70. Then Dog #2
“I am deadly serious, man,” Avery said and mimicked Thane by crossing his arms, his feet planted firmly beneath him despite the glaze of liquor in his eyes.
“I mean to make that woman mine. However she will have me. I’ll be her dog if that is what she wants.
I’ll take what table scraps she flings my way. ”
“You don’t think that the least bit pathetic?”
Avery smiled.
The two men were ten paces from each other, but from where I stood in the dark, the tension in their exchange made it seem like they were within striking distance, as if one’s fist was about to hit the other’s jaw.
“For what do you smile?” Thane demanded.
“I know what you see when you look at her,” answered Avery.
“What I see?”
“What you see. I have asked around, you know. Or rather, instead of answering folk when they ask what I am about in pursuit of the Miller girl, I listen.” Avery paused to bring his right hand to his now-trimmer beard and scratch.
“For they don’t really want to know. And my answer is simple.
I want her. I want to bed her, bed her thoroughly.
Then wed her and pleasure her and only her until I am too old to stay hard any longer. ”
Thane scoffed, taken aback by the frankness in this speech.
I found my fingers at my lips, taken aback myself.
“You see,” Avery continued, “folk ask me what I am about, and I smile or wink at them. But what they really want, after I have confirmed their suspicions, is to tell me what they think, what they know. The judgmental sort wants me to know that she has all but renounced the church, to warn me. But I am Ecclestonian and godless, so I like that about her. The gossiping sort tell me how they believe, though they are not sure, that you once pursued the darker-haired twin before marrying the sunny-haired one.”
“You know not of what you—”
“I know you almost had her, but never truly did,” Avery cut in.
“I know it without anything but rumor in my ear. I can tell by the way you scent her out in the town square. If she is close enough, you practically try and breathe her in. If she is not? Your eyes follow her hips’ sway in the same way mine do.
But you’ve no right to that view, little lord. ”
There was a grinding noise as Thane’s boot scudded against the stony road. He had pushed himself from his lean against the wall. “Be careful how you address me, commoner.”
I gasped again. I had never heard Thane invoke his birthright like that, never heard him so clearly draw a line between his blood and another’s.
Avery let out a chuckle. “You don’t like that name, do you?”
“I am a lord’s son. My father pays your wage. You would do well to remember that.”
Avery merely continued to smile. And then he asked, “Why do you follow me into the alleyway, my lord? Surely you cannot be that concerned for my feelings? Ask what you wish to ask.”
Thane did not reply.
“Perhaps you want to know if she has let me have her yet. Perhaps you want to ask what she feels like beneath a man when he is inside her. You want to know, because—and here I guess—you do not know.” Cocking his head, Avery said, “I repeat. I know what you see when you look at her.”
“And what is that?” Thane asked, almost in spite of himself.
“A mouth meant for biting. Breasts meant to be palmed. Thighs made for parting. I hate to reduce a woman to merely being a man’s satisfaction, but if gods exist, they crafted that frame for fucking.”
Avery was deliberate, taunting, laying a trap for Thane.
“Watch your tongue.”
“I will watch it.” Avery spoke so quickly he spoke over Thane’s speech. “I will watch the effect it has on her when I put it between her pretty legs.”
My hands were clamped over my mouth. He may have shocked both me and Thane, but I was truly surprised at myself.
Appalled me, he had. Offended me? Yes, I was furious at his assumption that he thought he could have and would have access to my body like that, but another part of my mind was full of wanton imaginings, of his tongue truly where he had just claimed he would put it, of my sliding down the stable’s wall where I stood, skirts lifted while he knelt before me and suckled.
“You say such filth,” Thane said finally, his voice thin and cold. “Roberta may not be a lady, but she deserves better than you.”
Avery chuckled, hanging his head and relaxing his arms to plant his hands loosely at his hips. “Oh I know I am a dog. But I want only to be her dog. And I will be her dog. I will take any bone she throws. I have said this before.”
“What makes you so sure of your success?” Thane now sounded flat, disinterested, employing the manner in which he had been raised to behave, to be above such things as jealousy and desire. But he still asked his questions. He still needed to know.
“It is not due to any encouragement on her part.”
Again, I winced at my having thrown the man glances of interest only to follow them with turns of my shoulder.
The blacksmith went on. “I have never wanted someone or something this much. I cannot entertain defeat. My heart and my loins won’t allow for it.”
“And if she rejects you?”
“I have said, thrice now, that I am a dog. I will howl, lamenting the loss of her.” Avery began to laugh, his shoulders shaking. “Go home to your wife, my lord. Your appetite is greedy. You’ve already a fair, sweet woman in your bed. Leave her sister be. Let a free man have his chance with Robbie.”
Thane shifted and then said, “I don’t think she wants to wear a wedding ring.”
“Any ring of marriage or mine?”
“Any.”
“Say what you need to say, man.”
“Do you know what is said about her?”
A fear ran along my spine.
Avery snorted. “I know what service she provides to women in these parts. What else is there you want to tell me? That she is a witch? I don’t believe in witches. Witches are just women who read, according to your church.”
Thane shook his head. “It should not be taken lightly—”
“I have heard things,” Avery said to cut him off.
“It is done in Eccleston. And it is not a thing to be dithered over. It is a hard thing that needs doing sometimes. I know it is outlawed here, and I do not understand why. And I do not care. More so, in truth, I suppose I do care because I admire her for it.”