Page 73 of The Lyon and the Unicorn
“Has she denied yer rights as a husband?”
“Aye,” Murdo said. “But her courses…”
His father wrinkled his nose. “Must ye speak ofthat?”
“Da, I—”
“Weak fool! Ye should take yer rights whether her courses run or not. Yer ma was the same, whining and mewling each month. And ye know what I did?”
“No, Da.”
“I took her from behind to spare me her miserable face. Mark my words, son, if ye let yer woman deny ye, the clan will see yeas weak. And a weak man is unfit to rule.” He gestured toward the ledger. “Ye’re already doing the work of a clerk. What will she have ye do next, scrub the kitchen pans? Empty the piss pots? Wash her bloodied sheets?”
“That’s enough!” Murdo rose to his feet.
“Where are ye going, son?”
“To see my wife.”
His father curled his lip into a sneer. “Ye’ll find her with her lover.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
“I saw her with my own eyes, chopping wood like some peasant’s whore, not the wife of the laird’s son.”
Ignoring his father’s jibe, Murdo exited the study. He paused at the main doors, then strode outside, passing young Callum carrying a basket of logs across the yard.
Surely Clara wouldn’t play him false? She’d seemed overly shy about her courses when he spotted the stains on her nightgown yesterday. Almost as if she were an innocent…
Devil’s ballocks!Why hadn’t he noticed it before? Their wedding night had been a fortnight ago, and yet her courses had run again. Which meant…
“Fuck!”
Callum yelped and dropped the logs. “Are ye well, Master Murdo?”
“Aye,” Murdo replied. “I’m also a fool.”
He helped the lad retrieve the logs then made his way to the wood store. But Clara wasn’t there.
Clara, who, he now realized, had been a maiden on their wedding night. And he’d taken her like a rutting boor. He’d had no need to cut himself to give the revelers evidence of a maiden’s blood. The bedsheets had been stained with it the next morning—and not her courses.
In his arrogance he’d thought her cries that night had been cries of pleasure, not pain.
No wonder she hates me.
He caught a ripple of laughter in the wind, coming from the path that wound up the slopes of the mountain and disappeared into a band of trees that concealed the ghillie’s cottage. Beyond the trees, the path climbed higher until it was no longer distinguishable from the rocky summit.
Beyond the summit, two dark dots circled in the heavens, an eagle and his mate.
As Murdo’s gaze followed the path back down, he caught sight of a man and a woman arm in arm.
His wife—and Duncan.
Murdo suppressed the surge of jealousy as she threw back her head in laughter at something the ghillie said. Unlike Society ladies who tittered elegantly behind their fans, Clara laughed with her whole body. She stumbled sideways, and her laughter increased as Duncan caught her in his arms.
Murdo strode to meet them while they chatted animatedly, like the best of friends. Then the ghillie glanced up and met his gaze. He stiffened and withdrew his arm.
“What’s wrong?” Clara said. “Have we been…”
