THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

Rachael. I just don’t appreciate the theme.”
    “I dinna ken la raison. ‘Tis tresbonne —-very well illustrated, non ?”
    Beth took her frustration out on the kelp, grinding furiously. “Aye, Rachael, it is. Unfortunately, I have no interest in learning how to kowtow any more than I do now.” The depictions of preferred sexual positions had been the final straw.
    “Cow tow, madame ?”
    Beth dumped the powdered kelp into a bowl and reached for the oats. “It means ‘to bow and scrape , ’ to do my master’s bidding without so much as a by-your-leave.” She slammed the pestle into the oats and began separating hull from nut. “How I ever imagined myself attracted to that man is beyond comprehension.”
    “Surely, ye ken the ways of men, madame ? They huff and puff, but are mere petit garcon —-laddies—in here.” She tapped her heart. “In truth, they fear us.”
    Beth’s hands stilled. “Fear us? What do you mean?”
    Rachael smiled. “Ah, madame , ‘tis kenned by all Francaise —-
    —women of my country. Did your mater not teach ye this as an enfant ?”
    “If by mater you mean my mother, she died when I was a babe.”
    “Ah! ‘Tis no wonder, then.” Rachael sat on the bed and patted the place at her side. “Come, we must talk before ‘tis too late.”
    “Too late for what?”
    Rachael sighed. “Ye shall learn.”
    An hour later Beth could only gape at the woman who—not ten years earlier—had nearly burned at the stake.
      According to Rachael, Duncan had to bed Beth as soon as humanly possible to keep his fiefdom and—unless Beth ran for her life—there would be no nay-saying him, as Rachael so tactlessly put it. Good God Almighty!
    Beth started pacing. “Rachael, are you absolutely certain he means to do this tonight?”
    “Aye, madame .”
    Having already ripped her headdress off, Beth ran an agitated hand through her hair. “Please, Rachael, no more ‘madames’ or ‘dames.’ Call me Beth.”
    “As ye luste, but only in private, mad...Beth. ‘Twould not be s’approprier —-uhmm, appropriate—in the public, non ?”
    Beth waved a distracted hand. “Whatever.”
    She still couldn’t believe Duncan—-her ghost, the hulking man of her dreams, the man she still contemplated slaying-—actually thought he could just walk through the solar door and jump her bones. Tonight! How could he even think it after he’d acted the Neanderthal in the hall, embarrassing her before everyone? What madness was this? 
    “Rachael, there’s got to be a way I can get out of this.”
    Now well aware that Beth was still a virgin, her French friend pushed out her lower lip in thought, “There may be, but ‘twould only be l’ ajournement temporaire .”
    As she had for the last hour, Beth mentally rearranged Rachael’s words and shifted the accent on syllables, and suddenly hope bloomed. “You’re saying there is a way to postpone this?”
    “ Oui , but ‘tis only—”
    “A temporary adjournment, I understand, but what?”
    “Claim yer flowers.”
    Beth shook her head. How the hell could flowers possibly save her?
    “Yer bloody flow, mad —Beth.”
    “Aaah!”
    “ Oui , Beth, ah!”
    ~#~
    Duncan ran a shaking hand over his bristle-coated jaw. There was no help for it. He had to shave or rub his ladywife’s face raw when he bedded her. Hopefully, he could accomplish the task without slitting his throat.
    He balanced his dirk in his hand. How would this first tupping go? He’d had little problem bedding his first wife. She’d not enthused, but she’d not wailed either. As time passed, he’d been disappointed knowing she’d not seek his attention, would not return his kisses, but then she hadn’t turned from him, either. The same, unfortunately, could not be said for his second and third wives.
    He’d taken inordinate time with his second wife, having no knowledge nor love of her, and her being only fifteen years, but she’d still cried, lying like a slab of granite beneath him as he claimed his rights. She’d not said a word as he’d gently cleansed her. Only after he’d finished tending her, did she start praying—hands clutched between her perfect breasts—for his immortal soul in endless, fractious whispers. To his horror, he awoke the next morning to Angus’s frantic shaking and the news that his lady had jumped from the parapet and lay broken on the rocky headland below.
    His third wife had apparently been better schooled in the ways of men and women