by Mia Marlowe
“I’ll take your silence for a ‘yes,’” Will said amiably and speared a slice of goose with his knife. “But I want ye to know I was prepared to court ye, Kat.”
“Court me? Whyever for?”
“Because I didna do it properly the first time.”
Katherine hadn’t expected him to court her before they wed. Their marriage contract had been settled before she was out of leading strings. They knew each other as children. Their families often met for fairs and festivals midway between their two estates.
“Ye’re right about that. Ye certainly didna court me properly,” she said between bites of her meal. “One of my earliest memories of ye is that summer at the fair when I was minding my own business looking at the chandler’s wares. Once my back was turned, ye dipped a full foot length of my braid in a vat of yellow wax.”
William laughed at the memory. “Ye canna fault me there. Ye were not paying the least attention to me, which is the worst thing ye can do to a ten-year-old boy. I had to do something.”
“Ye commanded my attention all right, but not in the way ye might have wished. Have ye any notion how hard it is to get wax out of hair?” In the end, her mother had simply snipped off the ruined braid. Katherine had vowed eternal enmity toward all lads in general and William Douglas in particular that summer. “I hated ye fine then.”
“Weel, if we’re bearing our souls, I’ll admit I wasna too taken with the notion of such a skinny little flat-chested slip of a girl for my future bride either.” His gaze wandered below her chin and down to her breasts. “Of course, it was my great good fortune that ye didna stay flat-chested.”
Katherine’s nipples tightened under his scrutiny, but she didn’t want to encourage him, so she snorted.
“Good thing ye didna stay so irritating.” After that rocky start, their relationship improved over the years, and by the time she was of age, Katherine didn’t dread becoming Lady Badenoch quite so much. Her only surprise when she joined Will at the altar for their wedding was how tall and broad shouldered he’d become between one summer and the next.
“Just out of curiosity,” Katherine said, “how did ye plan to court me?”
“Weel, ye may not have noticed, but I started already. Firstly, I arranged to spirit ye out of the castle on my trusty steed.”
“So ye didna really need extra weight on Greyfellow for him to get his exercise?”
William shook his head and helped himself to a swig of her small beer. “That was just a convenient excuse to have ye to myself. Then, there was the gift I brought ye.”
“Oh.” Katherine gnawed her lower lip. “I’m sorry to have to tell ye that I lost the muff, Will.”
“I know. I found it when I trudged back to the castle in the snow. ’Tis in your clothing chest, though I fear there may yet be a few thorns from the gorse bush stuck in it.”
Katherine covered her mouth with her hand. If she could keep from making any sound, perhaps he’d think she was embarrassed instead of trying to keep from laughing. He was trying so hard, but so far, Will’s attempts at courtship were the stuff of minstrel plays. Whatever could go wrong invariably had.
She lowered her gaze. When she was able to contain herself, she murmured her thanks. It really was sweet of him to have braved the thorns to retrieve her muff.
She used a piece of bread to scoop up some of the neeps and tatties and nibbled daintily. “Thank ye for supper too. I didna realize how hungry I was. But surely ye dinna think bringing me food is a way to woo me.”
“No, wife. Seeing ye fed is my husbandly duty. However, teasing ye with a bit of sweets might fall under the category of courting.” He used his finger to scoop up a bit of the dumpling and held his other hand beneath it lest some of the cream drip off while he brought it to her lips.
She accepted his offering, relishing the thick, fruity dumpling, rich with nutmeg and cinnamon spiciness. Then she sucked every bit of cream from his finger. He made a low groan.
“Who’s wooing who now?” she asked with a grin.
“I reckon we’ve taken turns wooing each other over the years.” He touched the corner of his mouth to indicate that she had something on hers. She flicked out her tongue, but he shook his head. “’Tis still there. Let me.”
He leaned forward and licked at that juncture of warm flesh and moist intimacy, then covered her mouth with his in a sweet, cinnamon-laden kiss. When he would have slanted his lips over hers and deepened the kiss, she pressed a palm to his chest.
“I thought it was your husbandly duty to see me fed.”
“Aye, but a man has appetites too, ye know.”
“As does a woman. Ye taught me that.” She’d been surprised when he’d confessed on their wedding night that he was as untried as she in matters of the flesh. Yet, curiosity and natural attraction had led them to the proper use of their young bodies. “Ye taught me many things.”
“And verra pleasurable lessons they’ve been too, in both the giving and receiving,” he said.
They’d explored. They’d savored. By the flickering light of the fire, Katherine’s first glimpse of William in the altogether on their wedding night fair took her breath away. Smooth skin pulled taut over tightly corded muscle. A dusting of dark hair whorled around his brown nipples. A thin strip ran from his navel and spread over his groin. Then there was himself, that glorious rod of maleness risen like a tower toward her. It was almost an entity unto itself. Of all William’s mysteries, the secrets hidden in that part of him were the ones she most wanted to unriddle.
But he’d been intent on uncovering all of her secrets as well. He left no square inch of her unexplored. Every place he touched, her skin sparked with pleasure. She ached in places she’d never thought possible and strained at the hollowness she felt. When he’d finally filled her with himself, she thought she’d never feel empty again.
Neither of them had been disappointed that first night, though it had taken several weeks of trial and error before William discovered the true magic he could coax her body to perform. The first time he drove her to completion, she thought she might die.
Then she did, a little. She died to any life other than one devoted to this man. And then, though she loved William more than her next breath, she had known emptiness again.
The emptiness of a barren womb.
Which was why she had to be strong now and make the decision that was best for him, whether he wanted her to or not.
But if she kept thinking about their wedding night and he kept looking at her with those dark eyes of his, she’d not be able to think straight. Katherine needed to be rational for both of them.
She set the supper tray aside and climbed out of bed. If she stayed where she was, he’d be joining her in a few moments. The way her body ached in certain places, she knew she wouldn’t have the heart to say him nay. Hoping to keep him talking, she asked, “What else did ye have in mind for courting me?”
The tenor of the music wafting up from below changed just then. The bagpipes were stilled and the gentle sounds of the harp and lute replaced them.
William rose from his seat on the bed and lifted a hand to her. “I thought we might dance.”
“I didna know ye could.”
“Donald isna the only one who’s spent time at court, ye ken. The winter before we wed, I was in Edinburgh trying to see which of the dukes who’d been reigning in our young king’s stead might still be in favor once he reached his majority.” Will gave her a surprisingly courtly bow. “In the process, I inadvertently picked up a dance step or two. That song is perfect for the volta. Do ye ken it?”
Unlike the vigorous reels usually danced in long lines within Glengarry’s keep, the volta was an intimate dance for just two. Kat’s father had thought it a silly extravagance, but before her mother died, she’d engaged a dancing master for Katherine and seen that her daughter could manage the steps of courtly dance.
“Just in case, my Katikins, ye’ve need to comport yourself well at court sometime,” her
mother had told her with a wink. She’d sat and watched with approval while Katherine learned to heel and toe. Kat’s mother had never enjoyed vigorous health, and in the last summer of her decline, Lady Glengarry was the one who encouraged Donald to start spending more time in Edinburgh.
“Wars are not always won on the field of battle, my son,” she’d told him. “More often victory comes after a well-played chess match with the right adversary or an elegantly danced pavan before the right set of eyes.”
Katherine’s mother would have laughed if she could have seen her now, dipping in a low curtsey as if she were dressed in her best finery instead of just her shift. It had been a long time since she’d danced, but her muscles remembered the steps. Once she executed hers, William answered them with unexpectedly good form.
They moved toward each other and then away, in oblique lines, arms arranged in stylized movements, feet making crisp turns.
“Dance is the essence of courtship, the duality and duplicity of wooing,” her mother’s voice echoed in her mind. “I love you. I hate you. Come here. Go away.”
With each pass, they drew nearer to each other. When William made a tight circle around her, his fingertips brushed her hips through the thin linen shift. The way her bum tingled, she was sure his touch had made her skin rosy.
I love you, her heart whispered.
He took her hand and lifted her arm over her head, leading Kat in a slow turn that brought her to rest against his chest, facing away from him. She reached up to stroke his cheek as the dance demanded. The stubble on his chin was both soft and bristly beneath her fingertips. His mouth lifted in a smile.
I hate you. She had to. She owed it to William to free him.
Then she twirled away as the dance required, only to be captured by Will and turned in his arms again. They moved together, floating in time with the delicate music. Then at the melody’s climax, Will lifted her high with hands on her waist and turned her in a slow circle as if she weighed nothing.
Come here.
She couldn’t help herself. It was like flying. Katherine tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Then he lowered her, close to his body, so that hers slid along his, every muscle, every bulge, every bit of her straining to fit with every bit of him. When her toes finally touched the ground, he didn’t release her.
Their breathing hitched from exertion. Katherine could feel Will’s heart pounding and knew he felt hers as well. Without a word, without asking, because they both knew he had every right, Will bent to press his lips to her exposed neck.
She couldn’t bring herself to even think Go away.
On the seventh day of Christmas
My true love gave to me seven swans a-swimming.
—From “The Twelve Days of Christmas”
“A practical gift since Cook makes a fine roasted swan. Besides, the loch’s nearly frozen over and too many swimming birds in a small spot of open water might tempt the waterhorse to show himself. And trust me, we want that nary at all.”
—An observation from Nab,
fool to the Earl of Glengarry
Chapter Sixteen
Katherine’s skin tasted lightly of salt and warm woman. She melted against him, soft and pliant. That prickly, temperamental standoffishness was completely gone. She was no longer a rigid, saintlike touch-me-not.
He had his Kat back again.
She arched into him.
Willing. Shyly enthusiastic, even. God help him, he hoped she was already as wet and eager as she seemed to be because he didn’t know how long he could wait.
When he kissed her, she kissed him back. Not the desperate, “give-me-a-child-or-I-die” kisses that had characterized their lovemaking since losing Stephan. These kisses were gentle, almost questioning. As if she were trying to rediscover who he was by exploring his mouth. He let her, though it cost him dear to hold back.
Still, he couldn’t keep his hands from being wanderers, sliding over her, feeling every curve, every dip. He was tinglingly aware of her in a way he hadn’t been for a long time. He knew this woman’s body, but now he reveled in every remembered crease and angle.
But he noted a few differences from his mental version of Kat too. Her hips were a little wider, her breasts a little smaller. No matter. She was his. He felt very proprietary about every bit of her. Protectiveness swelled in his chest. He could see the dark shadows of her nipples, hard and straining against the thin linen of her shift.
He bent to take one into his mouth, sucking in her taut nub and the shift and the sweet lavender, the herb with which she freshened all her clothing, in a glorious mouthful. Over time, lavender had come to be ingrained on her skin. The fragrance was her. Now he knew what it tasted like, all green and minty with a hint of apple sweetness.
When he finally drew back, he continued to tease the tip of her breast through the shift, letting the linen scrape her charged flesh. Even if she’d been naked, the bedchamber was too dim for him to make out the color of her nipples. It didn’t matter. He knew they were a dark berry shade.
They’d been light pink when he married her, but after Stephan, even though she never gave the child suck, the areola around each tip had darkened. It wasn’t only physical things about Katherine that had changed.
She’d stopped dallying in their love play, always anxious to rush ahead to the final event that might result in a child.
But now she surprised him when she stooped to slide her hands under his kilt, up his thighs and then came back to stand on tiptoe for another kiss with her fingers fluttering over his groin.
Teasing. Playful.
His leg muscles went rock hard. His cock was already there. She fondled him, cupping his bag. Lord, he’d missed that, the way she’d take hold of him and stroke him, intent on pleasuring him instead of demanding he serve her and make a child because the moon was right and some old midwife had told her it was the most propitious time in her cycle for conceiving and it had to be now or never.
Of course, she’d kept him at bay for the last four months trying to keep from losing her most recent pregnancy, so he’d begun to look back at those days when she demanded he perform like a stallion with longing. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to make love to his wife simply because he wanted to.
It had been long enough for him to forget other things as well. William raised one of her arms and kissed along the crease of her elbow. He’d forgotten the small mole that hid there in the crook of her arm. He gave it a soft kiss.
“I love ye,” he whispered. Every bit of ye, he finished silently because his mouth was busy elsewhere. He kissed her temples, her cheeks, along her jaw to her ear.
She made a helpless little noise of need when he took her earlobe between his lips and gave it a nip. It almost made up for the fact that she didn’t say she loved him back.
He couldn’t remember the last time she’d said it.
Then she distracted him by tugging at the buckle of his belt. Katherine groaned into his mouth with frustration when she couldn’t seem to undo the catch.
“Let me before ye break it, woman,” he said with a chuckle as he undid the belt that held his plaid at his waist. After that, it was a simple matter to let the great kilt fall to the floor. He pulled his shirt over his head to stand before her bare as an egg save for his stockings and boots.
He took her in his arms again, rucking up her shift in handfuls so he could pull it over her head between one kiss and the next. Her mouth was so sweet he almost couldn’t bear to release it for the brief slice of time it took to slip off her shift. Once he got it off her, he tossed the shift into the corner.
Skin met skin. Oh, the feel of her, all soft and smooth. He’d never let her go.
Love me, Kat. The words repeated in his brain like a song he was unable to find the end of. I’ve loved ye since I dipped your braid in that wax. Dinna fret about making a child. Let me be enough for ye. Ye’re enough for me.
His heart sang the words, but his tongue couldn’t bend around th
em. Once spoken, words were chancy things. If he said them aloud, they’d hang in the air between him and Kat forever, never to be called back. Even though he meant them consolingly, they might send her down the path of melancholy over her childlessness again.
Or worse, she might decide he wasn’t enough.
He deepened their kiss and palmed her bum, lifting her against him. To his joy, she hooked her legs around his waist. Suddenly he didn’t need her to say anything.
If that’s not love, what is?
He began backing her toward the bed.
She tore her mouth from his. “Not yet.”
God’s Teeth, if not now, when? He swallowed back his oath and spat out a single word. It was all he could trust his voice with.
“Soon?”
Even that came out like a growl, rough with desire.
“As soon as ye take off your boots, William Douglas. We canna have ye soilin’ the linen now, can we?”
“Now?” Katherine gasped. Every muscle in her body strained with the effort of holding back. In the early days of their marriage, William had learned to play her body with a skill to rival the most celebrated harpist. His touch was light when he wanted to tease, determined and insistent when she needed it to be, and gentle when he was drawing out the final ebbing pulses of her release.
Even so, once their lovemaking had become more about making a bairn than shared joy, Katherine had been too tense for pleasure. More than once, she’d pretended. She wasn’t sure William could tell the difference. If he’d known she had only played at her release, he didn’t confront her or ask what was amiss.
Once again, they hid from each other, cloaked by silence.
It had seemed like a small lie that first time. What could it hurt that she feigned a release that didn’t seem likely to come? Then the small lie blossomed into a large one. In a very short time, she found she couldn’t tell him what she needed from him, even when he asked. After awhile, he stopped asking. It became one more wedge to divide them, one more brick in the wall they’d erected between them.
