A Perfect Knight For Love by Jackie Ivie Page B

jaw, and looked unseeingly at the rain-washed view until whatever the emotion was abated and left. He couldn’t afford weakness. Not now. Not ever.
    “Denial does na’ change anything, lass.”
    “I’m not listening.”
    She said it to his chest, sending more heated waves with her voice. Thayne needed to move her. It was too dangerous to keep her close to his heart and he didn’t even know why. He shifted her back sideways to him, using his free hand. Then he made certain of her position by placing his hand on her forehead and holding her against his shoulder. He kept the reaction from showing as she snuggled into the spot as if she belonged. His arms trembled slightly before he could stop them.
    His arms trembled? Not a good sign. He hoped she didn’t spot it and assign meaning. Getting his voice firm and steady was his next issue. He waited three heartbeats before trying. Then a fourth.
    “Verra well . . . lass. Deny it. It does na’ alter it.”
    “Verra?”
    For a woman who’d just been near faint with weakness she was remarkably cool-voiced and argumentative-sounding. Thayne studied the bleak sight of rain peppering the surface water of the loch before bending his head to whisper in the vicinity of her plaid-covered ear.
    “You heard him?”
    She nodded.
    “He’ll take you. Rough. With little care.”
    She shifted as if his words bothered her.
    “He’ll hurt you. Purposefully. With pleasure.”
    “And . . . you won’t?” she asked.
    “Nae.” Thayne stopped, licked his lips, and then continued. “Well, mayhap I will, but I will na’ want to.”
    “You’d hurt me?”
    She asked it in a little voice that hadn’t much sound to it. Thayne knew he was flushing. He couldn’t help it. He’d never been in such a position, pleading of private matters while surrounded by enemy clan. He wouldn’t believe it if he wasn’t actually doing it.
    “I’d try and be gentle, lass, but . . . when there’s a maiden wall to breach . . . well. Uh. ’Tis na’ wholly easy. Sometimes . . . there’s pain. Na’ purposeful pain, but it canna’ be helped.”
    “Is that your offer? Pain?”
    Thayne was exasperated. It sounded in his next whisper. “Sometimes! With the first. Uh . . . regardless of a man’s size or intent! But it can be . . . altered a bit. Made less painful. If you ken my meaning?”
    She shook her head. Thayne went a full-bodied flush. Red. He didn’t need to see it, he felt it.
    “I’d . . . be gentle. I mean I’d prepare the way . . . but well . . . uh”—he stopped, gulped, and continued with a harsher tone—“dinna’ you receive instruction on things a-tween a man and wife?”
    “My . . . husband is supposed to explain . . . things . . . of that nature.”
    What voice she had was nonexistent toward the end. Thayne had to bend his head to hear it and that just made the warmth about his heart swell again. He hardened it against her and his voice sounded it.
    “Will you just answer?”
    “Very well. The answer is no,” she replied.
    No?
    Thayne’s head lifted and his eyes widened, gaining him raindrops for punishment, and then he narrowed them. She’d promised to obey him and already she disavowed her own word. He didn’t know why he bothered asking. “Lass, he’ll take you!”
    “So will you,” she informed him.
    “But he’ll force you.”
    “And you won’t?”
    He took several deep breaths and forced a calm state. The lass had no idea how close to a shaking she was. “Of course I’ll force you! To do otherwise means death.”
    “See? You offer force with pain. Just like him.”
    “I’m your husband,” he informed her.
    “No. You are not,” she replied, stretching out each whispered word as if intoning them in that fashion made it more official.
    “You canna’ disavow it still. It’s the law.”
    “It’s not my law.”
    “Jesu’!”
    “I’m not used to hearing such words spoken in my presence, either.”
    Thayne’s mouth dropped open. He felt like a lad