Amanda Scott (36 page)

“What the devil were you thinking?” he demanded.

Although she opened her mouth to answer him, he gave her no time to do so, giving her another shake as he said, “Not only
did you make me look a fool and risk your own good name to play a stupid, hoydenish prank but you helped your idiotic cousin
run off with someone she scarcely knows.”

“I think she knows him better than we thought,” Anne said, striving to retain at least a semblance of her normal calm.

It was useless.

“You listen to me, my lass. I warned you that I was no man to trifle with or to defy. and the sooner you learn that I mean
what I say, the better it will be for you. You don’t know the first thing about your cousin’s precious jester.”

“But I—”

“Silence! Don’t you see what a chance you took, what a scandal you have brewed? Folks will laugh about this damnable wedding
for years. I believed you the most sensible of women, Anne, but had you purposely set out to destroy your reputation and make
yourself a figure of fun, you could not have done a better job.”

“But I didn’t think about that. I—”

“You didn’t think at all,” he snapped.

She opened her mouth to refute that, but he forestalled her by going on without giving her a chance to speak, and shredding
her character more thoroughly than anyone had ever done before or had cause to do. He did not raise his voice, but neither
did he run out of things to say for so long that she began to fear that he must thoroughly dislike her.

Although she opened her mouth more than once to respond, she got no further, and the longer he went on, the more the pressure
inside her built and the more she wanted to lash back, to tell him she had meant no harm, that she had wanted only to help
Fiona and to protect him. But she said none of those things, although her silence now stemmed only from her guilt.

She did nod the two times he asked curtly if she was listening. But before long she stopped trying to respond or even to listen,
letting his words spill over her in a battering flood. His anger remained palpable, but she could not blame him for it, so
she simply endured the storm until at last he fell silent.

The silence lengthened then until she wondered if he were just trying to think of other, more dreadful things to say to her.

“Anne-lassie, the reasons you offered for your actions won’t serve,” he said then with surprising gentleness. “Despite all
I have said to you, I don’t believe you agreed to stand in for Fiona just so she could make some witless point in defiance
of her mother’s wishes, or even so she could run away with her damnable jester.”

Anne’s throat tightened, and although his furious scolding had not made her cry, her eyes welled again now and a tear spilled
down her cheek.

“Ah, sweetheart, I’m a beast,” he said, using his thumb to brush it away.

“No, you are not,” she said, meeting his gaze at last. “You said nothing I did not deserve to hear. It is just that my father
sometimes called me Anne-lassie.”

“Tell me the true reason you dared to do all this,” he said, moving both hands back to her shoulders, but gently this time.

“He said Eustace would kill you if you married Fiona, that Eustace
wants
to kill you.”

“Who said that?”

“Willie.”

He stared at her. “You know who he is?”

“I know his name is Willie Armstrong. He told me so before he left.”

His eyes narrowed. “Then you
did
know what they intended to do.”

“No,” she assured him hastily. “Only that he was worried about your safety. He said he was going to ride to Dun-sithe to tell
your friends you might need their help. He said nothing about Fiona, and she said nothing about him. I thought he had already
gone. And Fiona was still in her room when I left the house. She knows her worth, too, so I cannot imagine that she eloped
with a mere jester!”

Kit smiled, and she was relieved to see it. “He is an Armstrong,” he said. “In fact, although I did not know it until recently,
his father was one of their chieftains and cousin to Mangerton of Liddesdale, a close ally of the Carmichaels. Therefore,
I doubt Sir Stephen would have forbidden the match, although your aunt may not like it. And while Armstrongs of any ilk take
what they want when they want it, Willie would not take that lass against her will.”

“I’m sure he did not,” Anne said. “Mayhap Aunt Olivia will be so relieved to learn that he is no mere jester that she will
not scold too fiercely,” Anne said.

“I don’t care if she does,” he retorted. “Clearly, Willie and Fiona are even more to blame for this mess than you are, although—”

“Pray, sir, don’t start again unless you truly want to turn me into a watering pot,” she said. “I have apologized as abjectly
as I know how and I was meek and silent whilst you scolded me, although I very much wanted to defend myself. You have made
your point, though, so I expect you can go inside now and tell the cardinal that he can grant your annulment.”

“May I, indeed?”

His grim tone caused her to look at him more searchingly. “It is what you want, is it not?”

“No, sweetheart, it is not. When you lifted your veil, I was shocked and my first inclination was to throttle you for your
deception, but only because I feared what you might suffer as a result. If I’ve somehow made you believe that I’m disappointed
or angry that I married you, you should know that I am not disappointed at all. On the contrary, I have
never
been so relieved as I was when I realized I had married you and
not
your simpleton cousin.”

“She is not a simpleton!”

“Don’t argue with your husband, madam. It is most unbecoming. Moreover, since I am still vexed with you, it is also foolhardy.
I think you had better try to placate me instead.”

“Indeed, sir, and how should I do that?”

“Like this,” he said as he drew her close and kissed her.

A
nne responded instantly and willingly to Kit’s kiss. Her body had reacted to his touch from the day they met, and now, knowing
that she could give herself freely without feeling guilty about Fiona, she felt no reluctance at all.

His mouth claimed hers hungrily, and the fiery sensations that shot through her as she kissed him back warmed her soul as
much as her body.

In that first moment, amidst myriad other emotions, that of relief stood uppermost, relief that he did not, after all, dislike
her but shared many of her feelings. Even as her body reacted to the relief, however, melting against his and taking comfort
as well as pleasure in his powerful embrace, passion overtook every other emotion, causing her body and mind to merge in a
torrent of physical sensations unlike any she had ever known.

He kept one arm around her shoulders, holding her close, as his other hand moved caressingly over her body exploring its planes
and curves in search of those secret places most sensitive to his touch. It moved from her shoulder down her arm to her sides
and hip, then to the small of her back and slowly but inexorably back up her side to cup her breast. Every nerve ending stirred,
tingling to be touched and stroked, and she began to caress him the same way, delighting in the soft texture of his velvet
doublet and the hard muscles beneath it, as her imagination toyed with the secret wonders she had not yet seen.

As his thumb caressed the tip of her breast, his tongue thrust into her mouth.

Gasping, she thrust her own daringly back at it.

Suddenly, she felt well and truly married, certainly much more so than she had felt while standing by the altar on the chapel
porch, hearing Beaton speak the words that bound them together. Her tongue dueled with his until a bubble of laughter rose
in her throat that might have burst had there not been so many other, more overwhelming, less familiar emotions that easily
trumped it.

With her body pressed hard against his, she easily recognized his desire as his lower body stirred against hers, and her yearning
for him to possess her increased. Muscles tensed that she had not known before even existed.

Kit gripped her shoulders with both hands again, holding her tightly as he ended the kiss, straightened, and looked seriously
down into her eyes.

“Well?” he said.

She detected a note of tension in his voice and wondered at it.

“Well, what?” she said softly. “Why did you stop?”

“Because if I hadn’t, in a moment I’d have taken you right here on the path, and I thought perhaps I should find out first
if you would object.”

“Why should I?”

His eyes began to dance. “For one thing, I doubt we can count on having much more time alone here before someone comes to
see if I’ve murdered you.”

A trill of laughter escaped her. “I doubt that Olivia would come, but oh, if she did, how she would shriek!”

“She would say such behavior shows no respect for her mourning,” he said, grinning, “but more likely, she would send that
officious steward of hers to find us.”

Anne chuckled, easily able to imagine Malcolm’s reaction.

“Look, lass,” Kit said, “if you want me to request an annulment—”

“I did expect it,” she admitted.

“Well, then, I shall tell Beat—”

“But I don’t want one if you don’t,” she said quickly, feeling unexpected shyness at the knowledge that she was behaving badly
again by putting her wishes forward in such a blunt way.

But Kit only grinned. “In that case,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders again, “let us instantly retire to my
bedchamber.”

She laughed again. “We cannot do that. We must attend the wedding feast.”

“Why?”

“Well, just because,” she said. “Everyone expects us, and it is what newly married people do.”

“Do you
want
to go?”

Involuntarily, she shuddered. “It will be horrid,” she said, “but we must go.”

“On the contrary,” he said. “If it will be horrid, we absolutely must not.”

“But—”

“No, sweetheart,” he said firmly, his eyes still dancing. “You must cease this unnatural habit of arguing with your husband.
I command you to accompany me to my bedchamber and let the folks in the hall enjoy our wedding feast without us. Just think
of it as being ordered to bed without your dinner. I’ll wager
that
has happened to you more than once in your life.”

“Aye, it has,” she agreed, “albeit not with the same consequences.”

“So I should hope,” he said, chuckling as he urged her on toward the plank bridge near the stableyard. “We’ll use that handy
kitchen door again, I think, and if we are so unfortunate as to meet anyone on the stairs, we’ll just hope it’s a servant
who is willing to procure some food for us and deliver it upstairs.”

They met no one on the first flight or afterward, because every servant was busy, if not working in the kitchen then carrying
food to the hall or empty trays and platters back to the scullery. They went on past the gallery on which Anne’s room and
Fiona’s were located to the floor that connected both sides of the house, and then down again to the gallery on which Kit’s
room and Eustace’s faced.

When Kit opened his door with a flourish and Anne stepped inside, she felt suddenly shy again, for she had never entered a
man’s bedchamber other than that of her brother or father. Nothing about this one proclaimed its masculinity, however. The
servant who had waited on him that morning had tidied it before leaving, the furniture and fireplace were in the same places
as Anne’s, so except for the dark red curtains in place of her blue ones, the room looked much as hers did.

Hearing the door shut and the lock snap into place, she turned with a start to find him just behind her, hands behind his
back, watching her.

“Art sure, Anne-lassie?” he said, his voice low and a little gruff.

“Aye, sir, if you are,” she said calmly.

He needed no further encouragement but took her in his arms again and kissed her gently, then more passionately, before he
scooped her into his arms and carried her toward the bed. Standing beside it, he murmured, “Do you know about being married,
sweetheart? What married folk do when they share a bed?”

“Aye, sir, I have a good notion, for my mother explained much of it to me.”

“A wise mother,” he said. “Are you frightened?”

“Not with you,” she said.

He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m going to stir up the fire a bit, to take the chill off this room. You take off your shoes
and anything else that you can manage by yourself. I’ll help you with your laces and such.”

“You sound quite knowledgeable, sir,” she said, smiling as he sat her on the edge of his bed.

“Art jealous, lass?”

“Should I be?”

“Nay, I’ve lived like a monk for nearly two years.”

“And before that?”

“Before that does not concern you.”

“Does what I did concern you?”

He chuckled, dropping to one knee to deal with the fire and looking at her over his shoulder. “Have you so many secrets to
hide from your husband, Annie?”

“I do not know that it should concern you,” she said, putting her nose in the air. “If you do not tell me about your horrid
past, then I need not admit mine.”

He smiled as he reached for a log to throw atop the embers. “I’ll know soon enough if you’ve got anything to hide, sweetheart.
Whether you need to explain it or not can wait until then, but as amusing as this conversation might be, for a wife to keep
secrets from her husband is unwise.”

“What about the husband?” She watched him narrowly.

“Secrets on either side can damage a marriage, I should think,” he said, standing and moving toward her as he added quietly,
“although there may come a time when for reasons of defense or political necessity a man must keep his actions secret from
all whom he may feel he cannot trust. And trust is not given lightly.”

She nodded, understanding his point. But then, looking directly at him, she said. “And what of personal matters, or questions
having to do with the character of the man? I should think such details provide the foundation of that trust.”