The Water Thief

by Jane Kindred

  “Might have one very hard one in particular I think you’ll appreciate.” He winked, and Abigail rolled her eyes. Sven laughed. “Perhaps when you’re feeling better. And we’re not annoying Abbie.”

  “Oh, don’t mind me, sir.” She dropped an exaggerated curtsy. “I’ll just polish the furniture while he polishes your knob.”

  “Abigail!” My cheeks flushed with blood, but her eyes were twinkling with amusement. If I’d been worried that she judged me for what it was becoming increasingly obvious that I was, or that she found my inclinations distasteful, it was obvious I had worried needlessly.

  “If you want some time alone, milady, you have only to say the word.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Abigail. Thank you. And there’s no need to call me milady when we’re in private.”

  “Easier to keep up the part, milady, if I don’t break from it.” She picked up my tray and I swept the juice glass up, not ready to part with it. She smiled wickedly. “Twenty minutes.” And she was gone.

  Sven smiled after her. “Don’t intend to pressure you into anything, Sly, don’t worry. I expect you’re too sore to enjoy anything we might get up to.” He must have noticed the disappointment on my face as I busied myself with drinking my juice. “Doesn’t mean we can’t keep each other company while we give ourselves a bit of release.” He took the glass from my hand and set it aside. “Scoot over.”

  I found this a very agreeable suggestion and moved toward the other side of the bed while Sven swung his legs up onto the mattress and made himself comfortable. While I worked my nightgown up to my waist, Sven opened his trousers, always at the ready, but instead of taking himself in hand, he reached into my lap and wrapped his fist around my erection.

  “More fun this way, yes?”

  I moaned softly at the stroke of his tight grip and nodded. Eminently more fun. I returned the favor, finding him a challenging handful, my fingers not quite able to reach all the way around his girth. It gave me new appreciation for having taken him inside me, and the thought nicely complemented the movement of his hand in my lap. With a groan, I leaned back against the pillows and closed my eyes, working him in deep, firm strokes that matched my tight, panting breath against the ache in my side, while Sven beat at me steadily. Throaty sighs of encouragement urged me on, but it was hard to concentrate on his pleasure with him taking such command of mine.

  I turned my head into the crook of his neck to stifle my moan as he brought me to fruition, alternately gasping in pleasure and in pain at the deep intake of air against my ribs as the heat spilled out of me. As I relaxed against him, I realized I’d slacked off on the job where my contribution was concerned.

  “Sorry,” I panted, tightening my grip around him once more and starting to sit up, but Sven gently pushed me back.

  “Let me take care of it another way,” he offered and swung his leg over my lap, rising onto his knees with his cock in his hand and his trousers around his thighs. “Just hold your mouth open a bit. I know you’re bruised. Leave the work to me.” He rested the warm, hard weight against my tongue as I obliged, and stroked himself with impressive vigor, looking down at me as I gazed up at him. “So damned pretty, you are,” he groaned, and spilled into me with sharp spurts, pumping his fist toward me. I closed my mouth around him and moaned happily, swallowing the slick stuff as he emptied. Sven made a satisfied guttural huff as though trying to keep from making a more enthusiastic utterance of appreciation, his other hand lightly clutching my hair to keep himself steady.

  A click of the door latch announced Abigail had returned early. I tried to push Sven away, but he was determined to remain where he was.

  “By my fucking eyes!” The oath hissed out of Macsen—not Abigail—as he slammed the door behind him, remaining on the inside.

  “Move!” I hissed at Sven, mortified and trying to cover myself.

  But Sven was feeling stubborn. A dark grin spread across his face as he turned his head, still holding his impressive cock, his ass bare. I slid down beneath the covers and hid. “See something you like, milord?”

  “Get off my sister and put that away before I cut it off you, diawl.”

  Sven swung off the bed in a leisurely fashion, and I listened as he pulled up and buttoned his trousers and drew his braces over his shoulders. “No need to be insulting. Your sister’s virtue is intact.”

  “Get out.”

  “As you wish.”

  I remained where I was, clutching the blanket over my head, as Sven left me alone with Macsen.

  “Come out of there, damn you.”

  Reluctantly, I let the blanket fall. “What are you doing in here, Macsen? Don’t you knock?” I was trying desperately to sound insulted, but I knew my face was mottled with shame. It was one thing to be caught pretending to be August with a male suitor. It was quite another to be caught out of costume, out of makeup, with a cock in my mouth.

  Macsen stared at me, his expression a blend of disgust and hatred. “Do you think I give a damn what you do or with whom you do it?” He shook his hair out of his eyes with a jerk. “You might give a thought to what anyone else might have walked in upon. Toying with that fool Apted was stupid enough, but flaunting your Thievesward diawl in plain view of the help— What if your lady-in-waiting had come in instead of me?”

  I didn’t ask how he knew Sven was one of Thievesward’s denizens. His disguise did lack authenticity at times, and I had only hoped no one would notice. “She would have gotten an eyeful of Thievesward ass,” I snapped. “And it wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “That’s where you’ve been hiding.” Macsen folded his arms, understanding dawning in his eyes. “You gave them the slip at All Fates during the mudslide and hid out with the rest of the murderers and scoundrels.”

  “They’re just your class, Macsen. You’d fit right in.”

  Unfolding his arms, he took a step toward me as if he might hit me and then clenched his fists. “Stop calling me that. My name is Sebastian.”

  I laughed humorlessly. “Do we really need to maintain that fiction between the two of us?”

  “You agreed to the charade. Or shall I just end it now and inform Emrys that you are not August Swift?” When I didn’t answer, he went on. “You will maintain your persona as August at all times, without regard to the company you expect to be keeping. That means showing me respect as your brother and lord—and not acting the whore with your Thievesward lover. It also means dressing the part, whether you’re convalescing or not. Coiffure, cosmetics, corset.”

  My cheeks were burning from his rebuke, but I attempted to behave as if they were not. “I can’t wear the corset.”

  “Why the hell can’t you wear the corset?”

  “My ribs are too bruised. According to Abigail, who has experience with such things, I have to keep taking deep, full breaths to prevent pneumonia setting in. The corset makes that impossible.”

  Despite his anger at me, Macsen looked uncomfortable at the reminder of yesterday’s assault. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how badly he’d injured you.”

  “Did you think I was just lying there on the ground taking a beating because I’m some simpleton who doesn’t know how to defend himself? Because I assure you, I am quite well trained.”

  “How do I know what you’re up to, Seb—?” Macsen glared at my smirk at his slip of the tongue and started again. “How do I know what you’re up to? Perhaps you enjoy that sort of thing.”

  It was time to end this. “Was there a reason you barged into my room, dear brother?”

  Macsen regarded me, something obviously percolating behind those narrowed eyes, then shrugged. “There was. I no longer feel inclined to discuss it.” With these cryptic parting words, he turned on his heel and left.

  * * * * *

  Begrudgingly, I asked Abigail when she returned to make certain I was always in top form as August. Mi
nus the corset, for the time being. Sven, returning with her without apology for his earlier behavior, agreed with Macsen that I ought to maintain the fiction regardless of whether anyone else might see me—and promised to make certain the door was locked during any future divergence from my virginal role. Even Abigail had said as much before she’d gone out this morning. With vague unease, I began to feel I was on everybody’s business but my own. Even taking back my inheritance and exposing Emrys as August’s killer was really August’s design.

  I had entirely forgotten what Macsen had hinted to me the night before about Emrys’s activities as I was drifting off. By nightfall, however, certain events had occurred that made his words come back to me in a fresh light.

  Isolated from the rest of the household, I missed the commotion at dinner, but Abigail was eager to tell me about it when she returned from her meal in the kitchen to clear away my tray.

  “You should have heard the fuss Lord Pryce was making, milady. Apparently someone has made off with an entire well full of Llys Mawr water.”

  I sat up, intrigued, as she moved the tray aside, and adjusted the lovely dressing gown she’d managed to scrounge up for me so that I could play August in style while convalescing. “How does one steal a well?”

  “Not the well, the water. The well was already there on the tenant’s land, but it had dried up. Now there’s a fountain bubbling up from the bottom of the well, so much water it’s running over. Lord Pryce insists the water’s Llys Mawr’s and they’ve somehow tapped into it unlawfully.”

  This made no sense. There had always been plenty of water in Cantre’r Gwaelod. Its abundance was the source of the myth of the realm’s origins. It rained nearly half the year.

  “I don’t understand. How had the well dried up in the first place? What makes Emrys think the water shouldn’t belong to the tenant?”

  Abigail tilted her head at me. “You have been away a long time, haven’t you, milady? Wells have been drying up all over the place for years. Something about the ‘water table’ being drained. The lord of Cantre’r Gwaelod has built a system of tunnels to pump fresh water to the dried-up wells from Llys Mawr’s reservoirs, but he charges his tenants dear for it. Most can’t afford it.” She saw that I was speechless and shook her head. “Where did you think Thievesward came from? When the tenants can’t pay for the water, their crops and cattle die off, and then they can’t pay their rent neither. Thievesward’s full of evicted tenants of the lord of Cantre’r Gwaelod.”

  Emrys was manipulating Cantre’r Gwaelod’s fortune. It was what Macsen had said to me—that my cousin was meddling in the fate of the Lowland Hundred itself. But how was he doing it? What was it I’d thought Macsen had said as I was drifting off? Something about Emrys getting me to do it, wasn’t it? Using me. A chill ran up my spine like a rush of icy water.

  * * * * *

  My habitual hot toddy at bedtime, which usually calmed my nerves and put me right to sleep, wasn’t doing the trick this evening. The strange conversation with Macsen kept running through my head, as did the unnerving revelations about what had been going on in Cantre’r Gwaelod while I’d been stowed neatly away in All Fates. Was this why Emrys had done it? To get August and me out of the way so he could put his little scheme into motion to control the water supply of the entire realm? I had wondered why the borders of Llys Mawr were so changed from what I remembered of them. Emrys and Macsen had been gobbling up the land of tenants driven to penury by the loss of their wells.

  And for what? More wealth? As far as I could see, my family’s wealth was already far greater than we could ever need. What, after all, was there to spend it on when we wanted for nothing?

  When I succumbed at last, my sleep was at least more restful than I’d had in weeks, though I woke with the sun for the first time in as long. Abigail hadn’t even arrived yet to help make me presentable. After taking care of my immediate needs, I stood before the mirror examining my bruises. My side was an ugly purple and yellow mottled mess, but I concluded that my face was more agreeable today than it had been yesterday.

  A knock on the outer door was likely Abigail with breakfast, but I heeded the advice and admonishment that had been heaped upon me from all sides the day before and closed my robe, climbing back into bed before calling out to her to come in.

  Macsen entered, carrying my tray. “I suppose it’s safe to enter,” he sneered, peering at me from one open eye. “Since you’re able to speak.”

  I refused to be rattled by him and give him the satisfaction of a blush. “Very funny, Sebastian.” It was strange and unpleasant calling him by my name, but I would honor his terms. “Why are you bringing my breakfast?”

  “I thought we might talk while you’re alone.” He still held the tray, and my stomach growled audibly. “How did you sleep?”

  “Quite well, thank you. I had a bit of trouble nodding off, but once I did I seem to have slept better than I have in weeks.”

  Macsen at last appeared to notice he was holding my breakfast. He came to the bedside and handed the tray to me rather than setting it on the bed, leaving me to arrange it. “That’s because you weren’t drugged.” The words were so quiet and matter of fact it took me a moment to register them.

  I stopped in the midst of buttering my toast. “What did you say?”

  “Your bedtime tea. It wasn’t drugged.”

  “Why the hell would it be drugged?”

  Macsen sat without invitation. “Do you dream, Sebastian?”

  I finished buttering, assuming he was either ribbing me or out of his mind. “I thought we were calling you Sebastian.”

  “Just answer me. Do you remember your dreams?”

  I sighed and took a bite of my toast, making him wait while I chewed and swallowed. “On occasion, I’ve had nightmares. Ever since the accident. I’ve always had trouble recalling them clearly. I sleep rather heavily most of the time.”

  “Since the accident.”

  I assumed it was a question. “I’m trying very hard to play by your rules, Sebastian. Let’s just call it ‘the accident’. The day I drowned.”

  “I mean to be candid. I’ve locked the door to your suite. No one can eavesdrop on us. You mean the day you murdered August.”

  I set the butter knife on the tray with a bang. “If you want candid, Macsen Finch, that would be the day your father murdered August and had me locked away in an asylum to keep me quiet so he could steal my inheritance and give it to you.”

  He rested one boot on his knee and hooked his hands around the other knee with his fingers woven together. “You’d deny it whether you believed you’d done it or not, so let’s leave that out for now. Since August’s death, you’ve had nightmares you can’t clearly recall, and you sleep heavily. Can I presume you were given medication at All Fates?”

  I stared at him across the tray, fantasizing about stabbing the fork into his arm. “Yes.”

  “And do you not think that medication might have had something to do with your sleep?”

  “I suppose. Yes.”

  “So what makes you think Emrys isn’t still giving it to you here?”

  I paused with my teacup halfway to my lips. “Why would he do that? Does he know who I am? What for?”

  Macsen shook his head. “He doesn’t know. He only knows you’re an heir of Cantre’r Gwaelod and you have the gift. And he wants it.” He nodded at my tea. “You can drink that. It isn’t drugged.”

  “What damned gift?” I set the cup back in the saucer rather forcefully.

  “The Lowland Hundred wasn’t swallowed up by the sea because the spirit of the well neglected her duty. It was deliberately submerged by the lord of Cantre’r Gwaelod to protect its magic. Every earl of Cantre’r Gwaelod since has had the power to command the waters of this realm.”

  I laughed at the absurdity, which turned out to be inadvisably painful. “That’s preposter
ous.” I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why he was pulling my leg in such a childish fashion.

  Macsen spoke with complete seriousness. “Emrys puts a sedative in your bedtime drink, chloral hydrate, waits until you’re unconscious, and steals your breath. The essence of your power.”

  “This isn’t funny, Macsen. Stop it.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny. It’s not funny at all. It’s quite unpleasant. I’ve seen it myself. The night before last, I brought the drink to you myself so I could observe the procedure.”

  “Procedure?” My hackles rose.

  “I helped him hold you still while he drowned you in your bed.”

  I kicked the tray off my lap, and it clattered onto the floor as I leapt out of the bed on the opposite side from him. Toast and tea and juice spattered at his feet among the shards of china. “That’s enough. Get the hell out of my room.”

  At the outer door of the sitting room, someone was rattling the knob, locked just as Macsen had said. He hadn’t moved.

  “Lady August?” Sven’s voice boomed from the hallway. “Why have you locked the door?”

  I swept around the side of the bed to unlock it, but Macsen rose and grabbed me by the arm, hauling me back.

  “Let go of me!”

  “I came here to tell you about it because I found the practice despicable. I’m trying to help you, though only the Fates know why.” When I tried to pull away, he hooked his arm around my waist and I didn’t dare fight him with the ache in my ribs. “He didn’t give you the drug last night because he was too busy raging about the missing water in the reservoir. He’ll be back to it tonight, and I expect he’ll want more than the usual amount just to soothe his wounded pride.”

  “August!” Sven was pounding on the wood. “Open the door!”

  Macsen’s eyes were wild with urgency as I stared up at him. “Don’t drink the tea. I presume the procedure can be carried out whether you’re unconscious or not. Feign sleep and find out for yourself. But you’ll have to endure what he does, or he’ll know you’re onto him. And you can endure it, though it will seem impossible. I’ve watched you do it. Just breathe, no matter what.”