“I wasnae dying.”
“Ye were as close to it as I e’er want to see,” she snapped, then drew a deep breath to calm herself. “When I thought ye were dying, I made a vow to God.”
“Not to be celibate, I hope.”
A good wife should not want to hit her husband with a thick stick, she told herself, and sighed out her annoyance. “I vowed that I would be the perfect wife, that that was what ye deserved.”
“What I deserved? Just what is a perfect wife?”
“She can sew and weave and run a household. She does all she can to ensure her husband’s comfort and cares for all the elderly kin who live with her.”
“Dinnae let Angus hear ye call him elderly,” he muttered and ignored her glare.
“A good wife is always gentle and kind, polite and weel-behaved, soft of voice and mild of temper. A good wife—” She peered over the top of his hand when he put it over her mouth.
“And just where did ye learn all of this?” he asked as he slowly removed his hand. “From the woman who had a hand in the murder of your family and was hoping ye would be killed along with them? The one who made your life a misery for so long? The one who has been living off of money and lands that should have been yours? Made ye feel like the poor kinswoman she so kindly raised, when ’tis truly she who is the one who is penniless? If ye are still heeding anything that woman said, then mayhap I was wrong and ye are suffering from a fever of the brain.”
Cecily gasped and glared at him. “There is nay need to be insulting.” She suddenly found herself with nothing to say, being at a complete loss as to how to defend herself for he was right. “Others abide by most of these rules. These are the sort of rules women teach to their daughters.”
“Ye had best nay teach our daughter such nonsense.”
“’Tisnae nonsense.” She inwardly cursed, for she was feeling like crying again and she was not sure why. “’Tis how a wife should act.”
“Why dinnae ye just be yourself?”
“Because I couldnae abide it if ye pushed me away,” she whispered, then clapped a hand over her mouth as she realized what she had just said.
Artan almost smiled, touched by her words for they indicated that she did care for him, but he forced himself to keep all of his attention on what they were discussing. He was beginning to see the problem more clearly. It was as Old Meg had suspected. Cecily was trying to win his approval. Just as she had done when she had been a lonely child forced to sit apart from the family she so badly needed, she was trying to do all she could to win his approval, ne’er realizing that she had had it and so much more from the very first day they met.
“I will ne’er push ye away, Sile mine,” he said quietly. “In some ways, ’tis ye who have been pushing me away these last few days.”
“I would ne’er do that.”
“Oh, and why wouldnae ye? Do ye perhaps care for me a wee bit?”
“Dinnae be such an idiot. Care? Of course I care. I love ye.”
The moment those words left her mouth, Cecily desperately wanted to find a hole to crawl into. When she suddenly found herself being fiercely kissed by Artan, she felt her embarrassment ease. A man could not kiss a woman like this if he had just been told something he did not want to hear. There was no awkwardness or hesitation here, but a hearty welcome. Cecily suddenly felt better than she had in a long time, although she knew this acceptance of her love did not mean he returned it.
“Say it again,” he whispered against her ear.
“I love ye,” she whispered back and cried out softly in surprise when he picked her up and carried her to their bed.
They were naked and in each other’s arms so quickly it made her as dazed as his kisses did. She tried to pull forth the ladylike coolness she had only recently achieved, but it was nowhere to be found. Her emotions were so raw and his lovemaking so fierce that she had no time to collect herself. It took but a few kisses and she was as wild and greedy as he was. She fought with him to see which of them could drive the other more mad with desire, giving him back all he gave her, caress for caress and kiss for kiss. When he thrust into her, she cried out both in welcome and in disappointment that this wild mating would soon be over.
Still trembling and panting from the fierce release they had shared, Cecily cautiously eyed the man sprawled in her arms. Although she had much preferred this sort of lovemaking to the restrained sort she had been trying to achieve, it was not what could be considered ladylike, and she suddenly felt uneasy. It would appear that this was yet another thing she would fail to be perfect at.
“I am sorry,” she heard herself say and then sighed, wondering if she sounded as pathetic as she thought she did.
“Sorry? For what? Making your mon so satisfied he will probably need a good hour ere he can even walk?” He lifted his head to give her a soft kiss and then frowned as he saw how troubled she was. “Does our lovemaking nay please ye?” He knew it did, but something troubled her and he was determined to find out what as he would not allow her to return to the cold, stiff woman he had found in his bed for the last few nights.
“Did I nay caress ye in the right places? Give ye pleasure? Kiss ye where ye wanted to be kissed?”
“Nay, it isnae your fault. Ye are all that is wonderful and ye please me more than I can say. ’Tis just that I cannae seem to behave as a lady should when ye are kissing me.”
“A lady? Sile mine, the woman I have found in my bed these last few nights may have looked like my wife, but she wasnae, and she wasnae a lady either. She was a corpse. Aye, she had all the life and warmth of a dead herring.”
“Artan!”
