Elmwood #2
Elmwood’s impulse was to rebuke her recriminations, but he was uncertain of exactly what to say, so he lay back on the bed, then pulled her down to rest with her head against his shoulder, wrapping his arm around her. They lay there in silence for a few minutes.
When she didn’t speak, he knew she was waiting for him to offer some sort of reply, so at last he said, “If you were my widow, I wouldn’t want you to fear finding comfort or happiness in my absence.”
Her breath was still shallow and distressed.
“The thing is, I’ve realized that the Harrier was right. I used Thorgoode. I seduced him and manipulated him, as I tried to seduce and manipulate you…” She trailed off.
Elmwood’s ardor had cooled, but now a new fire stoked in his chest. Anger.
“Listen to me,” he said, tipping her chin up so they could look at each other. “I will not abide you using any part of our dealings to chastise yourself. We both brought our frailties to bear, and we have forgiven each other, haven’t we?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Good. Now, as for the Harrier and his accusations, I must inform you that I know him far better than you do, to my everlasting regret, and he is both a liar and a fraud. I have heard you lash yourself with his words before this, and I will not allow it to continue.”
“But it’s true!” she said, sitting up and pulling away from him.
“I didn’t love Thorgoode when I married him.
I had convinced myself that I learned to love him later, as a wife should love her husband, but now…
Thorgoode had position and wealth, and I used my body to secure them for myself, and he couldn’t even tell me… ”
“Stop this,” said Elmwood, sitting up and taking her hand in his.
He stroked the backs of her fingers with his thumb, willing her to not pull away from him again.
“You say that you used him, that you seduced him, but Hilde, from where I stand, that is not possible.” She made a dismissive noise.
“No, listen to me, please. You were how old when he took up with you? Eighteen? Working as a maidservant at Croftholde?”
“Nineteen,” she said.
“And he was what, over thirty, and your employer? Your Lord?”
“That hardly…”
“A few days ago, you lectured me about my responsibilities to my tenants and reminded me what I owed in return for the privilege I was born to. You were right to do so, but I must tell you, I have not lived to this ripe old age in a state of complete oblivion. I learned very quickly that it was wrong for me to bed anyone who relied on me for food, shelter, or livelihood. They could never come to me as an equal, and I would never know if they truly wanted me or were simply too afraid to tell me no. To bed or even romance a young girl, an orphan who was reliant on my employ for the safety of herself and her sister…it is frankly sickening to me to contemplate it.”
Her eyes were unfathomable, like a well you tossed coins into, hoping for a favor from the old gods.
“What are you saying, Elmwood?”
“I’m saying that it is not possible that you seduced or manipulated Lord Croft. By the nature of your position and age, the two of you were not equals. You cannot abuse power that you do not possess.”
“That’s not…”
“Tell me, when he first started to take notice of you, did you feel as though you could tell him no, if you wished to? Were you free to decline his advances? Did it ever make you afraid?”
He watched her think this over.
“The first time…I was afraid,” she said at last. “Not that he would hurt me; he wasn’t like that at all.
But I was afraid that I wouldn’t please him, and that then he would not like to see me tending his fires and bringing his meals.
When I did please him, that frightened me, too, because it presented me with an opportunity that I had never asked for or wanted, but couldn’t squander.
” She shook her head. “It’s surely hateful to say that, when he is dead.
I thought I loved him. I thought he loved and trusted me. ”
“I’m certain he did love you, Hilde. How could he not?” He realized as he said the words that perhaps they were too revealing. They held too much of his own feelings, and he didn’t wish to unsettle her further with their intensity.
Rollo came to his rescue by jumping up onto the bed and rolling around in the linens.
“Have you fed him?” she asked, reaching out to rub Rollo’s belly while he wagged his tail and gazed at her adoringly.
Elmwood kissed her temple, then climbed out of bed and offered her his hand.
“Let’s see what we can find for him in the kitchen,” he said.
She clearly needed time to think things over, and so she would have it. She would have every bit of understanding and kindness that he could offer her.
Hilde announced that they should do something about food for themselves as well, or else they’d regret it later.
He smiled as he watched her bustle around the kitchen, peering into cupboards and taking the lids off of jugs and jars to sniff the contents.
She unearthed a little barrel of smoked fish and a wheel of blue-veined cheese that smelled delectably like farmyard.
“Nimsby has been holding out on you,” she said.
“But what we shall really need is some bread.” She was standing in the middle of the kitchen as she said this, her hands on her hips in a manner that made him want her to order him about.
She had put her stays and petticoats back to rights, then folded a shawl into a triangle and tied two ends of it behind her back so that it was secured over her shoulders.
Her hair was escaping from its braid around her face, and she had pulled on her stockings but not her boots.
“Do you know,” said Elmwood, “I haven’t the faintest idea how bread happens. Do we even have anyplace to bake it? I think Nimsby usually gets it from the village.”
She lifted her eyebrows. Then she walked over to the hearth and gestured to a deep recess in the stonework of the chimney, to the upper left of where the fire was burning.
“Lord Elmwood, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to your oven.”
“Well, it’s actually Rollo’s oven.” Rollo wagged his tail from his place by the hearth. “But I am very pleased to make its acquaintance nonetheless. Does the fire in the hearth truly heat up the stones enough to be able to bake things in that?”
“No, you have to build another fire in the compartment, let it burn down, and then rake out the coals to make room for the bread. Then you put this little door on to keep the heat in.” She nudged a piece of metal-rimmed wood with her foot.
“First, you have to get the bread ready, which involves a lot of waiting. Let’s see if Nimsby has some ale brewing around here someplace. ”
“Now that I can help you with,” said Elmwood, and he showed her the ale crock. She took a spoon and skimmed a bunch of the scum off the top. “What’s that for?” said Elmwood, genuinely curious.
“It makes the dough rise.”
“No idea what that means, but please, take as much as you like. I had no idea one needed beer scum to make bread.”
“You don’t need it, but it makes things a bit faster,” she said.
He watched her stir various things together, trying to pay attention, since she was so earnest in her desire to teach him, but finding himself rather distracted. Watching Hilde make bread was oddly erotic.
It was something about the kneading.
She manhandled the dough, forcing it into floury submission, and every time she heaved it against the table and crushed it down, he wished she were kneading him instead.
She made him take a turn as well, though he was a poor student, focused as he was on trying not to let on how much he wanted to toss the dough out the door and take its place on the table.
Eventually she took pity on him and reclaimed the dough, hoisting the mass of it into a floured bowl and covering it with a towel.
“Do you think that a Charm reflects something of the nature of its Charmer?” she said. “Perhaps there is a baker out in the world someplace who has a Charm for making dough rise.” He tried not to recoil visibly, but her words had cut him unexpectedly to the quick.
“Why, do you find there to be something of the Reaper about me?” he said, trying to make it sound like a jest but failing utterly.
She immediately abandoned the bread, coming to his side.
“The very opposite,” she said, taking his hand in hers, despite the fact that they were both sticky with bits of dough. “Your Charm doesn’t bring death, Elmwood. It brings back life. And I believe that reflects you perfectly.”
He could see that she meant it. Her words should not have soothed him, for she was still wrong about his Charm—and about him. But soothe him they did nonetheless, and he allowed it, because what he wanted more than anything was to be comforted by this woman, and to offer her respite in return.
“Do you ever wonder why they set the Charmers against one another?” she said.
“To facilitate catching them, I assume.”
“Yes. But…have you ever heard any of the fireside tales about magicians who must combine their spells to do some great work of magic? Like ‘The Three Trees’?”
“Isn’t that the one with the talking cat?”
“Well, yes, there is a talking cat in the second bit of the story, but I mean the first part, with the witches and the acorns in the well. It seems as though the witches were kept apart to prevent them combining their powers.”
He pondered this.
“I suppose you might be right. I think, if I correctly remember one of the many law lectures that Winthrop has subjected me to, that Charming was first outlawed when a group of Charmers rose up against the king centuries ago. Perhaps there is something that happens when Charms are cast together. Actually, there’s a saintsong I’ve always especially liked: ‘Wandering Saint Bea.’ ”
He hummed a little bit of it to try to recall the melody.
He liked to sing, but it had been so long since he’d attempted it that his voice sounded like a creaky door.
Nonetheless, he sang a few lines for Hilde.
“ ‘Saint Bea, Saint Bea, wonder of the seas. West, east, north, south, she sailed to all.’ ”
He trailed off, his memory failing to conjure the exact words of the next line.
“Hmm. I’ve never heard that one before.”
“No, most people haven’t. I translated it from Old Myran myself, clumsily. It works better in the original language.”
“You know Old Myran?”
“These are the practical skills they teach one at the university. In any case, in the song, Saint Bea travels to all these different places, and in each one, she meets another saint, and together they perform a great miracle. In the lore about her, she never works any miracles alone. She only works them with the help of other saints, and the miracles she performs are especially remarkable.”
“Like what?”
“Well, in one town, Saint Bea and…Saint Idlehyde, I think, perform the Miracle of the Wave. A great tsunami is bearing down upon a coastal town, and they turn it back together, saving everyone from drowning.”
“Goodness. That’s certainly more impressive than keeping a few onions from rotting.” They sat in pensive silence, and he wondered if she was imagining what miracles she might perform if she had someone more useful than him to combine Charms with.
“You should sing more often,” she said at last, and it touched him deeply that she was thinking of his singing and not of miracles at all. “Come, let’s wash up.”
They both dipped their arms and hands into a basin of water heated in the kettle, scrubbing off the crusted flour and dough. His knuckles grazed against hers. She pulled one of his hands out of the basin, turned it over in her own, and then ran a finger slowly down his wet palm.
Elmwood had never envied the type of men who looked like rocks piled on top of one another (though he appreciated their appeal, to be sure), but he did long to be capable of sweeping Hilde up into his arms, flinging her over his shoulder, and carrying her to the nearest beddable surface.
In lieu of that, he pulled her toward the fire. There was a padded bench in front of it, and he sank down onto it.
She straddled him, taking her weight onto her knees, and he wiggled a bit to get his hip to a reasonably comfortable angle.
“Not too heavy?” she whispered.
“Not at all.”
He reached up and finished loosening her hair from its braid, letting it tumble down around them. He needed more of her, so he pulled away the shawl, letting it fall to the floor. He untied the cord knotted at her belly so that he could loosen her stays once again.
“I just put those back on,” she protested, nuzzling behind his ear.
“That was a silly thing to do.” Once the stays were off, he pulled up her shift, untucking it from her petticoats, until it, too, was discarded on the floor. He admired the full circles of her breasts, the curve of her stomach, the place where her navel peeked out of the waist of her petticoats.
He ran his hands up her belly, delighted that she giggled a little, and then cupped her breasts, grazing his thumbs over her nipples. They were small, and the way they tightened against his palms made him feel wild with desire for her.
He bent his head and licked one, and she rocked against him with a groan. He echoed it, pressing her to him.
“I want you, Hilde,” he whispered into her skin, knowing how needy it sounded but unable to help himself. He had been so resolved to do only what she wanted and not ask for anything for himself, but frantic longing consumed him, drowning out all other thought. “I want everything.”
She cupped his face in her hands.
“I want everything, too.”
There was entirely too much fabric between them. She tugged his shirt over his head and fumbled with his breeches underneath the bulk of her petticoats. He shifted to help her, pawing at the layers of linen, and then finally, she sank down onto him. He shuddered, overcome.
She rocked in his embrace, shutting out the world with her curtain of hair and wordlessly asking him to forget everything that had ever troubled him.
This moment, he thought, could last him for the rest of his days.
It would have to.