Chapter 3
Deliverance
Ijerked upright even though my head was pounding.
“What? Why? You were just helping me remove my maidenhead for another man.”
He raised an eyebrow. “After you seduced me last night, there is no option to preserve your virtue other than marrying you. And I am nothing if not an honorable man.”
“I seduced you?” I asked, horrified. “Surely–surely not–”
But as I tried to remember what exactly had happened, Mr. Gideon Nightshade was hauling me upright and I realized I was still in my dirty, black mourning dress from yesterday.
He was pulling me after him downstairs as I rubbed my eyes and tried to remember through the headache pounding spikes into my brain. Surely he had been the one who had suggested taking my maidenhead? I did remember unfortunately stumbling into his naked arms, but that had been an accident.
To my shock, the proceedings seemed to be already arranged down in the tavern, and the ceremony itself was a blur.
The parson was a very dirty man who looked like he’d been hauled in from the fields, and he was protesting that he was unable to do the service, but my guardian did not take no for an answer, insisting through gritted teeth that he pronounce the words.
I did not even remember saying the words “I do,” before I was whisked away by Mr. Nightshade, and we were in the carriage again.
The last thing I saw of the Ploughman’s Lunch was a pretty red-haired barmaid waving her handkerchief after us, her lips looking plumped-up and swollen, and a strange wet spot on her apron.
“I’m so sorry,” I said sincerely to my new husband.
What on earth had I been thinking? I had acted very wrongly. It must have been that ratafia! Papa had been right after all. It had made me act like a she-devil.
What if he resented me? My guardian was a very important and powerful man and perhaps he would be angry at marrying a penniless orphan.
“But there was no call at all for you to do that. No one here knows us. I suppose what we did was very improper, but no one would know of our indiscretion.”
His dark eyes were inscrutable.
"Well, you are Mrs. Nightshade now," he said. “Be sure that you don’t spread your legs so easily for men who ask in future. Your cunny belongs to me now.”
There was a stinging, warm sensation between my legs at his words, and it was not quite comfortable to sit down.
“Despite this—unusual beginning, I promise to be a good wife to you,” I said.
My new husband’s eyes looked sardonic, and I couldn’t see what he found amusing.
“See that you do,” was all he replied, and when he brought out the newspaper I tried not to ask him all the thousand questions I wanted about my new life at Grayspires. But I couldn’t help the flicker of excitement in my breast.
I was a married woman now.
In the afternoon, I got my first glimpse of the moors, passing from neat and tidy farmlands to something much wilder–grassy fields cut with sharp, jagged protrusions of stone and rock.
I gripped the window and let my eyes drink in my new home. But how far away was Grayspires?
I thought my new husband was asleep, but suddenly I felt a hard hand on my back, and he was pressing down on my waist and tipping up my bottom, knocking my thighs wide so he could have access to my very sore cunt.
There was no way to leave the carriage, but I had no chance to protest that he hadn’t even asked permission before his cock was buried deep inside my cunny.
I squeaked in surprise, but he was not even looking at me, his eyes fixed on the moors outside, his thrusts getting wilder and more frenetic as we jostled past them.
“The coachman?” I cried in a low tone, afraid the wet, lascivious sound of our bodies connecting was audible, but my husband only ground me harder against the window.
“Silence. Look outside.”
It almost seemed as if Mr. Gideon Nightshade himself was getting wilder as the land did, his strong fingers reaching back for his cravat, tearing the knot out with savage power until I heard it rip.
He poured a lustful release into me and kept going, his seed squirting out of me and down my legs to drip onto the carriage seats.
And then, from a distance. . . Grayspires!
Towering out of the twilight, looming out of the darkness.
It was a long manor house, made of differing colors of gray stone that seemed to almost be a part of the land itself, blending into the earth with its mossy roofs, gnarled branches twisted protectively as if cradling Grayspires.
After all this time, my new home.
It was dark by the time we arrived at the gates, but not so dark that I did not gasp in shock as we drove down the deeply pitted and rough driveway.
Although the house obviously had been built with opulence and ease in mind, it was in some considerable disrepair now, stone crumbling and windows ajar, with one broken and only hastily repaired.
What had happened here?
The carriage house too, was quite barren, devoid of that full stable of horses and hounds I would have expected for a gentleman of his stature.
It was very odd, but I resolved to be patient and wait and see what the future held. Perhaps Mr. Nightshade—Gideon now—did not enjoy the sporting life.
"Come," he said impatiently as the carriage stopped, and I gathered my skirts and hastened to obey.
After all, he was my master now, and I would try to be a good wife.
The halls were dark and very dimly lit, with the bodies of servants only outlined in shadow.
"Light the scones," Gideon directed to the first servant who came respectfully up to him. "It doesn’t matter now."
What didn’t matter now?
But I had no time to ponder this before he was taking my hand, more of a preemptive grip than a proud display.
“This is Mrs. Nightshade.”
I waited for the gasps of excitement, or the polite applause at least. But none came. The servants merely stared at me, their eyes cadaverous-big in their carved faces.
"Mariam, you may take Mrs. Nightshade to her new room."
It was a bit startling to be dismissed so abruptly, but I tried to be optimistic as I followed the elderly woman up the stairs, then down one dark passageway after the other.
There were heavy paintings behind the curtains but we had no time to stop and look at them, wonder which of the old-fashioned figures were my distant relatives, too.
I tried to look out the window at the moors, but it was too dark to see anything. Somehow, it was unsettling to realize the moor was out there but I couldn't see it.
But that was assuming it was a living creature, and it was not. Just grass. Just fields.
Then Mariam finally opened a little white door, and I was in my new quarters.
I walked in eagerly. Although the room was big enough, with a four-poster bed, the hangings hung limply. The blankets had once been a pretty rose-pink color, but were faded and threadbare now. The wallpaper too looked quite worn, with large wet spots on it, and my mirror was cracked and small.
It smelled like a window had been opened at some recent point, but there was also a tiny thread of rot or perhaps mold somewhere I couldn't identify.
Swallowing my dismay, because this was the size of a room we would have put the servants in at home, I cast about for something positive to say.
"It's a very pretty color," I said, smiling brightly at Mariam. "What a pretty room. I am looking forward to getting my things sent over."
The housekeeper said nothing. Her lined face was harsh, her lips downturned.
"It's the room your master has given you. Dinner is at 8:30 pm sharp. We keep country hours here."
"Of course," I said, hating how awkward I felt. “I truly appreciate Mr–Gideon for coming to rescue a poor country cousin.”
“Of course,” Mariam said, then dropped the barest curtsey and left.
I was determined to do better. As mistress of the house, there would of course be a trial period when the servants were unsure of me, but I had had an excellent rapport with all the servants at The Gables and knew my kindness and care would win them over.
Grayspires was my new home. I had no other. And after seeing the condition it was in, I was even more impressed with Gideon for coming to rescue me.
Perhaps he had been a little rough–a little wild–in the carriage. But, after all, he had done the honorable thing and married me.
I barely had time to tidy myself for dinner, but the room appeared to have some spare clothing in it–very ugly plain grayish frocks that were several sizes too big, so I did the best I could without a servant and changed clothes, washed my face, and attempted to straighten my thick braid.
I would have to find out who my new abigail was, soon.
Once that was done, I walked out of my room, into the darkness of the hall.
At first I had no idea which way to go, but I calmed my silly fears, and went back to look in my room for a candle.
Grayspires might need work but it was a good, solid house, was it not? Nothing that we couldn’t fix over time.
Sure enough, there were candles in my room and I lit one and went back out into the hall. The flickering light cast strange shadows, making the paintings on the wall look huge, grotesque.
There was one just above the staircase that had something strange spattered on it.
Without thinking, I stretched my fingers out and brushed across the scarlet spots.
Were they still sticky or was that just my overheated imagination?
What had happened? A painting accident? I raised my candle and looked slowly up the portrait to find—the head was gone! Cut out, in jagged, uneven cuts.
I shivered and hurried down the stairs.
Had animals gotten in at some point? I would have to ask my husband.
The dining room was more sumptuously furnished than my own room, and one would have to look closely to see the wear on the edges and legs of the fine carved chairs.
"Hello," I heard a low, throaty woman's voice from behind me. "Welcome to Grayspires Manor."