Jayne Fresina

by Once a Rogue

  Damn him! He was a country peasant who should be thanking her for the honor she once bestowed upon him, not accusing her of being a harlot who went from one bed to another. How dare he? How dare he? Had he taken no part in what had happened? It seemed he was just like every other man after all, another believer in the great double-standard. He would bed with a whore, then look down on her as a woman of loose morals, while thinking himself above reproach. He was ready to blame her, say she tempted him.

  There was only one thing she could do when he questioned her so crudely: maintain her innocence. Deny everything.

  “It wasn’t me, you great stupid, country oaf!”

  Still, even as her own fury mounted, the fire ignited by plum wine, she realized what she wanted from him most of all was a kiss. A long, hard, hot, wet one.

  And he was staring at her mouth, as if the same ridiculous idea was on his own mind.

  “You best tell me the truth, whore,” he growled, “or I’ll…”

  She stuck out her chin. “Or what, plowman?”

  “I’ll send you back to Yarmouth, or Norwich, or wherever you came from. I won’t keep a lying deceiver in my house.”

  “I told you, I’ve never been to Norwich.”

  “If I saw you naked, I’d know for sure.”

  “Well, you’ll never see me naked, will you? So there!”

  He gave her a dark, sinister look and she backed up another step against the hay cart, fearing he might actually try to rip the clothes off her there and then. He was arrogant enough to think he had the right. “You’re on loan to me, wench, remember?”

  “Nathaniel didn’t mean it that way, fool!”

  “Oh?” He leaned closer. “How did he mean it then? Am I supposed to look and not touch? You’ve teased me since I brought you here.”

  “I certainly have not!”

  “Yes you have. And I’ve told you before, wench, don’t argue with me! And don’t leave these gates again without my permission.”

  “I thought I wasn’t your prisoner?” she shouted.

  “Now you are, since you’ve proven yourself untrustworthy. You’ll do as I say and stay in the house.”

  “I’ll do what I like and go where I like.”

  “Over my dead body,” he yelled at her.

  “Fine! Suits me!” He wasn’t the first man she’d done away with, was he? With a flounce of her skirts, head tipped back proudly, she began to march around him, but he stopped her again with the pitchfork.

  “Or over yours,” he growled menacingly. “Confess, wench. It was you.”

  “If you’re so sure, why do you need my confession?”

  He considered briefly, eyelids lowered to hide the wicked gleam. “Until you confess your sins, you can’t be forgiven and we can’t get beyond it.”

  The plum wine sang in her veins, making her bold and considerably careless. “I’m weary of this conversation and I’m going in. Get out of my way.”

  “I’m in charge here, Friday wench, not you.”

  “If I wanted a master I would have stayed…” she stopped, recovered, and hissed through gritted teeth. “I told you…I’ll do as I please.”

  “Not while you’re under my roof and eating my food.”

  She said nothing. The sun had disappeared behind the chimneys of the house and all was still. The birds finally rested after a long day of song, but his mother’s gentle humming drifted out through the open shutters.

  “Whatever my cousin let you get away with,” he said, every word succinct, loaded with menace, “you won’t find me so tolerant.”

  “You don’t frighten me…peasant!”

  Throwing the pitchfork aside, he closed in the last little distance, one hand on each side of her as she leaned back against the cart. “Well, you ought to be afraid of me, Lucy. If that’s your real name.”

  She wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes, determined not to show an ounce of fear.

  “You have no idea what I could do to you,” he breathed against her cheek.

  “Ha! I know exactly, don’t I, since you’ve already done everything…” She froze.

  He let out one sly, wicked chuckle. “Never been to Norwich, eh? Never been in any house of ill-repute or laid in any bed with me? Better not drink anymore plum wine or you might reveal all your secrets.”

  She cursed herself for the slip, but it was too late. John leaned over her, staring at her mouth and she was hot, melting like a pat of butter left on a sunny window ledge. Expecting a kiss, she parted her lips. Instead, he licked her cheek, slowly and carefully. She gasped, a quick, startled inhalation as his shirt brushed against her breasts and then she put her hands to his chest, pushing him back.

  He licked his lips. “Just as I thought.” He was hoarse. “I remember the taste.”

  “Don’t you dare lay a finger on me again.”

  “It wasn’t a finger.” He grinned slowly.

  Nose in the air, she swung her skirts to walk around him, but he caught her sleeve again and held it in his iron grip. “I know who you are, wench.”

  “You know nothing about me,” she declared, half laughing. Oh, wouldn’t he be surprised to know the truth?

  “I know this,” he whispered, his breath toying with a stray frond of hair as it tumbled down her neck. “You were mine first. Therefore you belong to me, not Nathaniel. And this changes everything.”

  Chapter 11

  That evening, as the effects of the plum wine slowly wore off, she played solitaire by the fire, trying to ignore him, while he slumped in his chair, watching her as if she were a criminal under his guard. Vince sat beside her, his great head on her knee. Occasionally the dog’s gaze flicked back and forth between them, is if he were unsure whose side he was on, but was definitely aware of a battle being waged. Knowing how much the dog’s torn loyalties disturbed John, she patted his head, fondled his ears and told him how good he was, even occasionally planting kisses on his furry head.

  Every angry little twitch, every muted ramble from across the hearth, counted as a small victory. He wouldn’t talk to her again as he had today and get away with it. She was a lady, not a whore. Perhaps, just once, she had lapsed, but let he who is without sin cast the first stone, she thought angrily. As far as she recalled, he’d enjoyed himself as much as she had, probably even more, since he’d had no unhappy marriage hanging over his head at the time.

  Mistress Carver didn’t appear to notice the chill in the air, or at least, she was wise enough not to mention it. Tonight the old lady wrote letters to her daughters in Dorset. Lucy, searching for some conversation to take her mind off other matters, asked if they came home often to visit.

  “Not so often as I might like,” his mother replied. “But I’m glad to see them both happily wed, and they have families of their own now.” She looked up from her letter. “Besides, I still have John to fuss over me.”

  Lucy glanced over at him. He’d just taken a sip from his pewter tankard and now, gaze trapping her in a fiercely possessive hold, he licked his lips. “I’ve no taste for cider tonight. I’ve a sudden hankering for something else.”

  “Do you want some ale, John?” his mother asked. “I’m sure Lucy will fetch the jug from the pantry.”

  “No Mother. ’Tis not ale I have the taste for either. Something sweeter.”

  “There’s buttermilk, if you–”

  “I can’t think what it is I have a thirst for,” he interrupted, nursing his tankard to his chest. “Can’t think of the name. I had it once, a while since. Not sure if I ever knew the name of it in fact.”

  Clearing her throat loudly, Lucy slapped another card down. “You have many grandchildren, Mistress Carver?”

  “Oh yes. My eldest daughter, Grace, has only one child, a dear little girl, but my younger daughter Maddie has eight children. Five girls and three boys.”

  “Eight?” Lucy felt the fire in her cheeks. “Gracious! So many!”

  “And she acts as if each one was purely by accident.” The old lad
y sniffed, returning to her letter. “I told her, by now she ought to know what’s causing it, but she pretends not to hear and keeps making the same mistake. She always was a contrary girl.”

  “Always thought she knew what was best,” John interrupted gruffly. “Always mouthy, eh Mother? Always telling fibs.” He shot Lucy a dark, ominous look. “Always giving commands, trying to take charge. A woman is supposed to be yielding, obliging, and come when she’s summoned, right Mother?”

  Accustomed to this high-handed manner, his mother merely tut-tutted, not looking up from her letter. Lucy resumed her card game, keeping her expression bland.

  “But I don’t suppose my sister bosses her husband,” he added. “He wouldn’t stand for it. No sensible man would.”

  “Aye,” his mother agreed this time. “She met her match with him. Thankfully. I don’t know what we would have done with her otherwise.”

  “Women should know their place, stay where they’re put and where they’re needed,” John added, his voice low, carefully measured. “They should be grateful to a man for his patience and generosity, not use him for trickery or take his forgiveness for granted.”

  Lucy flipped another card and her shoulders stooped when she realized she was losing her hand. She needed the ace of hearts, or there was no hope. It had to be there, one of the cards as yet unturned, unreachable. If she played by the rules. A veteran of many lonely games of solitaire, she thought nothing of making her own rules when necessary. She slyly slid a fingertip under each turned card, until she found the one she sought. Biting her lip, she fumbled the excess cards in her hand, dropped and retrieved them again, this time with the elusive ace of hearts safely shuffled into their midst.

  “But my daughter Madolyn got her comeuppance,” Mistress Carver continued. “Her eldest daughter, Catherine, is twice as bad as she ever was, so I hear. Quite a handful. It does my heart good to know she finally understands what a trial it is to raise a troublesome daughter.”

  Lucy smiled distantly, concentrating on her game.

  “You have no nieces and nephews? No married sisters, dear?” Mistress Carver asked nonchalantly.

  “A brother. Not married.” Too caught up in her game, she’d answered the lady’s questions without thinking and now John sat up, his interest captured.

  “A brother? Where’s he then?”

  “I…don’t know.” It was true; she didn’t know where he was exactly. Lance might be in London. He might be anywhere. As the Earl of Swafford’s bodyguard, he was always traveling.

  “Why aren’t you with him then? Is your father still alive?”

  In her peripheral vision, she caught Mistress Carver gesturing at her son to stop asking questions.

  “If you were my sister,” he exclaimed, “you wouldn’t be living in sin with men old enough to be your father. Obviously he doesn’t care about you.”

  “Not true,” she replied heatedly. “He cares very much.” A few months ago she would never have said it aloud. In her family showing one’s feelings was not done and they certainly never spoke about them to others.

  “Then he must not know what you’ve been up to. When was the last time you saw this brother of yours?”

  “Enough, John,” his mother intervened, blotting her letter with a sound thump. “Lucy is not required to answer your inquisition.”

  “Why?” He stood, throwing his bulky shadow across the hearth. Vince whimpered, raising his head from Lucy’s knee. “She lives in my house. Why shouldn’t I ask her questions?” Leaning over, he snatched the ace of hearts out of her hand. “Besides, she cheats!”

  “I do not!”

  “You do! I just saw you with my own two eyes. Will you lie about that now too?”

  Lucy would gladly have gouged those blue eyes out with her fingernails. She gathered up the cards and shuffled them with dexterity, proving how many hours she’d spent doing it. After a pause, he let the disputed card flutter into her lap. “You wouldn’t cheat if I played with you.”

  “Wouldn’t I?”

  “Nothing gets by me.” He gestured to his eyes. “And these. I see everything”

  Hubris, she thought scornfully. Pride comes before a fall.

  Making a bored, weary face, she dealt her cards for another game of solitaire. “Unfortunate for whatsername…Alice Croft?” When she looked up, his sun-browned face was several shades darker, those supposedly all-seeing, all-knowing eyes narrowed beneath thick, black lashes.

  “Why should it be? She’s a pure, sweet, trustworthy girl. And faithful. If I play with her, I don’t have to worry, do I? Alice Croft doesn’t use men, doesn’t whore herself out–”

  “John!” his mother exclaimed.

  “And she doesn’t cheat,” he finished firmly.

  Lucy shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  “Good for you, then.”

  “Yes,” he shouted, finger thrust into his chest, “good for me!”

  “As I said, didn’t I?”

  After a quivering moment of silent rage, he dropped back in his chair and Vince trotted over to sit with him, panting.

  “As long as you don’t cheat, either,” Lucy murmured, smiling at her cards, “I’m sure she’ll be very happy. When you finally do decide to play with her and put aside your other games.”

  Victory. He petted his dog, sitting stiffly in his chair as if he might bolt out of it and strike her.

  “But you’re such an honest, pious fellow, now you’re reformed and so very righteous. I’m sure you don’t cheat either. Alice has no reason to suspect you play with anything but an honest hand, does she?”

  She pushed her luck, she knew it, but simply couldn’t stop herself.

  “There’s no truer man than my son,” Mistress Carver interrupted from her corner, only partially listening to their quarrel. She sealed her letter with a drip of wax. “Any woman who gets John for a husband will be lucky indeed. Like his father–a rarity, a good husband.” She sighed heavily. “It took Will Carver long enough to pin me down, but once he had me he never looked at another, nor did I.”

  Lucy smiled benignly at the old lady’s fondness for her departed husband. John looked at her as if to say “see?” But she knew he wasn’t faithful to his precious Alice. He certainly hadn’t been two months ago, had he? Probably wasn’t the first time he’d been distracted from his “pure, sweet, trustworthy” Alice either, or he would have married her by now.

  Solid, he’d called the poor girl. The thought still made Lucy chuckle, but she swallowed it quickly, ashamed. It was hardly Alice’s fault. The luckless girl wasn’t to know what he’d been up to in Norwich, when he thought no one would find out. Like all men, he got away with whatever he could. Looking the way he did, a wicked devil in the guise of an angel, John Carver made more mischief than most.

  “That reminds me, mother.” He stretched languidly in his chair. “I must go to Norwich market next Wednesday. Forgot to mention it.”

  His mother did not, apparently, wonder why thoughts of a trip to Norwich should flow naturally out of a conversation regarding faithfulness to Alice Croft.

  Lucy, however, felt her heart slow, her blood cool. He was going to Norwich again. To spread more wild oats at Mistress Comfort’s? Faithful indeed!

  “I won’t be back ’til late,” he said casually, one hand scratching his chest through the opened laces of his shirt.

  “Perhaps you should stay the night and come back in the morning, like you did last time,” his mother suggested. “I don’t like you traveling in the dark so far.”

  He lurched forward, catching the cards as they slipped from Lucy’s hands. “Yes. I suppose it would be best.”

  She snatched the cards out of his clutches. “Do you go to Norwich often?”

  “Often enough.”

  “For the market?”

  “For things I need and can’t get here.” Falling back again, he put his arms behind his head, stretching out his legs in a familiar pose. Smug. Watchful. It fl
ashed through her mind: “Take ’em off for me, wench.” Oh, he’d enjoyed himself, making her beg, making her say “please.”

  She tucked another loose lock of hair back under her cap. “Things for the farm?”

  “Sometimes.” He ran his tongue along his lower lip, as it curved in a thoughtful, distant smile. “There’s not much to be had around here. Sometimes a man has to go all the way to Norwich to get what he needs. Find what he’s looking for.”

  Clearly Alice didn’t advance him any favors then. Smart girl.

  Well, whatever he did whenever he went to Norwich, she knew he was not a regular at Mistress Comfort’s. Unless, of course, the proprietress had lied to be discreet. More than likely.

  Feeling sick now, she set down her cards. “I think I’ll go up to bed.”

  “Why not take Lucy to Norwich with you?” his mother said. “She might like a day out. She’s worked so hard.”

  There was a pause.

  “No, thank you,” she said. “I’d rather stay here.” She never wanted to go back there again, never wanted to be anywhere near Lord Winton’s house.

  Stooping to light a candle in the fire, she was aware of John’s gaze, raking over her with intense vigor. “Sure?” he asked silkily. “I’ll take you with me, if you promise to behave and do as I say.” He played the benevolent master now, deigning to grant her a day off, with conditions. He was also inequitably handsome in the burnished gold and bronze ripple of firelight.

  “No,” she said again.

  “You might change your mind by then and want to ride with me. I thought you enjoyed yourself, the last time we rode together.”

  Passing his chair, stepping over his untidy legs again, she whispered, “I wouldn’t go as far as the next village with you in that cart, unless I was laid out stiff as a board.” She raised her voice then and smiled sweetly. “Good night.” She took her candle up the stairs to bed.

  * * * *

  The next day he decreed Lucy would go with them to chapel in Sydney Dovedale. She balked, but he insisted.

  “You live under my roof, you’ll go to chapel like every other good soul in this village.”