by Jackie Ivie
“What color is your hair, Constant?”
She moved her eyes from his belly to his face. Even in the dim light she could see that he was looking right at her.
“Brown. You’ve seen it,” she replied.
“You always wear a mob-cap affair. If I’ve seen it, I’ve lost recollection. Refresh my memory. Describe it for me.”
“I just did. It’s brown.”
“But what sort of brown? Light brown? Dark brown? Medium brown? Does it contain reddish highlights? Strands of gold? Darker auburn? What?”
“Oh . . . dark brown, I guess.” She moved her gaze back to where she’d scraped at him. The area looked pinkish, but hadn’t bloodied.
“Dark brown? And here I thought you a romantic. So . . . what else is it, besides dark brown? Is it curly? Straight? Thick? Thin? Stringy? Which?”
“Um . . . wavy. My father calls it unruly, whenever he notices me. It never stays in a braid long.”
“When your father notices you? Does that mean what it sounds like?”
“I was his seventh disappointment. He never speaks to any of the others. I am the exception, I guess.”
“Why are you so lucky?”
She reached for the tub of lard resting beside her hip and got three fingers full of the stuff. “I help him with the chores, remember? I required instruction more than once. I wasn’t the best student at the time.”
“That better na’ mean what I think it means, either,” he replied.
“What?”
“He dinna’ beat you, did he?”
“I required the strap more than once. I probably deserved it. I didn’t want to do heavy field work. I didn’t want to till soil. I didn’t want to grow great muscles like I have.” She ran her hands along his left side as she spoke, from the thick cording of muscle at his waist to his armpit, thinly spreading the grease. That way she wouldn’t have to dip more. She could tell he sucked in a breath and then held it. She felt the motion under her fingertips and where her forehead rested against him.
“You are not shaving me there,” he said, letting the air back out when she moved her hands from him and wiped at the feathers with her cloth.
She giggled. Men care about hair even there?
“And you’re to cease that, too.”
“What?”
“Your laughter. You can cease laughing at me. I’m na’ immune. Nae man’s fond of being laughed at. You ken?”
“It bothers you?”
Constant wasn’t following their words. She was considering the tar glued all along his supple-looking side.
“Aye.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“The hell you dinna’.”
He said it so softly, she thought she might have heard wrong. She nearly giggled again.
“Are all men so vain?”
“Vain? What? I am na’ vain. I’ve rarely been so insulted. Vain. Me.”
The arms holding him aloft wavered slightly. She wouldn’t have time to get this tar off before he collapsed.
“A girl laughs at you and you get all stiff and offended. I call that vanity. If you suffer vanity, then you are vain. Simple.”
His arms trembled, then stilled. “If I’m stiff anywhere, Constant, love, it’s because I’m a failure at self-control at the moment. It most certainly is na’ because I am vain. Trust me.”
“If I were a man . . . and I looked like you . . .” She ran her hand along the tar she was going to scrape off next. Her voice lowered as she spoke. “I would be vain. Very much so.”
He started shaking again. Since she had her head wedged against his abdomen, she felt every tremor.
“You need to move out, Constant. I am coming down. Now.” The words came through what sounded like clenched teeth.
She scooted out, and a moment later he was again stretched out on the straw, his head resting on the log as he considered her.
“Your Thomas fellow is an ass. A full-fledged, mule-headed ass. I vow, when I’ve regained my strength and movement, I am going to search him out and knock it into his thick skull, too.”
Constant gaped.
“And I will need more covering afore you take one more touch anywhere on me. Anywhere. You ken?”
Her brows rose. Her eyes widened.
“Good. You do understand. Did you bring me anything more to wear?”
She’d been avoiding that problem. She’d been debating using the length of homespun she’d woven back when she was too small to be of help with fields and farm animals and chopping wood. The material was coarse, but maybe he wouldn’t notice how rough and amateurish it looked. She could use it to fashion him a pair of breeches, when she found the time. And desire. She hadn’t had the inclination, because he had fine, strong thighs, a back with muscle everywhere, and shoulders twice the size of any she’d ever envisioned. She didn’t want any of that covered over just yet. Besides, she told herself, she still had to drizzle honey-herb mixture over the burned skin on his legs. She couldn’t do that if he wore clothing.
“No,” she replied.
“Give up that apron, then. I’m na’ moving without something.”
“I can’t.” It wasn’t even hers. It was one of Charity’s best. Constant had borrowed it from her sister’s bureau. Charity certainly wasn’t in any need of an apron at the moment. She’d also chosen this one because it was beautifully stitched and lacy. Constant blushed.
“Well, you’re going to have to do something, or we have finished for the evening.”
“But we’re almost done,” she argued.
“Oh, you are more than done, love.”
His low tone sent gooseflesh rippling over her shoulders, down both arms, centering in the tips of her breasts. Constant nearly covered herself as she watched his glance flick to her bosom before returning to her face. He had a tight look about his lips when he did, too. He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t think she had a voice anymore.
He licked his lips and then swiveled his head away, looking over at the slanted wood of the barn roof rather than at her.
“Perhaps I had best start my feast,” he said finally. “I need a break from your attentions. What did you bring me, again?”
“You can have my pantaloons,” she replied.
“What?”
The word was choked out as he moved his head back toward her, the white-blond mane of hair brushing his shoulders. Constant wasn’t just blushing, she was probably purple. She had to be, if the heat behind her own eyes was any indication. “I wear pantaloons. They’re drawers. We girls—”
“I ken what pantaloons are,” he growled. “Unlike you, I most certainty am na’ a virgin. I can barely recall a time when I was, actually.”
“You’re a fornicator?”
“Full-fledged,” he responded. “Although ’tis na’ entirely my fault.”
“How can fornication not be a man’s fault?”
“Ah. Churchgoers. Got to love them. They’re always so sanctimonious. Self-righteous. A congregation of pious busybodies. I’ll tell you how. What if women are the instigators? Answer me that. Well? How am I to blame if they hand me invitations to their chambers? With full directions. I would say if they do so, then they invite it, and consequently, I canna’ be totally at fault, now can I?”
“Women . . . invite—” Her voice choked off.
“Aye. They do. Continually.”
“To . . . their chambers?”
“Aye.”
“Did they know? What you . . . uh, you—had in mind?”
He was probably trying not to laugh. “They had a verra good idea,” he responded finally.
“You ravished them?”
The eyes he turned on her were lidded to the point his eyelashes shadowed the gold color to black. “If anyone was ravished, darling, it was me. That’s what inviting a single man to a married lady’s bedchamber is for.”
“Married? Heavens! England is as sinful as they say.” Constant was shocked. It sounded in every syllab
le.
“It’s nae different than other places. You hear of the French court? In the Bourbon dynasty, they take sin to a whole new level. Trust me. Or watch the ancient regime yourself. When they allow you to visit again.”
“Allow? What do you speak of now? I know my history. France is friendly to us. We can visit anytime we like.”
“Only because of British troops.”
“What makes you say such a falsehood?”
“If a Frenchman welcomes colonists, it’s because Britain helped you ungrateful colonists win the Indian wars a decade or so ago. What do you think the additional taxes are levied for?”
“Supporting the wicked lifestyles of the rich and titled. You just described some of it. I am not stupid.”
“I would never call you such, Constant. You are miserably misinformed, however.”
“My beau works at the press. My father writes a column for it. I’m well-read. I am not misinformed.”
“You read seditious drivel, designed to incite. The truth got lost somewhere, Constant. England is na’ taxing the colonies without reason. The country needs to pay for their defense during the French-Indian war.”
“You’re wrong,” she replied, although she didn’t truly know. If there’d been anything resembling a war between the Indian natives and the French, it hadn’t been mentioned in Thomas’s family’s newspaper. She would have heard of it, too.
He sighed. “Forget France for the moment. I doona’ need an argument with you, although any other time in my past it would be working splendidly at what I do need.”
“And what is that?”
“My mind off certain things. It usually works.”
“What . . . certain things?”
He regarded her for several moments. Constant couldn’t hold the gaze and had to drop hers onto her hands.
“You seem to believe Britain is the mother country of all vices. I was trying to convince you that sort of thinking is wrong, but I wasted my breath.”
“You got something else, too,” she replied, looking up.
“Oh, really. And what would that be?”
“You got me angry.”
He grinned. Constant’s heart took a nosedive into the region of her stomach, where it joined the throbbing mass of nerve endings there. The worst part was that it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation.
“I am trying to concentrate on other things, Constant, love. Remarking on any kind of emotional state you’re suffering is na’ helping. Quite the opposite, I need warn you.”
If he was trying to confuse, titillate, and mystify her, he succeeded. She wondered if this was part of what he described as flirting. So she sucked in a breath and just asked it. “Is this part of flirting?”
“What?”
“What you’re doing?”
“And just what is it I am doing?”
“Making me very aware of you as a man.” She used as even a tone as possible, given her acute embarrassment at saying anything so bold.
He groaned, and it sounded worse than when he was in pain. “Constant, you are aptly named after all, I think.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem to do everything with a constant consistency of purpose, only it constantly intensifies, too. You bring a man to the brink, and then you just hold him there, constantly dangling it, constantly reminding him, constantly holding it just out of his reach.”
She went white. She didn’t dare believe what he was talking about. It was senseless. Absurd. She wasn’t the type to bring a man to the brink of anything, least of all what he was implying.
“Are you speaking . . . of fornication?” she finally asked.
“Of course.”
“With me?”
“You see any other woman about?”
“But . . . why?”
“Why? What fool asks a question like that?”
Tears glittered in her eyes at the roughness of his voice and the harshness of his words.
“Forgive me, Constant, love. I’m more than a brute. I am a bear. You’re an innocent. I’m doing my best to remember that. And you will na’ look in a mirror to find out why I have to.”
“I don’t want to look in a mirror. I don’t have to. I have seen myself. I know what I look like. I know it very well. My family tells me of it. Constantly, if you like the word so much. I’m very plain. I’m very large. I’ve a large nose, large eyes, large mouth, and a large body designed more for hard work than creating anything like what you describe . . . in any man . . . let alone one as handsome as you.”
She almost got through all of it before tears stole her voice. Constant felt them slip from her eyes before she closed them. She was absolutely and completely mortified. There wasn’t a better word to describe it.
“Good Lord. Who could have said such things to you? Damn them! And damn and blast my impotence in not being able to go and ram a fist down their throats for it! And I’m na’ asking your pardon for that bit of profanity, either, so doona’ ask for one.”
She opened her eyes at that. He looked as angry as he sounded. Although she’d not thought it possible, he was even more amazing while he glared at her. He had his jaw set, a nerve pulsing out one side, and what looked like every muscle tensed everywhere along his frame, too.
“Come here.”
It wasn’t a request. She shook her head.
“I said come here, and I meant it. Now.”
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because I’ve got some fool to thank for filling your head with stuff and nonsense, and you’re too pigheaded to look in a mirror and see the truth for yourself. Now, come here, or I’m ripping all your handiwork out and coming over there to you.”
It seemed impossible for her eyes to go wider, but they did. “You can’t move,” she replied.
“I use my arms. I’m quite proficient at it. How do you think I relieve myself?”
Her face was burning with intense embarrassment and her eyes stung with the last of her tears. She couldn’t get one word through her throat.
“Are you going to continue challenging me, or are you coming here?”
“I—” She began to answer him, but her voice just stopped.
“Verra well, Constant. But please recollect. You were warned.”
He lifted himself with his arms again and shifted. She watched the cheesecloth ripple with the movement. Constant scooted nearer to him.
“Finally. You do obey. Now, lie down. Fit your feet to where mine are.”
She was trembling. This time it wasn’t remotely pleasant.
“And you can cease looking at me as if I’ll harm you. I have na’ developed a taste for virgins, in spite of my stupidity in regaling you with my exploits. Lie down.”
“Here?”
“Right here. Right next to me. Match your feet to mine and lie back. Stretch out as big and large as you can.”
“Now?”
He blew a sigh across her cheek. She felt the tremor in it, probably from the effort of holding himself aloft. “Aye. Right now. Could you cease being a constant irritant, and just do as you’re told?”
She set her lips, scooted down until her feet were right next to his, and told herself to ignore that her dress slid to her knees with the motion. She heard him suck in air, though. She wondered why.
“Now, lie down. On your back. Match yourself to my entire length. Show me this huge frame you claim to have.”
Fresh tears blurred the view of her booted feet. She swallowed.
“Well? Are you going to show me this great big frame of yours, or will I have to force the issue? I warn you, it will na’ be pretty if you choose the latter. Go on, Constant Ridgely. Cease wasting time. Show me your tremendous size.”
“You . . . are cruel.” She tried stanching the agony. It sounded in her voice although she was doing everything in her power to keep it to herself.
“Nae. What’s been done to your confidence and self-worth is cruel. I’m going to correct it. I only hope I’m man enough t
o stop once I’ve started.”
“You aren’t going to ravish me, are you?” she asked.
“Only in my dreams, darling.”
Chapter Nine
She thought she’d heard it, but that was impossible. Absurd. Wishful thinking. And sinful. Wicked. Wondrous. Unbelievable.
Constant forced herself to lie still as he lowered himself, although he was moving about more than that should warrant. She realized he was maneuvering the log out of the way when he commanded her to tip her face up and look at him.
“Why?” she asked.
“You really are a constant irritant, are na’ you? Now, look at me, or by hell I’ll force the issue. And I’m tired of threatening. This is na’ easy. In fact, it’s damned difficult. Do you realize how you smell to me?”
She looked sideways and saw her eyes were level with the middle of his upper arm. Constant was a good five and a half feet tall. She was the tallest in her family. She was the heaviest. She knew Kam was large, but not this large. She had to angle her head until her neck bent, just to meet his eyes. He was looking down at her with the softest, gentlest expression in his eyes she’d ever seen, even from her mother when Henry was born and placed in her arms.
“Now, what was all that blather about being large?” His voice was soft, feathering the breath across her forehead. “You look nigh invisible next to me.”
“But, you’re enormous,” she replied.
He smiled. “True. Always was. ’Tis a family trait. What of it?”
“All this proves is that I am small next to you. But everyone probably is.”
“Nae.”
She felt him move his arm. He put his forefinger under her chin to keep her head tipped up to him.
“What this proves is that you are na’ as gigantic as you believe, or have been told. And tormented over. Men my height and weight are na’ normal, true, but they are about, looking for a woman your size. Do you ken what it’s like to find a woman matching a man like me? Most women look like porcelain dolls that I’m afeard to touch. You ken?”