Fenella drew a deep breath and then she spoke. “Was your husband cruel to you in your bed?” she asked candidly, and she looked directly at Alix. “Is that why you fear a lover? The laird is a kind man, Alix. He would never be cruel.”
Alix’s face had gone white at Fenella’s words. “Will you pander for him?” she gasped in shocked tones.
Fenella arose from her place by Alix’s side. “I will tell the laird of your distress,” she said stiffly, and then she left the bedchamber.
Alix followed after her, barring the door once again.
Returning to the hall, the housekeeper took the laird aside. Fiona was playing contentedly with the dogs by the hearth. “Her marriage was an unhappy one,” she said.
“I had assumed that,” Malcolm Scott answered.
“Not just the situation in which she found herself,” Fenella responded. “The husband was cruel to her in their bed. When I asked her about it, she grew as white as the snows outside the hall windows and accused me of pandering for you. I should have been offended but that her pain was so strong it was visible, my lord.”
“Ahh,” the laird said, “then she must be wooed gently.” He smiled.
“I am not certain that she can be wooed at all, my lord,” Fenella said. “She told me to tell you if you cannot treat her with respect she must leave Dunglais. You cannot let her go, for that would break Fiona’s heart. The wee lass has had enough sadness in her life without losing the only mother figure she knows or can remember. You must satisfy your manly urges somewhere else,” Fenella concluded.
“Nay, I will have Alix,” he replied softly, “but when I do, she will come to me willingly. I would not harm my daughter’s happiness, but I will not deny myself the prize I want.”
“Offer her marriage,” Fenella suggested wickedly.
“If her distaste for carnal union is as strong as you say it is, that would but terrify her further,” Malcolm Scott said. “Nay, kinswoman, Alix needs to be wooed with kindness and gentleness, for she has never before been wooed.”
“Be careful, my lord,” Fenella cautioned him. “If not for Alix’s sake then for Fiona’s. She has come to love her companion well.”
At that moment the little girl came to join them. “Is Alix well now, Fenella?” she asked innocently.
“She will be on the morrow, lass,” Fenella said. “But ’tis your bedtime. I will take you since Alix cannot. You will see her in the morning.” She took the child’s hand and led her from the hall.
Malcolm Scott went to the sideboard and poured himself a dram of his own whiskey. Then he went to sit by the fire and consider what Fenella had told him. What the hell was the matter with a man that he would treat his wife cruelly in their bed? And what cruelty had he inflicted upon her? She was a beautiful young woman of respectable breeding who had been given to the Englishman as a bride. Could he not have enjoyed her favors as well as that of his mistress? Was it necessary to punish her for not being the wife he wanted? Most men never got the wife they wanted. They got the wife who was given to them. He had taken the wife he wanted, and look how well that had turned out. But he could not imagine being cruel to any woman. He had certainly never been cruel to Robena. If he could have saved her, he would have.
I will go slowly with Alix
, he told himself. She deserved to know how sweet passion can be when it is shared between two consenting parties.
I will win her over, and sooner than later.
In the days that followed, the laird’s behavior returned to that which it had been before he had revealed his desire for Alix to her. She was wary of him, but as February ended and March began she grew less so. And then one evening as she returned to the hall to oversee the closing up of the house for the day he called to her.
“Fetch a goblet, Mistress Alix, and sit with me by the fire,” he invited.
Alix did not know why she accepted his invitation, but it seemed more the plea of a lonely man in need of a friend than it did a lustful man attempting to seduce a female. She poured some wine into a cup and came to sit with him. “I smelled spring in the air today,” she said with a small smile. “And the lambs in the paddock are more frolicsome.”
“Spring has not failed us yet,” he agreed. “I would apologize to you, Alix.”
“Apologize? For what need you beg my pardon, my lord?”
“Some weeks back I frightened you, and for that I am sorry,” the laird said.
Alix stiffened. “My lord, I am so happy as Fiona’s companion and teacher. I would want nothing to spoil that.”
“I will not spoil it,” he promised her. “But I would have you tell me why you would find my attentions so repellent.”
Her first thought was to leave him then and there, but she did not. Alix realized the laird, like most men, had been puzzled why she would not want his favors. He was a handsome man, a propertied man, all the things that women were supposed to admire in a gentleman. “My marriage, as you know, my lord, was not a happy one,” Alix began. “I am not unhappy being without a husband.”
“And I am not unhappy being wifeless,” he admitted.
“Yet you would have had me in your bed were I willing,” Alix responded.
He nodded. “Aye, I would.” The laird smiled a small smile.
“You are insulted that I refused you,” Alix said.
“I am curious why you refused me,” he answered her. “Will you tell me why?”
Alix considered his request. He was, she suspected, the kind of man who would not be content until she had told him the truth. But if she told him the truth then he was apt to leave her in peace and seek his pleasure elsewhere. The shame in what had happened between her and Hayle Watteson was not her shame. It had been her husband’s. Alix sighed, and then she began to speak.
“He hated me for not being the girl he loved. Maida was her name. Because it was necessary, he bedded me else the marriage be annulled, because that would have displeased his father mightily. He used me as a man uses a woman. But there was no kindness in it. The room was always in total darkness because he felt guilt at what he believed was a betrayal of his Maida. He did not want to look upon me in those brief moments. He took my virginity quickly, cruelly, then left me alone in that black chamber. And each time our coupling was swiftly accomplished so he might depart and return to the woman he loved. I am only fortunate I did not conceive his child.” Alix did not bother to tell the laird how her own father had protected her from that disaster. “I found our time together unpleasant, and I did not like the coupling. My father told me that it is beautiful with someone you love, but I do not think I will take the chance of being hurt and degraded again. I don’t want to be any man’s wife again.”
Malcolm Scott nodded. The shock of what she had just told him actually hurt him. As he had previously thought, her husband was a fool. She was young, beautiful, and eager to be loved. The man’s treatment of her had been nothing short of barbaric. “I believe I might change your outlook of passion between a man and a woman,” he began slowly, “but I should certainly not force myself upon you.”
“I know naught of passion, my lord,” Alix replied.
“And there is the tragedy,” he told her as he engaged her eyes with his. “Can you give me your trust, Alix? Can you believe I will not harm you if I say it?”
“What do you want of me, my lord?” she asked him, realizing suddenly she was no longer afraid of him even though it was dangerous ground upon which they trod.
“To show you how sweet passion can be,” he said. Then, “Give me your hand.”
Alix complied with the simple request, curious as to what he would do.
Malcolm Scott took the elegant little hand in his own big one. He admired it with his eyes. He raised it to his lips and slowly kissed the back of it with a warm kiss. Then he turned her hand over, exposing the palm, and placed his lips upon the open flesh moving with a lingering motion to the delicate skin of her wrist.
Alix’s heart leaped within her chest at the touch of his lips upon her hand. She had never before experienced anything like it. Indeed it was startling to say the least.
His eyes met hers. “And that, Alix, is but the beginning of passion,” the laird told her. “I hope that you did not find it distasteful.”
She did not break his gaze, saying, “Nay, I did not find it unpleasant, my lord.”
“Your husband had to have been a fool to have treated you so unkindly,” he said.
“I think he was more like a spoiled child,” Alix responded. “He wanted what he wanted, and disdained whatever else was offered him.”
“With your permission I would like to introduce you to passion, Alix,” Malcolm Scott told her. “I believe you will find everything I can offer you pleasant.”
“Ah, my lord, now I see you have not been deterred in your desire to seduce me,” Alix said. “Is it so difficult to understand I never enjoyed the coupling?”
“There is more to passion than just coupling,” he replied. “Let me show you. I will force nothing upon you, Alix, but I cannot allow someone as beautiful as you are, someone with such a warm nature and kind heart, to be denied the delights of passion. Your husband was cruel. I have never even used a whore as he used you.”
“But if I am to continue to educate your daughter, is it right that we should become lovers, my lord?” she asked him.
“My daughter must one day go to the marriage bed. Should it not be you who instructs her in its delights and pleasures so her lord will be well pleased? And how can you do that if all your memories are of a husband who hated and abused you?” he countered.
Alix had to laugh. “It is an excellent argument you make in your wicked efforts, my lord. Have you studied the law, perhaps?”
Now it was the laird who laughed, but he grew sober again when she spoke.
“
If
I should allow you to demonstrate some of the aspects of passion to me, then you must do so discreetly. I will not have the servants gossiping, or Fiona distressed by what she might hear. I must continue to command respect in this hall or my usefulness to you, to your daughter, is finished. I am not certain this is a good idea, but since I can see you will not be satisfied until you have made your point, I will succumb to your blandishments provided that if I say nay, you will accept it.”
“Agreed!” he quickly answered her.
Alix arose from her place by the hearth. “Then I will bid you good night, my lord,” she said curtsying to him.
He stood. “Wait but a moment,” he said, reaching out with one hand to cup her face as he stepped near her. “We must seal our bargain with a kiss, Alix.”
Her eyes widened. He gave her no time to think or even protest. His mouth descended upon hers in a deep, warm kiss that sent a shiver down her spine right to her toes. She had never been really kissed. Hayle’s few attempts had been nasty, and his father’s kiss repellent to her. This kiss was neither. Her eyes closed. Her lips softened as he plundered them tenderly. She felt his arm go about her waist and was grateful, for she wasn’t certain she could stand on her own much longer. She sighed deeply as his kiss slowly concluded.
Then, as he put two firm hands upon her shoulders and gently pushed her back, Alix’s green eyes flew open. “I like your mouth,” he said softly.
“I did not know a kiss could be so delicious,” Alix told him honestly.
“Neither did I,” he admitted. The sweetness, the innocence of her, had surprised him. He could have kissed her again and taken her here before the fire, but he did not. “Go to bed now, Alix,” he said. “It is enough for today.”
She nodded and, turning, departed the hall. It had been enough for a lifetime, Alix thought as she climbed the stairs to her bedchamber. If she died in the night she knew now that his kiss would sustain her through eternity. She had not known! She had not known how wonderful a man’s kiss could be. How good it felt to be held against a man’s hard body and cherished tenderly. And she had learned that all with just one kiss! Flinging herself upon her bed, she wept with both happiness and sorrow. She was filled with sadness that her virginity had been so brutally squandered by Hayle Watteson. If a small kiss could bring about such emotions within her, what would giving herself to this Scotsman be like? Would it be heaven?
Alix sat up. Was she mad? Had the sweetness of his kiss wiped away her memories entirely? Nay, it had not! She shuddered as she recalled her husband mounting her without a word. Jamming his cock into her body with no care for the pain he caused her. She believed he enjoyed giving her pain, enjoyed punishing her for daring to be his wife when he had not wanted her. He had practically said as much one night as he thrust back and forth atop her while she pleaded with him to stop for he was truly hurting her. Her passage was dry, and his movement did nothing to improve it.
“Get yourself with child, you bitch,” he had snarled at her, “and I shall gladly forgo your bed. But until you do I am bound to fuck you and waste my seed in your ugly body.” And he had renewed his efforts, putting his hand over her mouth to stifle her cries of pain when she could bear no more of him.
That was what she knew of coupling. Would being in the laird’s bed be any different? And yet his kiss had been different. Alix swallowed hard. How could she ever consider coupling with a man after what her husband had done to her? The pain and the humiliation he had inflicted upon her. And yet if the kiss had been different, might not the other be as well? Still, to give herself to a man not her husband made her no better than a common whore. Yet the ladies of the court had dallied with men not their husbands. Wouldn’t her sin be less for not deceiving a husband? She was a widow.
Alix took off her jersey gown, and taking the pitcher of water from the coals, she poured some into the little stone basin, washing her hands and face, cleaning her teeth with the little bristle brush that had been her father’s last gift to her. After climbing into her bed, she said her prayers and then tossed restlessly before finally falling asleep. When the new day dawned she was no more near answers to all her questions than she had been the night before. What was she to do?