by Wyatt, Dani
He loosened his grip and leaned forward, and his stubble scraped against my cheek. “I hear you making excuses, I hear you saying you do not think it is possible, but what you are not saying is no.” There was a smile in his voice.
I didn’t know what to say. How could I disappoint him by insisting? Yet how could I let him have hope for something that would never be? “I would, but…”
“Then I can sleep contented,” he said, holding me like I was his most cherished possession, and I felt his breathing deepen and slow as he drifted off to sleep. “You could not say no, so it is a yes.”
Sara
Sleep was an elusive companion that night. In between the snatches of rest, he took me again, and again. Filling me with his sticky release until it slicked my thighs and we drenched the bedding and I couldn’t fathom life without these feelings.
Without him.
I lay awake in his arms after he’s soothed and took care of my sore womanhood with a warm cloth he retrieved from the kitchen. Still, the precious ache between my legs kept me awake, watching the patch of moonlight creep over the bed until dawn found us locked together. The thought of marrying him weighed on me, knowing he wanted it, knowing I wanted it, but knowing above all it was an impossible dream.
As soon as I felt him stir in the morning light, I whispered his name.
“Shit, for a second, I feared it was all just a dream. Thank God for you,” he said sleepily, leaning over to kiss me. Then he frowned when he saw my face. “What’s on your mind, my precious girl?”
“What you asked,” I replied, searching his face for any hint that he’d withdraw the offer and finding none. “I’ve thought about nothing else. But my father will never give me to you. He will never consent. You know how things work here. The priest will insist on speaking to him, and after that he will refuse to perform the ceremony. Perhaps we should just be content to be together. Ours could be a common law marriage, until my father passes away and there is nobody left to stand against us.”
“No.” He shook his head on a grimace. “No one will keep me from marrying you. I’ve killed many before for matters far less important to me. What I would do for you…fuck, Sara, the things I would do for you would make my years of warring look like a candlelit dinner under the weeping Oaks. You will be mine, or blood will run in the streets. Our children will bear my name, I promise you that.”
The mention of children made my heart tumble inside my chest. Children. Our children.
“He is my father, Bors. No matter how much I wish that he weren’t. I want to be yours, but it will never be with his blessing.”
I rolled over in his arms to face him. His hair was messy from sleep, his eyes bedroomy and irresistible. Against my thigh, his cock was hard and ready. He pulled me to him for a kiss and I felt the wet rush warm my inner thighs yet again. My muscles sore and spent but my body was still ready for more.
“We could run away,” I suggested as he released me from the kiss. “Take me away from this place. A priest who doesn’t know my family would marry us.”
He smiled but in his eyes there was darkness. “No. Your father may not approve, but he isn’t the law. If I want to marry you, I’ll marry you, I do not need his approval.”
“Do not kill anyone, Bors. They will take you from me…”
I hesitated, seeing the look on his face, the tugging at the corner of his lips.
“You already know what you will do, don’t you?” I asked, narrowing my eyes, and he nodded, the grin spreading. “So tell me…please.”
“We will hold our ground. We will stay here. We will make a life here. I will make you my bride here and take pleasure in watching your father’s helpless anger, but you will be mine. Here, in this village, for everyone to know. We will not run, we will not cower.”
I laughed, shaking my head, sure he knew something I didn’t but still unable to see past the huge obstacle that was my father. “But how? I told you, the priest will never marry us. Not without his agreement, not while he lives to stand in our way. It’s a fool’s hope.”
Bors came up on one elbow and I sank down into the pillows, gazing up at him.
“Your father might object, but I don’t give a fuck. I’ve traveled far and wide, Sara. I’m owed a favor or two by those I’ve helped, and priests aren’t above getting themselves into difficulties that can’t be solved by prayer alone. A day’s ride will bring me to Gowerton, just over the border into Johnston land. There’s a priest there who owes me his life, and he isn’t beholden to Clan Mackay if anyone should go making a fuss. Once he marries us, there’s nothing anyone, including your father, can do about it. God’s law trumps man’s law.”
“Then let’s go. We will go together and marry there,” I declared, but he shook his head.
“There’s tension on the border. You were caught in the middle of some of it just yesterday. The clans are making like friends, but they’re ready for war, and our enemies would like nothing more than to get their hands on one of our pretty young maids. Riding alone, I can cover the distance quickly and avoid any Clan Johnston patrols.”
“No, I don’t want you to go without me.”
He pulled me closer and held me tight. “It’s two days’ sacrifice, three at the most, for a lifetime’s happiness,” he said. “Angelica will keep you safe while I’m gone.”
Even one day away from him seemed unbearable. I placed my palm to his chest and gazed up at him, admiring the strong angle of his jaw. Tears pricked at my lower lids.
“Do not cry, my sweet Sara. I cannot risk your safety ever. I’ll be back before you know it, and when I come we’ll be married that day.”
“You promise?”
“I promise. Wait for me here. With God as witness, I will return for you.”
With a heart clutched with worry and dread, I spent that morning helping him pack his things and saddle his horse, and as he kissed me goodbye on the front porch of the little cottage, he slipped his hunting knife into my hand.
“Keep this close.”
I nodded. “Come back to me.”.
“You’re my home,” he said, gazing down, making me woozy with the flickering lust in his dark eyes. “You are where I belong.”
After one more lingering kiss, he mounted his chestnut stallion, and I watched him ride down the King’s Highway, tears spilling onto my cheeks in hot rivers, terrified that I had found someone so magical, so perfect, and that I very well may never see him again.
Sara
I waited at Angelica’s for Bors to return, as promised. The moments passed slowly, and I went to the window over and over, watching for him, knowing that it was too soon yet for his arrival.
“I promise you, he’s riding hell-for-leather to get back to you,” Angelica said, looking me up and down with an expression halfway between amusement and adoration.
She sat at the big pine table in the center of the kitchen, bundles of dried herbs and plants around her ready to be made into poultices and other medicinal potions and salves. On the hob above the fire simmered something in an iron pot, bubbling up with steam, making the room smell of lavender and sage.
“I’ve known him many years and I’ve never seen the look in his eyes I see when he looks at you.”
I wanted to believe her, but these feelings were so new and overwhelming that the twist of doubt still lingered. I sat down across from her, took a sprig of dried sage from the pile, and began plucking the tiny leaves off the stem. I was lost in my thoughts, drawn back in time to the long summer afternoons when my sister Eden’s now-husband was courting her, and she spent hours plucking daisy petals one by one.
He loves me, he loves me not…
A noise from the garden caused us to startle, our eyes catching each other’s. The crash of what sounded like an overturning grain bucket was followed by the nervous clucks and warbles of Angelica’s hens outside.
She raised her eyes to mine. “Maybe a racoon. They have gotten into the grain before.” Her voice was barely a
whisper as she looked to the door, putting down the sage, her fingers curling into fists.
I nodded my head and swallowed hard hoping she was right.
Angelica rose from her chair in a careful, slow motion, easing out so there was no noise in her movements as she craned her neck to see out the front window.
We both flinched at the sound of flat-handed thumping on the door that made my heart leap into my throat the racoon theory washed away in an instant.
In that second, somehow I already knew, before I heard his voice, that it was my father.
“Open this door, whore! You’ve no right to keep my daughter. She’s my property!” His voice sounded enraged with drink and I was terrified of what he might do, to myself or my new friend.
Other voices joined in. Chattering and mumbling obscenities in muffled threats. If it was just my father, we could maybe hide, maybe run, but there were too many and I felt like a cornered rat, eyes darting, skin twitching, looking for escape.
There was a motion outside the opposite window, a quickly-moving shadowy figure. A moment later, a fist-sized stone crashed through the window over the wash basin and landed with an ominous thud on the floor, rolling under the table.
“Open the fuck up!” my father roared. “I’ve come to take back what’s mine, you wizened old crone. I won’t let you defile her with your morals or your dark magic!”
Angelica rolled her eyes, muttering, “Morals and dark magic, indeed,” as she pushed aside the rough woolen rug on the floor. She crouched low and wiggled two of the old pine floorboards free, making a space just large enough for a person to pass through. She pointed at the opening and I nodded.
As I lowered myself down into the crawl space below the house, I reached up and extended a hand for her to join me. But instead, within seconds she’d secured the floorboards back in place, blocking the light from the knot holes with the rug.
I crouched low on the cold, damp soil, listening to her footsteps and then the creak of the front door.
“Afternoon, lads,” she said. “So, the fresh mead at the tavern has gotten your blood up, has it? It’ll be six schillings each. But ten for you, Milo. Even a woman with no morals has her standards.” A pause. “And you’ll each have to wait your turn, I’m not as young as I once was.”
Her offering was sarcastic. She was toying with them, her skills from years long past still sharp as she knew how to handle men.
I heard a throaty laugh, then my father snarled: “Shut up with your wanton mouth. You know why we’re here and it’s not for your used-up wares.”
Hard thumping of boots marched on the wood above my head. Not exactly an army, but far too many for even a woman like Angelica to handle on her own.
I suddenly wondered about her offer. Would she really defile herself to be rid of them? Could I really hide and let that happen?
For years, I’d been nothing but a servant, but now that I’d taken something for myself, here was my father trying to take me back as though he cared.
“You better start talking, whore.” Another voice, deep, familiar—one of my father’s drinking mates, I was sure.
“Twenty, then!” Angelica strained, her voice strangled and hoarse. “Thirty if you insist on choking.”
I felt the knife that Bors had given me, heavy and cold in my pocket, its bone handle solid and reassuring. Could I use it? Could I hurt my own father? I would, I decided, if I had to, but Angelica wouldn’t thank me for revealing her only hiding place unless it was absolutely necessary.
For now, that time hadn’t come.
Instead I listened and waited.
“Where’s my daughter?”
“She’s not here,” Angelica croaked. “She left at daybreak.”
“To go where?”
Something heavy fell against the kitchen table, and I heard Angelica gasping a deep breath. My own breath came only slightly easier knowing…hoping at least, there was no longer a hand around her throat.
“She’s gone to Westerville,” Angelica said, her voice gruff and strained. “Said she wanted to make a new life for herself. Said she never wanted to see her piece-of-shit father again. I gave her a bag of coin and wished her well.”
There was a laugh from one of the other men, but my father’s voice cut across it. “Liar. She’s got neither the wits nor the guts. You’ve got her stashed here. I know it. So, where the fuck is she?”
There was a crash and clatter, sounding like everything on the table had been swept to the floor as Angelica screamed obscenities.
“You bastard, Milo! That’s my livelihood!”
“No doubt you’ll make it back in other ways. Not worth what you were back in your youth though. Out of practice, too.”
A loud clang made me jump, reverberating through the cool air and vibrating my ear drums. At the same moment, I heard my father’s pained scream. I felt a warm drip on my chest and shifted back as the tincture Angelica had been simmering on the fire trickled through the floorboards.
“Bitch!” my father screamed, footsteps retreating to the doorway. “This is not over.”
“Get out of my goddamned house,” she seethed. “You haven’t forgot I lived a different life in my past, but you seem not to remember it earned me connections and favors as well. You all know it is true.” She paused for effect, and I heard mumblings of assent. She’s right. Cunt’s got contacts in town, that’s for sure. “Men far more powerful and dangerous that you motley fools would come to my aid if I so much as called on them. If you know what is good for you…all of you, mind…you’ll find your way out my front gate and don’t ever think of coming back. Right now. Or we’ll find out how many balls I can cut off before you overpower me.”
There were a few grunts and muttered curses, but eventually the voices sounded farther away and the door was slammed shut. For a long moment, I held perfectly still, neither breathing nor moving. Then, after what felt like an eternity, the rug shifted above me and a patch of light made me squint in the darkness.
As Angelica knelt down and offered me her hand, I emerged.
Her hair was mussed and her clothes crooked and disheveled, but she was otherwise unharmed…thanks to the gleaming meat cleaver that lay beside her.
* * *
A second night passed, then a third day, all quietly, but by the evening of the fourth I could tell Angelica was growing as concerned as I for Bors.
“Bors told me Gowerton is only a day’s ride away. He should have been back by now, shouldn’t he?” I asked as I peeled potatoes, noting Angelica’s knitted brow and glances at the window.
She untied and re-tied her apron. “I’m sure he’s just delayed, try not to worry.”
“I’m worried already,” I said.
She stared at me, then nodded. “Aye, you and me both. Not much can hurt Bors, he’s seen too many battles to be easily caught off guard. But let me see what I can find out in town. If a man of Clan Mackay has been waylaid on the border, news of it will have spread by now. You stay here, you understand?”
“I won’t go anywhere. I promise.”
She eyed me knowingly. “No matter how curious you get, you must stay here, Sara. Right here. If anyone comes calling, you hide back under the floor best you can.” She tapped the table for emphasis. “I won’t be more than a few hours. But in the meantime, don’t take any chances.”
“I won’t. I swear.”
With that, she packed a satchel and I listened as the hoofbeats of her dappled gray mare bore her down the road, leaving me completely alone.
I passed the time while she was away as best I could, making myself useful collecting eggs and feeding the pigs, and gathering herbs that I put to dry as she’d taught me. But as the sun began to make its way back towards the horizon the following day, I was still sitting in the kitchen and she hadn’t returned.
It was unbearable. How could I keep my promise and stay?
At nightfall, hoping that the cover of darkness would protect me from any prying eyes, I braided my
hair off to the side, and set out for Weschail in search of answers.
Sara
From several hundred yards away, the raucous noise of revelers’ voices and the clink of glasses spilled out from the half-open windows of the Cock and Bull Inn. I knew it was risky to show my face there, since my father or any one of his friends might spot me, but it was a risk I had to take.
Any information about Angelica or Bors would have passed through there, and Charmaine, the innkeeper’s daughter, knew my father. I would implore her to keep my sighting silent.
If she knew anything, I would not be above begging for her to tell me.
Nobody noticed me as I walked in, my hood drawn up to cover my face. I hurried across to Charmaine, who stood tending the ale, and lowered my voice.
“Charmaine, listen, I beg you. I need—”
“Well, well, what do we have here?” She grinned, her voice raised, as she pulled back my hood, not even giving me a chance. “The whore’s apprentice, lads!”
The room was filled with laughter, and I felt the heat rise to my face. Aside from Charmaine, they were all men. I felt their eyes on me, and as I turned, ready to flee, I saw a new expression on every face—one that I was very unaccustomed to seeing: hunger. The hunger of he-wolves and bucks and stallions.
The hunger of desire.
“I do like them young and fresh. High time this town got a fresh pussy for us men to enjoy!” One of the men at the bar reached out and I shrank back. I was surrounded, and the few strides to the door may as well have been a hundred miles.
“You’re right about that, William. That old cunt Angelica…well…she was all used up long before she gave up whoring and started healing.”