by Once a Rogue
“Go on up to bed then,” he said gruffly. “I’ll put the fire out.”
She turned, one hand on the crown of her bonnet. “I suppose Alice doesn’t need a hat. She has no freckles.”
He was bent over, checking the sleeping piglet. “Aye. Alice has none of those witch’s marks on her face.”
Lucy took one last look at her reflection before walking back across the room to where he stood. As he saw her coming, he straightened up, watching her warily, flinching in readiness.
When she should have come to a halt, she kept going, stumbling into him. He had to put his arms around her, just to keep from falling back and then she rose on tip toe, head flung back, and kissed him, full on the lips. The bonnet fell. His fingers spread between her shoulder blades, drawing her closer still, improperly close.
She’d meant it only as a quick, innocent thank-you, but should have known what would happen. Her arms went around his neck and he lifted her, holding her tightly, resettling his feet to steady them both. The unexpected kiss quickly turned greedy, a full-blown devouring, a sudden yielding, a wanton capitulation after too long holding it at bay. All the agony of those last few weeks in his house, the closeness and yet the distance, was too much to bear. Every casual glimpse of his well-honed body, the sound of his low, gruff voice waking her every morning through her open shutters, even the sight of his boots kicked off by the fire, made her heart pulse a little faster, made her long for his arms again. The idea of some other woman one day having him, when she could not, made her bitter, raging inside with self-pity.
John broke away first. His eyelids were half-lowered, lips still parted and wet. Sweeping his hands to her bottom, he moved her against his loins, her hips to his hard thighs.
“I need you,” he managed, his voice like slow wheels over gravel. “I’m on fire, wench.”
Lucy trembled, closing her eyelids all the way, leaning into his body, her cheek to his shirt. She needed him just as much, but it was treacherous ground for them both. If she went to his bed, she might want to stay there. She was in his way, preventing him from loving good girls like Alice. Unmarried girls.
“I didn’t like it today,” he said. “Too many hours without you in them. I need you to stay with me.”
She opened her eyes again to find him watching her, his regard hot, heady with intent. Her body tightened, her breath stilled, strangled in her throat.
“No. It’s impossible,” she murmured.
With her braid twisted around his fist, he forced her head back, making her submit to another kiss, but this time, when his tongue began to press its way between her lips, she backed down, stepping out of his embrace. She suspected he would have struggled to keep her in his arms, but Vince growled a warning, a reminder, and so he thought better of it.
“Thank you for the bonnet,” she said again, every word dripping with thwarted desire.
Retrieving the fallen hat, he passed it to her and she ran quickly up the stairs to her bed.
* * * *
The next day, while she was sweeping the yard, wearing her new straw bonnet, he crept into her bed chamber and searched until he found the wooden box she’d brought with her. Waiting for her to open up to him was no longer feasible. Despite promises to his mother, he wanted answers now. These thoughts and feelings she put inside him could no longer be dismissed as transient, a shallow, passing fancy. They were deep set, beyond the pale, and they demanded the truth.
There was no lock; the box opened easily, much to his surprise. Inside he found a small ivory and silver comb, a delicately wrought silver bracelet inlaid with mother-of-pearl and one pearl earring. He recognized it at once, the partner to one he found on the floor of a bawdy house chamber almost three months ago. For a moment he stared at it, then closed the box and put it back under her bed.
Prying into her possessions revealed little he didn’t already know. She was clearly a light-fingered thief, however, and he ought to warn his mother to keep an eye on her own jewelry.
He went to her window and looked out on the yard, where she worked in her straw bonnet, humming a light tune. How had she done this to him and why? Surely there were a great many other men, richer, more powerful men, she might have trapped with her wiles. Sometimes he wondered if she was merely practicing on him, passing the time in a fashion to amuse herself. The kiss last night was lusty and willful, utterly unexpected. It was equal parts innocent and wanton, when he never before imagined it was possible to be both at once.
As if she felt him watching, she stopped and looked up. He ducked out of sight. Hunkered down under the window, he turned his head and saw the book of recipes his mother had lent her, set on the table beside her bed. There was something poking out of the pages. He reached for the book and opened it to find a small, torn square of linen and a pressed four-leaf clover.
He’d found that clover just a few days ago in the lane and given it to her, for luck. She’d claimed to have no belief in “silly superstitions,” yet she kept it. Even more interesting was the square of linen, which he recognized from one of his own old shirts. There was a stain on it because he’d cut himself while wearing it.
Why would she keep that?
He shook his head slowly, concluding it must be part of this devious witch’s spell she’d put upon him. What other explanation could there be for keeping an old, stained piece of shirt?
* * * *
When she went to her chamber later, Lucy knew immediately someone else had been there. The shift laying across her bed was moved. The wash jug and basin too had been pushed a few inches to the right by someone looking behind it, searching. On a sudden instinct, she crouched and drew out her box. She opened it.
There, beside her pearl earring, was its twin, once thought lost and now returned. The two fat pearls lay together, happily reunited.
Like she and John perhaps?
She slammed the box shut and closed her eyes, panic rippling through her, as well as something else. Something warmer and sweeter.
Last night, when he let her leave his arms after the kiss, she knew it was a reprieve. But those two earrings laid together sent her a message. He was waiting. This respite he granted was not infinite and neither was his patience.
Chapter 14
It was laundry day, a task she hated more than any other, apparently. It was a heavy, long, tedious job and she often burned her hands doing it. Now he watched her drawing water from the well. She’d been very quiet lately, ever since he returned her earring. She never mentioned it and he wondered whether she waited for him to say something.
He’d showed his mother the scrap of bloodied linen he found. “She’s casting a spell. I knew it. I knew she was up to no good.” It was the perfect excuse for all the odd things happening to him since she came.
“Why the devil would she want to do that?” his mother exclaimed. “You get yourself in enough of a pickle without interference from the supernatural. If you don’t know what to do with yourself lately, it’s your fault, not hers.”
“What else would she want with an old bit o’ shirt?” he demanded.
“Perhaps she was merely marking a page.”
“Hmmph!”
“Or perhaps it’s a keepsake.”
“A keepsake? For what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps she’s in love with you, John.” His mother had walked away laughing, leaving her son in a state of confusion.
Until then it had never occurred to him that Lucy’s motives in keeping the scrap of old shirt might be entirely guiltless, even in his favor. He’d instantly assumed the worst. He did it a lot with her, he realized, chagrined.
Was it possible she had feelings for him? Good feelings? Deeper feelings?
His mother was right: he didn’t know what to do with himself. He was usually very self-assured when it came to women. He knew what he wanted and he always got it, but he didn’t poach from other men, it wasn’t sporting. She claimed not to be his cousin’s mistress, but was it the truth? Ther
e was something in the way, something keeping her always in motion, running away, withdrawing whenever he advanced a step. He pondered her thoughtfully through the window. She was an intriguing blend of fear and boldness, tears and laughter.
Since John was her first lover, in his eyes she truly belonged to him, but what did she think? What rules did a concubine live by, if any? There was much to be resolved and straightened out, not the least of which was the cryptic comment on Nathaniel’s note: On loan, handle with care.
“What are you still doing here?” his mother exclaimed, finding him by the window as she came out of the scullery, rolling down her sleeves.
He stared through the open window. “She’ll spill half the water before she gets it inside,” he muttered, watching Lucy struggle with a heavy bucket.
“Then go and help her. Is it so hard for you to be a gentleman? There’s no one watching, fool boy!”
It was true, he thought, scanning the yard hastily. No one was out there today but her. Perhaps, he could…
On her way back to the house she stopped and set down her bucket a moment to greet the growing piglet she’d nursed with such dedication and against his wishes. Flourishing against all expectation, the piglet would soon be ready to join his litter mates, if she could be persuaded to give up her pet. Then she’d have nothing to distract from her duties to the man of the house.
“What are you grinning at, John Sydney?” his mother demanded, catching his reflection in the window.
“Naught, mother.” He certainly wouldn’t tell his mother about a night spent in a Norwich bawdy house with a masked whore his cousin purchased for him as a birthday gift. Or how gentlemanly he’d been then, taking care of her thoroughly, many times over.
Lucy gathered the bucket strap in both hands and made her way unsteadily across the yard, full lower lip puffed out, back bent with the effort. Her hair was loose down her back today, not yet braided. It was long enough for her to sit on. He felt the sudden urge to wrap himself in those silk and cinnamon locks while he took her again as before, making her moan so deeply with pleasure he felt the vibrations on the length of his thrusting cock.
“John, you’ll break the window latch if you keep twisting it.” His mother’s voice interrupted the lurid daydream. He quickly dropped the latch.
Enough of this self-doubt. Enough of this unusual nervousness. She was only a woman and she should do as he commanded. The mystery he’d built around her was probably all in his head.
* * * *
Surprised to see him trotting over to help, she tipped the bucket, splashing water over his boots. He took it from her hands, mildly protesting her clumsiness. This morning he wore a clean shirt and it looked as if he’d shaved. If she didn’t know him better, she might even think he’d combed his hair and washed it.
Her heartbeat slowed. “Is Alice coming to visit?”
“No. Why?”
She smiled. “No reason.”
They took a few steps together until he stopped, setting the bucket down again. “Where does this brother of yours live? If he truly exists, of course.”
Goose-pimples pricked along the nape of her neck. “I don’t know where he is. Why?”
“I’ll write to him. If you’re going to stay here with me, he ought to know. I’ll do this properly.”
She was confused. “Stay here with you?”
“That’s right. You belong to me.”
“I don’t belong to you,” she replied, wiping her sticky palms on her apron. She supposed, if she belonged to anyone, legally, it was to Lord Winton, although he would never own her heart, mind and soul. Some days she was able to forget completely, but the reality always returned to bite her on the nose and wipe the smile from her face.
On that day it hit her, just like her husband’s hard, bony hand all those months ago. She’d stayed here too long already and now John Carver was looking at her as if he might not let her leave. He was a prideful, opinionated, hot-tempered young man. Who knew what fool idea he’d get inside his stubborn head? Since that volatile kiss by the fire, his bold declaration of how much he needed her, the air was so heavy between them she could bite it.
Now look what she’d done. Fallen in love.
She wound her hair over her shoulder, watching him lift the heavy bucket again, his forearms chorded with muscle.
Stop it. Stop it now, Lucy. There can be no happy ending, only tragedy in this play.
This was impossible. She simply mustn’t.
Ah, but though a man can be chosen for one night of lust, one cannot choose where one loves, as she now knew to her cost.
When he reached toward her, she flinched on instinct, but he only meant to pluck a stray chicken feather from her hair. He showed it to her as evidence, his eyes hurt, quizzical.
She opened her mouth but no words would come out. The sadness piled in and, afraid she would burst into awkward tears, Lucy ran for the gate.
* * * *
Yet again she ran away from him. John would have followed, but his mother emerged from the house, urging him to let her go. “A gentle, patient hand achieves more than an angry, rushed one,” she lectured. “Your father learned that, eventually, when he wooed me.”
“I’m not wooing her,” he replied curtly, confused and frustrated, fearful of these sensations dancing inside his chest. The damned woman didn’t even want him touching her and yet he couldn’t help himself. “I’m not wooing her,” he repeated.
“Perhaps that, my dear boy, is the problem,” his mother remarked dryly
* * * *
Lucy went for a long walk down the lane, breathing in the fresh, fragrant summer air. Sparrows and blackbirds chirped at her in greeting while shyer rabbits darted away into the long grasses of the verge, hiding. Sweetbriar and wild roses entwined with prickly bramble in the hedgerows and occasionally a sly rustle gave away the presence of more wildlife sheltered there. A fox, perhaps, or a mouse.
Absorbed by the beauty of nature, she didn’t see the two women approach until they were almost upon her and it was too late to turn back. She straightened her spine, resolved to be friendly. As she’d told herself many times, they had every right to distrust her, considering the strange place she held in John’s house. Now she would make amends for all her sinful lustings in regard to John Carver.
So she greeted them with a smile. Bridget would have walked on, but Alice stopped. “I was just on my way to see John. He wasn’t in the fields this morning. Is he at home?”
Lucy agreed that he was.
Alice eyed her rival’s straw sun bonnet and two scarlet spots appeared on her cheeks. There was a glimmer of recognition and Lucy suspected the purchase of her bonnet had not gone unnoticed, even if he thought he’d got away with it. “You’re walking out all alone, Mistress Friday?”
“Yes.” Her smile widened, for the pleasure she took in walking alone, no father to admonish her for wandering out of his sight, was something still shiny and new to her.
Bridget came back to stand at her friend’s side. Usually she said nothing, merely glared disapprovingly. Today, however, finding Lucy alone and unguarded, she took no pains to swallow her dislike. “There’s no need to look so pleased with yourself, slut.”
Alice blushed, tossing her friend an anxious glance of reproof.
“I am not pleased with myself,” Lucy replied, shaken by the suddenness of Bridget’s insult. “I am merely pleased to be out walking on such a glorious summer day.”
“Glorious day indeed! Well, aren’t you miss dainty prim and proper. As if we don’t all know exactly what you are.”
“I beg your pardon…”
“Why did you come here, anyway?” Bridget stepped closer, her round face damp with perspiration. “This was a nice respectable village until you came here and moved your slut’s petticoats in at Souls Dryft. You leave John Carver be! He doesn’t need your sort hanging around.”
“Bridget,” Alice muttered in anguish, “you mustn’t…”
“Some
one must. Everyone thinks it; they just don’t like to hurt Mistress Carver’s feelings, and we all know her kindness to strays and poor folk, but she shouldn’t harbor a filthy dirty slut who’ll give her son the pox.”
Horrified, Lucy simply stared at Bridget Frye, whose plump, shiny face loomed ever closer.
“Alice won’t speak up for herself, so I’ll do it for her! You ought to leave this village, whore. We don’t want your sort here and you’ll do John Carver no good whatsoever. He’d have chosen himself a wife by now if you hadn’t come along.”
Still Lucy was silent, knowing in her heart that much of this virulent accusation was justified, even if it was uttered in a purely mean spirit, with far less consideration for John’s welfare than was claimed.
“Like my brother says, John Carver’s got no need now for a wife while he’s got you to warm his bed at night. My poor friend Alice has to stand by like a fool, waiting for him to be done with you and realize his mistake.”
Finally Lucy found her voice again. “Do you speak for Alice, Bridget, or is it for yourself mostly, this concern about John’s future bride? I’ve seen the way you look at him.”
Bridget lunged forward, ripped the straw bonnet off her head, flung it to the ground and flattened it under her feet. Alice cried out in protest, but Bridget trampled the defenseless bonnet into the dust with relish. Lucy’s emotions were already on edge. Now the floodgates opened.
She pulled on Bridget’s long dark hair, hissing and spitting. “If John Carver ever marries you, it’ll be a cold day in Hell!”
Bridget grabbed her skirt, ripping a large hole. “You’d know about Hell, sinner!”
From a safe distance on the verge, Alice called for the two of them to stop fighting, but to no avail. Hands slapped hard at faces, fingers tangled in hair, clawing in desperation. Feet kicked out and knees buckled. “Please stop!” Alice cried again as the two women rolled in the dirt, swearing up a storm.
Thankfully, at this moment Lord Oakham rode up and put a stop to the fight. Swiftly dismounting, he clasped both women by the arms and drew them upright. “What is amiss here, then?” he demanded.