Just Beyond Tomorrow

by Bertrice Small

  “And if they come here?” Patrick demanded irritably.

  “I’ll put you in the priest’s hole, my lord,” Barbara Carver said with a smile. She was, he noticed for the first time, a very pretty woman.

  “The priest’s hole?”

  “I am a Catholic, my lord, which is why I remain here in my comfortable isolation. In this time, being a Catholic is even worse than being an Anglican.” Then she laughed. “It is rare that any come here but those who are invited or know they will be welcome.”

  “Are there any ye might expect in the next few days?” Patrick asked her wryly. Having realized how lovely this woman was, he was now curious as to her real relationship to his brother. Surely Charlie hadn’t been unfaithful to his Bess, whom he adored.

  “Right now my friends are too busy chasing your friends,” she told him with another smile. Then she handed him not a dram cup, but beaker full of whiskey. “When you’ve finished it, my lord, we will begin. It will, as Charlie says, hurt, but it must come out.” She then turned to Charlie. “And where will you go now?”

  “France,” he said. “The searchers will be going north and east at first. That will give me time to make my dash to Bristol. There is always an O’Malley-Small trading company ship there. By the time Cromwell’s people turn south and east, I’ll be in Bristol aboard my vessel. The king sent me away before the worst of the battle. Patrick and I escaped through the Claps gate. Actually, my brother shouldn’t have been there at all. While he does not support Cromwell, he does not support the king either. Mother sent him to fetch me,” Charlie said with a small smile. “And my royal cousin feared if I was killed, Cromwell would claim the death of Charles Stuart and further muddy the waters of my family’s eventual restoration, for while today was not their day, they will be restored in time.”

  “God save the king,” Barbara Carver agreed. She turned back to Patrick. “Drink up, my lord. The sooner I get that bullet out of you, the sooner we can have a nice hot supper. My old Lucy is in the kitchen now preparing a meal for us.”

  The Duke of Glenkirk swallowed down the whiskey. It burned inside his belly, and he found himself becoming almost drowsy. He leaned back in his chair. The fire was warm, and he felt all the cares of the last few weeks slipping away from him. Flanna. He dared to let his thoughts turn to his beautiful wife. When he returned to Glenkirk, their bairn would be born, and he would have her in his bed again. A smile of anticipation lit his handsome features, and then the sensation of pain shot through him. “Hellfire and damnation!” he swore, attempting to pull away from the pain, his green-gold eyes flying open to behold Mistress Barbara Carver digging at his bloody shoulder with what appeared to be a very sharp knife.

  “Drink some more whiskey,” Charlie ordered him, and he saw that it was his brother who was holding him down.

  “Jesu!” Patrick swore again. “ ’Tis glad I am ’tis nae vital, madame!” And then he fainted.

  “Thank heavens,” Mistress Carver said. “He was being so brave, but the damned bullet is buried farther than I anticipated. Now I can get at it.” She worked her knife deeper into the wound, and then smiling, she slowly levered the round lead pellet up until she was able to pick it out of his shoulder with her two fingers. She stared at it a moment, and then she handed it to Charlie. “A souvenir,” she told him. “Take it to your mother and tell her what your brother did for you in leaving his Scottish aerie and coming to help you.”

  “I think not,” Charlie said with a chuckle, but he pocketed the bullet nonetheless.

  Mistress Carver dressed Patrick’s wound and bandaged it. “He’ll live, but he’ll feel the wound for weeks, I fear.”

  “Where do you want him?” Charlie asked her.

  “Put him in the bedroom next to mine. I’ll want to look in on him in the night and make certain there is no infection,” she said.

  Charlie picked up his brother, not some small feat, and exiting the parlor, carried him upstairs as he had been ordered. He gently removed Patrick’s boots and drew a coverlet over him. “Thank you, little brother,” he said softly, and then he returned down the narrow stairs to the parlor. Old Lucy, Barbara’s servant, was just bringing in the meal to the small dining room off the parlor. He greeted her warmly, and she gave him an equally warm welcome.

  “You must be starving,” Barbara said. “Sit down. How long have you been back in England?”

  “I came with my cousin,” Charlie told her, helping himself to both trout and beef.

  “The children?”

  “In the north,” was all he said. “Safe.”

  “You should hove remained with them until this was all over and settled,” she said. “Why didn’t the king understand that there would be no great popular rising for him?”

  “No one told him,” Charlie answered her, “and I am not certain that the lines of communication were even open between the English royalists and the Scottish lords. He might have succeeded but that they insisted upon resting their troops in Worcester. He wanted to go right for London.”

  “It’s too soon,” Barbara Carver said wisely. “Right now we are all frightened. In time we will be sick of these Puritans, but not quite yet.”

  “How have you survived?” he inquired.

  “The Puritans are not as moral as they pretend to be. I keep my faith to myself, of course, but the local gentleman in charge of the district visits me. I make no difficulties, nor do I raise the specter of impropriety, and so Squire Randall’s widow is left in peace out on her hillside,” Barbara told him.

  “Is there any danger of this man coming soon?” Charlie asked.

  “He’s not a soldier. It’s unlikely he was involved in the battle at Worcester, but he will go there in the next day or two to be seen and to take part in the executions that will follow. I do not expect to see him until all is settled. Several weeks, probably.”

  They ate, and they drank as they had so many times in the past. And when they had finished, without a word, they went upstairs.

  “Let me check your brother first,” she whispered to him. She entered her second bedroom and, going over to Patrick, put a hand on his forehead. “He has a slight fever,” she said. “It was to be expected. I had best get some watered wine for him.”

  “Later,” Charlie said, drawing her out into the little hallway and into her own bedroom. He enfolded her into his arms and kissed her deeply, his tongue pushing between her lips to fence with her tongue. His hands began to unlace her gown in swift and expert fashion.

  Barbara laughed and pulled away from him. “Your boots, my lord! I don’t intend to have my fine linens muddied.” She pushed him back into a chair, and kneeling down, she pulled the boots from his feet, and then his stockings, exclaiming as she did, “Whew! How long have you been wearing those, Charlie Stuart?”

  “Too long,” he told her, rising, and pulling her up to continue what he had started.

  Soon Barbara’s clothing lay in a heap upon the floor of her bedchamber, and she lay upon her back in her bed watching as he removed his own garments. Wickedly she pulled apart her nether lips to his gaze and played with herself before his blazing amber eyes. Her little pointed tongue licked suggestively along the outline of her lips, taunting him. She took the two fingers that had been used to arouse her now swollen lovebud and put them into her mouth, her blue eyes never leaving his. “Hurry!” she urged him, her lust plain for him to see.

  He had to be careful of the clothes he wore, for he had little else, Charlie realized. But he couldn’t stop looking at her, and he could feel his male member growing harder and harder as he did. His fingers were clumsy as he struggled to undo his garments. Barbara had always been a fascinating and inventive mistress, but he had certainly never wanted her like he wanted her now. Finally and successfully denuded, he wasted no time in joining her in bed. Their mouths mashed together in a passionate kiss again. He filled his hands with her wonderful big breasts, squeezing firm, yet soft flesh, rolling the large nipples between his fingers.r />
  “Fuck me!” she husked into his ear. “We can play later, Charlie, but I want you filling me. Now!”

  He obliged, and groaned with the incredible pleasure the simple act of thrusting into her gave him. “Ahhh, God, Barbara!” He began to piston her vigorously.

  “Ohh, yes! Oh, yes, Charlie!” she cried, wrapping her thighs about his waist. “Ohhh, fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!” She almost screamed with the incredible sensations his hard love lance was giving her. She couldn’t remember him ever having been so big before, or was it that she had just forgotten? She couldn’t seem to get enough of his lust. Her hips pushed up to meet his every plunge.

  His head was spinning. How long had it been since he had had a woman? He couldn’t remember, and the knowledge shocked him. He was a man who had always enjoyed his bedsport. He had had a loving wife, and Barbara had always been a wonderful mistress. The warmth of her response to him, the warmth of her lush flesh, sent his senses reeling. He was like a boy with his first woman, and he was absolutely unable to control himself. “Oh, God’” he groaned, and his passions burst forth, filling her with a surfeit of his lusts.

  “Ohhhh, yes!” she echoed his satisfaction as she felt his love juices rushing forth, and she released her own pent-up desires.

  And afterward as they lay in each other’s arms, Barbara Carver asked him bluntly, “How long has it been since you made love to a woman, my darling Charlie?”

  “Months,” he admitted with a weak grin.

  “You have battered me,” she told him, smiling. “I hope there is enough left in you for another round tonight. I have missed you.”

  “Perhaps more than a single round,” he said with a chuckle. “I have missed you, you irreverent wench. Are you this wild with your Puritan lover? Or is the whispering of naughty words in his ear just enough to satisfy him?” Leaning over, he kissed her breast.

  “We play a game, he and I,” she told Charlie honestly. “I am a naughty schoolgirl with lewd and lascivious thoughts that I confess to him. Then I must bare my bottom to him for a spanking. Only then does he fuck me, and quickly afterward sneaks off back to his wife.”

  “ ’Odds fish, sweetheart, he doesn’t hurt you, does he?”

  Barbara laughed. “No, of course not. You know me better than that, Charlie. I would not permit such a thing. It is just that he feels so guilty about fucking me, or any woman for that matter, that he cannot become aroused in a normal fashion. I have tried with him; but he needs to play his little game, and he is grateful for my cooperation.”

  “Do you see him in the village?”

  “Sometimes, but I never acknowledge him, for we are not supposed to know one another well enough,” she explained. “His wife is a dreadful shrew. She may suspect him of such roguery, but she cannot prove it. He is terrified of her, so does not come too often. Once, however, when someone in the village suspected my loyalties, he defended me, and even got his wife to do so by suggesting that my accuser harbored lustful thoughts toward me or covetous thoughts for my small property. I was a respectable widow of a respected man who lived quietly in her mourning.” Barbara laughed. “I was actually quite surprised he was so daring.”

  “He is obviously fond of you for your kindness,” the Duke of Lundy observed. He took a tendril of her dark blond hair between his fingers and kissed it. “You have always been kind, Barbara.”

  “I had best go and get some cooling liquid for your brother,” she said, arising from the bed and pulling her chemise back on.

  “Hurry back,” he said, a wicked twinkle in his eye.

  Chapter 16

  Patrick Leslie felt very groggy when he awoke just before dawn the next morning. Outside the window of the chamber, the sky was beginning to lighten. He moved slightly, groaning with the pain in his left shoulder. Almost immediately the door to the chamber opened, and Charlie came in. He was fully dressed. Pouring a goblet of watered wine, he brought it to his brother.

  “Drink it. You’ve got a slight fever which Barbara tells me is to be expected, but the wound is clean, with no infection,” the Duke of Lundy advised his younger brother.

  Patrick eagerly swallowed down the cool liquid. When he had slaked his thirst, he said, “I heard ye last night. Jesu, Charlie, I dinna know ye had a mistress. Surely Bess dinna know. It would hae broken her heart, for she loved ye deeply.”

  “Nay,” Charlie reassured his sibling, “Bess never knew. I loved her above all women, but Christ, man, I’m a Stuart! We have great appetites. Bess and I were married six years when Barbara and I renewed our acquaintance. Bess was with child, while Barbara had been a widow for several years.”

  “So ye slept wi’ her?”

  “I was Barbara’s first lover, Patrick. When Madame Skye found out, she was furious at me, for Barbara was a respectable girl; but the future Duke of Lundy would not wed a merchant’s daughter according to her. Our great-grandmother first made certain that Barbara was not carrying my child. Then she made the match for her with Squire Carver. I never saw her again until the first of the civil wars. I was in Worcester, and we met on the street. We spoke. I learned she had been widowed for several years. One day I came up here to visit her, and . . . well . . .”

  “Ye couldn’t resist fucking her?” Patrick inquired mockingly.

  Charlie grinned. “Nay, I’m afraid I couldn’t. Barbara is a most delicious armful, but more important to me she is a good friend. Sheltering us like this is very generous of her, for if it is known that she gave refuge to two royalists, she could be executed. And that, little brother, is why I must leave now for Bristol. It is almost dawn, and I do not want to be seen. Out here, even in this splendid isolation, one never knows who is watching or even why.”

  “Then, I should go, too,” Patrick said, and he attempted to get to his feet, but fell back against the pillows. “Damn, Charlie, I am as weak as a kitten.”

  “Barbara wants you to remain until you are stronger,” his brother said. “And then, too, you will need to know what has happened in its entirety before you make your plans to go north.”

  “And ye dinna?” Patrick demanded.

  “Nay. I know what I need to know. The king’s forces were badly beaten yesterday. I expect my cousin has escaped, for he has always been good at extricating himself from tight situations, but for how long he is allowed to be at liberty is another matter. It will take all his cunning to elude his enemies. Cromwell’s people will be set to finding him. A large reward will certainly be posted. I must get to France to tell the queen what I know and to assure our mother that I am safe, that we are all safe. If I were captured, Cromwell’s people would think nothing of shouting the capture of Charles Stuart from the rooftops. Indeed, it would be no lie; but the fact it was the wrong Charles Stuart would not be mentioned, and the king’s forces would lose heart. And even when the lie was fully proven, it would be difficult for the king. So I must be on my way, Patrick. Give me your hand, little brother. I do not know when we will see each other again, but we will one day. Shall I bring Mam your love?”

  Patrick nodded. “Tell her about Flanna and the bairn,” he said. “God speed, Charlie. Try not to get yerself killed.”

  “I won’t,” the Duke of Lundy promised, and then clasping his brother’s hand a final time, he released it and was gone through the door.

  Patrick Leslie felt the tears slip down his cheeks, and he impatiently wiped them away. Had that damned woman not shot him, he, too, would be ready to travel. As it was, he ached, and if the truth be known, he was absolutely exhausted with his travels and the fears they had all suffered in Worcester. Unable to help himself, his eyes closed, and he slept once again. When he finally awoke, the sun was setting to the west over the purple hills he saw through his bedchamber window. A figure seated by the small fireplace arose and came forward.

  “How are you feeling, Patrick Leslie?” Barbara Carver asked him. She bent and felt his forehead. “Your fever is gone. Excellent! I obviously did a good job of surgery on you.” She smil
ed a brilliant smile, and he was again aware of how lovely she was.

  “I’m better than I was this morning,” he told her. “Is Charlie really gone, or did I dream it?”

  “Your brother is gone,” she told him. “And we have seen no one else the whole day. That may not last, however, and I want you to be ready should we have visitors. While I do not expect my Puritan friend, he could come. The ideal situation would be for me to put you in the priest’s hole. When you feel able to get up, I will show you where it is. And it would be better if you remained in the house where you cannot be seen; but that, too, may not be entirely practical, so we must have another plan. If someone comes and I cannot hide you, you will be Paddy, a stableman sent to me from Queen’s Malvern by Mr. Becket, the majordomo. You can hear, but you are dumb, and when the duke dismissed all his servants and departed England, Becket felt sorry for you and sent you to me as he knew I was without a man to help around the place now. You must be dumb because your accent will surely give you away as a Scot, Patrick Leslie, and no one will believe that you were not with the king.”

  “I should leave as soon as I can,” Patrick said. “Ye have been very kind, Mistress Carver, but I wouldna endanger my brother’s good friend, who hae so graciously sheltered us.”

  Barbara Carver laughed. “You do not approve of me, do you, my lord? I am sorry, however, because Charlie and I are long-time friends from our childhood. I would be remiss if I allowed you to endanger yourself. You cannot leave until your shoulder is healed, nor can you leave until we learn the lay of the land. Now, if you think you can get up, you may have supper with me downstairs. I expect you are very hungry at this point. When did you last eat?”