Chapter 6
Sandra's fingers and toes tingled with a slight pain when the door was flung open and the warmth from the hall gusted over her frozen body. The instant they stepped into the protection of the manor, she felt Lex's arms loosen their engulfing hold and seemingly push her as far as possible from his body without actually throwing her on the stone floor.
His touch was no longer comforting. Like the tides of the mighty sea, the change was fast and unpredictable to an untrained heart, and it seemed that Lex was ever ready to drag down an unsuspecting fool who lingered too long on the shores of his kindness.
"What have you done to her?" Rory was the first to ask. Both his question and his tone were accusing.
Carefully her young protector peeled back her dripping tartan to examine her condition for himself. Out of all the MacLachlans, Rory had always watched out for her well-being like kin. Like a brother she never had, he made her heart feel welcome.
Sandra gave him a smile of thanks for his concern and reached out a hand to relieve the worry furrowed between his brows. Her hand was nearly to his face when Lex jerked her away. He headed for the stairs, and she felt his low growl rumble through her body where she was once again held tightly against his chest.
"There is nothing wrong with her that a hot bath and a warm bed will not cure. I will need hot water brought up." He paused at the base of the stairs to make sure Rory had heard his request.
"Ask 'em to do your bidding yourself. You are the chieftain, not me," Rory answered with folded arms across his chest and defiance smeared across his handsome face.
Sandra saw Lex's nostrils flare at the mention of his unwanted title. Even though he was fighting his birthright so fiercely, looking around the room, she could find no man or woman who better fit the role of chieftain than him. His reply to Rory only proved it. "I was not asking," Lex stated with a deadly calm he had so finely mastered. "And I was not talking to anyone else but you." His eyes bore into Rory just long enough to pierce through the boy's thinning armor of disrespect, then Lex turned and continued on up the stairs. His leisurely strides and unnerving silence showed his confidence that the deed would be done without further exchange. It was more than evident to her now that he truly possessed the power and strength of a chieftain in both his character and his body, and it was her thoughts of the latter that were overpowering her senses at that instant.
Against every effort to stay calm, her heart began to flutter unevenly like a butterfly caught on a swift breeze when he turned at the top of the stairs and headed down the hall toward the room she had been in before. She knew now that it had to be his room; everything she remembered about it marked it clearly as his. The lavish English linens, the spotless clean of the floorboards, and most of all, the permeating smell of pine that even now was making her senses reel with a knowing connection. The smell was a unique mixture of nature and man, and it had clung to her skin long after she had left his manor the first time. Suddenly, her mind and heart raced with the possibility that he had changed his mind and was about to fulfill his promise to finish what he had started that night.
The tub was in his room and he had said she would be in a warm bed. She doubted any of the other rooms in this manor could boast of a roaring hearth or bed warmer than his.
She flushed with a blaze of heat at her thoughts and squirmed in his arms uncomfortably to distance herself from his temptation. No matter how her body was reacting again, her mind had to stay strong. No real harm had been done yet. She could still marry Mangus as planned just as soon as they found him. Lex MacLachlan was not staying around long enough to let his boots dry, let alone raise any child this hand-fast might bear. She had to find a way to dissuade him from his intentions, without actually being the one to deny him his rights as her husband.
"I will need some time to clean up before..." she wasn't sure if it was proper for a bride to voice the act out loud. "...before I sleep," she finished with averted eyes.
"You will have all the time you need." His voice had become very different from any she had heard from his lips before, and there had been many. She snuck a peek up at him, only to find his mesmerizing eyes dancing over her face. His half smile triggered the exact word in her mind to describe his new voice...sensual. "Later we will discuss why you were sitting out in this storm at all." She opened her mouth to explain, but he silenced her with a slow shake of his head. "Tomorrow we will talk about everything, and I will make right what I can for you. I promise."
If he had not already melted her down with his manly smell, she would have surely dissolved into nothing after hearing those words float from his mouth on his sweet breath. He had made everything all right in her eyes already. Rescuing her from the storm and taking her into his home was the only solution to her problems for now. She needed time to soothe all the hot tempers in her clan and return things to the way they were before Lex...before she had done...she could not even rethink it. It was too wantonly shameful.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked with a start when they passed the huge doors to his chamber.
"To the women's quarters so you can have some privacy in your bath. I will have the tub brought there for you."
She relaxed a little when she understood his chivalrous intentions. Now if she could just use that honor to keep him honorable. From the way he kept looking at her with that slight smile, she knew she was not mistaken in what he thought lay ahead for them tonight.
Her swirling confusion of emotions stopped abruptly when she heard a familiar Scottish woman's voice bellow out from the other side of the door Lex was trying to open without putting her down. So many voices and no faces to match them to. She was sure that this woman's burr was too strong to belong to the English Corkie. It definitely was the voice that she had heard the first night she was here. But who did it belong to?
"Ya better not be bringin' her in here," the woman hollered angrily. Her burr was thicker than Sandra had ever heard it before. "This is my room and I will not be havin' another woman messin' with my belongings."
Sandra whipped her head over from staring at the door to glare at Lex. He seemed oblivious to either of the women he was offending. He just kept pushing at the latch with his elbow and ramming the door with his shoulder. "All the damn doors in this place are swollen shut from the bloody dampness in this country," he swore, giving the door one more good shove with his back. It opened for a slight instant, but then slammed shut again.
"Best ya find another room to take your new bride to, for I will never let ya into this one, Lex MacLachlan."
Sandra's tiny nostrils flared with indignation that he would even think to throw her into a room with his mistress. "I will not stay in that room!" Sandra finally managed to get out through her clenched teeth.
"I think that has already been decided," he said calmly, giving up on any further attempts to gain entrance.
"Whoever you are hiding behind that door can just stay hidden for all I care," she shouted back toward the door as he walked further down the hall to another room.
"There is no one in there. The door simply will not open." He looked down at her with a puzzled glare as though she was over-reacting to the situation. But how was a new wife supposed to respond when her new husband tried to shove her in a room with his mistress, and on their first night together no less? Was this one of those male things she was not supposed to question? Or just maybe the excuse she needed to withhold her consent to his husbandly rights, she thought hopefully.
"If that is what you want me to believe," she said with stiff lips and a curt flip of her head.
He just shook his head and chuckled softly to himself. His eyes never met her glare again as he continued down the hall without a care for her anger or insulted honor.
"Here we are," he said as he managed to open the door this time to a small dark room. "It is not Castle MacEwen, but it is all I have to offer a lady right now, or at least that I have entrance to." He set her down on a hard mattress of straw that was covered with a coarse blanket, then struck a flint to light a candle. He went about setting the room to rights as if the disorder bothered him more than the incident in the hallway. "I will have the tub brought in here instead. Take your time. I have already used it for the night." He gave her an odd smile that she could not decipher. It appeared to Sandra to be somewhere between a sensual invitation and an apology. "I think I will go see about getting into that room. I assure you when I am finished with that stubborn door, you will be most welcome in the women's solar." He gave her an elegant bow from the waist and pulled the door closed as he backed out.
The single candle lit the room well enough, but her eyes could find nothing amongst the sparse furnishings to hurl at the door and the image of his smiling face. How could he think to make her his wife in deed with that...that woman right down the hall? Could he have been raised with such different morals in England that he saw no impropriety in his callous actions?
She flung her legs over the edge of the small bed and let her muddy shoes dangle just above the floor. What was she supposed to do now? Bess had never prepared her for anything like this. Her aunt had instructed her to be compliant with her husband's wishes and all would go well. But Sandra doubted being this compliant had been on Bess's mind when she spoke of marital obligations with Mangus.
Mere jealousy was not going to hinder a union she had been preparing for her whole life. She had to look at this as a blessing from God, sent down to preserve the chance for peace by preserving her maidenhead. If Lex returned for her after his dalliance with that other woman, she would strike out at him with the full force of his own guilt and hopefully escape a night in his bed. It had to work, for Mangus's sake and the sake of their peace.
***
The fire Rory had built in the small hearth of her room still had a few red coals glowing in its center, but the bath water had long since cooled to match the temperature of the stone walls that seemed to be caving in on her. She had cleaned and prepared herself as quickly as possible, so as not to be caught stark naked by him again. After tossing back and forth in her hard bed, faking sleep for what seemed like half the night already, she wondered if he was ever going to return from that other room at all. How long could these things take? She had heard the matter was done rather swiftly, barely letting the heat escape from one’s removed clothing before it was time to put them back on. If Lex MacLachlan had plans of removing her clothing this night, he was far too late to get the job done before morn.
The nightdress the young woman and her daughter had brought up with the bath sheets was unlike anything she would have imagined herself wearing to her wedding bed. She had no place to complain, though. A kindly MacLachlan clanswoman had been generous enough to spare the thick linen under-tunic from her own attire since Sandra's trunks had been forgotten in the fracas of getting her to MacLachlan Manor. It was probably the best clean garment from among the lot of them. The fact that she was half the woman's size in height and width seemed to matter little in light of the situation. She had only the wet clothing she had sat in the rain and mud in. A warm dry tunic for her wedding night was better than nothing at all, and the bigger and heavier it was the better.
From where she lay in the hard bed with the one thin woolen cover pulled up and scratching at her chin, Sandra heard what sounded like the creaking of floorboards somewhere near her door. Her heart did its traditional little flip even though she did not want it to. This was it. He had come after all, and now it was her turn to lie with him.
Doubts and fears began to jumble her perfectly rehearsed speech. What if she could not change his mind? What if guilt did not work against him because he had no conscience? She pulled the covers all the way over her head when she heard the creaking get a step closer. Then she heard their voices, and all her sheepish doubts were scattered to the far corners of the room. Her indignant rage was back with its full force, and hot enough to bring her bath water back to a boil.
"Look. She is sleeping already. Let us not risk waking her," said the conniving Scottish wench who was obviously spying on her again.
"There will be plenty of time to deal with her in these comin' winter nights. I say we prepare for our own wedding night festivities. Each time is like the very first with you. I want ta enjoy every little bit I can get of you." The caressing tone of Lex's Scottish purr made her feel sick to her stomach. Those were words he was supposed to be saying to her. This was her wedding night, and she was probably the only one in the whole stone fortress who was sleeping alone. Even if she did not want the deed to be done, no other woman was going to be waking up with her husband and causing even more of a stir between their clans.
Pools of hot tears started to sting her eyes as she heard their footsteps fade away with their murmurs of laughter. The tears were from her anger, she told herself, not the hurt. But why was she feeling so unsure and alone? Bess had always been there to tell her what to do, and her family had always been there to make her feel loved. What would Bess tell her to do now? How would Bess handle the situation? Certainly not by pulling the covers over her head and letting her husband traipse off down the hall with another woman. She wanted him to leave her be, but out of honor to her, not by dishonoring her with another woman.
Once her feet hit the floor they were quickly engulfed by the abundance of extra fabric from her nightdress. No man would do this to Bess, and no man would do this to her either. She would confront the two vile degraders of a sacred union and let them know exactly what Sandra MacEwen thought of their moral-less act.
Her hands fisted around the bunched-up material she lifted from the floor to walk down the hall. At least it kept her nails from cutting into her skin, something she could not guarantee for Lex or that woman when she found them together.
Her small bare feet carried her swiftly back down the hall to the door that hid the two lovers. His swollen door trick might have covered his liaison before, but nothing could block out their mingled laughs on the other side of it now, and nobody was there to stop her from opening it herself this time.
Using the full weight of her body, she heaved her shoulder into the wooden door at the same time she squeezed down on the latch. It burst open with ease, something she had not fully expected but should have guessed. The horrible scene she had prepared herself for was even worse than she could have imagined.
There, in the center of the room, stood a half-naked man and woman, clutching at each other tightly with their hands and arms, yet their bodies were held apart as if something was physically separating them. The red-haired woman was young and beautiful, more beautiful than Sandra had let herself imagine, and the man was darkly handsome with his distinctive MacLachlan face and build. But it was not Lex! Something inside her felt a great relief she did not have time to fully acknowledge. They both stopped momentarily and turned to look at her as if bothered but not upset, and then went right back to their distant fondling of each other.
Sandra could not move her lips to talk or her feet to retreat. She had expected to find Lex in the room with his lover, but instead she had found the Scottish woman with yet another MacLachlan man and caring little that Sandra saw them in their state of undress.
"Have you no shame?" she finally managed to rasp out of her dry throat, her face scrunched up in shock.
Both heads snapped back toward her again, and this time their looks were not dismissing, but terrified. "She can see us!" they said in unison, their two familiar Scottish voices blending almost into one. THEY were the couple who had invited her in that first night. She finally had faces to accuse for her dishonor.
"The room is not that dark that I cannot see the sin you are perpetrating under this roof," Sandra hissed at the woman, disgusted even further that they would try to pretend a delayed shock at being discovered.
"She really can see us," the man repeated again, his eyes as wide as his mouth.
"And she can hear us too," the woman added in her own version of mock fear.
Sandra let the fabric of her nightgown fall to the floor around her feet, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "I will not be made to look the fool with your childish games. I want you out of this room and out of this home, and most definitely out of my husband's life. As long as this hand-fast holds, I will be the only woman sharing his bed if any sharing is done at all." She spoke as commandingly as she knew how, but the two did not seem to have heard her at all.
They started toward her with small steps and curious looks, reaching out to touch her as if to check if she was really there.
"Can you see me? Both of us?" the woman asked in a very meek voice and with an almost scared look on her face. Her expressions were so sincere that Sandra did not know what to think of the odd couple standing before her half naked, caught in the act of some kind of mating and thinking that she really could not see them doing it all.
"Of course I can see you," she said, scanning them both up and down to let them know she spoke the truth. When her eyes reached the part on the man that was partially exposed from his untied leggings and still excited from their love-play, she averted them quickly with a small gasp. The man did not miss her perusal in the least, but neither did he cover his arousal from her sight.
Slowly, smiles began to replace their fearful expressions. The two looked from her to each other and let out the loudest hoot of joy Sandra had ever heard. "She is the one. They said she would come and hear our voices, and she is the one." The two were talking over each other and swinging around the room on each other's arms in a merry dance.
Sandra watched them swirl gracefully past the fire and then over to the window. She thought her eyes had blurred over from weariness when their forms faded out in front of the fire, but she knew they had disappeared completely when a crack of lightning lit the room with its bright force.
She rubbed both her eyes with her fists. They were there again in front of the window, smiling back at her, their bodies just as exposed as ever.
"Do you not see, Miss Sandra? You are the first person who has been able to see us in over fifty years. Do you even know who we are?" the woman asked her in that motherly voice that was no longer threatening to Sandra or insulting. What the woman was saying made no sense to her. None of this was making any sense to her. Maybe it was all a bad dream and she was really at home in her own bed right now trying to wake up from it. "I am your kin," the woman finally said when Sandra just stood there shaking her head. "And this is my husband, Iain. He is kin to Clan MacLachlan."
Sandra already knew that the smiling man was indeed a handsome MacLachlan, but the woman was a MacEwen she had never seen before. "Why are you here if you are from Clan MacEwen, and why do you say he is your husband? No MacLachlan and MacEwen have been married before me."
"Oh, aye, they have. We just never got to finish the deed completely," Iain said with a lewd look in his eye as he pulled the woman in, squeezing her up as close as he could to his bare chest. "Me and Derrdra was the first joinin' of the clans."
"The only Derrdra in the MacEwen clan has been long dead, killed by a MacLachlan on her wedding..." Sandra connected the two stories in her mind before she could even finish her denial. The couple was still smiling at her and now they were nodding their heads in agreement with what she had just said. She had heard the horrid tale before, but Bess told her never to believe all the tales of the MacLachlans' murdering and to keep an open mind about their neighbors. If the two people before her were who she thought they were...
"I must be dreamin'," she said, covering her eyes with her hands again, only to find the happy couple still smiling at her when she peered out between her fingers.
"You are just in time to get all the real answers," Iain said to her, then turned to Derrdra. "I feel it comin', my love. Are you ready?"
"As ready as I ever was," she replied.
"Do not close your eyes this time, wee one. You are about to see the dark truth about yurr charmin' clan unfold before your eyes."
Derrdra slapped him on the arm with a wounded frown but did not deny what he said. The two clutched tightly to each other as they had been when she found them, embracing, yet held ever so slightly apart, their lips never touching in a kiss. A howling gust of wind suddenly swept through the room, extinguishing the flames of the roaring fire and blowing Sandra backward until her shoulder blades were forced hard against the stone of the nearest wall. Derrdra and Iain were caught up in the middle of what seemed to be a funnel of light swirling around them. Then, as fast as it had come, the deafening wind was gone...and so were they.