He slowed some, in his rapid sketching, and lifted his eyes, but did not look entirely at her. “She’d chosen him in her insecurity. But Michael – who couldn’t attend due to a collapse in his wife’s health at the time – said he was a friend of his, who was all right. So I gave her away even as I shriveled inside, and gave her a crash course in what to do on her wedding night as the poor dear didn’t know. She told me as much literally just before the carriage sendoff.”
He dropped his pencil. “I guess Mother never really imagined any of us would grow up. We were… very ill prepared. So. I lingered long enough to see Missy settled comfortably into her new life as a housewife. The man seemed to pay his dogs more affection than her, in my mind. But I saw no insurmountable issues beyond that, and I left. Went to the RoseMeadow, there to dedicate myself to the holy knighthood and the service of the temple.”
“You were a knight?”
“I was.” He lifted slightly from his box a silver button encrusted with the seal of the Kingdom of Heaven – a leaping stag, encircled in swirls of kingly purple. “Of course, I’m not now.” His eyes were sad. “To be imprisoned for such a crime is, of course, to be stripped of your title and cast off with disgrace.”
He swallowed to hide how this affected him, and calmly resumed. “In RoseMeadow I received the letter that my mother had died. There I mourned, and I healed. I met Glenda, the woman I hoped to marry, before a richer suitor practically bought and paid for her. The poor dear, however affectionate, could not make up her own mind. So she let her father choose.
“I found soul salve and freedom riding in the fields. I slept beneath the stars, read almost all that the library had to offer, picked lavender to send to Missy, and just... relearned to breathe again. I’d searched all the wide world for space to breathe, when it was always available to me.”
A boy who sent his sister flowers.
Sophia’s coffee had gone cold, untouched. “Is this an elaborate deception to make me fall in love with you?” she said, without thought. Blast her heedless self.
A sadness shadowed him. “You haven’t heard the end of my story yet.”
Chapter 4
She realized that she needed the chamber pot. In all this talking, she’d forgotten to dread having to use it. The only chamber pot was the one hidden behind that very thin curtain, because men didn’t worry about this sort of thing. They dropped all and went wherever they happened to be.
The other prisoner was sleeping.
And her prisoner was asking her questions now, taking a break from his tale. Perhaps putting off the end. He asked her all of the little details, her favorite place, pastime, food. It was far less interesting than hearing of him.
She was telling him a story about the time her niece Claire and nephew Colton had decided it would be a good idea to throw a dead frog into the cake batter their mother was mixing while her back was turned.
“Sarah pretended to resume baking, oblivious to the frog – though she actually began a new cake. Still, they didn’t know that. So imagine their horror at dinner when she wouldn’t let them leave until they finished all of their cake.”
He was laughing hard – but she didn’t dare allow herself to join him. She pressed her knees firmly together.
“I have a funny feeling I would be that sort of parent,” he chuckled.
She didn’t want to do anything to swipe that lighthearted look from his face. But by now she was beginning to squirm. Finally, she decided to cut him off. “You’ll excuse me?” she whispered.
He nodded, though staring at her curiously. She went to the curtain. She could take Rusty at his word and send the bird after him.
But... If he came down, he’d linger. And she didn’t want to waste any time she could spend with the prisoner and his tales. So she stepped behind the curtain. She turned partially to see if David was watching.
He wasn’t, his back was turned, and he was sketching away at his book again.
She didn’t understand the feeling she felt. Not disappointment, surely, but curiosity perhaps, at why he at least wasn’t curious.
Perhaps disgusted at her lack of mystery was more likely. She wished she’d called Rusty. She took care of things and returned to him. “Sorry,” she said.
He said, “For what nobody can help?” and tweaked a smirk.
She stared at the miniscule slat window of his cell, which he, apparently, had no inclination to close. Clouds had begun to blur the sapphire sky, clouds that no doubt carried snow. “All my life I’ve been tormented over what I can’t help.”
“Like what?”
“Like being a woman, for starters.”
His reaction to the remark was strange, perhaps like irritation. “Being a woman isn’t a weakness or a disease, it is something to be cherished and don’t let any lout tell you otherwise. To be perhaps weaker physically doesn’t mean anything for your wit or your heart, if history doesn’t tell that tale.”
My. Not a little adamant.
But she could imagine that his frail and insecure sister might have built up such a strong care and defense for womankind.
It might even explain a certain murder.
The doors upstairs creaked open. Boot steps sounded on the stony stairs.
“I suppose it’s already midnight.” She glanced at her pocket watch in astonishment, and undeniably, disappointment. “My watch must be up.”
She suddenly felt a hand on her trouser leg, an imploring hand. His voice was a ragged whisper, not the strong voice she had heard spin stories half the night. “Please don’t leave.” It was the first true sliver she’d seen of a man destined to die, desperate for some consolation on his last Christmas. As Rusty appeared at the bottom of the stairs, he released her.
Rusty’s eyes were tired, but dancing, like they always did when he was up to something. “Sophie,” he greeted, almost expectantly.
“Rusty,” she greeted, no idea what he should be looking mischievous about. “I’ll take your watch.”
He frowned. That was obviously not the greeting he expected.
She picked up her long-forgotten book, and flipped absently through its pages. What was she doing? Loitering about a convicted criminal that she’d not know after tonight? “It’s an interesting tale. I’d like to finish.”
He crossed his arms, glaring. “You didn’t open my gift, did you?” he huffed, thoroughly indignant.
Oh!
“I’d absolutely forgotten it,” she realized, looking at the still-brown-paper-wrapped package poking out of her basket. “I’ll get around to it.”
He rolled his eyes, but playfully. “You don’t really want to stay down here?”
“I shouldn’t mind. Pepper makes good company. And your basket was thoughtful, by the way.”
His air went from playful to intent. Serious. “You know... I had hoped tonight would be different.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He went slightly sheepish. “I... I wish I’d been the one to catch you under the mistletoe.”
Blast, not this again. “Well you were too slow. Goodnight, Rusty.”
“I mean it, Sophia. I’m not playing.”
“You always say that when you’re playing. Go to bed, Rusty. You’ve had too much of Cook’s eggnog. Booze-nog, rather.”
“Sophia—”
“Goodnight!” She plopped onto her stool and opened the pages of her book.
He rolled his eyes again, and made for the steps. But halfway up, he turned. “Open the present, you stubborn woman.”
She made no response, so he closed the door behind him.
Oh, maybe. Maybe one day she could make a future with Rusty.
But today, she couldn’t see that. Really, all she could think of much right now was a man named David, a man in a cell. “You must marvel at my rudeness,” she whispered to him. “I find the quickest way to snuff a fire is to give it no room to breathe.”
“Do you not care for that sort of man?”
The question sta
rtled her back to the present. “W-what sort?”
“His sort.”
The silence lingered.
“I don’t follow?” she said simply.
He continued to stare at her, fervently. “The protective and… stern sort.”
“Oh, Rusty is far from stern!”
“But he is protective. Sometimes, to a point of tough love. Am I wrong? He’s never tried to spank you in order to protect you?”
Her heart jumped a beat. “No!”
“Never threatened to?”
She couldn’t say. Rusty did get decently harsh at times. She mostly discounted his warnings. “No. He knows how I feel about that sort of thing.”
“How?”
How? Well. It was certainly something that occupied her thoughts. She’d been known to stare at the word spank in the dictionary, unable to determine why. Unable to burn away the imagination of Shaz treating his girlfriend that way.
She couldn’t formulate an answer.
“So it’s something you’ve talked with him about, then?”
“Why do you want to know so badly?” she asked, suddenly wondering what other hobbies this bounty-hunting murderer might have.
“I only wondered how you felt about that sort of thing. Your captain and Rusty both are Brisken men. I can tell. My father was Brisken. I spent my early years in Brisken. And up there in the cold wild, we tend to handle relationships… differently. Not a bad different. Just a different sort of different. It works out well for us. Our women are no less strong, our men no less gentlemen.”
Her throat was dry, and she stood as though paralyzed.
He shrugged. “A woman can be strong and precious, and still submit to a man’s exertion of strength. In fact… I think it takes an extra dosage of strength, in a sense. Strength enough to allow herself to lose control to another human being.”
“Are you saying you…”
He hurried on. “We don’t have to talk about it. It won’t matter after tonight anyway.” He smiled halfheartedly, weakly. “Will you open the gift?”
“Eventually.”
“I’ll bet it includes a long and soul-baring letter in which he professes his undying love for you.”
She snorted a nervous laugh. “I don’t love him. He doesn’t love me either. It’s just that our families love the idea of us loving one another, and he’d love to make our families proud.”
She wrung her hands, unable to entirely conceal her anxiousness. “His father could convince him to move the moon. But I don’t want to marry him any more than I think he really wants to marry me.”
He searched her face, as though he wanted to be absolutely sure she meant it. Then he went distant. “On the subject of writing... do you suppose they’d let me write my sister?”
If they, by any slim fray of chance, granted his wish for a horseback ride, they absolutely wouldn’t grant his request for a letter.
But she resolved in that moment that he would get one anyway, independent of final requests.
“They are sticklers for one final wish. But I’ll write her myself, if you like. Pepper will deliver it.”
Chapter 5
She pried some parchment, a quill, and ink, from the basket she’d brought in case she felt like copying burglary reports – another dreary task Shazrad had thought to assign her. “What will you say?”
“What do you suppose she would like to hear?” he asked, leaning against the bars and gazing at the page absently. His tone, for the first time, was very broken, and very subdued. “What would you like to hear, from your brother about to die?”
She gripped the pen a little tighter. What would you want to hear? What could you stand to hear? When your brother had killed your husband, and you perhaps in some way felt responsible for causing him to kill, because you were too defenseless to do anything about it? “Well, after your father and all it has affected her... I might tell her it wasn’t her fault.”
He thought on it. “How about... ‘I forgive you?’ ”
She searched his face.
“She’ll never believe it wasn’t her fault. I can’t change what she’s come to see for truth. But I can beg her to move past it.”
He took a deep breath.
“Missy, I love you. I love you more than anything. And I forgive you. I want you to know that you are forgiven, and I want you to know it deeply. I never have and never could hold any of our misfortunes against you. Life and pain are inseparably entwined. All we can control is how we react to it. We’ve both made mistakes in how we react to the pains of life. But that is where forgiveness comes in. I die trusting that I have it. I want you to live the rest of your life knowing that you have it – or else I will feel I have died in vain. You know I gave my life to protecting you. It’s because you’re worth it.”
Sophia bit back tears as her hand began to tremble.
“You are and have always been worth loving. It is your husband’s fault that he never saw it. It is the world’s loss for not seeing it. You are worth it, Missy Gates. And your brother loves you dearly. Please, live a good life on behalf of me. Again, I love you. Goodbye Miss.”
He seemed about to try to say more, but could not form the words. He swallowed abruptly. “That is all. Thank you, Sophie.”
She could say nothing, as she watched the ink dry through a blurred gaze.
She rolled the page, and tied it to Pepper’s leg, whispering the name of the town to him.
She stood upon a chair, and lifted him to the slat window, opened it to the cold, and let him go.
The best of airmail birds knew every town in the acres, and Pepper was one such bird. Away to RamblingRose he flew.
“Leave it open a moment?” David asked.
“But it’s freezing!” And his window was already open, making an excessive cross breeze.
“To feel any kind of open air is better than none at all.”
She could fathom that. She left the window open, and stared into the sapphire and grey night. Flakes of crystal snow were beginning to drop from the gathering grey, mingling with moonlight.
David savored it in silence, and so did she. She supposed she hadn’t thought of what a gift it was, that at any moment she might step out into that wide-open world, while there were some in the world who could not. At any moment she could run into the night and extend her hands to the sky and feel alive.
They left the window open until the prisoner in the cell near David woke with a loud, unintelligible grumbling that startled them both.
She shut it quickly, and they both released stifled snickers, as the prisoner went immediately back to sleep.
She stepped down from the chair, and came back to him, lifting the tin of desserts from her basket. “You can have these,” she said, passing it to him. She lived for chocolate covered strawberries, and they were such a scarcity this time of year, but she wanted David to have them.
“We can split them,” said he, and so they did. “I’m eager to see what your lover man has left you.”
She blushed and threw a coy glare in his direction.
Finally, she reached over for the package, and removed the brown paper. She almost gasped. It was a silver necklace with a sapphire star charm, dangling from an expensive bottle of lavender perfume. Encircling was a letter.
She read it aloud. “Sophie, I love you. You know I’ve always loved you. When I say it, I mean it. I am ready to take the next step. If you feel the same way, I’d like to stop in on your mother as soon as possible and tell her of my... I’m hoping our... intentions.”
She lowered the page. Her heart was thundering. “Great Stag I never thought things would make it this far. We don’t love each other that way, and I won’t be married for my family’s sake. Mum would die of happiness. They want me out of the active knighthood of course, and they’ve also always had expectations for us.”
She flopped onto the stool. “I wish I could just be content with him. But when I imagine all of life… all of it at his side, good, and bad, a
nd ugly… if I’m honest… I can’t.” She crumpled the page in hand and tried to regain her breathing. “If part of me still fears that someone better might come along… should I really waste my time? I don’t love him. I don’t think he loves me.”
“On your part, I think you have it right. You love him, but not with a wifely love. There are different kinds, you know. But for his part, I think there’s more than duty to your families. I saw that boy for five minutes. He loves you. Do try to move forward with respect to those feelings.”
How was this kindly man not taken?
Though of course, she still had to hear his tale’s ending. Why did she wish to put that off?
She opened her mouth to ask him to continue, and before she knew it, was putting it off again. “Are you truly going to ask a horseback ride?”
“That’s what I hope for, yes. The freest I have ever been was on horseback. Those quiet months riding the fields of RoseMeadow were some of my finest.”
She blurted her question as a series of fragmented sentences, before she could halt herself. “But if you’ve... never had a woman... it’s just... most men do ask...” She swallowed. Most men asked to have their needs met, one last time.
“Perhaps women are overrated,” he said, slumping against the bars.
She could feel her eyebrow raising, as she released a surprised chortle. “Well, sir, perhaps it is time for me to leave with my overrated self!”
“I mean in that context. I said I’d never taken a lover, not that I’d never been with a woman.”
“Oh.” Of course, it had been silly to assume he might be as innocent as her in that respect.
But there was nothing chiding in his voice as he went on. He explained quickly, enough to kindly sate her curiosity, but not provoke the imagination.
“‘Love’ befell me twice before the death of Swift. First, was with his wife. I am too ashamed to say anything of it save that she was the seducer – I know that hardly lessens my guilt, but I must say it – and I was not the first of his companions to fall prey.” He swallowed. “He learned of it. Blamed it on her madness. Forgave me. I would have laid my life down for him after that.
The Lady Knight And The Dungeon (Blushing Books 12 Days of Christmas 10) Page 3
