by Maren Smith
Mallory looked neither left nor right as she delicately stepped over a pile of fresh dung. Continuing on, she ducked back under a second set of ropes and trotted up to the top of a small grassy knoll. Up ahead was a series of scarlet banners, snapping smartly in the breeze.
She came up behind several bundles of straw that had been dressed in what looked to be shirts, pants and shields. Funny place for a scarecrow. She picked one up, turning it around to get a better look. There was a whistle of air, a sharp tug at her sleeve, and a dull thud as a crossbow quiver struck the tree beside her. Mallory ran her finger through the hole that had suddenly appeared in her sleeve. She pulled the bolt from the tree and, shading her eyes from the sun, peered back across the field. A line of men faced her a good two hundred yards away. One was on his knees, holding his head in his hands. She carefully scanned the line, looking for a set of familiar clothes.
Was that—? Yes! That one way down on the end. She had found Varden!
Sticking the bolt in the center of the target, where she was sure it would have landed had she not moved the butt, Mallory then waved to let everyone know she was all right. Confident that they could see her, she started into the field.
* * * *
Varden glanced up from the stripling archer he was trying to instruct. “What do you mean there is a woman on the field? The banners are clearly marked. Everyone knows we are practicing here."
"Nevertheless,” the soldier repeated. “There is a woman on the field. Look. You can see her from here."
Varden eyed the line of butts far to the south. “Tom, the boundaries of this field are signified with red ribbons. I watched the boys set them up myself. Who would be stupid enough to—” He squinted against the sun as he spied a figure in white wading through the tall, golden grass. He shaded his eyes against the sun. Boundaries or not, there she was, just as Tom said.
The young man to Varden's left rose up on tiptoes and asked, “It's not Blind Aggie again, is it?"
As they watched, the figure's nightgown fluttered in the breeze. Varden paled. He knew that nightgown. He knew that red hair! “Claire."
What was she doing here? How had she even got out of the courtyard? Neither question made the slightest bit of difference now. All down the line, his archers—every man a new recruit—were doing exactly as he'd instructed them to do: block out all distractions, focus only on the target, and fire when ready. Hell, even an experienced archer might not see her until it was too late.
Far behind his wife, Varden spotted Grete ducking under the ropes that sectioned off the archery field. Though he was too far away to hear, he could see the old woman shouting and frantically waving her arms.
"Oh, great,” the young man said again. “Here comes another one."
"Claire, stop! Stay where you are!” Varden frantically waved his arms, his sudden shout startling the archers closest to him. Mallory waved back.
Further down the line, someone fired his crossbow. The bolt hit its mark not far from her.
"She'll be killed!” Varden gave up trying to warn her and turned his attention to his archers. He grabbed the bows nearest him. “Hold your fire! Don't shoot!"
Tom rushed down the line, shouting the order over and over. Too late one of the newer boys released his quiver even as Mallory walked between him and the butt. And, as the steel tip slipped through the skirt of her nightgown, missing both Mallory and the target by bare inches, Varden fell to his knees and, for the first time in his life, thanked God for new, inexperienced, untrained boys from the country.
Fast on the heels of that relief, came a surging tide of anger. Through narrowing eyes, Varden watched Mallory lift her skirt to look at it. She poked a finger through the new hole, then tipped her head to regard the quivering arrow that stuck out of the ground less than six feet away. Slowly, she turned to face the archers and frowned. She shielded her eyes against the sun, studying them.
The boy had fallen to his knees.
His legs in a similar state, Varden latched onto a nearby shoulder and climbed back to his feet. So close. The bolt had come so close to hitting her.
"Look.” The man Varden clung to gestured towards the merchant's end of the Field. “I think the Training Camp's on fire."
With a detached sense of calm completely alien to Varden's rampaging emotions, one thought set itself above the rest.
Tonight, he seethed, there was going to be a murder.
* * * *
Varden tossed his horse's reins in the general direction of the stable master, then grabbed Mallory's arm and hauled her out of the stables into the sun-lit bailey. Chickens scattered clucking noisily in front of them. Mallory was almost running as she tried to keep up.
"I will hang you from the tower by your thumbs!” he snarled. “I will tie you upside down by your ankles and have you flayed alive!"
Such statements did not bode well in a marriage.
"Please don't be angry with me,” Mallory begged, and he cast her a dark glare over his shoulder. “I didn't know your archers couldn't see me. How could I have known? Everybody else saw me just fine!"
Before her eyes, he became an even darker, more formidable man. She hadn't thought that possible. And by the time they reached the steps leading up to his balcony, he was all but growling.
"You set my Camp on fire!"
"It was an accident, I swear!” Mallory stumbled on a step. “Wait! My nightgown—"
She was a little surprised when Varden actually paused in his ascent while she lifted her gown to keep from tripping on the hem. He did not, however, relax his grip on her arm.
"Get up the damn stairs,” he snarled.
"I'm trying!” She hadn't seen him this angry before—not even yesterday, and she still couldn't sit without wincing first. Her panic intensified when they finally reached the top of the steps and he pushed her through his room and into Claire's. She cringed when he slammed the door behind them.
When he turned, his hands were at his belt, unfastening the heavy buckle and pulling the thick leather free of his breeches with an ominous hissing sound that only a belt could make. He took one step toward her, and Mallory jumped on him. Throwing her arms around his neck, she kissed him fiercely. All her desire to waylay his anger was poured into that meeting of mouth on iron hard mouth. It was equal parts the desire to avoid what she knew that belt was for and the desire simply to touch him, and to have him touch her in turn when anger was not the cause.
Stiffening, Varden neither responded nor pushed her away. In a small sense, that was oddly encouraging.
Softening her mouth, Mallory let the tip of her tongue tease the corners of his mouth. Warmth unfurled in the pit of her belly, reaching through every part of her. Although her initial reasons for kissing him had been motivated by self-preservation, now she just did not want to stop. Ever.
"I'm sorry,” she whispered against his lips. “I didn't mean to cause you any trouble."
"Bise.” Varden softened in her arms and, miracle or miracles, he kissed her back once, gently. His arms came up around her, holding her close. “Ma petite folle, I know you did not mean it."
He kissed her forehead, stroked her hair, and rocked her gently in his strong embrace. Then he pulled back and took her by the arm, leading her to her bed.
"B-but I said I was sorry!” Mallory clutched his hand on her arm, but didn't try to pull free. She already knew his grip was inflexible.
"You don't have to be sorry,” Varden told her. “But I want you to obey me."
"I want you not to spank me!” Mallory wailed plaintively.
He sat on the edge of the bed and, despite her instant stiff-legged struggles, pulled her neatly across his lap. “Well then, I suppose neither of us is going to get what we desire."
Her heart was pounding so hard it felt as if it would burst from her chest. Mallory stared at the rushes mere inches from her nose, helpless to do anything but make a pitiful grab for the back of her nightgown when she felt him raise the skirts well up past h
er waist. As a result, her hand was pinned at her side before the first smack even fell, and her bottom ended up bare anyway.
Mallory began to cry. She couldn't help it. She had never been very brave when it came to pain, and yesterday's experience had already taught her just how horrible this was going to be.
Varden's open palm came to rest on the soft swell of her right buttock. “You are never again to go to the Field without me there to guide you, is that understood?"
"Yes,” she wept, nodding her head as well.
SMACK!
It was inconceivable that a bare hand could hurt so much. Admittedly, some of her soreness was likely due to yesterday's session with the hairbrush, but when Varden began that hard, steady rhythm, Mallory could have sworn that he was using a paddle and not his broad, flat palm.
"No! Ow! Stop!” Her cries quickly turned to shrieks, and then to heart-felt sobs. Holding still was impossible, but so was breaking free. And no matter how she fought—kicking and bucking, rocking her hips as though wanting to roll off his lap to get away from the fire his hand was ruthlessly igniting behind her—he never once relaxed his hold. His arm around her waist may as well have been a band of steel for all that it weakened. His hand on her wrist was just as secure.
"OW! Please! OW! I can't bear this!” Mallory cried, but he continued to spank, hard, walloping blows that jolted her over his lap and turned her pink skin to scarlet.
It felt like forever before his hand came to rest on her hot, throbbing bottom, and Mallory sobbed her relief.
Right until she heard Varden say with calm inflexibility, “You set my Camp on fire."
And suddenly Mallory realized it wasn't over yet. His palm left its resting spot on her hot bottom, and a bolt of sheer panic tore through her. “Oh, no! No, Varden, please! I didn't mean to!"
SMACK!
The rhythm resumed, though at a faster tempo than before. Somehow his hand seemed even harder, and when Varden expanded his target area to include the tops of her sensitive thighs, Mallory stiffened across his lap with a long, hoarse wail. “You're killing mmmeeeeeee!"
Varden was unmoved. “All you have to do to avoid this, is obey me."
His arm rose and fell tirelessly, until Mallory lay limply in place, sobbing raggedly and too tired to fight anymore. Finally, Varden stopped. For a long time he held her in place, letting her cry while he gently stroked her aching flanks. When her sobs had turned to hiccups and sniffles, he released her hands and gathered her onto his lap. He rocked her gently, one hand still rubbing her bottom and thighs while he kissed her forehead, her eyelids, then the tears from her cheeks. When he hooked a finger beneath her chin, Mallory didn't have the strength to resist.
He touched his lips to hers, gently, tenderly, demanding nothing but that she allow him to comfort her.
It was then, as Mallory opened her mouth to the gentle invasion of his tongue, that the strangest thing happened. The pain ... changed. It still hurt, it was still horrible, but the heat seemed to intensify. It grew and pulsed in time with the beating of her heart, spreading from her bottom to her womb and down between her thighs. She trembled as he deepened the kiss and his hand wandered from her tender bottom to delve down between her thighs, expertly igniting a fire of an altogether different sort there.
Confusion overwhelmed her. Breaking the kiss, Mallory turned her head away with a broken moan. She began to cry all over again. But instead of pushing him away, she buried her face in the side of his neck and clung to him.
"Shh,” Varden told her. He rocked her softly, his errant hand returning to soothe the hurt from her well-spanked bottom. “It's all right, bise."
With her cheek against his chest, Mallory gently touched her lips and wondered at the odd arousal that still hummed inside of her. How easy it had been to fall in love with the hard and embittered Duke of Cadhla.
How easy and how devastating. Because when all was said and done, although Mallory's love for him may be real, she knew Varden didn't love her. He loved the woman he saw every time he looked at her. His real wife, Claire.
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Chapter Eleven
"I see she is no longer confined to her room,” Abigail said from the doorway, her blue and silver dress glittering in the light of the candles.
Standing over the table, surrounded by books and notes, with a large map of the English/Scottish countryside unrolled before him, Varden marked a point near Wooler. “No,” he said as he carefully circled the location. “She is no longer confined."
"Whatever happened to our plan to send her away? To Wales, or someplace equally inhospitable?"
"Your plan, stepmother, never mine,” Varden said calmly, studying his map. He made another mark at Dunne, and drew a circle around it as well. He noted the distance and then looked at Candlewick.
"How typical of you.” Her voice seethed with bitterness. She began to pace the rug. After so many similar arguments, Varden wondered that there was not a path worn right down the middle of those green and blue threads.
With one finger on Candlewick and his thumb on Dunne, Varden stopped what he was doing and put his quill aside. He sighed. “Lecture me now, if you must, and have done with it. I have other things to do tonight."
"Just like your father."
"You say that as if it were a curse, while I consider it to be the highest of compliments. My father was loving and kind. He was also noble, generous, and honorable, which suited you well enough when you found yourself with child. You may not have liked his methods, but at least Godfrey was born within the bonds of matrimony and far enough away from London to give society's wagging tongues a false date by which to count the months. They do so love hasty weddings."
"You paint him to be a paragon of virtue,” Abigail spat.
"I'm his son. What do you expect?"
"Respect! Loyalty toward your living family members and not just the dead ones!"
Varden glanced back down at his map. “Funny how I am only family when you want something of me."
Abigail reddened. “After all I have done for you, you ungrateful, selfish—"
"Ungrateful and selfish, why? Because my father married my mother first or because he never truly stopped loving her after she died, even after wedding you? What does it matter, anyway? You were more in love with his money and title than you ever were with the man. If you're capable of love."
Her hand rose as if to slap him, but just as quickly Varden was on his feet. She stepped back even as he leaned toward her, his face hard, his broad hands braced over his map. “I told you when I was twelve that you would never strike me again. You will find, stepmother, that I am in a better position now to defend myself against you."
Lowering her hand slowly, Abigail touched the butterfly brooch on the front of her silver-trimmed bodice. Her eyes chilled. “You were always difficult."
"It must really gall you that I inherited everything, while Godfrey is set to inherit only your meager dower. I give him ten years before he runs it all to ground.” Varden picked up his quill again. “Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do."
She glared, her eyes narrowed and hard. “If it weren't for me, Cadhla would still be in ruins, this family would be a laughing stock, and the only inheritance you would have is that mountain of bad debts your father left behind."
"I never said he was perfect."
"He was nowhere close to it.” She pursed her wrinkled lips. “You were only nine when he died. I suppose it only natural your youth should blind you to what he was, even though it turns you against me."
"You did that all on your own,” Varden said. “There was a time I would have happily called you mother and meant it. So before you build yourself a cross and apply for martyrdom, let us not forget that you didn't throw yourself into saving Cadhla until after a bout of russo put me at death's door."
"You were too ill to remember matters clearly."
"In all the weeks that I was bedridden, you paid me one visit and then it was
only to ask the doctor if he thought I would survive. The fever had not put me as far out of my mind as you like to pretend. The prospect of my demise excited you, and I remember that very clearly. That visit did more to distance us than all of your thrashings combined."
Abigail looked at him coldly. “Our memories obviously differ."
"Obviously.” His tone matched her own.
"Regardless, I am the only reason you had anything to inherit. I could have let the debtors take it all. Where is your gratitude for that?"
"It lies in your extra quarterly supplements, since you no longer seem able to live within your allowance. And it is in the fact that I continue to allow you and your son to live here instead of packing you both off to your house in Chatham, a maneuver that becomes more and more favorable every time you open your mouth."
"You are bitter and tyrannical,” Abigail said. “I dislike the man you have become."
"The fault is your own.” Varden turned his attention back to his map, marking Candlewick, then circling it as well. “You made me this way. Good night, stepmother. Sleep well."
As he continued to note the distances between the surrounding towns, he felt the heat of Abigail's angry stare on him. Finally, she turned and walked sedately from the room. Once outside, however, she slammed the door violently behind her.
Frowning, Varden glanced up briefly, then went back to his work. He put a finger on Foulden, a very small village of about thirty families on the Scottish side of the border. The other towns surrounded it and, because of that location, if Foulden was lucky enough to avoid attack until now, it was only a matter of time before it, too, succumbed.
He tugged the bell pull and waited for Kenton to arrive.
"I do so enjoy being summoned by that clanking contraption."
"I need five men and my horse saddled. We'll be riding sentry tonight."
* * * *
"What about this one?” Grete held up a bright yellow chiffon and lace gown. The square-cut bodice was low enough to show more than just a little bit of cleavage.