The Changeling Bride

by Lisa Cach

  “Ooh, you’ve destroyed it,” she said.

  “Apparently so.”

  She reached her hand out over the mushrooms, then brought it back inside the ring and looked at him. He noticed the squished loaf of bread and the jug, and picked up the book, reading the title and then opening it to the dog-eared page in the middle. After a moment he looked up at her.

  “You came out here to commune with fairies?”

  She shrugged and looked down at her hands.

  She had not been running away, was all he could think. She had not been trying to find an ex-lover. She had not been running from him. She had gone to the woods to talk to fairies, had been thrown from her horse and gotten lost, that was all.

  He combed his fingers into her hair, cupping her head in his hands and turning her face up to his. “You silly, silly wench.” He kissed her on the forehead, then moved his hands down to her shoulders and gave her a hard shake. “You have no idea of the fright you gave me. You should not ride out alone, even in the daylight, and most especially not without telling anyone where you have gone.”

  “I think I learned my lesson well enough.”

  He pulled her to her feet, then pushed aside her cloak. Those were his clothes she was wearing, smeared with dirt and marked with small spots of blood around the tears in the cloth.

  “I didn’t want to ride astride in a skirt,” she explained sheepishly.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Bruised, maybe. And scratched. That’s all.”

  He heard the weary defeat in her voice and decided she had spoken the truth when she said she had learned her lesson well enough. There was no point in his belaboring the point. It could not have been pleasant to spend the night alone out here. He wanted to shake her, he wanted to hold her, but above all he did not want to upset her further. She was calm and coherent and unharmed, and for the moment that was enough.

  Elle mounted Henry’s horse at his insistence, as he took the saddleless Belle. She watched him, looking for more anger than the little he had shown. All she could see was relief and concern, and he had not even bothered to question her on why she had wanted to talk to the fairies. In fact, he was ignoring the fairy issue completely. It was quite peculiar.

  This night she had learned that the fairies would not willingly bring her home. She would have to accept that, for now.

  Later, she would find a way to force them to give her what she wanted.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Elle surveyed the conglomeration of animal parts, food items, and noxious potions that she had accumulated on the table in her dressing room. She had sheep intestines, she had bits of leather, she had vinegar and oil, lard, assorted herbs, a lemon, scraps of cloth, metal rings, flour, bread, a needle and thread, a half-empty bottle of what might or might not be gin, and several dusty bottles of unknown, oily substances.

  She had asked Marianne to arrange to have the worktable brought in here, and the pot of water put over the fire. It had also required Marianne’s help to lay her hands upon the majority of the items. Elle had been a coward and had the maid go ask the gardener for the lemon: She did not feel up to the stress of dealing with the crotchety man herself.

  “Will there be anything else you will be needing?” Marianne asked, her brows beetling in perplexity. Elle knew she was having a hard time making heads or tails of her mistress’s behavior. Henry had told the staff that she’d been lost in the woods overnight and left it at that. His mask of composure back in place, no one had dared to ask the dozens of questions that begged an answer. Marianne, Elle was sure, was fairly bursting with curiosity.

  “No, I think this should do it. I’ll call for you if I think of something else. You’ve done a wonderful job.” Elle gently steered the woman towards the door of her dressing room.

  “Are you sure you do not need any help?”

  “Quite sure. I need to do this alone.”

  Marianne started to walk through the bedroom, then stopped abruptly, turning around for one last try. “You know I am good with my hands, milady. I like to help, truly I do, and if it is something private you are doing—well, I can keep quiet. A lady’s maid knows how to hold her tongue.”

  Elle seriously doubted the veracity of that last statement. Marianne liked nothing better than to hear the sound of her own voice. She hadn’t told Marianne what she wanted with her odd assortment of items and had no intention of doing so.

  “I know you can be trusted, Marianne. You know what you could do, that would be a big help, though?”

  “What, milady?” She was all eagerness to be involved.

  “Take my dresses and let out the bodice seams. I know it’s a big job and may take quite a bit of time. Do you think you can handle it?”

  “You want them made bigger?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  A slow smile spread across Marianne’s face, puzzling Elle. She’d never known a woman so glad to be given a tiresome task.

  “I shall start at once, milady!” Marianne headed back to the dressing room and opened several drawers in the clothespress, taking out dresses and draping them over her left arm. “I will leave you now, and let you get on with your, ah, business.” With a radiant smile, she trotted from the room, her arms weighed down by the heavy gowns.

  Elle followed her through the bedroom, then locked the door behind her. What was that all about? She returned to the dressing room, patting her thigh and calling to Tatiana as she went. “Come, Tatia. Come help me think.”

  The dog rose from her place by the fire, picking up the bone she had been ignoring and carrying it with her to the other room. She dropped it with a clatter on the wood floor of the dressing room and went to lift her nose to the table, sniffing at the new and intriguing smells.

  “What I wouldn’t give to be in your paws,” Elle said, standing beside her and rubbing the back of a dog ear with her fingers. “You haven’t a worry in the world, when it comes to the opposite sex. No naughty he-dog is going to fill you with puppies, no matter how he tries, is he?”

  Elle squatted down and let the Samoyed lick her cheek, then pressed her forehead against the dog’s, staring into the dark brown eyes. “You don’t know how lucky you are, dearest. Truly, you don’t.”

  She stood back up, put her hands on her hips, and surveyed the items before her. It didn’t look promising. In fact, it looked downright unhygienic. Nonetheless, there had been only one thought that had filled her mind during the ride back to the house and the long bath that followed: birth control.

  There might be methods currently available. She didn’t know. Whatever they were, though, she had no idea how to get her hands on them, and she was highly doubtful that they would prove either safe or effective.

  No, there was only one way to approach the matter. She must develop a method of her own, utilizing every bit of medical knowledge a health-conscious woman of the ’90s had gleaned from her gynecologist, the television, contraceptive boxes at the drugstore, and that holiest of sources for sexual information, Cosmopolitan magazine.

  She didn’t know how long it would be before she could find a way back home. In the meantime, she needed protection.

  She poked a fingertip at the length of clean sheep’s intestine, grimacing at the slimy texture. Weren’t some condoms made of animal membranes? They made sausage casings out of the stuff, so there must be a way of transforming the glistening mass into a sanitary condom.

  Boiling sounded like a good start.

  She cut the gut into foot-long pieces, then dumped the lot into the pot over the fire. The water was only steaming. She’d let it get to a rolling boil, then wait a good thirty minutes before removing her specimens. That ought to be long enough to wipe out any bacteria still hanging around.

  She returned to the table, wiping her hands on the apron tied round her waist, and it suddenly dawned on her why Marianne had smiled so mysteriously. “Tatiana!” The dog lifted her head from her paws, brown eyes attentive. “She thinks I’m pregnant! Or that I inten
d to be soon, one or the other, silly wench.”

  Elle snorted at the thought, and picked up a scrap of leather and a metal ring a couple inches in diameter. Could she make a diaphragm out of these? She wondered if the metal would rust, and if the porous leather would become a breeding ground for bacteria. She discarded the items. She wouldn’t risk it.

  She picked up the lemon, considering. It was smaller than those she was familiar with, but it might work. She took a knife and cut it in half, then scooped out the insides with a small spoon, saving the pulp in a bowl. She peeled all the section skins out of the rind, until she had a clean little lemon rind bowl in her hand. Would it work as a sort of cervical cap? She’d need some sort of jelly or paste to seal it in place and act as a spermicide. Perhaps something in the assorted bottles might work.

  She looked again at the lemon pulp in the bowl. Dim memories of science classes and lectures on pH levels came to mind. Lemon juice might be sufficiently acidic to act as a spermicide.

  She began mixing oil with lemon, then sprinkled in some flour when the lemon and oil kept separating. She put a blob of lard in a new bowl and mashed both vinegar and lemon into it.

  A microscope would have been a big help. And a semen sample, to test against her potions. She gave Tatiana a crooked smile. “Do you think he’d be willing to donate for the cause of science?”

  She mashed the lard blob with a bit more viciousness at the thought of Henry and poured in a dollop of the gin. When it still didn’t blend, she sprinkled in flour until it started to hold together. The resulting mess made her wrinkle her face in disgust. “There is no way on God’s green earth that I’m putting this anywhere near my private parts.”

  Thinking of Henry had darkened her mood. She couldn’t blame him for anything that had happened: She had shamefully vivid recollections of exactly how she herself had instigated the sexual incident. While she in no way blamed him, the thought of facing him across a mattress made her stomach flutter in embarrassment. He would be expecting the eager nymph of the woods, and that was not who she was.

  She brought the bowl up to her nose and sniffed. Her eyes watered. She put it on the floor and watched Tatiana shy away from the strong smell.

  The pot of intestines over the fire was making happy bubbling sounds, and she went to check it. She used a long fork to fish out an intestine and got a quick glance at it before it slithered off the prongs and back into the water, making a little splash. The white shapes roiled in the water, looking for all the world like a mass of squirming eels.

  Her feelings about yesterday were still as confused as that tangle in the pot. Never in her life had she been so uninhibited. It had been wonderful in the moment, she could not deny that, but when she had come back to herself, she had been deeply embarrassed. She had often fantasized about losing her self-consciousness during sex and acting out wild and crazy scenarios, and someday she wanted to find a man she could trust deeply enough to show that side of herself.

  What she had never wanted was to achieve that freedom through alcohol or, unbelievable thought, fairy dust sprinkled on her face. That had been her cavorting in the ferns, yes, but only half of her. She didn’t want that freedom unless the relationship had earned it, and she could take part with her whole self. She didn’t know how she was going to convince Henry he needed to go slowly with her.

  She went back to the table and rested her fists on her hips, frowning at her ingredients. She picked up the piece of linen, rubbing it between her fingers. She could make it waterproof with the lard or the oil, and sew it into a sheath. Would Henry agree to wear it? Considering the protests twentieth-century males were known to put up against a bit of transparent latex, it seemed unlikely. Nor could she say she’d find it particularly comfortable on her end of things.

  She picked up the lemon rind again, spinning it on top of one finger, thinking. There had to be some simple, effective means of birth control, didn’t there? Well, besides for abstinence. Her mind touched upon the possibility that all this came too late, that she might already be pregnant, then skittered away from the thought.

  There was no use scaring herself, when the odds were on her side. It was only while submerged in the calming waters of her bath that she had been able to recall an encouraging statistic. With one instance of unprotected sex, she had an eighty-five percent chance of not getting pregnant. She clung to that statistic, praying it was true, and that luck was on her side.

  There was no point in worrying herself sick about something she could do nothing about. What she could do, and what this lemon rind might help her do, was to make sure she didn’t have to spend sleepless nights thinking about the possibility.

  She put the rind down, and picked up the bread, absently squishing the soft center between her fingers. Her last period had been how long ago? It was hard to remember. Time seemed distorted by all that had happened, and heaven only knew what sort of effect a two-hundred-year time-zone change had on a body.

  The best she could figure, her period was due in about another week, which brought up a whole other issue: What did women in the eighteenth century use? History courses never covered the interesting bits of information, the types of things she would have remembered.

  She looked at the bread in her fingers, then pulled a fresh piece from the loaf and wadded it loosely into the lemon rind. She poured vinegar into the cup, softening the bread. Would that work, to seal it in place? She stuck her finger into the bread and moved it, and watched the bread disintegrate.

  She dropped the rind to the table in exasperation and ran her fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp. Food items were not proving helpful, and the more she thought about them, the more nauseated she became.

  She went back to the pot and used a rag to lift it off the hook and set in on the hearth. With her fork she poked and prodded at the pieces of intestine, and managed to wind them around it and pull several of the fragments from the water. She let them hang and drip for a minute, like overlarge spaghetti noodles, then gingerly touched one. Boiling had toughened it. It was no longer as supple and elastic as it had been before its trial by water. Not nearly as slimy, either, but that was of no particular help.

  Elle sighed. It would probably rip now, the way sausage skins easily tore after cooking. She shouldn’t have boiled them. They gave a wet little squish as they slithered off the fork and landed in a pile on the hearth, where they sat, steaming malevolently at her.

  She dropped down into the chair to one side of the fire to slouch and think. The miserable stays gave her a poke under the arm. She had once thought control-top pantyhose were the worst that could be inflicted upon a female in the name of fashion, but oh, how wrong she had been.

  Tatiana sauntered over to the cooling entrails and sniffed uncertainly.

  The attempt to make a condom had failed, the diaphragm was a no-go, lemon juice might prove an effective spermicide, but she had no means to keep it in place, and while a cervical cap was a possibility, she did not know how to devise a jelly. Outside help was the one thing she was determined to avoid. Henry himself had explained that the primary purpose of a countess was to provide little earls. At this point in their marriage, she assumed it would be scandalous if it were known she were trying to prevent such an occurrence.

  She crossed her legs and jiggled one foot in the air, her shoe hanging off her toes. That left abstinence, the rhythm method, and withdrawal. Abstinence had already failed. She could hardly hope to put Henry off now that she had been the one to instigate sex, and she couldn’t even trust that she wouldn’t do it again, no matter how badly pregnancy scared her and how unwilling she was to bring sex into a week-old relationship she had no intention of continuing if she could find a way home.

  The rhythm method could be employed, but the size of devout Catholic families attested to its high-failure rate. It might help her odds, though.

  And then there was withdrawal. Again, imperfect.

  The shoe fell off her toes and hit the floor with a loud t
hunk. Tatiana barked in surprise, searching the room for intruders.

  Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. She dropped her head back onto the wooden top of the chair and stared at the ceiling. Her stockinged foot rolled the discarded shoe back and forth under her sole. And she had to worry about her period, too. That crude phrase “on the rag” may have had literal beginnings.

  Elle’s nostrils flared and her mouth turned down at the edges in repugnance. It was too miserable to contemplate the chafing and messiness that such a means would present.

  A piece of advice on the topic from a travel book suddenly came to mind, and she sat up straight, her eyes opening wide at the possibilities it presented. She jerked her head over her shoulder, staring at the copper tub that sat empty and waiting for her next bath, the rack over its middle holding soap and a sea sponge.

  Her roommate in college, Sarah, had been preparing for a summer traveling in Europe. One of her travel books had a section called “Advice for Women.”

  “My god, listen to this!” Sarah had squealed from her bed, where she was lying on her stomach reading. “They suggest using a sea sponge instead of tampons. They say you can rinse it in a sink and reuse it. I’m so sure! A sea sponge? I don’t think so.”

  Elle didn’t bother to put her shoe back on. She stood and hobbled over to the tub, picking up the sponge and turning it over and over in her hands. Cut into the right size pieces and soaked in lemon juice . . . it could be a contraceptive sponge. Maybe not one hundred percent effective alone, but if she charted her cycle and avoided sex for a few days around ovulation . . . it might work. It really might.

  Relief flooded through her, making her knees weak. She sat on the edge of the tub, looking at the sponge in her hands. She had done it. She had the means to protect herself from pregnancy. If she truly wished to sleep with Henry, with proper planning, she could.

  “What’s that smell?” Henry asked from behind her. “Vinegar?”

  The sponge flew into the air and Elle jumped, almost falling off the edge of the tub. “God, you scared me half to death! What are you doing in here? How’d you get in?” She stood up and smoothed down her skirt, then tucked stray wisps of hair behind her ears.