WyndStones

by Wyndstone (lit)

  The younger boys along with their female siblings sat with their mothers on the right side of the Meeting House. The older boys—thirteen and up—were interspersed among the menfolk on the left. Once seated, the women sat demurely with their hands in their laps, standing and sitting as the worship service continued.

  Since she was sitting in the last row of her section, Lorna surreptitiously cast her gaze about the room. Cail and Euan were in the front row and she was surprised to see her brother seated with them. She stared hard at the nape of his neck until he put a hand there to rub at the discomfort she aimed his way. Bored with annoying him, she studied many of the men she had met and aimed her petty vengeances toward them—a buzzing fly to tickle the nose of Royce Gilmore, a mosquito to pester his son Thad, an incessant itch to plague young Sam. She had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing as each man fidgeted and shifted in his seat, swatted at a pest or scratched vigorously. It wasn’t until Sadie slid a hand over to nudge that she realized the other women in her pew knew what she was about. Glancing their way, she saw their lips twitching as they tried to hold back the smiles.

  For over an hour, Arch-Elder Gerard McFadden rambled on and on about something or other but Lorna wasn’t paying attention. The women were fanning themselves vigorously with paper fans and the children were beginning to squirm. Even the men looked bored and a few were actually nodding off with one snoring loudly across the aisle from where Lorna sat.

  “Amen.”

  The word was said so loudly and forcefully Lorna jumped. All around her people were getting to their feet. The men were talking as they moved down the aisle and to the door but the women and children stood where they were—silent and respectful—until the men had cleared the meeting room.

  “Well, that’s over for another week!” Sadie said. “After the men have filled their plates and gone on into the dining hall, we’ll get our food and go out to the pavilion.”

  “The men eat first,” Lorna said with a twist of her lips. “How did I know that would be the way of it.”

  “For the time being it is,” Ellen McKenna said.

  Lorna lowered her voice. “Don’t let any of the children or other women have any of my cobblers. They’re just for the men.”

  Tippy Kirkpatrick frowned. “Believe me, dear, if there was dessert on the tables before we get there, there won’t be any when we do. The men make gods-be-damned sure of that. We never get any dessert so that’s why we rarely make it.”

  “Keeps our weight down,” Mary Reid quipped. “Or so the men say.”

  “Well, they’ll sure lose a pound or two of runny shite when they have my cobblers,” Lorna told the women amidst laughter.

  After sending one of her sons to see if the men had finished taking what they wanted of the food, Tippy informed the women they could now get theirs. As quiet as church mice, the women and younger children filed across the front of the dining hall, got their food and left just as quietly. Lorna was pleased to see not one spoonful of her cobblers had been left in the dishes.

  “My only regret is you ladies will most likely have to clean up behind your men tonight,” Lorna warned them.

  “Will be well worth it,” Ellen declared.

  No sooner were the women and children seated under the five pavilions that rimmed the lake than the rains began. Most of the children were in the far pavilion. Only the very young ones were with their mothers in the other four—giving the women freedom to talk. Not by chance, sitting under the shelter with Lorna, Sadie, Ellen, and Tippy were Marcy MacLeod, Mary Reid, Tandy Gilmore and her daughter Missy.

  “We hear there are to be instructions,” Tandy said softly though the heavy rain all but drowned out her words.

  “Aye,” Lorna agreed. “We can begin today but I’ll need you and your daughter to come by McGregor’s place so the real instructions can be given. Mary will be there, too.”

  “Can’t think of it as your place, eh?” Ellen asked and when Lorna shook her head, Ellen shrugged. “Me, neither. It’s always been Duggie’s place, not mine. I can’t hang a curtain without his permission.”

  “That will stop,” Lorna said between clenched teeth.

  “Aye, it will,” Sadie agreed.

  “Can you come by tomorrow?” Lorna asked.

  “After we get the washing and ironing done, I reckon,” Tandy said. She looked to Mary. “What about you?”

  “I ain’t got no man to tell me squat save for Sam but most of the time a glare from me will shut him up.” She nibbled on a hangnail. “Trouble is, he’s starting to smell his pee. You know what I mean?”

  Lorna shook her head, not understanding.

  “It’s a mountain saying,” Sadie said. “Means a boy is turning into a man.”

  “A man who don’t listen to nothing but save what’s a’tween his legs,” Tandy put in then a hand on her daughter’s knee. “With any luck a’tall before he gets any worse, it’ll be us in charge of the situation.”

  Missy’s face had turned scarlet red at her mother’s unseemly words. She ducked her head, nodding shyly.

  “Trouble is, the chit loves your boy,” Tandy told Mary. “She don’t think he can do no wrong.”

  “She ain’t married to him yet,” Ellen commented. “Men change when they have you where they want you.” She looked at Lorna. “Ain’t that right?”

  “So right,” Lorna said. She could feel Chrysty sitting closer to her, toying with the hair hanging down her back. “So let’s get started, ladies. We can cover quite a bit before the rain decides to stop.”

  * * * *

  It took two men to help Euan McGregor to the buggy. He was in so much pain he could barely walk so they hooked arms under his legs to carry him, sloshing through the mud that had accumulated beneath the wheels. Cail had pulled the vehicle as close to the Meeting House as he could get it, getting soaked in the process.

  “Gods-be-damned rain couldn’t hold out just a few minutes more,” he complained to Lorna who was perfectly dry sitting in the front seat. He put a hand to his rumbling stomach. “I think I ate too much.”

  “Not how much he ate but what he ate,” Chrysty whispered in her ear. “How many times do you think he’ll stop the buggy between here and the cabin, Lorna-love?”

  Hiding a smile behind her hand, she watched the other men scrambling to get their buggies out of the mud and onto the roadway. Balky horses didn’t help any more than the heavy deluge that started as soon as the last woman and child were safely ensconced in their buggies. Overhead, lightning forked and thunder rolled but not a single man there took it in his mind to stay at the settlement. Each felt a pressing desire to return home—an undeniable desire Chrysty had sowed among them.

  With Euan groaning not only with his back but with a belly that was beginning to cramp and Cail starting to feel a mite poorly—as he called it—Lorna’s husband managed to get his horses out of the muck and trotting down the road.

  “Mother of the Lord!” Euan complained. “Can’t those nags move a bit easier, Cail?”

  Lorna twisted around in her seat to look at her brother-in-law. “Is it bad, then, Euan?” she asked with a commiserating look on her face.

  “I’m in agony,” Euan admitted then clamped his lips together.

  Lorna clucked her tongue. She turned back around. “Mayhap you should take him to our place, husband,” she said, “so I can care for him.”

  Cail blinked, then swung his head toward her. “You’d do that?”

  Lorna smiled and forced herself to put a gentle hand on her husband’s arm. “What is family for if not to help out in times of trouble?” She glanced behind her at Euan. “And there’s no one at his place to look after him, is there? To see to his needs?”

  “Aye, well, no, not in this weather,” Cail admitted. “Mary would normally come by to check on him and she might send Sam to look in but no one to be there if he needs something tonight.”

  “Then it’s settled,” she said. “He’ll come home with us.”

>   “Where will I sleep?” Euan asked.

  Lorna answered before her husband could. “In our bed, of course. You can share it with Cail and I’ll take the settee.”

  Cail didn’t look too thrilled at that prospect but he couldn’t very well put his ailing brother on the cramped settee when Euan had a painful back with which to contend.

  That settled, Lorna turned to look out at the passing forest. Everything was suddenly very green and lush with the pouring rain beating down on the verdant green leaves. The air smelled fresh and clean and was cool for a merciful change. She intended to make sure all but the bedroom of her new home would be pleasantly cool. The bedroom—where the twin brothers would pass the night—would be as hot as she could make it.

  Grin tugging at her lips, she settled back in the seat with Euan’s grunts of pain and Cail’s occasional belch like music to her ears.

  Chapter Ten

  As the false dawn broke, the rain returned to drum against the tin roof, drowning out the dual snores coming from the bedroom. The earlier part of the night passed with Cail had spent sitting on the commode with his head in an old bucket. The smells coming from both ends of his pain-wracked body were so foul Lorna had to cast a smell to clear the air. When the same malady finally attacked Euan at one of the clock, she spent the next half hour emptying the bucket and wiping the fever-drenched faces of her patients. When she’d had her fill of tormenting the men, she waved a hand to send them into sleep.

  Chrysty ran his hand up and down Lorna’s back as she lay snuggled against him on the settee. “You are an evil woman, Lorna Tabor,” he told her.

  “Who made me that way, Chrysty Brell?” she asked.

  “You are making more work for yourself,” he warned. “Best to let them heal now.”

  “When I’m ready. They can sleep on until I’m ready to deal with them. It will not be a pleasant day for either of them.

  The demon chuckled then placed a light kiss on her hair. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

  “They brought it on themselves,” she stated, “and well you know it.”

  “Aye, I agree, but you’ve women coming to be taught today, to join the Sisterhood. With the men underfoot .…”

  “I intend to keep them both abed today and in as much distress as possible. Euan only thinks his back was hurting before now. He has yet to experience the worst of it.” She slid her hand between Chrysty’s legs. “And as for my so-called husband, he’ll be too weak to raise his unmercifully throbbing head from the pillow. They’ll be hurting so badly they won’t want me near them.”

  “Giving you time to see to Mary and the Gilmore wenches,” he commented.

  “Aye,” she said. Her fingers caressed him into a thick rod of heat. His naked flesh grew hard in her palm and she moved over him, impaling her body upon his.

  Chrysty placed his hands on her hips, staring up at her as she shook her mane of long hair. His hungry gaze fell to her lush breasts as she rotated her lower body. His fingers dug into her soft flesh.

  “I have had many a woman sheathing my cock but never one whose body does to mine what yours does,” he said in a husky voice. “I find I crave you, Lorna Tabor, like a starving man does a feast set before him.”

  Lorna’s hair fell over her shoulders to curl temptingly against his chest. She ran the tip of her tongue along her lips, grinding her sex hard upon his. “I am all yours,” she said. “Do whatever you will with me.”

  Pure malicious spite sparked in the demon’s eyes and as Lorna gasped, he levitated their bodies from the settees until her head was almost touching the ceiling. She locked her legs around him, her hands gripping his forearms.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as they began moving slowly through the air toward the bedroom doorway. She twisted her head around—afraid they would hit the closed door—but it opened soundlessly and before she worry about her head striking the jamb, he lowered them just enough for their bodies to pass through the opening.

  “Behold,” Chrysty said and the men on the bed opened their eyes at the same time, staring straight up at the ceiling.

  Assuring her the men would think it a dream, the demon flipped over so he was now on top, his shaft thrusting hard into her willing body as they hung suspended above the bed.

  She could feel the weight of the brothers’ eyes watching her. For a moment she was acutely embarrassed but as her body reacted to the pleasure being given to it by the demon, she forgot all about her husband and his brother to lose herself in Chrysty’s expertise. The heat between her legs was so fierce, so aching, and the powerful drives slapping against her were making her pant with sheer lust. She gripped his forearms tighter to ride out the supreme enjoyment that was flooding every part of her body. When she came, she came with a scream that shook her body hard.

  With one last fierce thrust, he poured into her, bellowing his own release.

  Lorna turned her head to stare down into Cail’s unblinking eyes. Whatever nightmare her demon had put inside his head and the head of his twin, she hoped it would be potent enough to make them acutely uncomfortable.

  “Want her as you never have any other woman,” she heard Chrysty saying and knew he was sending those words directly into the men’s minds. “Lust after her as though she were a lioness in heat and you the master of the pride. Ache for her. Desire her in ways that will make your bodies burn. Be hard as stone whenever you are near her.”

  Lorna stared up in awe at the demon. His amber eyes were scarlet red, his lips drawn back from his fangs. He was terrifying in his sheer male beauty as his gaze fused with hers.

  “Want her. Lust for her. Ache for her. Desire her. Grow hard at the mere sight of her,” he said, the words falling like heavy rocks into a deep ravine. “But you will never lay a hand to her—either of you. You will only think you have. Touch one hair on her head and you will know agony such as you can never imagine.”

  Lorna tilted her head to one side. “Euan?” she inquired.

  “Will believe he caught you unawares out behind the barn and took from you what he wanted. He will believe he raped you just as he raped his brother’s first wife.”

  “He did that?” she asked, eyes mirroring her anger.

  “Many times,” he answered. “Libby never told a living soul for she feared what Euan might do, but I believe her mother suspected.”

  “Then his punishment should be at Tippy’s hands, not mine.”

  “That is a decision you women should make,” Chrysty said.

  “Are there other rapists on the Hill?” she asked. “Or men for whom we need to reserve special consideration?”

  Chrysty nodded. “There are a few who deserve to be singled out. Maxwell Dunlop beats his wife nearly as often as he does his children. Dallas Deal had relations with Johanna on many a dark night as his wife Constance lay sleeping.”

  “Johanna?” she questioned. “His daughter?”

  “His oldest,” Chrysty said. “With her gone, he has turned his lust upon the youngest, Delane.”

  “Bastard,” she hissed. “We will see to him first, then, before he does any more damage! Constance is to be at Sadie’s for her training in four days time but I think we should move that up.”

  Chrysty slid out of her wet channel then blinked, returning them to the soft comfort of the settee with Lorna lying atop him, his arms wrapped securely around her nude body.

  “I knew you would set things to rights,” he said. “It was but a matter of time.”

  “Will you call Duncan and have him speak to Sadie?” she asked. “Tell him she needs to hurry with Constance’s training.”

  “Consider it done,” her demon said. He lifted his head to plant a soft kiss to the hollow of her throat. “Now, lie down and rest. Tomorrow will be a long and tiring day for you.”

  Lorna laid her head on his shoulder, nestling her chin into the thick hair between his pectorals. She closed her eyes as she listened to the steady, strong beat of his heart.

  “I do
love you, Chrysty,” she said. “I truly do. I didn’t think I’d ever say that to a man.”

  “I know,” he agreed, stroking her back. “Now sleep.”

  With one long sigh, she drifted down into the soft blanket of slumber he tucked around her. Dead to the world around her, she did not see the slow, deadly smile that pulled at his lips.

  * * * *

  Cail could barely lift his head from the pillow just as Lorna had promised. Pain lanced through his temples and nausea lurked to send hot bile up his throat. He moaned as he flung a limp arm over his aching eyes.

  “I haven’t felt this bad since we had dysentery when we were seven,” he heard his twin whisper. “What the hell did we eat?”

  “Obviously something tainted,” Cail mumbled.

  “Might have been the spare ribs,” Euan said then belched. He tried to shift to a more comfortable position but a ragged splinter of sharp pain went through his lower back and he yelped.

  “Just lie still,” Cail said, wincing at the loud sound.

  “I can’t,” Euan complained. “I wish I could. I need to piss.” He struggled to sit up, panting as he forced his protesting body to an upright position.

  “You want me to call Lorna?”

  It was on the tip of Euan’s tongue to agree but he changed his mind, shaking his head at the offer. He managed to swing his legs from the bed without whimpering and with slow, measured steps he made his way into the bathroom.

  “Euan is up,” Mary said, having spied Lorna’s brother-in-law through the screen.

  “How do you tell them apart?” Missy Gilmore asked. “I never have been able to.”

  “I usually can’t,” Mary replied, “but from the way he was walking, I knew it was Euan.” She cast Lorna an admiring look. “His back is killing him.”

  “Too bad he can’t die from it,” Missy’s mother Tandy muttered.

  “His time will come,” Lorna declared. “Tippy, Ellen and Lola will be at Maggie’s later today. Seeing to Euan will be Tippy’s first act with the Sisterhood. I’ll forego my own vengeance for hers.”