Chapter 24
Ice had descended on Linneliath.
Not that anyone could see real ice—the weather was in a stretch of sunny, almost balmy days.
But inside the house, a frozen, deadly pall covered everything.
The servants knew that the master and mistress quarreled. A person would have to be dead to not be aware of that.
But it was generally assumed that it would pass after a day, or two, or three. Surely no more than that.
“Newlyweds always have a tiff or two,” Mrs Negus said knowingly on the first day. “It’s natural, and they’ll get over it sooner or later.”
It did not happen sooner. Or later.
For days, the mistress refused to leave her rooms, taking her meals alone, and scarcely changing from her bedclothes to half-dress in the daytime.
Meanwhile, the master left the house entirely, riding away on horseback at first light, and not returning till after darkness fell.
They did not cross paths, they did not speak.
“Should we do something?” one of the maids asked.
“Do what?” Agnes replied. “I don’t know what they’re quarreling about, and even if I did, I’m not such a fool to think that any of us could just walk into a room and say the right thing to make them all smiles again.”
“If someone doesn’t take steps, he’ll never smile again. And he might even leave the house altogether. Go back to soldiering. Can a man repurchase a commission? Anyway, this place could be shut up for years, and we’re all without jobs.”
“But the mistress…” Agnes began to say.
“Her family’s in Edinburgh. Why would she stay here if he doesn’t?”
Agnes pursed her lips, unhappy with the conversation. “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Odds are that we’ll all forget about this by Wednesday next.”
“Odds are, eh? Care to wager?”
“I would not! One doesn’t wager on whether folks are going to fight forever. Anyway, I haven’t got any coin to spare. Sweep the corner again—you’re not paying attention to your work.”
“Oh, aye. Might as well work while we have work.” With that portentous statement, the maid grabbed the broom.
They were not the only inhabitants of the great house considering the future. Up in her room, Elspeth thought about little else. She had made a bargain with the marriage ceremony, and even if Struan hadn’t been sincere, she was. Perhaps she could shame him into feeling remorse for his actions.
And she was so sick of being alone in her room.
So, late in the evening a week after the fatal letter had arrived, she wrenched open the connecting door and strode into his chamber.
Struan looked up, alarmed, then angry. He was sitting in a chair by the fireplace, though there was no fire now. A single lantern burned on a table.
“What are you doing in here?” he growled, putting down his book.
“I’m reporting for duty,” she replied. She opened the outer robe. Underneath, she wore only the flimsy silk lingerie that had been intended for her wedding night.
Struan’s eyes locked on her, but he didn’t move. Instead, he ordered, “Leave my room. Go to bed.”
“I am going to bed,” she told him, advancing toward his massive, heavily carved, four-poster bed. “Yours. Isn’t that the reason you purchased me? To bed me and get an heir? Well, I am here to acquiesce, without complaint, of course.”
“I said leave.” He got up and strode toward the bed as well, arriving at the same time.
“And neglect the sole duty for which I exist? Don’t be silly.”
“If you stay, you’ll regret it.”
“I’m here. You wanted me here, and you have to deal with me now, husband.”
With a snarl, he grabbed her and spun her around so that her back was to him.
“Oh, that’s right,” she said, ignoring the frisson running up her spine, now pressed tight to his chest. “I’m not supposed to look at you.”
“No, you’re not.”
He pulled her robe off her shoulders and jerked the braided cord meant to be tied around her waist out of its loops, then lifted her so she lay with her belly on the bedspread.
Keeping her pressed there so she couldn’t wiggle free, he tied her ankles to the lower bedposts, ignoring her outraged protests.
There was lead on each, but she couldn’t pull her legs together.
“Are you scared now?” he asked. “Do you wish you left?”
She bit her lip. “I’m not scared, and I’m not leaving.”
“No?” He snagged the thin straps of her flimsy gown and simply broke them. Bunching fistfuls of the silk in his hands, he yanked the whole thing away from her body, and she heard the seams rip as the gown fell into tatters onto the bed. So much for mending that, she thought.
“Last chance, wife.”
Oddly, she was so annoyed about the silk that she wasn’t scared. “You can’t frighten me.”
“You have no idea what I can do to you.” As he spoke, he pulled his own robe off, and she realized he pulled the belt out of it as well. He stretched over her to take her hands, and twined the woven belt around them several times.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Evaluating my purchase.” He ran his hands over her. He’d done that before, many times. But this felt different. Now he seemed to be measuring her, testing her.
She wished it didn’t feel so arousing.
She wished he didn’t know her body so well, because every touch was working to turn her into a mindless creature of need. His fingers, the palms of his hands, his teeth.
She was half kneeling, and she leaned back enough to brush her bottom against him as he stood at the edge of the bed.
He hissed and pulled away, but not before she felt how hard he was.
He absolutely wanted her…or he wanted release.
She let out a keening sound, a desperate plea for him to proceed, to slide that hardness in her.
He didn’t. All he did was scrape his nails across her bottom, making her go hot with longing. “You don’t decide what I do,” he told her, his voice tight. “Try to push me and I’ll make you regret it.”
“You’ll hurt me?”
“Does this hurt?”
His fingers slid between her legs. Slowly, softly.
Ellie moaned, twisting in response. “Oh, Lord.”
He kept circling that agonizingly sensitive bud, bringing her ever closer to the inevitable end. But he seemed in no hurry to get there. His fingers may even have slowed down. Yes, now he was stroking her folds as if he had all night.
Which he did. Ellie couldn’t move until he let her go.
And she didn’t want to move.
Instead, she endured this soft, sensual torture that made her writhe under his touch. She whimpered and begged him to finish her, or put his cock into her and finish himself. “You said you like making me wet, Struan. I’ve never been this wet before.”
His breathing grew ragged behind her, but he didn’t say anything. He just kept teasing her, playing with her, toying with her.
“Why won’t you…why are you not…” penetrating me, she meant to say and couldn’t. He was supposed to value her only for her ability to bear a child. And yet he was refusing to do the one act needed to create one.
“Why not?” Struan hissed next to her ear. “It’s simple. Because you want me to.”
“But you want it too. You’re denying yourself pleasure just to spite me.”
“Does that upset you?”
“Yes!” she burst out.
“Good.”
“I’ll scream.”
“Go ahead. You think anyone in this house will charge into my chambers and intervene?”
She did not.
“You belong to me, Elspeth McGregor,” he told her, his voice hot with hate. “I can do whatever I want to you.”
“You can’t.”
“I can.” He flicked his thumb over her flesh in a very deliberate move.
She came apart all at once. She’d been kept on the edge of it for so long that it was a surprise to fall over into the dark swirl of orgasm.
She felt dirty at how good it was. She moaned into the softness of the bed. Now he would enter her, and complete the ritual. Wouldn’t he? Limp, sweaty, spent, she looked over her shoulder for him. There was no one there.
He’d walked away.
Ellie was so shocked by the fact that he’d left her that she didn’t move. Not that she could move much anyway.
A few moments later, he returned from the side room, but didn’t come back to her. Instead, he casually put his robe back on, sans belt, and walked over to the window to gaze out at…nothing.
“It’s dark out,” she said, knowing she sounded petulant and needy. “What are you looking at?”
“Why are you still here?” Struan asked. “I thought I made it clear we were finished.”
She bit her lip to stop herself from screaming in frustration. She said slowly, “You need to untie me, husband.”
“Untie yourself, wife. You could have done so at any point.” He spoke to the window, still not looking at her. There was no inflection in his voice, just…boredom? Fatigue?
Furious at his inattention, Elspeth worked her wrists out of the twined-around belt, then reached down to her right ankle, and discovered that the cord had been looped in such a way that by tugging the end, the whole knot simply disappeared.
So easily undone, she noted from a vantage point very far away. Just like my marriage.
With both hands available and her right leg now free, she had no trouble loosing the left one either.
The whole time he’d been tantalizing her, torturing her, she only thought she was restrained. Was there something insulting in the way that Struan had tied her so ineffectively? Or was there something humiliating in the way that she’d not even tried to free herself?
She hadn’t wanted to escape him. Not when he was making her feel like that.
Elspeth stood uncertainly at the side of the bed.
Part of her wanted to storm away from him, and part of her wanted to storm at him.
Make him notice her, to acknowledge her.
He said they were finished, but that couldn’t mean…
finished. She was still his wife. He was still her husband.
They had to come to some understanding, didn’t they?
“You haven’t left,” he said then. “I can’t imagine why.”
“You’ve ruined my clothing,” she said, the first thing age came to mind, and not at all what she cared about. You ruined our marriage. You ruined my happiness. You ruined my trust.