Once Upon a Plaid (13 page)

—From “The Twelve Days of Christmas”

 

 

—An observation from Nab,
fool to the Earl of Glengarry

Chapter Fifteen

Katherine finally relinquished her nephews to the care of their nurse, and since old Beathag assured her that Margaret was resting comfortably, she stripped out of her clothes and lay down on her bed in her shift to catch up on some much needed sleep. She only expected to snatch an hour at most, but the feather tick wrapped her in a thick embrace and she slept like the dead. It was long past time to dress for supper and join the revelers in the great hall below when something finally roused her.

She was used to the noisiness of a castle. In Glengarry, as in Badenoch, there was always someone rattling about during the daytime, even without the press of extra guests and the excitement of the holidays. She could ignore at will the determined hum of a working keep. Or even one bent on frivolity and merriment. But it wasn’t the sound of pipes and song wafting up the spiral stairs that pried her from her dreams.

It was the smell of warm bread.

The yeasty summons caused her eyelids to flutter open and her mouth to water. When she came fully awake, she found William standing by her bedside, bearing a tray. Tall, broad, and impeccably dressed in a fresh shirt and plaid, the man himself looked good enough to eat, never mind what was on the tray.

“Time to wake and have some supper, love.” His rumbling baritone shivered over her. “The day is spent, and Dorcas tells me ye’ve not taken a bite.”

After first taking care of Margaret, and then the youngest members of her brood, Kat decided it was nice to have someone take care of her for a change. She sat up and plumped the pillows behind her back.

“Ye should know better than to listen to Dorcas,” she advised. “She talks too much.”

“So I noticed. She also has a wicked hand with a broom,” Will said as he settled the tray across her lap. In addition to the fresh bread, the trencher was laden with Forfar Bridies, haggis, neeps and tatties, as well as thick slices of goose with brambleberry relish. For good measure, there was even a bowl of Clootie Dumpling swimming in rich cream.

“I canna eat all this,” Katherine said.

“I was counting on that.” William helped himself to one of her bridies and took a bite of the pastry. Hitching his hip on the side of the bed, he settled in beside Katherine. Then he held the bridie out for her. “Try this. I dinna know what Cook used for the crust, but they’re light enough to float away. We need to convince her to share the secret with our Mrs. MacGuff. Her pastries are like lead weights. I could use one to hold down the stack of ledgers on my desk.”

Katherine laughed. Their cook at Badenoch was a crotchety old lady who hadn’t tried a new recipe in decades. “Dinna tell Mrs. MacGuff that or she’ll put a spider in your tea.”

“Try it and tell me ’tis not worth the risk.” He tore off a corner of the bridie and lifted the bite to Katherine’s lips.

It fairly melted on her tongue. In addition to the crusty pastry, a unique mix of spices seasoned the savory meat inside, a burst of sensations for her mouth. “Och, you’re right. This is worth braving a spider. I’ll get Cook to show me how she makes these, and then Mrs. MacGuff will either learn from me or she’ll have to suffer my presence in her kitchen from time to time. And we know how she loves that!”

“So,” he said smugly, his dark eyes alight with triumph, “ye do intend to come home with me after Christmas, then.”

Katherine bit her tongue. Blame it on lack of sleep or inadequate food or simply the fact that William Douglas sitting on her bed was the finest thing a woman could ever hope to see in all her living life, but somehow her plan to petition Rome for an annulment had flown completely out of her head. Now, however, the notion was back with a vengeance.

She helped herself to the flagon of small beer and buried her nose in it. She needed to fortify her resolve.

“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.