“Aye, I’ll miss you, too.” She reached out and gave Linnett a swift hug. “It wouldn’t work though, Linnett. You have no idea of the strain a long winter places on you. To be snowed in for days at a time. I use that time to teach Peter his lessons. If you stayed Peter wouldn’t concentrate and neither would I. Probably you and I would be at each other’s throats by the end of the winter. It’s much better for you to be up at the cabin.
“You and John can have your privacy and get to know one another really well. Actually it’s the one thing I like about the winter. Hans and I seem to bond again in the enforced closeness of the winter months.”
Linnett smiled sadly at her friend and nodded. “I do understand,” she said but she didn’t.
John shut the door of their bedroom, walked to the bed and reached underneath to pull out a package. “For you. Happy nineteenth birthday!” he said smiling.
Linnett turned, surprised “My birthday was a month ago!”
“I know, but you were too ill to know about it then.”
“What is it?” Linnett asked curiously.
“Why don’t you open it and see?” John sat on the edge of the bed and watched as Linnett tore it open revealing the soft, shimmering folds of green velvet that she had so admired in Mr. Penman’s shop.
“But how did you guess?” Linnett asked, amazed.
“Mr. Penman. I asked him to take note of anything that you particularly liked.” John smiled “Are you pleased?” he asked.
“Pleased? John of course! But I wish I had a gift for you.” Linnett flung her arms around her husband’s neck.
“Oh I’m sure if I put my mind to it, I could think of something I want,” John said dryly, eyes narrowing as he reached out and drew her to him, his hands sliding down to her tender bottom cheeks and squeezing them gently as he pressed her body to his. Linnett sighed as the heat from her smarting bottom seemed to curl exquisitely through her loins and she melted sensuously against John. She was ready to thank her husband prettily for his gifts, and John wasted no time in scooping his wife up and throwing her squealing onto their bed.
CHAPTER 3
The day that John and Linnett left for the cabin dawned chilly but bright, the sky pink with the early blush of dawn. They had loaded the wagon the evening before so their goodbyes were heartfelt but brief. Hans handed Linnett a package just as they were pulling away. Intrigued, she opened it to find a lovely carved wooden horse, the lines so smooth and fine it matched the real thing for perfection. Linnett swung Amber around and cantered back to where Hans and Sarah stood. Leaning down from the horse, she kissed Hans’ cheek and thanked him with tears in her eyes before riding after the wagon and John.
John drove the wagon with a cow tied onto the tail gate at the back and walking reluctantly behind with Linnett astride Amber. Sarah turned her head into her husband’s broad chest and wept as they disappeared from sight. Linnett stopped and turned to wave at the distant couple before they disappeared inside the farm house. The sense of sadness dropped away as her natural exuberance and sense of adventure bubbled to the surface.
She set Amber to a gallop and raced the horse up the grassy slope ahead, feeling a wonderful sense of freedom. John watched with admiration as woman and horse gracefully merged as one. He wished that he could have ridden beside her on horseback himself and not be tied to a cumbersome wagon. He was pleased to see Linnett’s enjoyment with the pretty mare and grinned to himself as he watched her racing ahead.
The journey was uneventful and they reached the cabin before dusk. Linnett went straight to the cabin and unlocked the heavy door. She was rather shocked at the total lack of rooms. One large space was not what she had expected, but it was sturdily made and looked draft proof.
Hans had visited the place on a couple of occasions to prepare the cabin for the young couple and it was swept and relatively clean. He had refurbished it where necessary and placed rag rugs, homemade by Sarah, on the floor. A lantern hung from the ceiling and a large lamp sat on the table by the side of the large, sturdy wooden bed. The door banged open behind her as John struggled in with armloads of household items.
“Where do you want these? I think they are mainly bed covers and such.”
Linnett took a pile from him, “Put them all on the bed!” She dropped the pile of quilts down, and John followed suit. It took them a couple of hours to get reasonably straight and then to feed and bed down the animals.
The cabin was as organised as it could be, at least for that night. John lit the stove to heat the stew that Sarah had made for their first night together in the cabin. At last, they fell exhausted into bed and slept dreamlessly until the first light of dawn. Linnett woke as John was feeding the stove again. Although the sun shone, the cabin held a bitter chill.
“A sharp frost,“ John called over his shoulder. “We must keep the stove in at all times. From now on, if you leave the cabin even for a short while, check the stove first!”
Linnett shivered and snuggled back down into the quilts. John straightened up and walked over to the bed, yanking the covers back, leaving Linnett curled, shivering, in the centre of the bed.
“Oh no you don’t!” he said, grabbing her ankle and hauling her over to the side of the bed. “Up you get, lazy bones, I want some breakfast!”
Linnett squealed and tried to grab the covers back from him, but he held them out of her reach with one hand and slapped her rump with the other, “Up!” he ordered again. She smacked his offending hand away and got up, hurriedly wrapping her robe around her. “Bully!” she muttered as she banged a pan onto the stove.
Linnett spent a busy morning rearranging the furniture to suit herself and storing the spare bedding into chests. She put supplies of jars and dried goods onto the shelves, made dough and set it to rise, hung curtains at the windows, placed cushions and hung some brightly coloured woollen shawls, which Sarah had knitted, over the back of the two wooden rocking chairs. When John returned for lunch, he looked around in astonishment, for Linnett had transformed the cabin into a welcoming and cosy nest.
They ate a lunch of pickled eggs from a jar packed by Sarah, meant to last them until their own three chickens had settled into their new home and started laying; the eggs were accompanied by freshly baked bread and some of Sarah’s delicious cheese.
“I really wonder how we will manage when Sarah’s generous supply of food stock has gone,” Linnett confided ruefully.
“Hmm,” John looked thoughtful. “We should have our own eggs. The chickens won’t lay regularly through the winter months, but we do have enough vinegar for you to pickle some. Did Sarah show you how to make butter and cheese?” he queried.
Linnett looked uncomfortable. “Well, yes,” she said doubtfully. “I am not sure I will be able to get it right, though.”
John smiled at her and said, “We can have a practice together and see what we can produce.”
Linnett nodded, relieved, “I am sure it will be fun!” she said brightly.
John looked anxiously at her. Did she not realise how much hard work was ahead of them if they were to stock the larder before the snows came?
“Ye-es....but there will be a lot of hard work if we are to stay fed all winter. I want to hunt for a couple of days and stock up on meat. We will have to smoke it so that it will stay fresh, although once it freezes, meat will stay fresh if it is hung.
‘Before I leave here, I need to mend the corral fences. Hans thinks that I should take down that tree, the one near to the barn. It has grown quite tall, and if a gale should blow it down, it could land on top of the barn.”
Linnett looked up. “Can you manage a tree that size all by yourself?” she asked.
“Yes, I think so. It’s not a thick trunk, but it is tall enough and heavy enough to smash the roof of the barn should it fall. We can’t afford to risk leaving it where it is so I will probably tackle it tomorrow or the day after.”
With so much to do, it took a couple of days before John finally found enough ti
me to cut down the tree. Linnett came out to watch as John, with ropes tied around various places along the tree trunk, pulled and pulled until the sweat stood out on his bare back. The tree stood unmoving.
“What’s wrong?” Linnett called as John walked over to her, wiping the sweat from his brow with his discarded shirt.
“I think I need to chop the notch in the trunk wider. The thing is, I don’t want the damn tree to drop onto the barn if I should cut too deep and it falls that way. I want to pull it so that it goes over in the other direction.”
“Well then, I can help you to pull, come on!” Linnett strode off towards the tree without waiting for his reply.
John gave her two of the ropes to hold. “Now no pulling until I say Linnett. If I tell you to stop, then stop! Understood?” Linnett braced herself with the ropes wrapped around from her back as John had shown her, “I’m ready!” she called.
John stood in position and took up his ropes. “Alright, now pull!” They strained on the ropes, each leaning with all their strength. There was an easing in the ropes and a groaning crack as the tree began to break.
John shouted to Linnett, “Run now to the left. Go!” They both threw themselves out of the line of the falling tree, which fell with a satisfying crash of cracking branches and falling leaves. Linnett squealed and clapped her hands, running over to where the tree now lay, the leaves still quivering.
John picked up his shirt and, grinning hugely, walked the length of the tree. Running his hands over the knotted bark of the now prone trunk, he said, ‘There’s enough wood here to keep us warm all winter. It’s very green right now but it should still burn.”
“What do you mean by green wood?” Linnett asked him, seating herself up on the fallen tree. “Green wood is unseasoned wood, it still has the sap inside and so it burns with a lot of smoke. Wood should be left to season for a year or so ideally before you use it for fire wood.”
John stood with his back to Linnett, naked to the waist, he surveyed the tree while he talked. Linnett cast her eyes over her husband’s naked torso. Beads of sweat stood out on the taut muscles of his shoulders and she watched as a line of moisture trickled down to the base of his spine and into the waist of his trousers.
John turned to face her and caught the sultry look on her face. Flinging aside the shirt in his hand he padded towards her, his body loose limbed with a predatory lust. “Turn around and lift your skirts up,” he growled, turning her shoulders so that she lay stomach down over the felled tree.
Linnett shuddered, excited but confused. Her mind raced over the past day or so and could find no fault with herself that would require punishment. However, she trembled with anticipation; what did John have in mind?
John swept up Linnett’s skirt and petticoats, exposing her shapely legs and baring her curved and shapely bottom. He gazed lustily on the provocative sight she presented. He ran his work rough hands up the smooth skin, his palms outstretched so that his thumbs met the delicious mound of her creamy buttocks; Linnett shivered with desire.
John held the two orbs of her buttocks in his hand and kneaded them, letting his thumbs drop down between her legs where he felt a rush of liquid heat. He spread her legs wide and dropped to his knees, pressing his face into her glistening folds. Parting her with his tongue, he worked his magic, making her hot and fierce with need.
Linnett lay with her head down on her arms, and she bit into her own soft flesh, bucking and thrashing with the overwhelming lust that seared between her legs.
Linnett moaned her husband’s name. John gripped her thighs, holding her firm while he continued his oral ravishment but stopping just before she reached her climax.
He stood up and loosened his breeches. Stepping forward, he drove his erect shaft deep into the sweet waiting cleft. He held Linnett’s gyrating hips still, forcing her to match his own steady pace. He moved inside her with slow gliding strokes, deep and strong. She dug her nails into the bark of the tree and bit her lip.
John swept the soft skein of her hair aside, and kissed and nibbled her neck. His hands slid beneath her breasts, gripping them as he increased the tempo of his thrusts. She quickened under him and he drove himself into her fierce and hard, his climax a searing rush of exquisite pleasure that spilled over into her own sweet release.
It was a few minutes before John stepped back and swept down Linnett’s skirts, lifting her off the tree. She looked delicious, all flushed, pink and golden. “You will wear me out come spring!” John complained. “I only have to look at you and I want to tup you then and there.”
Linnett laughed a low and sensuous chuckle. Her finger trailed across his naked chest, making the tan pap of his nipples rise to her touch. John clutched her hand in his and lifted it to his mouth where he placed a kiss on her open palm before turning her towards the cabin, giving her a little push in that direction. “Go get some victuals, you strumpet. I need to keep my energy up if I’m to service such a rapacious wench!”
The following week passed in a haze of activity. Linnett had the material for her dresses to cut and sew as well as the never-ending chores of the home to attend to. She had successfully produced some butter, hardly able to contain her excitement when, turning the handle of the butter churn, at long last there came the thump, thump, thump as the butter formed inside the barrel. Cheese, of course, took longer, and although Linnett had attempted a roundel of cheese, she decided that since they planned to leave in the spring it was pointless to make more as it needed more time to cure than they would spend in the cabin.
CHAPTER 4
The weather was getting colder. The leaves on the trees had turned to russet and gold. The morning frosts were bitter and sharp as John finally set off on a three-day hunting trip. He would stock their winter larder with fresh venison. It was so cold now that the meat would stay fresh once it was hung.
Linnett was not at all happy with the idea of spending three days alone in the cabin, despite John’s reassurances that she would be safe if she did as he bid and stayed put. In the end, they were barely speaking when John set off, having kissed his sulking wife goodbye.
John rode away on Amber, another reason why Linnett was so upset. Amber was her horse and yet, the first chance that he got, John was taking her for his own use. Linnett moped around the cabin on the first day of John’s absence and did little other than keep the fire in.
That night, she woke alone in the darkness listening to the strange sounds outside the cabin, the distant hoot of an owl and the lonely sound of a wolf’s call. Linnett dragged herself out of the bed and put more wood on the fire.
When she awoke again, it was broad daylight. Refreshed and full of energy, she built up the fire, dressed and went about her usual daily tasks, also setting the dough to rise and sweeping out the cabin.
Linnett decided that because the day was sunny as well as breezy, she would take some clothes to be washed up to the stream. She remembered John ordering her to stay inside the cabin, but she was certain that since the stream was so close by, she would be safe enough.
Linnett also felt rebellious and cross with John for commandeering her horse. She gathered the stiff brush that she used for washing clothes and a bar of strong brown soap. Then she threw them into the clothes basket and set off.
It was a chilly day, and Linnett was glad of the thick clothes she had put on. The stream water was freezing cold but thankfully not yet frozen. Linnett was able to scrub the clothes and rinse them in the clear, swift-running water. When the task was done Linnett’s hands felt icy, and she tucked them inside her coat for warmth.
She was standing gazing hypnotically into the sparkling, spilling water, when she heard a high, sudden cry. Linnett started and looked around her. She could see nothing unusual along the banks of the stream or in the nearby bushes. She stood listening and heard a snuffling noise which seemed to come from nearby bushes.
Cautiously, Linnett walked over to them and with her heart racing she half knelt down, ready to turn and run if
she needed to. She parted the bushes, and at first she could see nothing; then, as her eyes adjusted to the gloomy interior of the bush, she found a pair of dark eyes looking back at her. Linnett bent lower and realised that the eyes were set in a small, round, very brown face - the face of a very small child.
Shocked, she stepped back and looked around her, expecting to see a parent close by. Nobody was near and there was no sound save the tinkling of the stream and the calling of the birds. Linnett bent again into the dark recess of the bush and reached in for the small child. Her arms closed on a surprisingly warm little body and she lifted it out. “Why, you’re only a babe!” Linnett exclaimed.
She held a child who was no more than eighteen months old and strangely dressed in a pale, soft leather tunic sewn with small, brightly coloured beads. On the babe’s feet were soft shoes of the same material held on by soft strips of leather that criss-crossed the plump little legs -- a native child perhaps?
The babe regarded Linnet solemnly with large, very dark, almost black eyes.
“Goodness! Where on earth have you come from?” Linnett spoke aloud to the child, hoping for some response, but the baby continued to regard her with an unblinking stare.
Linnett thought hurriedly; she could put the child back, hoping that its parents were nearby watching and then she could come back in a little while to see if the child had gone. She was concerned about the stream being so close to where the baby was and worried it may fall in and drown. Linnett decided it was a risk she would have to take.
Parting the bushes, she placed the baby back down on the ground, but the child began to wail. Linnett walked a little farther away and turned back to look. The baby was crawling out from under the bush towards her.
“ Oh no!” Linnett muttered as she went back to pick up the child.
As soon as she had him in her arms he leant forward and buried his face into the hollow of her neck. His fat little arms reached around her neck, his hands grabbing fistfuls of her hair. In an instinctive rush of tenderness, Linnett hugged the little body to her and patted the small back. “Hush there shhh...shhh...little one,” she crooned softly. Linnett walked up and down the side of the stream looking all around for some sign of the child’s protectors.
His Defiant Wife, the Adventures of Linnett Wainwright, Book 2 Page 4