The Border Trilogy (17 page)

She nodded, feeling small.

“In front of the whole village, madam! Aye,” he insisted uncompromisingly when she looked up in protest. “Your insolent taunt brought every man, woman, and child within hearing out into the road. Had you but turned again, you might have appreciated your audience. They reveled in your daring.” He was shouting at her now. “The tale will have spread through Teviotdale by now and will no doubt be entertaining all Edinburgh by morning!”

“Oh, no,” she moaned wretchedly.

“Oh, yes!” he snapped, his voice still loud enough, she was sure, to be heard in the stable yard. “’Tis a fine way for my wife to behave. I’d not be surprised if Jamie himself greets me with sympathy or—may heaven help you—with laughter. But you couldn’t content yourself with that alone. Nay, you compounded your insolence by leaving the safety of this castle, attended only by a mindless, unarmed flunkey, in direct defiance of my orders, to take a road leading into the wildest, most danger-ridden border country imaginable.” He stood there, his feet planted wide, his thumbs still in his belt, leaning forward belligerently now and again as though to punctuate his words. His voice hardened ominously when he said, “Madam, your folly astounds me. Where in the name of Christ Almighty did you propose to spend the night?”

“I don’t know where!” she retorted, her temper flashing anew in response to his relentless chiding. But when he took a step toward her, she recognized her error immediately, and hoping to mitigate his increasing wrath, she said quickly and with as much dignity as she could muster, “Adam, I’m sorry. I know what I did was foolish. I just didn’t think.”

She wished he wouldn’t glower at her so fiercely, for her leg bones felt as though they were turning to porridge. She wished, too, that she could maintain her spurious dignity, but the more certain she became that any attempt to defend her actions must prove futile, the more she felt a need to defend herself. “Truly, Adam,” she said, speaking even more rapidly than before, “I wanted only to pay you back for leaving me alone so long, for not having had sufficient regard for my feelings to warn me about Susan before I discovered her for myself, and…and for making me walk home that time.” She spread her hands. “I just didn’t think, sir, about the rest.”

Douglas sighed. “I know that, lass.” His voice was quieter, more controlled, and she felt a brief surge of hope. “If that damned horse I took from the smithy hadn’t gone lame, I’d have caught you on the road, but I snatched the first mount I saw, and when Hamilton, the smith, shouted at me, I paid him no heed. No doubt he tried to tell me the stupid nag had a loose shoe, for he threw one near the MacKenzie croft. They keep no horses, so I walked for half an hour before I found another, and a scrofulous nag it was. I had plenty of time to think, lass, and I thought about all those things. I ought to have told you about Susan, but I hadn’t seen her and never gave her a thought. I couldn’t send her away. She’s carrying my bairn.” He paused. “Had you been here when I got back, I might have bellowed at you or shaken you senseless for subjecting me to that scene in the village. I doubt I’d have done more.”

He paused again, taking a deep breath as though to draw strength, his attitude one of reluctant determination. When he spoke. again, his voice was stern. “Running away like you did was more than foolish, Mary Kate. Gideon was not armed, and nightfall was less than an hour away. ’Tis nearly dark now. You admit that you were frightened, and perhaps you had cause to be, but you’d have had greater cause had a raiding party found you before I did. You might have been killed. My orders are never given without reason, lass, and conditions being what they are in the borders just now, I cannot afford to tolerate your defiance. You need a sharp lesson for this day’s work.” He began to unfasten his belt.

Mary Kate backed away. “Wh-what are you going to do?”

“You know very well what I have to do,” he retorted. “God knows I don’t like it, but your own father would do the same. I know of no other way to be certain not only that you comprehend the gravity of your offense but that you will not dare to repeat it. Come here.”

Mary Kate backed away another step, placing her hands protectively behind her and speaking quickly. “You are right, Adam, I didn’t understand before. However, I do now, so—”

“Come here to me,” he ordered inflexibly. “The sooner we begin, the sooner it will be done.”

She shook her head stubbornly, though she knew there was no way to avoid what was coming. He was her husband, and here in his own home there was no higher authority to whom she might appeal. Had her own father been present, he could not have stopped him. Not, she thought bitterly, that Duncan would have tried. Douglas was right about that. Her father would say she was merely coming by her just deserts if only in that she ought to have guarded her temper and not let it carry her behavior beyond what Douglas would tolerate. But inevitable or not, she could not submit herself meekly to Douglas’s discipline. She stayed where she was.

“Very well,” he said grimly, starting toward her, “but you will wish you had made this easier on yourself.”

Mary Kate backed away hastily, putting out a hand in a brief defensive gesture only to jerk it back again when she came up sharply against the wall. There was nowhere else to go. Closing her eyes, she straightened and waited for Douglas’s hand to descend like an avenging Fury upon her shoulder.

Standing there, she looked small, defenseless, and delicate, and as Douglas reached for her, he hesitated, for once uncertain both of himself and of his duty. No sound could be heard in the room except for their breathing, his even and controlled, hers ragged. A muscle twitched in his jaw when at last he squared his shoulders and grasped her left arm, pulling her toward him. Then, as he raised the heavy belt, an expression of distaste, even repugnance, flickered across his face. With a growl, he flung the belt aside.

Mary Kate opened her eyes with a sigh, but her relief was premature, for before she realized what he was doing, he had sat down on the nearest stool and she found herself draped helplessly across his knee, her skirts flung over her head, muffling the sound of the hard smacks that followed. He did not spare her, and the mortifying punishment seemed to go on forever, but at last he stopped, resting his big hand upon her bare bottom for a long moment. When she wriggled indignantly, instead of removing his hand, he began to stroke her gently but firmly enough to keep her where she was.

She stiffened, furious, swallowing her sobs and wishing she dared speak so that she might demand to know if he thought he would cool the flames or rub away the redness by stroking her, or if he was merely bent upon extracting the full measure of her punishment by continuing to humiliate her. But she knew she would not be able to talk without sobbing, and she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing he had hurt her, for she was determined to retain the last shreds of her dignity. When she squirmed again, he set her back upon her feet.

Yanking her skirts into place, she glared at him. Although the burning sensation in her bottom was rapidly receding, the humiliation she felt was worse than anything she had ever felt after one of Duncan’s energetic thrashings, and she knew her cheeks must be as red as her bottom for they were certainly as hot. The awareness of what she must look like stirred her volatile temper yet again.

“You’ll pay for this, Douglas,” she muttered, unconsciously rubbing her backside. “I am a married lady, not a child, and though I have angered you by acting hastily and without thought, you might at least have made an attempt to understand that I have not been bred to the sort of blind submission you borderers expect from your wives.”

Amusement had glinted deep in his eyes with her first sentence and the gesture that had accompanied it, but that amusement faded as she went on, and when she stopped to draw breath, his expression was unreadable. His tone was flat when he said, “You think that I have acted hastily, that I have treated you like a child?”

“Aye.” Her glare challenged him to contradict her.

“Damn it, wench,” he growled then, getting to his feet, “you don’t know when to leave well enough alone.”

She couldn’t decide this time whether his anger was directed at her or at himself, but she had little time to consider the matter before he scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the bed, ignoring her sharp exclamation of dismay.

Silently Douglas laid her down and methodically stripped her of her clothing. Anger still glittered in his eyes, and when she moved to touch him, he stopped her, telling her curtly to lie still.

Wide-eyed, she obeyed him. By speaking to him as she had, she had meant only to show him that he had not cowed her completely, but there had been an exhilarating sense of power the moment she saw the fury leap again to his eyes, when she had realized how easily she could stir his temper. Just before he scooped her up it occurred to her to wonder if perhaps she had unleashed more anger than she could handle, and for a moment she feared that she would end up across his knee again, even that he might decide to use his belt, after all.

Removing his clothing, Douglas sat beside her, and his fingers began to trace patterns on her skin, teasing and stroking her breasts, her stomach, her inner thighs, even her most secret places, inflaming her whole body. In her relief, she yielded willingly to the glorious sensations he was creating within her, forgetting for the moment her outrage and the ache in her backside. She decided that somehow she had stirred his passions, and she began to look to the moments ahead with pleasurable anticipation, telling herself that if this was punishment, it possessed merits one had never before imagined. Several times she reached out to him, but each time he stopped her, and before long his lips and tongue began to explore where his fingers had gone before, until she was moaning, then crying out for release.

But Douglas refused to grant her that release. Instead, once he knew he had achieved his purpose, he took her, expeditiously and much too swiftly to satisfy her urgent needs. Then he dressed himself while she lay watching him with frustrated bewilderment in her eyes.

“That, madam,” he said, looking grimly down at her, “is a punishment reserved only to adults. Is it more to your liking?” Without waiting for her reply, he left the room, shutting the door behind him.

Mary Kate stared at the closed door, her breasts heaving with pent-up passion rapidly turning to fury. “Knave,” she muttered, dashing tears of humiliation from her eyes with the back of her hand, “How dare he use me so!” He had, she decided, proved himself once more to be a selfish, unfeeling monster who gave heed to no one save himself. To be sure, she had disobeyed him, but had she not had excellent cause to do so? Had it truly been so remarkable for her to be upset by the sight of his erstwhile mistress trotting about full-blown with his child?

That she had run from him instead of remaining to confront him with his perfidy was, she had to admit, somewhat lowering to her dignity, but had his subsequent behavior not proved that she had had good reason to try to protect herself? Forsooth, he was a villain, and she had been right to behave as she had. She would never speak to him again. He had used her abominably. She sat up, and pillows, cushions, and other loose articles began to fly about the room as she gave free rein to her temper.

At last, worn out, she got up and bolted her door and the door from the gallery into her sitting room. Then, pouring water from her ewer into the basin, she splashed her face in an attempt to calm her reeling emotions before curling up on the bed again under her blankets to consider and reject a number of plans for bringing Douglas to his knees. None appeared to be feasible.

Clearly he intended to show her that he was the master at lornary, and for the moment she could think of no good way to teach him the error of his ways. But somehow, she told herself, she would make him acknowledge her as a power with whom he must reckon. She was no feeble border wife, but a true highlander, and the sooner Douglas learned as much, the better it would be for both of them.

In a more orderly world, she reflected drowsily, women would be treated better as a matter of course. None would be subject first to her father’s whims and then to her husband’s, and even a border wife would have the right to say and do what she pleased in her own home without fear of punishment. She would be the equal of her man, not merely his chattel, and she would have no reason to submit to his demands against her will. She would have to answer only to her God, her king, and herself. It would be a perfect world; and gold, she told herself with a sigh, would no doubt grow on trees before such a world would ever come to be. Until that day, she knew she would have to keep her wits about her if she was to hold her own against the borderer. On that thought, she settled more firmly against her pillows and drifted into restless slumber.

W
HEN MARY KATE AWOKE
the following morning, sunlight was streaming through the windows, and at first she assumed that one of the maidservants had opened the curtains. Then she remembered bolting the doors and realized that her curtains had never been drawn the previous night. No one had come into her room. Her temper flared again. Clearly Douglas did not care enough about her welfare to come and see how she did. No doubt he was out and about, enjoying the fine spring morning. Not that she wanted to see him, of course, or would heed him if he demanded entrance. But he did not. The only person to tap at her door was a maidservant with her breakfast tray.

Mary Kate’s first inclination was to refuse to let her in. She wanted to see no one. However, before she spoke the words that would have sent the maid away, she realized she was famished. Believing it advisable to keep up her strength, she admitted the girl and fell to her meal with good appetite. Then she dressed and went to the chair by the window in her sitting room to give deeper consideration to this business of marriage. Punishments suffered at her father’s hand had rarely caused her much pain or brought more than a momentary afterthought, but her confrontation with Douglas had been another matter altogether. She needed time to think before she faced him again.