Alasdair got into the bed.
There was a silence.
It was a heavy, expectant silence that somehow just seemed loud.
Behind the darkness of her eyelids Fiona thought of a baby, sweet-smelling, with soft pudgy cheeks, a delicious gummy smile, to hold and to care for. To love. Yes. Yes.
“Well,” he said, “let’s to it.”
“Fine.”
“My curst arm won’t support me. You’ll have to ride me.”
“Ride you? What does that mean? You’re not a horse.”
“Come over here and I’ll show you.”
“No. Tell me what you mean.”
He sighed. “I stay like this, on my back, and you go astride me.”
“I still don’t understand you.”
“You sit on my cock, damn it! Is that clear enough?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said coldly.
“Now that you understand, come here. We may as well get it over with.”
“No.”
“Are you worried you’ll crush me? You’re tall but you’re a featherweight.”
“I’m not worried I’ll crush you. I simply won’t do it that way.”
“Why not, for God’s sake?”
“I’m not one of your loose women. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I am all too aware of it,” he answered in an annoyed tone. “All this tedious talking, for one thing.”
“I’m sorry if I’m boring you,” Fiona said, more coldly still.
“I didn’t marry you so we could lie around prattling to each other.”
“Well, if it comes to that, you’re not very interesting either. When you’re prepared to do your husbandly duty properly, let me know.”
With heavy sarcasm he shot back: “I didn’t realize there were rules about the positions.”
Here, Fiona acknowledged, she had stepped onto thin ice. The best defense being a strong offense, she took refuge in primness and promptly said, “For gently born ladies, there ought to be.”
“You refuse, then?”
“Yes.”
“Flouting your wifely obligation on the very first night?”
“Are you going to beat me, as my father so often vowed to do to my mother?” she snapped, then instantly regretted such a personal revelation.
There was another silence.
Fiona opened her eyes and very quietly turned her head on the pillow, to find that he had turned his head to look at her in the warm dimness of the bed.
“I don’t believe in that,” he said, in a low voice. And as if he was sorry for his own admission he added gruffly, “Besides, I couldn’t do a very good job of it with a shoulder that’s yet to fully heal.”
“The luck is with me then.”
He laughed shortly. “Luck. Yes.”
How strange it was, Fiona thought suddenly, having a conversation—tedious or not—in bed with someone who was essentially a stranger to her. Was this how things were going to be between them? With this body I thee worship. Ha. She steeled herself against an unwelcome torrent of sorrow, fixed her mind on other things.
Isobel. Tell her tomorrow. Wick Bay
Why is there no housekeeper? Ask Lister
Linens. Where are they kept?
Children here inoculated? Ask Dr. Colquhoun
Cook re meal planning
Stillroom needs a thorough cleaning—assign a maid
When is wash day? Baking day? Brewing day?
Find head gardener (name?)—flowers for my morning-room
Go riding. Tell Begbie: no groom
Alasdair said something, interrupting her train of thought.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Duff,” he said gloomily, “was right.”
“That you really should have taken Mairi to wife?” she retorted at once. “That way he wouldn’t have lost his bet. How much did he lose, by the way?”
“You knew about that?”
“Yes.”
He paused. She could see him frowning. Stiffly he said: “I only found out about it today. I’m sorry. Had I known I would have forbidden such disrespectful behavior.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
She absorbed this, then asked, “What was he right about?”
“Oh, that tonight would be difficult. He gave me a sporran filled with pig’s blood just in case.”
A lingering feeling of sadness now gave way to fury so strong that Fiona could willingly have leaped out of bed, sought out Duff MacDermott wherever he had lain his scrofulous self, and strangled him with his own beard. And she didn’t even know exactly what bad thing she’d like to do to Alasdair Penhallow. Instead she said, icily, “What a charming wedding gift.”
“It seems, however, he may have spared us both the shame of gossip tomorrow, so that the maidservants don’t see unsullied sheets.”