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know what I must,” Annabella said, suddenly a bit shy. “I’ve seen the creatures making the beast with two backs, Mama.”
    The good lady laughed softly. “’Tis a bit different when a man mounts his woman,” she said. “Ye’ll be on yer back, not yer belly. There is an opening between yer legs where his manhood will be fitted. Some think of it as another form of riding. The first time he enters yer body will hurt, but only briefly. That is because his cock will pierce yer maidenhead. When he has pleasured himself, and hopefully ye as well, he will water yer womb with his seed. The seed will not always be implanted, but once it is, a bairn will grow within yer belly, and after several months, usually eight to ten, the bairn will be born. Being my eldest daughter and second child, ye’ve seen the process of birth, so I need not tell ye of it. Do ye have any questions, Annabella?”
    “Nay, Mama, thank ye,” the girl said politely. Actually she had several questions, but she was too embarrassed to ask her mother.
    “’Tis better ye not be too knowledgeable,” the lady Anne said. “Yer husband will want to lead the way, and ye should let him.”
    And finally her possessions were packed and ready. Her wedding gown was sewn. And on a fine morning toward the end of September, Matthew and James Ferguson, in the company of their sister, Jean, arrived at the tower house of the laird of Rath. They came with a large troop of men-at-arms wearing the blue-and-green plaid of the Fergusons of Duin, with its thin red and white stripes. Two pipers accompanied them, and Jean Ferguson, riding astride like the men she rode with, led a pristine white mare. From the moment they had entered onto Baird lands, they had been accompanied by the bride’s clansmen. There would be no delay. The marriage would be celebrated this very day, and on the morrow the bride would depart with her husband’s kin for Duin.
    “Ohh,” Myrna squealed, gazing from a window on the arriving visitors. “What a fine mare! Who is the woman leading it, do ye think?”
    “The Fergusons are well garbed and well mounted,” Sorcha noted.
    Agnes began to weep. “We’ll never see our Annabella after today,” she sobbed.
    “Ye’re not promised, nor will Da permit ye to wed until ye are at least sixteen,” Annabella said quietly to her youngest sister. “Ye shall come and visit me next summer, Aggie.” She put a comforting arm about the girl. “I’m sure the earl will permit it, and send a fine escort for ye too,” she promised.
    Agnes sniffled, but then, looking up through her wet lashes at Myrna and Sorcha, both of whom were always lording marriage over her, she said, “Ye two will probably be wed by next summer, so ye’ll not get to visit our sister in her fine new home, but I will!” There was an air of triumph in her voice. Then she added, “Maybe Annabella will even find a rich husband for me.”
    Myrna and Sorcha looked distinctly put out by Agnes’s words, but then Myrna said meanly, “If I were our plain-faced sister, I would certainly not invite my beautiful little sister to visit. What if the earl fell in love wi’ ye, and magicked our sister away so he could have ye?”
    “Oh, Annabella, I wouldn’t steal yer man!” Agnes burst out. “I swear it!”
    “I’m sure ye wouldn’t, Aggie,” her elder sister said, “and if my husband turned out to be that fickle, I wouldn’t want him. As for ye two, eventually ye’ll come to Duin to see me. Ye’ll always be welcome, sisters.”
    Their brother, Rob, entered the chamber. “Da wants you downstairs in the hall immediately, Annabella,” he said. “Ye should be there to greet yer bridegroom’s kinfolk.” He was a handsome young man of twenty-two, with their mother’s blue eyes and their father’s dark hair. “Ye three are to remain here until ye’re invited into the hall,” he told his younger sisters. No need for the Fergusons to be blinded by their beauty until they had