The Corn Maiden, page 14
“Will you go in?” he said.
Nell ducked under the low doorway and into the gloom of the little cabin. As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she became aware of roughly harled stone walls painted with faded lime-wash, a beaten earth floor, and at one end a stone fireplace—still holding the ash of the last fire lit over a year ago. There was a pot hook and, still, a stack of turf and a basket of heather root kindling. On either side of the fireplace stood a sturdy settle. At the other end of the single room, an open shutter revealed a built-in bed where children had obviously once been accommodated in bunks.
The place was primitive, and Nell could hardly imagine a simpler dwelling for a man, his wife and two children, but all the same it was clean, it was neat, and it was welcoming. After a moment’s struggle, she forced open the shutter on an unglazed window and looked out across the moorland, now dazzling with the quickly falling rain.
Moidart stooped through the doorway, threw his saddle bag down in a corner, and without a word gathered up an armful of heather root and threw it into the fireplace, kneeling with clicking flint and steel in his hand and, blowing on a tinder box, set it alight. Soon, as the drumming rain darkened the little room, a blaze leapt up in the blackened fireplace. He observed it for a while and then threw on, one by one, neatly squared bricks of turf, and then he finally turned to Nell and said, “Welcome to Lis na Brucka! Ten years ago there must have been a badger living here and the croft has always been called Lis na Brucka—“the place of the badger.” So here we are! Like two badgers in our set! The accommodation is not smart for Lady Elinor, perhaps, but the welcome is no less warm for that.”
He drew from his pocket a silver flask and handed it to her, running his hand over her shoulders as he did so. “You are wet and cold, I am afraid,” he said. “This will warm you internally at least, and perhaps this may restore your strength.”
“This” was a venison pastie. He broke it in half and handed her a piece. “Share,” he said with a grin, “as good moss-troopers must.” Pointing towards the settle, he invited her to take a seat. It was rough and country-made, but surprisingly comfortable. She sat gratefully down on it, tugged off her wet boots, and extended her legs towards the blaze.
While he had been speaking and as they had ridden the last half mile to the bothy, Nell had been calculating. It seemed to her that if it was shelter they had required, the House of Lindsay was nearer to the Bridge of Achill than this remote outpost—nearer, she reckoned, with her trained eye for country, by the best part of a mile. She had a feeling that the horses had been of the same opinion, that they had had the scent of their own stables in their nostrils and had turned unwillingly aside to cross the hill. If he had had my well-being close to his heart, she thought, we would have returned to the castle. Her heart began to thump furiously, and her mouth went dry at the realisation that she was cut off from the world by several rain-sodden miles of heather and quite alone with Moidart. She looked a question at him, and he seemed to read her thought.
“The house,” he said, without apology, “is ever in such a bustle, a body can never exchange two words with another in private. It seems to me that here we can eat and drink—perhaps even be merry—and anyway improve our acquaintance without interruption.”
Politely, Nell lifted the silver flask to her lips and drank a mouthful of the liquid. She was at once reduced to coughing and spluttering. “What was that?” she said, returning the flask to him.
“Whisky.”
“Ah! The dews o’ Glen Sheerly! At last I sample them. It is very fierce,” she said, but feeling the rush of warmth through her chilled body, she accepted the flask again and drank once more.
“Have a care,” said he. “It is not without its effect if you are unaccustomed.”
“I am unaccustomed to everything that’s happened to me today,” said Nell. “I have never cracked a man’s skull before, never stabbed a man, and I have certainly never found myself alone with a man in the middle of a wilderness before. One drink doesn’t make my situation appreciably more odd, you know.” She realised that the battle of the bridge had left her strangely and wildly elated. She had seen men possessed by primitive passions and felt a primitive ferocity in herself that left her hungry for more.
They ate and drank in silence for a while, until, emboldened by the strangeness and perhaps by the fiery spirit warming her blood, Nell said challengingly, “Moidart, I am wondering why I am here. It is obviously not the stimulation of my conversation you are seeking…”
For reply, he peeled his cloak from his shoulder and let it drop to the ground. He knelt across the space between them, taking her hands in his. For a moment he looked into her face, and then he suddenly slipped his hand under her arm and, to her surprise, lifted her to her feet.
“Can you seriously doubt why I have brought you here?”
His voice was teasing in some measure, but there was now a rough intensity that caused Nell to shrink from him. “Please…” she began, but her voice faltered away.
“Please?” he said. “Please what? What would you say? Please don’t touch me…Please take me home…Please don’t love me?” His hands slid round to the small of her back, and he pressed her to him with an urgency she could not resist; a strong hand took her chin and turned her face up to his. He was searching her face, she knew intuitively, for a response that would either encourage him to further advances or stop him short. Wild and unpredictable he might be, alarming and foreign to her, yet she felt that, even now, in this remote situation, it would take but one look from her to restore their relationship to that of mistress and steward.
She met his hungry gaze, her cheeks colouring with embarrassment but her eyes ablaze with determination. “Wait! A moment, Moidart!” she said with a firmness that surprised her, and she pushed herself free of his close embrace. Swiftly she took the dagger from her pocket, and he tensed and drew in his breath as he caught sight of the steel blade pointing menacingly towards his ribs. With a smile full of challenge, she tossed the dagger in a glittering arc through the air, and it fell, quivering, point downwards in the earth floor.
Soft arms stole up around his neck, and she whispered, “I feared you could not be at ease making love to a Lindsay woman in possession of a skian-dhu!”
With a gasp of mixed astonishment and delight, he swept her up again into his arms, and she shivered uncontrollably as the wet cloth of her habit clung to her cold flesh. Instantly reacting to her shudder, he whispered urgently, “Your habit is soaking wet. You must take off these damp things and put them before the fire to dry. Come, my lady, I will assist you.”
“You would be my maid now, Moidart?” she said through teeth clenched and chattering with cold but also with apprehension, “Is there no end to your skills? Poacher, poet, factor, fighter…I wonder what I shall encounter next?”
He realised that she was talking to release her tension and, smiling, he gently bit the lobe of her ear and whispered, “Lover?” His searching hand deftly unbuttoned the stiff stuff of her tight bodice and eased it from her shoulders; her damp blouse followed, and her riding breeches were tugged down from her waist and put on the mantle rail before the fire with all the deftness she might have expected from Lucy. She stood before him, shivering and as though hypnotised, wearing only her chemise and her stockings.
“And the shift!” he murmured.
She realised that no further permission was going to be sought and that she had gone too far to retreat, even had she wanted to do so. The thought made her shiver with delicious dread, and at the last moment she was overcome by the shame of showing her naked body to a man, and in the half light. In her imaginings, such a scene had always taken place under cover of darkness and several layers of bedclothes.
He caught her shyness and said, “My shirt is still dry—you shall have that.” He pulled the silk chemise up over her head and allowed his hungry gaze to slant over her naked breasts for a moment before removing his rough cotton shirt and wrapping it, still warm from his body, about her shoulders. “We must keep each other warm as best we can,” he said. “Stay by the fire.” Moving over to the sleeping part of the cottage, he returned with an armful of bracken and boughs and then fetched another and a third. “Lucky for us, Rab left his beds behind,” he said by way of explanation, and then, kicking and smoothing the tufty bracken into place, he spread his thick cloak over it. From his saddlebag he took a plaid and came back to stand in front of her.
Nell’s hands reached up and tentatively caressed his naked shoulders, as they had done many times in imagination, running down over his hard chest to his narrow waist, amazed and fearful at the strength she felt there. Nervously, she snatched her hands away, fearing that she was going too far and that perhaps this was something she should not do, but he appeared not to be displeased by her caresses and, catching her hands, firmly placed them back again around his shoulders. With growing confidence and curiosity, she stroked the silky skin of his brown arms, following the lines of his bunched muscles, and exclaimed gently when her exploring fingers discovered the line of a deep scar along his upper arm. He smiled in response to her questioning look and said roughly, “A bullet. No, not an English one, don’t be concerned.”
He bent his head and kissed her, the gentle pressure increasing, willing her to respond. Remembering the exciting way he had kissed her on their first evening, she dared to trace the line between his lips with her tongue and jolted with surprise and pleasure as he gasped and deepened his kiss.
With a despairing sigh, he broke off and stood away from her. He kicked off his boots in a jingle of spurs and, while Nell looked hastily away, removed his stockings and breeches. She felt her legs being swept away from under her, her back supported by one strong arm, and she was lowered gently onto the roughly assembled bed. He lay down beside her and pulled his plaid over their bodies, cradling her closely in his arms.
After a few silent minutes together, her shivering ceased and a blessed warmth began to relax her limbs. Feeling there was no comment she could possibly make in these strange circumstances that would not sound trivial and out of place, Nell stayed quiet in his arms, round-eyed and hardly daring to breathe. All her senses were alert, every inch of her body in contact with his was sending her messages. The roughness of his chest, his hand about her, cupping her breast, his lips pressed gently to her forehead and, above all, the smooth muscled thighs against which she felt herself moulded, expressing the mysterious threat of his hardened body, were arousing in her the same strange sensations she had felt on the evening she had met him. The urge to strain herself even closer to him, to seek release from the tight and barely understood yearning she was feeling, was becoming unbearable. His all-too-evident intentions towards her were making her shake with fear and, incredibly, she was looking to him for comfort. But she recognised that her situation now was very different from his teasing, nonthreatening presence in her bed when she had been frightened by the owl.
“I’m sorry I have no bolster today,” he said, as if reading her thoughts.
She stirred and moved slightly towards him, reaching up to touch his cheek. “I’m thinking I prefer our situation without it, Moidart,” she whispered.
His whole body grew tense at her words. A gentle hand parted the shirt and slid inside to caress her, shaking with surprise and delight. With an exclamation of joy he bent his head to her nipples, teasing and kissing. She pressed his dark head to her, breathing in the peat smoke scent of his hair, and recognised that she was incapable of stopping the lovemaking that had begun. With a rush of emotion very like triumph, she knew she had no wish to stop it.
“Don’t fear me, Nell,” he whispered. “You’re safe with me, my lass. Truly. I won’t harm you.” When her trembling had stopped, his hand moved abruptly downwards again over her hips to stroke and part her soft thighs. Fighting back her instinctive fear and an almost insuperable urge to clamp her legs together, Nell opened wide eyes and looked into his strained face, seeking reassurance there, wanting desperately to trust him.
She whimpered softly, nuzzling her head against his chest. His exploring hand became aware of the ready welcome her body was offering him and, for a moment, Moidart’s advances were halted. He lifted his head and, looking at her questioningly and speaking deliberately, he asked, “Do you know what we are about, Elinor? I’m sorry, but I don’t know whether you know…what kind of innocent you are…Oh, dammit, lass, I’m going to make love to you!”
Nell laughed quietly in surprise, charmed that he should have at the last moment summoned the restraint to issue a warning. “I had begun to suspect as much, Moidart!” she said. “And I should like it very much if you were to make love to me. You will find I have done no such thing before, but I was ever a quick learner, and I see that you are a willing tutor.” She snuggled against him and began to plant a row of soft kisses along his throat, murmuring indistinct endearments.
The unexpected warmth of her passion made him start and look down at her wide-eyed. “Oh my God! What have I done? What am I about?” was his surprising reaction to her show of affection. He rose on one elbow, his face frozen and aghast. “Elinor, I should not have done this! It is unforgivable! Could it be that? Surely not? I think you love me?”
Puzzled by his reaction, she looked back at him and said gently, “Yes, Moidart, I think I do. Have you not been trying to make me love you? Was this not what you were intending? I had thought that you had brought me here to love me…is that so dreadful?”
“I think perhaps it may be. I have taken advantage of your innocence in bringing you here, in tricking you into coming to this bothy with me. And now I find I cannot abuse your trust. It is not too late…” he added, miserably. “Elinor, can you forgive me?”
In the gloom, her eyes were huge pools of distress as she tried to understand him. She put out a hand to stop him, but he rolled determinedly away from her and moved over to kneel by the fire, busying himself putting on more kindling and then more peat. The blaze lit up his face, which she saw was uncharacteristically confused. The handsome features were a mask of indecision, the black eyebrows drawn into a tight line, his mouth narrowed. His strong limbs gleamed golden in the firelight, and she felt a wrenching loss that she could no longer reach out and touch him. Her body was shocked and unwilling to accept the distance that had abruptly arisen between them. He spun round to look at her in astonishment on hearing her shout of scornful amusement.
“My trust, you say? Why on earth should you suppose I trust you, Moidart? On the contrary, I think you are very likely a rogue and a cunning seducer and quite the last person in the world I should trust!” Propped up on one elbow, hand under her chin, her eyes laughing at him invitingly, she insisted, “I’m not a ninny! I came here of my own free will, I assure you, knowing quite well that you were taking me out of our way and being hardly in doubt as to the purpose of your detour!” Her voice sank to a low, seductive tone as she added slowly, “I have chosen to make love with you.” She sat up lazily, with all the easy grace of a fireside cat, the plaid falling away from her shoulders to her waist, a curtain of thick, fair hair swinging and shining in the glow of the burning peat, and held out her arms to him. “Innocent I certainly am, as you will discover, but I know what I want, and—as I told you—I usually get it. Now stop fiddling with the fire, which is doing very well by itself, and come back here. Your mistress is growing cold!”
An hour later, Nell swam back to consciousness from a sleep that was more in the nature of a swoon. She was lying on Moidart’s cloak, folded in his arms with her head resting on his chest. Outside the rain pattered down, but less strongly now, and at her side the heaped red-hot glow of the fire gave the only light in the darkening room. Almost unable to believe how she had reached this point, Nell buried her head in his shoulder and remembered how, with heart almost breaking at his desertion, she had, in anger and frustration, found the words to lure him into returning to her.
Without moving her head and under lowered eyelashes, she scanned the room and smiled to see her scattered clothes mingling most indecently with his. She remembered the hardness, the gentleness, and the ultimately undeniable demands of his body. She remembered the ecstasy and release of abandoning herself to his passion. But now it seemed that he—that strong face peaceful—was the defenceless one.
The warnings contained in so many of the romances she had read, with their paraphrase and their innuendo, came into her mind. Explicitly she thought, I am undone! And she waited for the hand-wringing remorse of the seduced maiden to overtake her. She waited in vain. All she could feel was a total warm and animal satisfaction. I was a stranger when I came here, she remembered. I was perhaps even a hostile stranger—and certainly this man greeted me with hostility—but now? What now? These frowning hills and these wild people with their warlike memories and their timeless loyalties—has this made me a part of them? It could be so. It seems that, in being possessed, I have taken possession.
He stirred sleepily in her embrace and moved about until his head was nuzzling against her breast. She stroked his hair gently and, on impulse, began softly to sing a lullaby she had learned many years before. It was in Gaelic, and she could barely understand the words, but she had always been moved by the haunting, lilting tune.
As her low voice died away, he spoke. “I think I have died and gone to heaven…Surely this is the warrior’s reward—a good fire at my back, a willing wench in my arms, and a Scottish lullaby in my ear? I shall never move from this place again!”
“I fear you must, for my arm has gone quite dead under your great weight, and my nose tells me that my riding habit is beginning to char.”
“Then you must rescue it. I find myself unable to move after my day’s exertions. The battle of the bridge and the battle of the bothy have quite done for me!” He released her arm and watched her with a lazy smile as she scampered out of bed and tugged the dress off the rail. She looked back at him uncertainly and began to search around for her chemise. “The rain has stopped, I think,” she said brightly, holding her clothing this way and that in an only partially successful attempt to hide her nakedness from his amused gaze, “and the afternoon must be well advanced. I think perhaps we should be getting back to the castle before they send out a search party…”
