Chapter Eight #3
Lisle wasn’t letting him get the best of it, either.
She didn’t know where the primitive urges were coming from, or what it meant, but anger and energy flowed through her, making her arms beat at his sides, her fingernails rake down every ridge, and then back up again, sliding over the bare span of chest and around his shoulders, and then she was entwining them about the ends of his thick, shiny, black hair.
It was all to make certain there wasn’t a whiff of space allowed between them.
She’d never felt anything like it, and her body knew it.
He must have known it, too, for the groan that tore through them came with even more depth and timbre to it, almost enough to make the beams laced above his room rattle with it.
It was accompanied by his fingers, moving from her hair to the fastening of pearl loops up her spine, and he was flipping each one from its mooring without benefit of anything except touch.
He was very adept, but that didn’t occur to her until later.
Now there was just the smell of freshened rain, sweat, heat, and flesh.
Then there were three more of those piped notes, filtering through her senses and adding to the rhythm of emotion her body had been in its own creation of making, before it was making him go completely and utterly still and solid and unmoving.
She didn’t know what was wrong with him, but the next moment he was yanking himself from the embrace of her lips with a spate of cursing that was so different than the emotion he’d spun about her that she didn’t actually hear it, at first. She thought she heard her name, and some damning to it, and more cursing of devil’s spawn and blood, and something about hellfire.
She clung to him throughout it, although it had to hurt him, because he pulled her fingers awry where they were still gripped in his hair.
Lisle forced her eyelids open, although they felt too heavy to move, and watched the enormous chest heaving before her eyes, while everything else on him looked taut, angry, pulsatingly large and heavy and absolutely fascinating, and that was just the part she could see above the bedding.
She licked her lips, and he bit at them, stunning her into flinging her eyes wide open to stare.
“Nae! Not now, I tell you!”
He was pushing her onto her back, and there wasn’t any problem with pearls anymore, because they weren’t there.
And then he was lifting his head to send his voice to the rafters, making cords bulge from his throat with the effort, and he didn’t stop until he ran out of breath, although his face and neck and shoulders went bright red with the effect of it.
His howl had one other effect, too. It made every bit of her senses that had left her earlier, and were balanced up there on those beams, fall, and then they were filtering back into her, turning her into a proper Highland lass, who’d never be enticing and begging and clinging to any man who so clearly didn’t want her. Her fingers opened, releasing him.
“Go to your chamber, Lisle. Stay there. Posture for whoever comes in. You hear me?”
She nodded. Her voice wasn’t available for her use, and if she dared open her mouth, pain was going to come out. It was better to be silent.
“This dinna’ happen between us. You ken?”
She nodded again at such nonsensical words, and then he flung the covers aside and stood up, showing her the rain-dampened, green-plaid kilt he was wearing, as well as the gold-tasseled socks, and the one shoe he still had on, as well. Lisle gasped, and had a hand to her mouth to hold it in.
“Go. Now.”
He turned from her and had his hands on his hips, his fingers defining a cord of strength that wrapped about his waist, and broadening the span of his back that she already knew was large and muscled and nothing like a gentleman of leisure should ever own.
He kept his back to her as she left. She only wished she’d had the sense to turn away before she had the image emblazoned on her eyelids even when she did close them.
She wasn’t left on her own again, but the Lord had decided to grant her numbness. That was a relief. She didn’t need to posture for anyone, like Monteith had ordered her to, because she didn’t even feel them about her.
The seamstresses were efficient. They only needed her to stand, lift her arms occasionally, and then sit.
Then, they wanted her to stand again, lift her arms, and repeat.
Lisle watched the fire they’d built for her, burning behind the white and maroon grill, and wondered why she hadn’t tried to find this state before.
It was almost as pleasant as drinking the wedding wine had been, making everything muted and dull, slow and indistinct, and very numb.
At one point, she asked her own personal servant, Mary MacGreggor, if she could have some wool to card, thinking maybe if she had something in her hands, she’d be able to feel something.
What she got instead was two younger servant women, to sit and card wool for her.
Lisle watched them with a sense of detachment, and wondered if she asked Mary for a muckle wheel with which to spin it into thread, which girl was going to get that chore, and further, which one would have to knit for her, too.
Both girls looked adept at either, but Lisle could have outdone them with her eyes closed.
At one point, she put her head back and sighed, which got her the attention of not one, but four of them, who decided amongst themselves that she needed a restorative, such as tea.
They didn’t ask her if she wanted it, they asked Mary MacGreggor.
Lisle watched that, and decided it was amusing, but just barely that.
If this was her future, she would just as soon face it numb, since it felt like she wasn’t living anything, just sitting on the edges and watching it get lived.
“I understand His Lordship had the Highland garrison visiting with him today. Early. I understand they’re preparing for another visit from Cumberland. I doona’ ken how His Lordship can abide having that man in the same room with him,” one of the seamstresses said, as they were serving tea.
“Not that I’ve leanings that way, but I do find him rather handsome.”
“Butcher Cumberland? Dear me! I’ll have to see your eyes looked at yet, Maggie. The man’s as fat as an ale barrel, and half as smart!”
There was a bit of giggling after the outburst, and then the first one clarified her meaning, by stating that she found Captain Barton handsome, and didn’t they all recollect that he was still unwed and available?
“But he doesn’t like Highland lasses, Maggie.”
“Actually I’ve heard he likes the lasses fine, just not as well as the lads,” another snickered.
That had them all shrieking with laughter and then they were pointing at where Lisle sat, in little more than her chemise and stockings, and they were calming their noise the moment they did.
The numbness was a blessing. Otherwise she’d have been screaming.
The Duke of Cumberland was known as Butcher Willie, and he was the man who’d caused all of this poverty and discontent, and aura of defeat…
and the laird of Monteith was going to be hosting him?
Which meant, by marriage, she was going to be his hostess?
That was the only time that entire day that her numbness was in danger of dispersing.
Lisle had to concentrate on the fire with every fiber of her being, in order to stave any such thing off.
She wasn’t going to be ill. She wasn’t going to faint.
She was going to endure and make certain her body never gave another sign to Monteith that he was anything other than a base, lying traitor.
“They won’t stay at Monteith Castle. From all accounts, they doona’ think it grand enough. His Lordship never allows them beyond the front four rooms. I don’t know what ploy he uses. Probably the crowded rooms.”
“He has to say such. Otherwise, they’d probably want him to give them the castle to garrison in. You know how the Sassenach are.”
“That’s right. They take what they want, and torch what they doona’ want, so nae one will want it, either.”
“I hear the duke is going to stay with Captain Barton, over at MacCullough Hall.”
“That would be your chance, Maggie,” one of the ladies teased.
“I already told you, I just find him a bit handsome. I always find that about a man in uniform.”
“They’re only handsome in their plaide. That’s the only way I want to see a man. ’Tis a pure shame it’s outlawed. A man always looked more like a man when he was in his kilt. Isn’t that right, ladies?”
Lisle shut her eyes, saw Langston as easily as if he were standing in front of her, looking extremely manly in his, and caught her breath at the immediate ache.
Then, she opened them on the sight of a dozen gossipy women, with cups of tea at their sides, and needles, knives, pins, fabric, and trimmings everywhere else.
“I believe His Lordship is even paying for renovations to make the auld MacCullough stronghold a fitting abode for a visit from any son of King George. It’s costing a fortune, too!”
“Everything he does costs a fortune,” one of the women said archly.
“It’s also putting meals on tables all through the glens. Remember that, ladies, when you gossip about it. His Lordship is hiring craftsmen from throughout the Highlands to do the work.”
“It’s a double-edged thing, that is. They’re being paid good wages to do work that will bring comfort to the man who brought all the pain and anguish to them in the first place. I doona’ envy how that must feel.”
“About like this does,” one of them whispered.
There were several gasps, as most of them looked her way, and then there was a collective sigh as they went back to work. Her numbness was a blessing and Lisle silently thanked God for it again.