Page 10 of My Scot, My Surrender
Sorcha’s mouth tightened, her eyes sparking. “I’m glad it’s so easy for you.”
Brandt shrugged out of his coat. “If you think bartering my name is easy, my lady, then perhaps you don’t appreciate my sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice?” she snapped. “In a few weeks, you’ll walk away with a stallion worth its weight in cairngorm crystals, while I…I…”
“While you eschew marriage to a marquess.” He stared coolly at her. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Sorcha’s mouth opened and closed, her eyes like pieces of blue flint, though her fingers curled into trembling fists at her sides. Her face paled as resignation settled upon it. Brandt sighed, throttling his anger. She was only a girl, after all, one who, despite her own machinations, had found herself wedded and nearly bedded within the space of an hour.
He glanced at the wooden tub, his tone gentling. “You should bathe before the water gets cold. I’ll wash after you do.” His gaze shifted to the bed. “And you needn’t worry that I’ll lose control of my desires with you. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Sorcha’s hands wound into her skirts as her eyes slid to the bed, and the smear of red at its center. She swallowed and nodded stiffly. “Thank you.”
He took a moment to reply. Perhaps he should be thanking her as well. She wouldn’t have parted with Lochland Toss—orLockie, as she’d called him—if she hadn’t backed Brandt into this corner. But he didn’t feel like gloating. He was too damned tired.
“You’re safe with me, Sorcha,” he said instead.
“Am I?” Her reply was near inaudible.
“Your sudden skepticism offends, my lady,” he said quietly. “Weren’t you the one who decided I was a far step safer than Malvern in the first place?”
She flinched as if he’d struck her but did not snap back with a sharp-tongued answer. Uncomfortable with the tightening sensation of guilt-speckled fury in his chest, Brandt walked to the window, his arms clasped behind his back. He had nothing to feel guilty for. He’d played his part and, when all was said and done, he would claim the reward he deserved.
No more, no less.
Chapter Four
Sorcha’s eyes cracked open to a slim golden beam of sunshine cutting the darkened room in half. It was coming from a window, its coverings drawn and blocking most of the daylight. Stretching her arms wide across the bed, she recognized the dated, peeling decor of Pollock’s. It wasn’t the first night she’d spent in the inn, and it wouldn’t be the last. She’d probably drunk too much, and one of her brothers had thought it best if she slept it off.
She blinked, her eyesight adjusting over the lone spear of light in the room, and froze. A man slumbered in the armchair near the window. Swallowing a scream, she sat up abruptly, the previous night’s happenings coming back to her in a brutal rush—a kiss, her brothers, the chapel, a ceremony, dinner—and the indisputable fact that the man asleep in the chair was her husband.
Lifting her fingers, she stared at the antique ring with the green, blue, and gold crest he’d given her in the chapel after pledging his vows. She squinted at it. The blend of colors looked familiar, but all the Scottish family crests tended to blur after a while. He could be a Lowlander for all she knew. Then again, she did not care about his last name, so long as it was not Malvern.
Christ in a tartan, she was bloody married.
She was no longer Lady Sorcha Maclaren; she was Lady SorchaPierce.
Well, she wasn’t his wife in truth. Shifting her hips quietly, she stared down at the brownish-red markings on the white linen and clutched the blankets to her chest. She would be lying if she didn’t admit she was grateful he hadn’t seen the whole of her. No one had in years, not even her maids, who drew baths for her but knew their lady preferred to see to her own ablutions. With the drapes drawn.Alwayswith the drapes drawn.
Sorcha had learned that painful lesson and would never repeat it. She closed her eyes against the memory, though it echoed no matter how she tried to banish it. Her bedchamber at the Maclaren keep. The sound of gasps and horrified whispers as she had risen from a bath. Her maid, rushing the open arched window and telling someone to shoo.
Three boys, Sorcha learned the next day, when her father had leveled a punishment of horsewhipping for their spying. She had been fourteen, the boys all a year or two older, and one, Aric Ferguson, she’d admired for ages. The son of a neighboring laird, Aric was the only boy who ever looked at her twice, and she’d quickly learned why.
He’d found her later, forced to apologize by his father and hers, but his apology had been naught but a twisted, sullen insult.I’m sorry we peeked on ye. ’Twas a dare, ye ken. He’d lowered his voice then, so their fathers, standing nearby, could not hear.Ye have my promise—I’ll no’ look at such a beast again.And with a grimace as his eyes drifted over her newly blossomed chest, Aric had walked away.
He never looked her in the eye again. Nor did the others. Though soon after, Sorcha had started hearing the wordbeastin passing. And eventually,Beast of Maclaren. The painful nickname had gutted her at first. Then she’d gotten her revenge a year later at a clan fair when she’d trounced Aric soundly in the ring, dressed in her brother Evan’s old clothes.
“How does it feel to be beaten by the Beast?” she’d spat.
The dumbstruck look on his face when she’d revealed herself had been priceless, almost worth the cost of his cruelty. Her gratification, however, couldn’t erase what he’d said, or the years of loneliness that followed.
Aric had been the first, but she vowed he would be the last. No man in his right mind would want—let alone want tosee—what lay under her shift, and she would never subject herself to such scorn again. Sorcha had long given up hope that any man would truly desire her. Except for Malvern, who had wanted her dowry, not her body.
Though she’d consented to the agreement of marriage in name only, she hadn’t been certain if her new husband would expect to carry out his conjugal rights. He was a man, after all, and after their kiss and the way he’d touched her…she’d started to think he might want what was owed to him.
Only he hadn’t.
Sorcha closed her eyes on a silent sigh, her heart pinching slightly with thwarted longing. Had shewantedhim to bed her? She’d been promised to Malvern for so long that she’d never even thought of other men. And certainly not a prime specimen likehim.
