Chapter 20
Gideon
The moment I was escorted from the grounds of St. Mary's by that lickspittle Bishop, an unfamiliar, disorienting emotion wracked my body as the heavy iron gates clanged shut behind me.
Bleak and utter despair
To leave without my wife was unacceptable. She was my property. Carrying my child.
Rage clouded my vision. Yet there were no tendrils of guilt creeping from around my blackened soul.
Guilt was for other men. Men who hadn't done what I had. Guilt was for weaklings. I was certainly strong enough to take Deliverance and force her to submit to my will, so what had happened?
What I was conscious of was a begrudging, angry pride in my wife’s stubbornness and skills.
How had Deliverance managed to escape me in the first place? How had she known how to navigate the moors? Where had she found the cart and buggy to escape in? How had she kept herself hidden? It was unthinkable.
And what the hell was I supposed to do now?
Earlier, I had torn home in a fury to find the marriage license, and raced hell-for-leather back, my horse and I both sweating even in the cold of winter, the shirt stuck to my skin with chill perspiration.
This was the document that should have proved I owned Deliverance. The Bishop & St. Mary's Abbey should have been turning the grounds inside-out for my disobedient wife.
How had that bastard monk managed to see through my story? Why was he looking so closely at the godsdamn signature?
How the fucking hell was I supposed to find the two-bit parish priest who had married me? He was probably in debtor’s prison or dead in a ditch somewhere.
When I was gently but firmly escorted off the property, I could only think what now?
I still had access to all of Deliverance's fortune. That had been the plan from the beginning. I had contacts across multiple counties. There would be benefits, perks, for the first one to deliver me what I needed.
A wealthy, vulnerable heiress. A source of enough money for the staggering amount I needed to restore Grayspires to her former glory.
I still had all I needed to repair my home.
But I didn’t have Deliverance.
At first, my prissy little wife had been nothing more than a source of wicked amusement for me, to see how easily I could get her to split those creamy little thighs. And how fun it was to force those thighs open when she was acting like a brat.
But suddenly, the idea that she wouldn't be at home with me was unendurable.
I could not make myself leave the village, pacing back and forth along the streets of St. Mary’s all day.
When night fell, I went to the tiny tavern in town and fucked the barmaid there to relieve my aching prick so I could think carefully.
Pretend you’re my wife, I had told her grimly. Pretend you’re carrying my child.
Balls drained, my thoughts now focused on the monk who had lied so boldly to me. He knew where Deliverance was and, if the Bishop wouldn’t help, I would search the grounds myself or wait at his home.
After half an hour or so of pacing, I tied up my horse and carefully walked around the Abbey borders. They were extensive, comprising many large buildings, a few fields, & woods.
Deliverance must be in there. If they wouldn't bring her to me, I'd find her myself and drag her home.
When I found a portion of the fence that was less well-maintained, I was able to break one of the locks and force my way inside.
Keeping carefully to the edges of buildings, I made my way to Bartholomew's cottage. I couldn't shake the impression that she had been there.
When no one answered my knock, I put my shoulder to the door and shoved inside.
The rooms were dark but warm, embers still smoldering in the fireplace. I examined the small kitchen area impatiently, irritated to remember how the monk had spoken to me.
Is that what Deliverance wanted? A smarmy prattling holy man? Well, it didn’t matter what she wanted. She was coming home with me.
I knocked aside the pots on the stove, slopping stew on the flagstones.
Then I saw it.
One single strand of hair, as golden and shiny as a new coin, floating, flyaway, one end caught on one of the gnarled old stones.
Deliverance was here.
Had she been hiding from me when I searched the room? Close enough to seize and drag her home, if I'd only known?
I kicked at a kitchen chair, ripping the legs off it with my bare hands, rage coating my eyes with a heavy film.
"Get out!" I heard a voice call from behind me.
And Bartholomew was there with a sharp hay fork pointed directly at my throat.
"My lord, you need to leave," he said in a steady voice.
I loomed over him with my greater height, stepping forward and forcing the other man to make a choice between backing up or stabbing me in the throat.
He backed up.
"My lord?" I mocked, watching the brother closely. "Why don't you say what you really mean? Haven't you been listening to my wife's hysterics? The cruel husband. The brute."
"Go and repent of your sins," Bartholomew retorted steadily.
Had my wife been in his room all night?
"What about you? Deliverance is a very beautiful woman. You're telling me you didn't get the urge to grip your prick when she fell into your arms?" I spat.
Spots of high red appeared on his smooth cheeks.
"To a man like you, maybe, women are just wet holes. I helped Deliverance because she's good and kind."
I didn't have many illusions about myself, but the implied rebuke irritated me.
"Damn your morals, where is she?"
I kicked his bed until the wooden frame cracked under my boot.
"Leave," Bartholomew said, his lips set.
Weak. He was weak. My fingers itched to put them around his throat and squeeze.
He waved the sharp tines of the hay fork closer to my throat.
"You're a man of peace," I mocked. "I know you wouldn't dare to hurt me."
Stretching my hand out to grab the tool from him, Bartholomew jabbed it sharply forward into my chest, piercing the shirt's fabric and burrowing into my flesh.
Hell and godsdamn
The monk’s face was pale. "Perhaps I am. But I will not let you take Deliverance. You were cruel to her."
"What right do you have to tell me how to run my household?" I seethed, knocking the fork away.
"Is that what you call placing a whore above the wife carrying your child?"
"Damn you! My mistress is gone now."
"Is she? Rumors have it that there's a wild woman in the moors around here, heard howling and wailing like a banshee at night."
“Nonsense,” I snorted, but inside I wondered. Should I have just killed Ada? At the time I had thought killing her would be a kindness, and I wasn’t a kind man. But now I wasn’t so sure. . .
His knuckles were gripping the rake so hard they were pure white.
"You desire my wife, don't you?" I taunted angrily as the metallic stench of my own blood filled my nostrils. "And you know with your small prick you cannot have her."
Bartholomew's eyes flashed with an unexpected blue fire and he swung the fork down below my waist, only barely avoiding piercing my testicles.
"Get out and I'll be sure to redouble the guards around the fences. You won’t get in again."
"You can't keep me out forever," I spat. "I'm Gideon Nightshade."
My chest throbbing from the injury, I detoured into the brewery where the monks made fine, strong ale.
Despite the jab in the back from his hay fork, I grabbed a cask of ale and hefted it on my shoulders, ignoring his bleating.
Then I made my way out of the gates, and when they closed I sat right outside them, watching the grounds with narrowed eyes as I began to drink.
As soon as I saw Deliverance, I was going to pick her up by the back of her dress and drag her over the bars. Her objections be damned! She belonged to me.
I drank until I was in a dull stupor and still I didn't see my wife. It wasn't until sunlight again rose over the craggy hills that I saw her slim figure heading into the parts of the woods protected by the St. Mary's gate.
And I slid to my feet, sleek, predatory, despite my state of advanced drunkenness.
Change of tactics. Obviously she had been spending time with Bartholomew and his sermonizing. If I wanted to get Deliverance back, I was going to have to perform some penitence for her.
So I stalked her form, following as she wound her way around the herbs, plucking the fragrant bundles and holding them in her bag.
When she finally stopped, I fell upon the gate and rattled the bars fiercely.
"Deliverance, mercy!"
To my surprise, my wife neither wept nor screamed, only pushed her dark brown hood aside.
“You're drunk. Who is this Deliverance? You’re talking to Brother Frederich.”
To my fevered imagination, her belly seemed a little rounder, her face more glowing. Her shorn hair only emphasized those wide hazel eyes, with the thick dark lashes, made her look even more desirable.
When I had first talked about an heir to Deliverance, it had been a way to frighten the little mouse I had married. And then fucking her had turned into breeding her. And breeding her had turned into an obsession. . .
I swallowed down my rage and attempted to sound contrite.
"I was wrong to treat you the way I did. Please come home. I promise things will be different."
Deliverance's lips curled and she looked very hard at me.
"Save your breath, Gideon. You are wasting your time pretending to be sorry. You see, I know your secret. I know who you are and what you did. That's how I know you could never truly love me. You miss me like you'd miss a favorite dog, or an old servant. You aren't capable of love."
"You don't know what I'm capable of," I said, and I didn't know if that was a threat or a promise.
My secret? There was no way my innocent, young wife knew it.
“Come home,” I tried again, repressing my urge to throw myself at the bars like a rabid boar. If she wanted a holy man, I would be that. . . until she got within arm’s reach.
Deliverance rose, her slim hand on her belly, and I felt another pang of unexamined emotion. A baby. It was my seed that had swelled her belly.
Until her, I had never wanted a family. In fact, for as long as I could remember I had lived my life with one goal. And it wasn't marriage. It was money, more and more of it until I had enough to gain what I really wanted.
"I know exactly who you are and what you’re capable of, and this is my offer to you. Leave me alone and I won't tell what I know about Grayspires Manor."
Grayspires? My blood ran cold.
She did know my secret.