“Yes, sir.”
“And Cait,” he added, tilting her face up to his. “I expect to see you in the hall this evening sitting at my side, no matter how much the sitting hurts. Do not think for a minute of testing me and not being there.”
“No, sir.”
He looked at her another long moment, and she wasn’t sure what she read in his eyes. She still saw anger. She didn’t know why. He said he was no longer angry with her, that afterward all would be forgiven. Perhaps he assumed she was terribly disobedient and expected her to disappoint him soon again. Well, she wouldn’t. She would be the perfect wife. She would do whatever she had to do, whatever it took, if she could only get him to hold her like a treasure again.
* * * * *
It was absolutely intolerable what the girl did to his mind, not to mention the more sensual regions of his body. He pressed his cock in frustration. Down, boy. Not now. Not ever. He had no sympathy for her. He’d suffered at least as much as she had from the spanking, probably more.
He had work to do. He had to get his mind off her, but he’d see her at table. He decided that every day he would spend time with her at the evening meal. That would have to be enough. It would be safe; there would be nothing harmful he could do to her within sight of the entire hall. Time together with him would soothe her insecurities as a wife. He would give her his undivided attention, ask her about her day, gently touch her hand, share his cup with her. It would have to be enough. It was all he could safely give her. It would have to be enough for them both.
He thought for the millionth time that he ought to move her to a different bedroom. As it was, she was far too near. He fought the urge every night to stride through her door and drag her back to his bed. Or take her right there in her little maiden’s bed. What difference did it make as long as he was buried deep inside her? No, no, no, no, no.
There were other ways to be inside her. He would need to teach them to her soon or else risk going mad with lust for her, or risk getting her with child, which he wasn’t going to do. Soon he would have to teach her, when the drive, when the desperate need wasn’t so strong and he could be certain of staying in control.
Spanking her bare bottom hadn’t helped matters. Even now he was replaying her punishment again in his mind. The lovely cries, the hapless kicking and squirming and struggling against him. The tensing of her supple, round, perfectly shaped buttocks—it was a miracle he hadn’t come in his trousers from administering the punishment. And for some godforsaken reason, he’d walked the horse back to the grounds at slower than a snail’s pace just to feel her fidget and shift in his arms. She was a sickness. Torture, plain and simple. She galled him and stole his reason and peace of mind.
He threw his energy into his duties and expended all his frustration on the practice fields where his men noticed a new edge to his fighting. He stayed longer than he should have, and found himself without much time to bathe before the dinner hour. To make matters worse, Henna came in to attend him, taking the opportunity to pour recriminations in his ear.
“Duncan! What are you about now?” she lectured as she scrubbed his back. “She’s upstairs crying on her bed looking as forlorn as a lost lamb!”
“What did she tell you?”
“She wouldn’t say a thing, but I can see she’s hurtin’. What did you do to the poor wee lass?”
“The poor wee lass disobeyed me directly and taunted me from the top of an apple tree. She got her bottom spanked for it.”
Henna gasped in outrage.
“You didn’t!”
“I did, and I will again if she won’t stay safely by her guard. She knew the rule as well as the consequence, Henna, so keep your judgments to yourself.”
“Well, I didn’t raise you to be one of those who hurts a weaker creature than yourself, I really didn’t! Especially a woman.”
“Henna, I’m a soldier and an earl. I have to hurt ‘weaker creatures’ all the time. For what it’s worth, I don’t think much more was hurt than her pride and her sensibilities.”
“For a woman, that kind of pain is the most humiliating and cruel.”
“I have to disagree with you. It was important for me to show her who was in charge, and how important her safety is to me. I know it will surprise you to learn that I’m coming to care about the little scamp.”
“Ha! If you cared about her you’d act differently. You refuse to make an honest wife of her and take her to your bed, and yet you’re happy to turn her over your lap and punish her like an errant child when she makes one mistake. How do you think she feels, that you’ll torment her defenseless bottom but haven’t yet performed your husbandly duties as you should—”
“She feels nothing, because the ignorant chit has less than no idea what husbands and wives actually do. And I’d prefer it to stay that way as long as possible,” he added with a stern look at Henna. “I’ll introduce my wife to the intricacies of the marriage bed as soon as I see fit.”
“Well,” Henna harrumphed, scrubbing his back so hard he was sure she left marks, “I can’t say I agree with the way you’re treating her. Thought I raised you better, I did. Sometimes I think you’re as cold as your father deep down inside.”
“I am not like my father!” Duncan snapped. He bit his tongue hard to keep from saying words he’d regret, and stiffened under her hands. “Leave me now, Henna. I can abide no more of your squawking. Just leave me alone.”
Wisely, in the face of Duncan’s anger, the portly old woman made herself scarce.
Duncan sank back in the water with a frown. He was not his father’s son. He never would be. No. His father was cold, emotionless, incapable of showing love or even empathy. Duncan was nothing like him, nothing at all. Was he? No, he wasn’t, he couldn’t be. He wouldn’t be.
He rose up out of the tub and began to dry himself. It was time for dinner, time for him to sit and eat beside his wife. He needed to see her, desperately needed to be near her. Somehow her beauty, her innocent gaze, her crooked, uncertain smile would make it all okay.
Chapter Five
Duncan’s hair was still wet when he arrived at the hall for dinner. His face hardened when he saw she wasn’t there, but then he saw her approaching from the corridor. She turned her head a little, dropping her eyes from his. She was so charmingly shy. Or was she fearful? Ashamed perhaps? When she drew near he offered his hand and she took it, sliding him a look he didn’t understand.
Well enough. Who understood women? Her duty now was to sit and eat beside him and as long as she did that, he didn’t care what was going through her addled head. She sat on his left side, eating very little and speaking even less. She fidgeted plenty though, until he put a hand on her leg. She stilled, looking up at him.
I know. I meant for it to hurt.
“Aren’t you hungry? You should eat. Your gowns are practically falling off you.”
“These aren’t my gowns.”
He frowned. Why didn’t his wife have any gowns of her own yet? He’d have to ask Henna to remedy that quickly. She needed gowns that hugged every gorgeous curve. She should have a hundred beautiful gowns, all of them bright yellow, red, orange. Garish blazing colors so he could keep track of her when she ran off and climbed into trees. He chuckled under his breath.
“What is it?” she asked, pushing her food around her plate.
“Nothing.” He watched her toy with her meal. It was obvious she was uncomfortable; not just uncomfortable sitting, but uncomfortable sitting next to him. It annoyed him, but he understood. “Put your fork down if you’re finished eating.”
“May I be excused?”
“No.”
She placed her fork beside her plate and put her hands in her lap. Duncan swirled the wine in his glass, then offered her a sip.
“No thank you.”
“Don’t enjoy wine?”
“Not very much.”
“Perhaps you’ve never had really fine wine.”
“Perhaps I’ve had no wine at all,
” she said. “I’m just a nobody from a cottage in the woods.”
He looked over at her sharply. “You aren’t a nobody. You’re my wife.”
“I suppose.”
I suppose. I suppose? What did she mean by that? “There’s no supposition about it.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re my wife. The priest married us.” She made no reply to that comment, only sat very still with her hands clasped in her lap.
“A cottage in the woods?” he asked, changing the subject. “You were not raised at court?” She shook her head. No, of course not, he realized. If she had been, she wouldn’t be such an innocent.
“My father hates me. No, I wasn’t raised at court. He wouldn’t have tolerated me there.”
“He hates you? Why?”
“Because I remind him of my mother, and she was a liar and a slut.”
He nearly spit out a mouthful of wine. “Who told you that? Your father? I’m sure it isn’t true.”
“I don’t know. I never met my mother.”
“Then who did you live with in your little cottage?”
“My old nursemaid, Erma. She died a few weeks ago.”