by Unknown
Soft words sat on his tongue, the easy grin on his lips, the intensity of his gaze ready to meet hers. Despite her tough exterior, Dory was a lass underneath, with passion like he’d never met before. If he could just bring it out of her. The thought scorched a path to his crotch. Damn English trews!
She turned to look at him, and he felt a gust of wind. Any second a whirlwind would probably uproot half the garden, causing commotion. He froze. Bloody hell! They certainly didn’t need any more suspicion thrown their way.
Nay, he’d have to handle Dory Wyatt differently. He exhaled slowly. “We should list out those who were at court when your mother lived here.”
She blinked, confusion bending her brows for a moment. “Oh, yes, yes we should do that.”
“Then we can investigate each one. Their family backgrounds and political views,” he said.
She nodded. “I wonder if the servants know anything.”
“They tend to know everything.”
The wind had abated to a peaceful spring breeze. He opened her palm and ran a fingertip along a crease. “There is your uncle, James Wellington.” He marked another line, her fingers curling on a tickle. “Richard Pembroke certainly seems to have known yer mother, enough to realize instantly that ye look just like her.”
He rubbed his thumb in a lazy circle at the center.
“His wife was also here at the time,” she said evenly.
“Aye,” Ewan agreed, “but the letters refer to a man throughout.”
She nodded. “How about Seymour?”
“He doesn’t seem old enough.”
“There were hundreds of men hovering around court twenty years ago. How are we going to find him?” She stared down at her open hand that he continued to stroke.
“He would have been associated with Katharine and Boswell. He would be someone of rank if Boswell was willing to work with him, trust him enough to plot regicide with him. Pembroke has a son and a son is mentioned in the letters. I need to study them again.”
“Does James Wellington have any children?”
Ewan shook his head. “Not that I am aware of. He was married but his wife died without issue.”
“We should question the older staff,” she said.
A black bird flitted onto the brick path farther up that led deeper into the myriad gardens. They sat in silence for a moment, her hand still in his. Dory turned to him in a swoosh enhanced with a wind gust that swept the little bird across into the grass. It fluttered up and out of the garden.
“Just do it,” Dory said.
Ewan stared at her. “Do what?”
She snatched her hand back and flapped it toward herself. “Kiss me, seduce me, whatever it is you’re doing.”
“I… do ye want me to kiss ye?” he asked slowly.
She bit gently at her bottom lip. “Well we’ve already kissed. But then you up and left. Isn’t it time to move on to something more… carnal?”
Ewan choked on his inhale and came up with a lopsided grin. “You, Dory Wyatt, are quite unconventional.”
“I’m a lot of things. I know a lot about a lot of things.” She nodded to emphasize her point. “But I don’t know what all the fuss is about swiving.”
He coughed into his fist and chuckled until her glare quickly smashed it. The word was not something he’d ever heard outside a group of men full of whisky. “Ye want to know about swiving?”
She turned in the seat so her back was to the trellis and faced him. She lowered her voice. “I know how it works.”
He felt his face tighten. “And who exactly taught ye how it works? Captain Bart? Will?”
Her face reddened. “No. When I started asking questions, Captain Bart took me to a mission.”
“A mission? With nuns and priests?”
She nodded. “But the nuns there wouldn’t tell me a lot except that I should marry and pray to God for help to get through the ordeal.”
Ewan raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like a nun’s answer.”
“They also told me about my monthly women’s curse, though I don’t think it’s a curse, but rather a nuisance. After all, without it, how could we make babies?”
Did she expect an answer? He nodded. “Aye, ye know a lot.”
“So then Captain Bart took me to his favorite whore, Adela, at port. She told me how everything fits together.”
Ewan felt a bit like he was watching some strange monologue, as if he were outside just watching and waiting to see where this conversation would lead. He blinked. “Fit together?”
She tipped her head and raised her delicately arched eyebrows. “You know, fit together,” she emphasized. When he only stared, she touched her forehead as if she had a slight ache. “Don’t tell me she got it wrong.”
“Nay, fit together sounds about right. I’m just not used to discussing the particulars, especially with…” He gestured to her.
“With someone who wants to swive?” she finished.
Ewan exploded in a coughing fit. He attempted to agree while she patted his back. “Really, you must be more careful when you breathe and swallow,” she said.
He shook his head and cleared his throat. “So she explained all the particulars.”
Dory nodded. “But it doesn’t sound as fun as the crew seems to make it out to be. Adela even said that it hurts.” Her brows furrowed over questioning eyes.
“That would be the first time only,” Ewan said.
“Good. I’ll heal myself if I’m injured.”
His smile faded and he looked at her seriously. “Don’t heal yerself new, lass, not completely, or it’ll hurt again. Some things are better broken.”
“Like a horse?”
Ewan paused, blinking several times. “I suppose… aye, yet there is no… comparison.” He shook his head. “So ye’ve learned all this from a whore?”
“Yes, why? Does it work differently for others?”
“Aye, it’s better.”
“Better?” She looked incredulous. “But the whores and the crew go on and on about it. It’s in every jest made and every reference that doesn’t pertain to sword play. They talk as if swiving were better than life itself. How could it be better?”
Ewan rubbed at the ache in the back of his neck. This wasn’t going at all like he’d thought it would. He tried to remember the talk Caden’s da had given him long ago when Ewan began to show promise with the lasses.
“It’s different—better—when no money is exchanged,” he said.
“Captain Bart says he’ll kill the man who gives me money for swiving. So I’m free.”
“Good to know. Ye seem to be fond of that word, swiving. There are other words for… fitting together.”
“Fornication, copulation, knowing someone, fixing, fucking…”
Ewan held up a hand to stop her before she surpassed his knowledge. Living with a crew of pirates had certainly given her a firm grasp of vocabulary. He glanced around but no one else was in the gardens. Bloody hell, she could be thrown in the Tower for her language alone.
“Let’s stick with swiving,” he said. “Although some call it making love or loving someone.”
“Oh, love should have nothing to do with it,” she said as if absolutely sure.
“Who told ye that?”
“Will, Gregor, Geoffrey, One-eyed James, Jack, and I believe Captain Bart agreed with them, though I think he has a soft heart for Adela.”
He sat for a moment, taking all that in. “Well, many believe that swiving is better with someone ye love, or at least like.”
She smiled. “I do like you, Ewan Brody. And I dearly wish to understand why everyone seems to go on and on about it. It’s really the one subject I…” She lowered her voice. “I know nothing about.”
Ewan’s stomach relaxed and he wondered briefly how long he’d been holding his breath. She knew nothing about sex. Had only heard about it, but had never been touched. His smile relaxed his jaw along with the fists he hadn’t realized he’d been squeezing. Despite
being raised among the most notorious of fiends, somehow Dory had remained pure. Ewan would be buying Captain Bart a barrel of the finest Highland whisky.
“Is that your only prerequisite? That ye like me?”
“No,” she said. “I like a good many people. You also smell clean.”
He frowned. “I am clean, but Will’s about to be clean, too. Would ye be asking him to show ye—”
“No! Will’s like a brother.” She seemed to shiver. “That’s just evil.”
Will apparently didn’t feel the same.
She continued. “I have to like you, more than… not like a brother.” A flush rushed up into her face again. “Anyway,” she breathed and forced her gaze to meet his. “Isn’t that what all your hand holding and words meant? And the kiss before? That you want to swive? If it is, I accept.”
“Ye accept,” he parroted.
“For educational reasons.”
“So ye don’t want to follow the nun’s advice.”
“I already pray, but I don’t about swiving.”
Ewan glanced at the blue sky for a lightning bolt—God’s, not Dory’s.
“’Tis good. Best to keep that out of yer prayers. I meant about waiting until ye wed.”
She shook her head. “I don’t plan to wed.”
“All beautiful lasses wed.”
There was that adorable blush again. “I don’t know anyone wed. Well, Geoffrey says he has a wife, but none of us have ever met her, so I don’t think they do much swiving.”
Ewan almost laughed at the serious look on her face.
“And children?” he asked, rapt by what next might come from her sweet mouth.
She looked closely at him. “Ewan, one can have children without being wed.”
“It’s frowned upon.” He forced his mirth to stay bottled inside. These were very serious topics.
“There are too many unwanted children in this world.” Her face grew sad. “I will just love some of them as my own when I want a babe. No use to tie myself to some cheating bloke just to have children.”
“Some of us clean blokes don’t cheat once we’ve wed,” he said. She needed to be set straight about a few things. The thought of her never wedding, raising someone else’s children without the help of a husband, twisted Ewan’s gut.
“How do you know? Are you wed?”
“No, I’m not. But if I were to promise to be faithful to a woman, to love her, I wouldn’t step out on her.”
She studied him as if uncertain if he were telling the truth. “And what if your wife stepped out on you?”
“That wouldn’t happen.”
She raised the arch of her delicate eyebrow. Did she plan to be a cuckold? Then her smile broke along her face, her eyes dancing. She laughed and patted his knee. “I am certain that any woman you ask to wed would be so enraptured with you that she’d never dream of straying.”
“Bloody right!” he said, and then joined her in her laugh. It was easy to laugh with her, as if they were friends, comrades riding the borders. Yet she was so much bonnier than any of his friends. What would Caden or Donald think of his lovely lass? His lovely lass? Ewan’s laughter faded. She wasn’t his.
As unconventional as the swiving discussion should have been, it wasn’t nearly as awkward as the silence that now stretched between them. A starling dove from the top of a budding fruit tree as another swooped after it. He cleared his throat.
“So when did ye want to…” He started and stopped. Blasted, he refused to blush. Warriors didn’t blush. “Swive?”
“How long will it take?”
He exhaled long. Never before had he met a lass like Dory. “Bloody hell,” he murmured. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve done this before, right?”
“Aye.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “It depends on…lots of things.” He looked around the barely concealing shrubbery. “And we’re certainly not doing it out here in the garden.”
“Of course not. It would be much too cold to lift my skirts out here and someone could come along any moment.”
He just stared at her. At least the whore had included privacy as a requirement.
As if on cue, two men hurried out of the side door, one pointing down to where they sat, still clearly in view. Ewan stood, his hand instantly finding his sword.
“A short blade is much easier to use in close quarters,” Dory said and slipped one up from under her skirts.
“I don’t carry a sghian dubh.” He tried to step in front of Dory, but she moved around to stand next to him.
William Spencer strode down the gravel path with a servant following. “Lady Wellington!”
Bloody hell, she was a Brody!
“Yes?” Dory replied in a gentle voice. And to think swiving had just moments before been her favored word.
Spencer came to a halt before them, a hand fluttering at his chest. “There… there is a girl here, a dirty young girl at the gates.”
Dory looked to Ewan. He shrugged. “Yes?” she said.
“She asked for Lady Brody.”
“Which she is,” Ewan replied.
“She says she’s yours,” Spencer continued and held out something small.
Dory opened her palm and Spencer laid a silver object in it.
It was Dory’s tiny thimble.
…
Dory clutched the hard thimble in her hand as she stepped down the kitchen steps into the cooking garden. The child stood with her hands folded, grasping the gray woven hat that had apparently held up her shoulder-length hair. Dory could usually guess how things would go with a rescued child by their eyes. Either they would be defensive and belligerent, or a puddle of sadness and pain. Both types were scared to death and needed security around them.
Dory squatted, her obnoxiously massive skirts pillowing around her. “I’m so glad you came,” she said and the girl looked up. The same big blue eyes from the day before in front of the tower stared back at her. They glistened wet and Dory could see the bruise up high on her cheek. Anger tightened her stomach, twisting it until she thought she might be ill, but she smiled instead and reached out a hand, palm up.
“I gave the man the thimble,” she said, misinterpreting.
Dory shook her head. “I just want to have your hand.”
“And yer name, wee one,” Ewan whispered from behind.
The girl’s mouth firmed into a line. “I’m not a wee one,” she said. She straightened her shoulders and Dory hid a grin. “I’m almost twelve, I think.”
“Your hand, please,” Dory repeated and the girl gave it. Dory nearly jumped at the girl’s near-to-exploding system. Her heart pounded. Her blood rushed. She was ready to run if needed. But what hitched Dory’s breath were the bruises. Besides the one on her face, several pools of blood sat just below her young skin between her legs, on her budding breasts, and on her backside. Dory held her breath as she reached further into the girl with her senses, listening for the tell-tale whisper of internal trauma.
Dory released her breath. The girl was a virgin. She tried to grab back her hand, but Dory was much stronger, and she sent a pulse of magic into the girl. “Be still now,” she instructed as the girl gasped, probably at the blue glow along her hand and the heat that accompanied healing. She sent steady pulses into all the girl’s muscles, healing and rejuvenating. Ewan could be mad at her if he must, but there was no one around and she wasn’t going to have the girl suffer on top of being scared. The healing was easy and would just make Dory a bit tired.
Dory finally let go. “We need to get some food into you.”
“What did you just do to me?” she asked.
“I fixed your bruises,” Dory whispered back. “It’s a secret.” She waited for a nod that the wide-eyed girl finally gave.
“I know how to keep secrets.”
“I guessed that,” Dory said. “And I won’t ask how you got all those bruises, but I’d say you are about as tough as that Highlander frowning behind me.”
The g
irl blinked and then a grin spread on her dirty face. “How did you know he was frowning?”
Dory shrugged. “Because I’m pretty sure that he’s ready to hunt down and punish the person who did this to you. And… he likes to frown.”
The girl giggled. Her spirit wasn’t dead, just bruised. Good.
“Who did this to ye?” he asked.
The girl’s smile faded. “You said you wouldn’t ask.”
“Nay,” he said. “She said she wouldn’t ask. I’m asking.”
Dory used Ewan’s well-muscled calf to help her stand.
“It was that older boy, Randolph, wasn’t it?” Ewan continued. “Did he force ye—”
“No,” Dory answered first and looked at Ewan. “But I’m guessing that’s why she left.”
Ewan’s muscles didn’t relax one bit. “If ye want food, I want yer name.”
Dory frowned at him. He shouldn’t be bullying the girl. “You can give us any name you want, but we need to know what to call you.”
The girl thought for a moment. “I once heard the name Charissa. I like it.”
“Charissa it is,” Dory said and ignored Ewan’s muttering. “Let’s get you something hot to fill your belly, and a warm bath.” She placed an arm around the slender shoulders.
The girl was rigid. “I can go in? What do I have to do?”
She’d definitely been raised in the street. Things didn’t come from the goodness of someone’s heart.
Dory looked her square in the eye. “Very good of you to ask. Let’s see, I will expect you to clean yourself, wear the warm clothes I provide, and serve as a lady’s maid to me. Do you accept the position?”
“I don’t know how to be a lady’s maid. I can’t weave hair or—”
“I’ll see to your training. If I ask you to do something you don’t know how to do, you must tell me. Agreed?”
“That is it?” She glanced at Ewan. “Do I take care of him, too?”
“No,” Dory said. “He can take care of himself.”
“Have been since I was a lad,” he added. “And I don’t know how to weave hair, either.”