Chapter Seven #2
He was so changeable, veering from threatening to lie with her, and then rejecting her. How drunk was he going to get?
Cullen stared down into Lowri Strachan’s eyes.
By God, she was a sight to stir the loins.
Some men liked soft, blonde lasses, quiet and biddable and sweet.
Cullen had always liked the ones with fire in their blood, some fight in their bones.
This lass was bonnie, dark and fiery, her eyes compelling, even as they spat their fury at him.
But it was the last defiance of a cornered animal.
Lowri was frightened out of her wits, fisting her hands in her skirts, trembling under his gaze and trying not to show it.
Cullen took a step closer, his face in hers.
She gasped and came up against the wall. Her mouth fell open.
The whisky had started to fog his senses and blunt his good sense. ‘I liked kissing you, and you are bonnie, whether you like it or not,’ he said.
‘Please,’ she gasped.
‘Please do it, or please don’t?’ he murmured.
‘I…I suppose we must, or Donnan and Rory’s suffering will be prolonged.’
‘Aye, your friends will suffer. But better them than you, lass, suffering my attentions.’
Cullen turned away, back to the fire’s warmth, for there was nothing but ice in the lass’s gaze and in her heart, for him, anyway. ‘Get into bed, lass. The fire is struggling, and it is warmer there.’ He took a last swig of the whisky, trying to wash away his bitterness.
He thought he heard a stifled sob, but Cullen would not look at the lass.
When he turned around, Lowri was lying in the bed with the blankets over her.
He finished the bottle and climbed in next to her.
She lay rigid, staring up at the rafters, like a martyr finally at rest in her coffin.
He didn’t owe this Strachan bitch anything.
But if he took her now, she would go free, apart from dragging him through life as her husband.
But a Strachan blade across his throat would probably take care of that soon enough, once Peyton Strachan found out.
‘You should never have stolen from us, lass.’
‘I am sorry for it.’
‘Not the stealing. I’d wager it was more the getting caught.’
Impulsively, Cullen reached out and stroked the back of his hand down her cheek. Lowri flinched, but did not move away. Her skin was warm and velvety under his fingers.
‘Can you hold a lie, Lowri Strachan?’
‘As good as anyone. Aye.’
‘Then we will say we lay together when we have not, and that is an end to it.’
‘Every word out of a Macaulay mouth is a lie. I don’t believe you. Why would you do that?’
‘Because I didn’t save your life just to crush your spirit, nor will I let you whore yourself for the sake of those lads. And I don’t want you any more than you want me.’
Cullen had always been good at holding a lie, and a lie it was, for he had begun to want the lass.
A slow burn heated his belly, and his loins pulsed with desire.
Lowri’s skin was like velvet, her eyes black-lashed, clear and bright as sunlight on a burn, and she smelled good.
He was only human and as weak to temptation as the next man.
Cullen took a deep breath and turned his back to her. ‘Give me a boon, lass, and promise not to smother me in my sleep.’ He closed his eyes, the whisky a burning river of oblivion flooding his veins. There, for once in his life, he had taken the honourable course.
‘You have to do it,’ she hissed into the darkness.
‘I do not.’
‘You are trying to trick me. You Macaulays say one thing and do another. You will tell your father that we have not consummated the marriage, and he will hang my friends. I do not trust you not to betray me.’
‘Leave it,’ he growled, but she would not be quiet.
‘Please. I have to save my friends. Just do it quickly and get it over with. I deserve this punishment, and I can bear it.’
She talked of lovemaking as if it were some furtive, filthy act. Lying with him was something to be suffered, a penance for her sins. To Lowri Strachan, he was repulsive, and she would spread her legs because she hated herself. Silence fell.
Then she said, ‘I knew a low, belly-crawling Macaulay would not be able to do the right thing.’
The last thread of Cullen’s forbearance snapped. All kinds of frustration boiled up in his gut – at her insults, at his impotence in the face of his father’s scheming. Well, he need not be impotent this night.
Lowri would not be quiet. ‘You are a pitiful excuse for a man, just like Allard, just like…’
Cullen turned and lay over her. ‘If this is what you want, then you shall have it.’
‘Go on then!’ she shouted into his face.
‘I will,’ he snarled, gathering a handful of her skirts and hoisting them up.
The oblivion of the whisky had gone, and there was only anger.
Cullen jerked her legs apart with his knee.
She flinched, and so he tried to slow himself and be kind, but when he tried to kiss Lowri, she clamped her lips shut and turned her face away.
He could not bear to see her revulsion, so he buried his face in her neck.
Cullen spat on his hand and eased inside her.
If she’d been around Black Eaden, she’d know what was coming.
But his anger abated as her body resisted his invasion. He pulled back. ‘I should not do this. You are…’
‘Just do it quickly. I cannot bear it otherwise.’
Lowri did not touch him. She turned her face away and lay silently, like a corpse, but her body was warm and snug, and the sweet smell in her nape sent lust creeping into his anger. She was right about him. He was a bastard. Had he not always been a mongrel without honour?
Through a haze of whisky, he pressed on. But her body resisted, so he stopped, swollen with lust. ‘I…you are a virgin. I can’t.’
‘You’ve done it now. I’m not a virgin anymore. So finish it,’ she hissed through gritted teeth.
‘I will,’ he snarled, surging inside her.
The rhythmic groaning of the bed was the only sound as Cullen took Lowri as quickly as he could, in a bitter, joyless coupling which filled him with shame.
Afterwards, he lay on her, trying to contain a raging tangle of anger, bitterness and regret. Finally, he said, ‘There. It is done. Now I suppose I am a bastard in more ways than one. But I have kept my word, and you have kept yours, much good it will do either of us.’
Then he rolled off Lowri and turned his back.
He thought he heard a sob, so he turned and reached out a hand.
It met her cheek, and it was wet. ‘What the devil is the matter?’ He shook Lowri by the shoulder.
‘You are not crying, are you? I tried not to hurt you, and you should have told me you were a virgin.’
‘I’m not crying about that.’
‘What then?’
‘I’m a wretched thing. My brother told me not to seek revenge on your father, and I ignored him, as always. I have only ever caused strife to those I care about.’
‘Aye, well, so have I, but ‘tis done now and no changing it. We are stuck together, as miserable a husband and wife as could be.’ A stab of remorse made him say, ‘Do you want me to hold you?’
‘No!’ she cried.
Why did he even ask?
Silence fell, then, ‘I had no girlish notions about love and happiness in marriage, but I never expected my wedding night to be like this.’
‘I never expected to have a wedding night, nor did I want one. And you must endure and make do with a disappointing husband. Nothing else for it.’
She went quiet again.
‘I would have been kinder, lass, if you’d told me it was your first time. I thought, with Black Eaden, that…’
‘I don’t care what you thought,’ she snapped.
Cullen lay seething. He should have known any return to Scarcross would end in agony of some kind.
And this time the pain was worse than anything.
Because his father had twisted his conscience to force him into marriage to a lass he might come to desire.
How could he not want her? The lass was bonnier than he’d had in a while, and his body had craved her while his mind hated her.
But Lowri despised him. Every look, every word from her was filled with hatred and disgust. And the blood running in her veins was that of an enemy.
That stain could never be washed out by marriage or wishing it away.
That was his father’s real torture here – to hang something sweet, soft and delicious just out of reach, tempting him to take one poisonous bite. And all because he had a conscience, damn it to hell.