She jumped when he slammed his cup on the table.
“Let us finish this,” he said. “’Tis time for the bedding ceremony.”
CHAPTER 12
The bedding ceremony.Alison squeezed her eyes shut.
“I understand I cannot avoid…what will happen this night,” she said. “But must we observe this particular custom?”
“Aye. I will have witnesses to say we were properly bedded,” he said. “There can be no doubt as to whether we are fully and irreparably wed.”
Her cheeks were hot with shame and her head pounded. No woman should have to go through the humiliation of the bedding ceremony twice. She remembered vividly the ribald jokes, the men gawking at her, almost drooling. They made no effort to hide that they were imagining touching her most private places and doing the vile things to her that her new husband had the right to do.
“If ye wish your daughters to miss it, bid them goodnight now,” Wedderburn said.
She was surprised it occurred to him that she would not want her daughters to witness the bedding ceremony, but she was grateful. She would be unable to hide how much it upset her, and they would fret.
“Thank you for that,” she managed to choke out.
Though he spoke of the bedding as if it were just another formality, she knew his thoughts were on what he would do after the others left them alone in the bedchamber. David Hume, Laird of Wedderburn, desired her. It was in his eyes every time he looked at her.
She felt them on her now as she left her seat to kiss her daughters and send them off to bed with their nursemaid.
“Sleep well, my sweetlings,” she said, forcing a smile. “Be good for Flora and don’t argue over the puppy.”
After returning to her seat, she gulped down the rest of her wine to fortify herself and kept her gaze on the table. When Wedderburn stood and held his hand out to her, the hall erupted in shouts. Panic squeezed the air out of her lungs as he led her from the hall. The floor and walls seemed to vibrate with the clapping, stomping, and shouting of the Hume men.
She must have been lagging behind, for Wedderburn turned to give her a penetrating look and tucked her hand more tightly into the crook of his arm. The noise grew still louder inside the stone stairwell, and she felt as if it were pounding against her skull. When she stumbled, Wedderburn picked her up without pausing and took the remaining stairs three a time.
His expression was shuttered, revealing nothing, as he carried her inside the bedchamber and set her on her feet.
Her two least favorite serving women were waiting and led her behind a screen, where they stripped her of all her clothing except for her plain linen shift. In a flash of memory, she saw the dark bloodstain on the finely embroidered night shift she had worn on her first wedding night, and she felt ill.
From the other side of the screen, the hum of voices, shuffling of feet, and barks of laughter filled the bedchamber. The two women unfastened her braid and combed out her hair, jerking her head with rough, impatient hands. After applying lavender water to her throat and wrists, they signaled that she was ready.
But she was not ready. It had all happened too quickly.
When she did not move, the women took her arms and pulled her out from behind the screen. She let her hair fall forward to hide her face and kept her gaze on her bare feet as the two women led her across the room to the bed. Still, the buzz of male voices filled her ears, and she felt their eyes on her, stripping her of the thin shift.
The women folded back the bedclothes and scattered dried flower petals on the sheets. An odd gesture, as if there was a grain of romance to this forced marriage or what would happen in this bed tonight. She risked a glance at Wedderburn, who stood still fully clothed on the other side of the bed. His expression was stony, as if he were already displeased with her.
At least she was not a thirteen-year-old virgin this time. Nothing could be as terrible as that.Nothing. She had been wrong to believe that memory was safely buried beneath the later years of Blackadder’s tedious but demeaning routine in the bedchamber.
He had used her body without a hint of affection, as if she were just another possession he owned, an instrument he could do with as he pleased. She knew other women suffered worse at their husbands’ hands. Blackadder never beat her. But he berated her and made her feel dirty, humiliated.
Would Wedderburn treat her the same way? Perhaps worse?
Her hands shook as she climbed into the bed. When she quickly pulled the bedclothes up to her chin, hoots of laughter filled the room. The bed sank under Wedderburn’s weight as he climbed into it from the other side, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
Alison fought to keep from weeping as she waited for the public humiliation to end—and the private one to begin.
***
David had witnessed beddings before, but he’d been too drunk to notice if the bride was upset. And if every man had looked at the bride with lust when she was put in the bed, well, he had not seen anything wrong with that. But this time the bride was his, and David found that he did not like the ritual one damned bit.
Alison’s prickliness during their wedding feast had irritated him, but seeing her lie beside him looking frightened and vulnerable choked him with frustrated fury.
No man should see his woman in bed but him. His men had the sense not to make remarks loud enough for him to hear, but from the moment she stepped out from behind the screen, they were whispering and elbowing each other. They stared at his bride with open lust while the two serving women took their damned time spreading her rich, dark hair over the pillow.