Chapter 28
As they walked back to the castle, Clara’s legs felt wobbly as a newborn calf’s. Her hand was tucked into Caelan’s. Obviously if she stumbled and fell, he would catch her in his arms before she hit the ground.
He’d probably always pick her up if she fell.
It was such a new thought that she put it away to think about later.
The castle was as empty as when they’d left it. “The staff didn’t return,”
she said, marveling at the empty kitchen, filled only with specks of dust floating through rays of sunlight. Her mother’s house had bustled from dawn to dusk, brimming with people scouring, polishing, and cooking.
“You told them to stay away,”
Caelan reminded her. “Would you like me to ring for the household? Cobbledick’s our butler, and his postillion is now our footman. We have Maisie and Elsbeth and a maid from Fiona’s household. What other staff would you like?” He paused. “We used to have four footmen and a boy whose only task was to run back and forth from here to the stables.”
“I’m not sure what Mr. Cobbledick will do all day, let alone four footmen. Anyone can come in the front door, since I still haven’t seen it closed. You don’t have any silver for him to polish, which is what my mother’s butler did most of the day.”
“Actually, there’s a load of silver locked in a trunk. Mrs. Baldy would never touch something so expensive.”
“It’s such a small castle,”
she said apologetically. “Perhaps we could go upstairs to the sitting room and read for a while before the household returns? I’m uncomfortable being in a kitchen without a gown.”
“Only that I’m properly ravenous.”
“The basket has made a reappearance.”
Clara walked over to the sideboard and opened it. “Bread, cheese, a jar of water. Some tarts.”
“Excellent.”
Caelan grabbed it. “Let’s go.”
Clara followed her naked husband up the stairs, her eyes fixed on his arse. It was a very, very fine bottom, not that she had never given thought before to rear ends. Now she had definite opinions, and they all involved muscled globes that flexed with every step.
“Will you teach me to make flies today?”
she asked his back.
“Yes. We’ll go out to the loch tomorrow at sunrise—”
He stopped and turned around. “Ladies aren’t up at that hour. Elsbeth will serve you breakfast on a tray.”
He kept climbing while Clara enjoyed the way his arse moved and thought about sunrise. Maybe she should pretend to be ladylike, so that he wouldn’t guess she was greedy to spend time with him.
She couldn’t bear to be pitied for the sad condition of being madly in love with him. The very idea sent a bolt of humiliation through her, reminding her of the way polite society had pitied her in London. The men who asked her for dances out of pity. The ladies who introduced their widowed and elderly second cousins once removed.
“Actually, I wake up early,”
she said casually. “My mother didn’t believe in unmarried ladies being served meals in their beds.”
He glanced at her. “So I understand, but now you’re married.”
“I get out of bed when I wake up.”
Compelled by honesty, she added, “Some days I go to bed for a nap after lunch and then read all afternoon.”
He made a deep, happy sound in his throat as he rounded the curve leading to the nursery landing.
“I also occasionally claim to have a headache and eat my supper off a tray in bed,”
she confessed. “Lady Vetry did not approve, as she thought I was avoiding society, but in reality, I merely wanted to read.”
“You refer to your mother as Lady Vetry?”
He walked into the nursery, empty but for her trunk. He threw it open. “Where are your chemises?”
“My mother models herself on Queen Elizabeth,”
Clara said.
He cleared his throat. “My late wife modeled herself on Marie Antoinette.”
Clara did not want to talk about Isla. “The top shelf comes out,”
she explained, showing him. He put it to the side, revealing a pile of gowns and below them, floaty pieces of light cotton trimmed with lace and embroidery.
He picked up the top one and shook it out before he yanked it over her head.
“Do you want to see my reticules?”
She removed the chemises and put them to the side, uncovering her cat reticule. “This is my favorite.”
It was shaped like a circle on which she had embroidered cat features, with shiny beads for the eyes. “The whiskers were bent by travel,”
she explained, straightening them.
Caelan took it from her and turned it in his hands. “It’s as clever and darling as you are,”
he said, obviously meaning it.
Clara beamed at him. “I slapped Prince George with a mouse, and Lord Boden with a rabbit.”
“Excellent,”
Caelan said, his voice edging into darkness.
“I protected myself,”
she reminded him.
His mouth eased in a rueful quirk. “I shall enjoy being married to a warrior.”
He picked up his kilt and slung it over his shoulder. “Do you mind if I don’t dress?”
“I don’t mind,”
Clara said, trying to stop herself from ogling him.
“I could put on a pair of smalls.”
“If there’s someone else in the castle, you must wear your kilt,”
Clara said. She looked down at herself. “If anyone but you saw me in this chemise, I’d die of humiliation.” This chemise was tight across her breasts.
His face grew instantly dark. “No one will see you like that. I’d have to kill him.”
“What about all those servants you were talking about?”
Clara inquired, heading down to the study as he picked up the basket.
“They’ll have to stay out of this tower unless we invite them in,”
Caelan stated. “What would you think of that? The north tower for us, for the family. Perhaps the south tower, as well.”
“Someone has to wash the floors and change the sheets,”
Clara said practically. “You and I aren’t the best at it, and I’ve no wish to improve my skills in that area.”
“All right, they can come in for an hour or so in the morning, but no more.”
“What about my bath?”
“I’ll be doing that for you,”
Caelan said instantly.
“My hair?”
Clara asked skeptically, walking into the sitting room.
“Every day.”
He dropped the basket next to the sofa and drew her down to sit beside him. “No one will see your hair like this, either. All tangled up from my hands and looking as if you’d been tupped on your back in the woods.”
Clara’s stomach clenched into a happy knot, because he had liked it. That. With her. She wasn’t always confident, but she wasn’t one to overlook an obvious truth, either. They’d have a good marriage, because surely that was good enough.
They ate bread and cheese, and drank water from a well that Caelan said had been sunk into the rock by his great-great-grandfather. “It’s one of the secrets of my whisky,”
he told her. “Don’t go telling that to anyone.” She laughed at his mock ferocious command and settled down to read with her head against his shoulder.
Caelan picked up a book about fly-fishing, and they read in silence until Clara exclaimed at the villain’s perfidy.
“He should be shot,”
Caelan agreed once she explained it.
“Probably the squire will kill him,”
she said. “It would be more interesting if the heroine snatched his revolver and took the man’s life herself.”
“Bloodthirsty, aren’t you?”
Caelan asked.
Clara beamed, because he looked so affectionate that her heart was bounding all over the place.
A while later, he let out a low curse, which led to him explaining that Ferguson—an idiot who knew nothing about the ways of fish—had been mad enough to put clear-cut foolery down in black and white, which led to Caelan fetching his horsehair and silken ties and showing Clara how to make a fly.
“You want it to float on the surface?”
she asked, tucking and tying the horsehair the way he showed her.
“Your fingers are incredibly nimble,”
he said. “I’ll be damned if that isn’t the neatest fly I’ve ever seen.”
“I could do better,”
Clara said, fluffing up the horsehair “wings.” She ran back up to her trunk and fetched down her least favorite reticule: the mouse that slapped Prince George, missing a few whiskers after the last carriage ride with her mother.
“I like this mouse,”
Caelan said, turning the bag over.
Clara briskly extracted a whisker. “I can use one of these.”
“What for?”
She plucked off a bead and wired it to the fly, holding it up. “This will glint in the sun.”
“It’s beautiful, but it won’t float,”
Caelan said. “I love that you made it for me, though.”
He started kissing her, and it wasn’t until sometime later that she managed to point out that being light, it might float just under the surface of the water. “You’re going to fish with mine, and then yours, remember? I can’t help you write about whisky, but I can make you a better fly.”
He burst out laughing. “I love your confidence, lass. You don’t want to try out your own fly?”
“I don’t wish to be washed down to Inverness.”
“I’d never let you go,”
Caelan said casually.
The words felt so good—especially because of the memory of that carriage ride with Lady Vetry, which had clarified how easily her mother had dismissed her from her life.
“What are you thinking about?”
Caelan asked.
She curled up her legs and settled her back against his stomach. “Nothing.”
Ferguson’s discourse on brown trout hit the floor as his arms went around her. “Lass. Tell me.”
“Lady Vetry—my mother—said that she would decide whether or not to acknowledge me in the future based on who I marry,”
she said finally.
His chin came down on the top of her head. “Will I pass, do you think?”
“Well, you are a lard,”
she said teasingly. But then she added, “This sounds awful, but I think I don’t wish to approach her. What if she decided our children were ungainly and eccentric? What if my daughters grow up to have my figure rather than hers?”
“We shall rejoice, as will young Scottish males,”
Caelan said, holding her very tightly. “Did I tell you that I want to fill the whole south tower with children? Three per floor.”
“Please tell me that the servants are allowed to freely range in that tower,”
Clara said. “From what the villagers told me about you as a boy, the children will create mayhem. What if one takes after Alfie and invites a chicken to live with them?”
“I was a mad scamp. Perhaps a nanny and a governess could share one floor,”
Caelan allowed.
“What were your parents like?”
Clara asked.
“To my mind, my father was overly fond of hitting me and sometimes even Fiona.”
“Oh, Caelan.”
She picked his hand up off her stomach and kissed his palm.
“The man couldn’t stop himself. He had a terrible temper.”
“It’s lucky for him that he’s not alive, or I’d be tempted to topple him into the loch,”
Clara said.
He burst out laughing, and they went back to their books.
At some point, his arm slackened, and Clara looked up to find that Caelan’s brow had unknit in sleep.
She couldn’t help wishing with all her heart that he’d never had a dark moment at the hands of his father—or fate. It was an absurd thought that confirmed how desperately she had fallen in love with her husband.
Who wouldn’t? Mrs. Gillan had described Isla as adoring Caelan from the time she was a young girl. Clara sent a quick prayer up to her, an apology with a dusting of sorrow, because the poor woman must have hated leaving her husband.
If only Clara could figure out how to suppress these unruly feelings, she’d be fine. Affection and desire were the emotions offered, and they were amazing.
Dismissing the thought, she turned to her side, because she had an uneasy feeling that the wetness between her thighs might mark the sofa. She woke up an hour later to find the crisis imminent. She leapt from the sofa, waking Caelan. He stretched and came to his feet slowly, smiling.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go upstairs to the privy.”
She felt ferociously embarrassed, but marriage must often be embarrassing. After all, in a week or so she’d have her courses, and he’d have to be told, wouldn’t he?
Unless she was already pregnant. Surely not.
“I could take a piss myself,”
he said, and flinched. “That was vulgar, and I apologize for it.”
“It’s not that,”
Clara blurted out—and bit her lip, wanting to throw herself out the window. “I need to wash,” she said, because he looked puzzled.
“We just had a bath, lass.”
His jaw tightened. “Is it something to do with that feckless royal—”
“No!”
she said quickly. “I’m a bit . . .” She waved her hand around her middle. “I’ll go downstairs for a pitcher of water.”
To her surprise, he backed her up against the stone wall, his eyes glinting. Before she knew what he was thinking, a big hand yanked up her chemise and cupped her below. “I made a mess of you, didn’t I, lass? It’s my fault that there’s seed in your pretty little cunny.”
His fingers slid through her folds, and it was a good thing the wall was behind her, because Clara gasped and melted against the stone. Caelan started kissing her, fierce and hungry, as if he couldn’t stop himself. All the time his fingers were stroking her, until her knees became so weak that he was supporting her with a hand under her bum.
“You like this, don’t you?”
he growled. “You’re wet and hot, and I can feel your hips jerking when I touch you.”
“Yes,”
she breathed, twisting. “Oh, Caelan, you’re making me—”
“You’re getting wetter, lass, so I’m making things worse. But maybe you like it so much that you don’t mind, eh?”
Clara was breathless, her whole body concentrating on his fingers. “No, I don’t mind,”
she whispered, the words quavering into the open air. And then, with a groan, “This is so embarrassing.”
Caelan didn’t give a damn, that was clear. “You’d let me pull you up and take you against the wall,”
he crooned. “You’d beg me for it, wouldn’t you?”
“That’s what you meant!”
she burst out. “You said that before, and I didn’t—”
So he showed her, catching her up in one arm and rubbing against her until there was nothing for it but his sliding inside. She winced, and he stopped, apologizing, beginning to pull back, except she gave him a fierce “Don’t move.”
They stayed still for a while, his body pinning hers against the wall, Caelan whispering things against her lips about how she was destroying him. Offering to stop, and Clara repeating, “No, don’t move.”
Staying together until the pain drifted away, leaving her legs restless. She curled them around his hips, arching her back and nudging him.
Caelan didn’t say anything, just looked into her eyes and began gently easing back and forth, until Clara lost all her embarrassment and cried, “We can’t keep doing this.”
He froze, looking stricken.
“I need something more,”
she told him. “Harder, maybe.”
“Oh, God, you’re telling me what you want,”
he groaned. “So slick and wanting, and now you’re cross at me because I’m not satisfying you.”
“I certainly am not!”
Clara said, humiliated again.
“Yes, you are. Because I’m your husband, and it’s my job to give you everything you want.”
Clara didn’t pay much attention, because he tilted her body and thrust home.
“That,”
she gasped.
“I’ll give it to you. Remember that word you wanted me to define?”
Clara had no idea how he could be thinking of vocabulary at a time like this, but she managed to shake her head.
“You want me to fuck you,”
he crooned, low and sweet. “That’s what I’m doing, Clara. Taking you against the wall, fucking you the way you want, because you do want it, don’t you? You want me to give it to you.”
In the back of her mind, Clara thought his voice was even more intense than it had been when they made love earlier, by the loch. But the thought slipped away because he nipped her lip and thrust again.
“Ah,”
she gasped. “Yes. Please.”
He gave it to her, over and over and over, making her cry every time he bottomed out, as flame slowly built in her spine. In this position, Clara wasn’t able to move. He had tucked his arms under her knees and was holding her legs so wide, in such a lewd position, that she found herself pretending she wasn’t in the room, doing this incredibly embarrassing thing in the broad daylight.
Except she was in the room.
What’s more, Caelan’s face was lit with hunger and joy and affection, and that was the best expression she’d ever seen on his face. On anyone’s face.
“You’re going to come, aren’t you?”
he demanded hoarsely. “Not by touching yourself, and because I’m holding up your legs, I can’t touch you, either. You’re greedy to come around my cock.”
Clara couldn’t answer. In fact, she was vaguely surprised that he had so much to say, because it felt as if air was sobbing through her lungs, and she couldn’t put words together. She was aching now, everything tense and waiting for pleasure to start rolling from her toes.
Finally it began. “Oh!”
she cried, her fingers digging into his shoulders. And then, very quietly, “That’s lovely. Please.”
“Begging me,”
he groaned. Then they were both coming, because she could feel him pulsing inside her, his lips pressed against her forehead, his hips moving convulsively.
A while later, he put her on the couch, a whole stream of Gaelic coming from his lips. He was shaking a bit and kept kissing her face in an erratic way, as if he couldn’t stop himself. Clara figured whatever he was saying must have been positive.
He’d liked it, that was clear. He might not feel the same way about her that he had about Isla, but he liked that with her, Clara. Doing that.
Then he fetched a pitcher of water and washed her gently, finally pulling a clean chemise over her head.
“Sofa or bedroom?” he asked.
“I’d like to go to bed,”
she confessed. “If you don’t need help with your papers.”
Caelan picked her up as if he existed for that reason alone and strode up the steps. “Tomorrow, perhaps. I’ll put you in bed, and then I’ll ring for the staff.”
He headed upstairs.
“Elsbeth is very young,”
Clara said, not wanting her maid to guess that consummating her marriage had worn her out. She could feel her whisky headache creeping back.
“I’ll bring you tea later,”
he said. “First order of the day is setting up the stove on the roof for your bath. I could bring you toast.”
“I may never eat again,”
Clara said, her nausea returning at the thought of bread.
All afternoon she drowsed amidst a cloud of white sheets and pillows, dreamily listening to voices echoing around the castle. Gaelic curses heralded a stove going up to the battlements, followed by a tin basin that clanked against the stone walls, then pipes that did the same.
She felt weightless, as if she were floating on a warm ocean. Was it so exhausting to make love? Or was it the whisky? Or the newness, the strangeness of it all? Caelan’s voice wove among the others, laughing as he ordered the men about. She had the feeling they were teasing him and was doubly glad to be hidden in her room.
Her headache tightened around her forehead, and with it came a terrible lethargy and a strain of melancholy. She was married to a man she liked and admired—and with whom she was madly in love. Many people in London society would say that it was more than she, Clara Vetry, could have hoped for.
“I brought up a gown. We’ve installed the heating apparatus on the roof. Next we need to pipe the privy—excuse me, the water closet—so you’ll have to move to the study,”
Caelan announced, coming through the door with some clothing over his arm.
Clara blinked awake. “Of course,”
she said, swinging her legs off the side of the bed. “I’ve been a dreadful slug-a-bed, lying about while everyone is working.”
He laughed. “They’re still talking about your prowess with whisky. I have a pot of steaming tea waiting for you in the study because the maids are scrubbing the drawing room.”
“Perhaps,”
Clara said tentatively, “we might call it the sitting room, as your mother did?” An expression shot across his face too quickly to interpret, and besides, her eyes were tired. “No drawing room has a kilted rug,” she added, trying to clarify that her suggestion had nothing to do with Isla’s ambitions for the castle.
“Shall I carry you downstairs?”
“No,”
she said hastily.
He held out her corset upside down, but Clara took one look and knew with a deep certainty that lacing it up would make her vomit. Instead she pulled the gown over her head and poked at her chemise until it wasn’t visible under the neckline. She pushed her hair behind her shoulders, resisted the inclination to slap her own forehead in hopes the ache would go away, and followed Caelan down the steps to the study.
He poured her a cup of tea and walked out again. She stared balefully at the wooden door. What right had he to be so cheerful? He’d easily drunk three times as much whisky as she had. The very thought made her gorge rise.
People trotted up and down the steps outside the door while Clara forced herself to keep reading about Felicity’s woeful adventures. The girl was a terrible crier. This or that person would be mean to her, and she would dissolve into tears, coming home “like a nesting bird”
to the squire’s “broad trunk.”
Clara fell asleep again thinking about whether Caelan’s legs qualified him for treehood, just as his land made him a laird.