Cait and the Devil (9 page)

“What an unpleasant man,” she said. “Thank you very much for not leaving.” She started towards the garden, her mind troubled. “I don’t think I’d care to be with him alone.”

“I need no thanks. The earl charges me to stay by you, lady, and so I do.”

“You can call me Caitlyn if you like. My friends call me
Cait
.”

“I
canna
call you
Cait
or Caitlyn, lady. But I appreciate the offer all the same. And I think...” His voice trailed off uncertainly. “I think you would do best, lady, not ever to be alone with the older earl.”

She stopped again, looking at him soberly. “Thank you for your sage advice. I’ll be sure to let the earl know how faithfully you serve him.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied
Mitchum
with a shadow of a smile.

* * * * *

That night at dinner
Cait
was relieved that the older man, Lord Douglas, was seated on the opposite side of her husband. She still heard his jibes to his son about his saucy wife. If she had her wish she wouldn’t have come to the table at all while he was there. She would rather have stayed to her room until he was gone. She couldn’t explain it, but Lord Douglas caused her a deep uneasiness. Even her father had not frightened her so much. And though she didn’t look at him, had no intention of ever meeting his cold hard eyes again, she felt them on her and it made something shivery and sick coil in her belly. Surely it would anger the earl if she showed disrespect to his father, but she didn’t think she could smile at him no matter how hard she tried.

Fortunately her husband seemed to sense her discomfort. He sent her to her room the minute she’d finished her meal. Perhaps he only tired of listening to his father’s disparaging banter about her. Either way, it was with relief that she stood to exit the hall.

“Wait!” his father said. “Is that how you take leave of your husband’s table?”

Cait
froze, and her gaze flew to her husband’s.

“It is no matter,” Duncan said. “We don’t keep formal manners here.”

“We do at my keep, and I’m accustomed to the ladies taking their leave with a pleasant curtsy and a ‘good eve.’”

Her husband looked at her, the color rising around his neckline, whether from anger or embarrassment, she didn’t know. She dipped into a half-hearted curtsy and managed, through great effort, to meet the awful man’s eyes.

“Good eve to you, my lord.”

“And good eve to you, lass,” he replied in a voice dripping with disdain.

Cait
felt absolutely humiliated.

“Good eve, Caitlyn,” said Duncan quietly, although she heard the fury in his tone.

She fled to the shelter of her room and shut the door. It was a warm night but she shivered violently. She climbed into bed, pulling the covers over her head. But she couldn’t get warm and she couldn’t rest even when the keep quieted around her. She felt a strange agitation that wouldn’t let her sleep. When she closed her eyes, Lord Douglas’s visage rose before her, and she feared if she fell asleep he would come to her in her dreams.

At last, she crept from her bed and over to the door, the door to the room she’d been warned, on pain of punishment, never to enter.
His room.
She didn’t know if he’d yet retired for the night, but she was too unquiet to stay in her room alone.

She turned the heavy lock, the lock Henna checked every night. It opened with a soft click. She pushed the door and peeked into the moonlit darkness.

He was there, staring right at her from the bed.

* * * * *

Duncan was still awake, fuming over his father’s unannounced visit. Pretty much every word he’d spoken since he arrived had been some form of criticism or disrespect.
And his father’s treatment of Caitlyn...
It had taken every measure of his hard-won control and self-discipline to keep from throttling the old man to death by the neck.

His rudeness to her at dinner had been insupportable. She had looked to Duncan to save her, and he ought to have defended her, but it only would have fed his father’s ire and prolonged a humiliating episode he was certain his father enjoyed. Instead, all he’d wanted to do was get her away from his father’s presence. His father loved to insult and embarrass women, but it was something else altogether to see it visited on
Cait
. Until Douglas left, he’d do a better job of protecting her. He’d be sure to tell her guards to do the same.

He wondered if she was angry with him for not defending her, and whether she had cried after she scurried from the hall. Well, of course she’d cried. She cried at everything. He had the sudden urge to check on her, just to peek into her room and be sure she was sleeping. It couldn’t hurt, could it? The door would be locked, but he could use the hall door. And if she was still awake, he could hold her, soothe her. Explain that it wasn’t her fault, that it was his father, that he was the one flawed...

But no, if he held her there would be no explaining. There would be no talking or soothing or anything except him ripping off her shift and burying himself to the hilt between her thighs.

With a soft groan, he felt his member pulse to life just imagining it. Just imagining it for a second was enough to keep him up all night. He was just about to take himself in hand when he heard the lock click, a tiny sound, but unmistakable. The door opened a crack and her haunting eyes peered through the half light of the moon to meet his. She gasped softly, but she didn’t close the door. Instead, she opened it wider and sidled into his room, pressing back against the door as if, that way, she might not break the rule about entering.

He watched her from where he sat, in a conundrum. He was unclothed and fully aroused. There was no way to rise from the bedclothes and show
himself
to her without frightening her right back out of the room. And he didn’t want her to leave because she was obviously troubled. The very fact that she would break his emphatic rule and enter his room was evidence of that.

So he sat right where he was and waited to hear her speak.

“I...I’m sorry to disobey you. I...I had to come in.” The poor thing was terrified he’d be angry.

“Why did you have to come in?” he prompted softly.

“B...Because...I’m cold.”

He frowned. “It’s not at all cold, Caitlyn. It’s warm tonight, so if you’re cold I’m afraid you may be ill. Come here to the bed. Let me check for fever.”

She pulled her blanket more tightly around her shoulders in some unconscious gesture of defense, but he could have it off her in an instant, and the flimsy shift she wore beneath. She approached him as if she knew there was danger. He reached out to place roughened fingers against her forehead, then down the side of her face, against her porcelain cheeks. He looked into her eyes.

“No fever. You feel fine to me. Are you really cold, or do you have another reason for being here? Do not tell lies, Caitlyn. I don’t like it.”

“I... I...”

“Were you upset by my father today?”

“Yes,” she whispered in relief. “He...scares me a little.”

“I completely understand. He dealt with you very rudely and I apologize for it, although I’m sure he’ll do it again. You must understand that’s just his way. Unfortunately, he is my father, so you must show him respect as far as you can.”

“Yes, sir.”
He knew she would, only because he asked it of her. She really was remarkably obedient. His cock throbbed from the trusting, open way she looked at him. She leaned closer so he could feel her heat. The sweetness of her soft breath washed over him, stealing his control.

“I’m... I’m so sorry if I embarrassed you. If you were displeased with me...”

“I was not displeased. I am never displeased with you. I know
I
...” Without meaning to, he reached to take a lock of her black hair between his fingers, twirling it. “I know it seems I am distant, that I don’t care for you. But Caitlyn, there’s a reason for that.”

Silence stretched out between them.

“What reason?” she finally asked.

Duncan frowned. “I’m not really certain if you’re ready yet to become my true wife.”

She drew a soft breath of surprise. “What...what do you mean?
Your true wife?”

He dropped her hair and ran his knuckles down her velvet cheek. “Wives and husbands, they can share certain...intimacies with each other if they wish. But it requires bravery, and hard work.”

“What kind of work?” she asked, so eagerly that it touched his heart. “I’m good at doing work. I don’t mind it at all.”

“I know, Caitlyn. But it’s hard, complicated work, like no work you’ve done before. And it takes a lot of practice and a lot of courage. I’m not sure you’re ready for it.”

“No,” she protested, wide-eyed. “I am. If you’ll just teach me, I promise I will do whatever you wish.”

If you’ll just teach me...
If she hadn’t said those words to him, he might have been able to resist. If she hadn’t said them so beautifully, with that perfect balance of eagerness and submission, he might have found the strength to say,
no, not yet. You’re still too innocent to be used the way I want to use you.
But she had said the words perfectly, and then, as if that wasn’t enough to break him, she’d followed with
I promise I will do whatever you wish.

What could he do? Such words were impossible to withstand. So he put his hands on the coarse wool blanket she’d wrapped around herself and said, “All right. I’ll teach you, Caitlyn. If you’re absolutely sure you’re ready to learn.”

Chapter Six

He took the blanket from around her shoulders and laid it across his bed, so she stood before him clothed only in her shift. It was thin, fine linen and it left nothing to his imagination, but she seemed to believe it offered her some protection, because when he reached for the ties of it, she frowned.

“You are not ready,” he said.

“No, I am. But will I...will you...?”

“In this room, Caitlyn, when we are alone together, you will be unclothed. As soon as you enter this room you’ll bare yourself for me immediately, every time. Do you know why that is?”

“No,” she whispered, blushing furiously, but letting his fingers untie the ivory ribbons one by one.

“Because in this room, your body will belong to me.
Your husband.
And I will enjoy looking at it whenever and however I please.”

“Oh,” she said as he drew the flimsy garment away from her. By pure instinct, her hands sought to cover her breasts, her
mons
.

“And you will not hide yourself from me, of course. Wives do not do that.
Not obedient wives, anyway.”

Slowly, her hands dropped to her sides.

“Let me look at you. You are a beautiful woman.”

“Am I?”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t find the words. His hands
basked
on her skin, ran over the curve of her waist, the taut flatness of her belly, the hard tips of her aroused nipples. He ran his thumb over the dusky pink peaks and almost lost himself when she gasped and closed her eyes. Without thinking, he leaned over to take her in his mouth.
First one lovely breast and then the other,
laving
and nibbling the treasures with his tongue and lips.