The MacNaughton Bride

The
MacNaughton
Bride

 
By Carolyn
Faulkner

   
Copyright 2009 by Carolyn Faulkner
and Blushing Books

Copyright © 2009 by Blushing Books ® and Carolyn
Faulkner

All rights reserved.
 
No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.

Published by Blushing Books ®,

a subsidiary of

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US Patent and Trademark Office.

Carolyn Faulkner

           
The
MacNaughton
Bride

ISBN 978-1-935152-64-4

Cover Design:
 
ABCD Graphics

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Chapter
One

“You’re losing weight!”
Jenny clucked disapprovingly as she moved about her charge, adjusting here,
tugging there, until the young woman’s undergarments were in their correct positions,
a dance she was just going to have to repeat once she tugged the laces of the
corset as tightly together as possible.
 

“Don’t you know that men
don’t like skin and bones in their beds?
 
They like someone of substance who can generate some heat under the
covers – in more ways than one!"
   
She cackled at her own joke.

Trying to put her maid’s
risqué comments out of her mind,
Aislinn
yawned for
the thousandth time that morning, half out of exhaustion and half out of
nervousness, and a fear she refused to confront.
 
She was not afraid.
 
Not.
 
If she refused to
acknowledge the unfamiliar emotion, then it didn’t exist.
 
The almost undetectable trembling of
her pale, slender hands was due to the fact that she wasn’t quite awake; it was
certainly not attributable to the fact that the mere sight of her future
husband was enough to make her whole body stiffen in trepidation.

Another loud, entirely
unladylike, full body yawn made her lean slightly to the left, and she almost
lost her footing and fell off the stool she’d mounted to make dressing her
easier on the creaky old woman.

“Stand still, girl!
 
That’d be just what you’d need –
to fall and break your neck on your wedding day!”

Aislinn
was a tiny woman – her father had always said she’d taken after her mother
in her fine, aristocratic features and delicacy of stature.
 
But despite her size, she had the heart
of a lion.
 
She – with
precious little help from her father - had single handedly kept the Montgomery
household running, a task she’d stepped into gradually as she grew up.
 
Sarah Pierce Montgomery had died in
childbirth, sending the normally good natured Albert into a self loathing
spiral of drink that had ended a mere six months ago.

***

His brother,
Aislinn’s
Uncle Bertram, being her only living blood
relative, had reluctantly come to her rescue and housed her, but only long
enough to find her a husband, which he had announced on the first day they had
met was long over due for her, in his opinion.
 
She could still see him in that shadowy library where he
conducted his business – whatever that was, chomping on an obscenely huge
cigar and looking her up and down as if she was a slave on the block, and
obviously finding her lacking.
 
Or
perhaps just finding her female and considering that the two were
synonymous.
 
Either way, he had
very little to do with her for the few months she was there, for which
Aislinn
was truly grateful.

She had been of a mind to
suggest that he find the richest, doddering old man that he could to marry her
off with – the better to deal with her biggest challenge – but she
managed to hold her tongue, which was no small feat in itself.
 

Instead, she had been
unceremoniously summoned to that very same room in the middle of the night less
than two weeks ago.
 
He had again
perused her as if she was some particularly odious insect, then announced
without preamble that he had found her a husband and she was to prepare herself
for a trip to Northern Scotland to be wed.

***

So here she stood, in one
of the sparsely appointed guest bedrooms in
MacNaughton
Castle, although she’d been surprised to see that it had a triple mirror vanity
in it and the biggest bed in Christendom, being dressed for her wedding by her
long suffering maid.
 
Aislinn
couldn’t keep herself from asking the question
she’d already annoyed Jenny with thoroughly several times this morning.
 
“You’re sure that
Adelle
is okay?”

With a patience she rarely
displayed, Jenny, her mouth full of pins, mumbled, “Yes, yes, yes.
 
She’s fine.
 
Resting quietly.”

Aislinn
knew she wouldn’t be happy until she’d set eyes on
Adelle
herself, and as the thought entered her head, she stepped down and grabbed up
her robe, heading for the door while Jenny sputtered behind , still leaning
forwards, armed with the next pin for her bustle.

“Where are you going?” she
asked, as if she didn’t know.

“I’ll be back in a few
minutes,” the girl promised as Jenny sat back on her heels and shook her head.

***

The castle was a maze of
rooms that were going to take a long while to map out in her mind, despite her
usually good sense of direction.
 
This was by far the largest and grandest place she’d ever been, let
alone lived.
 
As she walked
hesitantly through the halls,
Aislinn
made mental
notes about what she might want to change – first and foremost being that
there was barely any decoration or style.
 
The walls were almost entirely bare. But decorating was secondary to her
current mission.

As she rounded a corner,
close to her destination and completely intent on her goal, she rammed head on
into the
MacNaughton
himself.

Her bridegroom.

Crashing into him sent her
flying back several steps, but he reached out as fast as a snake and grabbed
her upper arms to keep her from falling in a heap on the floor.
 
Aislinn
could
feel the strength – just in his huge hands – as he steadied her,
then dropped his hands to his sides.
 
Her eyes fell to the floor.
 
Why did this man have the ability to cow her, when none other ever had?
 
Her bullying uncle hadn’t succeeded
– she’d been just as happy to have him marry her off and get out from
under his oppressive thumb.
 
Her
father - drunkard that he was – had had a mean, violent streak that she’d
managed to fend off with few remaining scars.
 
She’d always stood up for herself – and others.
 
She’d had to.
 
There was no one else to do it for her.

But this man . . . he
towered her, and somehow she knew, just looking at him, that she’d more than
met her match.
 
The two men –
the two primary men in her life – had been weak, or had just wanted to
forget that she existed.
 
There was
nothing in
Kell
MacNaughton’s
demeanor that let her think she might get away with anything with him,
including trying to handle him to her own advantage.
 
They had barely met last night when the coach he’d sent to
collect her had arrived at the castle, and had never talked.
  
Yet this evening she would be
lying in the same bed with him, and as Jenny had already advised, letting him
“do what he would” to her, supposedly without objection.

Aislinn
wasn’t at all sure she could do that.
 
Her father had been too involved in his own grief to want to have much
to do with her.
 
Aislinn
had grown up largely on her own – with gentle
guidance from Jenny, but Jenny was no match for
Aislinn’s
headstrong tendencies.
 
In large
part, she’d done exactly as she pleased all her life, and there had been no one
to tell her otherwise.
 
No one who
could say it and enforce it, that was.
 
Her father’s occasional, inconsistent, downright violent attempts to
discipline her had left her even more determined not to trust anyone else for
her wellbeing, and the wellbeing of those she held dear.

“Are you all right?”
 
That deep bass voice rumbled through
her until her chill bumps made her toes curl.

Inhaling deeply,
Aislinn
straightened her back.
 
Even if she felt one, she didn’t have to act the ninny
around him.
 
“I’m fine, thank you.”

He was considering her all
too closely for her comfort, those black eyes piercing and peering into her
very soul.
 
“What are you doing
about this morning?
 
I would have
thought you’d be getting ready.”

“I could say the same about
you.”

His eyebrow went up at her
impertinence.
 
Few men would
address him so, and yet here was little Sassenach baggage coming right back at
him about why he wasn’t busy getting ready for their wedding – as if he
didn’t have a thousand other more important things to do.
 
In fact, he had a devil of a time
trying to make sure that his younger brothers were convinced that he didn’t
want to indulge in the usual traditions – even the ones that involved
liquor.
 
Traditionally, he should
have started about a week ago, and made the rounds of all his friends, drinking
all the way, only to end up at the ceremony, so hung he could barely open his
eyes, and bedecked with all of the folderol they could come up with along the
way – bows and bells and all manner of unnecessary and unmanly
decorations.
 
He was so tall he’d
end up looking like a Christmas tree, and that was definitely not what the
MacNaughton
preferred.
 
He knew he was already a big, hulking brute, not the refined
type that ladies – most particularly English ladies, he imagined,
preferred.

 
But she was exactly what he preferred.
 
Her Uncle’s representative had
described her to him, but the man himself had only met her once, briefly, so
there wasn’t much for him to tell.
 
What she looked like was considered to be completely unimportant,
anyway, and there was no time for a portrait, and definitely not one of those
newfangled stereoscopic photographs he would have loved.
Kell
had seen several stereoscopic images which showed images in three dimensions,
and had become fascinated by it.
 
He couldn’t think of a better way to see his future wife.

But the more important
factor was her dowry, which was extremely generous, and would be put to good
use to make badly needed improvements to the castle and its outbuildings,
increasing his herds of both sheep and deer, and his smallish herd of black
Highland cattle.
 
His mouth twisted
at the memory of the man’s spare description, which had lead him to thinking
that he would end up having to do his duty by his wife, but he that he wasn’t
going to enjoy it much.

****

“She’s plain and dull, and
from what I could see.”

Kell
had steeled himself, not really trusting what the man had said, but knowing he
would have to take what he got.
 
Aislinn
had arrived while he was out training with his men,
and he’d not had time to clean up before presenting himself to her.
 
In fact, he’d come into the great hall
not knowing she was there, freshly sweaty and almost bare
chested
.
 
Not the way he would have chosen to
greet her, but then better for her to face the realities of life in the
Highlands.
 
Sometimes, the
proprieties were forsaken for the sake of the practicalities of life.

Despite his attire –
or lack thereof – he came to stand before her and swept a formal
bow.
 
She was bundled against the
chilly northwesterly wind, and he could barely make out anything but the
outline of her body, which, he knew, would be distorted by the current
fashionable mode of dress which accented a woman’s backside with an exaggerated
bustle.
 
Kell
wasn’t in the least adverse to a woman’s natural backside, and disliked the
idea of trying to improve on what God had made utterly perfect in a female.

What he saw shocked and
delighted him, although he was not given to overt displays of emotion and none
of it showed on his expression.
 
His poker face had made him a tidy sum of money when his father had sent
him to London, and he had frequented Whites – the exclusive
mens
’ club – and had spent many a night drinking,
gambling, and whoring as a young man.
 
All of that had come to an abrupt halt when his father – the old
MacNaughton
– had died suddenly of cholera and he was
called back to assume the mantle of responsibility his father had so wisely
worn.

 
Her well-fed maid was fluttering about, gently folding back
the hood of her blue sapphire cloak, which was of much to light a material to
have done her a lot of good during the ride.
 
Kell
made a mental note that she
would need much better attire in order not to freeze to death during a Highland
winter.