The Laird Takes a Bride

by Lisa Berne

  Alasdair felt an odd sort of sympathy for Dame Isobel. He himself was baffled by Fiona’s brusque, businesslike response. It made him feel like—

  Like what?

  He thought it over.

  It made him feel like she’d gotten the upper hand. That things were moving beyond his control. That he wasn’t … safe.

  It wasn’t a feeling he enjoyed.

  So he said, silkily, but with a barb in his voice:

  “Since our union is clearly so repugnant to you, Miss Douglass, perhaps you ought to wait and see if I survive my wound? Sepsis might set in, you know, and carry me off.”

  “I doubt it. You are clearly very strong, and Dr. Colquhoun takes good care of you.” She paused, drew a breath, for a moment looked uncertain. “I don’t know if I have a dowry to bring to you.”

  Alasdair tried to shrug and immediately regretted it. His shoulder pulsed with a searing pain, and he was all at once exhausted to his very bones, and sweating again. “I couldn’t care less,” he responded testily. “I have plenty of money. Stop bothering me with petty details.”

  She rose, and to his surprise placed a cool hand on his forehead. “Your fever is rising,” she said matter-of-factly. She poured him out another glass of barley-water, which he refused with a gesture that even he knew was churlish. “Grahame,” she said over her shoulder, “help the laird slide down on his pillows—gently!—and cover him warmly. You must rest,” she told him, “and I’ll bid you good day, now that everything is settled. Come, Cousin.”

  And even before Fiona Douglass had left the room, Alasdair, hot, uncomfortable, in pain, was plunged into the welcome abyss of deep, dreamless sleep.

  How many guests attending? Ask Lister. Their names?

  Write to Father. Mother also

  What to wear for ceremony?

  Breakfast afterwards—see Lister, Cook

  Clothes, etc., to be transferred to new bedchamber; who will do that?

  Gealag—more oats in diet. Tell Begbie

  Isobel??

  Stop thinking about Logan Munro

  More candles for chapel

  One of Mairi’s trunks left behind, have it sent to her

  Is there a dame-school for children here?

  STOP THINKING ABOUT LOGAN MUNRO

  Ten days after her momentous conversation with Alasdair Penhallow, Fiona stood again in the same bedchamber, only now—why, only now she was his wife. She stood with her back to the closed door, and slowly she looked around the enormous room. A fire had been lit, the covers on the massive four-poster bed carefully, invitingly, turned down, a large candelabra was set on a table near the door and sent out a warm yellow glow of illumination. Giving that bed a wide berth, she went with measured step to the wide bank of windows which overlooked the courtyard below; all were covered with warm, heavy draperies and she pushed one aside to glance out through the window.

  A full moon, fat and yellow, shone high in the dark sky. Around it, as if a brilliant setting to a jewel, countless bright stars flickered and twinkled, mysterious, remote.

  Fiona let go of the drape and went into the passageway just to her left, which led to her dressing-room. She put her hand on its doorknob, then looked at the four other doors in the dim, high-ceilinged corridor. One led to the laird’s dressing-room, she knew, and two others provided storage for furs and winter wraps and so on.

  The fourth door was locked. Earlier today, when her things had been brought here, she had tried to open it. She’d asked the maidservant about it, but received only a shake of the head.

  “I don’t know what the room contains, mistress,” Edme had replied. “The laird must have the key. Where would you like me to put your brushes?”

  Fiona now turned the knob and went into her dressing-room. It was a luxurious suite unto itself, including two large armoires, a full-length cheval mirror, a satinwood dressing-table with all sorts of cunning little drawers, and an even nicer bathtub than the one she’d been enjoying in her previous bedchamber.

  She went to the mirror and gazed at her reflection within it. She liked the long-sleeved pale green gown she had chosen, with its white slip and demitrain of soft gossamer satin. (And if she looked like a giant green twig in it, so be it.) Father and Mother had sent a beautiful diamond necklace, with pretty pearl and diamond ear-bobs, a gift that had, for a brief and dangerous moment, brought with it a powerful rush of homesickness.

  And—on the fourth finger of her left hand was now a gleaming gold ring, exquisite in its simplicity. As he had placed it there, Alasdair Penhallow had said, in a firm, unhesitating voice:

  With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

  His hand on hers had been warm, but it had not lingered, and from behind them in the castle’s chapel Cousin Isobel had sobbed, whether sentimentally or sadly Fiona did not care to know. The other guests—Duff MacDermott, of course, along with the neighborhood gentry and as many of the local folk who could squeeze themselves into the chapel—had been, properly, silent.

  Afterwards there was the customary breakfast. Determined to rise above the palpable awkwardness of this odd, this decidedly odd marriage, Fiona had exerted herself to be a pleasant hostess, while Alasdair, sitting at the head of the high table, impressive in his crisp white shirt and tartan kilt, his left arm in its linen sling (Dr. Colquhoun had sternly and publicly ordered him to continue using it, or he would not answer for the consequences), had done the same in his role as host, and together they had, she thought, managed to carry it off reasonably well. After the breakfast, after the guests had left, Duff MacDermott had drawn him off to the billiards room, both of them laughing, and Fiona had not seen her husband since.

  Her husband.

  Her face in the mirror looked back at her, and all Fiona could see was a ghostly pale complexion, with dark, bruised-looking smudges underneath the eyes.

  This was not how, nine years ago, she’d thought her life would turn out. Tears suddenly rose into her eyes, and she fought them back, although for an awful, panicky moment she wanted nothing more than to wrench that gold ring from her finger and throw it out the window. She could almost hear the tiny distant ping it would make. Maybe it would roll into a sewer-hole and disappear forever. Maybe she would go to the window right now—

  Instead, with slow, deliberate movements, she put away her necklace and ear-bobs. Undressed, and put on a plain white cambric nightgown. Unpinned her hair, brushed it out, braided it. Isobel had wanted to help her, had even (blushing a vivid scarlet, stammering, almost gasping in embarrassment) tried to lay before her the facts of what the night would bring.

  “I’ve seen the animals all my life,” Fiona had interrupted, with a kind of icy bravado, and dismissed Isobel and Edme, too.

  Now that the evening was well advanced, and she was all alone in the laird’s great bedchamber, she no longer felt quite so courageous. Still, Isobel had managed to offer what sounded like a useful piece of advice.

  All you have to do, Fiona dear, is—well, it sounds terribly crude, but—a wife’s duty is to lie there, and endure what happens. That’s really all there is to it. Not that I myself—but my own dear mother did tell me before—although what happened —but that’s neither here nor there! Keep your eyes closed, if that helps.

  Fiona left her dressing-room and went into the bedchamber. She blew out the candles and slid into the unfamiliar bed, on the side furthest from the door, closest to the windows. She lay on her back. Waited and waited, thinking of nothing. It seemed like hours— it may actually have been hours—when, at last, the door opened, and Alasdair Penhallow came inside.

  He took ten steps, fifteen, twenty, until he stood at the foot of the bed, looking very tall in the flickering light of the fire, his hair gleaming darkly, the deep red looking nearly black to her. She could see that in one hand he held a small pouch. A gift for her? How thoughtful. Good things, they said, com
e in small packages.

  “Are you awake?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Excuse me for a moment.”

  He went away to his dressing-room, and when Fiona heard his steps returning, she lost all interest in the gift and shut her eyes. She lay perfectly still, her fingers laced across her breast, feeling her heart beating steadily, steadily, within its cage of bones and sinew.

  Alasdair got into the bed.

  There was a silence.

  It was a heavy, expectant silence that somehow just seemed loud.

  Behind the darkness of her eyelids Fiona thought of a baby, sweet-smelling, with soft pudgy cheeks, a delicious gummy smile, to hold and to care for. To love. Yes. Yes.

  “Well,” he said, “let’s to it.”

  “Fine.”

  “My curst arm won’t support me. You’ll have to ride me.”

  “Ride you? What does that mean? You’re not a horse.”

  “Come over here and I’ll show you.”

  “No. Tell me what you mean.”

  He sighed. “I stay like this, on my back, and you go astride me.”

  “I still don’t understand you.”

  “You sit on my cock, damn it! Is that clear enough?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she said coldly.

  “Now that you understand, come here. We may as well get it over with.”

  “No.”

  “Are you worried you’ll crush me? You’re tall but you’re a featherweight.”

  “I’m not worried I’ll crush you. I simply won’t do it that way.”

  “Why not, for God’s sake?”

  “I’m not one of your loose women. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I am all too aware of it,” he answered in an annoyed tone. “All this tedious talking, for one thing.”

  “I’m sorry if I’m boring you,” Fiona said, more coldly still.

  “I didn’t marry you so we could lie around prattling to each other.”

  “Well, if it comes to that, you’re not very interesting either. When you’re prepared to do your husbandly duty properly, let me know.”

  With heavy sarcasm he shot back: “I didn’t realize there were rules about the positions.”

  Here, Fiona acknowledged, she had stepped onto thin ice. The best defense being a strong offense, she took refuge in primness and promptly said, “For gently born ladies, there ought to be.”

  “You refuse, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Flouting your wifely obligation on the very first night?”

  “Are you going to beat me, as my father so often vowed to do to my mother?” she snapped, then instantly regretted such a personal revelation.

  There was another silence.

  Fiona opened her eyes and very quietly turned her head on the pillow, to find that he had turned his head to look at her in the warm dimness of the bed.

  “I don’t believe in that,” he said, in a low voice. And as if he was sorry for his own admission he added gruffly, “Besides, I couldn’t do a very good job of it with a shoulder that’s yet to fully heal.”

  “The luck is with me then.”

  He laughed shortly. “Luck. Yes.”

  How strange it was, Fiona thought suddenly, having a conversation—tedious or not—in bed with someone who was essentially a stranger to her. Was this how things were going to be between them? With this body I thee worship. Ha. She steeled herself against an unwelcome torrent of sorrow, fixed her mind on other things.

  Isobel. Tell her tomorrow. Wick Bay

  Why is there no housekeeper? Ask Lister

  Linens. Where are they kept?

  Children here inoculated? Ask Dr. Colquhoun

  Cook re meal planning

  Stillroom needs a thorough cleaning—assign a maid

  When is wash day? Baking day? Brewing day?

  Find head gardener (name?)—flowers for my morning-room

  Go riding. Tell Begbie: no groom

  Alasdair said something, interrupting her train of thought.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Duff,” he said gloomily, “was right.”

  “That you really should have taken Mairi to wife?” she retorted at once. “That way he wouldn’t have lost his bet. How much did he lose, by the way?”

  “You knew about that?”

  “Yes.”

  He paused. She could see him frowning. Stiffly he said: “I only found out about it today. I’m sorry. Had I known I would have forbidden such disrespectful behavior.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me.”

  She absorbed this, then asked, “What was he right about?”

  “Oh, that tonight would be difficult. He gave me a sporran filled with pig’s blood just in case.”

  A lingering feeling of sadness now gave way to fury so strong that Fiona could willingly have leaped out of bed, sought out Duff MacDermott wherever he had lain his scrofulous self, and strangled him with his own beard. And she didn’t even know exactly what bad thing she’d like to do to Alasdair Penhallow. Instead she said, icily, “What a charming wedding gift.”

  “It seems, however, he may have spared us both the shame of gossip tomorrow, so that the maidservants don’t see unsullied sheets.”

  “Oh, and you’re confident he filled a pouch with pig’s blood in perfect secrecy?”

  Alasdair was silent.

  Fiona gave a mocking laugh. “Go ahead, laird, spill the blood anywhere you like. Ruin some perfectly good bed linens. And what will happen when finally we do consummate our union?”

  She could almost feel, from the five or six feet that separated them, his own surging anger. “May God in His heaven intervene, madam,” he growled, very slow, very deep, “and preserve me from your damned infernal logic!” With his uninjured arm he grabbed one of the pillows and flung it across the room, where it landed with a soft plop on the floor.

  Fiona pondered his invocation of both heavenly and demoniac forces, considering whether it was worth another mocking jab at his inconsistency, and in the end decided it wasn’t. She also thought about getting out of bed to retrieve the pillow, as she longed to do, but didn’t care to expose her person (even in her demure high-necked nightgown) to his scrutiny. At least not at this exact moment. What, she wondered, was he wearing? A frisson of shivery alarm overtook her, and sternly she repressed it. Things—it—the act, whatever one wished to euphemistically call the conjugal duty—was (were) going to happen. Maybe Alasdair would tonight, in his wrath, find a way to overcome the limitations of his still-healing arm, and summon her over. She’d just have to grit her teeth and lie there like a wax dummy. It couldn’t last for more than a few minutes, anyway, could it? And what about that loathsome pouch of blood? He’d better dispose of it, or else she’d take it and dump it down the back of Duff MacDermott’s shirt.

  At dinner.

  In front of everyone.

  And laugh, laugh, laugh.

  While she was thinking about all this, Fiona gradually, very gradually, became aware that beside her, Alasdair’s breathing had gentled into a soft, steady cadence.

  His chest rose and fell, rose and fell.

  His eyes were closed.

  He was, in fact, asleep.

  No doubt he was exhausted from the many hours of roistering with his boon companion Duff.

  Fiona looked balefully at his peaceful face in the dim flickering illumination of the fire. His nose, she suddenly noticed, although a well-formed organ, had a slight bump on the bridge, as if, at one time, he had broken it.

  It was strange, she now thought, abruptly distracted from her thoughts of vengeance, how sometimes a small imperfection could render an object more pleasing.

  Not, she reminded herself, that she cared two hoots for his profile, attractive or otherwise.

  She rolled onto her side, her back to him. She didn’t expect sleep to come, but over the years she had become quite expert at waiting, patiently, submissively, for
the night to crawl along. If she was fortunate, she might drift into a doze toward dawn.

  The luck is with me then, she had said earlier. Oh, for a few hours’ blessed slumber, and she would count herself, despite everything, lucky indeed.

  Alasdair woke to the muddled consciousness that although he was in his own big, comfortable bed, something was different.

  Oh yes, that.

  Yesterday he’d gotten married.

  Cautiously he opened his eyes, saw that it would soon be morning, saw that somehow, during the night, he had gotten himself closer to Fiona. Not close enough so that he could reach out and touch any part of her. But closer.

  She lay facing him on her side, resting her cheek on the palm of one hand, her thick silvery braid draped across her shoulder. Her lips were slightly parted as she slept, and it struck him that they were—

  That they weren’t unattractive.

  Really, they were almost kissable.

  He hadn’t noticed that before.

  How surprising.

  And in the wake of this realization, he felt an odd sort of guilt, as if by studying her face while she slept he was doing something wrong. Illicit.

  It was time, then, to go.

  With nearly superhuman quietness, Alasdair got out of bed, dressed (putting his arm back in the damned sling), picked up the sporran Uncle Duff had given him, and stepped outside into the hallway, softly closing the door behind him.

  Curled up there was Cuilean, who immediately leaped up, stretched, dipped an elegant play-bow; and, tail wagging, he sniffed curiously at the sporran in his master’s hand. Alasdair slid it into the pocket of his buckskins, rested his hand for a moment on that shaggy head, and by means of an obscure passageway he made his way outside into the bracing chill of early morning. Unobserved, Cuilean frisking at his side, Alasdair strode into the woods that lay far beyond the beautifully maintained gardens, his boots alternately sinking into damp earth and crunching on twigs and crisp fallen leaves. Here in the light of day, he didn’t know whether to feel he’d had a fortunate reprieve on his wedding night, or whether he had made a complete and utter mull of it.