The tension inside her was unbearable. Instinctively, she lifted her hips.
“Oh my!” she cried out as he slid inside her and pushed the air from her lungs. She pulled him down into a deep kiss.
He broke the kiss, rose up on his arms, and plunged into her to the hilt. His brief attempt at gentleness was gone, thank goodness. He was all hunger and need. And an edge of something else.
“That feels…so…so…ah…ah.” She lost the ability to form words as he thrust into her again and again.
Powerful sensations built inside her, and she clung to him, needing more still from him. She felt like a frayed rope pulled to the point of breaking. Her release came in pulsing, frenzied rapture. The intensity of it battered her, making her cry out as he called her name and surged inside her.
Rory rolled onto his back, taking her with him. Their breathing seemed loud against the soft night sounds. She lay depleted and utterly amazed that something so wonderful could ever happen between two people.
When she had the strength to lift her arm, she ran her hand over his chest, exploring the hard muscles with her fingertips and enjoying the sensation of the coarse hair against her palm.
“Don’t ye think ye have something to explain to me?” Rory said in a flat tone that startled her.
How could he sound so cold when their bodies had just been joined in such magical passion? What on earth had she done to offend him?
“Explain what?” She felt herself flush. “Was I too loud?”
“Ye know damned well that is no what I’m asking about.”
She tried to think what she could have done to upset him, but her mind was still sluggish.
“How is it, my sweet bride,” he said between his teeth, “that you’re not a virgin?”
The realization struck her with the force of a blow. God help her, she had forgotten to pretend. It should have been so easy. There was no white linen that would fail to show bloodstains. All she had to do was make a show of crying out in pain at the right moment.
She had lost herself to such unexpected passion that she utterly forgot to make the pretense. When he thrust inside her, she cried out in ecstasy instead of pain.
“I’m sorry,” was all she could muster.
“Sorry is not nearly enough,” he said. “I need an explanation.”
This was exactly why she should have pretended to be a virgin. The reason for her lack of virginity was not something she wished to discuss or remember. Once it was over, she’d put what happened firmly behind her and refused to let it ruin one more day of her life.
Besides, why should her lack of virginity matter so damned much?
“’Tis not as though you’re a virgin,” she snapped, which she knew was a mistake even before Rory rattled off a long string of Gaelic curses that included slanderous statements about her, her family, and the entire Douglas clan.
He leaned over her, his face hard and angry, and demanded, “Who was he?”
How could he ruin what had just happened between them? She had felt so close to him when they made love, as if their very souls had touched and become one. And now he was ranting at her. And worse, he was making her remember things that she had vowed never to think of again.
“I won’t do this!” She tried to hold her hands over her ears, but he held her down by her wrists, trapping her.
“Tell me,” he said, leaning down until his face was an inch from hers.
He was frightening her now, and she was having none of that.
“I was forced,” she spat out, and shoved him hard. “Now get off me!”
She rolled onto her side and held herself in a ball, overwhelmed both by Rory’s anger and by the memories that she had succeeded in burying for so long.
“Oh, God, Sybil.” Rory rested his hand on her shoulder and his voice was thick with emotion. “Ye were raped?”
Rape was what it had felt like, though her husband had the right to do what he did to her.
She stared into the embers of their dying campfire and remembered how much her grandfather’s betrayal had hurt her. She had idolized him as only a young girl can, and he had always told her she was his favorite. When she learned he had arranged the marriage to that despicable man, she was so sure she could change his mind.
