Chapter 21
Ailsa waited in her chamber for her husband to arrive.
Siobhan and Maesie had helped her prepare, taking down her hip-length hair from the braids and pins they’d put in it for the wedding and brushing it out until it shone and rippled like silk.
Siobhan had gifted her with a beautiful gown of lavender silk that she’d embroidered in green leaves and deep purple flowers.
Ailsa had wanted to cry over it but Siobhan warned her not to redden her eyes.
So, she’d hugged them both and sent them on their way.
Anders had gone outside some time ago to see his brother off.
She wasn’t clear on why Stellan was determined to leave so early, but Anders’ explanation that he was eager to return to his wife and son rang true, if incomplete.
She expected to learn more about the twins’ relationship and about their family when Anders took her home to Sutherland.
In two days! She couldn’t believe her life was about to make such a drastic change.
And so quickly. Drastic but welcome. No more being ignored by her father in favor of her brother.
No more fears about being bartered away to a Norse prince and living far to the north, unable to visit her friends, and they to visit her.
No more risk of her da being forced to punish her for releasing the captive Sutherlands.
Sutherland wasn’t all that close, but it was an easy sail down the coast—in good weather. She expected their marriage to strengthen ties between the clans and to help keep her brother from ruining relations with every clan around Sinclair.
Anders thought they would do exactly that. She hoped he was right.
In the meantime, sitting in her bed, dressed in the lovely gown Siobhan created for her and her new husband to enjoy on their wedding night, she was becoming impatient.
She wasn’t nervous. Both her mother and Maighread had long ago taught her what would happen and what she needed to know.
She wanted to get on with it. With Anders.
She had never expected to be an eager bride, but she found herself avidly awaiting his arrival.
Finally, she heard male voices and laughter along with heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Anders must have been waylaid by his clansmen and hers. No doubt they expected to bring him to bed.
The door opened and Anders backed in, shoving at the men outside.
“Go on with ye. I dinna need yer help.” Raucous laughter greeted his comment as he slammed the door on them, turned the lock, and clearly not trusting that to be enough, wedged the claymore he had slung over his back through the brackets meant to hold a thick wooden bar.
“Where did ye get the sword?” Ailsa asked, amazed that he could have entered the keep with it.
“The lads out there thought it made a good jest. One I’d rather no’ explain. They’ll no’ be getting it back, so the jest is on them.”
Ailsa clapped and snickered. “Well played, Husband.”
He stood with his back to the door, his gaze fixed on her. “Ye are the most beautiful lass I’ve ever seen,” he told her.
“So, still having memory problems, are ye?” Ailsa didn’t mean to sound prickly, but she always had something smart to say when she was nervous, and right now, her belly was full of birds flitting from side to side and top to bottom, and they flew faster the more Anders stared at her.
Maighread had tended his cuts and bruises, so his face did not appear quite as battered as when Boden’s men finished with him.
His eyes had gone dark enough to get lost in.
His breathing sounded deep and rhythmical, as though he was preparing for a battle to begin.
“Nary a one,” he answered, ignoring her jibe. “But looking at ye, I can attest that I’ve happily forgotten every other lass I’ve ever met. Are ye certain ye are no’ of the seelie, lass, like the fae I read about in yer book? Beautiful and kind, they are, like ye.”
His adoring smile heated her blood, but she suddenly regretted her jest. The weeks of not knowing himself were not something to laugh about.
“I dreamed ye might be a selkie. Strong and handsome as a seal as ye are as a man. Ye came to me from the sea. Perhaps ye left yer seal skin somewhere in the woods below the castle, intending to explore the land or visit us and leave again. But something happened, and ye were touched by the fae, robbing ye of yer memory.”
“Perhaps, lass, we both read too much of yer book,” Anders said and grinned. “I’m nay more a selkie than ye are a seelie. We are man and wife. I wouldna change that for anything.”
She threw the covers aside and quit the bed. As she stood, Anders sucked in even more air. His chest expanded and his shoulders, already impossibly broad, seemed to grow broader, stronger, and more alluring. She marched up to him, eager to put her hands on them. “Have ye never—?”
“Of course I have. I’m admiring my wife, and looking forward to making ye my bride in truth.” He pulled her to him and wrapped his strong, loving arms around her. “This will be different than any … encounter … I’ve yet had.”
“Nay wives before me?” She looked up at him and grinned, breaking her own vow not to jest about his unreliable memory of his past, but at the serious set to his mouth, she lost any nuance of humor in the subject.
“Nor after, Love. There will only be ye, with me, for as long as we both live. The life we make together is all I want. And after us our bairns to carry on with Sutherland and Sinclair blood in their veins, stronger for the melding we create with our love.”
“Anders …” She found herself transfixed by the future he painted with his words. “I want that, too, Husband. With ye. Only ye.”
“Ye shall have what ye desire, Wife,” he told her. With gentle care, he picked her up and carried her to their bed. When she reached for him, he held up a hand. “I have waited and searched my entire life for ye. I willna rush this moment. ’Tis too important for both of us.”
She nodded, her emotions making it impossible to speak, and pulled him down beside her.
The feelings he aroused in her were new and unfamiliar, but sweet.
So sweet. Her heart seemed too large for her chest. She couldn’t wait any longer to touch him, so she gripped his upper arm, marveling at the tightly leashed strength she found there.
He would never hurt her. “Ye make me love ye more every moment, Anders. Ye have been naught but kind and honorable. Now, ye may be loving. That is what I desire in this moment and for all the moments we shall have.”
He traced the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. “So beautiful ye are. I canna believe ye are mine.” His gaze traveled over her face, then settled on her eyes. “And that ye love me.”
“I do love ye, Husband. Now, make love to me.”
“With pleasure, my lady wife. With pleasure.” He traced his fingertips from her brow down her cheek to her jaw, leaving a trail of tingles that spread down her throat, then he bent to take her lips with his.
She opened to him on a moan that came from depths she’d never known she had within her.
He plundered her mouth and drew a trail of fire to the mounds of her breasts with his fingertips, tightening her nipples.
Ailsa arched into his hand, lost in the way he touched her. Strong, yet gentle, determined to please her. “More, Anders, more.”
“Patience, my love,” he murmured. “Ye will have all of me when ye are ready, and nay before then.”
He followed the trail of his fingers with his mouth, pulling aside the embroidered bodice of her gown to reveal the hard peaks of her nipples.
He brushed his thumb lightly over one while he teased the other with his tongue.
Then he lifted his head. “Ye must let me undress ye, Love, or I will have to tear yer gown.”
“Ye first,” she replied with a challenging lift to her lips. “I wish to see all of ye.”
“Ye have. When I was ill.”
“No’ quite all. And ’tis no’ the same. Ye were ill and weak. Now ye are healthy and strong. Stand, Husband. I will help ye.”
She didn’t have to ask him twice. He grinned and sat up, kicked off his boots and stood, awaiting her pleasure.
Ailsa stood, too, undid the pin at his shoulder, set it aside, and unbuckled his belt. She held it in place for a moment while she gazed up at him. “Are ye ready?”
“More than ready, my love.”
She dropped the belt and pulled the wool from his shoulder, letting his great kilt unravel and fall from his body to pool around his feet and over hers.
She looked him up and down, grasped the hem of his léine and lifted it.
He took it from her and pulled it over his head to drop on the floor behind him.
Now he stood before her naked and rampant.
“Ye can see how hungry for ye I am,” he told her.
She wondered for a moment how they could ever make this work.
He’d once told her he was a big man everywhere.
She saw the truth of that. After a nervous swallow, she looked up at him, reassured by the smile he gave her.
“I ken ye willna hurt me,” she said, partly for him but mostly for herself.
But the bruises on his body told her his determination to protect her might cause him pain. “Ye must take care of yerself as well.”
“Dinna fash about me,” he told her. “Now, ’tis my turn,” he added softly as he looked at her, his gaze roving from her bright hair to her feet and back, lingering on the swell of her hips and breasts.
He grasped the silky fabric of her gown and pulled it slowly over her head, as though determined to draw out the moment, and to give her time to object.
Once the garment cleared her head, he slid it down the length of her hair before letting it fall to the floor, leaving her standing proudly bare before him.
She smiled. “Look yer fill, my love. All that I am is yers.”