Duty of the Chieftain - a Highland 'Lord's Right of the First Night' novella (Clan MacKrannan's Secret Traditions #3) (14 page)

Lady Agatha
was horrified at Elinor's tale, and refused to give the instant advice expected of her.

"Le
t me think about this," she said cautiously.  "Away and sit over there by the window and take the time with yer own thoughts... it'll do ye good this day."

She did not add that keeping quiet would do a lot more good than opening her mouth again. 
The girl departed to her banishment chair knowing that Agatha was not very pleased with her, which was her full intention.

This girl was the unexpected wife to the chieftain.  Come the day,
she would be the wife of the Chief of the Name of MacKrannan, a sobering thought, as well she herself knew.

Elinor
Keirston had shown many fine qualities of character, and Agatha suspected her son was already a little in love with her.  The behaviours she had displayed were obviously intended to get his attention, so Elinor must also be a little in love with her son.  Thanks be to the cosmos for that, for the king's decree ensured they were stuck with each other regardless.

All othe
r MacKrannans wed only for love.  Elinor's public insults to Ranald would make love a difficult commodity to pursue now.  He'd never been a lad any would want to cross, as his new wife had just found out.  Treat him right, though, and he'd lay down his life for you and never think it any sacrifice.  The lass didn't yet know what a fine man she'd been forced to wed.

And those comments about
the manual easing of Sir Thommas afterwards?  Born of utter ignorance!  Even the method of last eve had been but a stop-gap measure until they were alone, and far better for him to have some immediate ease than to walk the corridor with his parts in a state.

 
Thommas sometimes returned to their bedchamber and said
'A pretty one, my dear – I nearly spent!' 
At such times she opened her arms and made sure he did, quickly, and within her own gates.  Far more often it happened that Thommas returned after the bride had been plain and ordinary, and that was when he had most need of her.

'A free shag in a fresh hole'
,
as Thommas recalled his fellow lords naming it, would cost him too much to accept.  The Chief had honor.  He'd only ever spent in his wife since their marriage thirty years past.  Even now she expected him home before luncheon for a short visit to their bedchamber, his conjugal requirements being too ardent to restrict to the hours of darkness only.  He had needs, and directed them more wisely than many of his kind.

Could
Elinor not take it as a compliment that Thommas felt need to spend so soon after the taking of her mock virginity?

The girl had no idea how difficult it was for a man to achieve a hard cock with all and sundry females, s
ome not in the least attractive,
and
keep it primed until the bride had blissed, however long that took.  Nay, the Lord's Right was far from being a treat for a MacKrannan lord, and this new Bride's Right with all its rules was putting even more pressure on them.

Elinor had no family to keep her on the right path, to scold her when she did wrong and praise her when she did right.  The MacKrannans must now be that family.
  The lass had performed her part in the Bride's Right well, after a wobbly start with giving Thommas orders.  Lessons learned early saved much heartbreak later.

The clan had a problem here, and it was Ranald must fix it.  Once
her son had cooled his temper and taken time to think this over, he'd see what needed done.  She was quite sure Thommas would be telling Ranald the same thing right this very minute.

Her own task was to prepare Elinor for what lay ahead.
  Agatha walked to the window seat and laid a hand on the girl's shoulder, patting it a few times as she would a dog.

"
Ye know that ye did wrong from the start, Elinor, and it's getting worse.  Maybe in more ways than ye realise, if it were all explained to ye.  It is Ranald must decide what to do here, for he is your husband and master.  I will tell ye that he'll be fair, because he is never anything else.  My advice to ye is this.  Accept whatever scolding he gives ye, and learn from it, and never hold it against him.  It is yer only chance of happiness with my son."

Agatha suspected what the punishment would be, but
she had a very good reason for keeping her tongue stilled.

Ranald could have dealt with Elinor's remarks had they come from anyone else. 
Sticks and stones...
hell's pit, they'd hurt far worse than his broken leg and the stab wound.   It was well out of character for him to let any lass rile him at all, let alone this badly.

He
stomped along the tideline, picking up driftwood and chucking it at rocks until his temper cooled.  Watching the sea had always been his tonic during troubled times, and it bothered him that he could find no peace in it now.  His mind was in as much turmoil as it had ever been since he arrived home from the Cambel rout.

His rattled state could no' be
explained by the king forcing him into marrying Elinor, nor from doubt if he could continue as chieftain.  He'd already come to terms with both.  They'd changed his life radically and would continue to do so.  Both were reminder that he still had a life available for changing, that he was alive to care what another day would bring.  The injuries he'd sustained at the Siege of Drumallager had damned near robbed him of that luxury.

Nay, the turmoil was coming from something
else, something niggling into his every thought, word and deed.

It was his heart in danger here.  Only to himself would he admit
that.

He did no' want a life of fighting with Elinor, and nor did she deserve that sentence.  All she'd ever done afore arriving here was her duty to others
and seen little return for it, and all she faced now was more of the same.  She was worth more than that.  He'd see that she got it.  Far and beyond any sense of responsibility for her, he wanted to make her happy.

First she'd need to
bloody well change her attitude.  The problem had begun in the bedchamber and that's where he would have to begin the fixing of it.  He just wasna sure how to go about it, barring the obvious, and that was no' likely to happen any time soon, given that she had yet to move out the guest chamber.

Elinor needed...
tamed. 
Every word she spoke seemed to be aimed at goading him, and the effects were becoming disastrous.  He should never have retaliated like that.  And he knew fine he'd do the same and worse if she tried her nonsense again.

She was like a colt until haltered, running about daft and kicking
the fences until you bent it to your will for the sake of every horse in the yard.  Hell's pit, even the Chief was now following the rules set up for Elinor's sake.  It should no' be beneath her to take a hard lesson and wise up.

What bothered him the most, if he was honest with himself, was that Elinor had a fire in her that matched his own.  All the passion he'd seen in her that first night had plagued hi
m ever since.  If he could just stop her fighting him long enough to direct it back onto its proper road...

His father found him then, and
handed him the Wisewomen's notes.  They sat together on grassy part of the shoreline until Ranald finished reading.  It bothered him something hellish that he'd messed up with Elinor just a week afore the Chief had done so well with her.

"I can see little here that I would no' usually do, save
for the oil," he told the Chief.  "I was just shaking tired when I did duty to Elinor, and did a condensed version that made me inattentive to the detail.  Hindsight tells me she was just desperate to lose her maidenhead.  The mistake I made was no' checking if there was one."

"Ye'll do it right every time now, though, with all the new rules and the Wisewomen watching.  And ye were utterly exhausted, son.  None of this would have happened if I'd no' pushed ye into it
that night."

Ranald couldn't let his father take the blame.  "Nay,
the fault was no' yours.  I confess to getting a bit carried away, truth be told, for Elinor had a natural passion in her that I had no' come across afore in a strange bride – ye'll know that bit for yerself now."

He stated
the last part as mere fact, but a paternal hand came upon his shoulder as they reflected on the way duty was done.

"
Ach, she was easy to bliss, a lass of her age denied for so long.  Think naught of it."

The Chief
was a big man to deny himself any credit.  Ranald knew what a chore it was for his father, yet every bride was treated with respect and went home having learned much.  Even Elinor.  It was no' his father's fault that Elinor's first bliss had come from the wrong MacKrannan.  The circumstance at least made it a lot easier to confide in him, for there could be none better for understanding what being with Elinor was like.

First and foremost, a Chief and his son had to be friends, and that was why Ranald felt he might be able to
go on to speak of deeply personal matters with Sir Thommas now.

"Beyond that, there was a… ach, I dinna know… a sort
of alchemy going on atween Elinor and myself, right from I first espied her in my bedchamber.  Can ye understand such?"

The Chief understood verra well indeed.  He and Agatha shared it from the first, and even yet it took but a look from either to set the sizzling in motion.  Best their son
make identification of such for himself, for it seemed life had sent him his woman by a strange route.

Time would tell if
the sizzle was a sustainable commodity for them both and no' just a flash in the pan.

"Aye, it happens.  Though I did no' feel such with Elinor, it shows the two of ye have chance of a happy life together if ye get yerselves sorted out."

Ranald filled his chest with the sea air, as if in readiness for the happy life suggested.  And then he let his breath out quick and turned to his father, as if blowing away the subject.
 

"So, I'm to do equal duty in this Bride's Right with ye
from now on.  Any more advice on it?"

"
Son, all that I taught ye is evident in Ishbel's other notes on the brides ye've done duty to in the past.  Yer techniques are fine, lad.  I'm thinking what I have missed in yer instruction for the Lord's Right has little to do with yer cock at all.  It's something ye're obviously doing already, unawares."

Sir Thommas stood up and faced the ocean, legs astride
, and the Wisewomen's notes rolled up and shoved through his belt.  Ranald joined him and paid heed to the words of advice, for he had great respect for his father's wisdom and experience in all matters.

"Do ye mind
just afore yer Lord's Right with Elinor, when I met ye at the harbor?" the Chief asked.  "Ye'd arrived home from the Cambel uprising, a galley down but all men safely returned."

"Aye.
  What of it?"

"Do ye mind seeing Grizelle the fisherman's wife lusting up yer kilt,
even with bairns at her tits?"

"Ye noticed
that!  Did I ever tell ye she blissed twice in her Lord's Right with me, and her blood there on the bedsheet to say virgin?  I doubt she's had much fun since, with two bairns in less than two years and another expected.  It's her wedding day she's wanting back.  Something just for herself."

"
A bit of romance, aye, and it is the same for many," said the Chief.  "But did ye also see how deep was her curtsy?  And how she quietened the other wives around her to do the same?  And how her husband Johnny would do aught ye ever asked of him?"

Ranald had missed
all that.

"…
And yet they act just yer average clansfolk with me, their Chief.  It's you has got this from them, Ranald.  See, the Lord's Right is more than yer deflowering a bride in a civilized manner.  It is an opportunity.  Do it well, and it fosters a loyalty that will go far beyond the usual fealty.  Ye've been doing this without realising it, I can see.  The brides go home believing they have a special bond with ye, after what ye have shared.  Dinna underestimate the power of that."