In the Forest of the Night & The Barmaid and the Blacksmith

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  She looked at him in disbelief, until his words finally registered in her head. At last, she smiled at him, wondering why good fortune continued to shine on her common life.

  Fiona was so overcome by the enormity of Joshua’s announcement at the tavern, she could do little but grin at him happily the rest of the way home.

  In the cottage that night, her mind kept moving toward the picture of herself as this man’s wife. What would that mean, how would it feel, why did it suddenly make such a difference when they lived like man and wife already? And would she ever really have the respectability that was owed her as Joshua Kane’s wife? Suddenly it seemed that his mysterious past was more important than it had ever been to her.

  For months she’d known that Joshua had secrets. She had always been reluctant to ask about them, afraid that he would put her off and say nothing. If he put her off, then she’d know, she was not important enough to him to tell her these private things. If that happened, it would diminish their relationship in her mind. She’d been determined to wait him out, figuring Joshua would tell her about himself when he was ready. But she couldn’t wait any longer, not after the day’s startling events.

  “You look puzzled, Fi,” Joshua said as he climbed into bed. He watched his lovely bedmate stand before the bedroom mirror and comb out her long red curls. She was always an arousing picture, and especially now, when he had time to really study her, to take in the lovely form of her unclothed body, the small waist and full breasts, and fine wide hips, that might someday bear him children. Now, all he wanted was her lithe arms about his neck, and her affectionate kisses showering his face and neck and chest.

  She was such an eager lover. So rare, that quality in women.

  “Will you come here, lass?” he asked her, feeling the organ between his legs swelling just seeing her. It would be stiff in seconds.

  She turned around, a peculiar look on her face. “Will you tell me, sir, about all this, this bed?” She pointed to the carved mahogany piece with its canopy and its fine linens.

  “What are you asking?” he inquired.

  “We never speak of it. Why you a simple blacksmith have all this finery about you? Why you have crystal in a peasant’s larder? Why in addition to your blacksmith’s garb are there tailored suits in the back of your closet? Why do you speak a finer English… . ?” She could have gone on.

  It was enough to make his erection limp, but it was not at all unexpected. For a naturally curious woman, Fiona had never asked these things before. He found it a sign of good breeding. From where she got that, he had no idea; but he appreciated the way she never pried into his history.

  “Come to bed and I’ll tell you,” he said, opening the sheets for her.

  “No, you’re just aroused, my love. I can see your cock has risen. I want answers, not lovemaking, at least not now.”

  “And you’ll have them. Here. In bed.” He patted the sheets beside him. “Come now, it’s cold in this room, you’ll chill.”

  He was right, it was quite cool, the air bouncing off her bare skin gave her shivers. She climbed in bed next to him and let him warm her with the same lush surrounding arms that were a continual comfort to her whenever she needed that comfort. She felt blessed by that.

  He leaned in to kiss her on the mouth, and she graciously replied with an opened one of her own. It was a lovely feeling generated inside her, that could carry her into a physical ecstasy in mere moments, but she was still anxious for her answers. She pulled off his mouth, and put her hand over his lips. “No more kisses. You promised?” she reminded him sweetly.

  “We’ll make love first.”

  “Then I’ll only make love half-heartedly. I’ve waited long enough. Besides, your reluctance makes me think that either you have something terrible to hide, or that you don’t trust me to know who you really are. If I’m going to be your wife, I have a right to know either way.”

  He chuckled. “You are a smart one, plying me with such good reasons,” he noted, respectful of her intelligence.

  “So …” Her lovely eyes stared up at him, determined to get her way this time.

  “I come from a wealthy family, my love. Several brothers, an arrogant father. Five years ago I tangled with my father, and left. It’s quite simple, nothing sordid, I’m afraid. I suppose I’m like many men that war with their heritage, and frankly, I don’t want mine. I traveled for three years, made my own money, and then came to this county, safely away from my family who live far north of here, on the family estate. I became a blacksmith because I love the animals, I love the heat of the work and I love working hard with my hands.”

  Fiona knew that to be true, she could see him at the forge totally happy with his tasks. He never complained, he never suggested he wanted to do something different. Perhaps because he chose this. It was nothing he was born to do.

  “Does your family know where you are?” she asked.

  “They do. I exchanged letters with my youngest brother Galen two years ago, but we’ve not written since.”

  “And your mother?” she asked.

  “She died before I left home. I never would have left as long as she was alive. I loved her deeply, and when she was gone there was nothing to keep me at Kane Manor. There are just my father and my brothers and their eternal war, and I want nothing of it. That is the god’s honest truth, Fiona. I’m content to be a blacksmith, to be here with you, and live like this with you forever.” It was a sincere declaration and it was the most perfect thing he could say. “Of course, that is, unless you want this blasted heritage of mine?”

  She was curious, but not enthused by the idea. “I wouldn’t know how to be anyone but myself. I couldn’t imagine trying to be some great lady, fitting myself into polite society at some fancy estate. I’m a very common woman, Joshua Kane, and likely to remain so.”

  “Ah, but to me, my love, you’ll always be more a lady than the tittering old bitches that I grew up with. Other than my mother, of course. All mothers may not be saints, but mine was.”

  He believed that to be true; Fiona could see that in eyes, she thought might tear, they had become so soft.

  There was a remedy for sentiment, when his hand moved between her legs and felt the warmth he’d wanted earlier. Perhaps it was better to make a clean breast of things. She was right about needing to know. Apparently she was satisfied for the moment, considering the way she responded to his touch. Her body jumped alive, as she pulled herself tightly into his arms, as if she couldn’t get enough of him.

  He loved taking her nether mound in his hands, an ample handful, and her reply was always infused with eagerness. He liked feeling every inch of her body, never getting over the way a woman felt, all that softness was like some godly gift to the harder, firmer man.

  Fiona reached for his cock and stroked it so naturally, her hands might have made him shoot on the spot; but she was eager to have him between her legs, moving as he often moved inside her. Joshua was glad she loved his bed so much, he loved her in it with him.

  Fiona needed no more answers than what Joshua had given her. She knew in some small corner of her mind that he had not told her everything, but he had answered her suspicions. He’d given her the bare bones of his life in a clear cut form, and that was enough, at least for the moment. He’d tell her more in time, when she would ask him things she wanted to know about him. And indeed, she wanted to know everything about her intended husband, every piece of his childhood and every feeling that his heart had ever held. She realized opening this huge huge past that she knew so little of him, except the kind of man he was day to day. And yet there was a lifetime to learn of him, a whole lifetime.

  Fiona relaxed in his arms realizing this. Relishing every minute of this intimacy, she held his cock and guided that wonderful hard piece of masculine heat to the opening of her moist cunt. She found more pleasure from the act than she had ever known. This was a not an ordinary romance. This was not at all like she and Jerud. Such a man she had now, a man of pr
inciple, of determination, of fire … ..

  With her legs opened wide to receive him, with his body spirited and lively moving on top of her, with her own lusty fires igniting easily, she pressed her groin onto his invading cock.

  “Ah, my love, yesssss,” she was purring in his ear, though she doubted that he heard her. He was cumming, his body jerking hard, so hard it almost hurt inside. It was a powerful hurt, a hurt like being consumed by something far greater than she ever realized.

  As soon as Joshua was finished, his body about to collapse into hers, he pulled off and moved down, his mouth descending on the center of her cunt with lips intended to take her soaring. She cried loudly, bucked and tensed and jerked hard against his mouth, that with a skilled devotion, practiced love on her physical body, as brilliant as the love he practiced on her heart.

  Wedding Day

  There was a chill to the air, but it wasn’t cold. Fiona did her chores with the animals early, noting that it would be a good day to journey to the chapel where the local priest would bless their marriage. She was about to scurry inside the cottage. Joshua wanted to leave in an hour and she needed to get ready, dressed for him in the new dress he’d had made for her. She wondered if had this planned all along. Not the horrible scene in the town dry goods store, but the marriage, arranging to have the dress made. The timing was incredibly perfect.

  Just as she was headed back toward the kitchen door, she heard the sound of hoof beats, suddenly pounding in her ears. She turned abruptly to see three men come riding up the road and turn into the cottage yard.

  “The home of Joshua Kane?” one man looked to her as he inquired. He had a neatly trimmed black beard that stretched from ear to ear. She thought she knew him by his face, though she didn’t know where from. Perhaps he was once a patron at the tavern where she’d worked. People came and went quickly from that place; and the longer she was away from that part of her life, the more the names and faces of those men and women disappeared from her mind.

  “Yes, sir, I’ll fetch him” Fiona said. There was a strangely ominous quality about these three men. They wore riding clothes that reminded her of Mr. Dabenow. The silk at their necks was obvious. And the leather saddles on their animals suggested fine breeding, some upper crust of life. They were not common people like herself.

  “Joshua,” she called loudly, when she entered.

  “What is it girl?” he asked, hearing anxiousness in her voice.

  “Three men to see you,” she announced. She studied his face, but he gave nothing away. Following him into the yard, he was still noncommittal even when it was clear he recognized his visitors.

  “What are you doing here, Nigel?” the blacksmith spoke to the bearded man.

  “This nonsense is over brother. Father died two days ago, you’re the eldest, you have obligations. You can’t spend your life the selfish rogue, will you come home now, or not?”

  Joshua looked at the three men, his expression grim. With grief, or puzzlement? Fiona didn’t know. All she knew was that her heart was beating in her throat, and there was a burning in her stomach so strong she wanted to retch.

  “It will take a week before I can be there,” he told the men calmly.

  “Do we wait to bury him?” the man asked.

  “No. I buried him long ago,” Joshua answered. “Do what you have to do.”

  Fiona had never seen Joshua scowl so darkly.

  “I have your word, you are returning?” Nigel said.

  “You do,” Joshua replied.

  “Then be quick about it Joshua.” The man made one glance at Fiona, but said nothing. “A week is too long,” he added. The three men kicked up the yard into a whirlwind of dust, as the hoof beats echoed in a cadence to match Fiona’s heavily beating heart.

  Joshua turned to his intended once the men had disappeared.

  “You stand there like a statue, Fiona McTavish, get on with the day. We leave in less than a hour.” His face was so calm, it appeared there was nothing to worry about, though Fiona knew in her heart of hearts that his past had now ridden into their lives, and all the vows and all the words of tender devotion, and the claims to the simple life might now be ground into the dust that Joshua’s past had rudely kicked into her squinting eyes.

  She turned, and fled quickly into the cottage before Joshua had a change of heart.

  Chapter Eight

  The carriage with many of their belongings took them up the road at an easy pace, which should have calmed Joshua Kane’s young bride. Though it did not. Fiona was jittery as a kitten, her heart pounding wildly in her throat, her fingers twisting the brand new lace handkerchief Joshua bought her for wedding, days before.

  “If you don’t stop that, lass, you’ll rip it to shreds,” her husband claimed. His voice sounded stern, but he was smiling broadly.

  “It is no concern for you, my love, but it is to me, that I’m all of a sudden changing my whole life, not just being your wife, but now the wife of some landed gentlemen.”

  “Relax that worried brow of yours, you are as fine as any lady that I know.” He’d told her that a dozen times in the days since their marriage, when she would come crying to him that she couldn’t face a society that she knew so little about. He comforted her with loving arms, kisses to her furrowed brow and lips, and soothing talk to set her fears at ease.

  Fiona was barely pacified. Ah, those moments in his arms, when she felt his strength flow into her and believed that nothing could daunt her; but he could hardly keep her in his arms all day and night. When she was by herself keeping the cottage clean and warm food on his table, and especially packing things to take to her new home, her fears would rage like angry lions inside her. Her heart would skip beats, and her anxiousness would get the better of her. Perhaps it was too good to be true that she could have this fine lusty husband of hers without prices to pay. She’d been lifted from a peasant woman’s life, into this one she’d never dreamed of, given a warm and welcoming cottage, and easier days than she ever expected. She couldn’t imagine a life better. Now another change, this fine grand life of a landed gentlewoman, she couldn’t even fathom, having never been in contact with men and women of such great wealth.

  The tedious ride to Joshua’s family estate seemed endless, though the countryside on the way was beautiful. The air was crisp when they left the cottage early in the morning, though by noon time it was becoming warm, and that warmth just frazzled her more.

  There were endless green rolling hills, dotted with trees, and near the villages small cottages. Throughout this northern county there were large estates, which Fiona couldn’t even see from the road. She knew they were there, by the enormous stone entrances and gates that had the most forbidding look to them. She wondered why people would find a need to protect themselves with such ominous barriers. What made them think so grandly of themselves?

  Fiona McTavish had a proud side herself, given a bit of arrogance from her now dead father. He’d told her, even as he knew he was dying, “never let the world demean you, never let your spark die, never allow fate to claim you. You have a hand in your fate, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” It was difficult to know what her father meant when he told her this, because to that point, her life was untested. Now, it was the time to remember such things and recall the spirit in which her father gave her this advice. He’d given her little, but at least that much. And now, she had the distinct feeling, that she would have to cling to these words for strength, as her life took on this new challenge.

  In mid-afternoon, as Fiona was sleepily resting her head against her husband’s shoulder, she was yanked from her nap, as Joshua turned the horses onto another road. Between two stone pillars, like the others she’d seen on the trip, they made their way beyond them, up a long drive that disappeared some distance beyond into a thick growth of trees.

  “We’re here?” she asked, sleepily.

  “Close,” he replied. His expression was frightfully grim, as it often had been in the last few d
ays when they’d discussed his family estate. She often wondered just why he’d decided to return to this place, if he despised it so. But she hadn’t asked him. There remained a little fear that this change might threaten their relationship. He vowed it would not, and was annoyed that she voiced her fears; so she quit, intending to do nothing to further upset him.

  As the long road wound into the trees, Fiona was able to catch her first glimpses of Joshua’s family home. Fleeting though they were, she could readily see that indeed, her husband came from great landed wealth; she’d never seen such a house, so many windows, and doors, such a wide facade … a steep gabled roof, chimneys and porches, it was the finest home she’d ever seen. But only when they finally broke through the trees and into an open space did the immensity of the place hit her squarely.

  “You are Lord of all this!” she exclaimed.

  “Lord, I am not, ma’am,” he said sternly.

  “But this is your family home?”

  “It is.”

  “My word, it takes my breath away. We’ll live here?”

  “We will.”

  “I never, ever imagined this, Joshua.” She was in tears, overcome not with happiness, but the grandest fear she’d ever had. It was no longer nervous jitters, she was trembling almost violently, so much so, that Joshua stopped the carriage straight-away, and put his arm about her.

  “The day is warm, lass, and you’re so cold.”

  “I don’t belong here Joshua. As a servant maybe, but …”

  “Stop this foolishness,” he snapped at her, shaking her just a little. “You are my wife, you’ll remain at my side, and you’ll stop this rattling on. You are far too strong a woman to let this miserable old house frighten you.”

  Fiona snuffed.

  “Wipe your eyes,” he said. Taking her handkerchief from her hands he dabbed them for her. He suddenly smiled. “You know your nose gets red when you cry?”

  “Oh, it does, I must look frightful.”

  His expression soured. “I promise you, all these fears of yours are groundless. Now put on a smile. You don’t even have to say a word, just nod and give them that pleasant grin of yours. They’re all going to fall in love with you because you’re the most beautiful woman in this county. Believe me, I know. It’s why I had to leave here, to find you. There was no one here that could come close to your beauty, or your fire. And besides, they’ll love you because you’re my wife, and no one would cross me on anything so dear.”