Page 47 of Her Dark Seduction
Chapter 15
When I woke I was cold and stiff. Sawford had gone. Patches of light peeped through the oilskin covering the window. Unused to the hard pallet my bones ached. I touched my belly and the child rewarded me with a small kick. Despite my situation I smiled. Though I was alone, lying on the dirty floor of a peasant’s house, my child and I were free from Mortlock.
I struggled to my feet, rubbing my lower back, and drew aside the hanging. The outer door was open, letting in a shaft of sunlight. The smith’s wife sat at the table along with three children. She scowled at me.
I offered my hand to her. “I must thank you for giving me shelter.”
“Don’t thank me. I would not have the likes of you in my house, no matter how much he paid us.”
I withdrew my hand. “You’re not accustomed to entertaining a lady.”
“Lady!” she laughed. “Nothing but a whore! I suffer your presence in my home—and near my children—for the coin. I carry the shame to ensure my children eat this night. One such as you carries no shame.”
She thought me Sawford’s whore.
“You have no right to judge me,” I snapped. “You suffer my presence against your moral judgement for the sake of a coin. How are you better than a woman forced to sell her body to survive? You think she does it out of choice?”
She stood up and spat in my face. “You’re nothing but dirt, you hear me? A diseased whore who serviced the men in that traitor’s castle while the villagers starved around him. You should have died in the fire along with the rest of them.”
She prodded me with her finger. “I doubt you even know whose seed spawned that little bastard in your belly.”
I jumped back. “My child is innocent.”
Tears stung the backs of my eyelids at her cruel words. Had I escaped the confines of Mortlock Fort only to be subjected to the cruelties and injustices of a judgmental world?
“It is not innocent,” she said. “It has been tainted; conceived in sin and God will make it suffer.”
“How dare you!” I cried.
“What is the meaning of this?” Sawford stood at the door next to the smith. I had never seen him look so angry, and I shrank back in fear as he strode toward me and took my arm.
“Stop causing trouble,” he said through gritted teeth and he dragged me through the hanging. The smith called his wife out of the house, and she left, deriding him for letting a whore into her home.
“Keep your mouth shut,” Sawford said.
“But she insulted—” I began, but he shook me roughly.
“I care not what she said, madam! We’re still in grave danger this close to the Fort. If you speak, you’ll reveal your identity. Your accent betrays you.”
“You want me to speak like a whore?” I glared at him. “That woman judges me as one!”
“She would judge you a great deal more harshly as the wife of Mortlock now his treachery has been revealed and punished. Do you wish to die a traitor’s death? You would be condemned by association.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he held his hand up to silence me.
“Enough. We leave when the sun sets.”
Before I could answer, he left. With nothing else to do I folded the clothes which were now dry and packed them into the panniers. Inspecting the rest of the contents I found food, a bag of coins, along with two jars of my salve.
When I had finished I felt sick again. I needed fresh air. The house was now empty and I was glad of it. I had no wish to be subjected to any more scorn from the smith’s wife. Stepping outside I breathed in deeply, stretching my arms to fill my lungs.
“Mistress.”
The smith watched me. Shading my eyes against the sunlight I saw kindness in his face.
“Are you well?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Forgive me, I had to come outside. The smell in the house…” My voice trailed off and I blushed with embarrassment.
