Chapter Twelve
No more than twenty feet from the passionate couple, Lady Chisholm tightened her lips. The bitch had managed to wangle a proposal out of the laird.
No matter, she would take care of it Alice needed a husband and her mam would get one for her. Not the one Alice wanted, but the one who would bring money, prestige, and security for both her and Lord Chisholm.
Their life would change drastically if Alice didn’t marry someone like Laird Mackenzie. The invitation to come to the Castle Leod to be a possible wife to the laird had arrived at the perfect time.
She and her husband would no longer be able to keep their life together if there wasn’t a new source of money.
She shook her head. Alice wanted to marry that man who had nothing, whom she claimed fathered the bairn she was carrying. He’s a hard worker she said. So what? If her daughter thought life with a “hard worker” would be satisfying, she was living in a dream world.
Lady Chisholm did not live in a dream world. She saw their finances fading as her husband continued to drink away their funds. The gambling wasn’t helping either.
They’d already raised their tenants’ rents three times in the last year. There were complaints from them that they had had to sacrifice food for their bairns to pay the rent.
That wasn’t her problem. They shouldn’t have had so many bairns if they found it difficult to feed them. She had solved that problem by banning her husband from her bed shortly after Alice had arrived, even though he’d complained about needing an heir.
All she knew was she had to save her family, and Alice marrying Laird Daniel Mackenzie was the way to do it. Before the lass’s condition became known.
There was no time to waste. The laird was obviously enamored with Lady Beth. It would take some thought and planning to keep this marriage from taking place.
Luckily, she had already secured the help of her own lady’s maid, Meggie, and Joshua, the man her maid had grown attached to.
Planning, that was all it took. And Lady Chisholm was the best when it came to planning. Especially when it came to her best interests.
So, Lady Beth loved Laird Mackenzie, and he loved her. Ach. She thought at one time she loved her husband, but years of living with the man had changed her mind.
Now she was more interested in saving herself.
She left her hiding place in the glen and moved forward. She had a lot to do, and some of it right away before the laird approached Laird Munro and the elder advisors with his decision about a wife.
She hurried to her bedchamber and called to Meggie. “Get up, ye lazy lass. I need ye to use the handwriting ye have been practicing. And find Joshua, bring him up here to this room. We need to make haste.”
Laird Daniel Mackenzie and Lady Beth Munro would not marry.
*
Beth paced in her bedchamber, her chemise whipping around her legs as she turned and moved in the opposite direction. Not that she thought she’d made the wrong decision in telling Daniel “aye,” but was consumed by the fact that her entire life would change.
Mayhap she needed more time to think this through. When he was with her and holding her in his arms, she wasn’t able to think straight. She’d agreed to something she’d been adamantly against for years.
Mam had stopped in a short time ago and it had been easy to see the joy on her face. Somehow even with Beth saying nothing she’d guessed that something had happened between her and Daniel.
“I doona want to talk about it,” Beth said when her mam had introduced the subject.
She wasn’t comfortable yet with discussing her relationship with Daniel.
After a few motherly words of wisdom that Beth didn’t feel she needed, Mam had kissed her on the forehead and left her room.
Now she was tied up in knots again. Before she could convince herself that she should go to Daniel’s room and discuss this further, a soft knock sounded on her door.
Knowing Mam would just walk in after one knock on the door, Beth walked to the portal and opened it.
“I ken this is no’ proper, lass, but I must speak with ye a bit more.” Daniel stood in the doorway, a look of confusion on his handsome face.
Before he could say anything else, she reached for the opening of his léine and pulled him into the room.
Neither spoke as he wrapped his arms around her and took her mouth in a searing, possessive kiss. Plastered together, he moved her farther into the room.
“Ach, love, I dinna come here to have our wedding night before the ceremony, but I had to see ye one more time before we slept.”
Beth ran her hands over his mussed hair. The man must have been running his fingers through it. At a sudden thought, she pulled back. “Are ye unsure? Are ye sorry ye asked me to marry ye?”
He tugged her back again. “Nay! I never made a better choice in my life. I just wanted to be sure ye weren’t having doubts before I spoke with yer dad in the morning.
” He ran his fingers down her cheek. “I love ye too much, Beth, to force ye into something ye really doona want. I want ye, and I’ve never wanted anything with this kind of ache. ”
The candlelight from the fire in the hearth caught the flush on her cheeks and the glint in her dark eyes—equal parts uncertainty and desire.
Daniel placed his knuckle under her chin and lifted her head. His voice low and rough, he said, “Before we continue, ye can still say nay, Beth.”
She looked up at him, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. “I won’t. Ye cause an ache in me, too.” She stopped for a moment, then said, “Take me to bed, Daniel.”
God help him.
He brushed the backs of his fingers along her jaw. Her skin was warm, impossibly soft. She trembled beneath his touch—but didn’t pull away.
He cupped her face in both hands and kissed her slowly, with the control of a man barely holding himself in check.
She opened for him with a sigh, her lips yielding, sweet, and curious.
She tasted of honey and night-kissed air, and when her hands gripped his léine tugging him closer, Daniel nearly lost every shred of control.
Her breath hitched as he kissed her throat, lingering at the curve where her shoulder met her neck.
Her hands slid beneath his léine, her palms warm and bold as they explored his chest. He groaned into her throat then caught her mouth in a kiss that was no longer gentle—hungry now, raw with need.
He slid her shift up with swift, sure movements, revealing pale skin inch by inch.
She stood before him like something holy, vulnerable, and unafraid.
“Sweet Mary,” he muttered, staring at her with reverence. “You’ve undone me.”
He undressed with rough efficiency, never taking his eyes off her. When he came to her again, bare skin to bare skin, she gasped—her hands splaying across his chest, fingers trembling slightly.
“Tell me what you feel,” he whispered, his mouth brushing the shell of her ear.
“Everything,” she breathed. “I feel everything.”
He laid her on the bed, sliding over her slowly so she wouldn’t feel overwhelmed. He took his time, worshipping her with lips and hands, learning the sounds she made when he kissed her breasts, when he trailed fingers along her thigh, when he whispered her name into the hollow of her neck.
Her moans were soft, but each one burned through him.
When he finally climbed between her legs, and eased inside her, he did so with care, kissing her through the brief sting, holding himself utterly still until she curled her legs around his waist and whispered, “More.”
Then he moved—slow and steady at first, building a rhythm that matched her breaths, her sighs, her whispered pleas. Her nails dug into his back as her body tightened around him, and he knew he was lost.
He reached between them and circled the stiff part of her he knew would bring her the pleasure she deserved.
She was wet, warm, and swollen. She began to toss her head back and forth.
When he pinched the stiff flesh, she shattered beneath him with a soft cry, and after only a few thrusts, he followed, burying his face against her throat as his world broke apart in her arms.
When their breathing slowed and the room quieted again, he wrapped her tightly against him.
“I’ll never let you go,” he murmured into her hair. “Not now. Not ever.”
Beth nestled closer, her voice thick with emotion. “I wasn’t planning on leaving.”
He kissed her hair and said softly, “This is not just for tonight. You ken that, doona you?”
Beth looked up, her smile soft and full of emotion. “Aye. I ken.”
*
Lady Chisholm pinched her maid, Meggie, on the arm. “Ye have been practicing her handwriting, why now do ye say ye canno’ do it?”
With tears in her eyes, the young lass looked up at her Lady. “I can do it, but I’m no’ sure enough that the note would be believed.”
“If ye want to keep yer position and have a roof over yer head and food in yer belly, ye better make it believable.”
The lass bent over the piece of parchment Lady Chisholm had snagged from the laird’s solar, along with a page from Lady Beth’s journal from her room when she was out doing things a well-mannered, well-raised lass such as her Alice wouldn’t do.
Lady Chisholm paced in her bed chamber while she waited for the stupid maid to finish the notes.
She turned to Joshua, the man who was bedding her maid and who had agreed to help them take care of this little problem.
“Things are quiet now, and the guardsmen are on the ramparts. ’Tis a good time to grab the girl and drag her to the dungeon. ”
With some questioning, Lady Chisholm had discovered that Castle Leod had a dungeon that hadn’t been used in many years.
It would be the perfect place to keep Lady Beth until the elders forced the laird to marry Alice.
She didn’t want to harm, or, God forbid, kill the lass, just get her out of her daughter’s way.
Even when they discovered what she’d done to assure her daughter would be the next Lady Mackenzie, if they attempted to undo what had been done it would be going against the king’s edict to marry either Beth or Alice by Beltane.
With the deadline, and Beth missing, marriage to Alice would be the only way to comply with the king’s wishes.
Happy with the results of Meggie’s notes, Lady Chisholm walked Joshua down the corridor. Just before they turned the corner, the door to the strumpet’s room opened. She pushed Joshua back into a dark corner where she joined him.
Laird Makenzie walked past them, only partially dressed, which told her the situation was worse than she’d thought. It appeared the little whore thought she’d outsmart her by taking the laird to her bed.
Once she heard his bedchamber door close, she nudged Joshua and they made their way to Lady Beth’s door. Lady Chisholm opened the door slowly and looked around the room.
Lady Beth was snuggled into the blankets, but with her shoulders showing, it was obvious she was without clothes.
Lady Chisholm nodded to Joshua and he walked quietly to her bed.
She was sound asleep. Joshua quickly wrapped his arm around her body, trapping her arms, then waved a knife in her face.
Taken by surprise, the lass didn’t fight him.
He whispered in her ear. “Doona make a sound or yer blood will drench this bed.”
Lady Beth didn’t move and he dragged her off and across the room.
Since the lass was naked, Lady Chisholm pulled the bedding and rolled it up the best she could.
Then she placed the two notes on the bed and with a quick nod, she turned and opened the door.
After quietly surveying the corridor, she waved Joshua on, him still holding the knife in front of Lady Beth’s face, his other arm wrapped around her waist, her body pressed against his.
Lady Beth looked terrified, which was good because she would not make trouble if she was too scared to do anything.
The three of them made their way down the back stairs where it grew damper and wetter. Joshua had made a visit there after she had told him what she’d learned about the keep’s dungeon.
Now Lady Chisholm shook with both excitement and fear. It was a dangerous thing they’d done, but Alice needed this man as her husband. Once they were married, all would be forgiven.
They continued down the stone stairs, each staircase wetter than the one before it. Mold grew on the walls and the air was so cold her shivers changed from fear and excitement to physically freezing.
Joshua finally stopped and walked about fifty feet before he stopped in front of a cell. Lady Chisholm looked around, satisfied that no one would hear the lass call for help.
She hurried past Joshua and placed some of the bedding on the floor. Once he laid Lady Beth down, Lady Chisholm covered her with the remaining bedding.
Joshua put his knife away. Lady Beth glared at her. “Ye will no’ get away with this, ye ken.”
Lady Chisholm laughed. “Aye. All I need is some time. Once Laird Mackenzie and my daughter are married, I will have ye released. As the wife of the laird, I expect no consequence for my Alice.”
“And what about ye? Do ye think ye will have the same status as yer daughter? Do ye think the laird will no’ petition the king to have the marriage annulled?”
’Twas something Lady Chisholm hadn’t given thought to. “Nay. My daughter is irresistible. Laird Mackenzie will consummate the marriage straightaway.”
Lady Chisholm bent over Lady Beth. “Ye will convince the laird to stay married to my daughter, or ye will suffer for it.”
The lass glared at her and Lady Chisholm backed up and turned to Joshua. “Come, we must leave and get some sleep. Tomorrow will be an exciting day!”
With those words the two of them left the dungeon cell. Lady Beth began screaming after them. ’Twas no use. Joshua had tested it.
No one would hear her.