Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [57]
“An honest day’s wages,” he replied. I frowned, for work was scarce at the moment, as the rains had delayed planting. Besides, the amount was too much and I knew it.
“Do not take me for a fool,” I said darkly.
“And do not take me for a common thief,” he replied, holding out his palm. “I did not say what kind of labor,” he added.
I hesitated, then took the money. “I suppose you require a plate of food.”
“I require nothing,” he said. “But neither would I refuse.”
Once again I stole into the kitchen on his behalf, choosing carefully so as not to raise Cook’s suspicions. This time I brought a tankard of ale as well, and when he saw it he raised an eyebrow and I blushed at the suggestion that I was favoring him. He pulled up a milking stool for me to sit upon, and chattered happily while he ate, regaling me with stories of his travels. At seventeen, I was spellbound, for outside of my mistress and the great-bellied woman, I had never met anyone who had journeyed farther than London.
When he finished the ale I slipped into the Great House to replenish it, for I was as thirsty for his words as he was for the drink. When he’d emptied the second tankard he seemed to sense my dismay, and as he handed it to me he leaned forward and startled me with a sudden kiss upon the lips.
“Forgive me,” he said quietly, but did not withdraw, and when he met with my own stunned silence, he kissed me again, this time more slowly, and I remember the taste of ale upon his lips, and their unthinkable softness. This time he left me breathless, for such feelings were entirely new to me, and I was quickly in their throes. He seemed to sense this and drew back momentarily, eyeing me.
“You’ve not been with a man before,” he said, and I shook my head slowly. Then he took the tankard from my hand and placed it gingerly upon the floor, and spread his cloak upon the straw while I watched, mesmerized by his movements. He turned back to me and held out his hand, and when I placed mine in it, he gently pulled me down onto the makeshift bed.
And there I lost myself to him, and to my own desires, plunging deep into the darkness of his flesh.
Afterward I was drenched with doubt. I passed a sleepless night in my room, and rose the next morning in a turmoil. Until that day, lust had not been a part of my vocabulary: I had not been raised to acknowledge, let alone anticipate, pleasures of the flesh. The specter of my mother was also freshly planted in my brain, uttering truths about the price of generosity. That she had been right irritated me enormously; that I had not been more resistant to his advances filled me with self-loathing. And so I was left bearing the weight of these two conflicting crosses: desire and shame fought within me like sparring siblings.
At the end of our evening together he had managed to extract a promise from me to return upon the morrow, so the following dusk I prepared myself to meet him and disavow any further interest. I waited in my room until the time was right, choosing a frock that was severe and somber in its aspect, and rehearsed my little speech of forbearance ten times over, determined not to give way once again unto temptation. Finally, when I could stand it no longer, I once more crossed the stable yard, expecting to find him in a state of high anticipation. But all I found upon entering the stables was an empty pile of straw, whose disarray was the only clue to the previous night’s occurrence. I planted myself upon the milking stool and waited three full hours for him, until the well of anger and humiliation within me rose so high I thought that I might burst. Just past midnight I crept across the stable yard and into the Great House kitchen, hoping to God that I would meet no one on the stairs.
The following morning, after a night of dreams in which he repeatedly appeared to me in the guise of various demons, I threw the green bottle and its murky tonic of optimism into the stream behind the Great House, wishing for all the world that I had never come across its maker. For some time after, I took to