by Amy Jarecki
Crabapple frowned, and Anne inclined her head toward the door. She hoped she’d never see the dour servant again. But she swallowed hard when she faced the physician.
He gave her a nervous smile and cleared his throat. “The baron has asked me to validate your virginity.”
Anne felt the blood drain from her face. “You can do that?”
“With some level of effectiveness, I have read it has been done.”
“But you’ve never done it yourself?”
He pushed up his sleeves. “No. However, that shouldn’t worry you. I’ve read extensively on the subject.”
Anne pulled the dressing gown tighter across her body. “I can assure you, I have been touched by no man.”
The physician’s eyes dropped to her midsection. “I would dearly love to take your word for it, but his lordship is paying me quite handsomely to perform the test.” He glanced back toward the door. “I could ask the matron to come back in if you prefer.”
“Absolutely not. She’d wallow in my humiliation, that one.”
The doctor chuckled, as if he understood exactly. In other circumstances, Anne might have found a fondness for the man.
“I’ll need you to recline on the bed.”
Anne looked toward the canopy bed with green silk drapes. She rubbed the back of her neck. If she refused, Crabapple would no doubt be overjoyed to come in and hold her down. Worse, if she refused, it would be reported to the baron. What would he do? Seek an annulment? She could live with that. However, the thought of the matron, and possibly a soldier or two muscling her down cemented her decision.
She clenched her fists and walked to the bed. “I cannot believe the extent of my degradation.” She faced the physician. “I’m the one who endured a terrifying attack with cannons blasting the ship upon which I was a passenger because the baron had not the time to accompany me. I’m the one who was forced to live as a captive amongst the barbarians.”
Doctor Smallwood bowed his head. “I understand you must have experienced a terrible ordeal.”
Anne sat on the edge of the bed. “You are the only person who has made any such sympathetic comment since I arrived.”
“I’m sure his lordship is occupied with the urgent pursuit of your captors.”
Anne put her hands up to her face and pressed cold fingers to her hot cheeks. The physician would not know she feared for Calum more than she feared his exam. Let him think what he liked. Run for your life, Calum.
“Please recline.”
Anne exhaled and scooted back against the pillows.
The physician tottered up to her and set his candle on the bedside table. He had her sit forward and removed two pillows from behind her back. “Now if you’ll be so kind as to allow me to slide these under your hips.”
Anne pushed her heels into the bed and raised her bottom while holding her dressing gown closed. She’d longed for the comfort of a bed but never had imagined this.
“If you’ll spread your legs, I need to shine a light between them make an examination.”
“You cannot be serious. I have never…”
“I’m sure you have not. None the less, I am conducting this procedure exactly as it was written by the royal physicians.” Smallwood cleared his throat and lifted the candle.
Anne opened her legs and stared at the green canopy above. She gripped her arms tightly across her chest. She would never forgive Lord Wharton for this. The man hadn’t even inquired as to her health. Had he no compassion? Was she to be treated as chattel for the rest of her life?
Doctor Smallwood bent down. His icy hand pushed her thigh open wider. She clutched the edge of her robe, desperately wanting to pull it across her exposed and very private parts. A tear leaked from the corner of her eye and slid to her ear. The heat from the candle started to burn. She inched back with a gasp. The doctor straightened, taking the candle away. Anne slammed her legs closed and tucked them beneath her. “I believe you are quite finished here.”
He pursed his lips, as if he needed to gawk at her privates for a moment longer, but Anne would have none of it. He’d had the look he requested, and she’d be damned if she’d let him peer at her a moment longer.
He set the candle back on the bedside table and pushed down his sleeves. “You said the barbarian’s didn’t touch you improperly. How was their treatment otherwise?”
Anne bit the inside of her cheek. She must be careful. “They were rather taken aback when they found me on the ship—unsure what to do with me, actually. I was well fed and given a comfortable chamber until they could arrange my ransom.”
The doctor nodded. “Smart of them, though I don’t know if that will make any difference when they’re caught.”
Anne rubbed her shoulders as if a cold wind burst through the chamber and she watched the doctor take his leave. Once the door clicked shut behind him, the tears trapped in her eyes drained down her cheeks. Through bleary vision, she glimpsed her shirt and trews, crumpled in the corner. Staggering across the room, she doused them in the tepid bath water. Her hands still trembled as she wrung them out and then draped them over the fire screen. She would wake early and hide them someplace where Crabapple would keep her meddlesome hands off them.
Once they returned to Alnwick, Anne would insist Lord Wharton send for Hanna. Yes, Hanna would help her to forget both these past weeks and her bleak future.
Chapter Twenty
Though the hour was late, Wharton sat beside the hearth with his hand clenched around the handle of a tall tankard. His wife had come to him wearing men’s clothing. He could send her to the executioner for breaking sumptuary laws. A woman of Lady Anne’s breeding should be well aware of the penalty. Had they stripped her naked and forced her? He closed his eyes and focused on a conjured image of Scottish barbarians hiking up their kilts and taking turns with her.
He stood and threw the tankard into the fire. He didn’t doubt his imaginings. He had led raids himself and used the women of the vanquished to satisfy his own raging appetite. War had a way of bringing out the savage in every man. Only a well-bred noble could walk away from such violence and return to behavior suitable to his social standing.
He plodded to the sideboard and reached for a flagon of brandy. He poured himself a goblet, needing something stronger to cool his blood. Wharton tossed it back when a light rap sounded on the door. Finally.
“Come.”
The physician stepped inside, clutching his black bag.
“Is it done?”
“Yes, my lord. The lady needs rest. She has been under considerable stress.”
Of course she would need rest, but that’s not what Wharton wanted. “Is she…Is she intact?”
“I believe so.”
“What on earth do you mean? Is she a virgin or not?”
“As I said, I believe so. The lighting in her chamber was very dim, I could not see up inside, though she is quite small.” Doctor Smallwood straightened and shook his finger. “As I said before, the only sure test is to examine the sheets after copulation.”
Wharton threw up his hands. “I am paying for an I believe so? If she has been compromised, I do not want to soil my person, damned you. I need an answer.”
Smallwood reached for the latch. “There is no evidence she has been compromised. If there is nothing else, my lord, I shall seek my bed.”
Wharton waived him away. The doctor departed with a bow as Master Denton strode into the room. “We’ve caught the bastard.”
Wharton frowned. “Only one?”
“He was alone.”
“What of my money?”
“My men are still chasing it, my lord. We found the skiff empty. It appears one accompanied Lady Anne while others intercepted the ransom.”
He slammed his fist on the table. “You mean to say you’ve lost a thousand pounds?”
“I did not say it was lost. ’Tis simply detained.”
Wharton cracked his thumb knuckles. He needed his coin returned. “And where is the trait
or now?”
“Enjoying your hospitality on the rack, my lord.”
“Good.” Wharton poured two goblets of brandy and handed one to his henchman.
Denton bowed. “Serving me with your own hand, my lord?”
“This once, for bringing in the bastard.”
“Gratitude.”
Wharton took a sip and swirled it over his tongue. “Stretch him until his eyes bulge and then leave him. Let him think about his plight during the night.” He rubbed his chin. “We shall invite Lady Anne to attend the flogging in the morning.”
Denton tossed down his drink and placed the cup on the sideboard. His dark eyes bore through the baron as they always did. “Very well, my lord.” Denton strode out, his spurs jingling across the floorboards.
Wharton shivered. Though the man always made him feel uneasy, he knew his orders would be heeded. He licked his lips. He had caught the Scot—at least one of them. This would be yet another test for her ladyship. His hand wandered down and rubbed across his flaccid groin. Anne’s appearance had done nothing to stir him and the drink had benumbed him enough he knew he wouldn’t get a rise from the damnable thing even if he forced her to take him into her mouth.
After one last goblet of brandy, he headed to his bed. Tomorrow he’d send for Lady Anne. If the sheets were not bloody by the time he finished with her, she’d hang beside that plundering Highland rogue.
***
Calum tried to withhold his cries of pain, but the last turn of the crank wrenched a bellow from his gut that echoed across the dank dungeon. Stripped naked, one eye swollen shut, he lay atop a wooden rack, his hands and legs bound to the ratchets. They rotated the wheel, stretching the ropes tighter around his wrists and ankles. The last turn popped his wrist. The pain shot down his arm and roiled in his gut. Calum’s head spun and bile burned the back of his throat as he struggled to gasp a breath of air.
The evil man in black had returned and probed his broken wrist with a poker. Calum swallowed his grunt.
The man’s black eyes raked across his body. “You’re a rugged blighter, are you not?” He walked around the rack, poking at Calum’s legs and arms, studying him intently. “This will do. Leave him. We’ll resume in the morning.”
Calum’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. They intended to keep him suspended taut on the rack? He’d be dead by morning, his arms ripped from their sockets. He tried to swallow and keep his breathing shallow and even. They had yet to ask him a single question. No matter. He would die before he betrayed his clan.
They snuffed the torches and left him alone with the rats. His mouth so dry, he would give his beloved Sea Dragon for a sip of water. Every muscle in his body trembled. He flicked out his tongue and licked parched lips. He prayed it would soon be over. His clan would make good use of the thousand pounds and he had named John his successor.
Calum closed his eyes and prayed Anne was safely asleep in her bed. He nearly heaved again when he thought of the tyrant Baron claiming her. With a pained swallow, he focused his mind on the Sea Dragon, standing on the forward deck, the wind in his hair. How he loved the open sea, the smell of salty air and the flapping of the sails above. He would send his mind far away on a new journey, chasing after silver from the Americas. The pain ebbed as he dreamed of sailing to warmer seas—consciousness slipped from his grasp.
***
When a bucket of water splashed across his face, terror seized Calum’s gut. Opening his eyes, Calum became aware of a cold, hard touch on his private parts. He sputtered and blinked in quick succession to clear his vision. Every sinew in his body screamed in agony.
A rotund man, dressed in a fine leather doublet topped with a white ruff stood over him and raised his manhood with a dagger. “Did you put this in my wife?”
Acrid bile churned up Calum’s throat. His thighs involuntarily shuddered and his eyes bugged open. He forced his voice to croak out the words. “No. Never.”
The fat man—Wharton—pressed his knife into Calum’s most tender flesh and looked behind him. “What do you think, Master Denton, is he telling the truth?”
Calum blinked rapidly, panting, straining for every breath. Sweat streamed down his forehead and clouded his vision.
The man wearing black stepped into Calum’s view and surveyed him from head to toe. “Hmm. I’m surprised he’s still alive.”
Wharton smirked and slowly ran the knife across the base of Calum’s manhood, making a sharp cut. He pulled away the knife and turned the blade in his hand. “Where are you from, Scot?”
Calum raised his chin, but couldn’t see the extent of the damage Wharton had inflicted. His entire body convulsed with the effort to move.
“It looks as if he’s not experienced enough of our hospitality, yet.” Wharton chuckled. “Very well. Take him to the courtyard and tie him to the post.”
When they released the tension of the rack, Calum’s muscles burned as if seared by hot coals. His broken wrist dangled, swollen and blue. Before he could stretch out the stiffness, guards grabbed him under the arms and hauled him to the courtyard.
Blinded by the light, his eyes barely registered the shocked faces around him or the people who darted out of his path. He tried to work his legs beneath him, but they wobbled. “Water.”
“You won’t be needing a drink where you’re going,” a guard growled.
Calum tried to slide his good hand across his body to cover his manhood, but the jerking motion of the guards dragging him made it impossible. Hot blood streamed between his thighs from where Wharton had cut him. Calum dropped his gaze and let out a breath. Everything appeared to be still intact. He all but collapsed against the guards, who muscled him forward. A woman gasped. His mind sharpened. His eyes darted across the dozens of horrified faces until he saw her.
Anne stood behind two soldiers who guarded her with crossed battleaxes. She wore a gown of red silk. Topped with a matching wimple, she looked like an angel from heaven. Calum closed his eyes. He would take her image to the grave.
***
Anne nearly vomited when they dragged Calum into the courtyard. She knew they were watching for her reaction, but she could not hide the shock and horror of seeing Calum beaten and stripped naked. With one eye half closed by an angry purple bruise, she barely recognized his face. Blood and dirt smudged his entire body.
She covered her mouth with her hand. Wharton and his henchman didn’t even have the decency to cover his manhood, and blood streamed between his legs as if he were a woman with her menses. Was this the baron’s idea of humiliation? The gruesome sight of seeing Calum in such abominable pain sent shivers needling up her spine. Clenching her fists and pressing them to her stomach, she had to cast her gaze away.
The stench of lavender mixed with male sweat invaded her senses. Wharton ran an uninvited hand down her back. “Your new attire is pleasing, my lady.” He used his pointer finger to force her face toward Calum. The guardsmen tied him to the whipping post. “You must watch this, wife. I’m sure it will please you that your pirate is getting his due punishment.”
Anne jerked her head away from Wharton’s touch but her eyes remained fixed on Calum. The muscles in his back bulged beneath taut, dirty skin. She stole a glance at Wharton. He watched her, his large belly protruding beneath his doublet and hanging over his velvet breeches. No wonder he’s subjected Calum to such humiliation. He cannot stand to gaze upon the powerful and lean back of a younger man.
Hands clenched at her sides, Anne lifted her. Denton stepped behind Calum with a cat ‘o nine tails. The hideous man actually grinned when he snapped his arm back and hurled it forward with brutish force. The biting tongues of leather sliced through Calum’s skin. He arched his back, but uttered not a grunt of pain. Nine streaks of blood oozed down his back and ran in streams over his buttocks.
“Where are your men holed up?” Denton growled.
“Stop this,” Anne said through clenched teeth.
Denton recoiled his arm to issue another lash. The
whip snapped out and bloody lines crisscrossed Calum’s back.
As if her own skin had been sliced open, Anne spun her head toward Wharton. “Raasay. He’s from Raasay. Now stop this. Can you not see you’ve nearly killed him?”
Wharton’s mouth formed a thin line. His face tightened, giving a squint to his eye. He nodded at Denton who delivered another savage blow. Anne suppressed a heave. Had she betrayed Calum? No. She would do anything so he might live. And why hadn’t they simply asked her? Could this public display of brutality have been avoided?
Wharton grabbed her arm and dragged her up to Calum. He took her by the shoulders and pressed his mouth against her ear. “Did you lay with this man?”
Anne’s ears blazed with a fire roaring inside them. “Are you mad?” She wrenched her shoulders out from under his grasp, but kept her voice low so as not to be heard by the surrounding crowd. “Your physician verified the fact I remain untouched last night. I’ll not have my virtue sullied in this public forum.”
Wharton whipped his hand back so fast Anne didn’t see the slap coming. She nearly fell into Calum from the force of the blow. Her hand flew to her cheek. The sting prickled like a thousand needles. Gasps and cackles erupted from the crowd.
Calum growled through his teeth. “Leave her be.”
Wharton stepped up to him. “What is she to you?”
“Nothing. She’s done nothing.” His voice filled with agony, ripping out Anne’s heart. She eyed Wharton’s dagger. If only she could snatch it from his belt and cut Calum’s bindings. She scanned the courtyard. Guards surrounded them. There was no chance for escape. Not from here.
Wharton threw his head back and laughed. “A chivalrous pirate? Do you fancy my wife?”
Panting, Calum said not a word, his blood splattering the ground around him.
Wharton yanked Anne to his side. “This man is guilty of treason and pirating on the high seas. He will be hanged, drawn and quartered at dawn on the morrow. His head will be spiked on the citadel as a warning to all who think to cross me.”
“No,” Anne croaked. The world around her began to spin out of control. She couldn’t breathe under her constricting stays. Wharton pulled her into the crowd. She reached out her hand but guards surrounded Calum.