book JdM6x1406931-20978754 (9 page)

Angus lifted the strap and brought it down once and then again upon her backside, scarcely able to believe how greatly it stirred him to punish her that way. Indeed, he felt his yard leap with passion at the sound of each of the slaps and swell as he saw the red marks he had left.

Elisabeth’s eyes watered, and she gave two little gasps when he struck her, but she still looked up at him with the defiance in her eyes that seemed to rob him of his reason.

He dropped the fabric of his shirt from his left hand, letting it fall atop his yard, where his stiffness held it up. With that left hand he took hold of Elisabeth’s long red-gold hair and pulled her face in against his loins while he continued to strap her.

“Look at my yard, wife. You will take it in your pretty little lady’s mouth, or I will strap this arse of yours until nightfall.”

She was crying now and yelping at each stroke of the strap, and Angus felt like he was in a mist of fiery red desire.

“Open your mouth, Elisabeth,” he said, and she opened her mouth. He stopped the motions of the strap. Still holding her by the hair, he pulled her head back, then released it and took his yard upon his fingers, brandishing it, and then moving his hips forward, put it inside her mouth just a little ways. The feeling was beyond belief.

“Good lass,” he said in a voice that sounded strained with pleasure. “Good lass. Just a bit further, now.” With his left hand in her hair again, he held her head still as he pushed further, careful not to go too deep so that she would not take fright. Thus he went back and forth for a little while, groaning with the sensation in his yard and with the sight of his lovely noble bride with a man’s staff in her mouth.

Elisabeth’s eyes were closed; they had been closed since he had begun to strap her backside. Now they opened and she looked up at him. He had been prepared for a look of sheer hatred there, but instead he saw that she was looking questioningly into his eyes, to see if he was pleased with her. It was so unexpected to see her suddenly submit thus with her eyes, that without thinking about it, in a bodily response that sought only to increase his own pleasure in mastering Elisabeth this way, he brought the strap down again upon her little bottom—not hard, in chastisement, but with just the tiniest bit of sting, to remind her that she was his.

Elisabeth’s response was even more astonishing to him than her open eyes had been. At the feeling of the strap upon her backside, she moaned around his yard. He struck her again, harder, and she moaned again, and her body seemed to squirm with pleasure. Overcome with pleasure, he thrust deeper than he intended into her mouth and felt her yield her throat to him. The sensation was so unbearably lovely that he brought the strap down, and it seemed to make her mouth yield even more. She gagged then, though, and he pulled out of her mouth and brought the strap down again. The look upon her face was one of such transport, though her eyes were streaming with tears and her hair was now utterly disheveled, that he could hardly believe she had refused, just a few moments ago, to take him into her mouth.

Was that the secret of her strange behavior? Did she resist only that he might overmaster her and tame her like a wild creature?

To make trial of the notion, he brought the strap down again upon her bottom and said, “Open that little mouth again, Elisabeth. Open it this instant.”

With the same look of transport, she complied, and he thrust in again and began to fuck in earnest. He realized he was very close to spending. Part of him wanted to debase her utterly and in a way that she would never have imagined by making her swallow his seed, but suddenly he found the prospect of making her watch his yard spend and of befouling her lovely, creamy skin with his seed even more lewdly appealing.

He pulled her face away from his loins and held her there in readiness, as she moaned, and said, “Watch now, wife. You are now to see your husband’s seed.” He dropped the strap and took his yard into his hand and pumped it, slick with his bride’s spittle, until with a grunt he was spending all over her—her cheeks, her shoulders, her chin.

She was blushing furiously as she watched, but the look of humiliated pleasure was still upon her face even as her cheeks grew red as apples. Then he knelt with her and gathered her into his chest, saying, “Good lass, good lass. You were so pleasing.”

“Oh, no,” Elisabeth said. “You’ll get your… seed… on your shirt.”

He smiled. “Perhaps it sorts better there than on your fair skin, my dearling.”

“Oh, no—not at all. And shall I not be the one who must wash it out? What gets a husband’s seed out of his shirt, do you know?” She giggled. She seemed so different from the woman she had been only a few minutes before, when she had refused to please him.

Then, however, suddenly, the Lady of Urquhart returned. “May I dress, husband, and cook your breakfast?” she asked.

Mystified, he said, “Yes, Elisabeth.”

She rose, and not looking at him, she donned her shift and arisaid. She went to the basin that he had filled with water, first, and cleaned herself delicately where his seed had spurted upon her. Then, he watched her look about the house and finally find the cabinet that served as the pantry. For a few minutes, her efforts seemed so diligent that it did not occur to him that there was no way at all she could have the slightest idea how to cook a breakfast.

Later that day, Fiona MacGregor, the wife of Angus’ cousin Big Alan (to distinguish him from Calum’s brother Little Alan), came to Glanaidh afoot to help teach Elisabeth about things like breakfasts and feeding animals and tending the kitchen garden. Since the death of Calum and Little Alan’s mother the winter before, the garden had fallen to a ruin, and the men had gone to Achmonie for most of their dinners, but Fiona helped Elisabeth begin to till it again.

There was no doubt that Elisabeth was very clever; watching her, Angus’ bosom swelled with pride to see how quickly she could follow Fiona’s instructions. A tear came to his eye as he watched Fiona give Elisabeth a new kertch and show her how to fasten the fine linen that signified the married state to her hair.

And Elisabeth’s manner to the experienced, kindly Highland wife was not disrespectful, to be sure. But something in his bride’s looks and words, as she learned to do her work, troubled Angus, though for a great while he did not know the nature of the trouble. Elisabeth would say “I understand” or “Thank you, Fiona.” She would imitate Fiona’s actions almost perfectly, even when it came to the complicated matters of carding and spinning—and this in particular made Angus very happy, for if Elisabeth could learn to spin well, they would be able to bring yarn to the weaver again, as they had when his mother and Calum’s mother had both been alive, instead of selling the fleeces at such a low price.

But she never smiled at Fiona, and she never laughed at Fiona’s little quips. Fiona was a kind, wonderful lass, which was why he had asked specially if she might come, when he ran down to Achmonie after he had to find breakfast for both of them from the cold mutton (thankfully there had been much remaining on the spit). He knew Elisabeth would like Fiona, because no one could fail to like Fiona, and he thought Fiona might even take to Elisabeth, for he himself had seen how very agreeable his noble bride could be at the right moment. But by the end of the day, he could see that Fiona had not taken to Angus’ new wife, and he had to talk very sweetly indeed to convince her to come again in the morning.

When Fiona had gone back to Achmonie, Angus said to Elisabeth, “Come into the house.”

She looked into his face and, he thought, read his displeasure there. She turned and walked to their house, and he followed. Calum and Alan were tending the sheep, which was just as well, because he intended to make her wail very loudly if he had to, in order to teach her the lesson he thought he needed to teach her.

Chapter Eleven

She knew she had been unkind to Fiona MacGregor. When Angus had told her that Fiona was coming to help her learn, she had remembered the kindly, slim red-haired woman from the wedding feast, and she had felt so thankful in her heart that her husband knew that Elisabeth needed that kind of help from another woman, just to get her started.

But when Fiona had arrived, her easiness there at Glanaidh—the little jokes she shared with Angus and the brothers, jokes that must go back years and that Elisabeth, she thought, could never hope to be a part of—made Elisabeth stiffen in her arisaid and would not let her show Fiona how much Elisabeth longed for a friend—for a mother, even—to help her learn to be a crofter’s wife. Not a syllable had passed her lips that was aught but respectful and even gracious, but try as she might, she had not been able to smile once, either, no matter how many times Fiona jested about Angus’ big hands and (graciously, really) professed bawdy envy that Elisabeth had felt the massive yard all the MacGregor women had wanted to see since Angus had turned eighteen.

It was wrong pride, and she knew it, but she had not been able to help herself. Something in her soul required feeding by playing the Lady of Urquhart. Something due to her Stewart mother, perhaps, or to her Norman father. If Fiona MacGregor, the wife of Big Alan, thought that she was the most important woman at Glanaidh, she had another think coming.

She opened the door of the little house and stepped inside. Already she knew to go immediately to the hearth. Already she knew how to bank the embers; there was some right pride in that, at least. And to tend the hearth both gave her something to do as she waited to face Angus’ ire and, she knew, presented Angus with a picture of an obedient Highland wife that might soften that ire.

She had become weary already, she thought, of denying that to face his ire had that strange attraction for her. Truly she had not been unwelcoming to Fiona because she wanted Angus to strap her, but the thought that he might strap her because she had been inhospitable made her uncomfortably warm, once again, between her thighs.

She kept banking the peat upon the hearth long after it was burning well because she did not want to turn to face Angus.

At last, when the door had long closed behind him, he said, “Stop that, Elisabeth, and go and bend over the bed. I am going to strap you.”

Still without looking at him, grateful beyond measure that it appeared she would not have to meet his eye but would only feel his strap, she obeyed.

“Take off your arisaid and raise your shift before you assume your place over the bed, if you please, Elisabeth.”

She obeyed in this particular as well. Her face was to the mattress, her backside bare. She heard him take the strap from its hook.

“Why am I going to strap you, Elisabeth?” he asked.

The question was easily answered, and it fired her blood even more to have to reply to him. “Because I was inhospitable,” she said.

“How can you know your fault and be so ready to confess it, and yet not correct it?” he asked in exasperation. The strap came down upon her bottom, and she cried out. She remembered what it had felt like that morning, how suddenly all her defiance at his shameful command to take his yard into her mouth had seemed to melt away into the warmth of her cunny the moment she had felt him punish her.

It could go on this, way, could it not? She would hold to her pride, even when it was wrong pride, and he would beat her and take her with the yard that, if Fiona were to be believed, might well be the biggest in all Inverness-shire, and they would both have that pleasure that seemed like it could burn down stone walls with its heat. Eventually, years from now, she could imagine saying prideful things to earn a whipping, when she needed it, the way she needed it now.

Again and again he beat her, and she felt the warmth grow and grow and trickle down her thighs. She squirmed against the bed, and she realized she had almost reached that state he had brought upon her yesternight with his yard. Her cunny seemed to be in flames, and she was clenching her bottom and whimpering.

And he stopped. The strap did not fall again, when it felt to her as if one more blow would lift her to the stars. She cried out wordlessly, and forgetting even that there was such a thing as shame, she moved her hips against the bed, desperately looking for a release of the molten gold that seemed to fill her belly.

“Stop that this instant, Elisabeth,” she heard him growl. “You are a wicked, wicked girl.” His hand was on her cunny, rubbing, and then…

“Oh, no,” she cried. “No, Angus, please…” He was parting her bottom cheeks. He had his finger on the little hole there, and he was pushing.

“No…”

“Let me in, you wicked girl. Wicked girls need special kinds of punishment, don’t they?”

She sobbed as his finger entered her there, where she had never contemplated a man might even touch her, let alone put a finger inside.

“Oh, heavens, Angus… oh, gracious God…”

She could not help it, by any means, in heaven or on earth. She tightened all the muscles of her bottom and her loins, around the finger in her little hole and around the fiery, aching wetness of her cunny.

And then the finger was gone. “You are not going to spend now, Elisabeth. You were inhospitable to Fiona, and you are being punished.”

She heard him hang the strap back upon its hook and then heard him open the door and go out to help with the folding of the flocks. She gave a little sob. How was she to endure this? How could she possibly hide her submission from him?

* * *

When he came in again, he found her contritely straightening up the house, trying to make it neater than she thought he must have seen it in years. She had swept the floor and dusted the little shelves with the old cups and plates, and now she was again tending the fire.

He stood just inside the doorway for a long moment. She did not dare look at him as she felt the lingering pain of the strap upon her backside. She looked into the fire.

“Elisabeth,” he said.

She turned to meet his eyes. “Yes, My Lord?” she asked.