Chapter Eight #2
“Because she needs protecting.”
“From me?”
Kirk stared at him a moment. Then, he smiled humorlessly. “Most of all.”
It wasn’t an insult, simply the truth. Edmund continued to gaze at the man a moment longer before turning away, moving quickly down the hall.
Johanne skipped after him and Kirk watched the pair until they disappeared from view.
Then, his attention turned to the closed door. He couldn’t help but open it.
The room was dark. The oilcloths remained secured over the lancet windows and the hearth was dark and sooty.
Kirk paused a moment as his eyes grew accustom to the dim light, noticing a slight figure seated on the edge of the bed.
Puzzled, not to mention concerned, he moved for the heavy window dressings.
“My lady,” he said. “Allow me to open the…”
“Nay,” Micheline’s voice was loud and dull.
Kirk paused in the middle of the room, looking at the woman as she sat motionless. Her eyes were distant, her back straight and proud. Kirk could sense a terrible sorrow.
“Misha,” he said softly. “Are you well, lass?”
She blinked. Then, she looked as if the question confused her. “Is this what it will always be like?”
“Will what be like?”
She turned to him, then. “My marriage. Is this is what it is meant to be?”
He shook his head, unsure of the question. Slowly, he lowered himself into an oaken chair next to the bed. “I do not understand you, lass. What do you mean?”
Micheline stared at him and he could see the tears coming. Closing her eyes, as if she could hardly stand to recall the events of the past hour, she turned away from him in soft sobs.
“My dear God…,” she gasped.
Kirk swallowed. “What happened, Misha? Can you tell me?”
She shook her head, her entire body trembling. “I… I cannot,” she whispered. “It is too… too….”
“Did he hurt you?”
She did not reply for a moment. “There was supposed to be pain.”
Kirk was struggling to help her without squeezing the truth free. It wasn’t any of his business, yet, he was eager to know. Almost frantic. “That’s not what I mean, lass. Other than the obvious, did he hurt you?”
She remained silent, sobbing into her hands. Kirk was preparing to ask again when her voice, muffled and faint, suddenly filled the room. “He made me… watch.”
He gazed at her, laboring to maintain his composure as a creeping sense of dread took hold. “What did he make you watch?”
She wept painfully, believing that the mere words describing her torment would surely make her vomit.
“He… he and Johanne,” she whispered. “He made me watch them, together, and told me to learn well from their actions. He expects the same from me.”
Kirk closed his eyes, shocked and sickened. But in the same breath, fury such as he had never known welled within his chest and he reached out, grasping Micheline’s hand. Instead of pulling away, recoiling from the man who had delivered her to her nightmare, she clutched him tightly.
“Oh, lass,” he breathed. “I am so sorry. I never… I never imagined he would do something like this.”
She continued to cry, so terribly pitiful. “That wasn’t the worst of it,” she gasped. “When they were done, Johanne… she stood by and watched as Edmund forced…forced me to….”
Kirk hung his head. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any more. Literally, the pain from Micheline’s humiliation reached out to grab him like a vise and he found it difficult to breath for all of the heartache and outrage he was experiencing.
“Misha, I am sorry,” he whispered, feeling as if he had contributed to her agony. “I am so very sorry. Had I known….”
“And she laughed, too,” Micheline’s voice was high-pitched, strained with emotion and hysteria. “When I cried in pain, she laughed. She told me to bear it well.”
Kirk thought he might vomit. But Micheline wasn’t finished, compounding his illness with each successive word until he thought he might literally go mad.
“Edmund invited her to touch me,” she was gasping for air, struggling to tell her sordid tale. Needing to tell someone. “As he continued to… oh, Kirk, he told her to touch me. And she did. She did!”
Kirk shot to his feet, blind fury filling him. He simply couldn’t stand it any longer and was determined to punish Edmund for his vile doings no matter what the personal cost. Before he reached the door, however, Micheline threw herself at him, pleading for calm.
“Nay, Kirk,” she begged, clutching his arms with all her frail strength. “You have no right to condemn them. He is my husband and has every right to do with me as he pleases.”
The gleam in Kirk’s eyes frightened her. “He has no right to treat you like….”
Micheline nodded firmly, struggling to gain control of her tears. She could see that Kirk was beyond his limits and the sooner she regain her composure, the better for them all.
“It is his right,” she insisted, sniffling. But her gaze was steady as she faced him. “You know as well as I do that you have no control over what he does. No matter how barbaric. And certainly it is not your station to judge or punish his actions.”
“But….”
“You have no right.”
Kirk stared down at the woman, his heart aching for her plight. Never had he imagined Edmund or Johanne capable of such debauchery and he grappled furiously with his outrage, so much so that beads of sweat peppered his brow. After a moment, he shook his head in a helpless gesture.
“But I promised Mara…” he sighed heavily, turning away from Micheline. “Dear God, I promised your sister that I would protect you. I alone would prevent further humiliation to your fragile character. And see how I have failed.”
“You have not failed,” Micheline was calmer now, watching the broad back pace away from her.
“You have done all you can, Sir Kirk, and I am grateful. To have failed would have been to confront Edmund when it is not your place to do so. And I could not allow you to jeopardize yourself, not when Mara loves you so.”
He froze in mid-pace, his chest heaving with emotion. Slowly, with great wonder, he focused on the pale, trembling lady.
“She told you this?”
Micheline smiled weakly. “She spent the night crying over you, though she would not tell me the exact circumstance. I know my sister well, Sir Kirk, well enough to know that she loves you and would be lost without you.”
Kirk’s face was pale, the stone-gray eyes wide. “I… I do not know what to say.”
Micheline wiped the last of her tears from her cheeks, her smile steady as she approached him. “Say that you love her, too.”
He did not hesitate. “I have from the start.”
“And you will marry her?”
“She does not want to marry me,” he shrugged. “And… last night, I said things I should not have. But she was so stubborn, so pugnacious, I simply couldn’t….”
Micheline put her hand on his chest before he could finish. “The trick with Mara is to be more stubborn and more pugnacious than she is. She loves a good fight, but she respects someone who can beat her at her own game. It’s the Irish in her, I suppose.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Mara has Irish bloodlines?”
Micheline nodded. “On our mother’s side. Her grandmother was from Dublin.”
Kirk chuckled, his composure returning as Micheline succeeded in calming his rage with talk of Mara’s stubborn nature, of all things. “She has a lot of fire in her. Certainly it could only be Irish blood.”
Micheline laughed softly, feeling her mood lighten and her horror fade; to have Kirk’s support was more of an emotional boost than she realized. If he wasn’t already smitten with Mara, she might have declared interest in him herself.
“You will promise me something, Sir Kirk,” she said after the laughter faded.
“Anything, my lady.”
“Promise that you will not tell Mara what happened here today. I shall think of something to tell her, but she must never know the truth.”
Kirk gazed into the pale blue eyes before answering. “Of course,” he said softly. “There is no telling what she will do if she learns what Edmund and Johanne subjected you to.”
Micheline turned away from him, sighing heavily as her composure, her wits, returned. “Have you always been aware of their… relationship?”
He paused a moment. “Aye,” he muttered. “But it is something we do not speak of simply for the fact that it is too vile to comprehend. I… I am sorry I did not forewarn you. I truthfully do not know if it would have made a difference even if I had.”
Micheline nodded, running her hand over the mussed coverlet, smelling of sweat and sex. “It would not have,” she murmured. “I would have been forced to marry him regardless.”
Kirk watched her as she gazed at the bed, pondering the course of her future. “Still, I will speak to him,” he said quietly. “Mayhap he will listen to me.”
“And mayhap he will take your interest out on my hide,” Micheline looked at him, amazingly composed now that her cleansing cry was complete. “For my sake, I ask that you not intervene. This is my marriage and I must take responsibility as best I am able.”
Kirk sighed heavily; there was nothing he could say against her sound logic. “As you request, my lady,” the stone-gray eyes twinkled. “Tell me; did you inherit all of the common sense in your family?”
Micheline smiled. “Mara has a good deal of common sense, though she pretends otherwise. Have you never shared a calm conversation with her, Kirk?”
Now he grinned. “Once, after I spanked her. She harbors a great deal of wisdom in her little brain, wisdom I should like to nurture. Mayhap it will overshadow the wild nature, someday.”
“But not entirely.”
He chuckled. “Nay, not entirely. I rather like a hellion.”
Micheline laughed with him, holding out her hand. He collected it gently, so very respectful of the new Baroness Bowland. Edmund did not deserve the woman in the least and if the man was standing before him at this very minute, he wasn’t at all sure he could refrain from killing him.
“And I rather like the hellion’s beau,” Micheline said softly, laughing again when he shrugged modestly. “Thank you, Sir Kirk. For everything you have done for my sister and I, I thank you.”