faeries when I entered the hall, and not a few men stopped drinking their ale mid-sip when I appeared in the archway. The laird was seated at the head table, some of his relations nearby, Ian at his right hand.

The tables were filled with other warriors and lesser retainers, most of whom I didn’t know, but sitting next to a stone-faced Malcom, Davy gave me a wink and a twinkling smile. I realized that the dinner had been going on for some time now, and a fiddler was playing a tune in the corner. I wasn’t certain where I was to find a seat, but then the laird’s voice boomed through the hall. “Ah, Heather, my bonny lass. Come.”

He crooked a finger to summon me to him. I couldn’t imagine he’d have me sit at the head table. There wasn’t even any room. But his eyes were trained on mine like beams of guiding light in the darkness, drawing me to him in a room that erupted in laughter and taunts. I heard my name said more than once, and comments made upon my creamy skin and the width of my hips. It made me want to turn on my heel and run, but when I reached the laird’s side, his steely grip closed on my wrist.
 

“She’s a hungry wench,” the laird said to Ian, but loud enough that anyone might overhear. “In the bedroom and out of it!”

With that, he gave my rump a hearty slap. Then drew me into his lap, provoking a thunderous reaction from the crowd of laughter and bawdy jokes. He was showing me off to them, I realized. Letting them all see me as a taken woman; a ruined one. A whore. His evening’s entertainment.
 

“Smile,” he whispered in my ear. But the lump lodged in my throat made that seem impossible. All I wanted was to go home. To go home to my father’s little tenant cottage and tend the sheep, and watch after the children who loved me and always looked to me for example. What would they think to see me now, sprawled in my laird’s lap, my backside so tight against him that I could feel his growing hardness?
 

“
Smile
,” he said, again, this time in harsh command while nipping my shoulder in warning. And so I smiled. A false smile. A painfully false smile. One that made me squeeze back tears. And then I let John Macrae feed me bits from his plate. Cheese and pastries and other bites that were meant to sate my appetite, but I hadn’t one. My stomach was quite sour.

“Now, it’s time for bed,” the laird announced, slamming down his cup, and nuzzling my neck. “But I daresay, I’m not tired and this one will keep me up all night!”

A huzzah went up from the crowd as they celebrated their laird’s virility, and I wanted to shrink down into myself and disappear as he led me up the stairs to his chamber. The laughing, the ribald jests, and the rude eyes of men who wanted my body was something I would have to get used to, if I was to earn my bread as a harlot.
 

But how was I to get used to it when, the moment the laird closed his chamber door behind us, he was all gallantry again?

“I’m sorry for that, lass,” he said, one hand on the wall by my shoulder. His head was hanging, as if he were ashamed. “But it had to be done.”

“To shame my father?” I asked.

“Aye, but for your own good as well. I told you before. The more infamous you are, the more options you’ll have. I couldn’t think of a way to set all the tongues wagging faster than to pull you into my lap in front of everyone in the hall. The castle hasn’t had a whore in a good while; I suspect you’ll do brisk trade when I let you go.”

Still humiliated, furious, and nearly shaking with it, I asked, “And when will that be, my laird?”

He arched a brow. “Eager to get about that business, are you?”

I lifted my chin. “I miss my family. My sisters and brothers—they need me. And the sooner I can get back to them, the better.”

He twisted away from me.
 

It obviously wasn’t the answer he expected, and perhaps it wasn’t the one he wanted to hear. I just didn’t understand the man and I was beginning to think that I never would! I stood there, back against the door, heaving breaths of anger while he retreated to his chair and sprawled in it. A fire had been built in his hearth, and it crackled in the silence between us.
 

“You’re very beautiful tonight,” he finally said. “I should have told you that. I hoped the dress would suit you and it does. You may keep it; my gift to you.”

It was a generous gift. It was the kind of dress that a crofter’s girl would have no use for except for the rarest of occasions. Maybe for her wedding. But the kind of woman I was to become now, well, I suppose I wouldn’t have a wedding. “Thank you, my laird.”

He reached to tap a book at the table beside his chair. “Come, show me what you’ve learned. Ian says you’re an apt student.”

“Why do you keep him at your side when you know he dislikes you?” I asked, forcing myself to close the distance between us and take up the book.

“Because he’s close blood kin,” said the Macrae. “And because if I should die, he’ll likely lead this clan, so he ought to be involved in everything.”

“Ah,” I said, though it seemed a risky proposition. Especially since Ian seemed to
wish
him dead…

I opened the book over my knees and started to sound out some of the words. He was duly impressed as I strung them together like beads on a string, the whole bunch of them a shining jeweled necklace. “It’s a love poem,” I said, marveling. “Is that what I’m reading?”

“Aye,” the laird said, beginning to laugh, then frowning when he saw tears glisten in my eyes. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Aye,” he said, more softly. “Pretty words.”

“More than that,” I replied, trying to stifle a sob. “It’s all this emotion. This feeling. He loves her and she loves him in return, and they are so filled with it, so connected to one another, that they can’t keep silent about it, so they speak this poem…and it’s something I’ll never know. A feeling I’ll never—”

“You might,” the laird broke in. “Even if no man will ever marry you, there’s plenty who would love you for your kind and devoted heart.”

“I’ve never loved a man,” I said, not believing him. “And now I probably never will. Have you ever loved a woman, my laird? Is it like this poem?”

“No, I’ve never loved a woman,” the laird replied, lacing his fingers together. “Wouldn’t dare to. I’d only end up having to try to be a different kind of man than I am, feeling hollow and alone.”

“Then I’m sad for us both,” I said, dabbing at my eyes with the kerchief he extended to me for my tears.
 

“Heather, I’m trying to do right by you,” he said, weakly. “At least, as right as I can do under the circumstances. I know it isn’t much and I’m bungling it at every turn, but if there’s something I can do—”

“You can kiss me, again,” I said, suddenly sure it was the only thing that would make me forget the pain in my heart for the circumstances I’d come to. I’d been thinking about his kiss, remembering it, dreaming about it for days now. Wanting it to happen again. Telling myself that I couldn’t possibly want such a thing. But I did. “Lie down with me on the bed and kiss me like you did before, until I can’t think of or feel anything but my laird.”

His eyes softened. “Oh, lass. Would that I could. But you have little idea what you’re tempting me to.”

“I don’t care anymore,” I said, petulantly. “Everyone already believes I’m your harlot. If I’m going to be ruined either way, shouldn’t I at least have the honor of it being true?”

The laird sucked in a breath, reaching out to touch my cheek. “You wouldn’t think it an honor. You deserve for the first time a man takes you to do it gently, and—”

“What if I would rather it be
you
?” I dared to interrupt. He was, after all, the most powerful man I knew. He was also a man who had shown some care for me. If I was to surrender my virtue to a man who wasn’t my husband, I couldn’t think of anyone it
should
be instead of my laird.

He stared at me, heat banked in his eyes. Desire radiated off the heat of his fingers as he continued to stroke my cheek. I thought he might grab me in his strong hands and crush me against his chest in a smothering kiss, but instead he said, “Sometimes, lass, I think you were sent to me by the devil himself.”

So he was going to refuse me. He was going to cuddle me on his lap and feed me bits of food from his fingers, and build in my body this outrageous fire of desire, and then deny me. It seemed even more unjust than everything else he’d already done to me!
 

He spoke of
me
as the
devil
? Hurt at his rejection of my offer of my body and more, I blurted, “Ian says that what you do to women in bed should cause them to curl up upon their beds and weep half the day.”

John Macrae blanched. Went white to the tip of his nose. And I had the strangest sensation that
I
had somehow caused
him
pain. “I told you before, I’m a man for rough wooing, but there’s no girl who comes to my bed who isn’t there by her own consent. And I don’t mean the kind of consent that you gave at threat of your father dangling from a noose!”

His shout startled me.
 

And I began to realize that whatever it was that pleased him in bed was something that also shamed him. It shocked me, because he was a big strong man who held the fate of everyone in our clan in his hand. He was the laird. He merely had to say something was so and everyone was bound to obey him. So long as he kept to the code of honor that men held between themselves in battle, and in loyalty to family and our land, who could ever make him feel ashamed? And yet, I sensed that he was. “I wish you’d tell me what it is that you do with the women who willingly come to your bed.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “And I wish you’d read from the book like I told you.”

I stared down at the letters, but in my confusion about my laird’s troubled emotions, they all seemed to swim before my eyes. “If I’m to pretend that you’ve had me, don’t you think I need to know how to answer when someone asks what it was like?”

He looked up as if startled by this argument, and also, not having an answer for it. “You can tell them that I took a belt to your backside. That I strapped you until you cried of it. That I spoke to you with harshness—that I called you names to make you feel small. Abused you in this way until I could taste your shame. Because shame is how a woman is made more naked than naked.”

My mouth went dry. I wasn’t sure I understood all of what he meant, but I understood enough of it. The idea of him taking a belt to my backside wasn’t as frightening as I think he thought it should be. And it was also strangely arousing. I was a grown girl now, past the need of discipline, but I didn’t think it would break me to feel the sting of a belt again. In his foul moods, my father had strapped me for no reason at all, and I was hardened to it.
 

I said none of this, of course, to the Macrae.
 

Instead, I asked, “And this gives you pleasure?”

“More than pleasure,” he said, darkly. “It gives me strength. It makes me feel as if I have the power I need to protect this castle and this clan. It gives me the confidence to fend off rivals and
be
the laird. It feeds something in me that’s always hungry without it.”

“What if I wanted to sate that hunger?” I asked, daring to reach for his hand. I put my fingers atop his, and he grasped at them.
 

 
At my words I saw a hunger in his eyes, a hope raw and wild. All of a sudden, he tugged me out of my chair. He caught me against his hard body, and I was forced to straddle him for balance. My hands on his shoulders, my knees on either side of his waist, I felt the hardness of his erection pressing between my legs. And the expectant pleasure of having excited him so much, of feeling the proof of his desire, was thrilling!
 

In response to the curious ache in my loins, my hips slowly gyrated against him, forcing from his throat a groan. “What are you doing, lass?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and I didn’t. I only knew that it felt right to grind upon him this way. That I was driven to it by an exquisite ache of emptiness in my womb that needed to be filled. “But it feels good…”

“More than good.” At that, his rough hand went to my hair. First, he yanked me forward for a kiss so hard it bruised my lips, then I yelped when he yanked my head back to expose my throat.
 

“Dear God,” I murmured to myself as my laird’s teeth sank softly into the flesh by my ear.
 

Then he dragged those teeth down my throat to the top of each breast where he nibbled while making fists of the fabric of my lovely purple dress. “I want to tear it,” he said, throatily. “I want to tear it off your body, throw you down, and take my belt to you until you cry. I want to use coarse words with you. I want to mark you as mine.” He shook me, anger and desperation in his eyes. “Is that what you want, Heather?”