He lifted her skirt. She tried not to gasp for the feeling of sudden exposure.
“Are you comfortable?” he whispered.
“Of course not,” she half laughed, half cried. “Hurry up, David Gates, before I lose my nerve.”
But he held back another moment. And then, she felt his fingers tug beneath the waistband of her underthings.
She did gasp then, as she’d never known such an intimate touch, but also for the sudden chilling awareness of exposure as he slipped her underthings away, down her bottom, down to her knees.
She was bare. Bare as she’d never been in a man’s presence. She began trembling. Her bottom was still sore from her earlier run-in with Rusty. What was she thinking? “David…”
“Do you still want to go on?” he asked.
She couldn’t answer him. Of course she did. Of course she didn’t. “David. Gates. Just. Do it!”
And he did. His hand came down in a swift stinging motion, and she cringed, and released a whimper. It was actually happening. This stranger that she had come to adore all in a night had her pinned half-nude across his lap, and he was spanking her.
And here she was, willfully choosing it.
She kept her whimpers stifled, as she wasn’t sure the guards outside had left their post upon their marriage. But she wanted to scream, as the blows became increasingly hot and painful, and the thrilling awareness of how intimately close they were settled deeper into her mind.
It took a minute for her to become aware that he had stopped.
The pain still sang about her for a moment, along with her whimpers. But both at last subsided.
Still, he left her lingering a moment there.
And then suddenly she felt his hand upon her bottom in a comforting caress. That was more startling than the sharp blows, and her whole body tensed beneath him. “David…” she whispered, her voice strained with tears. “If you don’t take me into your arms…”
“No,” he said simply, but still stroking her bottom gently, tenderly. “Don’t press me if you don’t want to be spanked again.”
Not at all subdued, she nonetheless relaxed beneath his touch and allowed herself to savor the moment. She could do this all night if he wanted.
She slowly lifted herself away from his lap, stood, and began to kiss him, very careful that her skirt did not fall back into place and hide anything he had uncovered. She stepped back a moment, giving him a chance to look, if he wanted. He had yielded to her kiss, but he did not let his eyes or hands fall where she wanted them.
He drew her into another kiss, but gripped only her hips, and would not allow his hands to slide anywhere that would be deemed inappropriate.
She seized his hand and attempted to slide it lower, but he stoutly resisted.
“You are one naughty girl, Sophia,” he whispered in exasperation. “You aren’t making my last chance at nobility particularly…” He lapsed into silence a moment, kissing her. “Easy.”
“Well I don’t know what you want from me, David. I am a wife with her husband, in the privacy of a bedchamber. I don’t see how anything about this is particularly naughty.”
He moaned, for the insistence of her soft form, molding into his. “Sophia… I told you… I can’t. What if it’s painful for you? I don’t want an awkward, painful night to be our last and only.”
She hadn’t thought about that.
Of course she knew the first time was not always the most delightful time, but she hadn’t thought about how embarrassing as a whole it might be. Still. It would give pleasure to him. And… And then, there was her secretly but desperately developing plan. “David I do not care, and I will not stop.”
Rusty had relented at her insistence to join David in this chamber. For a moment, she believed that David would not be the sort to give in. But then…
In one startling movement she was beneath him, pinned to the blankets, the imposing weight of his form hovering atop her. She lay breathlessly there, surprised, and delighted.
“You had better be certain, Sophia Rosalind. Without an inkling of doubt, certain.”
Her mind flurried. Oh, she loved him. She loved his demanding force over her. Both he and Rusty were good men, who though they exerted strength over her, in the end, knew that she was no less powerful than they. He was the sort of man she could totally entrust herself to.
But still, here, in the moment, her mind scattered for fright.
She managed to force her mouth to say what her heart wanted, but her mind could not fathom. “I am.”
Chapter 11
He had fallen into a hard-fought sleep, but she stared at the moon as it shone through the lacy curtains, gazed upon the Christmas snow and gazed upon the lovers. Her fingers trailed in his hair, and she let tears stream, unrestrained.
Their first time. And their gruesome last.
It hadn’t been as… effortless as she’d at first imagined. She’d thought for one blissful moment, but I’m his wife now. And we have all the time in the world to learn this.
And then it had stricken her afresh.
They didn’t have forever.
They didn’t even have a honeymoon.
They barely had a wedding night.
She stared at his sleeping form. Remembered his kiss.
She’d tried before to imagine marrying Rusty, being kissed by Rusty, sleeping beside Rusty. It had been horrifying.
This was tender and lovely and everything she’d hardly dared to hope.
Oh, she wanted to lay beside him in this exhausted, blissful stupor forever. In the least, she didn’t want to waste a single moment of his last night upon earth – especially because there was a very large chance that she could fail.
But it was his only chance.
It was their only chance.
She quietly rose from the blankets and pulled on her dress against the cold. Then...
She crept to his box, and pried from it the key. The key he had held as he had first told her of the murder.
Upon the first glimmer of morning light, he was to die by the sword, or by hanging, beheading or shooting, she didn’t know. But he was to die.
She went to the bed once more, to kiss his cheek, perhaps kiss him goodbye. She didn’t know if any good would come of this. And perhaps, even if she did free him, he would never forgive her. Perhaps, no matter what came of it, she must live life apart from him.
But she knew she had to go.
So she pulled on her sweater and cloak and crept out of the chambers, whispering to the guard that she was leaving for the privy.
She crept into the snow. She tried to run for the stables, but quickly discovered that her freshly ravished body was not in agreement. She saddled her mare swiftly, and mounted with some difficulty. She would not have guessed how taxing a man’s embrace could be.
Nor how overpoweringly good.
She urged the mare into the night. Never before, had she fathomed the freedom to just breathe the open night air, just to be here.
Oh, David.
“Where do you think you’re going?” came a harsh shout.
She pulled the mare to a halt. Rusty, of course.
He pulled alongside her. “Tell me he didn’t touch you?” he asked, voice aching.
She stared up at him. “Only after I married him.”
Oh, poor boy. She had never wanted to cost him such pain.
“You don’t mean it?” he whispered, broken.
“David Gates is my husband. And I’m going to prove him innocent. He didn’t commit that murder, Rusty, and I can prove it.” Her tone grew desperate. “Help me, Rusty. Please.”
He didn’t voice agreement or otherwise.
But after a moment of staring into his angry and aching eyes, she knew that he was coming. He was doing what he had ever done – what a friend did. Though she knew, from his trembling hands, his darkened gaze, that his heart was beyond broken.
She knew not what to say for comfort. Perhaps there was no comfort to give. His he
art was broken. And that was that.
So she kicked her mare onward, and he followed.
When she arrived at RamblingRose in the silvery dark of a late winter’s night, it wasn’t difficult to find the one stone house among all the log cabins, covered in ivy and rose thorns with a blue porch swing, a house that looked as though it belonged to a florist.
They tried to the door handle to find it locked, but Rusty easily enough slid a lock pick – tool of the knightly trade – inside, and had it open in moments.
Straightaway, she began tearing at wallpaper.
It was a quaint little home, with floral furniture and cozy couches. To think of it happening here... all this pain, and the lies, and murder, starting in this quaint and quiet little place.
“What are you doing?” Rusty whispered.
“Looking for a secret room. Help me find it.”
He dutifully began peeling away at wallpaper.
Then...
A lantern was flicked on, and a cold voice snarled, “Get out.”
Both Sophia and Rusty turned abruptly, to see the lamplight illuminating a slight woman, who gripped a heavy sword.
“Put that down before somebody else gets hurt,” hissed Sophia. “Your brother would not approve.”
The woman was very beautiful, glass eye, distressed personage and all. She’d no doubt been up crying in another room, for her one good eye was red.
Rusty couldn’t help but stare.
The woman slowly paled. “My brother?”
“Refused to sell you out. But I guessed. He is about to die for what you have done. Probably by the sword. Or by the archers. Do you know what a public execution is like? Can you imagine facing your death for things you never did, and a mortifying public death at that? Do you even love your brother?”
She was approaching the guilty woman slowly, incapable of restraining herself. She disarmed the sword from the woman’s hands with instantaneous, instinctual ease, and seized her collar. As she did, she became aware of the burns and old scars upon her chest and neck. They were horrid.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Missy whispered. Her voice was cracked and papery thin, as though not much accustomed to making words “My brother is the only other being in this entire world who could make me think, for a moment, that maybe I was worth something.”
Sophia released her, and plowed onward in her search.
“Who are you?” the woman asked, one good eye following her, but not coldly, nor unkindly. Just brokenly.
“My name is Sophia Rosalind.” She paused. “Sophia Gates, now.”
The first glimmer of life leapt to those eyes. “My brother never told me of you...”
“I am his wife. And his best friend.”
“His…”
“It is a long story. Or a short one, depending upon how you look at it.”
She saw a painting of lavender fields on the mantle. His mother’s painting. It must have been. It made her stop in her tracks. It was a piece of his history. His childhood. A fragment of someone precious to him. A picture of a place in his past, a jot in the life that she already felt she knew as intimately as her own.
It was intricate. She faltered a near second, as the fields seemed to come to life before her. Swaying as they rolled over hilltops, towards a quaint village snuggled away in the purple and green.
He would live to see it again. He would live to step into those lavender fields and breathe the free air, and this time with her at his side. He had to.
She snatched the lamp from Missy, and stormed up the stairs.
Missy made no protest, leaning numbly against the wall.
Sophia searched every wall of every room, pounding them for a hollow sound, and clawing at the wallpaper. She thrust open closets and pushed aside wardrobes. If any neighbors had lived nearer, they might have run up to the house in alarm. But the house was as silent and solitary as its occupant. The stillness about the place was horrifying. If anything, Sophia raged about not only in desperation for David, but desperation to make some noise. The stillness itself could be enough to drive one to madness and murder.
And then, finally, in a girlish yellow guest room that was no doubt Missy’s room once upon another time, she pounded upon a wall in the walk-in closet.
The knock was dimmer than the rest, as though the wall were hollow.
In some places, the paper upon the wall was wrinkled, as though the papering were a hastily done job.
She seized the yellow wallpaper and she clawed at it. By now her fingernails were bleeding from all of the grabbing and tearing, but she gave it hardly a passing thought.
The nude wall revealed a keyhole. She slid the key inside, and turned.
And there it was.
Her stomach soured, as she lifted the lamp. The room by itself was innocent enough, with signs of childhood play scattered about. Childish paintings, drawings, maps, a chessboard, books, old furniture patched together, crudely made rugs and shelves, and toys and trunks.
Lying upon the floor haphazardly, as though tossed there in a hurry, was a butcher’s blade with splays of dried blood on blade and handle. Nicked with harsh use. With it were dishtowels. Feminine dish towels with stitching of lavender done on them, all brown with the old blood.
Missy no doubt had a matching set downstairs. One look at her vacant face, one look at this hastily concealed weapon in her own home… If this did not at least make a case to clear David’s name, at least keep him alive— She did not know what would.
And she didn’t know what to do.
Rusty appeared suddenly behind her. “You leave it all here,” whispered Rusty, appearing behind her. “And I will guard it.”
“Rusty...” Her voice was not triumphant and relieved, as she had expected. It was broken. “He was prepared to give his life to protect her. I... I almost wish I had just stayed in his arms. And honored his wish.”
“You did what was right.”
“Did I?”
“She asked for it. She murdered a man. In a terrible, terrible way.”
“She didn’t ask to be tortured by her own husband.”
There was the soft sound of weeping down the stairs.
Sophia lingered another moment in the chilly air of the secret room. Then she stormed away, slamming it shut behind her, and silently descended the stairs. She approached the trembling creature in silence, as though it were a whisper of the spirit world who might break and disperse for a noise. She never had seen a woman quite so delicate.
“Missy. Your brother told me something.”
The specter of a woman did not ask what it was.
“He said that it was never your fault. Your father, the accident. If... you looked at life like that, it was the dog’s fault for chasing you. Or your relative’s fault for giving him to you. Or your mother’s fault for giving birth to you. Or your father’s fault for helping conceive you. Blame games never end. Just... know that David never blamed you. For anything.”
She sobbed.
“And it’s not your fault that your husband hurt you. What you did to him was your fault. But it’s not your fault what’s become of David because of it. That was his choice.”
She gazed at the lavender fields on the mantle, painted fields so lifelike they near looked a window. She went to the painting, and lifted it from its position. Placed it in Missy’s hands.
And that was all. But that was all that was needed.
Missy stared through tears. “Wh... why? Why are you doing this for me?”
“For him. And perhaps, because you took your husband’s life because it was the only way to save yours. And because... we all ought to live a life. And you haven’t yet. Nor have I. We have both lived our lives for our fathers. But my life is not my father’s life, and yours is not a punishment for your father’s life. This, here, now, is my life. This is your life. So go.”
She stepped back. “Rusty? You’ll be willing to retrieve the authorities? As soon as Missy has made her flight? This house
does not look at all lived in, and I doubt they will give you any kind of fuss over it having been occupied recently.”
He was staring over the railing with a conflicted expression, but after a moment, he nodded.
“Then if you will excuse me, I must rescue my husband.” She paused. “On a second thought... may I take that painting? For your brother?”
Missy handed it over eagerly. “Tell him I love him.”
As she departed, and looked back, she thought Rusty’s eyes for the broken woman before him were particularly tender.
She decided then that when she and David made secret trips to that land of lavender fields, Rusty would attend them.
Chapter 12
“What do you want?” Shaz grumbled, as she ran into the dungeon before the first rays of light ascended, painting still tucked beneath her arm.
“My—” She nearly said husband, but would not say that to Shaz.
“The prisoner. David. Where is he?”
“Dead.” He stuffed his pipe with more weed.
She couldn’t breathe. “Shazrad, where is he?”
“Executed. Dead. No longer existent.”
Her knees nearly buckled, as she rested her hands upon the table for balance, the world spinning. That man had been with her, had been inside of her, last night. He couldn’t be... gone. Swept from the world. Erased.
Gone.
“It isn’t morning yet!” she half screamed.
“I don’t know what else you’d call it.” He glared at her. “Arrows flew. The butcher was butchered. The end.”
“You... he...” She was going to vomit. The words became sobbing screams. “He didn’t do it! He would never do it! I have found evidence that he did not do it!”
“Well, isn’t that unfortunately late?” He stood. “I’ve no time for these unseemly feminine displays, Miss Rosalind. Grave? Escort her to her mother. And see that she takes papers of termination with her. Cite ‘insufficient to perform her duties’ as the reason for disgraceful discharge.”
Grave stepped forward, but did not lay a hand on her. “I don’t know that the rest of the knighthood would stand for it in the face of such heart, Shaz,” said the man. “And… you may have a few minutes yet, Miss Rosalind – Mrs. Gates.”
The Lady Knight And The Dungeon (Blushing Books 12 Days of Christmas 10) Page 7
