Free Highland Wedding by Hannah Howell Page B

at least your bed will no longer be empty and mayhaps this lass can change your mind about some things.”
    “Right now I suspicion she has more than enough to think on without fashing herself o’er me or my thoughts.”
     
    Islaen grimaced as Meg scrubbed her back. The woman was being far more vigorous than usual. She suspected that her father had severely chastized Meg. After another moment Islaen decided she did not need to suffer for the argument her father and Meg had had. She snatched the sponge from Meg and wondered how such a soft thing could be made to feel so hard.
    “I will have no skin left upon my back if ye dinnae cease,” she complained, glaring at Meg who glared right back at her.
    “Dinnae fash yourself. That mon will still bed ye,” Meg grumbled and angrily moved to sort out the clothes Islaen would wear.
    “Wheesht, ye have got a burr in your braes, havenae ye,” Islaen murmured as she started to bathe herself. “I had to tell the mon, Meg. I couldnae leave it ’til the wedding night. T’wasnae right, not right at all.”
    “T’wasnae right to jump into the mon’s bed neither.”
    “Weel, I didnae really jump. Rather, I fell. I didnae think he would react in that way.” A continued surprise tinted Islaen’s voice.
    “A lass goes waving her body parts afore a mon and ’tis just how he will act,” Meg said with hearty conviction.
    Biting back a laugh over the image Meg’s cross words invoked, Islaen said calmly,“I ken that now. He still weds me.”
    “So he should. Here, ye have washed enough.” Meg held out a drying cloth. “Do ye try to wash his touch away?”
    “Nay,” Islaen said firmly as she stepped out of her bath. “I like his touch and I am nay ashamed to say so. There is something that troubles me and I speak of this expecting it to be kept the greatest of secrets atween us.”
    “Secret e’en from your fither?”
    “Aye, sad to say, e’en from him.”
    “Aye then. Secret e’en from him.”
    “Do ye ken that Iain’s first wife died in childbirth?” Meg nodded. “T’was a long, painful birth and the bairn died too. Iain has a fear of it now, a deep abiding fear. E’en though his brother’s wife keeps having bairns and all is weel, Iain sees childbirth as a death sentence upon a woman. I cannae make him see elsewise. He willnae let me bear a bairn.”
    “How can he stop ye unless he keeps himself out o’ your bed. ’Tis God’s decision, not his.”
    “There is a way for him to stay in my bed yet not leave me with bairn—sponges.”
    “’Tis a sin,” Meg gasped.
    “’Tis a sin to keep me from e’er having a bairn, aye, but I think the trick he speaks of could have its uses. ’Tis not good for a woman to bear a bairn every year. Such a thing could give a woman time to grow strong again. I cannae help but think that my mither used them for we are all nearly or little more than two years apart. Seems too coincidental.”
    Meg frowned thoughtfully as she began to help Islaen dress. “Aye, I think ye may be right. If that is a sin, ’tis a little one. Go on, child. I ken ye have more to say. Has he demanded that ye use such things?”
    “Aye. In truth, he threatened to ne’er lie with me again an I refused. I couldnae abide that, Meg. Agree with me or nay as ye please but I mean to grasp for as full a marriage as I can. That cannae come an he and I dinnae e’en share a bed.”
    “Nay. Ye would soon grow to be mair strangers than ye are e’en now. Muckle a marriage is saved or lost in the bedchamber.”
    “So I thought, so I promised to use those things.”
    “Then ye mean to be barren, to ne’er hold a bairn o’ your own?” Meg asked, her shock and anger clear to hear in her voice and see in her face. “Ye would wither in sic a marriage.”
    “I ken it. I want bairns. I love them and dearly wish to hold my own. Truth, I think I would grow to hate Iain for denying me, yet I understand his fear. I lied, Meg. I looked him straight in the eye