above him. Yes, there was the candle in the window, as she’d said. Still, he counted the windows carefully, to verify it. Heaven help him if he chose the wrong room. Heaven help him if it was the right one, too, he thought grimly, and took a firm hold on the trunk of the huge gray creeper that covered this side of the house.
The leaves rustled like a hurricane and the stems, stout as they were, creaked and bent alarmingly under his weight. There was nothing for it but to climb as swiftly as possible, and be ready to hurl himself off into the night if any of the windows should suddenly be raised.
He arrived at the small balcony panting, heart racing, and drenched in sweat, despite the chilliness of the night. He paused a moment, alone beneath the faint spring stars, to draw breath. He used it to damn Geneva Dunsany once more, and then pushed open her door.
She had been waiting, and had plainly heard his approach up the ivy. She rose from the chaise where she had been sitting and came toward him, chin up, chestnut hair loose over her shoulders.
She was wearing a white nightgown of some sheer material, tied at the throat with a silk bow. The garment didn’t look like the nightwear of a modest young lady, and he realized with a shock that she was wearing her bridal-night apparel.
“So you came.” He heard the note of triumph in her voice, but also the faint quaver. So she hadn’t been sure of him?
“I hadn’t much choice,” he said shortly, and turned to close the French doors behind him.
“Will you have some wine?” Striving for graciousness, she moved to the table, where a decanter stood with two glasses. How had she managed that? he wondered. Still, a glass of something wouldn’t come amiss in the present circumstances. He nodded, and took the full glass from her hand.
He looked at her covertly as he sipped it. The nightdress did little to conceal her body, and as his heart gradually slowed from the panic of his ascent, he found his first fear—that he wouldn’t be able to keep his half of the bargain—allayed without conscious effort. She was built narrowly, slim-hipped and small-breasted, but most definitely a woman.
Finished, he set down the glass. No point in delay, he thought.
“The letter?” he said abruptly.
“Afterward,” she said, tightening her mouth.
“Now, or I leave.” And he turned toward the window, as though about to execute the threat.
“Wait!” He turned back, but eyed her with ill-disguised impatience.
“Don’t you trust me?” she said, trying to sound winsome and charming.
“No,” he said bluntly.
She looked angry at that, and thrust out a petulant lower lip, but he merely looked stonily over his shoulder at her, still facing the window.
“Oh, all right then,” she said at last, with a shrug. Digging under the layers of embroidery in a sewing box, she unearthed the letter and tossed it onto the washing stand beside him.
He snatched it up and unfolded the sheets, to be sure of it. He felt a surge of mingled fury and relief at the sight of the violated seal, and Jenny’s familiar hand within, neat and strong.
“Well?” Geneva’s voice broke in upon his reading, impatient. “Put that down and come here, Jamie. I’m ready.” She sat on the bed, arms curled around her knees.
He stiffened, and turned a very cold blue look on her, over the pages in his hands.
“You’ll not use that name to me,” he said. She lifted the pointed chin a trifle more and raised her plucked brows.
“Why not? It’s yours. Your sister calls you so.”
He hesitated for a moment, then deliberately laid the letter aside, and bent his head to the laces of his breeches.
“I’ll serve ye properly,” he said, looking down at his working fingers, “for the sake of my own honor as a man, and yours as a woman. But”—he raised his head and the narrowed blue eyes bored into hers—“having brought me to your bed by means of threats against my family, I’ll not have ye call me by the name they give me.” He stood motionless, eyes fixed on hers. At last she gave a very small nod, and her eyes dropped to the quilt.
She traced the pattern with a finger.
“What must I call you, then?” she asked at last, in a small voice. “I can’t call you MacKenzie!”
The corners of his mouth lifted slightly as he looked at her. She looked quite small, huddled into herself with her arms locked around her knees and her head bowed. He sighed.
“Call me Alex, then. It’s my own name, as well.”
She nodded without speaking. Her hair fell forward in wings about her face, but he could see the brief shine of her eyes as she peeped out from behind its cover.
“It’s all right,” he said gruffly. “You can watch me.” He pushed the loose breeches down, rolling the stockings off with them. He shook them out and folded them neatly over a chair before beginning to unfasten his shirt, conscious of her gaze, still shy, but now direct. Out of some idea of thoughtfulness, he turned to face her before removing the shirt, to spare her for a moment the sight of his back.
“Oh!” The exclamation was soft, but enough to stop him.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Oh, no…I mean, it’s only that I didn’t expect…” The hair swung forward again, but not before he had seen the telltale reddening of her cheeks.
“You’ve not seen a man naked before?” he guessed. The shiny brown head swayed back and forth.
“Noo,” she said doubtfully, “I have, only…it wasn’t…”
“Well, it usually isn’t,” he said matter-of-factly, sitting down on the bed beside her. “But if one is going to make love, it has to be, ye see.”
“I see,” she said, but still sounded doubtful. He tried to smile, to reassure her.
“Don’t worry. It doesna get any bigger. And it wilna do anything strange, if ye want to touch it.” At least he hoped it wouldn’t. Being naked, in such close proximity to a half-clad girl, was doing terrible things to his powers of self-control. His traitorous, deprived anatomy didn’t care a whit that she was a selfish, blackmailing little bitch. Perhaps fortunately, she declined his offer, shrinking back a little toward the wall, though her eyes stayed on him. He rubbed his chin dubiously.
“How much do you…I mean, have ye any idea how it’s done?”
Her gaze was clear and guileless, though her cheeks flamed.
“Well, like the horses, I suppose?” He nodded, but felt a pang, recalling his wedding night, when he too had expected it to be like horses.
“Something like that,” he said, clearing his throat. “Slower, though. More gentle,” he added, seeing her apprehensive look.
“Oh. That’s good. Nurse and the maids used to tell stories, about…men, and, er, getting married, and all…it sounded rather frightening.” She swallowed hard. “W-will it hurt much?” She raised her head suddenly and looked him in the eye.
“I don’t mind if it does,” she said bravely, “it’s only that I’d like to know what to expect.” He felt an unexpected small liking for her. She might be spoiled, selfish, and reckless, but there was some character to her, at least. Courage, to him, was no small virtue.
“I think not,” he said. “If I take my time to ready you” (if he could take his time, amended his brain), “I think it will be not much worse than a pinch.” He reached out and nipped a fold of skin on her upper arm. She jumped and rubbed the spot, but smiled.
“I can stand that.”
“It’s only the first time it’s like that,” he assured her. “The next time it will be better.”
She nodded, then after a moment’s hesitation, edged toward him, reaching out a tentative finger.
“May I touch you?” This time he really did laugh, though he choked the sound off quickly.
“I think you’ll have to, my lady, if I’m to do what you asked of me.”
She ran her hand slowly down his arm, so softly that the touch tickled, and his skin shivered in response. Gaining confidence, she let her hand circle his forearm, feeli
ng the girth of it.
“You’re quite…big.” He smiled, but stayed motionless, letting her explore his body, at as much length as she might wish. He felt the muscles of his belly tighten as she stroked the length of one thigh, and ventured tentatively around the curve of one buttock. Her fingers approached the twisting, knotted line of the scar that ran the length of his left thigh, but stopped short.
“It’s all right,” he assured her. “It doesna hurt me anymore.” She didn’t reply, but drew two fingers slowly along the length of the scar, exerting no pressure.
The questing hands, growing bolder, slid up over the rounded curves of his broad shoulders, slid down his back—and stopped dead. He closed his eyes and waited, following her movements by the shifting of weight on the mattress. She moved behind him, and was silent. Then there was a quivering sigh, and the hands touched him again, soft on his ruined back.
“And you weren’t afraid, when I said I’d have you flogged?” Her voice was queerly hoarse, but he kept still, eyes closed.
“No,” he said. “I am not much afraid of things, anymore.” In fact, he was beginning to be afraid that he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her, or to handle her with the necessary gentleness, when the time came. His balls ached with need, and he could feel his heartbeat, pounding in his temples.
She got off the bed, and stood in front of him. He rose suddenly, startling her so that she stepped back a pace, but he reached out and rested his hands on her shoulders.
“May I touch you, my lady?” The words were teasing, but the touch was not. She nodded, too breathless to speak, and his arms came around her.
He held her against his chest, not moving until her breathing slowed. He was conscious of an extraordinary mixture of feelings. He had never in his life taken a woman in his arms without some feeling of love, but there was nothing of love in this encounter, nor could there be, for her own sake. There was some tenderness for her youth, and pity at her situation. Rage at her manipulation of him, and fear at the magnitude of the crime he was about to commit. But overall there was a terrible lust, a need that clawed at his vitals and made him ashamed of his own manhood, even as he acknowledged its power. Hating himself, he lowered his head and cupped her face between his hands.
He kissed her softly, briefly, then a bit longer. She was trembling against him as his hands undid the tie of her gown and slid it back off her shoulders. He lifted her and laid her on the bed.
He lay beside her, cradling her in one arm as the other hand caressed her breasts, one and then the other, cupping each so she felt the weight and the warmth of them, even as he did.
“A man should pay tribute to your body,” he said softly, raising each nipple with small, circling touches. “For you are beautiful, and that is your right.”
She let out her breath in a small gasp, then relaxed under his touch. He took his time, moving as slowly as he could make himself do it, stroking and kissing, touching her lightly all over. He didn’t like the girl, didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be doing this, but—it had been more than three years since he’d touched a woman’s body.
He tried to gauge when she might be readiest, but how in hell could he tell? She was flushed and panting, but she simply lay there, like a piece of porcelain on display. Curse the girl, could she not even give him a clue?
He rubbed a trembling hand through his hair, trying to quell the surge of confused emotion that pulsed through him with each heartbeat. He was angry, scared, and most mightily roused, most of which feelings were of no great use to him now. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, striving for calm, seeking for gentleness.
No, of course she couldn’t show him. She’d never touched a man before. Having forced him here, she was, with a damnable, unwanted, unwarrantable trust, leaving the conduct of the whole affair up to him!
He touched the girl, gently, stroking her between the thighs. She didn’t part them for him, but didn’t resist. She was faintly moist there. Perhaps it would be all right now?
“All right,” he murmured to her. “Be still, mo chridhe.” Murmuring what he hoped sounded like reassurances, he eased himself on top of her, and used his knee to spread her legs. He felt her slight start at the heat of his body covering her, at the touch of his cock, and he wrapped his hands in her hair to steady her, still muttering things in soft Gaelic.
He thought dimly that it was a good thing he was speaking Gaelic, as he was no longer paying any attention at all to what he was saying. Her small, hard breasts poked against his chest.
“Mo nighean,” he murmured.
“Wait a minute,” said Geneva. “I think perhaps…”
The effort of control made him dizzy, but he did it slowly, only easing himself the barest inch within.
“Ooh!” said Geneva. Her eyes flew wide.
“Uh,” he said, and pushed a bit farther.
“Stop it! It’s too big! Take it out!” Panicked, Geneva thrashed beneath him. Pressed beneath his chest, her breasts wobbled and rubbed, so that his own nipples leapt erect in pinpoints of abrupt sensation.
Her struggles were accomplishing by force what he had tried to do with gentleness. Half-dazed, he fought to keep her under him, while groping madly for something to say to calm her.
“But—” he said.
“Stop it!”
“I—”
“Take it out!” she screamed.
He clapped one hand over her mouth and said the only coherent thing he could think of.
“No,” he said definitely, and shoved.
What might have been a scream emerged through his fingers as a strangled “Eep!” Geneva’s eyes were huge and round, but dry.
In for a penny, in for a pound. The saying drifted absurdly through his head, leaving nothing in its wake but a jumble of incoherent alarms and a marked feeling of terrible urgency down beween them. There was precisely one thing he was capable of doing at this point, and he did it, his body ruthlessly usurping control as it moved into the rhythm of its inexorable pagan joy.
It took no more than a few thrusts before the wave came down upon him, churning down the length of his spine and erupting like a breaker striking rocks, sweeping away the last shreds of conscious thought that clung, barnacle-like, to the remnants of his mind.
He came to himself a moment later, lying on his side with the sound of his own heartbeat loud and slow in his ears. He cracked one eyelid, and saw the shimmer of pink skin in lamplight. He must see if he’d hurt her much, but God, not just this minute. He shut his eye again and merely breathed.
“What…what are you thinking?” The voice sounded hesitant, and a little shaken, but not hysterical.
Too shaken himself to notice the absurdity of the question, he answered it with the truth.
“I was wondering why in God’s name men want to bed virgins.”
There was a long moment of silence, and then a tremulous intake of breath.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “I didn’t know it would hurt you too.”
His eyes popped open in astonishment, and he raised himself on one elbow to find her looking at him like a startled fawn. Her face was pale, and she licked dry lips.
“Hurt me?” he said, in blank astonishment. “It didna hurt me.”
“But”—she frowned as her eyes traveled slowly down the length of his body—“I thought it must. You made the most terrible face, as though it hurt awfully, and you…you groaned like a—”
“Aye, well,” he interrupted hastily, before she could reveal any more unflattering observations of his behavior. “I didna mean…I mean…that’s just how men act, when they…do that,” he ended lamely.
Her shock was fading into curiosity. “Do all men act like that when they’re…doing that?”
“How should I—?” he began irritably, then stopped himself with a shudder, realizing that he did in fact know the answer to that.
“Aye, they do,” he said shortly. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, and bru
shed the hair back from his forehead. “Men are disgusting horrible beasts, just as your nurse told you. Have I hurt ye badly?”
“I don’t think so,” she said doubtfully. She moved her legs experimentally. “It did hurt, just for a moment, like you said it would, but it isn’t so bad now.”
He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that while she had bled, the stain on the towel was slight, and she seemed not to be in pain. She reached tentatively between her thighs and made a face of disgust.
“Ooh!” she said. “It’s all nasty and sticky!”
The blood rose to his face in mingled outrage and embarrassment.
“Here,” he muttered, and reached for a washcloth from the stand. She didn’t take it, but opened her legs and arched her back slightly, obviously expecting him to attend to the mess. He had a strong urge to stuff the rag down her throat instead, but a glance at the stand where his letter lay stopped him. It was a bargain, after all, and she’d kept her part.
Grimly, he wet the cloth and began to sponge her, but he found the trust with which she presented herself to him oddly moving. He carried out his ministrations quite gently, and found himself, at the end, planting a light kiss on the smooth slope of her belly.
“There.”
“Thank you,” she said. She moved her hips tentatively, and reached out a hand to touch him. He didn’t move, letting her fingers trail down his chest and toy with the deep indentation of his navel. The light touch hesitantly descended.
“You said…it would be better next time,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was a long time until the dawn.
“I expect it will,” he said, and stretched himself once more beside her.
* * *
“Ja—er, Alex?”
He felt as though he had been drugged, and it was an effort to answer her. “My lady?”
Her arms came around his neck and she nestled her head in the curve of his shoulder, breath warm against his chest.
“I love you, Alex.”
With difficulty, he roused himself enough to put her away from him, holding her by the shoulders and looking down into the gray eyes, soft as a doe’s.
“No,” he said, but gently, shaking his head. “That’s the third rule. You may have no more than the one night. You may not call me by my first name. And you may not love me.”
The gray eyes moistened a bit. “But if I can’t help it?”
“It isna love you feel now.” He hoped he was right, for his sake as well as her own. “It’s only the feeling I’ve roused in your body. It’s strong, and it’s good, but it isna the same thing as love.”
“What’s the difference?”
He rubbed his hands hard over his face. She would be a philosopher, he thought wryly. He took a deep breath and blew it out before answering her.
“Well, love’s for only one person. This, what you feel from me—ye can have that with any man, it’s not particular.”
Only one person. He pushed the thought of Claire firmly away, and wearily bent again to his work.
* * *
He landed heavily in the earth of the flowerbed, not caring that he crushed several small and tender plants. He shivered. This hour before dawn was not only the darkest, but the coldest, as well, and his body strongly protested being required to rise from a warm, soft nest and venture into the chilly blackness, shielded from the icy air by no more than a thin shirt and breeks.
He remembered the heated, rosy curve of the cheek he had bent to kiss before leaving. The shapes of her lingered, warm in his hands, curving his fingers in memory, even as he groped in the dark for the darker line of the stableyard’s stone wall. Drained as he was, it was a dreadful effort to haul himself up and climb over, but he couldn’t risk the creak of the gate awakening Hughes, the head groom.
He felt his way across the inner yard, crowded with wagons and packed bales, ready for the journey of the Lady Geneva to the home of her new lord, following the wedding on Thursday next. At last he pushed open the stable door and found his way up the ladder to his loft. He lay down in the icy straw and pulled the single blanket over him, feeling empty of everything.
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