"Where are the others? Did they go back to the inn?"
Jamie grimaced. "No. I made them go away so I could tend ye, but they'll be waitin' for us just over there." He gestured with his chin, in the countryman's manner. "They're no going to trust us alone 'til everything's official."
"Isn't it?" I said blankly. "We're married, aren't we?"
He seemed embarrassed, turning away and elaborately brushing dead leaves from his kilts.
"Mmmphm. Aye, we're married, right enough. But it's no legally binding, ye know, until it's been consummated." A slow, fierce blush burned its way up from the lacy jabot.
"Mmmphm," I said. "Let's go and find something to eat."
* * *
15
Revelations of the Bridal Chamber
At the inn, food was readily available, in the form of a modest wedding feast, including wine, fresh bread, and roast beef.
Dougal took me by the arm as I started for the stairs to freshen myself before eating.
"I want this marriage consummated, wi' no uncertainty whatsoever," Dougal instructed me firmly in an undertone. "There's to be no question of it bein' a legal union, and no way open for annulment, or we're all riskin' our necks."
"Seems to me you're doing that anyway," I remarked crossly. "Mine, especially."
Dougal patted me firmly on the rump.
"Dinna ye worry about that; ye just do your part." He looked me over critically, as though judging my capacity to perform my role adequately.
"I kent Jamie's father. If the lad's much like him, ye'll have no trouble at all. Ah, Jamie lad!" He hurried across the room, to where Jamie had come in from stabling the horses. From the look on Jamie's face, he was getting his orders as well.
How in the name of God did this happen? I asked myself sometime later. Six weeks ago, I had been innocently collecting wildflowers on a Scottish hill to take home to my husband. I was now shut in the room of a rural inn, awaiting a completely different husband, whom I scarcely knew, with firm orders to consummate a forced marriage, at risk of my life and liberty.
I sat on the bed, stiff and terrified in my borrowed finery. There was a faint noise as the heavy door of the room swung open, then shut.
Jamie leaned against the door, watching me. The air of embarrassment between us deepened. It was Jamie who broke the silence finally.
"You dinna need to be afraid of me," he said softly. "I wasna going to jump on ye." I laughed in spite of myself.
"Well, I didn't think you would." In fact, I didn't think he would touch me, until and unless I invited him to; the fact remained that I was going to have to invite him to do considerably more than that, and soon.
I eyed him dubiously. I supposed it would be harder if I found him unattractive; in fact, the opposite was true. Still, I had not slept with any man but Frank in over eight years. Not only that, this young man, by his own acknowledgment, was completely inexperienced. I had never deflowered anyone before. Even dismissing my objections to the whole arrangement, and considering matters from a completely practical standpoint, how on earth were we to start? At this rate, we would still be standing here, staring at each other, three or four days hence.
I cleared my throat and patted the bed beside me.
"Ah, would you like to sit down?"
"Aye." He came across the room, moving like a big cat. Instead of sitting beside me, though, he pulled up a stool and sat down facing me. Somewhat tentatively, he reached out and took my hands between his own. They were large, bluntfingered, and very warm, the backs lightly furred with reddish hairs. I felt a slight shock at the touch, and thought of an Old Testament passage—"For Jacob's skin was smooth, while his brother Esau was a hairy man." Frank's hands were long and slender, nearly hairless and aristocratic-looking. I had always loved watching them as he lectured.
"Tell me about your husband," said Jamie, as though he had been reading my mind. I almost jerked my hands away in shock.
"What?"
"Look ye, lass. We have three or four days together here. While I dinna pretend to know all there is to know, I've lived a good bit of my life on a farm, and unless people are verra different from other animals, it isna going to take that long to do what we have to. We have a bit of time to talk, and get over being scairt of each other." This blunt appraisal of our situation relaxed me a little bit.
"Are you scared of me?" He didn't look it. Perhaps he was nervous, though. Even though he was no timid sixteen-year-old lad, this was the first time. He looked into my eyes and smiled.