Loving Lachlan could not be possible.
He had no softness. His manners were not lovely.
It wouldn’t be easy to love him. And it made her feel as though the walls inside her heart were being stretched, stressed. In danger of crumbling.
‘I don’t. He kidnapped me. He forced me into marriage. I was supposed to marry a duke.’
‘Lah,’ Margaret said. ‘But I still think you love him.’
She pushed that away. Firmly. ‘I never expected love.’
So what then was all of this truly about? Why did she feel an ache in herself that wouldn’t go away? Why did she feel a deep pull towards more?
She thought of those nights in the coaching inns. ‘I don’t want him to be in control like he is. He pushes me away and it makes me…sad. He has let me keep him from my bed for over a week and I…there must be more than just him lifting my skirts and…and having done with it.’
Flora frowned. ‘He doesn’t see to your pleasure?’
‘Oh, he does,’ Penny said. ‘But I never… He doesn’t allow me to touch him. Or truly see him. And I feel like the key to him, to this… I’ve been holding him back from my room, but I don’t want that any more. Are there books?’
‘I don’t know about books,’ Flora said. ‘The real truths come from women and far too many men are charged with the actual recording of things.’
‘Well, I’ve never had any women to tell me such things. I made friends with the Duke’s sister and his ward, but they know no more of men than I do. And his mother told me to simply think of household chores if I found the act overwhelming.’
Margaret wrinkled her nose. ‘If you can think of chores, you might as well be off baking bread.’
‘I can’t think of chores when I’m with him. I don’t want to. But I want…something else.’
‘These men,’ Margaret said, ‘they spend all their time turning their wives into little mice. Teaching you to be scared of a naked man. Why is that? Because a lady with some boldness is what truly tempts them. And they want all the control.’
‘That’s just it,’ Penny said. ‘He has all the control. He comes to me and I give him exactly what he wants, because he’s made me want it. I have no fortitude. I absolutely give in. He makes my knees weak and he makes me…’
‘He is a handsome man,’ Isla said.
Penny felt a strange surge of possessiveness rise up inside her. He was her handsome man, infuriating though he was. ‘He is. But I don’t want him to have all the control. I want to have some.’
This, and the man himself, had become a problem she was desperate to solve. She didn’t want to mope around being smothered by feelings.
‘Then you need to take it,’ Flora said.
‘How?’
‘Seduction.’
‘I don’t know how to seduce anything!’ Penny said. ‘I haven’t any experience of men, I told you.’
‘Well, what do you have experience with?’ Margaret asked.
‘I have nursed several small animals back to health.’
Flora coughed and Margaret smothered a fit of giggles with her hand. Isla, for her part, looked away.
‘Right,’ Flora said. ‘That is not the same. And it won’t help you.’ She tapped her chin. ‘You’re very beautiful. Use your body.’
‘How?’
‘Go to him naked.’
‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s obscene.’
‘It is,’ Flora said. ‘What you’ll be doing with him is more obscene still.’
This was true. Everything that took place between them was shocking. And the fact of the matter was…she wanted to know more.
‘There is a book,’ Isla said. ‘It’s hidden. But I know it belonged to the previous Laird and it is…informative.’
‘Where is it hidden?’ she asked.
‘There is a box in the library. It has a lock, but the key is in a tableside drawer by the chair at the far wall.’
‘Well, that’s…thorough.’
Isla looked very serious. ‘The book is quite…thorough.’
‘Take me to it.’
And that was how she ended up making her way to the library with a trail of housemaids giggling behind her. But Isla, true to her word, led her straight to the key and box, and placed the key in her palm. ‘Use it well.’
Penny opened it slowly to find a slim volume with a nondescript cover. She opened it and her eyes widened at the sight.
The art was quite lavish and very detailed. On some pages there was a man and a woman. On many…a man with several women.
She could not look away, the scenes so shocking and entrancing, the descriptions frank and bold.
It would seem that what she and Lachlan had engaged in was an incredibly basic version of all the various things a man and woman could do with each other’s bodies.
She was not interested in the scenes containing a crowd, not in a personal sense. Though she did spend a good while turning the book in various different ways to try to fully grasp the mechanics of the situation.
She’d have thought she might be shocked to look at such graphic instruction. But the primary thing she felt was…hurt. She put her fingertips over a particularly salacious drawing of a woman using her mouth on a man’s most intimate part. Did he not want these things from her? Or was this the same as him not wanting to give her a baby? The same as him treating her like a prisoner?
Was he doing all of these things with females elsewhere? Because if all of these things were possible, and surely a man like Lachlan would know about them, then he could not be satisfied with the brisk actions they committed under the cover of darkness. Those acts had been altering for her, but she had no experience. So of course it was the absolute heights for her. But for a man such as him? Would he want more?
She did not find herself disgusted, not by any of it. There was no reason to be, after all. Every touch that she had received from his hands had been pleasurable. And the idea of exploring him more only excited her.
Ruin.
The word whispered inside her and echoed off all the tender, hurt places in her heart, an excitement threading itself through her soul and making her feel renewed.
She was a married woman now and could not be ruined. She had been brought here and, as with the running of a household, her relationship with Lachlan was something she had to find a way to control.
Her heart thundered heavily and she took a large volume of Shakespeare off the shelf, held it against her chest, in front of that forbidden book, and made her way to her bedroom. The book bordered on vulgar in places, but it inflamed her imagination.
It seemed that there were very few borders when it came to relations. But this, she supposed, was the difference between copulation—in that reproductive sense that she knew from scientific texts in regards to roosters—and screwing.
He’d said she shouldn’t say that word. But then, she felt that she didn’t have the knowledge to understand what it had meant.
In the text, various activities were referred to as bed sport and she could see why. It looked all very athletic and like something quite sporting. A fox hunt. That took place in the nude.
And the fox might want to be caught, because the consequences seemed…delicious.
She closed the book and sat on the edge of the bed, feeling…bright. As though she had been lit up from the inside. All those possibilities swirled in her head. And there in the centre was her own pain. At the way he had treated her. At the fact he had not come to her.
And she wondered if he was going to, or if she was going to have to be the one to bridge the gap, with all of this. With her newfound knowledge on the subject of what was possible between a husband and a wife.
Part of her wanted to protect herself.
She cros
sed the room and went back over to her vanity, to the jewellery box.
Yes. Part of her wanted to protect herself and badly. But there was this jewellery box. Evidence that perhaps she was more than simply a prisoner to him. That she was more than simply the satisfaction of a decade-long quest for revenge. He might not understand the way that he had shaped her life. The way that he had changed it. But he never would as long as she didn’t force him to reckon with who she was.
She could fade into the woodwork. She could become that prisoner.
Or she could continue to create the life that she wanted. To take the raw material that she had and build for herself something happy.
But she couldn’t do it as long as the sadness existed inside her. This deep loneliness that she felt when she thought of the man.
She felt certain that there was happiness to be had here, but it was not apart from her relationship with her husband. How nice it would be if it were.
You have feelings for him.
He was the one who had rearranged her existence. How could she feel nothing? She felt a great many things for Lachlan Bain. It was impossible for her to not.
He had awakened her passion. Had inflamed her senses.
He had stolen her from the only life she had ever known.
The man had to reckon with her and her curiosity. Her feelings, whatever they were. Because who else would?
Determined, she pressed her fingers against the jewellery box. This time, when her emotions rose up inside her she did not push them down. This time, she held them close to her breast and let them burn into a flame of determination.
Lachlan Bain might be accustomed to being a conqueror. But tonight, he was going to learn what it meant to be claimed by his prisoner. And maybe, in the end, she would be free.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lachlan was bone tired by the time he settled into his bed. And what he did not expect was for the door between the rooms to open.
He had not tried to go to her room since the party. And he had missed talking to her. As much as he missed the scent of her. The feel of her softness beneath his hands. He’d got another taste of her and it had been fire.
He’d done his best to ignore it.
But now the door was open. And there stood Penny, wearing nothing but her nightdress, her hair loose and curling, falling down over her shoulders in great golden waves.
Other than that first night, they’d made love in the dark, so he had not seen her in such a state of undress often enough to be immune to it. There was a determined glint in her blue eyes, her full mouth set into a firm line.
‘What is it you’re doing, lass?’ The words came out rougher than he would’ve liked. ‘I’m tired. I’m not in the mood to demonstrate restraint. And I’m certainly not in the frame of mind to talk.’
‘I didn’t come to talk,’ she said.
And with a fluid motion she let her nightdress fall in a diaphanous puddle, away from her body. There she stood, naked, her body glowing in the candlelight. The flames licked and danced over her skin and he was transfixed.
‘I told you,’ he said, his voice rough, ‘to leave me.’
‘Yes. For the first time you came to me and then you sent me away when I faltered.’
‘It is not you who faltered,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She licked her lips and he felt the action in his cock. ‘I have spent some time in your father’s library. And I’ve found something…that I believe was meant to be hidden.’
She made her way towards the bed, each step decisive, her hips swaying with the motion. She was like one of the fae folk. Otherworldly and magical. Potentially dangerous to a foolish mortal. She was nothing like the prim English miss she’d been that first time he’d seen her in her father’s house. Except…
Even then, there had been a glint of something in her eyes. She’d always had spirit. The spirit that had carried her through their marriage, the trip to Scotland. That had seen her planning banquets for the entire village. Delivering bread to places she was not welcome.
She was a most unexpected woman. Certainly not the pale pawn he had imagined he was manoeuvring about the board when he had first met her.
She had proven herself to be not a pawn, but an ally. She saw manoeuvres he did not. She was quick and warm, and had an ease with people that he had certainly never had.
She was something quite a bit more than he’d anticipated.
She came to the foot of the bed and he went tense. It was against his every instinct to lie there still. He was naked beneath the bedclothes and what he wanted to do was reach out and take hold of her, bring her down over his body and impale her with his aching stiffness. He had been denied for far too long and for the life of him he couldn’t say why he had allowed it.
Except something inside him whispered, For this.
Because it had been a challenge and one he had been determined not to lose.
He was not a slave to this Englishwoman whom he had brought with him to Scotland. He was not his father. And it would’ve been a blow to his pride to be unable to keep away from her when she was not willing.
Any man would have a woman who came naked into his bedchamber.
She did not control him.
So he lay still and allowed her to spin her plan out and see where it might take them both. ‘I understand now,’ she said softly. ‘I understand what you intended me to do when you asked me to get down on my knees. I didn’t.’ She licked her lips again.
Provocative tart.
‘I spent the afternoon looking at pictures. They made me feel so very strange.’
She was a lady. And he could imagine her feeling nothing beyond disgust for the kinds of things she would have found in a book of that nature.
‘Here,’ she said, pressing her hand low against her stomach. ‘And lower still.’ Her gaze was earnest and forthright, and he found himself wondering why it was he’d thought this lady would do anything but face the challenge head on.
This lady who had asked him what his cock was called. Who had asked for the frank names of all they’d done and who had dared to defy him whenever he laid out an expectation.
Her eager innocence meant that she did not play games when it came to matters of intimacy. Though, withholding had been a game in and of itself. But when it came to the actual act her curiosity overrode any sort of coquettishness.
‘Often when I was alone at my father’s house, there was only my imagination for company. And I realise now there was such a gap in my education that my imagination suffered. Realising what I could have occupied myself with… If I would’ve known to dream of a man’s body… I would have. If I would have known to think of a kiss as deep and wonderful as the ones I’ve had from you… I would have thought of nothing more.’ She reached out and drew back the blanket that was covering him at his waist. She revealed his aroused state and her eyes went round. ‘If I would have known…’
‘What?’ he asked, his voice rough. ‘Would you have lain in your bed and put your hand between your legs? Would you have tried to do something to satisfy the restless need that you found there?’
Colour flooded her cheeks. ‘I’m sure that’s a very wicked sin.’
‘Aye. But I’m a wicked sinner. It’s far too late for my soul. So I wouldn’t have wanted you to abstain from such things on my account.’
‘I would have,’ she said, her voice soft.
‘Have you done so at night? When you thought of me.’
He didn’t know why it might matter, not in ways beyond the physical. But it did. For this moment brought together all that time spent talking at their bedroom doors, rather than screwing. And all the times he’d desired her, too. It all bled into this moment.
Made it sharper. Keener somehow.
‘I didn’t know you could do such a thing. I squeezed my thighs toget
her tight when I felt restless.’
‘A lesson to you, then. You can find pleasure from your own hand. But you can be sure it will never be as keen as the pleasure you find with me.’
‘I see.’
She looked obscenely intrigued by the idea. She curled her fingers around his length. ‘I did see that men could find satisfaction from a woman putting her hand on him.’
‘Aye,’ he said, his voice rough.
‘You feel… You’re so hot.’
‘You put a fire in my blood,’ he said.
‘Good. Because there’s a fire in mine as well.’
‘And why have you not come to me these last nights? Why have you closed your door to me?’
‘Why did you not walk through it?’
An impasse. Perhaps they were both too stubborn to allow the other to see any sort of weakness. Weakness in the form of wanting.
‘There was one act in the book that I was curious about above all others,’ she said.
But she didn’t tell him. Rather she lowered herself over his body, pressing her lips lightly to his shaft.
His hips bucked upwards and she startled. He put his hand on the back of her head and urged her back to him.
‘Take me in your mouth,’ he growled.
He had thought this a bad idea only days ago, but he had lost sight of why with her naked and soft and glorious above him. With her on her knees ready to worship in this way, why should he stop her, why should he not take what she was offering?
He was a man of battle. A man who sought to control all that was around him. A man who’d failed to change the tide when it counted. A man who felt awash at times in those failures. And this…this was like a baptism.
He needed it. He could not turn her away.
Her pink lips parted and she took in the head of him slowly, working her mouth up and down over his shaft. He moved his fingers deep into that thick, silky hair and guided her as she tried to take him deeper, and deeper still.
Harlequin Historical July 2020 - Box Set 1 of 2 Page 64
