Bride for a Knight (21 page)

“As it happens, I heard enough of their stories tonight to occupy me for months.” She glanced down, flicking an invisible fleck off her sleeve. “’Tis the Glenelg woman who interests me,” she said, looking up. “Your tales of
her
that I wish to hear.”

Jamie blew out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. Now he knew the devil was somewhere underfoot, and far too close for comfort.

Certain of it, he considered taking his bride into his arms and kissing her until such fool notions fled her mind.

A possibility he quickly dismissed.

In her present agitated state, she just might reward any such peacemaking attempt by biting off his tongue.

He frowned again.

Truth be told, she was being unreasonable.

After all, he’d not done anything wrong. So far as he knew, all men paid an occasional visit to a joy woman and in most instances to more than one.

Many loftier knights and lairds of his acquaintance kept a veritable string of mistresses, some even favoring their concubines and their offspring above their legally wed consorts.

Something Jamie would never consider; not with such a pleasing bride.

Saints, he was besotted with her.

“You’re not being fair,” he said, stepping closer to her again. “Surely you know that men have certain needs? Urges they sometimes tend by visiting such women as Gunna of the Glen?”

His bride said nothing.

Instead, she slipped past him and went to stand in front of the fire, staring down into the flames.

“I know of the heat of passion that blazes between a man and a woman—and what they do about it!” she said, not looking at him. “I am not ignorant.”

She spun around then, her sapphire eyes snapping. “I
am
innocent. Should you wonder.”

Jamie sighed. “Ach, sweetness, the thought ne’er crossed my mind,” he said, leaving off how often he had thought about her innocence, but not for the reason she suspected.

Nay, he worried that her purity might remain a permanent state.

He looked down, then immediately wished he hadn’t when his gaze fell on his hands. Saints, big as he was and tiny as she was, just holding her might crack one of her ribs if e’er he forgot himself and clutched her over-tight.

Jamie’s mood darkened, the mere notion of causing her pain making his head throb. He’d sooner not touch her at all than risk hurting her.

“See here,” he started to explain, “my concern is—”

“You said this woman, this Gunna of the Glen, is the only such female you’ve visited,” she persisted, her gaze back on the hearth fire. “Have you then only lain with her? Have there been no others?”

Jamie rammed a hand through his hair.

“Of course, there have been others,” he admitted, now feeling the devil’s eyes on him.

“And who were they?”

“Kitchen bawds and laundresses. Big-boned, broad-bottomed lasses, light-skirted wenches free with their charms,” he explained, his head now pounding in earnest. “I dinna remember the names of any of them. And from the time I went to serve my liege, Sir Kenneth MacKenzie, the Keeper of Cuidrach, I only took my ease with the widow.”

“No one else?”

Jamie shook his head. “No one.”

“Then you must’ve been mightily fond of her?”

“I was, and am,” Jamie said, smoothing a hand over his chin. “She is a good woman with a big heart. She misses her late husband and the bed sport they shared. That is the reason she welcomes such attention.”

“That was baldly put.” Aveline slanted a glance at him. “So she is a well-lusted woman?”

Jamie nodded, silently damning whate’er fool saint saw fit to bless him with such an unflagging penchant for honesty. “She is lusty, aye.”

And so well-ridden even I can slide in and out of her with astonishing ease
.

Something he needed to explain, however awkward. He could already see a slew of other interpretations slipping across his lady’s face.

False notions that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

So he inhaled deeply and crossed the room. Before she could move away, he seized her chin, forcing her to look at him. “What you are thinking is not how it was,” he said, willing her to understand. “I did not seek out the widow because I had heart feelings for her. She suited me well for one reason and one reason only.”

Aveline blinked, letting silence stretch between them.

Jamie swallowed. At least she hadn’t looked away or tried to break free of his grasp.

It was a start.

Something to build on.

“So you did not love her?” she finally asked, her cheeks turning pink on the question.

“Love her?” Jamie’s brows shot upwards. “I am fond of Gunna of the Glen,” he spoke true again. “But she is a friend, naught else.”

“An intimate friend.”

“Aye, that indeed. As intimate as a man and woman can be.” Jamie looked hard at her. “I will ne’er lie to you, lass. Dinna ask me questions if the answer will displease you.”

Her chin rose. “Will you see her again?”

“Nay, I will not.” Jamie shook his head. “That I swear to you. Leastways not for the reason I visited her in the past.”

She looked doubtful. “Will you tell me what that reason was?”

“Och, aye.” Jamie curled his hands around his sword belt, holding tight. “Truth be told, I must tell you.”

Her eyes widened. “You must?”

Jamie nodded again. Then he let go of his belt and reached for her, sliding his hands down her back and over the curve of her buttocks. He cupped them lightly and drew her to him, holding her just close enough so that she couldn’t help but feel the thick bulge of his sex.

A
problem
blessedly at ease for the moment.

Hoping her soft feminine warmth and delicate violet perfume wouldn’t alter that state too quickly, he glanced up at the ceiling again and sought the best words.

“Back in the hall, you said you wished to speak to me about something important,” she said then, peering up at him, her eyes luminous in the candlelight. “Did it have aught to do with this woman? Or the MacKenzie marriage stone? I ask because Hughie Mac was telling the tale when you returned.”

Jamie tightened his arms around her, squeezing her ever so lightly. “It has naught to do with those things and yet everything to do with them,” he said, sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her across the room to lower her onto the edge of Kendrick’s great four-poster bed.

“The only thing this has to do with the MacKenzie stone is that I needn’t clasp your hand through a holed stone to know that our union will be mightily blessed,” he said, hooking his hands beneath his sword belt again and pacing before the bed. “All I need is the assurance that I won’t hurt you. That, and naught else is troubling me.”

Aveline’s jaw slipped. “Hurt me?”

She stared at him, confusion spilling through her.

This was the last thing she’d expected him to say. “I do not understand.”

He shot a glance at her. “You ken we are now as good as legally wed?” he asked, pausing beside the foot of the bed. “You are aware that we can lie together now, this moment, and no one would raise a brow?”

Aveline nodded. His words caused a flurry of warm, fluttery tingles low in her belly.

She
wanted
to lie with him.

And she wanted more of his kisses.

Mayhap even the all-over kind of kisses one of her sisters had secretly told her about one night after she’d imbibed too much spiced wine, claiming her husband loved nothing better than to lie between her legs and lick her.

Aveline shivered.

The notion had excited her when Maili had shared it. Now, after being held and touched and kissed by Jamie these last weeks, the thought of him doing such an intimate thing to her—actually getting
down there
and touching his tongue to her—shattered her.

Truth be told, the notion filled her with such thrilling heat she had to clamp her thighs together.

“Did you hear me?” he prodded then, watching her. “We are bound now. Before God, man, and all these great hills surrounding us. Naught between us is a sin, even though we will not wed till spring. Our betrothal ceremony sealed our vows. We are as good as man and wife.”

“Aye, I know this,” she said, the tingles in her belly beginning to spread even lower.

He came closer again, stopping just in front of her. “Then you will not object if we speak freely about certain things?”

“‘Things’?”

Aveline’s heart began to pound.

She shifted on the bed, her mouth going dry. Saints preserve her if he’d read her thoughts. Half-afraid he had, she moistened her lips, sharply aware of his nearness, his clean masculine scent.

She blinked, his braw good looks and his scent distracting her. “What things?”

He stepped closer, so near his knees rested lightly against hers. “Man and woman things,” he said, looking down at her. “You have said you know about them?”

She nodded. “My sisters have told me what happens at beddings and I have seen my father’s men coupling with the laundresses in the shadowy corners of the hall and sometimes in the stables.”

“And you have seen unclothed men?” he asked, watching her.

Aveline bit her lip. Scorching heat shot up her neck. Worse, wicked as it was, talking so openly about such things seemed to increase the hot prickly-tingly feeling between her legs.

And she was finding she liked the sensation.

She drew a slow breath, forcing herself to speak evenly. “Aye, I have seen my father’s men undressed. Mostly of an e’en and in the hall as they readied themselves for sleeping.”

Looking down, she smoothed a fold in the bed coverlet. “I’ve also bathed a goodly number of my father’s loftier guests.”

“But such guests would not have been aroused.” Jamie held her gaze, his knees still pressing against hers. “Have you e’er seen a man thus stirred?”

“Only one,” Aveline blurted before she lost the nerve. “He was standing behind a tree near St. Bride’s Well when my sisters and I once bathed there. He was swollen, aye, and touching himself.”

“Men do that sometimes, lass,” Jamie said, his tone tight. “It relieves their need. But committing such an act while spying on you and your sisters was inexcusable and I hope he was severely punished.”

Aveline curled her fingers into the bedcovers and glanced aside.

“He ran away before we could see his face,” she lied, unable to tell him that two of her sisters had flaunted themselves, deliberately lying half-naked in a patch of sunshine beside the sacred well.

Jamie nodded, his fingers itching to curl around the neck of the dastard who’d taken such a cowardly means to find his ease. But he was also relieved his bride was familiar with a man’s body.

Not taking his gaze off her, he unfastened his hip flask from his belt and tossed down a hefty swallow of fine and fiery
uisge beatha
. Highland water of life, a potent spirit well known for curing any and everything thought to ail man, including over-tight tongues.

He offered her some, then frowned because he hadn’t thought to first fetch a cup for her, but she surprised him by accepting the flask and placing it immediately to her lips.

“So you see,” she said after taking a sip and handing the flask back to him, “I know what to expect when we bed and I am not afraid. I also know you will not hurt me—that you’d never treat me as roughly as I’ve seen some of my father’s men use the laundresses and kitchen lasses.”

Jamie cleared his throat. “That is not the kind of hurting I meant,” he said, not surprised by the flash of confusion in her eyes. “To be sure, I would ne’er treat you roughly. ’Tis my size that concerns me, see you? I fear hurting you because my man parts are overlarge.”

To his surprise, rather than widened eyes or a scandalized jaw drop, her lips tightened and she avoided his eye, turning her head away to stare into the fire again.

“Is that why you were so fond of the widow?” she asked, her tone warning him that she was irritated again. “Because she relished your great size?”

Jamie sat down beside her on the bed. “I have told you why I call the woman a friend. She has a good and generous heart,” he said, knowing it to be true. “The reason I went to her was not because she was fond of me, but because I needn’t worry about causing her discomfort.”

“I see.” Aveline plucked at the bedcovers.

“I would that you do. My size has brought pain to more than one lass,” he explained. “This caused me so much distress that I stopped lying with women and saw to my needs myself in the way you saw the man in the woods touch himself. Though I ne’er did such a thing save when I was certain I was fully alone.”

Needing to make her understand, he reached for her chin again, turning her face so she had to meet his eye. “When I was urged to visit Gunna of the Glen, I was relieved to find a woman who could sheathe me with ease, fully without pain, and, aye, even take her own pleasure in the act.”

Aveline’s eyes rounded. “You are saying you went to her because you could slide easily into her?” she asked, speaking more bluntly than she would have wished.

“Aye, that was the way of it,” Jamie admitted. “There was no other reason. No heart feelings whatsoever, as I told you. I was pleased to have a woman I could lie with and not hurt.”

“As you worry about hurting me?”

Jamie nodded. “Ach, lass, you are so wee that I canna imagine truly touching you without breaking you,” he said, speaking as plainly as he could. “Even if resisting the temptation of you costs me my last breath, I willna cause you pain. There are other ways we can be intimate together. Other things—”

“‘Resisting the temptation’?” She opened her mouth to say more, but to Jamie’s horror, her eyes suddenly started to glisten and she pressed a fist to her lips, blinking rapidly as she stared at him as if he’d suddenly sprouted two heads.

Or, judging by the tremulous smile curving her lips when she finally lowered her hand, looking as if he’d just handed her the sun, moon, and stars on a silver-gilt platter.

“You make it sound as if you desire me,” she said, dashing the dampness from her cheeks, then frowning a bit when the tears kept leaking from beneath her lashes no matter how furiously she swiped at them.