The Scottish Bride (22 page)

He shook his head. He'd been a boy, hadn't known a single thing about how to give pleasure, how to take pleasure when it was offered. Not that he knew much more now. But he had, he admitted to himself, during those first months of his marriage, listened to his brothers whenever they spoke of matters of the flesh, which wasn't a rare occurrence at all. So, he supposed, he had a good deal of theory down very well.

“Let me unfasten your gown for you. Then, if you like, I can go out into the corridor while you put on your nightgown.”

She pulled her thick hair out of the way, and Tysen found that his fingers were extraordinarily nimble on all the buttons of that wretched, beautiful gown. He forced himself to step back when her white back was bare.

“There, it's done. I'm sorry I didn't think to place a
screen in here.” He left her then, quickly, and paced outside the bedchamber door, up and down the corridor. He found himself drawn to the sound of a woman's quiet voice. It was Sinjun. She and Colin were speaking in their bedchamber, and the door wasn't closed.

He, a vicar, a man who would give a good lecture to any of his children were they to eavesdrop, walked closer to that cracked open doorway. He heard Sinjun say, “But Colin, Tysen was only a boy when he married Melinda Beatrice. He knew nothing. He was always so pious and proper that naturally he wouldn't know anything. He isn't at all like Douglas or Ryder or you, and never was, for that matter. I'm just concerned that—” She stalled, but Tysen already knew everything she would have said; it was crystal clear in the quiet air.

Then Colin said, “Listen to me, Sinjun. Tysen isn't a clod, nor is he a fool. He's still a Sherbrooke, and I swear to you that the Sherbrooke men are born knowing how to make love properly to a woman. Leave be. Come to bed and I will let you seduce me, if you promise to go very slowly so I will have enough time to respond to you.”

Sinjun giggled. Then, “You're sure it will be all right? You don't believe you should perhaps speak to Tysen, ask him if he has any questions or perhaps wishes to discuss things? Colin, wait! What are you doing? Oh, goodness, you are an evil man.”

Tysen heard his sister, his baby sister, giggle. Then he heard only silence. No, that was a very deep breath someone in that bedchamber just drew in.

Tysen quickly walked away. So he'd been born knowing how to please a woman, had he? Well, he'd never succeeded with Melinda Beatrice. But that had been so very long ago, and Sinjun was right. He'd been a boy, untried, bowled over with those rampaging feelings he
couldn't control, so eager he'd nearly spilled his seed on himself.

He would simply have to trust himself. As his brother Ryder always said, “If a man can make a woman laugh, she is his.”

Laughter. How the devil did a man make a woman laugh when the man couldn't think beyond those raw, very urgent surges in his groin?

He came back into the bedchamber. Mary Rose was lying in the middle of the bed, propped up on pillows, the covers to her chin. He smiled at her. He went methodically about the room, pinching out the myriad candles. When there was only a single candle lit near the huge bed, he moved away into the shadows and undressed. He pulled his nightshirt over his head. He came to a halt beside the bed.

“I'm not wearing one of your nightshirts,” she said. “I think you look better in it than I do.”

He pulled back the blankets and came in beside her. He said, looking down at her beloved face, “Do you know we had never even seen each other before a very short time ago?”

Mary Rose pulled her hand out from beneath the mound of blankets and lightly touched her fingers to his face. “Yes, and it both frightens me and makes me believe devoutly that God had very good plans for me. You're quite wonderful, Tysen.”

Her words stirred inside him, moved him, and he said, “I don't want you to think that I married you simply because of my honor, because I want to protect you, save you from the machinations of your wretched uncle and Erickson MacPhail. I am very fond of you, Mary Rose. I am very glad that you are now my wife.” He looked away from her a moment, then said, “And we are man and wife now. Or vicar and wife, if you would prefer.” That was
an attempt at humor, but it didn't yield anything except perhaps a tiny smile.

“I can barely see you, Tysen.”

“Well, one doesn't have intimate relations in full daylight,” he said, although he imagined that his brothers even had intimate relations in the gardens, beneath the oak trees. But he never had. He'd always believed that a wife was precious and should be protected from a man's lust, her modesty never to be violated. “I don't wish to shock you or embarrass you,” he said, his voice austere.

“Thank you,” she said, but there was something odd in her voice that he didn't understand, and he said quickly, “Please don't be frightened of me. I might not be much good at any of this, but I wish to try. I'm going to kiss you now, Mary Rose, kiss you until I've gotten all the way to that crooked toe of yours, and I will kiss it as well.”

She grinned. Aha, nearly a laugh. “All right,” she said, and closed her arms around his neck.

“You taste like strawberries,” he said, “and your hair is as soft as my mare's mane.”

She giggled when he at last touched her breast. Then she jumped. He closed his eyes a moment, wondering what to do. He knew he was in a bad way, and that surprised him, but it didn't matter. He said, “I want you to hold still, and I will try not to hurt you.”

He eased her nightgown up, felt her soft flesh, and prayed fervently that she was ready for him, that he wouldn't hurt her too much. She didn't pull away, did nothing to escape him. And her kisses had been so very enthusiastic. He had to control himself. So very long, he thought, so very long since he had been with a woman, and that woman had been his first wife. He regretted that in his inexperience he might hurt Mary Rose, that he might deny her pleasure. Then he realized he could only
do his best. He could, as a matter of fact, do exactly what he wanted to do, and surely that wouldn't be bad. He was a Sherbrooke male, after all.

He gritted his teeth, knowing the moment was upon him, and came inside her, pushing slowly, his blood pounding through his body, nearly splitting him apart with lust, but his determination not to hurt her was profound. He was a man, not the boy who had mauled Melinda Beatrice. He moved very slowly indeed. He stopped. “Mary Rose?”

She was looking at him, but she wasn't smiling now, ready to kiss every bit of his face, ready to let him even put his tongue in her mouth. She was scared stiff, rigid as a log beneath him.

“Yes?”

“I'm inside you. Just a bit more. You're doing very well. I can feel your maidenhead. Can you feel me feeling it?”

“Yes.”

Then it was simply too much. The man and the vicar broke; he lost himself and all his good intentions. He couldn't stop himself, he pushed hard until he broke through her maidenhead and went deep. Dear God, he was touching her womb. His heart pounded, his body was more alive than he'd ever felt in his entire life. He was on the edge of a cliff, and he wanted to leap off that cliff right this very instant, but he heard her crying. “Mary Rose? Are you all right?”

“Yes, Tysen, I swear it to you. That maidenhead part was a bit difficult, but you're not moving now and it isn't too bad.” She added, wonder in her voice, “I knew that a man came into a woman's body, but I just never imagined it like this.”

Oh, dear God, he thought, he was so crazed with lust, so over the edge with a need that was eating him alive,
that he thought he would die. It was soon over, and he'd never imagined anything like it in his life. He had died, he thought, a wonderful death. He was hanging over her, balanced on his elbows, breathing so hard, feeling his heart pounding against his chest, still beyond words, beyond any rational thought. It was wonderful, what had just happened. He'd forgotten—that, or he'd never experienced it. It was beyond wonderful.

Mary Rose wasn't moving.

He said, once he could speak coherently, his voice all stiff with guilt, “I am sorry that I hurt you. That won't happen again. Can you forgive me?”

“Yes, of course. You're my husband, and I suppose things have to happen that aren't always pleasant. I don't know, Tysen.”

“I didn't make you laugh,” he said, and he slowly came out of her. He lay beside her and pulled her into his arms. He realized that he'd jerked off his nightshirt and that he was naked and she could feel that he was naked. He could imagine that it would send her running from the bedchamber. “Let me put on my nightshirt,” he said, but Mary Rose just shook her head against his shoulder. “No, please don't. You are so very warm, Tysen, and hard. I love the feel of you.”

He nearly swallowed his tongue. A woman—his wife—had said that to him. He didn't say a thing because he simply couldn't think of anything to say. Did a man thank a woman—his wife—when she said something like that to him? He didn't know. He was, however, immensely grateful that she was still in her nightgown. That was for the best, given how her words had made him feel. It was sinful, what he was thinking, it was excessive, what he wanted to do again, and boorish and probably so pleasurable that he nearly groaned. No, it was time to sleep, time for her to ease with him, perhaps forgive him for hurting
her, though she hadn't seemed upset with him.

He snuffed out the single candle, then he was lying on his back, in the dark, and he could feel her pressing against him. She was soft and warm and her breasts were against his side. Yes, God be blessed that she was wearing a nightgown. He knew he should say something. It was difficult to tell her to trust him when it came to matters of the flesh, since he was such an ignoramus and a clod, but he tried. “Trust me,” he said, kissing her cheek when he missed her mouth. “Trust me.”

“I would trust you with my life, Tysen,” she said, her breath warm against his flesh, and he shuddered. He didn't trust himself to say anything more. He just might start begging her to let him have her again.

He held her against the length of him. He wanted to come inside her again, right now.

He remembered overhearing Douglas and Ryder talking about how a man should never be a pig, it wasn't worthy. He held himself very still, and eventually, he slept.

Mary Rose didn't sleep for a very long time. How very odd, she thought, looking off into the darkness and feeling him so very warm and alive pressed next to her. He was a man, and he had actually been inside her, and he'd touched her, he'd kissed her. It hadn't been awful. Well, not too awful. She knew he had enjoyed the business. No, for her it hadn't been too bad. She sighed. She realized then how very wet and sticky she was. She heard Tysen's breathing even out into sleep. Slowly, carefully, she eased away from him. She stripped off her nightgown and bathed herself. She was sore, muscles pulled. It was all quite strange. She grabbed up her nightgown and pulled it back over her head. It was chilly in the large bedchamber. The embers had burned themselves out.

She slipped back into bed beside him, nestling close. This part was nice, she thought, and laid her palm over
his chest. Her palm wanted to go down his body, but she knew that wasn't done, that wasn't what she should want to do.

When at last she fell asleep, she felt optimistic. Tysen cared about her. He'd been sorry to hurt her, but she wondered if he truly had been all that sorry. She'd seen something in those beautiful eyes of his, something hot and pleased even as he'd been apologizing so sincerely. But how could she begin to understand him? He was, after all, a man, and she simply couldn't grasp what they were all about. She wondered if any woman grasped anything about the thoughts of a man.

 
 
 
 

D
AWN WAS TURNING
the bedchamber a soft, vague gray. Tysen awoke, instantly alert, instantly aware of the wonderful soft and giving body beside him. He then realized it was freezing. He didn't want Mary Rose to be cold when she awoke. He eased away from that wonderfully warm body and rose to light the fire. He was shivering when he returned to bed. He warmed himself, then came onto his side over her. “Mary Rose,” he said, and just saying her name made him as hard as the black basalt rocks below the castle. He was more than warm now, he was burning up, and it was from the inside out. He was roaring with heat, like a furnace that was being stoked so fast it was in danger of exploding.

He didn't wait for her to stir. He began kissing her. Her flesh was flushed and warm, and he could see her lovely face now, pale and calm in sleep, her glorious red hair wild about her head. He realized that she was wearing his nightshirt and wondered how that had happened, but it didn't matter, of course. He had that nightshirt off her in under two seconds. She wasn't fighting him. She wasn't stuttering with fear, wasn't trying to stop him at all. She even lifted her hips for him to get the nightshirt off her.
When she was naked and he'd hauled her up tightly against him, he felt all of her, every small bit of her. He moaned into her mouth when he realized that she was kissing him back. He felt so very urgent, nearly frantic in his need, that he simply didn't think about it being daylight in the room, that he would shock her, that she knew he could see her body and she would be mortified.

Mary Rose was kissing him back, wildly now, and when he said against her mouth, “Open, I want to taste you,” she did, and he was shuddering with the power of it. When he kissed her breasts, his hands all over her, she made little mewling sounds, and they nearly drove him over the edge, those sounds and her mouth and her hands, now stroking his belly. He tried to arch up so she could touch him. When she did, he nearly became a pig. It was a very close thing. He pulled away from her, heaving from the effort, and then everything suddenly was very clear to him. He wanted to kiss her everywhere, something he'd never done before, something that hadn't really occurred to him before, but now he wanted it more than anything in the entire world. It seemed utterly natural, something he had to do if he wished to keep breathing. He came down her body, kissing and kneading her belly, then his hot breath was lower, and his mouth was on her and his tongue as well, hot and wild.

Mary Rose froze for a moment at what he was doing to her, but not longer than a moment. “Oh, my,” she said and pressed herself against his mouth and felt his fingers, stroking over her, easing inside her. “Tysen,” she said, nearly on a yell, then realized something incredible was happening to her. She lurched up, grabbed fistfuls of his hair, and screamed.

Then she fell back against the pillow, saying his name over and over, begging him not to stop, never stop, please, please. On and on it went, with her wild beneath him, and
Tysen felt her frantic pleasure washing over him, coming deep inside him, and it shook him to his core. Never had he felt anything like this in his entire life. Slowly, he lessened his pressure, it just seemed the natural thing to do, and when he felt her ease, he raised his head and looked up her body. He could see her clearly in the morning light pouring through the windows. Her face was flushed, her lips parted, and she was staring at him, but her eyes were vague and soft, and she said, “Oh, goodness.” And then she held out her arms to him.

He'd never moved so fast in his life. He said as he came over her, “I hope you like this as well,” and he was inside her, deep and moving hard and fast. This time there was no doubt at all in Tysen's mind that he was going to die. And it didn't matter. He was ready to leave this earth. When he raised his head, arched his back, and yelled to the ceiling, she held him very close, and he felt her breath on his chest, and she was kissing his chest as well, her hands stroking everywhere, even between their bodies on his belly.

He fell flat on top of her, his head beside hers on the pillow. He felt her hands slow now, lightly stroking down his back, and every once in a while she kissed his ear, his neck, any part of him she could reach.

She said against his ear, “That was a very incredible thing, Tysen. I had no idea that being married could mean having feelings like that.”

He hadn't either. He was floored. He thought of his brothers, who were worldly men and enjoyed making love to women immensely. They'd never been at all shy about speaking about such things. He'd always believed it was a sin, perhaps a sin of overindulgence, what his brothers did with great regularity, perhaps even a sin that they enjoyed their wives so very much. He'd felt superior to them, felt that they hadn't achieved his ability to rely on
his intellect, to let his spirit and his mind control his body. It had to be a sin, for didn't it make a man forget himself, forget who and what he was, forget what was important in life and what wasn't?

Had he truly been such a pompous idiot? Such an obnoxious prig? He grew hard inside her again, and he couldn't help it, he started laughing. He laughed because for the first time in his thirty-one years, he finally knew the incredible joy of being a man and having a woman enjoy him as much as he did her.

He managed, finally, to bring himself up just a bit, and he kissed her mouth. “Mary Rose,” he said between light, nipping kisses, “can you feel me inside you?” He started moving slowly, easily, and the pleasure made him want to shout and sing, perhaps even dance.

“Yes,” she said, leaned up and kissed his shoulder and moved beneath him. “Yes, I can. It is a wondrous feeling, Tysen. Thank you for showing me what was what.”

He saw their two bodies together, and he realized that it was the first time in his life that he had ever had a woman's body pressed against his. “Are you sore?”

“Yes, but it doesn't matter. I rather like this, Tysen.”

And he laughed again and kissed her, still laughing, and then he wanted very much to touch her again, to feel her tense and go wild when she gained her climax, and it just happened. He slid his hand between them and found her and watched her eyes go vacant. He was, he thought, a man who was very happy. Surely that wasn't bad, a husband who enjoyed his wife. Surely.

There was a knock on the door.

Tysen opened an eye but didn't move. He said, “I don't care what is going on, even if Erickson MacPhail is back intending to steal you away again, I don't want to move. Don't you move, either. You've got to be safe from him since you're lying beneath me.”

She laughed, squeezed him hard, and called out, “Who is it?”

“It's Meggie.”

Tysen opened an eye. “I have a daughter. I also have two sons. At the moment I can't remember their names.” He smiled a bit at that. “At least Meggie knocked.”

They'd just managed to pull apart when the door opened and Meggie stuck her head in. “Good morning. It is nearly eight o'clock, you know. Shall I bring you breakfast, Papa? Mary Rose, are you all right? Are you still talking to Papa? Telling him things? Do you still like Papa?”

Tysen sighed deeply and said, “She adores me, Meggie, and yes, we would love some breakfast.”

“Yes, Meggie, I still like your papa.”

The door closed and Tysen turned to face her. He pulled her hard against him, felt her breasts, her belly, the length of her smooth legs. “So what do you think of being married to me so far?”

“I lied to Meggie,” she said, and pushed back the covers. “I more than like her papa. Being married to you so far is splendid. I had never in my life imagined feeling such things.” She started to get out of bed, remembered that she was naked, and stopped cold. She turned quickly to see her new husband, the covers at his ankles, also quite naked, and he was staring at her as if he didn't know what to do either.

She didn't move, just kept staring. He didn't move either, and he also just kept staring. She swallowed, and her hand fluttered, then fell back to the sheet. “Tysen, we are unclothed.”

She was staring at him, not at his face but at his sex, and he felt pinned. It was the first time a woman had ever seen him naked, and this woman seemed to be very interested in him. Melinda Beatrice had always averted her
eyes whenever he'd chanced, by accident, to be naked with her anywhere near. “Mary Rose?”

“You are a beautiful man, Tysen,” she said, and stood. She started to cross her arms over her breasts, then, almost defiantly, she dropped her arms back to her sides. “I suppose it is ridiculous for me to be embarrassed, since you saw me while I was so ill.”

“That's right,” he heard himself say, as if from a great distance, and then he took his own turn looking at her. “It's different now, though,” he said. “You see, now you're smiling at me, and you're moving about and you are very alive and warm and your face is a bit flushed and your hair is incredible, Mary Rose.”

She squeaked and dashed to pick up her nightgown from the floor near the washbasin. She pulled it over her head, then chanced to look at the basin. “Tysen, oh, my God.”

Her voice was a thin, wispy sound that had him out of bed in a flash. “What's wrong?”

He was at her side in a minute.

She could only point to the bloody water in the basin.

“It's from your maidenhead,” he said, vastly relieved. “It's nothing to worry about, I promise you.”

She turned then, looked him up and down, mainly down, her look very interested, and he flushed, couldn't seem to help himself. He reached for her and pulled her close, both, he supposed, to preserve his modesty and because in truth he wanted her against him again. He breathed in the scent of her, the light rose smell of her hair, the smell of himself, and the smell of sex.

“Do you forgive me now, Mary Rose?”

She pulled back slightly, looking up at him, feeling him against her, and she couldn't quite comprehend what had happened. “Oh, yes. I think you are the finest husband in the world.” She pulled back more and looked down at
him. “And the most beautiful. A man—you are so very different from me. I think you are incredible, Tysen.” And she reached down and touched him. He moaned and jerked, but he didn't pull away, just kept holding her against him, wishing she would touch him again, and knowing it was best if she didn't.

He didn't say a thing. He couldn't think of a thing to say, in any case. She thought he was beautiful? That male part of him? He held her even more tightly. He was hard, and he didn't know what to do about it.

Luckily for him, there was a knock on the door. He slowly separated from her, sighed, and fetched his own dressing gown.

 

“You have a letter from Douglas,” Sinjun called out when Tysen and Mary Rose, holding hands now, both smiling like loons and trying not to look self-conscious, came down the front staircase.

Colin came through the front door, windblown, wearing only black knit breeches and a flowing white shirt, and grinned at the two of them. “Good morning. I trust both of you are quite well?”

Mary Rose said, “Oh, yes, Colin. Everything is quite excellent.” She blushed, turned nearly as red as her hair. Tysen, without thought, leaned over and kissed her cheek. He thought she looked luminous, the morning light stark on her face, her green eyes bright, her mouth laughing. He was a married man, he realized at that instant, and she was his wife, and he decided he was quite pleased about it.

He had become Lord Barthwick, come to Scotland, and gotten himself a bride. God's plan was as yet unclear to him, but given that Mary Rose was now his, it had to be a good plan.

“Hmmm,” said Colin, and after eyeing the two of them
a bit longer, he turned and gave his wife a wicked look. “I am not at all surprised,” he remarked to the entrance hall at large, which included Pouder, napping in his chair by the front door. “After all, Tysen is a Sherbrooke.”

“Be quiet, Colin,” Tysen said pleasantly as he took the letter from Sinjun and began to read it. “You're embarrassing my wife.” How strange it was to say that word aloud. He continued reading, then raised his head and said, “Douglas is rather irritated with me, but he says it won't last because Oliver is so excited about learning the management of Kildrummy Castle, and thus what can Douglas do? Oliver is on his way to Scotland. He should be here quite soon. Douglas said he was so eager that he was throwing his clothes into his valise so he could be gone. He says also that I am now in his debt.”