Unwanted (4 page)

“It is,” he insisted.
 
“I do.”
 
A loud creak split the darkness as he adjusted himself, and
Rhona
worried about the structural dependability of her poor chair. “I find I want to know how you came to live in this stable.
 
Why you’re all alone on the eve of the Solstice.”
 
The newly discovered desire didn’t seem to please him, though he didn’t sound particularly angry either.
 

She was equally conflicted about his confession.

‘
Twould
be most helpful if she could see his features and gauge his reactions.
 
Rhona
remembered that his face was chiseled with planes and angles by the hands of a master.
 
That his immense body was wrapped in the finest, strangest clothing she’d ever seen and he carried gold from the continent in a heavy pouch.
 
This kind of man would make her most uneasy in any circumstance.
 
In the past, she’d never bring herself to meet his eyes, let alone carry on a conversation with him.
 
In truth, she’d always been shy and demure, terrified of conversation, let alone confrontation.
 
She’d been a mouse.
 
A rug for others to tread upon.

But loss and desperation changed everyone, didn’t it?
 
It was difficult to dread disapproval, censure, or humiliation when you no longer even feared death.
 
There was something of a liberty in that.
 
What else could anyone do to her now?
 
What mattered but the next meal, or finding wood for warmth?
 
Why should she care if this fair-haired stranger was offended, disgusted, or simply bored by her tale?

The expectation emanating from the darkness gave her a sense of anonymity.
 
He could hear her words, but could not see her shame.
 
It felt as though she was in confession and could finally voice her sins.
 
For they were many.

“My father was a cruel drunkard who died of a diseased liver when I was six.
 
My mother worked as a seamstress for the wives of rich merchants in Glasgow and I helped her with her sewing.”
 
She shifted, somehow compelled by his silence to tell the entire truth, not to coat it with honeyed words as she was wont to do. “That is to say, she made me sew until my fingers blistered or bled every night and I very much hated it.”

“What is sewing?” he asked, his voice becoming even more arctic.
 
“Why does it make you bleed?”

“Clothing,” she explained.
 
“I made and repaired clothing.
 
In fact, I did it long enough to know that your tunic is loom-spun, not wheel spun, and the stitching is double-threaded crossed stitch, same as your
trews
.
 
Though I don’t know how they managed it with the animal skins.”

Rhona
decided to take his grunt as a sound of amusement and kept going.

“Before he died, my father signed betrothal papers between me and the son of a good friend of his.
 
I married
Eoghan
McEwan
upon his father’s death and he moved me to his farm, in Argyle.”

“This did not make you happy,” the darkness rumbled.
 

Rhona
had thought that she kept her voice light and monotonous, as though telling a story about someone else she’d once known.
 
Some unfortunate woman whom she pitied.
 
She could feel the tightness of the muscles in her face, the lines of stress about her mouth.
 

“My few short weeks of marriage were probably the easiest of my life, though I was unhappy at the time.
 
My husband was neither cruel nor lazy, nor was he kind or attentive.
 
But there was plenty of food, the house was comfortable, and the work bearable.
 
I just wanted…”

What had she wanted?
 
Love?
 
Deference?
 
Someone who didn’t expect her to wait on him hand and foot?
 
Rhona
remembered how worthless she felt when
Eoghan
would criticize her to his friends or neighbors.
 
“
She
canna
cook a decent stew or handle the animals
,” he’d say.
 
“
But she’s a bonny good
tup
and will bear me strong sons
.”
 

His boast of her skills as a lover always embarrassed and puzzled her.
 
She merely did what he commanded her to do while she gritted her teeth and bore his attentions.
 
 
 

Eoghan
had told her that it would only hurt the first time, but he’d been wrong.
 
Every single time she’d lain with a man, had been excruciatingly painful in some way or another.

“Well anyway,” she continued, “He was called to fight for the Stewart against the Donald in one of the early skirmishes and he was defeated in the battle.
 
Laird
McEwan’s
soldiers came to claim the farm in his name some days after.”

“But it was your farm.”
 
Bless the warrior for sounding incensed on her behalf.
 

“Women cannot own property in this country,” she explained, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
 
“And I had no heir with which to hold it.”

He grunted again, this time less amused.

“The
McEwan
soldiers who bore the news offered to take me back to my mother in Glasgow so I…went with them.”
 

Suddenly the storm outside seemed angrier, the screams of the wind became war
cries
or death knells.
 
The darkness was no longer a cloak in which to hide, but full of shadows and danger.
 
Of foul-smelling sweat, smothering heaving bodies, and bruised, torn flesh.
 

“They…took me to an encampment outside
Inverary
, told me I had to earn my passage by becoming their whore.”
 
Sometimes when she thought of this,
Rhona
struggled to breathe.
 
She had to stop and take in a few shuddering gulps of air. “There were three of them, who kept me for a week and then dumped me here when they were called away.”

The babe’s feeding rhythm had diminished and he squirmed again in her arms.
 
Poor lad must have eaten too fast.
 
Pulling him from her breast,
Rhona
lifted him to rest against her shoulder and rubbed and patted his back while she rocked her body.
 
She couldn’t be quite sure if she rocked herself or the child, but it was comforting nonetheless.

The man in the darkness remained silent, motionless.
 
She couldn’t hear him breathing.
 
Perhaps she’d even put him to sleep.
 
But now that she’d started telling her story, it felt as though she purged some kind of poison and she couldn’t stop until she’d wrung every last bit of it from inside her.
 

“They never did pay me.”
 
The plaintive afterthought still bothered her, but she decided that was all she was going to say about that week of sheer hell.
 

“I found work with a local seamstress at the market, here, Mrs. McConnell.
 
She paid well and the hours were good.
 
She liked to tell people she took in an unfortunate widow, and I didn’t mind her saying so.
 
I had no pride left at that point, for I realized some weeks after taking up with her that I was carrying a child.”
 
A wry laugh wrung through her swelling throat.
 
It sounded more like a strangled sob when it escaped.
 

“I lived for that life inside me,” she admitted.
 
“I loved it.
 
Sang to it.
 
Talked to it while I worked.
 
I said I didn’t care if it came out a boy or a girl, that he or she could be anything they wanted to be and I would do all to help them safe and happy.”

 
“Mrs. McConnell was a deeply religious woman.
 
She saw me come into the village with the soldiers, as did some others.
 
Once she found out about my condition, she said that it was apparent I couldn’t be sure of the baby’s legitimacy.
 
So she dismissed me.
 
My mother also denied me aid for the same reason.
 
My reputation was as soiled as my body.”

Rhona
remembered how hard those months had been, trying to make her last wages stretch until the birth.
 
She paid the midwife first and the busy old pagan woman had been kind and patient with her, teaching her about self care and the care of infants.
 
She even fed
Rhona
at night if she would do her dishes and help with soiled laundry after other births.

“I gave birth in October, more than a year ago, to a daughter,
Miorbhail
.
 
Though I just called her ‘Mira’.”
 

“Did
her
name have a meaning?”
 
His disembodied voice caused her to jump.
 
It sounded different than before.
 
Lower, the words more clipped.
 
Somehow the air between them had changed.
 
An undercurrent of hostility and anger radiated through the darkness and
Rhona
couldn’t be sure if it emanated from her or the warrior.
 
 
 

Rhona
hadn’t even been certain he’d been listening.
 
He was so quiet, unnaturally still.
 
She was such a terrible
fidget,
she couldn’t believe that someone could make themselves as motionless as a stone in such an uncomfortable chair.
 

“Miracle.
 
Her name meant miracle.” She wiped at a stray tear and tried to swallow around the emotion lodged in her throat.
 
“But she only lived for a fortnight.
 
I still don’t know what took her.
 
She wasn’t sick.
 
She was eating enough, growing chubbier than this
lad
is.
 
The midwife said that babes just… die sometimes.
 
That there’s no reason for it.
 
She said that it was probably best given my circumstances.”
 

Her voice hardened and her tears dried.
 
Most of her grief washed away in the river of tears she’d cried already, leaving emptiness occasionally filled with impotent anger.

“I would have found a way, no matter what my circumstances.
 
I would have kept Mira safe and fed and warm.
 
I would have sewn a thousand dresses, washed a thousand sheets, or fucked a thousand men.
 
It was
not
better that she died.”

Silence roared in her little room after her passionate words landed in the darkness.
 
She still rocked the boy in her arms, thumping his back a little harder than before.
 
“Does that shock you, sir?” she asked, daring him to condemn her.

“Yes,” he answered, with more vehemence than she expected.
 
The word was so tight, so full of a leashed meaning that she couldn’t identify.
 

“Well you can go—”

An impressive belch against her ear silenced her and the baby squirmed and fussed in her arms.
 
She brought him back down to her breast so he could have his fill.
 
She wondered how close the warrior truly was.
 
Would their knees touch if she stretched them toward him?
 
Would he rescind his payment now that she’d shocked him?