Taken by a Highland Raider

by Susan Bella Ikin

  My husband was leaning over a chair, with his hose and braies pushed down to his ankles. Because of the angle I was standing from him, I could see his thing hanging down, and it was much, much bigger than I had ever seen. He had his hand on it, stroking it. Behind him, also with his hose and braies down around his ankles was D’arcy, his hands anchored around Edmund’s hips. He seemed to have his thing out as well, although it was not in his hand, but appeared to be in Edmund. I stared as I realised where it must be. The two of them were so engrossed in what they were doing, that they did not see me, and they kept going. As I watched, D’arcy arched his back and groaned again loudly, seeming to shake as he pushed hard into Edmund. Edmund groaned too, and he grasped his thing hard, and I saw fluid shoot out of it. I turned and ran out of the room, running, out of the keep and running until I could run no more, finding myself almost on the far side of the lake. I bent over double, trying to pull breath into my body, and I could not believe what I had seen. In my innocence I had never even heard of such a thing, but now I knew that there was a reason that Edmund could not do that to me. He did not love me. He loved D’arcy.

  I was still sitting there, staring at the lake, when they found me. I did not hear them approach, but felt Edmund plop into the grass next to me. I looked up and saw D’arcy standing a little way off, watching us. I looked at Edmund.

  “How long have you loved D’arcy for?”

  Edmund looked at me, then took my hand, and rubbing it gently before speaking.

  “I would not have hurt you for anything, It’s important that you know that. D’arcy and I knew that we had feelings for each other before he left. When my father betrothed me to you, we were both upset, because we knew we could never be together. That is why D’arcy was prepared to leave, even though he hates his home. If it means anything, when I married you, I did want to have a proper marriage, but I just can’t do it. I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me for hurting you, you deserve a better husband than me”.

  I lifted our clasped hands to my mouth and kissed Edmund’s hand.

  “You have been a good husband Edmund. You have been kind to me, and if you can’t love me, I can live with that. But what if someone finds out? I didn’t know that men can do that to each other, but it seems like it is a secret, so I suppose that you are not supposed to do it”.

  Edmund looked at D’arcy, who approached me.

  “Mary, I know you probably hate me right now, but I have to plead our case to you. What Edmund and I do is considered a sin. It says so in the Bible. People wouldn’t understand, and they would punish us both. I would ask you not to say what you have seen. If you want me to go away, I will, but please don’t tell anyone”.

  I looked at D’arcy.

  “I suppose I should hate you, you have something with Edmund that I never will. But I can’t hate you, Edmund loves you and I love Edmund and want him to be happy. Besides, you have always been kind to me, and apart from Edmund, no-one else here has”.

  Edmund spoke then, gesturing to D’arcy to turn around.

  “Mary, I want you to see what sort of house D’arcy lived in before he came here, and what awaits him if he returns in disgrace. If you think the people here are cruel, you have been fortunate to not have dealings with D’arcy’s father. When D’arcy was a boy, if he did something wrong, his father beat him with a stick. Imagine what he would do if he found out that D’arcy was having sex with a man?”

  At these words, D’arcy pulled his tunic and undershirt up just enough for me to see his back. It was criss crossed with scars. I gasped in shock and leapt to my feet, and couldn’t help but run my fingers over the scars. I ran around to the front of D’arcy.

  “Your father did this to you?”

  D’arcy nodded, and I threw my arms around him and held him tight.

  “Then it is no wonder that you love Edmund so. He is such a gentle soul that he draws people to him. You and me both. I will not say anything, but you have to tell me something”.

  Both Edmund and D’arcy nodded, and I continued, after steeling myself to ask what I thought would be a difficult question.

  “What is sex?”

  D’arcy looked at Edmund and frowned.

  “Have you taught her nothing, Edmund?”

  “I told you I could not. But I bled on the linens so that people would think we had”.

  “What if someone asked her something she should know? If anyone asked her questions they would realise she is still an innocent, you are going to have to teach her some things”.

  I looked between the two as they discussed my ignorance, and grew increasingly angry. Finally I shouted.

  “Enough. I am standing right here, I have ears and there is nothing addled about my mind. Talk to me, not around me!”

  I turned to Edward first.

  “D’arcy is right. I should know things. I should know the names of things, and what they do, and how it feels and how everything works. Everyone keeps watching me, to see if I grow big with your child yet, do you think I don’t know that? But I don’t even know how a child is made. What if you two make a child?”

  Both of them laughed at that. Finally D’arcy took me aside.

  “You are right, you do need to learn some things, Mary. Edmund will never tell you, he is too squeamish. I will tell you. Edmund, you go away, where you can’t hear, you probably will not approve of what I am going to tell your wife”.

  From that moment on, my education began in earnest. Over the course of several weeks, D’arcy answered all my questions, as well as volunteering information that I hadn’t thought to ask. Sometimes even he was embarrassed, and refused to answer questions, but I insisted that I should already know these things, and if D’arcy wouldn’t tell me, then who would?

  So D’arcy told me the names of male and female parts, and some of the different names for the marital act, some of them not fit for polite company. He explained how men could not carry babies, and why women could, and how men put a baby inside a woman. He explained how the male organ reacted when a man was aroused, going from flaccid to stiff, and how women got wet when they were aroused, so that a man could slide in and out without hurting her. He also told me that it was a lie that women could not enjoy sex, he said that if a woman had a good and patient man, there was no reason why she should not enjoy the act as much as her man, usually women did not enjoy it because their men were selfish and finished too quick, or because they did not arouse the woman properly before they entered her.

  One day I asked D’arcy how he knew all these things, how could he know so much about women when he was not aroused by women?

  “I didn’t say that, Mary. I love Edmund. But I’m not exactly like Edmund. Edmund is not attracted to women, which is why he could not lie with you. When I was alone these last few months, imagining you and Edmund together, I tried to put Edmund out of my mind. I went to a lot of brothels, and learned a lot of things. I learned what I like, and what women like me to do. Just don’t remind Edmund, it upsets him when he thinks of me with someone else”.

  I nodded, understanding a little more now. It was also important for D’arcy and Edmund to pretend that nothing unusual was going on between them, so sometimes when young women of the keep would smile at D’arcy he would smile back, sometimes following them to somewhere private for a quick fumble. He did not have to have sex with them, he just needed people to think that he liked women, and as there were lots of women who could claim to have kissed D’arcy or had let him touch their breasts, people never thought him unusual.

  Over time, my education expanded from just attempts to fool my father-by-law to studying more studious subjects. Both Edmund and D’arcy had been classically educated, but my father had not wasted money on educating a girl. On hearing this, Edmund and D’arcy took it upon themselves to teach me to read and to write, to teach me about literature and history, philosophy and medicine. People became so used to the three of us together, that it was easy for me to provide distraction so that Edmund and D
’arcy could be alone. After the time I had discovered them, they had always taken pains to bolt the door. If it had been anyone but me, none of our lives would have continued as they did. Often I would lie in bed alone, knowing that Edmund was in D’arcy’s room, and I would feel a little jealous. They both had someone to hold them, someone to give them pleasure, while I did not. It was during those times that I remembered some of the things D’arcy had told me, where women liked him to touch them, and I learned how to give myself pleasure, alone in my marriage bed.

  After a few years, my father-by-law grew increasingly angry about the lack of an heir. He was realising that he was getting older, and that if Edmund were not to have a male child, then the estate would be forfeit to the crown on Edmund’s death. One night, in a drunken stupor, he queried Edmund as to whether there was anything wrong with Edmund’s performance, or his seed. He indicated that he thought the problem might lie with Edmund, and that there might be nothing wrong with me. He suggested that the only way to be sure was to get another man to bed me, to see if I became with child. He said that he did not want the child who would be raised as his grandchild to be the bastard child of a commoner, and as D’arcy was the only other noble born male in the house, then he could do the deed. Horrified at this suggestion, Edmund said the first thing that came to his mind – that the fault was mine, that the prostitute he had consorted with prior to our marriage had become pregnant but he had paid her to get rid of the baby. The horrible old Lord Le Bruin thought that this was funny, and confided that he had often taken women for a short time, leaving them when they grew too big and he tired of them. He joked with Edmund that it was fine to leave a trail of bastards behind, but that a man needed heirs. He suggested that if there was something wrong with me, then maybe something could be arranged to get rid of me and to find a wife who was not barren.

  After this discussion, Edmund was the quietest that he had ever been. Both D’arcy and I could not get him to talk about what was bothering him, until one day, in our favourite private place by the lake, Edmund turned to us both with a sad countenance.

  “I don’t know how to say this, and I don’t want to, but this involves the both of you, so you need to know”. He sat by me and took my hand.

  “My father has been thinking evil thoughts, Mary. He was talking about finding out whether the reason you and I don’t have a child is because you are barren, or I cannot impregnate you. He thought that the fault might be mine, and that there might be nothing wrong with you, so he was going to – and I don’t want to say this as it makes me feel sick – he wanted D’arcy to have sex with you to try to get you with child”.

  As I recoiled, he grabbed my hand again.

  “I told him that would not help, that you are barren, that I got a prostitute pregnant. I thought that would be enough, but now he is thinking something even worse. He is thinking that if I married someone else, I could have a legitimate child with them. As he thinks that we have consummated our marriage, we cannot get an annulment, I am really afraid that he means to do you harm. So you must never go anywhere alone. Either myself or D’arcy must be with you at all times until I can work out what to do”.

  I gulped. I had long since got over my infatuation with D’arcy, and could not think of being so intimate with him. I worried what would happen though, if Lord Le Bruin thought that D’arcy would not do it, he might find someone else.

  D’arcy surged to his feet.

  “Mary is not a brood mare to be mated just to breed from! How can your father think to do this to your wife? What can we do? We can’t watch her forever, we must think of something else”.

  Edmund nodded.

  “I have. You will both hate me for this, but I did consider what my father said”, he looked at me imploringly as I gasped. “You have not known him as long as I have, Mary, but you have known him long enough to know that once he gets an idea, he thinks on it and thinks on it and will not let it go. If you refuse D’arcy, I could believe that he would find someone else.

  But I think I have a solution. I am going to convince my father that we need to go to London. Mary has grown to a beautiful woman, and I think I can appeal to my father’s vanity by telling him that it would improve our family’s standing if she was presented to Court. Once we are away, we can try to stay away as long as possible. If Mary charms the Court as much as I think she will, my father will not dare to harm her”.

  I liked Edmund’s plan. Although at eighteen I was still a virgin and was still curious about what passed between a man and a woman, I had long ceased to wonder about D’arcy like that. Edmund was right, we were very good friends, we had shared a lot, and the three of us were inseparable. I could not think of D’arcy like that, even though he had grown to a very handsome man. But the thought of being presented at Court excited me, and somehow Edmund managed to convince his father. I think his father might have secretly hoped that D’arcy and I would solve his problem while in London, as he let us go without argument. The three of us relocated to London for over a year, and it was the best time of my life to up until then. I took the largest bedroom in the house we moved to, and Edmund and D’arcy outwardly occupied separate rooms on the same floor, although I knew they spent each night in each other’s arms, sneaking apart before the morning came and the servants stirred.

  However, our time in London was tragically brought to an end in an event that ultimately cost Edmund his life. We were riding through the park when a bird flew out of the bushes and spooked Edmund’s horse. He tried to regain control, but was thrown, and broke his back. He lived, but could no longer walk. When he was recovered enough to move, we were summoned back to the Le Bruin estate, and had to make a very slow trip in a wagon, stopping frequently. For the next two years, I nursed Edmund, throwing myself into my studies of the medicinal properties of herbs, using them to prevent Edmund getting bedsores, and treating the small aches and pains that arose from his injury. D’arcy read to Edmund, and we shared the pain of watching him weaken before our eyes. I kept Lord Le Bruin away as much as I could by gently reminding him how popular Edmund had been at court. Surprisingly, even though I knew Lord Le Bruin to be a cruel and violent man, he seemed to be genuinely upset at his son’s injury, and showed a softer side than he ever had before.

  Finally the day came when I had to bury my husband, just two weeks before what should have been our tenth wedding anniversary. As I watched his casket sealed into the family crypt, I leaned against D’arcy for support, as much for him as for myself, for he had lost the love of his life, and I had lost the man who had given me a life that I never thought I would have.

  It was not long after the burial that I became aware that Lord Le Bruin was already looking for another husband for me. I had been a big disappointment for him. He had fed and clothed me for ten years, and I had failed to provide him with a grandchild. He couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I was horrified when D’arcy brought me the news that Lord Le Bruin was in talks with Lord Lescelles. D’arcy’s father had been widowed several times. His wives tended to die young, probably because he beat them when they displeased him and they were weakened by their injuries and a lack of decent care. I had seen the marks on D’arcy’s back and knew what his father was capable of. What would be even worse than being married to Lord Lescelles, was that D’arcy would be expected to leave the Le Bruin estate and return home as well, and he would have to bear witness to whatever happened to me. So it was that we started to discuss the possibility of running away together and beginning a new life somewhere else. The problem we now had was that we were known at Court, and if we did such a thing, then it would be assumed that we had been having an adulterous relationship while Edmund lay in his sick bed, and maybe even before that, and D’arcy’s life might be forfeit. I was reluctant to take that risk, knowing that both Lord Le Bruin and Lord Lescelles would not appreciate being made fools of. Lord Le Bruin could not care if I lived or died, as long as I did not defy him. It was probably his disregard for my safety that made him
lax when deciding who and how many guards I should have when leaving the estate to forage in the forest.

  As it turned out, that worked in my favour, as it made it all too easy for a band of marauding Highlanders to kidnap me and take me far beyond Lord Le Bruin’s reach.

  Liam.

  I hurried to my room, but despite her shorter legs and more advanced age, my mother was not far behind me, and as I turned in an attempt to close the door, she slipped into my room and, reaching up, pinched my ear and pulled my head down to look more closely into my face.

  “What did ye do, Liam?” she said quietly, dangerously so. I did not speak.

  “Did ye take advantage of Mary when she was so upset? Tell me now. I do not want to go ask her what ye did, if ye did what I think ye did she will probably not want to face me”.

  I gently removed Mother’s fingers from my ear and straightened up, rubbing my ear. She could pinch hard.

  “I did not intend for anything to happen between us. I only went to her room to take her food, but….”

  “No but! The poor thing was despondent! Ye should have known that she would be looking for comfort! What are ye going to do now? Ye cannot just use her and cast her aside!”

  I closed my eyes. A few days ago, I had decided to marry Mary. I was convinced that she was the perfect woman for me, and she probably was, except for one thing. I had assumed that she was barren as she had no children, but she had no children because she had never been with a man. I don’t know why her husband did not consummate their marriage, but the fact was that he had not. Which meant that marriage to me could mean a bairn, and I could not bear it if something happened to Mary. Yet my mother was right. I could not ignore what had happened between us. The first thing I had to do was to apologise to her. I had hurt her and then I had walked out on her, I had acted very badly and I would not be surprised if she no longer wanted to speak to me. I opened my eyes to see Mother looking at me with an angry fire in her eyes.