The MacNaughton Bride (11 page)

Kell
slid over just far enough to loop his big hair arm around her slim waist and
drag her backwards into his arms, pressing that poor bottom that seemed to be
constantly in peril of getting much more attention than its owner wanted
against him, holding her tight when she jumped and tried to get out of his
arms.

Chapter
6

“You’re naked!” she
accused.

He chuckled at her
indignation.
 
“Yes, lassie, I
am.
 
I don’t usually sleep in my
wedding finery.
 
And, may I remind
you, that you’re naked, too.”

Not the smartest thing to
say, because it sent her lunging – unsuccessfully – towards her
side of the bed, presumably to get some sort of a gown.
 
“Let me up!
 
I need to get my nightgown.”

“No.”
 
Softly said, but, she knew by now, firm
as a rock.

“But you – I –
we should sleep in something!”

“Why?”

Aislinn
huffed, still straining away from him, for all the good it was doing her.
 
He held her in a depressingly secure,
completely pain free manner that only served to anger her more.
 
“Because it’s the decent thing to do!”

“That doesn’t sound like
very much fun.”

“Let me go.”
 
She wasn’t begging, and she wasn’t
really asking, either.
 
It was the
closest thing to an order he’d heard directed his way in a long time, and it
made him grin at the thought of his feisty little wife trying to order him
around.

“No.
 
Not ever,
Aislinn
.
 
You’re my wife, and you’d best make
peace with that fact.
 
I set the
rules of your behavior, and I mete out your punishments if that behavior
doesn’t meet with my approval.
 
And
I have free and complete access to your body at any time.
 
Do you understand me, lassie?”

Tears flooded her eyes,
making
Aislinn
extremely happy that she was facing
away from him.
 

One of his huge palms
covered a recently tanned cheek, patting it possessively.
 
“I’m not going to ask again,
Aislinn
.
 
Answer me.”

Crossing her fingers in the
childish manner of one who is telling an out and out lie, she answered softly,
“Yes, Sir.”

“Good.”
 
Kell
wrapped
his arms around her, although she merely lay in his arms like a lump.
 
His lips lay up against her ear.
 
“Even though I probably should, I’m not
going to demand my husbandly rights from you tonight in hopes of proving to you
that I’m not some unfeeling ogre.
 
I may spank you from time to time,
Aislinn
– and that depends entirely on you and your behavior – but I’m not
a cruel man.
 
Maybe if I give you
some time to get to know me you’ll start to believe that.”

To her horror, those tears
overflowed and trailed down her cheeks, despite how she tried to blink them
back.
 
He had no right to be nice
to her after all of that.
 
How
could she be angry with
 
him
– how could she hate him for beating her – when he was so blasted
nice?
 
Aislinn
didn’t know very many men who would be as patient as he was being.
 
And he was holding her so nicely
– she was surrounded by him, and despite the fact that he was naked, it
felt good to be held so closely to someone.
 
She felt . . . secure, for the first time in a long time,
and she barely recognized it, it had been so long.
 
She was so used to being the one that saw to everyone else’s
comfort, the one that stood against those who might try to hurt those she
loved, that she couldn’t recall a time when someone had tried to protect her
from anyone or anything.

And he was trying to
protect her from everything – including her headstrong self.

Confused and tired and more
emotional than she’d been in a long time,
Aislinn
fell asleep even as she was trying to keep the fires of her anger burning.
 
It was just too comfortable, too safe,
for her to keep up her defenses against him.

Her heart, the traitor,
whispered deep inside her, that with him she didn’t need all those walls . . .
and her befuddled brain gave up the fight, letting her slip off into soft white
dreams within the arms of the enemy.

Something was tickling the
underside of her nose every time she breathed.
 
Aislinn
wiggled her nose, but that
didn’t seem to do the trick.
 
She
shifted her head a little, but it was still there – even worse, now.
 
Finally she roused herself to see what
the problem was, and she was appalled when she realized her position:
 
she was lying against the
MacNaughton’s
side – no, she was mostly on top of
him, one of her downright thin thighs between his thick tree trunks, far hand
resting casually on his shoulder, as if they slept like this all the time, and
her face buried in the coal black dusting on his massive chest – hence
the tickling.
 
Every time she
breathed in, she tickled her own nose with his chest hair.

When she lifted her head
and braced herself to get out of that obscene position, her still bleary eyes
collided with his snapping ones.

“Good morning, Mrs.
MacNaughton
.
 
Stay right where you are.
 
How did you sleep?”

He slipped that order in
there between two niceties, so it didn’t really even seem like an order, but
Aislinn
knew the truth of it.
 
For the rest of her life, she would be expected – by
him even more so than conventional society – to obey his orders.
 
She wasn’t at all sure she could do it.

Out of sheer stubbornness,
she did stay exactly where she was – tense and poised to leave him as
soon as he released her.
 
She
refused to lean back against him – to slide back into that shameful
position where her thigh pressed up against parts of him that it shouldn’t.

“Fine, thank you.”

His hand stroked up and
down her back, pressing gently, encouraging her to relax into his arms, but she
refused to, even when her muscles started twitching with the strain.
 
Finally, he tugged her arms out from
under her in one swift movement, forcing her to crash down on top of him, then
clamping her to his side – never hurting her, but not letting her move
away from him, either.

“I liked you sleeping on
top of me.
 
Maybe tonight I’ll
sleep on top of you.”

Aislinn
thought she probably wouldn’t survive that particular position – he was
likely to either smother or crush her, and neither idea was pleasant.

Suddenly,
Aislinn
cocked her head, concentrating.
 
There seemed to be voices coming from
the lawn outside their bedroom, like a crowd was yelling up at them for some
reason she couldn’t possibly fathom.
 
Kell
moved her gently to one side, then
vaulted out of bed to the window, throwing it open and yelling down at them in
Gaelic, which meant that
Aislinn
didn’t understand
one word of the exchange.

Sighing in frustration and
running a weary hand through his hair,
Kell
came back
to the bed – and for once his eyes weren’t on her.
 
They were, instead, considering the
sheet beneath her for some strange reason.

“Okay, lassie, here’s your
chance.
 
Get off the bed,” he said,
already in the process of pulling the sheet towards him.
 
For once,
Aislinn
did what she was told without a word, watching him curiously.
 

How the dirk got into his
hand, she would never know, but before she had a chance to stop it, he’d gouged
his free hand, squeezing it into a fist to drip blood onto the sheet.
 
At her horrified, yet quizzical
expression, he explained as he milked a little more blood from his hand, “They
want proof of your virginity,
Aislinn
.
 
I didn’t take it last night, but
there’s no need for anyone but us to know that.
 
There’s many a bride whose gallant husband has saved her
reputation by letting a little of his own blood for the show.”

Dumbstruck,
Aislinn
watched him bring the sheet to the window and hang
it out, the prominent red stain apparently meeting with the crowd’s approval as
a loud cheer swelled through them.
 
Aislinn
was appalled that they would demand
such proof in this day and age, and endlessly humiliated that he had had to
provide it, although she did worry about what it was that he should have done
to her that would have been bad enough to make her bleed . . .

“Bloody rabble,” he
complained, turning back to her, noticing that she looked as if she’d seen a
ghost.
 
Unfortunately, he didn’t
have time to make a real explanation about what had just gone on.
 
He wasn’t even sure that he knew
exactly what had happened; he only knew that it was a long standing – if
nosey and obtrusive – tradition.
 

As soon as he began to walk
towards her, she began to back up.
 
“Stay.”
 
He considered it a
small victory that she stayed.
 
Kell
stood in front of her, turning her so that they were
standing next to the bed.
 
“Don’t
be frightened of me,
Aislinn
.
 
I’ll say it as often as I need to until
you believe me – beyond spankings, I would never deliberately hurt you.”

Kell
lifted her into his arms, and tumbled the two of them onto the bed on top of
the pillows.
 
Their weight together
jarred the little packaged that Jenny had planted, hurling it off the bed to
land with a wet smack on
Kell’s
thigh.
 
Intrigued, he looked down, saying,
“What’s this?”

Aislinn
was just as curious as he was.
 

It seemed to be a small,
stretchy pouch of skin that, when squeezed, oozed deep red blood.
 
Aislinn
was
just reaching for it when
Kell
snatched it away from
her, standing up from the bed in all his naked glory and glaring down at her as
if she was an English invader.

“Did you really think you
could get away with this?”
 
He
murmured, his words all the more terrifying for the fact that they were
whispered.

“Get away with what?” she
asked.
 
She had no idea what he was
talking about.

Kell
chuckled humorlessly.
 
“I’m not
that stupid, you know.
 
I would
have been able to tell, regardless.”

“Tell what?”

He grabbed her shoulders
and shook her.
 
Aislinn
felt like a rodent in the jaws of a terrier.
 
Just a little harder, and he’d snap her neck.
 
“You can stop the innocent act.
 
Your scheme’s fallen apart.
 
I’m just glad I found out before I
actually had you – there’s no telling what kind of disease I might have
come away with – nor how many men have been before me.”
 
Kell
didn’t
think he’d ever been so angry in his life.
 
He couldn’t believe how completely he’d been played for a
fool.
 
She must’ve been in on it
with her uncle, and probably that maid of hers, too.
 
A nasty little triumvirate passing off her damaged goods on
an unsuspecting man.
 
She might not
have gained a lot of money, but she had a title and his good name.

If he’d been thinking
clearly, he would have realized that there was an easy way to solve the
question of her virginity or the lack there of – all he had to do was to
tumble her onto her back and delve between those creamy thighs, and he would
have had all the evidence he needed, one way or the other.

But he’d let himself get
taken in – get all romantic and dreamy about how they might have as warm
and loving a relationship as his parents, however unusual that was for
him.
 
He’d wanted her to be what
she presented herself as – a young, innocent girl who would be proud to
be the mother of his children and a credit to his clan.

As it was, he got her
money, but wouldn’t lie with her now for all the tea in China.
 
His brothers would have to produce the
heir and a spare.
 
He wouldn’t
touch his wife now if his life depended on it.
 
Without another glance at her, he put the bladder on the
bedside table and walked to the door, turning back only to say in the most
lethal tone
Aislinn
had ever heard, “Your father and
your Uncle might have let you run around like a hoyden, but you’ll not shame my
family or my name.
 
You’re not to
leave this room without an escort – either myself or my brothers.
 
You are not to address any other men at
any other time.
 
You will take your
meals in your room.
 
I shall make
your excuses to our guests.”
 
He
made his little speech to the floor, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her.