Innocence Enslaved (11 page)

She got up and ran to him, they met halfway in the meadow and embraced. Then with the sun shining down on them as though it were a message from the Almighty that all would be well, they kissed.

Although Emilia didn’t want to imagine his lips on another woman, she was near to swooning at the sheer romance of the love story. “It’s heart-wrenching and seems too impossible to be real.”

“That’s because that tale is full of more cow dung than the back pasture.” Both young women started and twisted toward the door. Alice stood there, her scowling face rife with anger.

“You mean it isn’t true?” Emilia exclaimed.

“It is!” Muriel protested. “I heard it as a firsthand account from Bec—” She stopped short of divulging her secret for the second time that night. “I learned it from someone who was there. She saw and heard it all.”

“So the sun shone down from the heavens upon them? Was that real? Or the words Corbet and Lord Ervin spoke, they are an actual accounting?”

“Well, yes,” she insisted.

Emilia glanced up when Muriel’s voice quivered slightly. Seeing her cheeks pinken, she frowned, as did her mother.

“All right,” Muriel allowed. “I might have embellished a bit, but the basis of the story is true, every word.” She looked at Emilia and cried, “I swear it.”

Not knowing what to believe, she watched as Muriel was propelled out the door with a hearty swat on her behind and a promise of more with the stout oven paddle in the morning. Once she was gone, Alice turned back to her.

“I won’t tell the master what went on tonight. It would upset him to rehash the dreadful tale because mixed into the drama were threads of truth. I will expect you to keep it to yourself, however. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She nodded. “Back to bed with you now.”

“Wait. Can’t you tell me if Corbet fought Huan and won Sara?”

“They married, didn’t they?”

“But then how did she die? That was the question that I asked Muriel. She never got to that part of the story.”

“And won’t if I have anything to say on it. Corbet doesn’t like gossip in his home and will take a strap to anyone caught engaging in it. You can risk that if you choose. I’ll have none of it. I’m too old.”

She then left a frustrated Emilia to find her way back to bed on her own.

Chapter Six

With his hair dripping wet and boots in hand, Corbet climbed the stairs to his bedroom well after midnight. Moving past her closed door as quietly as possible, he tried to shut out any sound from within, not sure he could keep himself from her side if she were still crying.

In his room, he tugged off his boots, stripped out of his clothes, and climbed into bed. He stared at the ceiling for the longest time, unsuccessfully willing his mind to cease. He flopped onto his side and gazed out at the silvery moon in the cloudless sky, his mind on the lovely siren down the hall. She said she had begged her father not to arrange for her marriage, giving him the impression that she wanted nothing to do with the likes of men, yet her wet, swollen lips and needy groans suggested otherwise.

At first he believed it was his imagination, that six years with only paid whores and jaded widows to see to his pleasure were making him see signs that weren’t there. Yet, when he had used his belt in measured strokes, her hips began to grind against his desk, in her innocence unable to fake such a perfect response. Unable to keep from it, his fingers, as if with a will of their own, had touched her. It had been a mistake because from then on, full of carnal hunger for the vulnerable young woman he’d vowed to keep safe, his body had been out of control. He’d wanted to take her, claim her, possess her.

He knew with certainty she wouldn’t have objected, but in the heat of passion, it would have been a seduction that in the morning light, both of them would have regretted. Despoiling a virgin would make him no better than Ervin and his ilk.

Sleepless, Corbet’s thoughts turned to Sara, his pretty wife, as sweet and pure as Emilia when they’d first met. But as he tried to summon her image, he saw green eyes instead of blue and a tilted nose where a round one should be. Full lips parted and the tip of her pink tongue slipped out, wetting lips belonging to his new pleasure slave. His mind made the improper leap to Emilia’s mouth opening while he slid his cock inside.

Sitting up, he drove his fingers through his hair, tugging until his scalp burned, hoping the pain would help push his lustful thoughts away, but it didn’t—he couldn’t. Guilt twisted in his gut. Of a certainty, he’d had other women. He was a healthy man with needs, but he’d stuck to experienced, practical women who weren’t seeking more than the pleasure of the night or the clink of coins to compensate for their time. Not once, in all this time, had he betrayed the bond he’d had with his wife and thought about more, until now.

“No!” he called into the darkness. “You will not give in to the enticement of this maid.” He flipped back the covers and stalked to the window, allowing the cool night air to wash over his heated body. He could have seen to himself, as he had numerous times before, but he deserved to suffer the same unfulfilled need as Emilia. Unseeing, he stared out across the fog-engulfed yard, the bittersweet memories of how he and Sara met flooding his mind.

Corbet made the turn into the muddy foreyard of the Boren farm and called to his team, slowing them to a halt. He set the brake and immediately sought out the pair of pretty blue eyes that always greeted him. At the clothesline by the side of the main house, he caught her sneaking peeks at him from beneath her long lashes as she pretended to be busy with her chores, while actually doing a very poor job of folding a sheet. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, as her mother, who also noted her distraction, scolded her for her inattention. Aiming a sidelong glance his way, her pretty face pinkened when she realized he’d been watching.

On a menial delivery run, better suited to one of the servants, he volunteered for the task with one thing in mind—pretty Sara Boren. As one of the young men apprenticed to his uncle, a wealthy merchant who specialized in leather goods, Corbet trained with the tanner, leather smith, cordwainer, and saddle-maker in preparation for taking his place in the family business one day. His uncle, a good man, always mindful of his friends and neighbors, had his wagons stop to fill the empty space in his cart with their deliveries as well. This included the Boren farm, which supplied the manor with cured meat from their smokehouse at the start of each new moon. Today was one of many similar trips.

As he jumped down from the bench seat and walked to the back of the wagon to help her father load his goods, he shot her a knowing grin. Caught staring, she spun with her laundry basket, walking quickly toward the house. She tripped at once over her long skirts, losing the few smaller linens that were piled on top. As she gazed up at him from the dirt, his eyes connected with hers for a moment. He grinned as her face flamed crimson. Then he realized the gentlemanly thing to do would be to help her up. He took a step forward, which was enough to break the spell. Popping up on her feet, she swept the linens off the ground, hitched the basket on one hip, then with her skirt gathered in her free hand, she bolted to the house, up the steps, and through the door.

Thoroughly charmed, his laughter followed her. Sara had captured his heart and each time he stopped at her father’s farm, he became more and more enamored with the pretty young woman. They spoke openly when they could and when they shouldn’t, found the chance for a few chaste touches, holding hands like they were promised to one another. As the months passed, love bloomed. At the same time, Corbet’s disappointment and frustration began to grow.

He was young and hadn’t the means to care for a wife. He couldn’t make an offer for her, for in truth, as a lowly apprentice, he had no way to put a roof over her head, feed and clothe her, or provide for any babes that came along. Maybe in a few years when he began earning his portion in the family leather works it would be possible.

As quickly as his hopes had risen, they crashed to the ground. Sara was eighteen, well past the marriageable age in Lancore. He couldn’t ask her to wait, it wouldn’t be fair. Likely, she’d be snatched up by some older, more established man who would make her a proper husband before he became able to provide for her himself. He should end it and not string her along further.

“Fetch the hand cart from the smokehouse, will ya, my boy?” Phillip Boren asked with a grunt, intruding on his thoughts. “I filled it this morning, now I seem to have formed a catch in my back.” He rubbed the area with both hands as he stretched backward. “Cursed with eight daughters, with my two boys coming last, is hard on an old man’s back.”

“I’d be happy to, sir.” Tall, robust, and strong-muscled from the work he did as a leather smith, Corbet was leaner than he would have preferred despite a healthy appetite. His mother always said he had his father’s build as a youth, long and lanky. He had hopes of filling out more like his father, who he always remembered as a broad-shouldered, larger-than-life man. Loading carts with heavy saddles, wrestling teams of stubborn oxen, and tanning cowhides would have him well on his way, he thought, as he ambled toward the barn.

The full wheelbarrow was easily located just inside the door of the small building. It was piled high with a mountain of smoked pork shoulders, slabs of cured bacon, and hams. Little wonder the man had hurt his back. He removed several off the top, intent on making two trips and saving himself from injury. No sooner had he grasped the handles when the door slammed shut, casting the room into near darkness.

“May I be of help?” a soft feminine voice inquired.

He swung around to find Sara standing in a small shaft of light entering through a crack in the door.

“I think it best that you open the door and get back to your chores, Miss Sara, before your father learns we’re here all alone and takes after me with his ax.”

“No one saw me come in. I’ll leave as soon as you answer a question that has been burning in my brain since you arrived.”

“What’s that?”

She sidled up to him and laid a hand on his chest. He was surprised at her sudden boldness where only moments before she’d been aflame with a blush. Perhaps the darkness was making her brave; if so, who was he to protest?

“You haven’t kissed me yet, Corbet, and I want to know why. Are you shy, or afraid of me, perhaps?”

He stared down at her a moment, then a bark of pure amusement burst free. “I’ve yet to be accused of being shy, before now that is. As for being afraid of a slip of a girl like you,” he grinned as he eyed her up and down, “hardly. Such cheek should be dealt with promptly. Perhaps your mother should swat your backside more.”

She harrumphed in an endearing, although unladylike manner. “Mama doesn’t hold back in that area, I assure you.”

“Then mayhap a stouter switch or added muscle is required. What would you say if I bent you over my knee and spanked that saucy bottom myself for being so forward?”

He heard the air rush from her lungs in surprise, but she turned the tables on his bold teasing with a quick recovery.

“I’d say anything you wish, sir, as long as you kiss me first. Just once, please.” She leaned in, her breasts a scant distance away from his chest as she rose up on her toes, her mouth reaching for his.

Though he knew she wasn’t for him, Corbet enjoyed the playful infatuation too much to end it. He pulled her against him, instantly aroused by the way her lithe body molded perfectly to the planes of his muscular chest and hard belly. His cock, already rigid with need, jerked in his no longer loose-fitting braes.

“Sara,” he murmured aloud.

At the sound of her name in the stillness of his bedroom, reality came crashing back and her image wavered, dimming in his mind as surely as the taste and smell of her faded from his senses. In an instant, she was gone. The raw pain of his loss flowed through him and finally, after hours of being uncomfortably hard, his shaft lay quiet along his thigh.

This was why whores and widows suited him best. Nothing was worth the agony of losing the woman he loved. Even if he found joy with Emilia and her wide-eyed innocence, or stirred at the lilting quality of her voice, or became caught up in the glorious smell of her hair, or rigid at the proof of her arousal on her thighs… He shook himself physically, determined to suppress the desire that was building, not from his memories of sweet Sara, rather from the slave in a bed down the hall that he knew he could never touch and risk becoming lost in love and wanting, once more.

Moving to the washstand, he poured water into the bowl and splashed it on his face. His head came up and he stared into the mirror. Never again, he vowed. He’d never give another woman his heart and make her his own, only to let her down as he’d done Sara.

In regard to Emilia, he’d do what he’d set out to do in the beginning—keep her safe until he could see her home. Considering her his ward, in need of protection, he would use the others’ presence as a safeguard to temptation and tamp down his desires. In a few months’ time, she’d be gone and his well-ordered life would be back to normal.

A few months…

He groaned, it would be an eternity with her living under his roof and sleeping at the end of the hall. Crossing to his armoire, he began to dress, determined to throw himself into his work, exhausting himself physically, leaving only enough energy to fall into bed at the end of the day. He could do it. He had to.

Chapter Seven

Rattling dishes jolted her awake. It was followed by a quiet, but demanding voice. “Get up, girl; Master Corbet has ordered you a hot bath. The men will be bringing in the water soon.”