The Laird (14 page)

Head high, she stalked away.

Duncan frowned watching Beth’s straight-backed progress through the hall. She was still obviously furious with him and he hadn’t a thought as to why. He had apologized, no?

“Ack, ye’re a brave man, Duncan,” Angus muttered, as he pulled out Duncan’s chair. “The last time I nay-said the wench, I found my balls in my throat.”

Duncan grimaced as he settled at the table. “Not so brave, friend. Having heard what happened to ye, I made damn sure I kept my hip to her.” He shook his head. “She is a confusion, Angus. As gentle as the mist at gloaming one moment, a flame-eyed termagant the next. And her tales...augh, you’ve not heard the like. I swear I could live one hundred years and understand her not.”

“Understand her or not, ye must consummate this marriage soon.”

“So ye heard?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“Tonight ‘twill be done.” When Angus’s ale suddenly spewed across the table, Duncan cast a scathing glance at him. “Think me not man enough?”

Angus stopped wiping the ale from his beard and held up his hands. “’Twas not my meaning.” He finished cleaning his face. “Ye merely surprised me by choosing
this
night. Yer wee wife left me with the distinct impression she’d sooner geld ye as look at ye. ‘Tis all.”

Humph!
His friend did have a point. What to do? He couldn’t take time to woo his lady into a favorable frame of mind, having been locked away from his duties for nigh onto a week. He’d have to ponder the problem further. He did, after all, have six hours before dark.

As he finished his meat, the solution to his dilemma dawned. It lay just above his head in the library. Beth had been most impressed with
What the Goodwife Taught Her Daughter
. She could only be doubly pleased and placed in a perfect set of mind with his next surprise.

I
’m going to kill him.

Beth reread the title just to be sure she hadn’t misunderstood. Yup, that’s the title.
One Hundred Ways For A Goodwife To Please Her Husband
.

Stabbing would be too good for the man. Poisoning would be better...a long, slow, painful poisoning she could watch and gloat over. Yes, that was the way to go.

She tossed the book onto the solar’s high poster bed and picked up the heavy granite pestle and mortar she’d appropriated from the castle’s distillery.

As she wrenched dried kelp leaves from their rubbery stalks, Rachael tapped her hunched shoulder.

“Doth not my lord’s gift please thee,
madame?
”

“I appreciate the value of the book, Rachael. I just don’t appreciate the theme.”

“I dinna ken
la raison.
‘Tis
tresbonne
—-very well illustrated,
non
?”

Beth took her frustration out on the kelp, grinding furiously. “Aye, Rachael, it is. Unfortunately, I have no interest in learning how to kowtow any more than I do now.” The depictions of preferred sexual positions had been the final straw.

“Cow tow,
madame
?”

Beth dumped the powdered kelp into a bowl and reached for the oats. “It means ‘to bow and scrape
,
’ to do my master’s bidding without so much as a by-your-leave.” She slammed the pestle into the oats and began separating hull from nut. “How I ever imagined myself attracted to that man is beyond comprehension.”

“Surely, ye ken the ways of men,
madame
? They huff and puff, but are mere
petit garcon
—-laddies--in here.” She tapped her heart. “In truth, they fear us.”

Beth’s hands stilled. “Fear us? What do you mean?”

Rachael smiled. “Ah,
madame
, ‘tis kenned by all
Francaise
—-

--women of my country. Did your mater not teach ye this as an
enfant
?”

“If by mater you mean my mother, she died when I was a babe.”

“Ah! ‘Tis no wonder, then.” Rachael sat on the bed and patted the place at her side. “Come, we must talk before ‘tis too late.”

“Too late for what?”

Rachael sighed. “Ye shall learn.”

An hour later Beth could only gape at the woman who--not ten years earlier--had nearly burned at the stake.

According to Rachael, Duncan had to bed Beth as soon as humanly possible to keep his fiefdom and--unless Beth ran for her life--there would be no nay-saying him, as Rachael so tactlessly put it. Good God Almighty!

Beth started pacing. “Rachael, are you absolutely certain he means to do this tonight?”

“Aye,
madame
.”

Having already ripped her headdress off, Beth ran an agitated hand through her hair. “Please, Rachael, no more ‘madames’ or ‘dames.’ Call me Beth.”

“As ye luste, but only in private, mad...Beth. ‘Twould not be
s’approprier
—-uhmm, appropriate—in the public,
non
?”

Beth waved a distracted hand. “Whatever.”

She still couldn’t believe Duncan—-her ghost, the hulking man of her dreams, the man she still contemplated slaying-—actually thought he could just walk through the solar door and jump her bones. Tonight! How could he even think it after he’d acted the Neanderthal in the hall, embarrassing her before everyone? What madness was this?

“Rachael, there’s got to be a way I can get out of this.”

Now well aware that Beth was still a virgin, her French friend pushed out her lower lip in thought, “There may be, but ‘twould only be
l’ ajournement temporaire
.”

As she had for the last hour, Beth mentally rearranged Rachael’s words and shifted the accent on syllables, and suddenly hope bloomed. “You’re saying there
is
a way to postpone this?”

“
Oui
, but ‘tis only--”

“A temporary adjournment, I understand, but what?”

“Claim yer flowers.”

Beth shook her head. How the hell could flowers possibly save her?

“Yer bloody flow,
mad
--Beth.”

“Aaah!”

“
Oui
, Beth, ah!”

~#~

Duncan ran a shaking hand over his bristle-coated jaw. There was no help for it. He had to shave or rub his ladywife’s face raw when he bedded her. Hopefully, he could accomplish the task without slitting his throat.

He balanced his dirk in his hand. How would this first tupping go? He’d had little problem bedding his first wife. She’d not enthused, but she’d not wailed either. As time passed, he’d been disappointed knowing she’d not seek his attention, would not return his kisses, but then she hadn’t turned from him, either. The same, unfortunately, could
not
be said for his second and third wives.

He’d taken inordinate time with his second wife, having no knowledge nor love of her, and her being only fifteen years, but she’d still cried, lying like a slab of granite beneath him as he claimed his rights. She’d not said a word as he’d gently cleansed her. Only after he’d finished tending her, did she start praying--hands clutched between her perfect breasts--for his immortal soul in endless, fractious whispers. To his horror, he awoke the next morning to Angus’s frantic shaking and the news that his lady had jumped from the parapet and lay broken on the rocky headland below.

His third wife had apparently been better schooled in the ways of men and women for she’d not keened, yet still she remained remote each time they tupped despite his best efforts. At the time he had no way of knowing that she loved another and thought him a heathen. ‘Twas only when she buried her blade in his back did he come to understand her full loathing for him. And by then ‘twas too late.

Praise the saints, this new wife is a widow. He’d had his fill of virgins.

Surely, Isaac had misunderstood Beth’s responses to his questions. Had she not caressed Duncan with gentle hands and cool water whilst he lay fevered and naked as a wee bird? Certainly no virgin would ever do such. And she had shaved him without so much as a nick, which only proved she’d done so in the past for her first husband. That thought—-that she’d gently ministered to another--caused a sudden, inexplicable tightening in his gut. Odd.

He wet his face and reluctantly pressed the blade to his cheek. Since Beth obviously preferred a babe-like visage over a manly beard, he supposed shaving ‘twas the least he could do for the poor addled lass. She had brought him back from the brink of death, after all.

As he scraped over his jaw he heaved a sigh.

He’d never been comfortable, as some men were, enjoying the occasional prime flesh of loose women. Tupping with their ilk ‘twas something he’d done as a lad to gain skill but not since.

A mature man should, he believed, save his seed for his ladywife, the vessel of a legitimate and fertile womb. But would Lady Beth graciously accept his attention? Or would she, like his last two wives, grit her teeth and pray for the act to be over?

If he learned her colorful, chaotic thoughts stemmed only from an injury, would she be joyful when she carried his seed, his heir?

So many questions with no answers.

Smooth cheeked, he donned the collarless jerkin he’d chosen for this special occasion. Flora had once told him the deep blue brocade enhanced the color of his eyes. He didn’t know whether it did or not, but she’d smiled so perhaps Beth would find it pleasing, as well. And he would have preferred to be physically stronger for this night, but...

He squared his shoulders and heaved a sigh of resignation. He’d delayed as long as he dared. The deed must now be done.

~#~

Finished with shaving her legs, Beth put away the short blade Rachael had loaned her, and started smearing her homemade kelp cleanser on her face. “I hope this works better than it smells.”

She grinned, her thoughts on Rachael. The poor woman had been wide-eyed thinking the worst when Beth had asked for the knife. It had taken forever to convince her new friend she only wanted to shave, that she felt dirty with a week’s worth of stubble on her body. Rachael, still not sure what Beth was about, had insisted on watching. Her exclamations had almost--but not quite--put Duncan’s plans for the upcoming night out of mind.

Beth prayed Rachael’s “flower” plan would work, but what if it didn’t? She had heard some men didn’t mind having sex during a woman’s period, though for the life of her she couldn’t image a woman agreeing to it.

In his current physical condition, there was the possibility she could out run him. But what if he bellowed for help? Angus and half the world would come running. And if she did manage to elude his men, where would she go? Blackstone was already locked down for the night. From earlier observation she knew Duncan’s nightly precautions would have impressed a state pen warden. She grimaced, and her kelp mask tugged.

She had no choice but to hope Rachael’s plan would hold Duncan at bay. Ignoring the small voice in her head that screamed, “Run while you still can”, she closed her eyes and splashed water on her face.

Feeling a tap her on the shoulder, she jumped.

“God’s teeth, woman! What have ye on yer visage?”

Beth looked like a startled frog. Duncan’s shock dissolved into laughter when his green-as-grass wife began to blush. God, she had to be the oddest, funniest thing he’d ever seen.

  He gasped for air when she stomped a bare foot at him and pointed to the door. “Out, you great lummox!”

“Beth, my dear...” He took a deep breath and tried to look contrite, but laughter started bubbling out of his chest again.

If he didn’t get control, all would be lost, but saints above, what had ever possessed her? He cleared his throat to smother the chuckle hovering behind his tongue.

Finished with her scrubbing and blotting, she again faced him, this time with a look of righteous indignation. “Are you quite through?” she asked.

He nodded, still not trusting his voice.

“Good,” she huffed. “We should go down stairs and have something to eat. I’m hungry.”

While she rooted under the bed like a ferret for something, he struggled with his demons and finally managed, “Beth, ‘twill be brought in forthwith.”

“Oh?” She appeared more startled than pleased. “But...I need to see Rachael.”

“Ye may speak with her come morn’, lass. She isna goin’ away.” He grinned when she blanched, and her shoes dropped to the floor with a thud.

“Oh.”

Why did she suddenly look like he was about to consume her for sup? Had she been told? He approached her and she warily backed away.

When he had her cornered between the bed and the wall, he slowly reached for the pins holding her hair atop her head. He preferred her hair loose, softly framing her face.

As her braids fell into his hands she stuttered, “Are you sure...sure you don’t want to go downstairs?” She placed a hand on his chest. “We really should. The food will be warmer.”

“The food will be warm enough here.” He ran his fingers through her thick braids, loosening her silken hair until it fell into soft waves. “Your hair is a bonnie shade, like chestnuts.”

She swallowed, eyes locked on his face.

He ran a finger down her cheek, remaining silent as her color began to rise. When it settled on a sunset vermilion, he whispered, “Yer skin is soft, lady, like a lamb’s ear or a rose petal.”

She ducked her chin and looked away, exposing her neck to his perusal. Not bad, sleek and long. He brushed his lips against her golden skin just as a knock came to the door.

She immediately squeaked, “I’ll get that!”

He stayed her with a hand. “No need.” As her eyes grew wide, he called, “Enter.”

He kept an arm around her waist and guided her toward the table the two serving lasses loaded with every delicacy his pantry had to offer. When the lasses began to leave, his wife’s hungry gaze followed them to the door.

Oh, aye, she knew only too well what was afoot.

When the door closed, he motioned toward one of the chairs before the fireplace. “Please sit.”

She settled, looking more than a wee bit pensive. Thinking it would calm her, he served, depositing moderate portions of everything into her trencher before loading his own. He then poured generous amounts of his finest wine in both their goblets.