Chapter 7 #2
‘I am not strong. I am ridiculous. And I am tired.’
‘You are strong,’ he said with a squeeze. ‘I have an idea. I need you to hold all those feelings. Don’t push them down. Don’t let them go.’
His warmth left, and without his support, Lorelei folded to the floor again.
So be it. The floor was where she needed to be.
Low and out of the way. She lay down, cheek against the carpet, as he stomped away.
Breathed in the dust and fluff. His boots clacked the stairs, then scuffed across the threshold as he returned.
‘Stand up,’ he ordered.
She spread her arms and flattened her body against the floor. ‘No.’
‘Please.’ She lay still, and he huffed. ‘I am trying to help. That is my job. To help. Specifically, to help you.’
Lorelei heaved herself onto her back, her skirts dragging and falling into place across her as she rolled. She looked up. Tillman towered above her, his hair hanging loose as he studied her. And, braced between his hands, he held—
Lorelei scrambled to sit. ‘Have you lost your wits? What are you doing with an axe?’
‘You want to get rid of his things? Their things? Then get rid of them.’ He hefted it between his hands. ‘Don’t order it done. Do it.’
‘Women don’t swing axes,’ she said.
‘If you’d ever spent time in the fields and the village, you’d know that women do swing axes.
Oh,’ he said with a mock smile of realisation and a teasing lilt to his voice.
‘You mean women like you. You mean ladies. You mean duchesses who can’t manage anything, because all you do is hold teacups.
Who lie on the floor because they can’t even manage to be angry. Is that who you want to be?’
With a stumble, Lorelei pushed herself to standing. Tillman held out the axe with one hand.
Lorelei stripped off a glove. She slid a finger along the smooth curve of the implement’s head and pressed against the corner of the blade. Just enough to feel the sharpness but not to break the skin.
‘You don’t like all this? You want it gone?’ He stepped closer and pushed the axe against her chest. ‘Be angry. Break it. Destroy it. Do it.’
Lorelei grasped the axe by the handle. As Tillman released it, the head dropped beneath its own weight, but before it could slip from her grasp, she caught it with both hands.
It was heavy, worn, and had one purpose—work.
Unlike her, who existed as nothing more than ornamentation.
She tightened and loosened her hold. Her skin, so thin and soft, puckered against the handle. Tillman nudged her closer to the bed.
Lorelei kept her eyes on the bottom rail but couldn’t stop her gaze from drifting to the mattress.
Couldn’t stop herself from thinking of her heart, broken over and over again, for years.
She raised the axe, her muscles tightening with the effort, then swung.
The blade bounced off the wood with nothing more than a thud.
She hung her head and waited for the laughter and criticism that always followed trying and failing.
‘Don’t fight it.’ Tillman spoke softly, just loud enough for his voice to cross the room.
‘Let the handle do the work. You aren’t a woodsman.
’ He moved behind her and reached around her waist on both sides.
He placed his hand over hers, smothering it beneath his palm, and together, they slid down the shaft of the axe, almost to the end.
His biceps lay against hers, his chest flush with her back, and she should probably object to his closeness, but it felt so raw and honest. She relaxed into his instructions like she could absorb his purpose, leant back until his beard tickled her cheek.
‘Let the blade cut. You just direct it to where you want it to go. You have it?’
She tested the axe in her hands again. ‘I have it.’
‘Good.’ This time, there was a smile in his voice. He stepped away. ‘When you are ready.’
Lorelei braced herself. She pictured them again, but this time, instead of lingering on her sordid imaginings, she balled up the anger, the hurt, the embarrassment.
She let it build until it burst, and with a cry from deep in her stomach, she swung the axe and let every shred of feeling race down her arms, into her palms, through her fingers, down the handle, and into her swing.
The blade bit the wood, and the paint split.
‘All I did was try,’ she spat, and pulled the axe back.
Hefted and raised it again. ‘I almost died giving you a son.’ As the blade struck, a sliver of wood chipped away to show raw grain, stark against the paint.
‘And you didn’t care. Couldn’t even spend a day with him.
Just wrote orders.’ Her muscles strained as she gripped and swung again, this time at the post, so hard her body juddered with the impact.
Her arms, so unaccustomed to physical labour, were already hurting.
A bead of sweat raced down her spine, but the damn bed still stood there, firm and immovable.
As if the slight nicks in the paint were mocking her.
She raised the axe again and swung hard at the exposed chunk. The blade struck. Then stuck.
‘I can’t break it.’
Behind her, Tillman chuckled. ‘Of course you can’t.’
‘You knew I wouldn’t be able to.’ She pulled at the handle, but it would not budge. He crossed the room and wrenched the axe free, then handed it back to her.
‘That wasn’t the point. Do you feel better for letting all that anger out?’
Breathless, she could only nod. She did feel better. She’d felt anger and then rage, and instead of turning the pointed spears of criticism back on herself as she usually did, she’d put all that feeling to use. Sent it out and released it into nothing.
‘Do you want to keep at it?’ he asked.
She shook her head, but giving up didn’t feel like defeat.
‘What shall we do with all of this then, Your Grace?’
‘I want it gone.’ She swept her free hand across the room. ‘Sell it and give the money to a charity. Any will do.’ She crossed to the connecting door and flung it open. ‘Clear this room, William’s room, too. When he’s of age, Arley can buy his own furniture.’
‘Anything else?’ Tillman asked. He folded his arms across his broad chest, a soft smile showing between his rough whiskers and in his eyes, glinting with life.
‘Yes.’ The axe slipped and dropped to the floor with a thump. ‘I want you to kiss me.’