Chapter Eleven #3
‘Seamus is not cruel. But he is not kind either. I tried to get him to like me when we were first wed. I used to be able to wrap men around my little finger and get them to do my bidding with a touch on the arm or a shy look. Little things like that go a long way, you know, but not with Seamus. He shuns me, save for once, on our wedding night, that is. I try not to want him, but he is rugged and blessed with a handsome face and a hard body, and so…’ She trailed off.
‘But do you want Seamus for the kind of man he is?’
Maeve’s brows knitted. ‘I do not take your meaning.’
‘Do you admire his character, virtues, temperament?’
Maeve just looked at her blankly.
Lowri shook her head and went back to her task. ‘Never mind.’
Maeve rattled on. ‘I would lie with him if he asked, but he is prideful. He will not touch me, and the more I pursue him, the more he pulls away. He thinks me a whore, and I suppose I am. But I deserve some enjoyment in this life. It cannot be all duty and drudgery, and who can live without love?’
‘In your situation, perhaps it is best to leave love behind and just use what you have to get what you want.’
Maeve stared at her as if she had said something blasphemous. ‘How strangely you talk, Lowri, as if your heart were a stone, and yet you are a lass.’
‘Save your love for your bairn when it comes, not some man who does not see your virtues. Love is a trap to fall into,’ said Lowri.
‘No. Love is delicious. I miss it – the closeness, desire, the feel of a man’s hands on me, flesh on flesh, the anticipation of it.’
Lowri had a feeling she was on dangerous ground. ‘Did you love the father of your child? Do you miss him?’
‘Heavens no! He was a handsome, ignorant dolt, a groom who could not read or write. But he worshipped me. He was awestruck by my beauty, he said. And when I let him put his hands on me, oh, it was divine. He was good with his mouth, too. I miss that. I want that again, the touch of a man, the feel of him inside me.’
Yet Maeve had said she was innocent, taken advantage of, and she did not seem to guard any of her thoughts, no matter how intimate. Lowri’s cheeks took fire. ‘You want that from Seamus?’
‘Aye. It is terrible to admit, but I do.’
‘Maybe in time, affection will grow between you.’
Maeve shook her head. ‘There’s no affection in that block of ice.
Now, if it was Cullen, I was forced to marry, it would be a different story.
He happens by sometimes and is always kind to me.
They go carousing, he and Seamus, getting up to all sorts, but I do not hold that against Cullen so much, for there is a softness in his heart that draws a lass.
’ She sighed. ‘Too late for me, but not for you. And he’s a fine figure of a man, built like a bull – a graceful, lean bull, that is.
’ Maeve narrowed her eyes and said in a sly voice, ‘Given the way he looks, do you think he will be true to you?’
Maeve was a strange one – all smiles and warmth one minute, and stabbing with her words the next. Lowri searched her face, but there was no malice there. ‘Seamus says Cullen does not chase women, which makes them chase him,’ she said.
‘Maybe he despises women and wants nought to do with them,’ snapped Lowri, brutally tearing the skin off a rabbit.
‘Apart from his needs, that is.’
‘Needs?’
Maeve giggled. ‘You should know what they are, being newly wed.’
Lowri forced a smile. ‘Oh, aye. I do.’
Maeve narrowed her eyes as if she sensed a lie. Perhaps she was not as simple as she seemed. ‘Tell me how you and Cullen came to be wed, how he wooed you. I want to know what Cullen is like abed.’
‘No, you don’t.’
Both of them jumped at Cullen’s voice. He leaned against the door frame, arms folded across his chest. ‘Some secrets are best left to husband and wife,’ he said, and strode into the kitchen, giving Lowri a hard look. ‘I have been searching for you all over Graywell.’
‘Did you think I’d made a run for it?’ she said tartly.
‘No, for we had a bargain, did we not?’
Maeve took in the cold exchange between them.
‘I must claim my wife,’ said Cullen. He took Lowri by the elbow and drew her away from Maeve, who howled, ‘But she was going to tell me how you ended up wed.’
Cullen paused. ‘Tis a sad and sorry tale, Maeve. Go ask your husband. He knows it all.’ He steered Lowri outside with a firm hand on her arm.
‘Were you eavesdropping the whole time?’ she spat, breaking free of his grasp.
‘Most of it.’
‘Did you drag me away because you thought I’d tell Maeve what you have done?’
‘I suppose you are talking of our wedding night, and I’ll admit I’m not proud of that night. It was not well done by me. I regret it bitterly. But then neither of us has covered ourselves in glory here, have we, Lowri?’
She could not argue with that, but anger made her reckless. ‘Maeve is so miserable here in this forced marriage. Is that what my life is to be now, an unwanted bride, the object of your contempt?’
‘Who says you are unwanted?’
‘You said you have no need for a wife.’
‘That’s not what I mean, lass.’
Again, he had that hot look in his eyes, and Lowri wanted to slap it out of them.
‘I don’t want you in my bed, Cullen. I did what I had to do, but I did not like it.’
‘That’s because you haven’t been doing it properly. If you’d let me be kind and gentle, it could have been a lot sweeter than it was. But it was done in haste, and reluctantly, by both of us.
Lowri snorted. ‘Reluctantly by you?’
‘Aye. You begged me to do it to save your friends.’ He gestured to his groin. ‘It’s not a soldier to be ordered into battle, you know.’
‘You are disgusting.’ Lowri walked ahead of him, but he called after her. ‘Lass, the sooner you get with child, the sooner your friends go free.’
She stopped dead. ‘So you would go along with Griffin’s awful plan and make me suffer that again. If we have a bairn, I will be tied for you forever.’
‘We are tied, in the eyes of the law and the church. And I have decided that if you get with child and you want to go back home to your brother, then I shall not stop you, nor use the bairn to make you stay. You may take any bairn we have with you.’
‘You would let me do that?’
‘Aye, for I’ll not use an innocent bairn to hurt you, or to fulfil my father’s cruel scheme.’
An awful thought occurred to Lowri. She pictured herself riding through Fellscarp’s gates and standing before her brother with her Macaulay bairn. She imagined the disgrace she would feel, the horror on her brother’s face, and she felt sick.
‘I don’t think I can ever go back home,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘I lied to Peyton. I went against his orders when I went reiving. I married a Macaulay. I lay with a Macaulay, an enemy. Once again, I have weakened him. Word will reach him, Griffin will make sure of that, and once it does, Peyton will never forgive me for I have beggared his pride before all the other clans in the West March. Folk will snigger behind their hands and gossip about me, and he will have to bear it.’
‘If your brother loves you, he will forgive your folly.’
‘But he should not have to. Don’t you see? I cannot forgive myself. Last year I…oh, I cannot recall it all without shame. I got myself into trouble, and it almost cost my brother his life. I endangered everything he holds dear, everything he has fought for over the years, at great cost.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It doesn’t matter. But I have hurt him so badly that I cannot go back.’
‘Look, I will only go so far in my father’s schemes, and this one has left a bad taste in my mouth.’ Cullen held his hand out to her. ‘If you get with child, I will not try to hold you. Let us have an agreement and shake on it, lass. Come on.’
‘You hate me. I am a Strachan. You owe me nothing, and you can promise nothing. All you can do is lie to me.’
‘I’ll not use a bairn to hold you or threaten you. I swear on my life.’
She could not look at him.
‘Then what are we to do, lass?’ cried Cullen. ‘If you cannot go back, then the only way is forward, with me. What have you got to lose?’
‘Freedom, self-respect, honour.’
‘Did you have any of those before you went reiving our cattle that night?’ He grabbed her and twisted her around.
‘Look at me. I know you hate me, Lowri. You shrink away from my touch. And trust me, that forced coupling on our wedding night was as mortifying for me as it was for you. But you might get used to the way things are, in time.’
‘Get used to living a wretched life, like Maeve, taking punishment for my sins?’
‘Tis no great sin to reive now and again.’
‘Not that sin. Others, Cullen. Many others.’
‘Your sins are your own business. Now let us shake on this and have a truce. It will be less vexing that way. Shake on it.’
Lowri took his broad hand in hers. He gave it a crushing squeeze and held on.
Cullen pulled her close to him, and for a moment, she thought he might kiss her as he stared into her eyes.
His grip was hard, but his look was soft when he said, ‘Be wary of Maeve. It’s best not to spill your secrets to that lass. ’
‘I pity her, for she is lonely and mistreated.’
‘Is she now? Lowri, you are not like Maeve. She is weak and spoiled and does not know how to fend for herself or make the best of things. You do. Now take this warning. You do not know her character. She is all feeling and no good sense.’
‘I know that you Macaulays bully her.’
‘Seamus treats her well enough. She is bitter because he does not want to lie with her. And I’ve no intention of bullying you. Slavish obedience is not what I want from a woman.’
‘So what do you want?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what I want from a wife, Lowri.’
‘Except one thing.’
‘Aye, except that. I’m a man, and you are a lass, and I’ll make no excuses for my desire, for I find I cannot stop looking at you, beautiful Lowri Strachan.’
‘Am I supposed to be flattered that you….’
Cullen’s mouth met hers, and she froze. His lips were gentle, searching, tender.
Lowri had not been kissed much in her life, and when she had, it had been all rush and spit and mortification.
But this was nothing like that. It was stirring, in a strange way.
Her heart clenched, her breath caught, and she could do nothing but accept the warmth of his mouth moving over hers.
Cullen’s arm came around her waist, pulling her against him.
His arousal pressed to her belly, and Lowri’s body recalled it being inside her, which sent a pulse of feeling between her legs, so intense, it was as if she was taken back to her wedding night with Cullen.
She could not like this. It was unwelcome, awful…oh, but Cullen tasted good, and warm, and she could feel his wanting her through that kiss.
A cough behind them had them leaping apart. Esther said, ‘If you’re done swallowing the lass whole, I’m to take her inside and wash and dress her, to make her respectable in time for supper.’
‘The way the lass was kissing me just now, it will take more than a wash and a change of clothes to make her respectable,’ laughed Cullen, and Lowri wanted to knife him in the throat.
Cullen had not meant that kiss. He had only done it to taunt her, damn his eyes. She hurried to Esther, and when she happened to glance back, Cullen’s smile had faded from his face, replaced by hunger and a kind of desolation.