19 Dove
DOVE
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.
Maerryl was naked. Well, half naked. Standing in front of me.
And now there was no use denying what I felt anymore, no point at all.
Because the first thing I wanted to do when I walked in and saw her there, frozen by the dresser, was stride across the room, tug that washcloth down, and lick the lingering drops of water from her bare chest. It suddenly seemed incredibly crucial that I touch her.
I held myself back. Barely.
Her midriff was bare, skin paler than I’d seen on the rest of her.
And deliciously toned. For the few long moments before my brain caught up with my eyes, I couldn’t stop staring.
Her belted leather pants hung just so on her wide hips, possibly the sexiest image I’d ever seen.
It almost distracted me from the small, distinct mounds that hid beneath the damp washcloth and her hands, the peak of one nipple just visible.
My face was burning up, I knew it. Heat bloomed across my cheeks, my nose, and I tried furiously to regain my cool.
I wasn’t normally much of a blusher. And I’d been around plenty of naked women, of course, romantically and otherwise.
But this was absurd, unprecedented! I must have blushed more in the past few days since she arrived than in the past five years.
I finally got her shirt back—I didn’t know whether to scold or praise Bluebell, that trickster—and we made it to my sitting room, settled on the floor with my healing kit.
To avoid getting blood on my “pretty upholstery,” as Maerryl had said in that half-mocking tone of hers.
I gave her one of my throw blankets to drape over herself while we worked, leaving her left arm exposed.
More in control of myself with a task to do, I dabbed gently at the injured forearm she lay atop her crossed legs, cleaning the blood away.
I focused on the work, trying not to notice the way Maerryl watched me.
Her attention felt focused, intent, as if I sat next to a brightly burning magelight, soaking up the light and warmth it let off.
Bluebell had really gotten her. There were three long scratches from elbow nearly to wrist, two worse than the other. But none of them were anywhere near as bad as the knife cut she’d gotten yesterday, thankfully. It would be easy to clean and wrap.
Still, I found myself lingering over the wound, taking my time.
Maerryl’s arm was firm in my hand, lean lines of muscle.
Her skin felt surprisingly soft. Warm, with light brown hair across her forearm that moved with my breaths as I worked.
A few old scars scattered along her arm, down to the wrist and hands. I traced a thin one with my finger.
“From previous fights with less fearsome foes,” she said quietly. I looked up. She caught my gaze and smiled softly. Her eyes had that same hazy glow they’d held yesterday when I dressed her collarbone wound.
“She can be a bit of a troublemaker. Once she got into Mother’s ribbon collection—what a mess.
When we tried to pull her away, she yowled like a banshee and streaked out of the closet, down the hall, all over the manor.
Tangled—positively covered—in dozens of ribbons.
Took us days to collect them all. Kept finding them under beds, in the washrooms, caught on hedges… ”
“Sounds a bit hilarious though. And your mother must have been pissed,” she said.
“Ohhh, she was,” I chuckled. “But we also had a laugh about it, actually. That was a good day. Before…” I stopped myself.
Shit. My fingers paused in their work.
“Before what?” Maerryl asked. I grabbed the tin of salve, not saying anything for a time. She didn’t rush me. I swiped a small amount of the greenish ointment with my fingertip and began to carefully work it onto her scratches. Her arm tremored lightly at the touch.
“We used to be one of the richest families in Talon, did you know that?” I said. Maerryl murmured a no, her eyes fixed on where I was dressing—practically caressing—her wounds.
“I travel a lot for work,” she said. “Well, I used to. I don’t know much of the goings-on of the rich and famous, if you can believe it.”
“Well, we were the glamorous Wistrallos,” I said with a self-mocking flourish.
“In the most elite social circles of the eastern Willowisp Woods.
House in the city, this estate in the country, two more vacation homes on the shore and in the far north.
For skiing and horse sledding in the winter season, of course.
My parents were patrons of some of the best and brightest artists, and my mother ruled the society set.
And raised me into a Proper Young Lady, of course.
Father ran a few shipping businesses, mainly trading with Orlavia and the Southern Isles.
Acting as an investor, primarily, though he did keep getting more and more involved—firing and hiring employees, buying up additional ships and some competing smaller companies, spending increasing time in his office.
Mother used to complain about it because he began missing social functions that they were expected at.
“And then, a few years ago, things started to change more. Some of their art began to disappear. They used to have a positively massive collection—about a hundred times what’s around the manor now.
But pieces back then went missing. They said some were being restored, or they were clearing out some space for fresh works, though nothing new ever came in.
Then they sold our place on the shorefront—‘We don’t use it enough,’ they said, ‘so let’s expand our mountain house instead.
’ Then the furniture started disappearing.
Businesspeople and lawyer types were always coming and going from Father’s office, voices raised.
Mother stopped hosting at home. I began to get funny looks from people when I was about town.
Stares, whispers. Oddly pitying, some, but mostly full of gleeful excitement, I know now.
That look a fox gets before pouncing on its prey.
“And then, one morning, I woke to find my maid crying as she put my things into trunks. My parents, she said, had ordered her to pack all my belongings for travel, then take her last week of wages and leave. I ran through the house and found my mother in the private gallery attached to her sitting room, staring at one of her favorite paintings by a Southern Isles artist, where her family emigrated from decades ago. She explained that we were bankrupt. It had happened slowly at first, then rapidly, out of control. Father had made some terrible investments in his businesses, and recent storms had also destroyed two ships. Though she didn’t say it, I knew Mother had been overextending us as well—our art collection had reached near-absurd levels in those years.
I’m sure I hadn’t helped matters either, with the coin I spent on dresses and such.
Though they’d never told me anything was amiss. Kept it secret until the bitter end.
“And suddenly, almost everything we owned was gone. They’d finally been forced to sell off our properties, including our main one in Talon, and everything in it, to pay off their debts. To avoid imprisonment. ‘Or worse,’ she’d said.”
I swallowed, forcing my voice to stay light.
I moved on to bandage Maerryl’s arm with a long strip of clean linen.
Continuing, I said, “We were able to keep our old country estate here. It’s been in my family for generations, and technically, only the Queen can take it from us.
They were able to avoid that fate and keep this out of the courts by selling off everything else—our other homes, what remained of the business, most of our jewelry and furniture, all their art.
Mother only kept one piece, that small Southern Isles painting. Snuck it out in a trunk of her gowns.
“Things only got worse from there. We had to let go most of our staff; workers and friends I’d been raised with, known my whole life.
Their livelihoods were ruined. We were fully and immediately cut off from all social circles.
Outcasts. No one would do business with us, understandably, after my father’s failures.
Supplies and food eventually grew sparse.
The vultures began circling. We couldn’t maintain the estate at all, and we almost had to sell Lightning.
Sell this land and give up our titles to the Crown.
Mother became colder, taking all her unhappiness out on me. Father rarely left his study.”
Maerryl’s other hand wrapped around my wrist, brushing my pulse gently. “And you? What about you?”
“I—I just let it all happen. As I’d let all of this happen to my family.
I was so oblivious, the whole time. So blind.
Prancing around to parties and balls and the shops.
Painting, riding, doing whatever I pleased while our lives were falling apart around me.
My parents didn’t even bother telling me as it happened.
They probably thought I couldn’t do anything to help even if I did know. ”
“I doubt that’s true,” she said.
“You don’t know how I was then,” I said, shaking my head.
“Anyway, that’s it. Sad tale from a poor little rich girl, right?
Woe is me.” I finished tucking the bandage end in and pulled away, but she kept her loose hold on my wrist, seeming to not want to let go.
Her gentle touch soothed the knots in my stomach that had arisen from revisiting the past. “Hate me even more now, I bet.”
“I don’t hate you, Dove. I never did,” she said quietly.
My mouth ran dry. I didn’t know why I suddenly felt tears pressing behind my eyes. “I never hated you either. Not really. I—I’m so sorry I said that.”
She just inclined her head. We sat in silence for a while, more comfortable than it’d ever felt between us.
“Things seem… better now, though, aren’t they?” Maerryl looked around the lush room and back to me.