Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
A n unfamiliar feeling of safety settled over Mercy like a blanket, wrapping her in a warmth she’d never known. She’d never met a morning that hadn’t threatened her from bed before now. The sunrise today felt different. She snuggled towards the heat next to her and in a half-sleep drew kisses across a bicep. The arm pulled her close and she sighed with bliss. Fingers combed through her hair and she drew closer to her husband.
Her husband.
Mercy’s eyes popped open. She smelled the smoke from a dying fire and heard the water of the creek tumbling over rocks. Birds sang above her, and a cold breeze played with her hair. And she was sheathed in Rory Macleod’s arms beneath a scratchy blanket. Mercy tensed up and began to move away from him slowly when he pulled her back to his chest and drew the length of her body on top of his.
“Where do ye think yer going, lass?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep. Mercy could feel the exquisite hardness of him against her stomach. He pressed a kiss into her tangled hair and yawned.
“I thought...I must go tend to the…” she sputtered.
“Nae, ye must not.”
“Rory,” she said exasperated, staring up into his eyes, which were filled with mischief.
“Yer chores have been done, lass,” he said, pulling her up by her elbows. When her face was above his, he traced a finger along the shell of her ear and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.
She felt her whole body soften and met his sleepy grin with a giddy smile of her own, closing her eyes as he drew soft circles on her back with his fingertips. She felt wholly unlike herself, as if this was some Mercy that she could have been in another life. Like a Mercy who’d never learned that, in order to survive this world, you needed to be different—harder. More careful. Lonely.
Rory pressed her against him, one hand on the small of her back and the other between her shoulder blades. Her eyes opened and drifted over his knotted black curls, his pillowy lips that used to seem so stiff. He had a pleasant nose, but it was the least arresting of his features. In fact, it played the background music to the symphony of his face. His eyes drew back and up in the outer corners, so that they were almost catlike. They were not the eyes of a tabby, though, but those of a cougar, as they were nearly always filled with wild emotion. When closed, his face seemed serene. Mercy studied his lips and then leaned down to kiss him. She meant to graze his mouth softly, but she met his lips with barely contained hunger.
Rory laughed softly and pulled away. “Nae, lass,” he said. “Ye’ll be too sore for chores today, and for that, too.” The damp, dark fears that had plagued Mercy the night before, before he’d scooped her up and brought her to this campsite, twisted around her insides once again. When Rory sat up and began to get dressed, the dread grew.
“Where are you going?” she asked timidly, trying to sound apathetic. She pulled the blanket up to her throat.
“I’ve sold my soul up and down this mountain for that wedding,” Rory grunted as he pulled on his boots. “And now it’s time to pay up.” Mercy was crestfallen. After placing a kiss roughly on her head, Rory was off, walking swiftly through the woods back to the farm.
When he was gone from sight, Mercy sat up and winced. He hadn’t been joking about being sore. The blanket fell from her shoulders as she let her face fall into her hands as an unfamiliar heaviness settled in her chest. She looked back up at the bright, cloudless sky and her hands tightened into fists.
“Stop it,” she said, loud enough to scare away a nearby cardinal from her nest. She was overwhelmed, then, with outrage. I didn’t ask this of him, she thought angrily. If he was going to try to make her feel guilty for selling his soul, well, it wasn’t going to work. She bit her lip and pulled the blanket up around her neck as she thought of how they had been with each other the night before, how they had fit so perfectly together, how he had handled her like something precious to him. She wished, so much, that she could have gone on pretending that she was.
She flopped back onto the bed he’d made and listened to the comforting spill of water over smooth stone, the flapping of the cardinal’s wings as she returned to her hideaway. Had Mercy known that they would consummate their fraudulent marriage? Certainly not before the ceremony, or she might not have agreed to it. But every man has needs, so why hadn’t she realized before that Rory would want to satisfy his with his own wife, real or not? What Mercy hadn’t counted on was realizing that women had their own needs, too, and Rory had both uncovered and appeased hers in every way. The easy, attentive, passionate Rory from last night was a man who could tempt her into falling in love, and the mere thought had her wringing her hands together in fear. No, she absolutely, positively, could not fall in love with her husband.
He had left her alone, naked in the forest, she reminded herself, and the foul resentment from before flooded her veins again. He was a brute, and the Rory she had glimpsed the night before was no more than a practiced rake. She would not fall for his rehearsed charms, nor his undeniable beauty. I chose this, she thought heatedly. I knew what kind of an agreement this was from the start. Though their initial lovemaking was probably an inevitability, it didn’t need to happen again. She could own her emotions, her body. She could own her choices.
“Tell me everything,” Amity said, emerging from the trees. Mercy, with all her conflicting emotions, let out a loud laugh in surprise. “Rory asked me to bring you these,” she said, producing a clean shift, skirts, stays, and wool cloak.
“He did, did he?” Mercy asked caustically.
“Oh dear,” Amity said, rushing to her sister’s side. “Did he hurt you?” Amity looked prepared to fight the brute all by herself, what with her eyes welling with fury.
“No,” Mercy answered quickly, surprised. She followed Amity’s eyes down to the blankets, which were marked red with her blood. “Oh,” she said, biting her lip. “Amity,” she started to say.
“I understand,” Amity said at once, helping her into the clean shift. “I’ve seen it, you know. The young girls Father’s friends would bring here…” she started to say.
“Amity!” Mercy exclaimed, stepping into her skirts quickly before the chill in the air froze her.
“Do you bleed every time?” she asked as Mercy turned for Amity to lace up her stays.
“I don’t know,” Mercy answered, disgruntled. She was overcome with the memory of Rory’s fingers, his tongue, every inch of him tearing into her flesh and the exquisite pain, the agonizing pleasure. His eyes boring into hers. When she turned, Amity was looking at her expectantly.
“Well?”
“I’m sorry, dear, what did you say?”
“Where were they headed in such a rush?”
“Who?” Mercy asked, having trouble following.
“Rory and Rabbie,” Amity said impatiently. “They left in quite a hurry.”
“Left for where?”
“That’s exactly what I’m asking you!”
“I’ve no idea,” Mercy said, frowning. She reminded herself again that she was resigned to care nothing for Rory Macleod. Their marriage was a contract, that’s all. “Come, help me clean up this mess.”
Though Cailean had wanted to join them at Bell’s farm, Rory had made him promise to stay and protect Mercy and Amity, should the vile Teague come sniffing around again. So he and Rabbie made their way down the mountain, where Rory intended to pay his debt as quickly as possible, as he had an altogether enthralling wife up on the mountaintop who very much needed to be kissed again. Rory fought a smile as he thought of how he had taken her passionately in his arms in front of Reverend Hawes that first time as husband in wife, how when he had finally managed to pull his lips from hers, he knew somehow that he would spend the rest of his life finding reasons not to.
The rest of the winter, he reminded himself, his smile disappearing quickly.
“We’ll need to find paying work,” Rory said gruffly as their boots crunched over the cold dirt road. Rabbie didn’t respond. “I don’t know how much Mercy’s tobacco will fetch, and I don’t know how much her useless father owed that...that…” Rory was filled with rage, just thinking of that pig touching Mercy, his red ruddy fingers on her perfect skin. Fantasies of wringing the man’s neck flashed through his mind.
“Easy,” Rabbie said quietly, bringing Rory back to himself.
“Alright, lad,” Rory said, then pressed his lips together. He both hated and appreciated that Rabbie was attuned to his every thought. He always had been, even when they were younger. “Ye’ve not said anything,” Rory said after a long silence.
“I’ve nothing to say,” Rabbie replied easily, dodging a low branch.
“Ye have, Rabbie. Out with it.” Rory could feel his anger getting the best of him again.
“Truly, brother,” Rabbie said soothingly. “I’ve nothing to say about it today.”
“Today?” Rory asked, raising his brows.
“Aye,” Rabbie agreed. “When I’ve something to say, I promise to say it.” Rory was annoyed, but he left it alone. He knew Rabbie thought only of their plan—to escape British land and start again in the French wilderness. He was pragmatic, and surely he knew the wisdom of staying at the Barnett homestead for the winter, but he also surely detested the detour they had been forced to make.
“There,” Rory said, pointing to a small farmhouse off the road.
Rory had been right. They’d been able to turn all the Bell land and sow his clover cover crop in not more than four hours. He and Rabbie had both removed their shirts in the afternoon sun and had worked up quite a sweat, luxuriating in the exertion of honest work. For the past few weeks or so they’d been well fed and rested, and Rory could feel his full strength returning. After they’d finished tearing up the earth and scattering clover seed, Bell ambled over with two cups of cider. Rory couldn’t help but be amused at the man in his winter cloak and hat. Definitely a lowland Scot, he thought.
“I must say,” Bell said, handing them their rewards, “you’ve done a fine job. A fine job indeed.” Rory took the cider with appreciation.
“I see yer orchard over there, Mr. Bell,” Rory said, pointing to the apple trees in the distance, “but what is it ye grow in this field?”
“Corn, wheat, oat. Any grain that’ll grow.” Bell pulled his hat from his bald head and wiped his face with a kerchief. “Crop was good this season, but I’ve yet to receive it processed.” At this, Rory leaned closer.
“Where do ye send the grain, Mr. Bell?” he asked with interest. Rabbie leaned on his rake and frowned slightly.
“All the way to Frederick Town,” he said gloomily. “You’ve no idea how the wagon drivers swindle me.”
“There’s nowhere closer ye can process yer grain?”
“No, lad,” Bell said, shaking his head. Rory nodded and gazed across Bell’s land.
“Do ye do well here in town, Mr. Bell? I mean with yer grains. If ye don’t mind my asking,” he added.
“Oh, I do just fine. There are only three farms here that produce grain, and the town keeps growing, what with the medicinal springs. Bread, bread. Everyone needs bread. There are farms in the towns north of us that still must go all the way to Frederick Town to have their grains processed.”
“Do they,” Rory asked, twisting at his short beard.
“T’is a sad state of affairs,” Bell said, “but out here in the backcountry region, it is easier for us to grow, and harder to process. You know, don’t you,” he said, his voice getting lower even though there was no one else within a mile, “that we were all given this land outright? All of us here in the region. Sure, we don’t own it, but we have no rent to pay on it, either. It seems it’s in the Assembly’s best interest to have us more simple folk pushing west.”
“Why?” Rabbie asked quietly. Bell looked over at Rabbie in surprise, as if he’d forgotten he was there.
“To push the natives farther west, of course,” he said, then shot out his hand. “I thank you both very much. And should I hear of anyone else needing a spot of work done, I will think of you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bell,” Rory said, shaking his hand, and when Mr. Bell left them, Rory looked down at his palm in surprise: two shillings.
“It’s a start,” Rabbie said, the hint of a smile touching his eyes as he pulled his shirt back on and tucked it into his breeches.
“Come,” Rory said, ruffling his brother’s hair as if they were children again. I’ve more debts to pay.” Rabbie drew his fingers through his auburn hair to smooth it, picked up his waistcoat and cravat, and followed Rory towards town.
“Ye’re sure we won’t be found out, Rory?” he asked when they were halfway down the road. Rory was donning his garments one at a time, as the feeling of sun on his skin was too delicious to lose. It was vastly colder up on the mountain than here in the valley.
“I saw no soldiers about yesterday,” Rory answered, squinting as he tied his cravat around his neck. “I know ye fear for our safety, Rabbie, but no’ one of us is safe without money to buy supplies.”
Rabbie didn’t answer. His trust in Rory had always felt unwavering, but Rory worried that his newfound obsession with Miss Mercy Barnett—nae, make that Mrs. Mercy Miller—had Rabbie doubting him. He was sure, however, that they wouldn’t find Crawley lurking about this insignificant town in the backcountry today. The Virginia Colony, Rory learned when Reverend Hawes had rambled all the way up to the Barnett farm, was twice the size of Scotland. Rabbie had once run away from home for days avoiding capture, Rory remembered, and that was just on a small isle. Surely they could avoid Crawley for another season.
Once in town and fully dressed, Rory was certain that Highlanders, and more specifically Highlanders from the Isles, were among the strongest breed of men. People went about in great cloaks and scarves and woolen hats. He caught Rabbie’s eye and they both grinned before Rory pulled open the door of the Halfway House and headed to the bar, Rabbie close at his heels.
“William,” Rory said quietly, drawing the barkeep’s attention. The man behind the bar ambled towards them and lifted his head in acknowledgement. Rory knew that Rabbie would like the man immediately, as he had. William was short compared to the two of them, but had the calm confidence that smaller men rarely possessed. In Rory’s experience, short men were either timid or antagonistic. This man was neither.
“You’ve returned. Has this one also come to trade work for whiskey?” he asked mildly, appraising the new Macleod.
“Nae,” Rory said. “I’ll work off my debt today, but we’d like to pledge more work, for pay.” William drew his eyes from Rabbie to peer back at Rory and nodded.
“Two is better than one. I’ve no work for you today, but tomorrow is All Hallow’s Eve. Come at nightfall. It gets disorderly here after they’ve taken to the roads. You’ll be working off your debt, but this one,” William said, pointing to Rabbie,” will receive three shillings.” Rory nodded and withdrew with Rabbie not far behind.
“All Hallow’s Eve,” Rabbie repeated when they opened the door and stepped into the sunlight.
“Like Samhain, I would guess,” Rory said, peering up at the sun’s location in the sky and feeling a faint chill in the air. “It’s about the right season, aye?”
“Aye,” Rabbie agreed.
“They’ve no castle, no House here to celebrate. Perhaps they celebrate in the roads, like the man said, and then at the tavern.” Rory thought fondly of Samhains past. How he’d delighted in the peat bonfires at home, the revelry, the flowing whiskey. It was a day to remember the souls lost the year before, and to celebrate their lives. It was a night to give thanks for a bountiful harvest, and to honor the work put forth by the men and women who helped to grow it. Samhain and its magic and wild revelry had always held a special place in Rory’s heart. Thinking of how “disorderly” William had said their celebrations get, Rory assumed that either Highlanders really were the superior men, better at holding their liquor, or...
“Do ye think there are spirits in these parts, Rory?” Rabbie asked after they’d started back up the carriage road to the Barnett’s. He had obviously been mulling over the same thing.
“Spirits? Faeries, Rabbie?” Rory looked at his brother and grinned.
“Ye know I’ve seen them,” Rabbie said seriously. Rory laughed softly and nodded.
“So ye say, Rabbie.” When Rabbie was young and had run away from home, he’d sworn up and down that he’d seen the spirits, that they’d kept watch over him as he’d slept under the stars.
“I did,” he muttered under his breath. As practical as Rabbie was in every other facet of his life, he truly believed.
“Aye, I think there are spirits in these parts.” Rabbie glanced at him. “The natives that Mercy has spoken of,” he said, “they have been here for a very long time. Longer than any colonist. How could there no’ be spirits here?”
“Do ye think that that’s why the Halfway House needs us?” Rabbie asked. He didn’t sound worried, exactly, but rather intrigued.
“Perhaps.” Rory’s pace quickened, as he wasn’t truly thinking of faeries or changelings. He was thinking of Mercy, and how violently he missed her, after only a few hours. “We shall find out tomorrow, lad,” Rory said as Rabbie tried to keep pace.
“Aye,” Rabbie agreed, “tomorrow.”