The Firebrand (17 page)

His devilish smile caused a fluttery jump in her belly. “I will do whatever I must to keep Mara from thinking she needs to have someone beneath our bed to keep an eye on us. I believe she is going to want proof of the consummation of this marriage.”

So it was for the sake of pretense, she thought, freeing her hand and hiding her face by bringing a cup of wine to her lips. She threw a quick glance in Mara’s direction and found the older woman watching them intently.

Adrianne turned her attention back to her new husband and fell in with the ruse, hanging on his every word.

Rising from the table with him a short time later, Adrianne allowed herself to be escorted about the Great Hall, visiting with the colorful assembly of guests. More than once did she see a look of surprise pass over Wyntoun’s face when she addressed clan folk and villagers by name.

His surprise turned to shock when she sat herself at the long table across from Auld Jean and John, and drew him down beside her. As always, John spoke only with his eyes and a nod or shake of the head, but his aging wife happily chatted away. Adrianne could see that the old midwife was clearly pleased with the marriage.

Later, during a short lull in the dancing, Adrianne saw Mara rise and motion for her to follow her. The bride turned her eyes questioningly on Wyntoun.

“You will be taken away from the Great Hall to be prepared for...for the marriage bed by these women. Mara will oversee everything, you can be certain.” He nodded at the women who were gathering excitedly in the center of the Great Hall...and responding noisily to the calls and laughter of the wedding guests.

“Do you think this is necessary?” she whispered under her breath, watching a pair of pipers join the ebullient swarm. “Considering the... considering our arrangement.”

“How can it be avoided?” He took her hand in his own and stared into her eyes. “Whatever you do, do not let Mara even guess the truth of our intentions. Remember, my chambers are in the east wing of the keep. We will have all the privacy we are after. There is no way she can learn the truth, Adrianne, unless we ourselves let her in on our secret.”

She had no time even to give her assent before he leaned forward, brushing his lips across hers in a fleeting kiss. Stunned momentarily, she only moved when a group of laughing women approached, taking her by the arms and leading her to the merry throng.

“Nice gesture,” Mara murmured quietly as Adrianne drew near. “But you two will need to work a wee bit more on your public displays.”

Shocked by the words, Adrianne struggled unsuccessfully to come up with a response. It really didn’t matter, though, for Mara quickly turned and gestured for the pipers to lead the procession out of the Great Hall, toward the east wing of Duart Castle.

***

Adrianne had already seen Wyntoun’s antechamber the night she’d first brought up her proposal of marriage. Impressed as she’d been by the masculine furnishings and the obvious sense of order, she was now equally impressed by the subtle changes that had been made to make the chamber pleasing for a woman, as well.

Damask covered pillows now softened the lines of the straight chairs. Delicate lace covered a small table by the hearth. Warm, colorful blankets adorned the back of a carved oak chair. A newly made mat of woven rushes covered the floor. A much larger fire burned in the hearth. She looked at Wyntoun’s desk and noted the array of foods heaped up on golden trays. Feast would be a meager word to describe the amount and the variety of dishes that covered the table.

“The change in this room... ‘tis absolutely beautiful!” She smiled at Mara before touching the edge of a silver platter piled high with cheeses and dried fruit. “But all of this...! Mara, there is enough food here to feed a crowd as large as those already gathered in the Great Hall.”

The women laughed, and Mara nodded as she put a gentle hand on Adrianne’s elbow and guided her toward the door that the young woman knew must be Wyntoun’s bedchamber.

“For what you two are
expected
to go through tonight and during the
next
four days—you will be needing a great deal of nourishment.”

“Four days?” Adrianne asked with alarm, eliciting yet another laugh from her attendants. Mara drew her into the bedchamber, the others crowding in behind them.

“Tonight is the only night that you should worry about,” Mara confided. “Survive this night...and perhaps tomorrow...and my guess is that you will
want
to have him to yourself…for a month, at least.”

“Survive?” Adrianne asked, nervously turning to glance at Mara, but then the scene before her brought a smile of utter delight to her lips. “Oh, my!”

The room was adorned in a style befitting a royal couple. Everywhere Adrianne looked there were lit candles reflecting off of vases of gold and silver. Huge, richly embroidered pillows of velvet and damask had been beautifully arranged throughout the chamber. Nothing, though, could diminish the looming presence of the large, curtained bed that sat so prominently at one end of the chamber.

Mara gestured toward a chair that had been placed near a large fire crackling cozily on the stone hearth. “This is to keep your outsides warm until your husband arrives.” She next waved her hand at a pitcher of wine sitting amid two sparkling crystal goblets on a small table beside the chair. “And the purpose of this is to warm your insides...again, until he joins you here.”

The women filling the doorway giggled.

Adrianne nodded slowly, avoiding Mara’s keen eyes and instead looking at Bege as she opened the curtains of the bed and held up a nightshift of the most transparent material Adrianne had ever seen.

“And this, my dear--” the older woman chuckled, motioning for Bege to bring the nightdress closer-- “is for the purpose of making your new husband go mad.”

She blanched at the thought of wearing such a garment anytime...never mind for Wyntoun MacLean!

“Go mad?” Adrianne questioned, watching the play of the fire through the sheer fabric.

“Aye! Mad with desire. Crazed with desire for you!” Mara grinned mischievously. “What else?”

Adrianne wiped the beads of perspiration that were gathering on her forehead. “‘Tis getting quite warm in here, don’t you think?”

Mara and all of the attendants were delighted with her breathless response, and swarmed around her with a burst of good-natured teasing. As the back of the wedding dress was unlaced and the garment pulled from her body, each person present in the chamber seemed to have a bit of advice for Adrianne, some of it so bawdy that she blushed fiercely as the others laughed. The shift beneath her dress was disposed of in the same manner, but Adrianne had little time to worry about modesty as a tartan, for the time being, was wrapped around her.

Mara appeared in front of her. “Adrianne, in all seriousness, I haven’t had this talk with you before, since I didn’t know how...how knowledgeable you are about the matters of this first night...about the marriage bed.”

“I...I...”

“I thought so. Completely inexperienced.” Mara pushed her down on the chair. “Bess the seamstress warned me, and now I know.”

Adrianne felt the clan women undoing the braids in her hair.

“Wyntoun is a man...and years ahead of you in...in this area. So you have some things you must learn.”

“I--” A brush pulled at her hair, and Adrianne was silenced again as Mara shook her head.

“You need to remember that experience in a man is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, once you learn to overcome your hesitancy regarding your husband and marriage bed--”

“I have no hesitancy.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to prove that, my dear.” Mara took the brush in her own hand and started on Adrianne’s hair. “As I was saying, once you are open to the responsibilities of married life, you’ll realize that his experience with other women will bring you plenty of satisfaction.”

“Mara, this is not a topic I want to--”

“Nonsense. This is knowledge every bride should acquire before her wedding night.”

Adrianne stared straight ahead, feeling suddenly a little queasy. She was quite certain that she did not want to hear about his experience with all other women, but Mara was obviously determined to pursue the subject.

“Your husband is a very attractive man and, as all in this chamber will attest, he has for quite some time had his choice of the young wenches of the clan.”

“And more than a few of the older ones, as well,” one of the women chirped in, making the rest of them laugh.

“In fact, he’s spent the greater part of his adult life fighting off the advances of lasses.”

Adrianne was all ears now, suddenly wondering if he had bedded any of the women she’d visited in the village.

“So if we choose to be a
real
wife to our husband, the challenge for any woman lies in how we keep him interested enough in
our
company and
our
bed. Aye, that’s the secret to having a successful conjugal life, rather than having a marriage in which we find ourselves relegated to being a wife in name only.”

Adrianne winced. The bed part would be difficult, since Wyntoun had been clear enough about
not
wanting her there. Somehow his feelings on that score were rankling even more now than when he had first accepted her proposal.

“Of course, there are some women who are satisfied with sharing their husbands.”

“I am not.” Adrianne didn’t know she had spoken the words aloud until she saw Mara’s approving nod.

“I never really thought so,” Mara said, patting her cheek. The older woman motioned for Bege to bring the nightgown.

Reluctantly, the young woman let go of the blanket and rose to her feet as the exquisite material was pulled over her head and onto her body. She didn’t dare to look down as she could only guess at how absolutely indecent it must look.

“You have to charm him, lass, and yet retain your integrity. You have to appear willing and yet remain proud.”

Simple words could not change who Adrianne was. Not that she herself could understand herself sometimes. But there was no reason for Mara to know her confusion. The ability to keep her own counsel was one quality that she suddenly had great use of at Duart Castle.

“Your knowledge on all of this is…is quite impressive.”

Mara smiled. “Not really. ‘Tis just that I’ve been married to Alexander for close to twenty years, and Wyntoun—with all his differences and independence—is still his father’s son. He may have MacNeil blood in his veins, but he has a MacLean heart.”

“I shall remember that.”

Adrianne tried to pay close attention to everything else that Mara and her women said about the ways of luring and keeping a husband interested.

To all they said, though, she knew she would have to add her own emendations. Keeping him from straying was one thing. It was quite another to keep a man like Wyntoun MacLean from straying
and
make his family believe that she was keeping him interested.

Sometime during this lecture, it occurred to Adrianne that wielding a sword and facing an army of intruders was assuredly more pleasant than hearing all these wild tales about the marriage bed. After all, she would probably never have a chance to practice any of what she was being taught this night.

“Well, I suppose you are ready,” Mara said finally, motioning for the attending women to back up.

Adrianne, glancing down at the sheer fabric that so clearly revealed her bare skin beneath, groaned inwardly at the image. She didn’t dare voice a complaint, though, but smiled weakly as they all prepared to leave her. Casually, though, she pulled the long mane of black hair over her shoulders, covering the rosy circles of her nipples showing so blatantly through the delicate weave.

“Once we return to the Great Hall, it shouldn’t be too long before the men carry him to your door. But you just stay put, just as you are, lass, and Wyntoun shall be undone the moment he lays eyes on you.”

Adrianne smiled at Mara as reassuringly as she could and watched the crowd push toward the door.

“And do not forget everything that we’ve told you.”

“I shall never forget,” she called after the women, nodding at Mara as the diminutive woman backed out, closing the door behind her. Alone, Adrianne gnawed at her lip and tried desperately to figure how much time she had before her husband would arrive.

With any luck it would take as long as a journey to Balvenie Castle and back!

Wyntoun had known that spending this first night alone with her would be the most challenging part of this entire charade. To last the night in the same room with her and not do what was expected of him—not do what he desired to do, was surely reason enough for sainthood. And he was no saint.

From the time he had kissed her at the altar, he knew that he would need all of his willpower, all of his wits, to withstand the power of his desire for Adrianne Percy. The woman had crept under his skin. In the days before, he would suddenly have to rouse himself as some waking dream or another seemed to take control of his mind and his body. Working in his chambers, he would find himself gazing at the buff-colored leather of some book and realize that his thoughts had been dwelling on the curve of her ear, on the color of her skin. Riding out across the rainy windswept moors of Mull late yesterday, he’d watched the hunters spreading out beneath him from hill to forested glade, and found his mind focusing on a pursuit of another kind. Even as he admitted such things to himself, a great red doe had leaped from the woods into the open meadow, fields now scored with the muted browns of the season, and Wyntoun had found in himself absolutely no desire to run down such magnificent beauty. He’d simply watched, fascinated with the grace and power of the animal.

And then he’d thought of Adrianne Percy—of her grace, her strength, her temperament, her beauty.

Raising his goblet of wine, he now tried to hide his growing frustration. It had been a long time since he’d wanted a woman the way he wanted her. Inwardly, he cursed himself, chiding himself for his weakness, for the desire he felt for her, the desire of a man for a woman.