She grinned. “My most devoted husband?”
He snorted. “Reuben. We are married now. I began using Iseabail the moment those bastards attacked.”
Did he? She didn’t remember. But the thought warmed her. It established an intimacy between them that was appropriate to engaged couples. Engaged couples who were now married.
“Reuben,” she said, trying out his name.
He smiled. Apparently, he liked the sound of his name on her tongue. “Yes?”
“Must we…um…consummate things tonight?”
“I think it would be best. Do you wish to wait?”
What a question! If only she had an answer. She had always been one to get something over with. If it was inevitable or necessary, she took a deep breath and did what had to be done. But that was hardly the way to approach intimacy. Even she knew that. And yet, the idea of finally experiencing something that so many others spoke of, whispered about, or even praised…well, that was something she very much wanted right now.
After all, who knew what was to come in Scotland? For one night, she would like to know what it meant to be a full woman.
“Iseabail, we don’t have—”
“I think my uncle will kill you,” she blurted. Then she gasped and covered her mouth. Whatever had possessed her to say that?
His eyes widened, then he gently pulled her hands down. “I am very good at staying alive,” he said.
She nodded. She was sure of it. And yet…
“You think he will win anyway?”
“And he will marry me to someone awful, and I will try to kill him and fail. Because what other choice do I have? And then…” She closed her eyes as she tried to blot out the one fear she had lived with nearly her entire life. “I know so many ways to kill myself. I have thought of them all. A small knife, a sharp nail, a rope. So many ways.”
“Good God,” he murmured as he drew her into his arms. “What you have endured.”
She shook in his arms. These were not the fears that were uppermost in her mind, and yet these were the ones that came out at the oddest of times. In the middle of tea with Sadie, out on a walk on a pleasant afternoon, or now when faced with her new husband on their wedding night. She tried to choke them down, but they always resurfaced at the most unexpected times.
He held her until she stopped shaking, until she could catch her breath and shove down the panic that choked her. And then he pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“If you put your shoes back on, we can take a walk. We’ll see where this stream goes, and I shall tell you a story about myself. We will get to know one another as husband and wife.”
That wasn’t what people usually thought of when discussing husbands and wives, but she was grateful for the offer. She nodded and turned to get her shoes. Her feet had gotten muddy, so she sat on a rock as she rinsed the dirt away. And then, when she was about to put her shoes on, he knelt beside her.
“Allow me,” he said.
He shook out his handkerchief and used it to wipe the wet away. His hands were large where they cradled her feet, his fingers strong as he massaged as much as he dried. And when the water was gone, his touch grew gentle. He caressed her foot, stroking gently around her ankle and along her instep. He touched her toes playfully and teased the callouses along her heel.
“Even your feet are ladylike.”
She peered down at her knobby ankle and painfully high arch. So many nights her feet had ached from a night spent with a laboring mother or an ill child. She had never thought of them as anything but unequal to the task of her days. “How much ale did you drink?”
He laughed, the sound filling the night with warmth. “Your feet are clean, and the shape pleasing. Your bones are straight, the arch high, and I can feel the strength in them.” He looked up at her. “You told me how the castle functions, who does what and on what schedule.”
She nodded.
“I’ll wager you have performed every task, attempted every skill, and have even taught others.”
“Of course, I have. My mother always kept me busy. When I was a child, I thought it was because she hated me. Why did I have to gather eggs or wash laundry? There were others more suited to the task.”
“And now that you are grown?”
“She wanted our people to know me as one of them. I worked alongside them. I grew up with their children. I could not have escaped if I didn’t have their help.”
