Free Bride of Dunloch (Highland Loyalties) by Veronica Bale Page B

but the lip of the tub prevented her, and she fell backwards, bouncing painfully onto the stone floor. She gasped as her ankle slammed off the lip of the tub—a sharp ache reverberated up her leg.
    “Oh, s-sorry ‘bout that,” Lord Reginald offered, hiccupping.
    “It is fine, my Lord,” Jane answered, fighting to stay calm against the throbbing in her leg. Her panic rose as she recalled Ruth’s words about what the drink did to men.
    “Ah, you’re alright, aren’t you,” he grinned.
    He pulled her awkwardly off the floor and ushered her to the bed. She knew he didn’t mean to be rough, only to assist her, but in his inebriated state Jane wound up being half-dragged across the room. She hobbled against the pain in her leg before Lord Reginald tossed her, still dripping wet, onto the sheets. She landed on her stomach, and her right thigh collided with the bed frame, sending another wave of pain through her leg.
    “You’re certainly wet for me now, girl,” he quipped, and when Jane made to crawl into the centre of the mattress he added, “No, no. Stay where you are.”
    She was unaccustomed with the methods by which a man and a woman could be intimate, and feared what his intentions were this time. Standing behind her, he hastened to undo the laces of his breeks, and then clumsily pressed himself, already fully erect, to her unprepared flesh. She whimpered pathetically as he thrust himself roughly inside.
    Jane clenched her eyes shut, and pressing her face into the mattress, she tried to imagine she was elsewhere. She pictured home, pictured running down the vicarage lane with Hugg, her beloved Mastiff. She pictured the balls and dances in Sussex—the cool night air floating through the open windows of the manor houses, carrying music and laughter with it on the breeze.
    But Lord Reginald’s grotesque grunting forced its way into her tentatively held illusions, shattering the images she desperately tried to conjure.
    When his awkward thrusting was getting him nowhere in the position he had her, he urged Jane to turn over, gripping her thigh in indication of what he wanted her to do. Her injured leg knocked against his hip, and the ache, which had begun to subside, roared back to life, wrenching a choked sob from her chest.
    “Oh, bollocks. Are you alright?” Lord Reginald inquired again, his eyes glassy.
    She nodded, biting back a fit of snivelling and shut her eyes once more. Still standing over her, he lifted her legs and tossed them roughly one over each shoulder. Then, barely positioning himself properly, he re-entered her, grunting loudly as he thrust.
    His pitiful attempt to satisfy himself carried on far beyond what was tolerable, and by the time he finally did reach his satisfaction, she felt as though she had been rubbed raw.
    Relieved and exhausted, Lord Reginald removed himself from between her raised legs, tossing them aside carelessly, and collapsed onto the bed beside her. His arm, clammy with perspiration, he tossed over her midsection—whether it was a gesture of affection or that he’d simply forgotten she was there, Jane didn’t know.
    She waited patiently for him to move, but soon there was the sound of soft snoring rising from his motionless form.
    “Wonderful,” she muttered to herself, scrubbing the tears from her eyes with the back of her wrist.
    Carefully so as not to wake him, she disentangled herself from under his arm and slid off the bed. The evidence of his release slid sickeningly from her cavity and down the inside of her thighs. She shuddered and crossed the room to the bath which, by now, had grown tepid. Stepping into the water, she scrubbed herself clean of Lord Reginald’s seed. Her womanhood stung from the chafing he’d given her, but she did not care; she scrubbed furiously—as if she could wash away the humiliation along with the physical evidence.
    Sneaking about the room, she dressed herself and wove her hair into a simple plait. The hour was not too late; there