Bond of Passion by Bertrice Small Page A

and ye quite delight me, for ye have charm, manners, wit, and intellect. What is beauty in comparison to those?”
    “Do ye speak of love?” she queried him. She didn’t quite understand what he was getting at. She had wed him. It was their wedding night. Why was he was turning away from her? And yet . . . She paused in her thoughts, realizing that she was actually finding herself relieved that she should not have to take the next step with him tonight.
    “I know naught of love, madam,” he said honestly. “I know of lust, and ye will discover that delightful emotion quite soon, for though I will give ye time to grow used to my presence, we shall kiss and caress at will, which will give rise to your lust. It is ye who will lead the way for us as ye seek more and more knowledge of a passionate nature. Soon enough, the time will come when we will do what is expected of us, madam. Do ye understand better now, and agree wi’ me? Or will you insist that I mount ye now? I will do whatever ye choose, madam.”
    “Aye, I understand ye,” Annabella said, and she did. He was a strange man, she thought, wondering whether any other bridegroom would have been as thoughtful.
    “Give me yer hand,” he said. Without hesitation, she obeyed him. He took the hand in his own, kissing first the back of it, then placing lingering warm lips upon her palm and her wrist.
    She shivered with delight but said nothing.
    The dark green eyes twinkled at her. “I can see ye’re going to be an obedient wife, madam,” he told her.
    “I will do my best to please ye, my lord, but there may be times when I displease,” Annabella said candidly. His lips on her flesh had been deliciously disturbing. A frisson of emotion had shot through her that she did not recognize when his flesh had met hers.
    Angus Ferguson saw the brief confusion upon her face. He was surprised. A virgin, aye. But one so artless? It become more and more obvious to him that she had not dissembled in any way when she told him she had never been courted. Had there ever been a time when he had known such pure and perfect innocence? Releasing the small hand in his, he reached out with his other hand to cup her face in his big palm. “Will ye trust me, madam?” he asked her softly.
    Again Annabella felt that unfamiliar stirring within her. His dark green eyes were like a pool in the depths of a deep sunlit forest. She wanted to immerse herself within that pool until she became one with it. His touch both warmed and aroused her. “Aye, my lord,” she told him low. “I will trust ye.”
    They called her plain of face, and yet he thought the solemn little face now looking up at him with wary eyes had a sweetness about it that touched him. Leaning forward, he brushed her lips with his own, but then the very sweetness of those lips aroused a ferocity within him that was difficult to control. A hand cupped her head. His mouth pressed down hard on her soft mouth and his kiss became demanding. To his absolute surprise she met the wild kiss with a fierceness of her own until he broke the embrace, saying, “I shall bid ye good night then, madam.” Angus Ferguson arose and returned back through the little door in the paneled wall, ducking his head as he went to avoid hitting the low arch.
    Her lips still burning, Annabella lay back against her plump pillows. She didn’t know whether to rejoice or to weep. She knew so little about bed sport, and yet should she have known more? Her mother had said a virgin should not be knowledgeable. She had been vague in her explanations. Was Myrna’s blunt explanation closer to the truth?
    When she had repeated it to her husband, he had laughed ruefully. Why?
    But she had to admit that she was more comfortable knowing she might sleep in peace this night. Although she had not shown the emotion to anyone, fearing to be thought a weakling, she had been very frightened of leaving Rath to travel across Scotland and into the keeping of a virtual stranger