Penny had been brooding since his kiss at the party.
He had…he had made demands of her she didn’t understand, then pushed her away, and she had never been more confused.
The touch of his mouth to hers had brought everything she’d spent the past few days avoiding roaring back to life inside her.
She hadn’t banished loneliness by barring him from her bed. She’d simply built a wall between her emotions and the manner he used to reach them. But it couldn’t hold for ever.
Because the silence between them was swollen. Large and filled with all manner of things Penny didn’t want to navigate. She had been doing well. She’d spent more time in the village, had started a sewing circle with some of the ladies and had become more than competent at cooking. And she had been able to set Lachlan to one side. Or at least see him as a project rather than a husband.
Then he had kissed her.
With that kiss he had stirred up every deep, longing thing inside her. There was that fire, that physical need. He aroused it in her so easily.
But there was more.
Deeper.
The way he’d danced with her in the great hall had felt like flying. His strength—whether quiet or on brute display—felt like a living force within her sometimes. As if his confidence and bravery had taken root inside her and grown, flourished and made her someone so different from what she’d been before.
She wanted to know him.
All those nights she’d refused him entry to her room and they talked. And in those quick moments he’d shown her so much. That humour he said he didn’t have. Patience. Kindness.
She ached to be close to him in every way she could.
She hadn’t allowed herself to think of it. But now she was consumed with it yet again. Along with his rejection.
It forced her to consider that he might not have pressed her, withholding because he didn’t want her. That she hadn’t ever had power over him as she’d imagined.
That second time they were together she’d felt his body tremble and she’d taken it to mean she could make him desperate, as he had made her.
But perhaps that wasn’t so.
Because she was naive. Because apparently there were things men did not ask of wives. And he had wanted one of those things, but…but not from her.
And she didn’t even have a clue what it might be.
It would have been better if she could hate him.
But the longer she saw him here, with his people, acting the part of chief, the more entranced she was by him. As she had been when she was a girl, trailing after him at the estate. How she hated that. That he seemed to have so much of a hold over her and she had none over him.
But he was so broad and brave, so willing to serve all of the people around him. Lachlan might not know how to show warmth, but she did. What he gave was strength, a steadiness that one could lean on. And while he had underestimated how much his people might need to have some joy…she thought she might not have understood how much they needed his strength.
As she talked to those who worked in the castle, it became clear just how badly scarred the clan was from the way his father had conducted his affairs.
Isla had told her horrible stories, worse even than about the mistress Lachlan’s father had killed. Understanding more of where Lachlan came from, why he hated his father so much that he despised the blood in his own veins…
It made her care more for the strong, iron Highlander who didn’t seem to have it in him to bend.
His uncompromising nature could be trying. And she’d seen it as an obstacle at first. Now she saw it as a gift.
She’d also discovered that Lachlan had been sending money back to his people from the moment he found out about his father’s death. A great many things had been restored in the months it had taken him to gain order with his business and get himself back to the Highlands.
It was why the castle was so comfortable now. Why it was fully stocked with food and staff. It also led her to truly believe that what he’d said to her about his bloodline was a truth he held deep in his heart. Because if he felt it was the most honourable thing for him to produce an heir, then he would. She could not understand, though, because she did not know men who weren’t utterly concerned with the carrying on of their line.
She had always assumed marriage would mean children. And she hadn’t realised how deeply comforting she’d found that certainty until it had been taken from her. How much she’d wanted that.
To be a mother. To have someone to love and care for. To find that connection.
But as much as many men were driven to further their bloodline, he was opposed.
His father had damaged him. Everything she’d heard about the previous MacKenzie convinced her of that.
She wanted to find a path to connect the ways in which she knew him. The way that they had been intimate in the bedroom. The way that they had talked on the back of his horse on their journey to Scotland. The commanding, forbidding man that she saw prowling around the castle, who had kissed her as though she was the feast, then ordered her to leave him. The man who said her jewellery box had meant nothing to him, but had seen it fetched all the same.
She even wanted to understand the man who presented her to his people as a prisoner of war, more than his wife, but who had presented her to all the clans as his lady. Because she felt that the truth of Lachlan Bain was somewhere at the centre of all those things, whether she was particularly fond of each and every piece of him or not.
She had a feeling that some of her problems with him stemmed from the fact that she was so horrendously ignorant of men and all there was to know about their physical desires. For she felt there was a key in that. To the things that bothered her now. She wished that she knew more.
But she had got to know a few of the women who worked in the castle. Most especially the maid who attended her.
She found it strange that Penny enjoyed making conversation and Penny knew that. But she couldn’t help herself. She was lonely. And she finally lived in a house filled with people. She was intent on taking advantage of that.
The head of the household found Penny’s intrusions somewhat irritating and Penny could tell. But then, one thing she was very good at was ignoring when people found her irritating.
It was a gift.
* * *
She was in the kitchen, poring over the weekly menu, Isla next to her eating a midday meal of bread and cheese, the young scullery maids rushing about the kitchen. ‘What do you know of men?’
Isla looked up from her bread. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’ But she could see that Isla did understand, only that she was hoping she might not have.
‘Men,’ Penny said. ‘I find that I’m woefully ignorant on the subject.’
One of the maids—Margaret—laughed. ‘You’re a married woman.’
‘It hasn’t seemed to help.’
She waved a hand. ‘Fine ladies who are married often know less than kitchen maids who are not.’
‘Why is that?’ Penny asked.
It suddenly seemed deeply unfair to her.
‘Your lot protect you from the way of the world,’ Margaret said. ‘It’s not a bad thing, mind you. Men can be…’
‘Right rubbish,’ Flora, the other scullery maid, finished.
‘True,’ Margaret agreed.
‘Well, Lachlan is not. That is to say… The MacKenzie…’
‘Yes. I know what you mean.’
‘It just seems as though there must be more to pleasing men.’
The maids exchanged looks.
‘Do you know?’
‘I know a fair bit,’ Flora said, looking sly.
‘I was able to convince him to give me some proper terms.’
‘Which ones?’ Margaret asked, looking amused.
Penny knew that she was being mildly teased, but she didn’t much care. ‘Well, I know what a cock is.’
Margaret laughed, the sound a hoot, and Flora and Isla joined in. ‘That is a good place to start. Men are fond of their cocks.’
‘I’m not unfond of it myself.’
‘Also a good thing,’ Margaret said. ‘Nothing worse than finding yourself in the position of having to please a man you don’t find pleasing.’
‘All I knew about men and women I had…pieced together from reading about nature. Then I was a wife. I expected to hate him. He stole me from my home, from an engagement to another man. I didn’t know what to expect of a wedding night. But he can be so wonderful. And I find him beautiful.’
‘That’s a gift,’ Flora said.
‘It feels like a gift when we’re together. But then it feels as though he’s taken all the power away from me when it’s over. And I just feel… I feel.’
Margaret just looked sad for her then. ‘You have feelings for him.’
‘Feelings?’
‘Aye. I reckon you love him.’
Her words hit a strange place inside Penny.
Love.
She had never expected to love the man she’d married. She had felt, though, that she might love the Duke, and that had been such a wondrous and unexpected gift. With some distance she’d realised that it had never been him—she had not known him, how could she love him?—but the idea of him and all he represented.
Loving Lachlan could not be possible.
He had no softness. His manners were not lovely.
It wouldn’t be easy to love him. And it made her feel as though the walls inside her heart were being stretched, stressed. In danger of crumbling.
‘I don’t. He kidnapped me. He forced me into marriage. I was supposed to marry a duke.’
‘Lah,’ Margaret said. ‘But I still think you love him.’
She pushed that away. Firmly. ‘I never expected love.’
So what then was all of this truly about? Why did she feel an ache in herself that wouldn’t go away? Why did she feel a deep pull towards more?
She thought of those nights in the coaching inns. ‘I don’t want him to be in control like he is. He pushes me away and it makes me…sad. He has let me keep him from my bed for over a week and I…there must be more than just him lifting my skirts and…and having done with it.’
Flora frowned. ‘He doesn’t see to your pleasure?’
‘Oh, he does,’ Penny said. ‘But I never… He doesn’t allow me to touch him. Or truly see him. And I feel like the key to him, to this… I’ve been holding him back from my room, but I don’t want that any more. Are there books?’
‘I don’t know about books,’ Flora said. ‘The real truths come from women and far too many men are charged with the actual recording of things.’
‘Well, I’ve never had any women to tell me such things. I made friends with the Duke’s sister and his ward, but they know no more of men than I do. And his mother told me to simply think of household chores if I found the act overwhelming.’
Margaret wrinkled her nose. ‘If you can think of chores, you might as well be off baking bread.’
‘I can’t think of chores when I’m with him. I don’t want to. But I want…something else.’
‘These men,’ Margaret said, ‘they spend all their time turning their wives into little mice. Teaching you to be scared of a naked man. Why is that? Because a lady with some boldness is what truly tempts them. And they want all the control.’
‘That’s just it,’ Penny said. ‘He has all the control. He comes to me and I give him exactly what he wants, because he’s made me want it. I have no fortitude. I absolutely give in. He makes my knees weak and he makes me…’
‘He is a handsome man,’ Isla said.
Penny felt a strange surge of possessiveness rise up inside her. He was her handsome man, infuriating though he was. ‘He is. But I don’t want him to have all the control. I want to have some.’
This, and the man himself, had become a problem she was desperate to solve. She didn’t want to mope around being smothered by feelings.
‘Then you need to take it,’ Flora said.
‘How?’
‘Seduction.’
‘I don’t know how to seduce anything!’ Penny said. ‘I haven’t any experience of men, I told you.’
‘Well, what do you have experience with?’ Margaret asked.
‘I have nursed several small animals back to health.’
Flora coughed and Margaret smothered a fit of giggles with her hand. Isla, for her part, looked away.
‘Right,’ Flora said. ‘That is not the same. And it won’t help you.’ She tapped her chin. ‘You’re very beautiful. Use your body.’
‘How?’
‘Go to him naked.’
‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s obscene.’
‘It is,’ Flora said. ‘What you’ll be doing with him is more obscene still.’
This was true. Everything that took place between them was shocking. And the fact of the matter was…she wanted to know more.
‘There is a book,’ Isla said. ‘It’s hidden. But I know it belonged to the previous Laird and it is…informative.’
‘Where is it hidden?’ she asked.
‘There is a box in the library. It has a lock, but the key is in a tableside drawer by the chair at the far wall.’
‘Well, that’s…thorough.’
Isla looked very serious. ‘The book is quite…thorough.’
‘Take me to it.’
And that was how she ended up making her way to the library with a trail of housemaids giggling behind her. But Isla, true to her word, led her straight to the key and box, and placed the key in her palm. ‘Use it well.’
Penny opened it slowly to find a slim volume with a nondescript cover. She opened it and her eyes widened at the sight.
The art was quite lavish and very detailed. On some pages there was a man and a woman. On many…a man with several women.
She could not look away, the scenes so shocking and entrancing, the descriptions frank and bold.
It would seem that what she and Lachlan had engaged in was an incredibly basic version of all the various things a man and woman could do with each other’s bodies.
She was not interested in the scenes containing a crowd, not in a personal sense. Though she did spend a good while turning the book in various different ways to try to fully grasp the mechanics of the situation.
She’d have thought she might be shocked to look at such graphic instruction. But the primary thing she felt was…hurt. She put her fingertips over a particularly salacious drawing of a woman using her mouth on a man’s most intimate part. Did he not want these things from her? Or was this the same as him not wanting to give her a baby? The same as him treating her like a prisoner?
Was he doing all of these things with females elsewhere? Because if all of these things were possible, and surely a man like Lachlan would know about them, then he could not be satisfied with the brisk actions they committed under the cover of darkness. Those acts had been altering for her, but she had no experience. So of course it was the absolute heights for her. But for a man such as him? Would he want more?
She did not find herself disgusted, not by any of it. There was no reason to be, after all. Every touch that she had received from his hands had been pleasurable. And the idea of exploring him more only excited her.
Ruin.
The word whispered inside her and echoed off all the tender, hurt places in her heart, an excitement threading itself through her soul and making her feel renewed.
She was a married woman now and could not be ruined. She had been brought here and, as with the running of a household, her relationship with Lachlan was something she had to find a way to control.
Her heart thundered heavily and she took a large volume of Shakespeare off the shelf, held it against her chest, in front of that forbidden book, and made her way to her bedroom. The book bordered on vulgar in places, but it inflamed her imagination.
It seemed that there were very few borders when it came to relations. But this, she supposed, was the difference between copulation—in that reproductive sense that she knew from scientific texts in regards to roosters—and screwing.
He’d said she shouldn’t say that word. But then, she felt that she didn’t have the knowledge to understand what it had meant.
In the text, various activities were referred to as bed sport and she could see why. It looked all very athletic and like something quite sporting. A fox hunt. That took place in the nude.
And the fox might want to be caught, because the consequences seemed…delicious.
She closed the book and sat on the edge of the bed, feeling…bright. As though she had been lit up from the inside. All those possibilities swirled in her head. And there in the centre was her own pain. At the way he had treated her. At the fact he had not come to her.
And she wondered if he was going to, or if she was going to have to be the one to bridge the gap, with all of this. With her newfound knowledge on the subject of what was possible between a husband and a wife.
Part of her wanted to protect herself.
She crossed the room and went back over to her vanity, to the jewellery box.
Yes. Part of her wanted to protect herself and badly. But there was this jewellery box. Evidence that perhaps she was more than simply a prisoner to him. That she was more than simply the satisfaction of a decade-long quest for revenge. He might not understand the way that he had shaped her life. The way that he had changed it. But he never would as long as she didn’t force him to reckon with who she was.
She could fade into the woodwork. She could become that prisoner.
Or she could continue to create the life that she wanted. To take the raw material that she had and build for herself something happy.
But she couldn’t do it as long as the sadness existed inside her. This deep loneliness that she felt when she thought of the man.
She felt certain that there was happiness to be had here, but it was not apart from her relationship with her husband. How nice it would be if it were.
You have feelings for him.
He was the one who had rearranged her existence. How could she feel nothing? She felt a great many things for Lachlan Bain. It was impossible for her to not.
He had awakened her passion. Had inflamed her senses.
He had stolen her from the only life she had ever known.
The man had to reckon with her and her curiosity. Her feelings, whatever they were. Because who else would?
Determined, she pressed her fingers against the jewellery box. This time, when her emotions rose up inside her she did not push them down. This time, she held them close to her breast and let them burn into a flame of determination.
Lachlan Bain might be accustomed to being a conqueror. But tonight, he was going to learn what it meant to be claimed by his prisoner. And maybe, in the end, she would be free.