Her mouth took on a pinched look. At first he thought he’d frightened her again, but on second look, he saw she was furious.
“Even when your demands are ridiculous?” she asked with a sniff.
He raised an eyebrow at that. “My asking you to present yourself to me is ridiculous? I had matters to discuss with you. My time is valuable.”
She opened her mouth and then promptly shut it again. But she muttered something under her breath that he didn’t catch.
“Now that we have that matter resolved, while I appreciate your devotion to my son, he has his own chamber that he shares with other children of the keep.”
“He should sleep with his mother and father,” she blurted.
“Aye, there will be times when that is indeed the case,” Ewan agreed. “But right after our marriage is not one of them.”
“I fail to see what being newly married has to do with it,” she muttered.
He sighed and tried to rein in his impatience. The lass was going to be the death of him.
“ ’Tis hard to bed my wife if my son is sharing the bed with us,” he drawled.
She looked away and twisted her hands in front of her. “If ’tis all the same to you, I’d rather not have you … bed me.”
“And how do you plan to become pregnant, lass?”
Her nose wrinkled and she cast him a cautious but hopeful look. “Perhaps your seed has already taken root. We should wait to see if that is the case. ’Tis truth you’ve no skill at loving, and ’tis obvious I’ve none as well.”
Ewan’s mouth gaped open. He was sure he hadn’t heard correctly. No skill? His mouth closed then fell open and then he snapped it shut with the force of his incredulity.
She shrugged. “ ’Tis a well-known fact that a man is either skilled in matters of loving or matters of war. ’Tis obvious that fighting is your skill.”
Ewan winced. The little wench was shredding his manhood. His cock positively shriveled under her criticism. Anger warred with exasperation until he saw the tremble of her lower lip and the trepidation in her eyes.
He sighed. “Ah, lass, ’tis true I bedded you with all the skill of a stable boy with his first woman.”
Her cheeks flushed a delicate pink, and he kicked himself for his coarseness. He dug his fingers into his hair.
“You were a virgin. ’Tis unlikely anything I could have done would have made it good, but there is a lot I could have done to make it more pleasant.”
“I would have liked pleasant,” she said wistfully.
He cursed. How badly had he hurt her? He knew he hadn’t given her the pleasure or patience she deserved. At the time, all he’d known was that he had to consummate the marriage with all haste. There hadn’t been time to seduce a shy virgin. Only now his shy virgin had turned into a stubborn, unwilling wife.
“Mairin, the marriage wasn’t valid until I bedded you. I couldn’t risk having something happen before I had the chance to bed you. If you’d been captured, Cameron could have taken you and petitioned to have our marriage set aside. He would have bedded you and got you with child to strengthen his claim.”
Her lip trembled and she cast her eyes downward to where her fingers twisted nervously at her skirts.
He took advantage of her momentary distraction and closed in. He reached down and took her hands in his. She was small and soft. Delicate. The idea that he’d been too rough, that he’d hurt her, unsettled him.
He should suffer no guilt for taking his wife. Her duty was to provide him pleasure, however he saw fit to take it. But the memory of her tear-filled eyes was a fist to his gut.
“It won’t be like that from now on.”
She raised her eyes to his and her brow wrinkled in confusion. “It won’t?”
“Nay, it won’t.”
“Why?”
He tempered his irritation and reminded himself that she needed a gentle hand right now.
“Because I’m quite skilled in loving,” he said. “And I plan to show you.”
Her eyes widened. “You do?”
“I do.”
Her mouth rounded, and she tried to take a step back. He held her hands tightly in his and pulled her back until she bumped into his chest.
“In fact, I intend to show you how very skilled I am.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
She swallowed and stared into his eyes, her own, wide and confused. “When do you plan to do this, Laird?”
He bent and swept his mouth over hers. “Right now.”
CHAPTER 15
