Page 92 of Claimed by a Highlander
“Tell me the rest of it,” he demanded.
“Perhaps one day I will,” she said. “You’re not ready to listen now.”
He heard a catch in her voice. By the saints, she could twist him in the wind if he let her. Talking had brought him no satisfaction, but he had a good idea of what would.
“’Tis late,” he said, and pulled back the bedclothes. “We should go to bed.”
“We’re not both sleeping in this bed,” she said, folding her arms. “Not after the things ye said to me.”
“We’re man and wife. We don’t have to like each other to fook.” He deliberately used the crass word for what he had foolishly thought was an act of love between them. What a fool he had been.
“You’re not sleeping with me.” She tugged the extra blanket off the bed and tossed it across the floor.
“I’m chieftain,” he said. “I’m no sleeping on the floor.”
“There’s a servant’s pallet under the bed. Ye can use that,” she said. “But if ye prefer, ye can sleep in the hall and let all the men wonder what you’ve done to your new bride that she won’t have you.”
“Perhaps they’ll think I’m the one who won’t have you.” He knew that was a ridiculous argument even before she rolled her eyes.
“After all my efforts to persuade your clansmen that I’m worthy to be the MacKenzie’s wife and that you’ve made meblissfullyhappy,” she said, “it would be a shame to ruin it.”
“I don’t find your gift for deceiving an entire hall full of people reassuring.”
He pulled the pallet out from under the bed and fixed his gaze on her as he began unwinding his plaid.
She blew out the candle before he was bare-arsed. Apparently she was not as anxious to see him naked as he was to see her. He listened to the soft rustle of her removing her clothes and imagined her gown slipping off her shoulders and over her breasts… He was breathing hard long before the ropes holding the mattress creaked as she climbed into the big bed. No matter how much she had wronged him, he longed to feel her skin sliding over his, to move inside her, to hear her sighs and moans…
She was so quiet she must have fallen asleep, while he lay staring up at the ceiling with his feet hanging off the servant’s pallet and his cock painfully hard.
“Have ye not tortured me enough?” he said aloud into the darkness. “After making me your husband with your lies, you’ve no right to deny me our marriage bed.”
“After how it was between us before,” she said. “I’ll not have ye touching me when your heart isn’t in it.”
***
Sybil awoke to an empty room and fought the urge to draw the bedclothes over her head and weep. Instead, she dressed and steeled herself for a long day of pretending, for the benefit of their guests and household, that all was well between their chieftain and his new bride.
Before she had prepared herself, Rory came through the door and shut it behind him. Her heart swelled with unbridled hope.
“I apologize for my behavior last night,” he said. “Though I was sorely disappointed to discover ye were untrustworthy and a liar, there was no call for me to be rude.”
Sybil felt as if he had slapped her. “I know I was wrong, Rory, but ye judge me too harshly.”
“I could forgive ye for deceiving me in the beginning, before ye knew me,” he said. “But ye kept on lying to me. Every day for weeks ye continued to deceive me.”
There was no point in arguing or trying to explain again. And the way he was speaking to her was beginning to prick her temper.
“Like it or not, we’re wed now,” she said. “And I’ll not let ye set me aside.”
“I can do nothing now without looking a fool, and ye know it,” he said. “So for the time being, let’s attempt to get along as best we can.”
Without another word, he left her.
“Ye made vows to me, Rory Ian MacKenzie,” she said, though he could no longer hear her, “and I’m holding ye to them.”
CHAPTER 32
Rory’s mood did not improve as the days wore on. He could avoid seeing Sybil most of the day, but he still spent his nights on the floor. He was so tired from lack of sleep that he did not notice Alex approach him in the courtyard until his brother was beside him.
