Page 15 of A Scot for Bethan
I almost killed a man for calling you a whore.
Mercifully, she didn’t press him.
“Where will we stop for the night?” she asked instead, following him back to the group of horses.
Lord Sheridan had been kind enough to give him letters of recommendation to be handed at the gate of two of the castles situated along the way, on the English side of the boarder. His friends would welcome them on those two nights but other than that, they would have to rely on themselves to find a place to sleep.
“We won’t be stopping in a tavern, you’ll be pleased to know,” he growled. As well as putting him in a fool mood, his conversation with McBain had made him see that someone else’s memory might be jolted if they met with women plying their trade. He couldn’t risk such a thing happening.
Bethan blushed, and he cursed himself for reminding her of what had happened the night they’d met, when she would have been afraid of what half a dozen drunken men could do to her.“It’s not a problem if we have to. I daresay today I do not look like a—well, I don’t think anyone would mistake me for what I’m not.”
Don’t look! Cameron urged himself.Don’t look at the perfect breasts straining under the bodice, at the perfect hips wrapped in velvet, at the perfect mouth putting you in mind of scandalous acts.
He did look. Of course, he did. He couldn’t help it. It would be like asking him not to drink when he was thirsty, not to move when he was drowning, not to smile when he was happy. But at least she was right about one thing. Today she looked every inch the lady.
“Aye. No one would even dare suggest you’re anything other than respectable,” he growled. “In any case, while I’m with you no harm will befall you, whether on the road or at a place of ill repute.”
“This I do not doubt for a moment.”
“Is that a compliment?” A corner of his mouth lifted up. How was that even possible? In the mood he was in, nothing should be able to amuse him. And why did he care if she had paid him a compliment? “I’m flattered.”
“It’s a statement of fact, nothing more. You are here to take me to Scotland and deliver me to my future husband safe and whole. I doubt you will allow anyone to make you fail in your mission. You are far too proud for that, my laird.” She arched a brow, and a spark appeared in her eyes, making them lighter than usual. “I imagine that the only people you allow to get the better of you are the lovers you take to your bed.”
This scandalous answer surprised a bark of laughter out of him. How was it that she could coax him out of his foul temper with only a few sentences?
“Indeed. Surrendering to a beautiful woman’s will feels like the sweetest victory.”
“Has it happened often?”
“Not nearly often enough. In my experience, most women think that it is their role to be passive. They expect men to take them and enjoy every moment of it, but they would never think to—” he stopped, realizing what he was saying. Why was he discussing such things with the maiden promised to his nephew? Hadn’t he promised he would never allude to her skill in bed? True he was not talking about her, but he was sure he had crossed the line into unsuitable the moment he’d mentioned the pleasure there was in surrendering to a beautiful woman’s will.
By rights, Bethan should lash out at him, but she surprised—or rather shocked—him by finishing his sentence in his stead. “They would never think of riding their lover and give him, as well as themselves, immense pleasure in the process.”
For a moment he just stared at her, too stunned to react. What the hell did she know about riding a man? Once he had recovered his wits, he answered. “Such language for a well-bred young maiden! I imagine you got used to hearing bawdy talk at the tavern, but I do hope that plain speaking is the worst thing Mistress Elen’s girls taught you. Or perhaps not, since you seem to know an awful lot about what women do to men when on their knees.”
She might be still a virgin, and yet not be completely innocent.
This time Bethan’s cheeks went a deep crimson. He would have found the color delightful if it hadn’t betrayed her guilt.Didshe have some experience with men then? She’d claimed she had never gone down on her knees to pleasure a lover, but that didn’t mean she had not kissed anyone or used her hand to?—
“Didn’t you agree you would not discuss my skill as a lover?” she said, cutting through the unbearable image of her taking a man in hand to give him blessed relief.
His eyes narrowed. He was not the one at fault here and they both knew it. “You started it, with your talk of women riding their lovers. Besides, it wasn’t a personal comment. I said what ‘women’ do on their knees.”
“I’m a woman, am I not?”
Och, aye, she was. Every inch of her was definitely, exquisitely, unmistakably female. A man like Dougal would never be able to handle her. He would panic.
And just like that, his anger deflated.
What sort of life awaited Bethan in Scotland, he wondered for the hundredth time? The more Cameron thought about it, the more worried he got, because he feared she would waste away in the foreign land. At first, not knowing anyone, not being able to converse with the people, she would be lonely, that much was certain, and he didn’t see how things would improve afterward. A boy of twenty, spending more time in Robert the Bruce’s army than at home getting to know her, his nephew would be a poor husband. He wouldn’t know what to do with a wife in his castle and a woman in his bed.
At least… Cameron could be mistaken, but he was pretty certain Dougal was a virgin, with little or no idea how to please a woman. Not only had his mind been occupied by thoughts of war for years, but even as a youth, he had never expressed any interest in any girl. It would be highly surprising if he could offer his bride a satisfactory consummation and fulfilling marital life. He would not even have the will to try, thinking it a woman’s duty to lie back and allow her husband to take his pleasure whenever the mood took him or when he thought it was time to get another child on her. Would Bethan try to show him what delights they could share? The women from the stewhouse had clearly taught her a thing or two, even if she claimed never to have put them in practice. Would she want to experiment withher new husband? Dougal was pleasing enough to the eye. She might well wish to?—
He brought an abrupt halt to the musings. Imagining the newlyweds in bed together was torture. Dougal didn’t deserve such a fine wife as this Welsh beauty. If the boy was to marry someone he didn’t love and would only ignore, why couldn’t it be a cold, religious fanatic who would be relieved to be spared her husband’s attentions in bed?
Bethan was anything but cold and dispassionate. If her attitude in life was any indication, she would be a fiery lover, afraid of nothing. Hadn’t she forced a retinue of men to stop so that she could admire a rainbow? Wasn’t she brave enough to put him in his place every time he snapped at her and bold enough to ask what he did to his lovers? A woman such as her needed a life companion, someone to bandy words about by day—and a real man in her bed at night. Someone like him, who liked nothing better, as he’d just told her, than to surrender to a brazen woman’s will when the time and place were right.
Oh, but what he wouldn’t give to surrender toherwill.
