“I must get back to the ball.” Caithren sighed, then brightened. “I cannot wait to tell everyone the news.”
“Nay.” Cameron put a hand on her arm. “This is your night. Yours and Jason’s. If you’ve no objection, I’ve a mind to take my two lasses here downstairs for a dance or a dozen—”
“Me, too?” Mary squealed. “Is that why you taught us the dances?”
“Absolutely. We’ve much to celebrate, the three of us. But in secret, aye? No one else will know it’s not only cousin Caithren’s wedding we’re celebrating, but our wedding-for-three as well. So lock your lips, aye?”
Mary clapped both hands over her mouth and nodded.
“Good.” He took her by the hand and Clarice with his other. “Then let us celebrate.”
FOURTEEN
CELEBRATE THEY did, dancing the new dances and supping on scrumptious delicacies until the wee hours when the ball finally wound down. The locals headed for home, and guests who’d traveled a distance were each shown to one of Cainewood Castle’s hundred chambers. Mary fell asleep on the way up the stairs, and they took her to the nursery and tucked her into one of the small beds that flanked baby Jewel’s cradle.
“She looks like a princess,” Cameron whispered.
Clarice went on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you so much for including her in the handfasting. It meant so much to her.” She hesitated a moment, still shy with this man—her new husband. “To both of us.”
“To all three of us,” he corrected her, bending to kiss Mary’s little forehead.
Apprehensive of what would come next, Clarice wished it weren’t so short a distance to the Gold Chamber. Once more she was awed by the magnificent room, though Cam didn’t give her much time to admire it, or to fret over the ominous sight of the grand, brocade-hung bed. The door had barely shut behind them when he set down his candle and turned to drag her into his arms.
His lips on hers felt stunningly soft and tender as ever, but there was a new intensity underneath, a heat that warmed her to very toes. He kissed her mouth, her eyelids, her cheeks, her neck, until she was breathless and tingling and floating somewhere up near heaven.
“I’ll make you forget them,” he promised when he finally pulled away. “The men who mistreated you.”
“I’ve forgotten them already,” she whispered dazedly.
“That’s not yet true,” he said, “but I’ll make it true. You shall feel so safe”—he took her face in his hands—“and so adored”—he placed a slow, sweet kiss on her forehead—“that all the past will simply fade away like a bad dream.”
When his mouth resettled on hers, she pressed against him with a sudden surge of wanting. Her hands found their way beneath his surcoat, roaming over his back, his chest, his hips, wherever they could reach. Slowly he backed her up, until Clarice felt her legs against the bed—distantly, for all she could attend to was her overpowering need to be close to him, closer. She slipped the surcoat down his shoulders.
“Clarice…” he groaned, stilling her hands. He raised them to his lips and kissed each of her palms. “I meant it when I said you are enough, aye? You don’t have to do this.”
She looked to the bed, with its brocade counterpane turned down invitingly, and back to Cam, with his breath coming quick and his eyes full of veiled hope.
And all her anxiety came flooding back.
She could refuse, she knew, without fear of punishment. Cameron would never hurt her physically—not on purpose, anyway. But it was his wedding night, and he had already given her so much. Surely she could give him this one small thing?
Despite her resolve, she couldn’t hide her trembling as she lowered herself to the bed and stretched out on the sheets. Squeezing her eyes shut tight, she drew a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s all right,” she forced between gritted teeth. “You can do it now.”
She waited a few heartbeats, and when he didn’t touch her, she opened her eyes. Cameron stood in the same spot, his surcoat still halfway down his shoulders, his face an inscrutable mask.
She swallowed hard and frowned at him. “Do you not want to do it?”
“You bet I do.” His eyes seemed to glitter. “But not like this. Not until you’re ready.”
She bit her lip. “I’m ready now. Just…just do it.”
“Nay.” Shaking his head, he finished removing the surcoat and draped it over an elaborately gilded oak chest sitting at the foot of the bed. “We’ll both know when you’re ready. You needn’t announce it. Especially when it’s not true.”
“Please, Cameron, I’m ready,” she insisted, wanting nothing more than to have this part out of the way. This part wasn’t a fairytale, and she wanted to get back to the fairytale part of her exciting new life.
Tomorrow she and Mary would pack up their things and say good-bye to Gisela and Anne and all their other friends and neighbors. Then Sunday they’d be on their way to live in a castle…
“You’re not ready,” Cameron disagreed with staid calmness. His gaze was steady, his voice gentle and husky. “When you look up at me and speak my name with love, not resignation, and when your body trembles all over from longing, not fear…then you will be ready. And we’ll not be doing it until I know you want it just as much as I do.”
“Oh, Cam.” Her heart ached at the thought of disappointing him. “I thought I’d explained this to you—I thought you understood. I’ll never want it as much as you do. I’ll never want it at all.”
“Then we won’t do it,” he said simply.
Her jaw went slack, and a moment passed before her tongue could form any
