by Sophia James
‘Careful.’ She tried to keep her voice low, but the anxiety within had both of them looking up at her in surprise.
‘He won’t hurt me. He is as steady as a rock, are you not, Deimos, and we have been in far worse scrapes than this one.’
As if the stallion understood he simply turned his head away and stayed still. The stoic lines of the beautiful animal made Amethyst’s eyes moisten.
‘Is it bad?’ When Daniel lifted the injured leg from the ground she held her breath as the blood dripped beneath. If he had sliced open a vein...?
‘It’s a tear from the knee to the fetlock, but by the looks of it it’s missed all the major tendons and arteries,’ Daniel answered as he placed the leg down again.
A jagged diagonal wound came into her view, the skin pulled back to reveal the muscle beneath. She noticed he didn’t touch it with his fingers, but skirted around the outside as though feeling for something.
‘He’ll recover,’ he said finally. ‘With a little luck and some hard work he will be fine again. I’ll get the supplies I need now and stay down here with him tonight.’
The light was falling and the dusk burnished Daniel’s hair as he stood. Pulled into a loose queue at his nape, the leather ties were fraying at each end. His beauty never ceased to startle Amethyst. Daniel Wylde’s was not a pretty sort of beauty, but a dangerous menacing magnificence that eclipsed all other men. Like the sun in the daytime sky or the full moon hanging low on a summer’s eve, one could not remain unaware of his presence. Christine Howard had expressed it well when she had helped her in the preparations for the ball.
‘Montcliffe is the man all the girls of the ton want to take home, but I think he would eat them up before they ever had the chance to tame him.’
Smiling at such folly Amethyst looked about her. Once the Montcliffe stables must have been magnificent, she mused, for even now in its faded glory the marbled manger and decorative filigree walls caught her attention. Craftsmen had laboured here long and hard on wood and metal and glass. Beneath her feet the floor was inlaid with small stones fitted into patterns that would be easy on horny hooves.
The head groomsman had returned to stand beside her. ‘It were a strange accident, my lord, and I am sorry for it. One moment I had his head and the next...’
‘I don’t hold you at fault, John, but if you could find some empty pails and clean cloths I’d be grateful. I’ll get what else I need from the kitchens.’
‘Ye’ll do the mending yourself then, my lord?’
‘I will.’
Daniel had slipped through the door to rejoin her, his mind on the tinctures and ointments he would need, she supposed, a man who would not easily let others do something he could manage himself. Her heart swelled with a kind of aching want; to reassure him, to hold him close against all disappointment, to make this injury disappear and see Deimos well again.
‘I would like to help.’
His glance ran across her gown and he smiled, the lines around his eyes deep in the twilight.
‘I’ll find something else more appropriate to wear,’ she added, trying to keep the pleading from her query.
‘Very well. It will take me a good half-hour to rustle up the things I need from Mrs Orchard in the kitchen. If you meet me there...’
Walking briskly down the aisle of stones for the doorway, she was glad to go before he had the chance to change his mind.
* * *
His wife had not only swapped her clothes, but she had been transformed into a lad, complete with breeches and a shirt. No small metamorphosis either, her legs well defined in the tight pantaloons and the shirt buttons undone around the neck. The most surprising thing was that the outfit looked as though it had been made for her.
‘Papa and I travelled in Spain together a few years back. It was easier as father and son at times. I always wore a substantial hat,’ she added as his scowl deepened, ‘and a coat in public. A long one and well buttoned.’
He wanted to tell her to go and find a jacket now, but the hour was advancing and Deimos needed attention. He hoped John, the old stablemaster, had retired for the night.
Amythest’s bottom before him as they traversed the path was round and curvy, little hidden in the cut of cloth or the line of her legs. His wife was tying him in knots and enjoying it for he could see the jaunty lilt in her walk as she turned into the doorway of the stables.
The evening had fallen and although the light was still reasonable he knew he needed more as he followed her in. Striking a lamp, he found an exposed nail and turned it to hold the wire handle. Deimos looked up at him, brown eyes full of liquid hurt.
‘Nearly there, lad,’ he murmured and lifted the two baskets of supplies into the stall along with a bucket of hot water and cloths. Steam rose in plumes from the pail and the smell of the gathered herbs was pungent.
In Portugal and Spain he had tended to many horses and as his mind centred on what he must do here he bade Amethyst to come in and join him. Another pair of hands would be a godsend and he was glad it was her behind him. Above all the other odours, lemon and lavender wafted.
‘I’ll bathe the wound first and then make a poultice. These bowls will be for the chamomile and thyme steeped in water for cleaning. If you strip off the leaves, we can make a paste and then add water to it. Warm water, not too hot or too cold.
‘All right, Dei?’ he asked from his place behind the stallion. In response the horse turned, the rope tied to the ring on the stable wall pulling tightly. When he had seen what he needed to he breathed in deep, wrinkled his brow and turned his head away as Daniel began to touch the wound softly, rubbing it downwards. The dirt he could determine embedded in the flesh would come out easily, but from experience it was the tiny particles that you could not see that made a horse sick.
With effort he pushed such a thought away. He would not allow anything to happen to Deimos, he swore it, no matter how long it took to make him better.
A few moments later Amethyst passed him the paste of leaves and he mixed it with water and salt, letting it dribble down the fetlock and seep into the straw. Chamomile stopped inflammation and thyme seemed to hold away the sickness. An old woman in the village here had shown him these remedies as well as others as a youth and he had never forgotten them.
* * *
The Montcliffe housekeeper arrived at the stable half an hour later, a pail of boiling water in one hand and numerous rolled bandages in the other.
‘If ye’d be needing more, send up word and I’ll bring it down.’
‘I think this will do, Mrs Orchard. It’s just a case of putting in the time and hoping now.’
When her eyes caught sight of what Amethyst had on they widened and she drew back. ‘Well, I will be leaving you to it then, my lord.’
‘Thank you.’
As she left he smiled. ‘It seems she was as shocked as I was by the sight of you.’
‘Well, we are married.’
‘Indeed. Though in all honesty she probably knows we sleep in separate beds.’
Now it was Amethyst’s turn to look horrified and he could not help but laugh as she blushed.
He took pity on her. ‘Here, hold this.’ The china bowl was exactly what he needed for the poultice and with measures of bran, linseed and beeswax he fashioned a thick paste. Adding a generous dab of fresh honey, he formed a shape in his palm, carefully patting it about the six-inch gash on his horse’s leg.
‘Give me your hand.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Your hand. Is it clean?’
She nodded. ‘I have had it in the warm water and leaves.’
‘Good.’
Depositing the whole concoction in her waiting palm, he guided her to the wound. ‘Press like this.’ Her skin was warm against his as he crouched down with her between his knee
s and his mind wandered to a more pleasant imagining. When Deimos whickered, his attention came back and he made himself stand.
‘Keep it there while I prepare the wadding. I don’t want it to drop off.’
A moment later linen covered the broken skin and she pulled her fingers away in time for the next layer.
Then, placing more salt in the boiling water, Daniel added the rolls of cloth, airing each of them for a few seconds before slapping them on to Deimos’s leg and winding them around the fetlock. Amethyst moved to one side to allow him access whilst still holding the bran paste in place, her fingers in spaces he would not have been able to manage had he been alone.
Finally it was finished and, tying the lot off with a series of firm knots, he straightened. The sharp pain in his right leg took a moment to subside.
* * *
Amethyst felt Daniel’s arm against hers as she stood and so she waited.
For what?
The feel of his body next to her own was familiar and here in the quiet of a windless night she did not want to pull away.
His shirt was wet with the thyme and chamomile tincture, as was hers, the hours of doctoring taking its toll. Realising that both palms were stinging from the heat of the bandages, she opened them to the night air and enjoyed the coolness, fingers splayed.
‘Thank you.’
A gratitude that came from his heart. She could hear the tone of it in his voice and see it in his eyes as he watched her.
‘I’ve never seen anyone else manage a wound as skilfully as you did.’
‘Then you know nothing of the army. If a soldier can’t doctor his own steed, he is in trouble.’
‘Even officers?’
He laughed. ‘There was not much distinction of ranks towards the end of 1808 as we marched north through Spain through the winter snow. It was each man to his own to simply survive.’
‘But you did—survive, I mean.’
‘Barely.’ Now the laughter was gone.
‘I’d heard of it, of course, through the papers and from the tales around London. I even saw some of the soldiers coming off the ships on the south coast. So many men lost and so much blame.’
‘You speak of General Moore, I think, but he was a good man who garnered the respect of those about him. Napoleon had upwards of three hundred thousand men at his disposal and we had gone into Lisbon with only thirty-five so to get as many men back to England on the sea transports as the general did was some kind of a miracle.’
Amethyst smiled. Daniel was not a man to blame or whine and moan about things. He just got on with trying his best and fixing it up. Gerald had never stopped in his constant barrage of the wrongdoings of others. She remembered that about him so very clearly it was as if he had only died yesterday.
‘I will sleep in the empty stall next to this one tonight just to make certain Deimos does nothing to undo all our good work.’
As the stallion moved Daniel unlatched the half-door and helped Amethyst out, loosening the rope that tethered his horse before joining her.
‘Such a night’s labour deserves a celebration.’ He brought a hip flask from his pocket and undid the cap, offering it to her. When she took it she saw his initials had been placed in the silver, a crest pictured above them.
‘It was a present from Lucien a few years back. He bought it in a marketplace in Lisbon and had it engraved there, but the second initial was drawn wrongly.
DCAW.
Daniel George Alexander Wylde.
Remembering his names from the wedding registry, she smiled, though as she took a sip she was not prepared for the strength of the draught.
‘Whisky,’ he explained, ‘and straight from the stills of northern Scotland. It will put hair on anyone’s chest.’
Laughing, she handed it back. The top buttons on his shirt had been loosened and the hard lines beneath were easily seen. A man’s chest, muscle sculpted and browned. On his right forearm a thick opaque scar trailed from the wrist upwards, disappearing beneath the fabric at his elbow. She wondered how much further it went.
Outside the quiet had settled and the lantern at their feet made the night sky darker. In the ring of flame it was only them, the deep silence punctuated by the snuffling of horses in their various stalls. She made no effort to step back.
As if she had willed it, his finger traced a path from her cheek to her bottom lip. She could taste the salt as she leaned forward, but neither of them spoke as his other hand followed the bones of her neck.
‘I want you.’
He was not offering love, but his confession held something more honest because she felt it too, this pull of flesh and bone.
Perhaps lust was exactly what she did need, with chamomile and thyme still in the air and the warmth of healing close. She felt different; on an equal footing in their dirty clothing from the shared task of helping with Deimos, the gap of birth and blood lost amidst more important things.
She wanted more. She did. She wanted the heart, body and soul love her father spoke of and her parents had known. She wanted honesty and strength of purpose.
His lips came across hers slowly, as if to give her the chance to pull back, and in his eyes she saw a question. Then she thought of nothing as his mouth opened upon hers asking for things she had no knowledge of. A force of breath, the feel of his hands, his body pressed tight as he showed her what it was that could exist between a man and a woman.
No small quiet demand either, but in the breaking of a caution she had always kept a hold of, a freedom surged. He would allow her his body without restraint and to do with it as she willed? Nipping at his bottom lip, she felt an answering push, and claimed the response. His gift of acquiescence reflected in the pale green and gold of his eyes.
‘You are so very lovely,’ he whispered and she felt it, even with her shortened hair and dirty clothes.
‘Only with you.’ The boldness in her was foreign, unchartered, but when his hand strayed to the buttons on her shirt a new danger surfaced.
* * *
Feeling her stiffen, Daniel changed his ploy. He did not want her scared or threatened in any way. Behind them Deimos had moved to the manger and was taking great mouthfuls of the hay stacked in marble. A good sign that, the return of appetite. He smiled into the soft skin at Amethyst’s throat and tipped her head to one side so that he might place his mouth across the trembling beat of blood.
‘Here,’ he said softly as he bore down upon the spot, suckling in a gentle rhythm, ‘and here,’ he said again as his mouth moved upwards, the red whorl of his first tasting marked into the white of her skin.
His.
‘You are mine,’ he said and saw the flutter of her eyelashes, long and silky, the velvet brown of her irises lost in darkness. To have. To hold. To need. No woman ever before had made him feel quite like this. Possessive. Overprotective. Obsessed.
His wife by rule of law and God.
Pushing back the fabric of her shirt, he found soft white lawn and lace beneath, the swell of her womanhood exposed through the open weft. When one finger ran across the proud hard nipple, a cry was wrenched from her throat, pulse racing and breath shallowed.
She did not stop him. Rather she arched into his grasp as though wordlessly asking for what came next. His hand slipped beneath the scalloped edge of lace and cupped one breast. The abundance surprised him, no little bounty here despite her slenderness, and his thumb traced again across a budded nipple.
Dark eyes flew open.
‘What is this?’ she asked, licking dry lips with her tongue as she did so, but holding him there, her hand placed across his, the layer of fabric between them.
‘Loving, Amethyst, between a man and his wife. No wrongness in it.’ His own sex was rock hard and he knew she could feel him, pushing into the space between. Leaning down, h
e brought his mouth to her breast.
* * *
She couldn’t think, that was the problem, couldn’t place one thought next to another as his mouth did things to her insides she had never thought possible.
This was what she had read about, heard about, wondered of, this connection which did not hold to the bounds of logic. The pull from his suckling speared down into her stomach and lower, every part of her quivering with the touch, balanced on a precipice which she did not want to fall from as she stretched into acceptance.
Nothing else existed here save for them, melded into each other like iron filings in an ancient forge and heated beyond melting point. Shapeless entities save for desire and a knowledge that could not be stopped.
Even without the words of love she wanted him, her breath fogged in the lamplight and rising upwards.
When she simply surrendered he stilled, her whole being borne to a place that shattered into feeling, waves of release rolling through the tightness, her nails clasped about him like talons in the skin. No time frame or true certainty.
And then a shaking. Of sadness, she was to think later, and of regret. Of missing this for ever and of all the wasted years. Gerald Whitely had made her believe in abstinence and frigidity, her birthmark only sealing in the ugliness, drawn as it was across her top left-hand thigh in a single swathe of red.
* * *
His hands moved downwards and into the folds of her breeches. He had lost the struggle to be gentle many minutes ago and his avidity was worrying. In war he was always calm, but here in love a wildness ruled.
The crunch of feet on the gravel a few feet off had him pushing her behind him, though he relaxed as the face of John, the stablemaster, peered through the dark.
‘Mrs Orchard sent me down to see if I could escort Lady Montcliffe back up to the house, my lord. She said there is a hot bath waiting and some supper. She’ll send food down for you, too, if you are ready.’
He made himself take a deep breath and stepped away from his wife, who was fumbling with the undone buttons on her shirt front. With an effort he tried to find in the interruption some measure of calm as he passed three china bowls across to John.