Page 7 of Bound to a Highland Beast
“I dinnae understand what ye mean,” Isabeau said, though it was a lie. She was a sheltered girl, that much was true. She had been protected from many things, and one of them was men. Her brothers didn’t want their precious sister to fall in the hands of a lecherous man and the council certainly didn’t want their precious commodity to be ruined before marriage. From a young age, she had been prepared to wed a powerful man, someone who could offer the clan a strong alliance.
“Dinnae ye?” Tiernan asked, seeing right through her. “Let me be more clear, then. I’m talkin’ about matin’. Surely, ye ken what that is. Ye must’ve seen the horses… or the sheep.”
Isabeau came to a halt once more, staring at Tiernan in equal measures of disbelief and disgust. Not only was he talking about something extremely personal and impolite openly and brazenly, with no care in the world regarding her sensibilities, but he was also bringing up a crude example.
“Must ye say it like that?” she mumbled, arms crossed protectively over herself.
“Like what?” Tiernan asked innocently, as though he truly didn’t understand what was wrong with what he was saying. “I dinnae understand why all ye nobles are such prudes. It’s the most natural thing in the world. Isnae this how we all came tae exist?”
“I dinnae care tae discuss how we came tae exist,” Isabeau hissed, wondering why she was even entertaining this conversation. “Lasses arenae taught the ways between men an’ women until marriage nor dae we speak o’ it! It’s crude an’ sinful.”
“Naethin’ sinful about it,” Tiernan said, amused by the mere notion that sexual relations could be as disastrous as Isabeau thought. “An’ I ken plenty o’ lasses who speak o’ it. Are ye tellin’ me ye’ve never heard the maids discuss their favorite lads?”
An undignified noise escaped Isabeau as memories of catching the maid’s whispers flooded her mind. They didn’t often discusssuch things around her, but sometimes, something would slip through in their conversations and Isabeau would be left gaping at them, red-faced and feeling oddly heated. But surely, Tiernan couldn’t expect her to have paid any attention to such conversations! It didn’t become a woman of her status and every time she walked in on maids discussing men, she swiftly changed the subject or left the room once more.
“I dinnae pay attention tae what the maids say,” she claimed, though that, too, was a lie. “Anyway, why would it matter? It is only men who derive pleasure from such acts. I am glad I can wait until marriage.”
Tiernan gave her a strange look then, as though he was seeing her for the first time. Slowly, in an almost serpentine way, he approached Isabeau and came to stand right before her, forcing her to lean back a little.
“Who told ye such a thing?”
Isabeau huffed out a laugh, thinking that Tiernan was teasing her, but then she realized he was entirely serious.
“What dae ye mean?” she asked.
She had not only heard the maids discuss men, but she had also heard them discuss their first times with them and all the disappointment that came with the times that followed. Among the younger servants, who were not yet experienced with men, their first time and the pain they knew they would experiencewas a common concern. Among the older ones, many claimed that sexual relations were nothing but another chore.
“I dinnae ken with whom ye’ve discussed this, but it isnae true,” Tiernan said, his tone strangely gentle, as though he was truly trying to reassure her. “It’s true that it is very pleasurable fer men, but it can also be that way fer women. Nae woman has ever left me bed unsatisfied.”
It occurred to Isabeau that they were suddenly standing too close. Tiernan’s presence soon turned suffocating, sending a jolt of something she couldn’t name through her. She couldn’t help but wonder how many women had gone through his bed. A man like him was certainly experienced and compared to him, Isabeau felt like a terrified child, awkward and fearful and terribly naive.
There was so much she wanted to ask him. There was so much she wanted to know, curious to see why he claimed all his encounters were satisfying when so many people said the opposite about intimate relations.
Was it a skill exclusive to a few select? What set him apart from the other men?
What am I thinkin’! These arenae the thoughts o’ a virtuous lass!
They weren’t the actions of a virtuous one, either, she realized, and so promptly clamped her mouth shut, taking several stepsaway from Tiernan. Without another word, she continued walking, for once leading their party of two through the woods.
She didn’t need to hear any more of this. She would much rather be kept in the dark.
CHAPTER FOUR
Isabeau was a strange woman to say the least.
Between her blatant threats to fight him if he tried to hurt her and her clear lack of knowledge regarding the relations of men and women, she seemed to Tiernan as something entirely foreign, a woman the likes of whom he had never encountered before. She was full of contradictions, sometimes timid and scared and others so stubborn and determined that it shocked him, and he was beginning to wonder if perhaps she was not a woman at all, but rather a strange creature who was put onto the earth to torment him.
I had tae be stuck with the strangest lass in the entire clan.
Perhaps she wasn’t strange at all, he thought. Perhaps this was just how nobles were. He wouldn’t know, he was hardly familiar with them. Even now that he lived in the castle grounds, he didn’t often come across the high-ranking members of the clan. The closest point of reference he had was Alaric, but he neither looked nor acted like a noble most of the time. Even as thebrother of the laird, having grown up with a governess in the lap of luxury, he often reminded Tiernan more of his brothers in the gang than he did of the snooty council members who sometimes came to the forge with requests.
Isabeau was not snooty, though. She was a little delicate, but that was no wonder. Tiernan was certain she had grown up protected from everything, good or bad, kept away from anything that could bring her harm or joy; the perfect blank canvas for others to paint their own assumptions and desires on.
He didn’t envy her. He could hardly imagine living a life so sheltered and so rigid, always being expected to please and act like the proper lady she was supposed to be.
As they walked, Isabeau ahead of him, he began to notice a limp, her gait going from unsteady to uneven. It hadn’t occurred to him that she may have an issue with the trek, but then he noticed the shoes she was wearing—soft silk slippers, once a soft yellow, now a muddy brown.
They were hardly the right shoes for walking so long in a forest, and he had no doubt that she was in pain. How long had she been limping? How long had she spent in discomfort before it turned to pain? And yet, she had never once complained, keeping silent as they walked.
