Bond of Passion (15 page)

Jean went back up to the hall and, seeing her brother, said, “The lady will be down as soon as I get her boots on and plait her hair, my lord.”

“I’ll await her in the courtyard,” Angus Ferguson replied.

Jean ran back up the staircase to her mistress’s apartment. She helped Annabella with her boots. Then she brushed out her sable tresses, braiding them into a single plait. “Dinna ride too far,” she warned Annabella, handing her a pair of doeskin riding gloves that had been dyed a bright red. “Ye’ll get sore. He’s in the courtyard.”

Annabella hurried down the stairs and out into the courtyard, where the earl was already mounted. A stableman helped her into her saddle. Snow danced skittishly, eager for her morning run. “I’m ready, my lord,” she said, her eyes meeting his.

They rode out, and Annabella saw that the flocks of sheep and the herds of cattle were now back from the sheiling, as the summer meadows were called, and safely settled in the home pastures. The animals were fat with their months of grazing. When the snows came the earl would have them moved into the barns to protect them from the wolves that would boldly roam the winter hills.

“Ye’re well this morning?” he asked her politely as they rode.

“As well, I hope, as ye are, my lord,” she answered him.

He chuckled. “Then ye were content wi’ our bed sport, madam?”

“As well, I hope, as ye were, my lord,” she replied.

He glanced sharply at her serene face. Her twinkling gray eyes met his and he laughed aloud. “Ye’re a bold wench, madam,” he told her. Then his eyes went to her little round breasts, and he felt his cock stirring. How sweet her flesh had tasted in his mouth last night. Had the morning not been cold with a sharp wind coming from the north, he would have been tempted to take her on this hillside amid the heather. Briefly he pictured her spreading herself for him, moaning with pleasure as he filled her. He was once again surprised by his desire for her. He could hardly believe his need. He could not wait until nightfall to have her again. But did he have to wait until then?

“We’ve gone far enough for today,” he said, turning his stallion about.

“I’ll race ye!” Snow leaped forward.

Surprised, he urged the stallion into a canter. Mischievously, she had taken advantage of him. They raced, and she was across the drawbridge and into the courtyard, just barely ahead of him, as he thundered after her. There were no stable lads in view. Laughing, Annabella slid from her mare, leading Snow into the semidarkened stables to her stall. He followed with his own beast.

Without a word between them, they unsaddled their horses, rubbed them down, and filled their food bins with oats and hay. As she exited Snow’s stall, drawing the gate shut as she did, the earl came up behind her, wrapping his arms about her lightly. She protested faintly as he pulled her farther into the darkened stable, pushing her facedown over a bale of hay.

“There is more than one way to couple, madam,” he growled in her ear, as, reaching about her, he fumbled with the buttons on her jerkin, unlaced her shirt, and yanked her breeks down to reveal her tempting bottom.

“Angus!” she squealed. “What are ye about?” She heard him undoing his own breeks, heard them drop to the stable floor.

“My thoughts of ye last night haunt me,” his voice whispered harshly into her ear. “I must have ye, Annabella!
I must!
” He fisted her thighs apart, grasping her hips.

Her heart was hammering wildly in her chest; she was more excited than afraid. Then she felt his engorged cock sliding into her love sheath.

“Jesu! Ye’re already wet for me,” he groaned, pushing himself deep, her rounded buttocks pressing against him. Reaching around her, he took her two breasts in his hands as he slowly began to piston her. Her sheath tightened about him, setting his lust aboil.

Instinctively she arched her back for him. This was delicious madness—being ravished from behind in a dark stable like some milkmaid or servant lass. But oh, oh, oh, it was wonderful! His thrusts grew quicker and deeper. Her head was already spinning with her own lustful appreciation of his efforts. His hot breath scalded her ear. “Oh, Angus,” she half sobbed. “It is good! So good! Dinna stop!”

What a jest God had played upon him, Angus Ferguson thought as he enthusiastically fucked his wife. He had given Angus a maiden who appeared as meek as a lamb, but was in reality the most passionate woman he had ever known. She was like fire, and she scorched his very soul.

“Oh, aye! Aye!” Annabella cried out as her excitement began to peak.

“Jesu! Jesu!” he groaned as he felt himself ready to burst with his pleasure.

The passion between them exploded. They sprawled upon the bale of hay, their breath coming in painful little gasps as they both attempted to regain their sanity. His fingers squeezed her breasts as the last drops of his juices spurted weakly, and she attempted to prolong the delight.

Finally, Annabella sighed a gusty sigh. “Someone may come,” she said softly.

“Aye,” he agreed, pulling himself slowly to his feet. Pulling his breeks up, he fastened them. Then he drew her up, helping her to regain some order in her garb. He couldn’t help kissing her before he released her. Then they walked from the stables as if nothing had just happened between them.

“So one may fuck anywhere,” Annabella said in a perfectly calm and conversational tone of voice as they entered the castle again.

“Aye,” he replied. “At any time or place.”

“I always thought such activity was confined to the bedchamber in the dark hours only,” Annabella responded.

“Would ye prefer it so, madam?” he asked her.

“Mother of mercy, nay, my lord, I should not!” she told him. “I shall look forward to more of yer delightful surprises. Ye have promised to teach me what will please ye, and I promise ye that I will be a most attentive scholar, husband.”

“Cease, for pity’s sake, madam,” he begged her. “Ye but arouse my lust again, and I have work to do this day.”

“Then do not keep me waiting tonight, my lord,” she cautioned him. “I am so eager to learn.” She curtsied to him and, turning, hurried away.

Angus’s head spun with the lustful thoughts her words aroused in him. Again he wondered what was the magic she was using that made him feel as randy as a young bull in high summer? Then he realized that he didn’t really care. Wasn’t his lust for her, and hers for him, a good thing? Certainly they would produce bairns at a rapid rate if they continued on as they had this day. Women were cautioned by both the old and the Reformed churches that the coupling of a husband and wife had only one purpose: bairns.

Yet he knew for a fact that his dour father and his gay French mother had fallen in love and enjoyed their bed sport. Could he ever come to love Annabella? Or would his emotions for her be confined to simply lust?

December came. Annabella made it an extremely happy month at Duin, for there were many feast days to be celebrated. Pastor Blaine wanted to disapprove of all the gaiety, but the young Countess of Duin would not let him. “There can be no wrong in celebrating the coming of our Lord and his birth,” she said.

“So much feasting and dancing is wicked, my lady,” he said, distressed.

“Is it wrong to thank God for sending us his beloved son, Pastor? Is it wrong to feed the poor, and give gifts to those who have served us well? Nay! I cannot sanction such thoughts, and certainly ye do not believe such a thing,” Annabella told him.

Her words were so reasonable, and how could God be offended under the circumstances? Pastor Blaine acquiesced. He had heard there was to be venison for dinner, and the earl would be broaching a keg of his own whiskey. “But we must always remember to keep God in mind as we feast,” he said.

“Do ye not give the blessing each time ye’re at the high board?” she reminded him.

“Aye, but when I am not there, who does it?” he demanded to know.

“Why, my husband, of course,” Annabella told him.

Satisfied, the pastor even helped decorate the hall with pine and holly. He oversaw the bringing of the Yule log into the hall, and agreed with the countess when she appointed the steward, Matthew Ferguson, as the lord of misrule. Each day was a feast, but for the few ember days still observed by the old Church, as the Fergusons were still Catholic. Pastor Blaine found himself approving of those days of prayer and fasting, much to his surprise.

Angus Ferguson could hardly keep his hands off of his wife. Not a day passed, except for those few when her link with the moon was broken, when he didn’t find his cock foraging between her legs at least two or three times daily. He had her in his library on the floor before the fire. One afternoon he pulled her into a deep and dark linen cupboard to fuck. The stables had become a favorite trysting place. Scarcely had the meal been cleared away in the early evening before the lord and lady were gone from the hall.

“Ye’re like a lad wi’ his first wench,” Matthew said disgustedly one afternoon. He had earlier heard Annabella giggling and his brother growling in a dark corner of the hall.

They hadn’t heard him, but it was damned obvious what they had been about when the earl, almost strutting like a rooster, appeared from the dimness. “Can ye nae confine yer lusts to the bedchamber in the evening?” Matthew demanded to know.

“’Twas ye who encouraged me to greater efforts,” Angus said with a grin. “Are ye telling me that ye confine yer lusts to a bedchamber in the evening?” Then he laughed uproariously at the look on his younger sibling’s face.

“I suppose I’m amazed that such a woman can rouse you to such passions,” Matthew said bluntly.

Angus chortled knowingly. “Annabella’s face may be plain, little brother, but the body that God gave her is magnificent. I have but to think of her, and I am ready to fuck. And my sweet wife is a most enthusiastic and willing partner. It is impossible to resist her, and as I see nae reason to, I shall not. I am beginning to believe ye would not be half as sour if ye had a wife to keep ye company these long, cold winter nights.”

“Bah!” Matthew said. “Get the wench wi’ bairn, Angus, and stop enjoying yerselves so damned much.”

The earl laughed. “In God’s good time, little brother. In God’s good time.”

T
welfth Night was scarcely gone when James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, came to Duin. “I’ve come to take ye both to court,” he told Angus and Annabella. “The queen is wi’ bairn. Darnley is a pig and behaving badly because she will nae gie him the crown matrimonial, and the earls appear restless, which is always a bad sign.”

“And ye would drag us into that situation?” Angus said. “Nay.”

“She needs a distraction and new faces about her. She asks about ye often, Angus, and would meet the man who made her childhood in France such a comfortable one,” Bothwell said.

“How do ye know that?” Angus demanded. “Even yer father didn’t know the cost of Duin’s earldom.”

“Nay, he didn’t. She told me,” Bothwell replied.

“Ye’re that close to the queen, Jamie?” Angus was curious. “Ye play a dangerous game then, and I think ye should not.”

“I am loyal to the queen. No other man in Scotland who knows her can claim that distinction, even her own dear brother, James Stewart, the Earl of Moray, who has a curious habit of disappearing whenever something wicked is about to happen. My father allowed his love for Marie de Guise, and his disappointment at her refusal to wed him, to turn him traitor and brand the Hepburn name. I have spent my whole life attempting to erase that stain upon our family. Whatever Mary’s fate, I will remain at her side, loyal until death.”

“What of the wife ye are to take shortly?” Angus asked candidly.

“Ye’ll come to the wedding, of course,” James Hepburn said, avoiding the query. “The queen will be there, and ’twill be the perfect time to join the court. Remain wi’ her for a few weeks, gain her favor, and then return to Duin. ’Tis simply a courtesy, Angus. Nothing more. Besides, my sister, Janet, will be there. She will enjoy having another ear into which to pour her complaint about this marriage. Until I have a legitimate son, ’tis her wee lad, my nephew, Francis, who is my heir. She’s determined to have my earldom of Bothwell for him,” James Hepburn said, laughing. “She need not worry. This marriage between myself and Jean Gordon is nae a love match. The queen and George Gordon want it. Gordon feels he gains more influence wi’ the queen through me. The queen feels that she gains the loyalty of one of the north’s most powerful earls. The Gordons are now being forgiven for their last uprising.”

“And Jean Gordon?” Annabella asked quietly.

Surprised that she had insinuated herself into the conversation, James Hepburn turned to look at Angus’s wife. Aye. There was something different about her that he could not put his finger upon. “My betrothed is in love with another,” he said. “An Ogilvie, but once the queen decided to unite me with Lady Jean Gordon, the young man was quickly married to another.”