A Promise of Love Read online

  He stretched out one hand and cupped her left breast lightly. She shivered in response, but it was not in passion. "You have beautiful breasts, Judith," he said softly, his fingers softly stroking. "Full and luscious, they have always caught my eye. Your nipples peek from their resting place like tiny hillocks, proud and tall."

  She shivered at his touch, that one finger placed tenderly on her nipple. He smiled at her, bent closer to kiss her forehead, a calming, gentle touch.

  His right hand descended to the nip of her waist, and he drew her closer so that she could feel his breath on her cheek. "Your curves are a woman's curves. Soft, sweet, desirable. You are not petite, Judith, but I would have no dolls in my bed. You match my height perfectly, you know. I will not need to bend my back like a bow when I enter you."

  He lightly brushed her cheeks with his lips, felt the warmth of the flush that changed their paleness to deep rose. He smiled softly, as he continued to move his hands down her body. "Your legs, Judith, are long enough to wrap around mine, to encase my waist," he whispered. "How beautifully slender they are, neither stocky nor plump." He clasped his hands around her, trapping her within his arms once again. "Do you not know how much desire you instill in me?”

  Her eyes widened again.“MacLeod....”

  “Judith," he interrupted softly, "you may dress now."

  "What?"

  He brushed his lips against the tip of her nose. "You may dress," he repeated, the smile never leaving his mouth.

  She looked at him as though he had lost his mind.Did he imagine that flicker of disappointment? He hoped he had not.

  "What are you about, MacLeod?" she asked him warily.

  "I think that since we have decided it is safer for the sake of my neck to remain married, Judith, then it would be a nice change for you to call me Alisdair. Don't you think so?"

  "And you stripped me naked so that I would call you by your rightful name?"

  He laughed. "No Judith, I stripped you naked so that you would not fear me. And, too, so you would listen. There were things you needed to hear."

  "My ears are here, Alisdair," she said, pointing to them.

  "Very nice ears, they are, too. But would you have listened, truly, being so afraid of me pouncing at any moment?" She remembered her feelings before he had placed her on his lap. She’d not been able to swallow, the blind panic was so great.

  "No, probably not," she admitted reluctantly.

  He stood, holding her in his arms, then deposited her gently on the bed. He leaned over her, placing both hands on either side of her face.

  "Listen to me, Judith, listen well. Whether our union was a good thing that happened, or simply an accident of fate that we must make good, we are now married. Gone is our temporary bargain, thanks to the English. We are now husband and wife. Part of that belonging is sharing this." He stroked the flesh on the top of her breast with the back of one hand and watched her eyes. She did not flinch and draw away, but looked surprised at the feelings his touch evoked.

  "Do you think we shall spend the rest of our lives without touching, Judith? Do you think never to seek my warmth, or to always deny me the pleasure of yours? Your words betray you, not your body. You have intelligence and wit and a spark of fury. I can provide a haven for you within the walls of Tynan, but I cannot guarantee a world without men, especially if that means never being husband to you.”

  He placed his palm against her left breast, feeling the impudent nipple bury into his skin as if seeking a home. He wanted, desperately, to bend down and place a welcoming kiss upon that nipple, a warm and wet suckle. Instead, he smiled, then bent over her. His tongue traced the line of her lips, his teeth nipped playfully at her bottom lip, coaxing it to yield to him. Her eyes were open, a startled fawn’s, but still, he did not deepen the kiss. Even when his tongue intruded through the seam of her lips, he did not succumb to the warm invitation of her mouth. He kept the caress light, sweetly imploring, leading her to deeper pleasures.

  Only when her lids drooped, did he allow himself one tiny taste of fullness, one sweeping invasion of lip and tongue and wetness. Too soon, too quickly, he forced himself to pull back. Her eyes opened wide as she studied him, her own lips licking where his had just been.

  He stifled a groan, raised himself away from her.

  Judith watched him dress and leave the room. He was smiling and whistling, which irritated her. Which was the only reason her palms were damp, of course, and her heart racing.

  CHAPTER 17

  The room was blessedly dim, lit by a single sputtering taper on the mantel. Only embers remained in the hearth, crimson dots of color amidst black and gray. Judith was cold, but it no longer mattered. The chill of her flesh seeped into the depths of her body until it seemed to touch her mind, her soul, with tendrils of icy fear.

  She blinked, knowing that Bennett would be displeased unless she opened her eyes and watched him. His mocking displeasure would be an excuse to inflict more pain. He would either grasp her nipple between two fingers and twist until the sensation was unbearable, his smile broadening with her moaning gasps or he would thrust exploring fingers into her dry passage, deriding her lack of desire. As if she could ever feel desire for this man. As if she could ever feel anything but horror.

  If she were lucky, the pain would be fierce enough at the beginning that she would lose consciousness again, depriving him of her participation in his little games. If she were lucky, he would be alone tonight and the depravity would last only minutes instead of hours. Lucky? It had nothing to do with luck. Nor did prayers seem to matter, because if God had answered her prayers, she would not awaken in the morning, nausea her rooster, despair her morning sun.

  Bennett came closer to the side of the bed, and Judith blinked again, willing the fear to be banished from her eyes. He would seek it, revel in it. Something dangled from his hand, one of his toys, and despite herself, she flinched. He laughed, pleased, and tapped the riding crop against one hand rhythmically. What would he do tonight? Thrust the long, broad handle almost to her womb, pleased at the blood he induced to flow between her thighs, or claim she was his recalcitrant mount, and thrust himself between her buttocks, his lust fired not only by her screams of pain from his perverted invasion, but by the scourge marks he inflicted in his frenzy.

  Judith moaned, a small sound of more than despair. It would soon be followed by screams, as the small sane corner of her mind retreated beneath pain.

  She was crying again.

  Was she doing it on purpose, rubbing raw every nerve he possessed?

  He should be able to sleep; he needed his rest, he was tired enough. He should not be staring at the ceiling for long hours, listening to the sobbing beneath him and praying for it to stop. The sound permeated the walls of his room as if some ancestral ghost demanded to be heard. Alisdair levered himself up on one elbow thinking oddly that if Scotland had a lament, it would sound like this - a woman's soft, grief- induced keening.

  He could not tolerate any more. Each night it had been the same, seemingly hours of this low moaning sob, followed by unearthly screams, the sound of which were cut off suddenly, as if Judith awakened herself with her own terror.

  This night would be different.

  The moon was only a thin sliver of light reflected by the soft lapping waters of the cove. It was by this faint illumination that he saw her, dappled in moonlight, frozen by terror.

  Judith was as rigid as the boards beneath his feet, her arms pressed together at the wrists and extended up above her head as if tied there by unseen cords. She blinked, eyes open, and at his approach, she screamed again, the muscles of her neck forced into prominence by the effort. She arched against an unseen touch, twisting violently as if to ward off a ghostly presence. The hairs on the back of his neck elected to begin a primeval dance.

  "Hush, Judith," he murmured, thinking his dark shrouded appearance must appear ghostlike to her. She saw him only as an apparition of the past, a naked man with strength in his arms, his sho
ulders broad, his size alone enough to overpower her. She screamed again as his large hands grasped her wrists and attempted to force them down into some semblance of normalcy. Her wide unseeing eyes were open, fixed on him as if he were the devil himself.

  Only one word forced its way through her clenched lips. One word, and one word only. The sound of it, along with her obvious terror, speared through his heart. Alisdair sat on the edge of the bed and gathered Judith up in his arms, oblivious to his nudity as she was supremely aware and frightened by it.

  "Please," she continued to say, as though it were a magical chant, the word itself uttered in painful resignation. "Please," and the sound of it seeped through the armor of his self-restraint with the sharpness of forged steel. "Please," she begged, her hands forced between them, her body as taut as the tightest bowstring, her eyes focused unseeing upon the mat of hair on his chest. "Please," she breathed as he placed the palm of his left hand firm against the back of her head, feeling the rich softness of her free flowing hair. He gently urged her head forward, until the word was muffled against his chest, as her flushed cheek was flattened against his skin. His other hand curled protectively around her back, feeling the homespun texture of her bedgown and the soft woman flesh beneath.

  Judith flinched, then shivered against his touch. A wry smile etched Alisdair’s lips, a strange counterpart to his worried frown. She had nothing to fear. He had never been so lacking in desire as now.

  Alisdair rocked her as he would a child racked with terror, her soft moaning word the only speech which passed between them. Occasionally, he would mutter a soft "shhhh," which passed as comfort, the only thing he could think of to say or to do, other than the rocking motion which seemed to soothe her.

  How long it took for the stiffness to leave her limbs, a rigidity not unlike that of death, he did not know. Gradually, though, she slumped against him, the sound of her pleading finally silenced.

  Without a word, he picked her up, carried her up the stairs to his room, moved to the edge of the bed, then settled her on his lap. He placed her arms around his neck; her head bowed until she snuffled into his neck like a child. Her tears wet his neck.

  Once he’d seen her back, he no longer wondered about the subject of her nightmares. Still, he asked.

  “Will you tell me of it?”

  Her head wagged from side to side, a gentle movement which seemed to spread her scent around them, a delicate blooming of sweetly perfumed air, redolent of soap and Judith.

  “I dislike the sounds of your screams, wife.” His words were gruff, his voice devoid of passion. Tenderness, however, laced his words and caused his hands to gently smooth her back. Even now, she trembled.

  “Forgive me,” she said, her voice muffled, her lips too close to his bare shoulder. He slept in the nude like any good Scot, a fact she’d no doubt discerned the moment he’d placed her on his lap.

  “I do not want your apology, Judith. I want an explanation.”

  “I cannot give you one, MacLeod.” Her voice was heavy, laced with her tears, a caramel whisper in the dark. It struck him then that perhaps his passion was not muted beneath tenderness. He wanted to kiss her, to taste her lips and see if they were full and swollen and sweet.

  “Cannot or will not?”

  There was no answer to that riddle. Judith sat silent, tense, upon his lap. It was a replay of a few days ago, when it had taken nearly an hour for her to lose her fear of him, for those muscles to unclamp and those nerves to unstring themselves like violin strings too tightly tuned. He sighed. Each step with her was to be measured by a snail’s daily pace, then.

  "Has the act of loving given you nothing but pain, Judith?" His voice was a warm whisper in the darkness.

  It was disconcerting to be holding a conversation with him when her nightdress was twisted up about her middle. Her bare buttocks rested on his thighs, just as they had days before. She could remember every moment on his lap, every nuance of feeling, the rasp of hair against her back, his gentle stroking with one finger down her leg, circling her knee. She would hear his voice, talking to Malcolm, and recalled feeling it rumbling from his chest. She watched him stride from the room and remembered his long, bare feet. Occasionally, she would blush at the thought of his nakedness, at the solid warmth of his large body.

  And now, they repeated that act, the only difference being that they were seated on the side of Alisdair’s massive bed, in the dead of night, with only the sound of the incoming tide and the calling of the sea birds to mar the silence of the darkness. It was too intimate a scene, she thought. Too much quietude and lulling gentleness. There was no gentleness in this act, no comfort in it.

  Judith wished that he would just do what he wanted and be done with it. She did not want to talk endlessly about it.

  "Does it matter?"

  "Yes," he said thoughtfully, "I find that it does. Have you never felt enjoyment, even with your first husband?"

  "No," she said, when it was evident he was not joking, "not really." She had barely noticed Peter’s tentative lovemaking. He had slipped into her room only after midnight, his billowing nightgown ample covering for his thin form. He had apologized all through the act, even on their wedding night, when she’d been left bemused and curiously disappointed, but not in pain. Nor did Peter seem to wish the act as often as Anthony, content to regard her as sister more than wife.

  Alisdair laughed mirthlessly. He stood with her in his arms, then calmly lay her down on the bed, covering her. Without comment, he dragged her close to him so that she was tucked beside him, her head resting on his shoulder. He kept perfectly still, so still that he could feel the tremors that shook her body.

  "Tell me of your family."

  "My family?" She looked startled. "I hardly think my family belongs in my marriage bed, MacLeod."

  "Is that what this is, then?" he mused. "Your marriage bed?"

  "Of course," she replied crossly. "If you wish to mount me, MacLeod, please finish the act, please. I am tired, and wish to sleep." He grinned in the darkness, thinking that she was more like an English hedgehog than she knew, frightened, yet prickly.

  "Then sleep," he said softly, placing one finger upon both eyelids in turn. Both eyelids shot open.

  "But, I am ready."

  "But, I am not."

  "Oh." That one word was brimming with relief.

  She pulled away from him and would have left the bed had he not grabbed one arm and restrained her.

  "Where do you think you're going?"

  "To my bed. To sleep. Or, had you not decided that?"

  "From now on, Judith, when you wish to sleep, it shall be here, in this bed." There was a pause during which she measured his intent. He knew it, remaining silent, a figure of shadow and stubbornness.

  “With me.” It was an answer to a question she’d not asked.

  "I am the oldest of five girls," she said stubbornly, as she reluctantly allowed him to tuck her close again. She did not like the feeling of his hairy skin next to hers. It gave her the strangest sensation, as though her skin were shivering inside. "There is no history to our family’s line," she continued, resolutely ignoring the pounding of his heart so close to her ear, and the warmth of his skin next to hers. "Our manor house is drafty and cold even in summer, although it is a pretty place."

  "What do you like best about it?" he asked his chin nuzzling her hair. She wished he would stop that. She also did not like the fact that she was so close to him that she could again feel his voice, in addition to simply hearing it.

  "I have a secret spot, which is hidden to all but the drovers. It is tucked up in the hills, a small cave, really. I used to go there, when I was sad or lonely."

  "It seems a strange thing to seek solitude when lonely," he said, brushing his lips against her forehead. She wrinkled her brow against the tickling sensation.

  "Loneliness is worse, I think, when you are surrounded by people."

  He thought of the feeling he had experienced at Culloden. In th
e midst of thousands of men, he had felt horribly alone. "Were you a lonely child?" he asked softly, touching his finger to her lips in a darting, teasing gesture.

  "I was a strange child, my mother used to say." She turned her face away from his touch. "Always wanting something I couldn't have."

  "What did you want, Judith, that was denied you?" He pulled her back into his embrace, tucked her close so that her lips brushed against his chest. She nuzzled there for a moment before she realized what she was doing. Once more, she pulled away and this time he allowed her to keep a little distance between them.

  How could she put into words what she had felt? She had wanted to belong, but amidst her chattering sisters, the noise of her home, she had felt strangely out of place. She wanted some place where she fit it, where she would not be thought of as strange, or difficult, or different. But most of all, Judith wanted someone to accept her as she was and find that good enough, after all.

  That dream was impossible, now. She could not even accept herself.

  Alisdair wished, not for the first time, that he could penetrate her silence.

  He had been right in sensing dimensions to her. Although she had fought against their marriage, she had not complained since about her situation. Each day saw her laboring as diligently as any other inhabitant of Tynan, yet she did not protest the volume of her duties. Not once had she mentioned her lack of clothes, the state of her hands, the deprivation of life at Tynan. She hoarded her feelings and her observations with a miser's care.

  Judith had come to Scotland with a doubtful dowry. Instead of coin, she brought memories and assumptions and pain. Although life at Tynan was comprised of a series of struggles, Alisdair recognized that there would always be problems even in the most perfect of worlds. Yet, with joy and laughter and love, the sun was still worth greeting each day.