Chapter 21
Deliverance
"What do you know about Grayspires?" my husband bit out.
And that was all the confirmation I needed that my guess was correct.
"I know you aren't really a Nightshade, are you, Gideon? You didn't inherit Grayspires at all, did you? Everything you've ever gotten you've stolen, and it can all be taken away from you."
"Shut your slut mouth," Gideon said, slamming his big palm on the bars between us. "It's a lie."
But had that been a flash deep in his eyes, something hard and feral there as the winter wind swirled around the bulk of his body, that showed me my shaft had struck true?
There was a soft touch on my elbow, and I heard Bartholomew's voice in my ear.
"Come away," he coaxed, putting his arm gently around me and gathering up all the herbs that had fallen on the ground.
But I didn’t want to. I was toe to toe with my powerful husband and I didn’t want to stop. He was looking like he wanted to strangle me and for once he couldn’t.
"Don’t touch my wife," Gideon raged.
He couldn't stop me. He couldn't lock me in a room. He couldn't enforce his brutal desires on me.
I pulled away from Bartholomew and walked right up to my husband, side-stepping the grasp of his bloody fingers.
"He can touch me if he likes."
"Deliverance, I swear to God—"
"You swear what? That you won't get another mistress? That you'll be a better man?"
"No more mistresses," he ground out, like the words were dragged from his gut. "The minute you come back, I’ll even give up my whores."
I snorted. "Save it. This is your apology? Your promises mean nothing, and you deserve to rot in hell."
I thought I was a safe enough distance away, but at my words Gideon made a sudden grab, stretching through the bars until he gripped the back of my skirt.
Oh, godsdamn! I’d gotten too cocky. I should never have thought there was even a shred of weakness in him.
And then he began to pull me slowly toward him. Step by step.
I cried out in distress, instinctively clutching the small swell of my belly.
"What do you want from me, damn you?" he bit out. "Jewelry, a carriage, the carcass of anyone you so choose--I will provide it!"
Bartholomew leaped forward, but Gideon was stronger, his arm dripping with sweat as he bore me closer, against the bars, stinking like beer and blood, his voice low and gritty in my ear.
His beard rasped down the flesh of my naked throat, and suddenly my breasts felt heavier, swelling against the monk’s robes until my nipples prickled.
Gritting my teeth, I kicked back with my boot until I connected with a fleshy part of him.
“So I originally wanted to kill you?” my husband growled. “That’s none of your fucking business now.”
“You’re a bastard,” I panted. “Go use my money on your precious pile of rocks then. I don’t care anymore. Just let me go.”
"Let you go? Never. I love you," Gideon hissed angrily in my ear, his other hand on my throat, right over my fluttering heartbeat.
In this position, he could have killed me instantly, wrung my neck until he no longer had to be troubled with a wife.
"I hate you," I choked out, trying to wrench his bloody arm away, my teeth gritting as his mouth descended on my skin, sucking eagerly at my flesh and licking up every drop of sweat.
“This godsdamn cunny loves me and so do you. You’re just a dirty little liar. Come back to me.”
“Not only are you a hateful brute, but you’re a cheater, too.”
“So what? I took what I wanted from any woman I wanted. It’s a man’s damn right, but I told you I’ll stop whoring around if you come back to me.”
“You don’t love me and you couldn’t keep your prick in your pants if you tried.”
His teeth sunk into my neck and I squealed in distress.
But out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of brown cloth as Bartholomew picked up a thick branch, ramming it into Gideon's side to break the contact between us.
My husband choked out a vicious oath and I wrenched myself free.
As I stumbled away, I looked at Gideon's face, the rough beard over his jaw, the heavy-lidded eyes, and dark angry gaze, the way the gate was peeling strips of flesh from his arms but he just kept coming.
"I want nothing from you, I care nothing for you,” I told him. “Even if you crawled on your belly, it would mean nothing to me."
My hands reached for Bartholomew's and we clutched them together desperately as I took one step, then the next, away from my husband's depraved savagery.
"If you think I'm giving up, you're mistaken," Gideon snarled. "You will be mine, happy or not.”
"Leave me alone!" I screamed, finally giving vent to my emotions after so many days of them twisting, burning inside me.
And then I heard it, an answering screech from somewhere on the moors. There was a flash, a wisp, of movement in the shadows. A face, a voice, I thought I knew.
But it couldn't be. . . the face had been too ghastly for words. . .
Bartholomew hurried me away, through the fragrant woods as tiny flakes of snow began to swirl around us.
"Some unfortunate wild animal," he told me soothingly as I sat at his tiny table and drank strong bark tea. "What we heard could not possibly have been human."
I wanted to believe him. . . perhaps it was true; after all, there were many strange creatures on the moors.
I leaned back against the kindly man who had become my friend, trembling from the day's exertions and inhaling his comforting woodsy scent.
Perhaps it was not quite proper how closely we sat, how comfortable it felt to rest my head on his chest.
"Deliverance, I— am taking far too much pleasure in how close your body is to mine," Bartholomew groaned, his sweet breath rustling the heated curls around my throat.
"Surely—taking comfort in each other—cannot be wrong," I murmured, my cheeks pink with embarrassment.
He groaned again, reaching a hand up to smooth my wayward hair.
"My vow of chastity has never been tempted before you. But you are so soft—so sweet—so strong!"
"You are all kindness," I said, sitting up to look shyly at him. "I owe all my freedom—my whole safety here—to you!"
There was a faint spot of color on his cheeks, and he reached one hand out for me, gently taking a strand of my shorn golden hair between his fingers, before pulling away and saying in a low tone,
"I must pray to resist temptation."
But did I want him to succeed? Maybe if he had not taken a lifelong vow of celibacy?
And maybe if going toe-to-toe with my wicked husband hadn’t made my cunny pound so hard it ached. . .
I tried to forget him and settle into a routine at St. Mary's Abbey. Here I was loved and cared for, and had a purpose. It wasn’t long before I had moved from gathering the herbs, to learning to prepare ointments and unguents, and then to working in the infirmary.
As my belly grew, I had to abandon the ruse that I was a boy, but as far as anyone knew, I was simply a fallen woman rescued by St. Mary's.
But with my hair cut and in my monk’s robe, there was no way to prove I was the delicate, well-bred, unfortunate young wife of Mr. Nightshade.
As my belly grew and my baby danced inside me, I began to specialize in the healing arts, treating ailments like common colds, pox, and injuries, even helping out when a few townspeople came for help delivering babies.
On Christmas there were several packages left at the gate for me, and a man waiting in the shadows to see what I did with them.
And once the strong lock had clanged shut, I wrapped my warm winter cloak around me and destroyed the boxes all, one by one, smashed them with my foot to find diamond necklaces, sapphire rings, fine jewels, and delicate silken gloves and stockings.
The gloves and stockings I tore to pieces, the jewelry I took to Bartholomew to fund St. Mary's charitable activities.
“Enjoying my money?” I called out, then turned on my heel and left.
Mr. Nightshade could rage from the outside all he liked, but with such strange sightings on the moors, such strange and eerie howlings at night, Bartholomew had succeeded in putting more guards around the Abbey walls.
And for a time there was no more word of him.
I comforted myself with visions of his mangled body lying at the bottom of a deep crevice, but somehow, I could still taste his vengeance and obsession on my tongue every time I drew a breath of piercing winter air.
No, Gideon Nightshade still lived. I would feel it when he died.
Then one gray late winter day when the clouds hung low over the St. Mary's grounds and there was a whiff of smoke in the air, they brought in a patient for me to care for.
He was a big man clad in a rough brown monastic robe, his head shaven as befit a holy man, and I hurried over with my healing herbs and balms.
"He looks badly burned, Angel," Sister Win told me, her voice laced with concern.
"How did this happen?" I cried, seeing the peeling flesh up and down the brother’s arms and the charred tips of his fingers.
"I don't know! A farmer found him naked wandering the fields and brought him here for help. I will go refill our comfrey; it looks like he will need a lot."
She hurried out and I quickly mixed up yarrow, olive oil, and beeswax.
"Stay calm," I soothed as the man made a heartbreaking moan of pain. "We will do all we can for you and there will always be a safe place for you here."
I dipped my fingers into the healing salve—
And I looked over at the half-dead man's face to see—the glittering wicked eye of my husband Gideon!