CHAPTER NINE #2
“When I was a young knight at my uncle’s chateau in Normandy, there was a popular saying,” Galen continued, the hint of a smile still hovering on his lips.
“‘Do not choose a wife for her beauty or because she is lettered, for such women are often deceivers.’ It would appear that I am doubly damned.”
The entire time he spoke, Galen stared intently at her, causing the blood to rush to Laoghaire’s face. In the heated interval that followed, his eyes slowly traveled the length of her body, making her feel as though she were about to be devoured by a ravening wolf.
Judas! I should have worn the barbette and my old kirtle, she silently cursed, as she bowed her head and feigned a sudden interest in the unrolled sheet of parchment.
“I just paid you a compliment, sweetings. Have you nothing to say?” Galen asked, as he placed a finger under her chin and lifted her head.
Forced to peer at him, Laoghaire set her gaze on the raised scar that marred his handsome face.
It pleased her immensely to know that Galen de Ogilvy would go to his grave with the mark of the MacKinnon literally carved onto his visage.
Indeed, she was very tempted to run her finger over the raised welt of scar tissue that bisected his left cheek, so that she could vicariously imagine the pain he suffered when her brother Iain slashed his face.
“Is that how Norman knights court French ladies, by complimenting them in one breath before insulting them in the next?” Laoghaire heatedly spat at him, unable to curb her tongue.
“And I do not like being called ‘sweetings.’ It makes me feel like the village trull.” A nameless woman of no consequence that he’d hired for the night to pleasure him.
Clearly annoyed that she would dare to castigate him, Galen’s pewter-gray eyes took on a perceptibly dangerous cast. “Your complaint has been duly noted,” he said in a lowered voice.
In the ensuing silence, Laoghaire could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.
The knave had yet to pass verdict on whether she could or could not continue as household steward.
And though she knew it was a moot point given that she would soon be leaving Glenclova, Laoghaire was nonetheless on tenterhooks.
No doubt that was the reason why the room suddenly felt too small, too quiet, the stone walls seeming to close in upon her.
Unnerved by the disquiet, she sucked in a deep breath. As she did so, Galen’s eyes followed the slight movement of her breasts and they rose and fell, the curve of her bosom momentarily straining against the green damask of her kirtle.
After what seemed an interminably long silence, Galen finally said, “I trust you will play me fair, lady wife.”
“Then, the position is mine?” she asked, incredulous.
When Galen verified with a silent nod, for some reason that she could not fathom, Laoghaire felt a burst of joy ripple through her . . . causing her to almost smile at the knave.
Bored with the evening’s revelry, Galen sprawled languorously in his seigneurial chair, greatly annoyed by a great many things.
That his lady wife would not deign to speak to him—even after he magnanimously gave his consent to her working in the steward’s office—was foremost in the litany of irksome grievances. Indeed, she sat beside him at the high table as stiff and unmoving as a corpse in rigor mortis.
Stewing in his bile, Galen directed his gaze in Laoghaire’s direction.
Attired in a green gown of what he knew to be a costly and luxurious fabric, her fiery locks set off by a golden headband and jewel-encrusted crispinette, she appeared magnificently regal.
A countess to make any earl proud. Although pride was not what he felt when he earlier discovered his countess frolicking naked in the wild.
During that startling episode, he’d been so lust-crazed that he’d been unable to mete out the punishment the wench richly deserved for having blatantly disobeyed his order not to leave the castle.
But Laoghaire’s sins did not stop there, his wife having brazenly drawn a dagger on him.
After which, to compound the transgression, she had the gall to demand an annulment.
And then, finally, she refused to kiss him.
Of all her many offenses, for some unknown reason, that was the one that cut the deepest.
And what did he do in response to his wife’s willfulness? He rewarded the wench by making her household steward, lust having clearly gotten the better of him.
’Tis never a good thing when a man thinks with his cock, Galen acknowledged while he reached for his wine goblet, only to be assailed by another maddening thought: That being wed to Laoghaire was no different from taking the cowl.
Similar to a monk in an abbey, he’d been forced to spend every night since their wedding alone on his pallet, unable to sleep because of his aching cods.
Damn the wench!
And yet, despite his anger, Galen could not stop thinking about how—during the ride back to the castle when Laoghaire rode pillion behind him on his mount—he’d been able to feel her breasts jostling gently against his backside.
It had been a pleasure both sweet and intoxicating; one that reminded him anew that while his lady wife might be in close physical proximity, she was frustratingly out of reach.
Drinking sullenly from his goblet, Galen barely registered the taste of the spiced wine as he peered around the great hall.
At a glance he could see that every manner of two-legged and four-legged creature strolled the premises, from a strutting peacock and a pair of dogs fighting over table scraps to the troupe of hired minstrels who were in the midst of merrily singing a bawdy tune.
I should like to hold my Norman knight
Naked in my arms at eve,
That he might heave in ecstasy
As I cushion him against my breast so lovingly.
It did not escape Galen’s notice that upon hearing those highly suggestive lyrics, Laoghaire’s cheeks turned a vivid shade of red. For a woman who could not lay claim to being a virgin, he found her reaction strange, indeed.
“Why do they only play Norman music?” Laoghaire complained in a peevish tone, directing her comment to Galen. “It makes me think that ye are not a true Scot.”
“I am Scottish enough to take up arms against the English king,” he growled, irritated with how she framed the grievance by questioning his loyalty. “And, besides, I cannot abide the Highlanders’ penchant for those infernal pipes. The sound puts me in mind of a cow giving birth.”
In the next instant, whether it was happenstance or divinely fated, he and Laoghaire both reached for a pear at the exact same moment, their hands brushing together as they did so.
Acting as though she’d just been singed by a hot flame, Laoghaire yanked her hand away from the silver platter, which was piled high with fresh fruit.
Determined to force the issue, Galen took a knife to the contested pear and sliced it in two.
He then wordlessly offered her one of the severed halves.
With a vehement shake of the head, she refused to take the proffered piece of fruit.
Undeterred, Galen leaned close to her and said, “I have plighted my troth to you. What is mine is now yours. Take the piece of fruit, lady wife.”
“Is that a command?” Laoghaire bristled.
Rather than answer the question put to him, Galen instead asked one of his own. “Is there a man alive who meets with your favor?”
If she thought the question strange, Laoghaire gave no indication as she blithely replied, “I am very fond of my brother Iain, as well as my cousin Diarmid. And I also have a fond regard for many of the men in my clan.” Pronouncement made, she snatched the piece of fruit from him.
Annoyed with her insouciance, Galen jabbed his knife blade into his half of the pear. “And let us not forget the ‘fond regard’ that you bestowed upon your Highland lover,” he snarled, the image of Laoghaire in the arms of another man causing his bile to fulminate.
“Sweet Jesu!” she exclaimed, the strident retort causing more than a few heads to swivel toward the high table. “We’re not back to that, are we?”
“So, you don’t deny it?”
A trill of mocking laughter escaped from her lips.
“To what end? I can claim my innocence from now until Domesday and still ye won’t believe me.
In fact, it might make things easier if I simply conjured a lover with which to taunt ye.
I’m sure ye’ll be interested to know that he is a brawny man, his arms like bands of steel, with a thick head of red hair.
Oh, but I do find a redheaded man so very captivating,” she purred with glimmering eyes. “Such men are endowed with—”
“You dare to mock me!”
“Aye, I do,” Laoghaire affirmed, thrusting her chin at him. “On our wedding night, I told ye the truth of the matter, but ye refused to believe that I am a chaste maid. Ye showed yer true character that night. And ye wonder why I can’t stand the sight of ye.”
“Be that as it may, you will submit to me,” Galen rasped.
“In a world where carpenters rise from the dead, I suppose anything is possible,” she said with an insolent shrug.
Infuriated, Galen reached under the table and shoved his hand between Laoghaire’s legs.
Ignoring her shocked gasp, he looked her directly in the eye and said, “Whenever I touch you like this or like this—” he next slid his hand to the juncture between her hips—“you will yield to me without complaint.”
“I never said that I wouldn’t,” Laoghaire warbled, the lady not nearly as defiant now as she’d been only moments ago. “Ye treat me as if I’m a whore and wonder why I’m miserable.”
At hearing that, Galen guiltily removed his hand from her person. “’Tis not my wish to make you miserable,” he muttered, that being the truth of the matter.