Jayne Fresina (22 page)

“What are you grinning at, John Sydney?” his mother demanded, catching his reflection in the window.

“Naught, mother.” He certainly wouldn’t tell his mother about a night spent in a Norwich bawdy house with a masked whore his cousin purchased for him as a birthday gift. Or how gentlemanly he’d been then, taking care of her thoroughly, many times over.

Lucy gathered the bucket strap in both hands and made her way unsteadily across the yard, full lower lip puffed out, back bent with the effort. Her hair was loose down her back today, not yet braided. It was long enough for her to sit on. He felt the sudden urge to wrap himself in those silk and cinnamon locks while he took her again as before, making her moan so deeply with pleasure he felt the vibrations on the length of his thrusting cock.

“John, you’ll break the window latch if you keep twisting it.” His mother’s voice interrupted the lurid daydream. He quickly dropped the latch.

Enough of this self-doubt. Enough of this unusual nervousness. She was only a woman and she should do as he commanded. The mystery he’d built around her was probably all in his head.

* * * *

Surprised to see him trotting over to help, she tipped the bucket, splashing water over his boots. He took it from her hands, mildly protesting her clumsiness. This morning he wore a clean shirt and it looked as if he’d shaved. If she didn’t know him better, she might even think he’d combed his hair and washed it.

Her heartbeat slowed. “Is Alice coming to visit?”

“No. Why?”

She smiled. “No reason.”

They took a few steps together until he stopped, setting the bucket down again. “Where does this brother of yours live? If he truly exists, of course.”

Goose-pimples pricked along the nape of her neck. “I don’t know where he is. Why?”

“I’ll write to him. If you’re going to stay here with me, he ought to know. I’ll do this properly.”

She was confused. “Stay here with you?”

“That’s right. You belong to me.”

“I don’t belong to you,” she replied, wiping her sticky palms on her apron. She supposed, if she belonged to anyone, legally, it was to Lord Winton, although he would never own her heart, mind and soul. Some days she was able to forget completely, but the reality always returned to bite her on the nose and wipe the smile from her face.

On that day it hit her, just like her husband’s hard, bony hand all those months ago. She’d stayed here too long already and now John Carver was looking at her as if he might not let her leave. He was a prideful, opinionated, hot-tempered young man. Who knew what fool idea he’d get inside his stubborn head? Since that volatile kiss by the fire, his bold declaration of how much he needed her, the air was so heavy between them she could bite it.

Now look what she’d done. Fallen in love.

She wound her hair over her shoulder, watching him lift the heavy bucket again, his forearms chorded with muscle.

Stop it. Stop it now, Lucy. There can be no happy ending, only tragedy in this play.

This was impossible. She simply mustn’t.

Ah, but though a man can be chosen for one night of lust, one cannot choose where one loves, as she now knew to her cost.

When he reached toward her, she flinched on instinct, but he only meant to pluck a stray chicken feather from her hair. He showed it to her as evidence, his eyes hurt, quizzical.

She opened her mouth but no words would come out. The sadness piled in and, afraid she would burst into awkward tears, Lucy ran for the gate.

* * * *

Yet again she ran away from him. John would have followed, but his mother emerged from the house, urging him to let her go. “A gentle, patient hand achieves more than an angry, rushed one,” she lectured. “Your father learned that, eventually, when he wooed me.”

“I’m not wooing her,” he replied curtly, confused and frustrated, fearful of these sensations dancing inside his chest. The damned woman didn’t even want him touching her and yet he couldn’t help himself. “I’m not wooing her,” he repeated.

“Perhaps that, my dear boy, is the problem,” his mother remarked dryly

* * * *

Lucy went for a long walk down the lane, breathing in the fresh, fragrant summer air. Sparrows and blackbirds chirped at her in greeting while shyer rabbits darted away into the long grasses of the verge, hiding. Sweetbriar and wild roses entwined with prickly bramble in the hedgerows and occasionally a sly rustle gave away the presence of more wildlife sheltered there. A fox, perhaps, or a mouse.

Absorbed by the beauty of nature, she didn’t see the two women approach until they were almost upon her and it was too late to turn back. She straightened her spine, resolved to be friendly. As she’d told herself many times, they had every right to distrust her, considering the strange place she held in John’s house. Now she would make amends for all her sinful lustings in regard to John Carver.

So she greeted them with a smile. Bridget would have walked on, but Alice stopped. “I was just on my way to see John. He wasn’t in the fields this morning. Is he at home?”

Lucy agreed that he was.

Alice eyed her rival’s straw sun bonnet and two scarlet spots appeared on her cheeks. There was a glimmer of recognition and Lucy suspected the purchase of her bonnet had not gone unnoticed, even if he thought he’d got away with it. “You’re walking out all alone, Mistress Friday?”

“Yes.” Her smile widened, for the pleasure she took in walking alone, no father to admonish her for wandering out of his sight, was something still shiny and new to her.

Bridget came back to stand at her friend’s side. Usually she said nothing, merely glared disapprovingly. Today, however, finding Lucy alone and unguarded, she took no pains to swallow her dislike. “There’s no need to look so pleased with yourself, slut.”

Alice blushed, tossing her friend an anxious glance of reproof.

“I am not pleased with myself,” Lucy replied, shaken by the suddenness of Bridget’s insult. “I am merely pleased to be out walking on such a glorious summer day.”

“Glorious day indeed! Well, aren’t you miss dainty prim and proper. As if we don’t all know exactly what you are.”

“I beg your pardon…”

“Why did you come here, anyway?” Bridget stepped closer, her round face damp with perspiration. “This was a nice respectable village until you came here and moved your slut’s petticoats in at Souls Dryft. You leave John Carver be! He doesn’t need your sort hanging around.”

“Bridget,” Alice muttered in anguish, “you mustn’t…”

“Someone must. Everyone thinks it; they just don’t like to hurt Mistress Carver’s feelings, and we all know her kindness to strays and poor folk, but she shouldn’t harbor a filthy dirty slut who’ll give her son the pox.”

Horrified, Lucy simply stared at Bridget Frye, whose plump, shiny face loomed ever closer.

“Alice won’t speak up for herself, so I’ll do it for her! You ought to leave this village, whore. We don’t want your sort here and you’ll do John Carver no good whatsoever. He’d have chosen himself a wife by now if you hadn’t come along.”

Still Lucy was silent, knowing in her heart that much of this virulent accusation was justified, even if it was uttered in a purely mean spirit, with far less consideration for John’s welfare than was claimed.

“Like my brother says, John Carver’s got no need now for a wife while he’s got you to warm his bed at night. My poor friend Alice has to stand by like a fool, waiting for him to be done with you and realize his mistake.”

Finally Lucy found her voice again. “Do you speak for Alice, Bridget, or is it for yourself mostly, this concern about John’s future bride? I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

Bridget lunged forward, ripped the straw bonnet off her head, flung it to the ground and flattened it under her feet. Alice cried out in protest, but Bridget trampled the defenseless bonnet into the dust with relish. Lucy’s emotions were already on edge. Now the floodgates opened.

She pulled on Bridget’s long dark hair, hissing and spitting. “If John Carver ever marries you, it’ll be a cold day in Hell!”

Bridget grabbed her skirt, ripping a large hole. “You’d know about Hell, sinner!”

From a safe distance on the verge, Alice called for the two of them to stop fighting, but to no avail. Hands slapped hard at faces, fingers tangled in hair, clawing in desperation. Feet kicked out and knees buckled. “Please stop!” Alice cried again as the two women rolled in the dirt, swearing up a storm.

Thankfully, at this moment Lord Oakham rode up and put a stop to the fight. Swiftly dismounting, he clasped both women by the arms and drew them upright. “What is amiss here, then?” he demanded.

Lucy was too winded for speech, but Bridget still had enough spit left. “She’s a whore, milord, and she ought to be pilloried!”

Whether he agreed was not immediately apparent. Lucy was lifted onto his horse with no further ado. He swung himself up behind her, and then they were off at a gallop.

* * * *

Bollingbrooke Hall was an impressive house of brick, sturdy and squat, in the midst of gently rolling green lawns with a small lake, a fountain and two lines of cypress hedge leading up to the front entrance. If she were in a better mood, she might have enjoyed her impromptu visit, at least for the first half an hour, while Lord Oakham was kind and attentive, and before other ideas bloomed in his head.

It was quiet and cool inside, with dark, oak-paneled walls reminiscent of her father’s house. This was something familiar to her, the steady structure of everything in its place, no one questioning, servants quietly obeying and eager to please. But, oddly enough, she felt more at home in the Carver’s farmhouse than she did here. Probably looked more at home too, she realized, running fingers through her tangled hair. Her skirt was torn and stained with dirt. She’d even lost a shoe. And her hands! Looking down at them now she thought of John once mocking her “lily soft” hands. Well, the last few weeks had put paid to that, just as he’d promised.

Anger bubbled up again when she thought of Bridget Frye assaulting her straw bonnet. That insult was worse even than all the wicked names spurting from those fat, ignorant lips. The lovely straw bonnet, pounded into the road, flattened, killed. Lucy began to cry then, the tears she’d choked back earlier now falling without mercy.

“My dear lady, you have been much abused!” Lord Oakham poured a glass of wine and passed her a kerchief to wipe her tears, both accepted with gratitude. “You must tell me what happened.”

She blew her nose soundly. “It was nothing, Lord Oakham. A silly argument, a trifling affair over a…a hat.”

“Bridget Frye has a hot temper and should learn to tend it better.”

She smiled crookedly through her tears. “I fear the same could be said of me, sir.” Despite everything, including her decimated bonnet, she didn’t want to get anyone in trouble over this absurdity. It was all her fault from the very beginning. Her long-suffering father, confused John, generous Nathaniel, the kindly Mistress Carver, poor, patient Alice and jealous Bridget. Somehow she’d got them all entangled in her sins, just because she once made the reckless decision to spend one night with a stranger. Then there was her own poor mother, a death for which she might also be blamed. Was no one safe who came in contact with her?

She once thought leaving her family would be best for everyone, but now it seemed there was nowhere she could go without causing further chaos.

“My beautiful straw bonnet,” she sobbed, her mind spinning. In her confusion over John, she sought one symbol to focus on, unleashing all her emotions upon it. “It’s ruined! My beautiful new bonnet.”

“Never mind, my dear. I shall get you another.”

He didn’t understand, of course. It was impossible to replace that particular bonnet, her first proof John had more than lust in mind when he thought of her. She’d meant to keep it with her forever, no matter what happened, no matter where she traveled.

A servant brought in a silver tray of cherries, freshly picked, and Lord Oakham insisted she taste them, holding them out by the stalks with his own slender fingers, until she accepted them between her lips. Very broken and unhappy, she took the cherries in her mouth and felt more tears trickle down her cheeks.

She had wounded them all. And John, John worst of all.

He would surely never forgive her when he knew the truth. She should never have walked into that Norwich bawdy house.

* * * *

Bridget’s broad face was crimson, her hair strewn over her shoulders. He saw her first as she marched through the gate toward him, fists clenched. Alice walked quickly behind her friend and appeared in some distress.

He was on his way out to find Lucy, but stopped when he saw the two women on his property.

“John Carver,” Bridget exclaimed with a brisk nod. “Is your mother in?”

“Yes, she’s…”

“Good, I’ve much to say to her and it can’t wait. By the by, your whore’s been taken to the stocks on the common. “

While he stared after the irate woman in some bewilderment, Alice scurried across the yard and handed him a shoe. “There was a fight. Lucy went with Lord Oakham on his horse.”

He stared.

“I’m sorry, John. I tried to stop Bridget. It’s none of our business what you do, but you know how Bridget is, with her temper.”

“Oakham?” He tried to understand.

“He rode up and stopped the fight. Lucy went with him.”

Enraged, he snatched the shoe from her hand. “Did she indeed?” Of course she did. She’d been waiting for just such an opportunity to move on to greener pastures, no doubt. Leaving Alice behind and knowing his mother was well capable of handling the likes of Bridget Frye, he mounted one of the farm horses, not bothering to fetch a saddle, and rode full-tilt for Bollingbrooke Hall.

* * * *

She began to feel a little sick of cherries.

“Perhaps a sugared nut or some marchpane?” he asked, showing her one of the other trays his servants had brought.

Laughing uneasily, she teased, “Lord Oakham, are you trying to fatten me up for slaughter?”

“Food, so I find, is a great soother of the nerves.”