Lady Cordelia began reading. Marybeth attempted to pay attention to the topic at hand but found the book on marriage to be quite dull and irrelevant to her own life. She tried to keep herself awake by going over her list of needed herbs on her next trip to the croft but soon found herself dozing. Lady Cordelia’s words faded in and out weaving themselves into Marybeth’s dreams causing her to dream of weddings and birthing babies.
She was not sure how long she slept but found herself being rather forcefully awakened by rough hands shaking her by the shoulders. “Wake up, little witch!” A strange masculine voice commanded.
“Really, Your Lordship, I must protest. She is not a witch and should not be treated as such.”
“On that we must agree to differ, Your Grace.”
Your Lordship? Marybeth questioned through the fog of sleep as she opened her eyes.
“There has been a hunting accident in the forest. I went to your croft, but you and your grandmother were not there. I came across the Duke of Arkley and the Earl of Bredon out in the wood. They informed me that you have been living here at Arkley Hall since your grandmother’s passing.
“Your Lordship, I must insist that you leave my bedchamber at once. You may await Miss Wright in the library, if and when she decides to aid you,” the Dowager Duchess chastised in displeasure.
“I attempted to stop him, Your Grace, but he would not take no for an answer,” Mr. Wheatly huffed from the doorway, his face red with anger and exertion.
“My apologies, Your Grace, but the matter is one of great urgency. I could not stand on ceremony,” the man explained. Though his words seemed genuine, his eyes held nothing but disdain. “I must insist that the little witch comes with me.” He grabbed Marybeth by the arm pulling her up from the side of the bed.
“Let go of me,” Marybeth commanded attempting to jerk her arm free. “You are hurting me.”
“Release Miss Wright at once, Lord Enfield or I will be forced to summon armed guards to ensure that you are compliant,” the Dowager Duchess threatened. “You have no right to treat, Miss Wright in such a fashion.”
“I have every right.”
“You may be a lord, Enfield, but this my house and in my house, you have absolutely no say at all,” the Duchess punctuate her last words with a decisive nod and a firm stare. “What right is it that you believe yourself to hold?”
“The right of a father upon his daughter.”
Chapter 16
“Daughter?” Marybeth stammered in disbelief.
“Yes, daughter,” Lord Enfield answered.
“You are the lord who violated the witch of the forest?” Lady Cordelia spoke out of reflex without thinking.
Marybeth’s mind filled with horror. “You raped my mother?”
“Have you never heard the stories?” Lady Cordelia asked, once again speaking without thinking, wrapped up in the drama of the moment.
“No,” Marybeth’s voice caught on a sob.
“Lord Enfield violently assaulted your mother and left her for dead in the forest. Nine months later you were born and your mother, unable to bear the shame, killed herself,” Lady Cordelia explained, a combination of revulsion and glee upon her face.
“Lady Cordelia, this is not one of your fiction novels. I beseech you to hold your tongue,” the Dowager Duchess cut off any further discussion on the topic.
“Is it true?” Marybeth whispered in horror looking up into the face of the man who claimed to be her father.
“What transpired between your mother and I is irrelevant. What matters in this moment are your healing skills. I am told that your grandmother passed her knowledge on to you. Is this true?”
“Yes.”
“Then you will come with me now before my son and heir bleeds out upon the forest floor.”
“You left a wounded man out in the forest alone?” Marybeth questioned in disbelief.
“He could not be moved without risking his life and he is not alone. His brothers are with him as is my best huntsman. Now we must go.” Lord Enfield took ahold of her arm once more and dragged her from the room. Mr. Wheatly attempted to stop him but got a black eye for his trouble. Lord Enfield drug her from the house and threw her up on to the back of his horse, mounted behind her, and kicked his steed into a run.
“My supplies,” she cried out in protest as she bounced hard on the saddle in front of him.
“You have all the supplies you need at the croft just as your grandmother and mother always did. You can gather what you need there.”
“How did you know where to find me? How did you know of my existence? How did you know about my grandmother’s croft? How do you know anything about me at all?” The questions poured from her lips as rapid and uncontrolled as a waterfall over the side of a cliff.
“I have my ways,” was all the answer he would give.
Has he been spying upon us all of these years? How could he possibly have escaped our notice? I do not remember ever having met him. Can any of this be real?
Marybeth’s mind whirled with the information she had learned in but a few moments time. One moment she had been asleep, the next her entire world had changed. She would have cried had she not been in such a state of shock. She knew the tears would come later. For now, she wanted nothing more than to drive her knife into the thigh of the man who held her captive against her will. Her disappointment was keen when she realized that she did not have a knife to stab him with.
Father or no, I will allow no man to treat me thus.
“Did you truly rape my mother?” she asked unable to get Lady Cordelia’s words out of her head.
“Yes, I did,” he admitted without shame or remorse.
“I will kill you at the earliest opportunity,” she warned him, anger burning through her in waves of white-hot rage.
“I would expect nothing less of a daughter of mine, little witch.” He laughed in delight at her words as if she had just announced something wonderful instead of threatening his life.
“Do not call me little witch!” she gritted out between her teeth wishing more than anything to rip the tongue out of his head with her bare hands.
“It is what you are.”
“No, it is not.”
“I see that you have both mine and your mother’s stubborn determination,” he noted as if he had not just admitted to violating her mother in order to create her.
“I am nothing of you. I want no part of you.”
“In that you have no choice whatsoever. You are my daughter, whether you care to be or not, and nothing you say or do will change that.”
“I would rather die than have any part of you within me,” she protested searching for any kind of a weapon that she could stab him with.
“That was your mother’s choice, but you have too much fight in you to end your own life. I can see it in your eyes. Yet another strength you received from your sire.”
Marybeth’s stomach turned over and she nearly vomited on the back of the horse’s head, but just barely managed to hold it in. “You are a cruel, heartless, ruthless man.”
“Yes, I am,” he replied with great pride.
“I want nothing to do with you.”
“You will fix my son, your brother, and then you may do as you wish. Whether you return to Arkley Hall or remain at your grandmother’s croft alone is of no consequence to me, but you will do so on foot as I will not be carrying you back.”
“The moment we get down off of this horse, I will kill you.”
“You may try, but you will not succeed.”
They rode on in silence for the remainder of the journey crossing over from the Arkley Estate to the neighboring Enfield Estate. Just over the line, they came across a truly gruesome scene. “What happened?” she asked in horror momentarily forgetting her threat to kill him.
There upon the ground was a young man lying in a pool of his own blood, his leg mangled beyond repair, a rope wrapped around it to stop the bleeding. Off to the side lay a dead horse its eye
s rolled back in its head. The blood streaked whites of its eyes showed the fear and pain it had felt in its last moments before it had been shot in the head. “He was gored by a stag during a hunt.”
“I have never seen such a thing before,” she shook her head, not at all sure that she could help his son.
“You will fix him, or I will make you suffer far more than your pitiful little mind could begin to imagine.”
Terrified, angry, and horror stricken, Marybeth slid from the back of the horse and knelt down beside the wounded man. At least someone had known enough to stop the bleeding, she noted. Taking stock of the situation her training as a healer took over and she pushed aside her rage to aid the man suffering before her. Turning to Lord Enfield she rattled off a list of items she would need from her croft. Nodding, he took off on horseback toward her grandmother’s croft.
Marybeth contemplated running away, but if she did, she knew that the young man before her would die. As angry as she was at Lord Enfield, his sons were innocent of their father’s wrongdoing and did not deserve to die for the sake of their paternity, just as she would not wish to do so. Resigning herself to the situation in which she found herself, Marybeth went about doing what she could to save his life without her supplies.
The wounded man’s brothers all stood around staring down at her. The stone-cold grey of their eyes did little to give away any emotion. Heaven forfend that they be as their father. Looking around she saw a nearby stream and ordered the brothers to build a fire so that she might heat some water for when her supplies came. The brothers did as she asked without comment or question. Not a one of them spoke a single word to her in greeting or otherwise.
The man on the ground had lost consciousness, a small mercy as she was quite certain that the pain was most unbearably intense. She could not imagine the torture that he had endure before passing out. As she waited for Lord Enfield to return, she studied the faces of the men around her. They all had the same grey eyes, the same eyes that she herself looked at in the mirror every day. She marveled at the similarities in their features. The one key difference in their appearance, however, was their coal black hair.
Lord Enfield has grey eyes as well. As much as she might wish it not to be true, it was. Lord Enfield was her father and these men were her brothers. I have a family. I have brothers and I am the daughter of a cruel villain who raped my mother, and not only that but he left her for dead. Marybeth’s head ached from the intensity with which she had been clenching her teeth since leaving Arkley Hall.
The man on the ground began to rouse, moaning in pain. He opened his eyes and stared up at her face in surprise. “Who are you?” he mumbled unable to speak clearly through the agony that gripped him.
“Marybeth Wright, I am a healer. I am also apparently your sister.”
“Sister? I was unaware that I had a sister,” he mumbled. “How?”
“That is a tale best left for when you are feeling better. For now, just rest. Lord Enfield will return soon with my supplies and I promise to do all I can to see you put to rights.”
“Are you another one of our father’s bastards?” one of the other brother’s asked moving forward to take in the situation. “Your eyes are the same as ours, your features a feminine version of our own, naught but your hair is different.”
“My mother’s hair,” she murmured. Her heart felt as if it bore an open festering wound as it ached with every beat in her chest.
The brother’s nodded their heads in unison. “We too have our mother’s hair.”
By the time that Lord Enfield returned, Marybeth had learned all eight of her brother’s names, ages, and their family background. She had used conversation to distract the eldest brother form his pain and had learned a great deal in the process. Their mother had died in childbirth many years before. Out of all of Lord Enfield’s children, Marybeth was the youngest that they were aware of. She also discovered that they were all oblivious as to the story of her creation.
Marybeth’s stomach turned over at the thought of what had befallen her mother. How can anyone do such a thing to another person? It is unconscionable.
When Lord Enfield arrived with the supplies, Marybeth set straight to work. Peeling away the torn clothing from the wound, she cleansed it as best as she could given the circumstance of being on the forest floor. After she had cleaned the wound, she stitched it up as best she could. Even when she had done all that she could do, Marybeth was not at all certain that he would live. He had lost a lot of blood and was very weak.
“He will need constant care to ensure that his leg does not become putrid. You will need to wash it out, reapply the poultice, and rewrap it daily just as I have done here.” She explained to them exactly what she had done and with what herbs. She made him some white willow bark tea for the pain and then handed the remaining supplies to the nearest standing brother. “If you do as I have instructed, he stands a chance at living. If you do not, he will die.”
“Should she not go with us, Father, to care for Stephen?” one of the brothers asked.
“She would be more trouble than she is worth. If something goes wrong, we will know where to find her.” The Duke moved his horse forward and lifted his injured son up onto the horse’s back. Mounting he placed a protective arm around his son to keep him from falling off. The other brothers mounted up as well and the nine of them rode away without a backward glance in her direction.
Chapter 17
Felix returned from the hunt with the Earl and descended the stairs to look in on Oliver. He found him awake and conversing with one of the kitchen maids. Smiling, he left him to his flirtations and went upstairs to check on his mother. What he found there gave him pause.
“Mother, what has happened?” The Dowager Duchess had been crying and now looked as if she were on the warpath. Lady Cordelia was pale and silent as she sat listening to the Duchess slinging slurs upon Lord Enfield’s name.
“Lord Enfield has taken Marybeth!” the Dowager Duchess exclaimed, fiery balls of rage glowing in her eyes.
“Yes, he needed her to aid him in the care of his son and heir, Stephen.” Felix did not understand why his mother was so angry. He knew that she was fond of Marybeth, but to become so enraged over her being loaned out to another person in need seemed a bit extreme. He had never seen his mother in such a state before.
“No, Felix. He took her against her will. Lord Enfield is the man who raped Marybeth’s mother and was directly responsible for her death.”
“What!?” Felix could hardly believe his ears.
“Lord Enfield is Marybeth’s father. He came in here calling her a witch and demanding that she go with him. When she refused, he grabbed her by the arm and drug her from the house. We were helpless to stop him.”
“I did not know.” Felix ground his teeth together in anger. He had given Lord Enfield permission to come and get Marybeth, as the man had been in great need of her healing abilities, but he would not have done so had he known of the lord’s true identity.
“I shall return to the forest immediately to look for her,” Felix promised. “I am truly sorry, Mother.” He left the manor house running for the stables. Jumping back into the saddle he raced off toward the forest where he had last seen Lord Enfield. He hoped to be able to find his trail from there.
* * *
Marybeth retraced Lord Enfield’s steps back toward Arkley Hall. Darkness began to fall as a summer storm moved in over the land. When she realized she would not be able to make it back to Arkley Hall in time before the rain, Marybeth changed course toward the croft. By the time she reached the croft, large flashes of lightening had begun to streak across the sky as the thunder shook the ground beneath her feet.
As she stumbled through her front door, a sense of relief washed over her that comes only to those that have finally arrived home after a long journey. She felt as if it had been months and not merely a matter of days since she last stepped foot in her beloved home. Evidence of the lord’s efforts to fin
d the supplies she had requested were made clear by the state of disarray. Sighing, Marybeth moved about the croft, putting things to rights before she allowed herself to lie down upon the bed to rest.
When the knock came on her door she very nearly jumped out of her skin. “Marybeth!” Felix’s voice called from the other side of the wooden portal. “Marybeth!”
Marybeth arose and went to lift the latch, allowing the Duke to enter. “I am exceedingly glad to see that you are safe and sound. Mother told me what had transpired between you and Lord Enfield. I am terribly sorry, Marybeth.”
“The truth was bound to be revealed eventually, was it not?” she answered. She still felt shaken even after several hours had passed. “I cannot fathom having such an evil man for a father.”
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