The Heiress Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 3)

Her voice came steadier, which relieved him, until he heard her say, “I do care for you a lot, Colin, but it will be difficult to bear this often. It wasn’t pleasant. I know we had to do it so that Douglas couldn’t take me back to London with him and annul the marriage. But now that you’ve done it, will you have to do it often?”

He wanted to tell her that he could easily take her again, a third time, perhaps a fourth, but he held his tongue. He’d hurt her, and she had no idea of what pleasure could be. “I’m sorry,” he said, and slowly forced himself to pull out of her. He felt the pulling of her flesh, heard her whimper.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and disliked himself for apologizing like a damned parrot.

“I don’t understand though.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“I always thought that Douglas and Alex—that’s his wife, you know. Well, I always believed that she much enjoyed staying with him in the same bed. And Ryder and Sophie, too, but now . . . perhaps it’s just kissing they enjoy, and the other, they must bear it, they choose to bear it because they love their husbands. But it’s difficult, Colin. I didn’t realize what it would be like.”

“I told you that when I take you again you will enjoy it. I promise you that.”

She clearly didn’t believe him, not that he could blame her, for hadn’t he just lost himself again, slamming into her when he knew it would hurt her? “I’m sorry,” he said for yet a third time. “I will make it up to you.”

She lay there, sprawled on her back when he rose to stand beside the bed. There was his seed and her virgin’s blood on her thighs and on the white sheets. He leaned over her, and Sinjun, fearing the worst, yelled at the top of her lungs.

Then, in the next instant, there was a hammering on the bedchamber door and Douglas was yelling, “What’s happening in there? Sinjun, what’s wrong?”

“Move out of the way, Douglas, he’s killing her!”

It was Ryder who flung open the door and burst into the bedchamber, Douglas on his heels.

There was appalled silence. They stood there, their dressing gowns flapping around their bare legs, staring at their new brother-in-law, who was standing naked by Sinjun, who was sprawled on her back on the bed, but that was just for a flash of an instant, for in the next, she grabbed the covers and pulled them to her neck. “Get out!” she screamed at her brothers, so filled with humiliation she thought she’d die of it. “How dare you! Damn you both, get out!”

“But Sinjun, we heard you yelling, screaming in pain—”

She got ahold of herself. She didn’t think it was possible, but she did it. She even managed to smile at them, but it was wobbly and mean and utterly mortified. “Now, Douglas, I’ve heard Alex yelling her head off—many times, in fact. Can’t I yell as well?”

“Yours wasn’t pleasure yelling,” Ryder said, his voice so cold she shivered at the sound of it. “Yours was pain yelling. What did this bastard do to you?”

“Dammit!” Colin roared. He grabbed his own discarded dressing gown and shrugged into it. “This is bloody ridiculous! Cannot I have privacy in my own house? Yes, she yelled, damn you both to the devil. What the hell do you expect? She was a bloody virgin and I had to get through her bloody maidenhead!”

Douglas looked at Ryder, then back at Colin. He roared

in rage and yelled at the top of his lungs, “You cunning bastard, you despicable savage, I’ll bloody well kill you this time, you lying sod!”

“Not again,” Sinjun said.

“Yes, again, dammit!” Ryder now, and his jaw was working he was so angry. “You were a virgin, Sinjun? You, who have been married to this damned heathen for how long now? Completely married, you told us? In all ways, you said. Well then, just how the hell could you still be a virgin? This rutting stoat doesn’t look like he’d wait for anything or anyone.”

Sinjun pulled the covers around her and brought her legs over the side of the bed. Colin was looking like a dog ready for a good fight, bent forward, hands fisted, his eyes mean as a snake’s. Her brothers were coming closer and closer, just as ready to spill blood.

“Stop it, all of you!” she yelled. Where was Angus with his damned blunderbuss? She jumped in front of her brothers. “No more, do you hear me? No more!” They were ignoring her, intent on bashing Colin. She spoke calmly now, colder than they’d ever heard her voice. “You will leave my bedchamber now, both of you, or I swear it, Douglas, Ryder, I will never speak to either of you again. I swear it.”

“No, you can’t mean that,” Douglas said, paling.

“You can’t know what you’re saying,” Ryder said, taking a step back. “We’re your brothers, we love you, we—”

“I do mean it. Get out, both of you. We will speak of this in the morning. You have embarrassed me to my toes, both of you, and if—” Her voice broke off and she burst into tears.

It was so utterly unexpected that both Douglas and Ryder rushed forward to her. Colin raised his hand and said quite calmly, “No, gentlemen. I will see to her. We will speak in the morning. Go away.”

“But she’s crying,” Ryder said, clearly aghast. “Sinjun never cries.”

“If you’ve made her cry, you bastard—”

“Douglas, leave us alone.” Colin tightened his arms around his wife’s back.