Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03] (27 page)

“See you,” he said, pushing to his feet, “a man ought to ne’er allow another to do what he can best do hisself!”

Amicia straightened her back, wet her lips. She, too, would soon be disrobing. The act was upon her, for Dagda had ceased fussing with the mantle and was striding forward, her purpose writ plain upon her face.

She’d coiled her silver-shot hair at the nape of her neck, braiding it with shiny black ribbon in honor of the occasion. At first glance, this gave the impression of glossy-bright dark hair unmarred by the coarse gray threads that marked her advancing years.

The many candles someone had troubled to set ablaze flattered Dagda as well, their soft golden light smoothing the lines and furrows in her most-times tight-drawn face.

For one eerie moment, Amicia’s breath caught. Even the old woman’s step seemed more brisk and sure than usual. Something about her gave the unsettling sensation of glimpsing the seneschal as she must’ve been as a much younger woman.

A strikingly handsome one who’d suffered great tragedy and loss as the severe planes in her face and the silvery gleam of age-grayed hair at her temples once more attested.

Shivering, and not because of the room’s cold, damp air, Amicia blinked a few times until the clansmen’s high spirits and ribaldry reclaimed her attention and all vestiges of long-lost youth slipped from the old woman’s countenance.

“Be you prepared?” Dagda was asking, her voice carrying in the crowded chamber—the suddenly quiet chamber.

Crackling anticipation stood on every staring face as the seneschal placed two sturdy hands on Amicia’s shoulders, holding her so that her back was turned to Magnus.

“You need not flush so. He is not yet fully unclothed,” Dagda said, her gaze sharp. “He stands beside your bed clad in his braies, thin though they be,” she revealed, the twinkle in her eye turning mischievous. “Tradition deems that you must watch his men remove his braies and he, then, must look on as I disrobe you.”

“The way I mind it, tradition demands we must
all
look on,” a drink-slurred voice burst out from near the door.

“And decency deems we keep those looks to a minimum—and fleeting,” Hugh spoke up. “I’d mind you not forget it.”

The man gave him an owl-eyed stare. “Faugh, Hugh! Do you ken how long it’s been since I—” he started to protest but then lifted his hands in mute surrender as he sagged against the doorjamb.

Ignoring him, for the man was clearly too ale-headed to cause a disturbance even if he wished to try, Dagda aimed a censorious stare at Janet and Colin.

They’d seized the slight furor to begin moving around the chamber dousing candles until naught remained to light the room save the reddish glow of the peat fire and the thick waxen night candle burning on its pricket beside the bed.

Amicia silently blessed them, her heart warming ever more toward her husband’s bastard cousin.

Dagda cleared her throat. “I ask you again,” she began anew, “are you prepared to have your husband look on your nakedness and judge you worthy . . . or nay?”

I ache for him to look on my nakedness!

I burn to see his.

Amicia almost cried out the words.

But she kept her secret wishes to herself and simply nodded, her stomach fluttering and her mouth going dry despite her mounting excitement.

“A nod will not suffice. You must speak the words we rehearsed earlier.”

Amicia drew a long breath. “Aye, I am prepared to inspect my husband’s nakedness and have him do likewise of mine,” she said, her cheeks flaming hotter with each spoken word.

“Then turn and behold him.” Dagda deftly maneuvered her to face him.

Embarrassed or nay, a thrill of pure, hot-streaming desire shot straight to the deepest reaches of her female heat.

Faith, but he took her breath away.

Tall, broad-shouldered, and golden, his magnificence wrapped itself around her, igniting her senses and sending the most delicious sensations winding all through her.

Even just glancing at his well-muscled calves, so powerful and pleasingly-formed, their shape well-defined and pressing against the light linen covering of his braies, made her mouth run dry and her heart skitter out of control.

An insistent pulsing began low by her thighs and an exquisite heaviness started spreading through the lowest part of her belly as every inch of her tingled with awareness.

Saints of mercy, she scarce had need to
see
her husband’s bare-bottomed virility—sheer and vibrant masculine power pulsed and throbbed along the whole glorious length of him.

Towering over his kinsmen any hour of the day, standing amongst them
near naked
and with the fire glow casting a luminous sheen across his wide-set shoulders and handsome brow, his sheer presence dwarfed every man in the room . . . even the brawniest, toughest-looking souls.

A gasp of awe slipped from her lips . . . a soft, little
ooooh,
which brought hoots and guffaws from the clansmen.

“Noble and puissant, eh, lass?” a great bear of a black-bearded Islesman teased, wiggling his ears at her.

Amicia flushed, well-versed enough in fleshly matters to ken exactly what part of her husband’s body the well-girthed giant meant.

Magnus only arched a russet brow, his clear blue gaze decidedly pleased.

Or amused.

He stood looking at her with his arms folded across his chest and his legs braced slightly apart. A slight upward turn at the corners of his mouth allowed a faint hint of his dimples to wink at her, enchanting her in ways just as heart-catching as the gleam of well-toned muscles and manly brawn.

His eyes seemed to darken as he watched her with a heavy-lidded, hot-smoldering gaze that sent little flames of thrilling desire licking across her every nerve ending.

Truth be told, she was melting.

He
appeared thoroughly at ease, both in his near nakedness and with her perusal of him.

Indeed, the slight jerking of a muscle in his jaw proved the only outward sign that he found any part of the proceedings not wholly to his liking.

Not that she could have stopped looking at him even if she’d wanted to—which she didn’t.

So she continued to study him, her most private place tingling and throbbing when her gaze lit and lingered on his chest.

Ne’er had she seen a more fetching one.

A light dusting of red-gold hairs spread across his chest muscles and down the center of his hard-slabbed abdomen to vanish beneath the rolled waistband of his braies—and
oooh
did she ache to explore those wee fine hairs.

They glistened like spun gold in the firelight. And just
thinking
about touching them, mayhap rubbing her cheek against them to test their friction against the smoothness of her own skin, made her heart pound and intensified the hot-beating pulse drumming so fiercely between her thighs.

Aye, everything about him inflamed her—and he had nary a need to be
examined
for proof of his virility.

The most tantalizing allure poured off him, his masculinity so pure and strong, anyone who’d dare question it would surely put themselves at risk of being struck down by the wrath of some furious Celtic god.

Nay, his manhood stood without doubt.

In especial, there, beneath the thin linen of his braies where the heavy bulge of his sex was clearly defined. Blessedly,
not
standing, but imposing all the same. The power of its potency came to her in great, bone-melting waves and overlaid the whole of the room with a musky-dark masculine aura of power.

Power, and barely contained . . . desire.

Her desire.

Her sudden and indescribable need to see more—to see all of him.

“I’m a-thinking it’s time to test the lad’s mettle,” an older clansman declared, stepping forward.

Tossing back his mane of coarse, steel-gray hair, he fixed a piercing stare on Amicia even as he reached for the waistband of Magnus’s braies. “Ha, Magnus! Let the lassie see—”

“My wife can see all she desires and more,” Magnus said, seizing the graybeard’s wrist before the man’s stretching fingers could get anywhere near the rolled waistband. “But I shall do the disrobing myself.”

From the corner of his eye, Magnus caught Colin slip from Janet’s side to snatch Magnus’s plaid from where it lay, rumpled and discarded on the bed.

And bless the knave’s well-loved hide, he also shrugged off his own plaid, holding both at the ready as he came forward to stand slightly to the left and behind Magnus.

Far enough away not to interfere with clan tradition, but close enough to lend Magnus and his bride a much-appreciated act of true and knightly comradeship.

Settling his own hands upon the top band of his braies, Magnus slanted his friend a sidelong look of deep-felt gratitude, then turned back to his wife.

She’d been over-bold throughout the wedding feast, her daring and charm pleasing him beyond measure—but he knew her to be virtuous, could almost scent the tremulous edge of a maiden’s anxiety skimming along just beneath her brave veneer of daring.

Forcing himself to harness his own thrumming tension, he let out a long breath. “You have naught to dread—not from me or the traditions that shape this evening. We will soon be alone,” he promised her, voicing the reassurance he hoped would settle the jittery pulse fluttering so rapidly at the hollow of her throat.

“See you, this night”—he paused to glance round the circle of his staring kinsmen—“
this night
we shall forge a few traditions of our own.”

Some men arched brows at that, or exchanged nervous glances. Others pulled at their beards or flicked at invisible specks of lint on their plaids.

No one looked pleased.

Donald MacKinnon gave a loud harrumph. “Clan Fingon tradition is best kept, son. Have you not yet seen what happens when fools dare to tweak and prod?”

Magnus curled his fingers more deeply around his waistband’s rolled edge, cast a quick, lowering glance at the thin cloth yet shielding his maleness. “Is
this
not bowing to tradition?”

“I dinna see you strutting bare-bottomed before her yet!” a bold-faced clansman called from the shadows near the hearth. “Damn me for a plaguey pest, but the only full-naked MacKinnon I see about is yon sleeping mongrel,” he finished, jerking a thumb at old Boiny, the great shaggy bulk of him curled as ever before the hearthstone.

A flurry of bawdy comment and encouragement stirred at once, especially from those deepest in their cups, but a raised hand from Magnus and quick-flashed warning quelled their ribaldry.

“She, and you, my kinsmen, shall judge me now . . . and forever after hold your clacking tongues unless you wish them cut from your mouths.”

To prove his willingness, Magnus shoved down his linen underhose and kicked them aside to stand fully naked in the center of the room.

Not taking his gaze off his wife, and praying he’d not harden—not yet anyway—he spread his legs just enough so that his shaft and ballocks could dangle fully exposed, hanging free to the curious stares of any who cared to examine him.

“Further,”
he began, hooking his arms behind his neck so the muscles of his upper body, too, could be better displayed and inspected, “a man’s ability to take his ease can be observed in the swelling and lengthening of his shaft. That’s a feat I hereby deem best accomplished and tested when looking upon the nakedness of his own good lady wife and not, as MacKinnon custom has e’er demanded, by having some sloe-eyed kitchen lass pinch his hardness and poke at his testicles!”

Again silence answered him.

Silence, and slack-jawed stares.

His clansmen surely knew he’d make short shrift of them if they dared let more than a perfunctory glance light where men’s eyes had no business lingering. They knew, too, they’d best not allow more than a rapid flicker of a quick-eyed gaze touch his lady’s vulnerability.

By comparison,
her
gaze was all over him.

She’d lowered her lashes, but the smoldering burn in their rich-brown depths shone through all the same. And the longer she stared at him, especially like
that,
the more difficult it would be for him to remain at ease.

An aching tightness already coiling through his groin, he cleared his throat and spoke the words he hoped would bring a swift end to the spectacle.

“Lass, bare yourself so we may be done with this buffoonery,” he ground out, the words coming more gruff than he’d intended.

Before I am undone.

A distinct and pressing possibility with surge after surge of welling heat sweeping across his loins.

“Take off the gown,” he said, his voice tight. “You can undress yourself, can you not?”

She slid a look at Dagda. “But your traditions. I would not breach them. Isn’t Dagda supposed to undr—”

“A pox on tradition!” Magnus closed the distance between them in three swift strides, his nakedness forgotten. “Did you not hear me?” He forced himself to keep the heat from his voice, trailed a finger along the high, smooth curve of her cheekbone, then down and across the fullness of her sweet lips, noting their slight tremble beneath his touch.

“This night
we
make the traditions. Now, this moment, you and I are Coldstone’s legends—naught else.”

Touching her own finger to her lips as if she still felt his touch there, she nodded. “With surety, I can remove my gown,” she said, her voice surprisingly firm. “I shall do so with pleasure.”

“With all speed—if you will, lassie,” an ale-addled clansman bade her, the loon clearly having noted the slight twitching of Magnus’s semi-aroused shaft.

“’Tis for the best—unless you wish his ballocks to run blue!” another cried, and slapped his thigh.

Magnus grimaced.

He’d not only forgotten his nakedness, he’d forgotten to school it!

Much to the hooting glee of his kinsmen.

“Aye, from the looks of him, he canna wait much longer,” a bald-headed kinsman agreed, the observation and the ensuing guffaws from others confirming indeed that the long-nosed bastards were sneaking glances where they shouldn’t.