An Unlikely Lord: The MacNaughtons' First Christmas

by Sullivan Clarke

CHAPTER ONE

Mary Cromwell wasn’t used to being the strong one, but as she felt her husband shudder beside her, she squeezed his hand reassuringly. It seemed unfair, less than a year after meeting his father, Edmund was now walking the long, cold path from the chapel to the MacNaughton family crypt. Ahead of them, the glass coach bearing the body of the man who had acknowledged his only surviving son drew ever closer to the stoic stone structure.

In the valley below, MacNaughton manor glowed with the lights of Epiphany, a stark contrast to the barren hillside where the crypt, surrounded by ancient graves, waited to receive the next to last of the male MacNaughton line.

It was Edmund who was the last, and if he suspected his father’s admission of paternity was borne of a desire to see his line continue, he did not mention it. It had been almost twelve months to the day earlier when Edmund, a servant in the Cromwell household, stood stunned along with everyone else when the visiting lord acknowledged that the young man before him was the result of a liaison with the village midwife. The only one who had not been completely surprised had been Mary Cromwell. The young man who had served her family had never seemed to fit the image of a servant. His stance was too straight, his features too handsome and refined, his manner too decisive.

He’d been a leader then, too, and more than once Mary had watched - fascinated - as he spanked one of the female servants for some act of laziness or dishonesty. And then one fateful day he’s caught her spying and humiliated her so completely she’d thought she could not endure another day alive. But in time they’d spoken again, and professed a mutual attraction. It had been bittersweet for the both of them, for they were from different worlds - or they were until the day Lord MacNaughton finally claimed Edmund as his son.

After that everything had happened in a dreamlike, dizzying haste. Edmund’s physical resemblance to the wealthy lord was unmistakable and hushed tongues that may have wagged to the contrary. Edmund was removed from the house to go live with his father, and Mary had been devastated until a week later when the Lord MacNaughton and his newly minted son had shown up so that Edmund could ask for Mary’s hand. It was a union that delighted Mary, thrilled her mother, and surprised her father who had no knowledge of his daughter’s growing attraction for the young man who had been their servant. But given the vast wealth Edmund stood to inherit, Cromwell was quick to sanction the union.

They were wed shortly afterwards at the behest of Lord MacNaughton, who admitted privately to the young couple that his declining physical state had not been merely due to losing his wife and two sons in close proximity. He was sick, and he told them that nothing would make him happier than to see his son Edmund wed and have a child on the way within the year.

“It is the vanity in me,” he said, “that I would see my line continued through this union. It is my dying wish.”

As Mary trod along beside Edmund, she found herself blinking back tears, for almost ten months after the wedding she had still failed to conceive a child. Each month when her show of blood arrived, she felt more anxious and more convinced that Edmund was harboring disappointment that he was simply not expressing.

The stress put her in a rather bad mood at times. One night after a particularly sweet session of lovemaking, Edmund kissed her on the shoulder.

“I love you, Mary MacNaughton,” he said.

“You won’t for long if I keep disappointing you,” she said sadly.

He grew quiet. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Your father is ill, Edmund, and he may die before I can provide him assurance that I will bear children to carry on the MacNaughton name.”

“And you think I’m so cruel a man that I would blame you for not yet swelling with a child that it takes both of us to make?”

Mary flushed and looked away. “My father turned to other women when my mother did not give him sons. Your father turned to other women too. It is the way of men…”

“Mary, stand up.” Edmund took the hand of his naked wife and sat up on the edge of the bed. Raising her to her feet, he led her round till she was standing in front of him. In the moonlight coming through the window, she could see that his expression had turned grim and purposeful. Mary, by now, knew that expression well.

“I did not mean to imply..” she began, but he cut her off.

“Whether you meant to or not is irrelevant, Wife. You would suggest that I would put you or any children we have through the pain I endured growing up? We’ve spoken of my childhood, of the sadness I felt at not having a father, of my mother’s pain at knowing the man she loved was husband to another, of the guilt. To even think I’ve learned nothing from those sad lessons is an insult, and I will not be insulted in my own house.”

Mary felt herself tossed over Edmund’s lap, but this time she was shedding tears even before the his hand descended upon her smooth bum in the first painful blow. Her husband was right; he’d confided in her on more than one occasion how the sad circumstances of his birth affected his mother and robbed him of a father’s guidance. Even though Lord MacNaughton had finally claimed him, part of Edmund struggled with the timing; had the Lord’s two legitimate sons not died, would he have ever admitted that the young servant was his blood? Edmund never asked his father, partly because he knew his sire was ashamed of what he had done, but also because he knew the man would be honest and in that honesty might come new hurt and resentment.

Over his lap, Mary felt shame at causing her husband another kind of hurt. She was the one person he should never have to doubt, and yet she had prejudged him based on the actions of great men with little regard for their actions when she knew her husband was different.

He was spanking her hard now, his hand rising and falling in steady, stinging blows that covered the span of her little bottom and had her sobbing a non-stop stream of apologies. When Edmund had worked as a servant in her father’s house she had spied on him when he spanked an errant serving girl. When he caught her, she admitted that she’d been fascinated by the punishment and secretly wanted the same done to her, for she’d known nothing but indulgence. Edmund told her once that if she ever married a man who would correct her in such a fashion, she would quickly lose her romantic notion of spanking.

Now, whenever he spanked her, she realized all too well the truth of those words. Edmund was a strict, consistent disciplinarian and in the short time they’d been married his firm hand had substantially improved Mary’s behavior. Edmund, while formerly a servant, had always maintained a gentleman’s manner while his highborn wife had a bit of the chit in her and enjoyed defiance and gossip for its own sake. When she began to go astray under his watch, he quickly and sternly corrected her by spanking and Mary, who at once spent hours thinking of ways to trick him into correcting her, now spent a great deal of time making sure she avoided Edmund’s particular form of justice.

She was bawling unintelligibly when the spanking finally ended and he tipped her up to stand back in front of him.

“I trust you will think twice before insulting the character of the man who loves you?” he asked. His voice was firm, but not unkind. Even in tears Mary was a beautiful picture.

She nodded, and Edmund sighed and pulled her into his arms.

“It is true that my father would die happier knowing there was an heir on the way, Mary. But it is God who gives and takes life. If He deems it fit to bless your belly with our child before my father passes, then it would be a joy. But if he does not deem to do so until after my father dies, then we shall have to accept His will. In the meantime, we will be patient, for whenever we do learn that we are to become parents our joy will be no more or less greater for its timing.”

He kissed her nose.

“And as for me, I shall enjoy the act of getting you with child until it happens.”

She looked up from underneath her moist lashes and managed a smile, even as she rubbed a bum that had gone from scalding to throbbing, sore tenderness.

“As do I, she admitted.”

Edmund laid back, pulling her on top of him. Mary allowed this, and straddled him, her silken thighs holding him willing hostage as she lowered herself onto his ready cock. He reached up, gently cupping her sore bottom and she moaned with a mixture of pleasure pain as he squeezed her possessively. Mary began to rock back and forth, savoring the slow, exquisite build of pleasure that culminated in their mutual starburst release. She leaned forward and kissed him before falling into a happy and dreamless sleep.

It had been such a wonderful night, even if she had gotten a spanking. Edmund had fallen asleep with a smile on his handsome face. His visage now was so much different. He looked drawn and sad as he trudged the frozen crown behind the coach. It had stopped now, for they had reached the crypt. Here would his father rest eternally, as would Edmund and Mary at some yet-to-be-determined time. The crypt was on a hillside overlooking the large stone manor. In the waning light of day, the windows glowed every more brightly with holiday warmth. The priest chanted as the coffin was lifted from the coach. The inside of the crypt was large, the walls around filled with spaces where former MacNaughtons slept. Mary shed a tear as her father-in-law was slipped into one of the spaces; when she stole a glance at Edmund, he was bravely attempting to blink his back, but he could not stop his lip from trembling. Mary could not help but wonder what he was thinking. Did he cry for the loss of a father he’d only just begun to know? Or did he cry because of the years they’d been apart while the old Lord put his hopes and dreams and love into legitimate sons, only turning to Edmund when those lads were lost.

Mary tried not to think of what she sometimes wanted to say to soothe Edmund - that even if he did miss all those years of having a father, now he’d been made a very wealthy man - one with a title and lands and respect that came with an old and lauded name. After announcing to the world that Edmund was his son, Lord MacNaughton had moved him into the manor and instantly began to school him in the running of his estate and various businesses. When Edmund came to call on Mary, he confided in her that the pallor some had noticed in MacNaughton, who’d been dubbed “The Sad Lord” had not simply been caused by grief, but by an illness that was now racking him with fever and coughs that often produced blood. It saddened Edmund even further to entertain the ugly truth that his father knew his time was short, and had likely turned to him because he could not bear to see his estate fall into the hands of Lord MacNaughton’s estranged brother.

But even with those nagging questions, Edmund enjoyed the company of his father, and his father his. He often expressed regret that the circumstances of Edmund’s birth had not been different.

“You were the son I should have had above the covers,” he said to Edmund on the day of his wedding to Mary. “Strong, true, smart. I would convey my apologies to your mother, but she will have nothing to do with me. She refused to speak to me after I broke her heart; she would not forgive my lies and rejected my offers of money to support you…”

Edmund himself had not spoken to his mother since his father had claimed him. He’d sent word, but his uncle told him that she felt betrayed that he was taken in by the man who had abandoned her. She also feared that the sudden wealth would change him. Edmund had been saddened, but had not pushed her. He hoped she would eventually come around, but was still stung that she’d not come to his wedding to Mary.

Now his wife squeezed his hand as he watched the stone door close the door on his father forever.

“I love you, Edmund.”

He looked down at her.

“And I love you,” he said. “You’re all the family I have left now, wife.”

Mary shook her head. “You have your mother.”

“A mother who feels I’ve spurned her by accepting my father’s name,” he said.

Mary put her arm around Edmund and looked up at him. “And you don’t think there’s any way you can redeem yourself in her eyes? You’re her son. Surely she can’t be that stubborn.”

“Only a person who’d not met Sylvia Leeds would say such a thing,” Edmund said with a sad laugh. “My mother is nothing if not stubborn.”

“Did she resent your father so for spurning her?” Mary asked.

“No, it wasn’t her being spurned that angered her so, but the injury to her pride,” he said.

“But surely she knew how these great men are...” Mary asked.

“My father hid his station from her,” Edmund said. “My mother was - is - a remarkably beautiful woman. My father saw her when he was passing through the village and inquired about her. He found out that she was a tireless advocate for the poor and downtrodden and had a disdain for the aristocracy. He came back, disguised as a traveling man and seduced her. He’d thought it to be a solitary dalliance, but he was smitten with her and sought to set her up as his mistress. She would have none of it, even after he revealed his true identity. When she discovered she was pregnant with me, she rejected his offers of help. Gifts of money and finery were returned. He gave up after realizing he could not lure her. She never forgave him for the deception, for fooling her.” “So she kept you from him?” Mary asked.

Edmund shook his head.

“I would not put it in such a manner. Even if my mother had allowed herself to be cared for as a mistress, my father never would have openly claimed me. Circumstance - not love - forced his hand…”

“He did love you, Edmund,” Mary said.

“He came to love me, yes,” Edmund said. “But I am not without my mother’s pragmatism. I know that were it not for his being without another heir, he would never have sought me out. Now I have wealth, but am without both parents.”

Mary felt saddened by his tone.

“Don’t give up,” she said. “It is, after all, the season of Epiphany. It is the season of hope; who knows what may yet happen.”