Defiant (7 page)

“I know, sweetling, but this trip was urgent and I did not have time to plan. Go play with your blocks and I’ll return on the morrow with two apples and a haircomb for you.”

The child’s eyes widened. “A haircomb? Will it be silver with jewels?”

A silver comb with jewels would ransom two women.

Gwyneth patted the girl on the head. “Nay, but it shall be well crafted, I promise.” She’d steal Brenna’s.

“All right, Lady Gwyn. I will dream all night about it.” The child turned and flounced back to the other children.

Inside, Gwyneth felt her heart break. She wanted more for the child than merely a haircomb. An education. Some skills. Something to do so that she would not have to earn her keep with her legs in the air.

With a renewed purpose, Gwyneth pulled her hood firmly over her head to avoid being recognized and headed for the swinging door.

The stench in the brothel—sweat and sex and cheap toilet water—grew more rank as she moved into the main chamber. The vulgar way the men’s eyes roved over exposed skin and the degrading way women’s bodies were used for men’s uncontrolled brutality disgusted her.

Frequently, she had urged Irma to leave, but her friend always smirked at the thought.

Through the haze, Gwyneth saw Irma, wild brown hair curling around her face. She sat on a wobbly three-legged stool holding a tankard. She was smiling, tittering, gazing with round eyes at a stoutly man at least twenty-five years her elder who had a potbelly and an expensive-looking pin clipped to the enormous lace kerchief at his neck.

“Psst! Irma!” Gwyneth whispered, staying near the back of the chamber and praying her disguise would hold so that none of the patrons would take notice of her. She had not changed her clothing after the row with her sister. Beneath her shabby cape, which she had snatched from its secret hiding place in the stables, she still wore a finely stitched houppelande. The dress would be noteworthy and the last thing she wanted was male attention. If she was discovered here, she would be ruined.

Turning, Irma took in Gwyneth in one full blink. It was one of those looks that Gwyneth had come to appreciate both for its worldly wisdom and for its care.

Irma sidled off the stool, leaving her customer gaping after her, his sentence half finished. Obviously forgotten. She’d never cared a whit what he was saying anyway, of that Gwyneth was sure.

Irma had shown her how to paint her eyes with kohl. Irma had taught her how to roll her hips when she walked. Irma had been her teacher in how to charm men, to pretend interest, to get what she wanted. The skills had served her well in releasing women from the prison.

“Wot’s wrong, m’dear?” Irma wrapped her arms around Gwyneth.

“Ohhhhhh,” Gwyneth moaned, hugging her friend tightly. “I’m to be married off.”

“I see.” The stench of toilet water permeated the yellow veil around Irma’s shoulders that announced to the world she was a harlot. She wore a low-cut blue gown with droopy embroidered trim that was ripped in three places, likely torn by an overzealous customer.

Despite the inappropriateness, Gwyneth’s fingers itched for a needle and thread. Such actions were useless—life for women came unstitched faster than anyone could sew up loose ends. Had not her mother proved that? All the mending in the world had not appeased Papa or kept him from stupidly getting himself exiled. Now that Montgomery was overlord, her own marriage seemed imminent.

Wending around tables and serving wenches, Irma steered Gwyneth to a private area in the corner. Girls sauntered back and forth, hips wiggling, breasts bobbing in display. Ale sloshed. Men laughed. A minstrel played a bawdy song. One girl, clad in gypsy garments, danced in an undulating rhythm while balancing a tray of flaming candles atop her head. Tallow smoke hung in the air.

“You’ve always got out of the proposals afore,” Irma said once they had settled onto the bench. Crumbs and droplets of wine marred the worn tabletop.

“With Brenna’s help,” wailed Gwyneth. “Now that she’s married, she’s sticking by her husband. ‘Tis as if she’s lost her spine. Damn the man.”

“Humph. Stay ‘ere, luv. I’ll fetch a flask of wine and we’ll conjure a plan, eh?”

A plan. Irma always had a plan. The two of them had never gotten themselves into a situation where they could not get out. Somehow working together they fooled magistrates and jailors. They had released woman after woman from the prison cells.

Taking in a steadying breath, Gwyneth resisted the urge to lay her head down on the table as she watched her friend saunter back into the brothel’s chaos. Irma’s hips rolled as she walked; she smiled easily at the other women. Despite her working conditions and the disgusting thing she did to earn her keep, her shoulders were as loose and carefree as a child’s.

Irma could come and go as she pleased, she could spit and drink ale and ride horses bareback. She was never sequestered away, squeezed in houppelandes, or shoved into pointed, pinching shoes.

A pitcher of ale was set before her and Irma poured it into two tankards. “No wine tonight. Too watery.”

An ache formed in Gwyneth’s chest, and she wrapped her hand around her drinking vessel. As the daughter of a wealthy baron, she never lacked for wine. She should be grateful for her life, but she felt shattered and splintered inside.

The brothel’s abbess, a tall, thin woman whose dour expression could have rivaled any convent nun’s, shot her a glare. She was busy soothing the pride of Irma’s jilted customer.

With a huff, Gwyneth dug into the purse tied to her girdle, pulled out two coins, and handed them to her friend. “Here. This should keep the abbess happy.”

Irma smirked. “No’ much’ll keep that woman happy except the wenches ‘ave their legs in the air several times a night, you know. But me customers pay me well, so she leaves me alone, she does. I’ll take this, though, and give ‘er ‘alf. That’ll leave me free for the night. ”

They sat there for a few moments in companionable silence.

“Why don’ you jes refuse to marry the lout?” Irma asked, pulling the conversation back to the issue at hand.

Gwyneth drew circles on the table with her index finger. “It’s not… that simple.”

“Sure ‘tis. Say nay and ‘ave done with it.”

If only she could. If only it were that easy. But Irma could never understand her life—the ties, the rules, the duty.

Tracing her fingers round and round the patterns of wood grain, Gwyneth stared at the remains of spilled ale encrusted into a knot of wood.

“The arrangement must be broken amicably,” she answered at last. “I am bound by honor.”

“Bah,” said Irma, flicking a crumb off the table. “Honor is for men. Women have better ways.”

Gwyneth sighed and gave a slight smile, amused by her friend’s unorthodox outlook. Irma’s life gave her freedom that Gwyneth would never know. “Even if I were able to get out of this marriage, there would be another proposal, and then another. ‘Tis been thus for year—”

“—but you ‘ave gotten free afore—”

“'Tis the lot of noblewomen to marry and bear a man’s heirs,” she said miserably, parroting the words of her sister. “We’re to be chattel and broodmares.”

Irma cocked her head to one side, getting that look of possibilities in her eyes the way she did when she was coming up with something outrageous.

A moment passed. Tension built. In one corner, a bard sang a bawdy song. The titters of harlots reminded her of the London court. In many ways, it was not so much different—women being sold for money.

She thought fleetingly of the dark-haired Elizabeth in prison—likely the jailor was making arrangements to sell her as an indentured servant or slave. The child could not even speak for herself. Often she sat along the dank wall chewing the ends of her straight, dark hair and staring up at the cobwebs.

Irma drummed her fingernails on the tankard, a habit of hers, one that Gwyneth could never have—not
ladylike,
her tutor had chided when she had accidentally imitated her friend at sup one evening. The sting of the switch across her knuckles had made a lasting impression.

“Have out with it,” Gwyneth said finally, unable to contain herself when Irma kept tapping her fingers and staring across the chamber, her eyes slightly up and to the left the way she did when she was deep in thought.

Gwyneth snapped her fingers.

Irma blinked as if coming back into the present. Her sharp eyes glittered with intensity. “You should marry. ”

Huffing out a breath, Gwyneth picked up her tankard and looked out into the busy room. Hundreds of tallow candles flickered and smoke swirled in the air. At the bar, a group of swarthy men, arms around each other’s shoulders so that they formed a chain, toasted the air and sang along with the bard in loud, drunken voices.

“Have you not been listening? I am going to marry. Tomorrow morn.”

“Nay, I mean you should marry tonight.”

Gwyneth nearly choked on her ale and she had to cover her mouth and nose to keep from spewing on the table.

“Tonight?” she squeaked out when she recovered herself.

“Aye. But not to some silly lord. To a man of your own choosing—one you can command, control, even send away at will.”

“I have tried. Papa never approved any of my choices and Montgomery, the new overlord, is even worse! At least I had some sway with Papa. I do not even know the name of the man that was chosen.”

Irma didn’t argue, she just sat up straight and looked around the brothel. “'ow about tha’ one?” She pointed to a young blond man with a foppish hat.

Gwyneth grimaced. He was scarce more than a lad.

“We could steal ‘im. Feed ‘im a sleeping draught and ‘aul him to a church. We’ll find Brother Giffard and insist ‘e marry the two of you. Then you can tup ‘im for good measure and send ‘im on ‘is way with a purse full o’ gold.”

The plan was unthinkable.

Annoyed with Irma’s absurdity, Gwyneth slammed her palms on the table in an uncharacteristic gesture. She should not have bothered even coming here. “Preposterous. And stupid. ”

Irma looked at her impassively, then they both started giggling. It was sheer freedom to be able to make unladylike gestures and have no sharp rebuke or switch across her palms for the action.

“It were the mention of the tupping you didn’t like, eh?” Irma said.

Gwyneth cringed but said naught, pushing away the flood of bad memories from watching a man brutalize her friend.

Scratching her head, Irma scrutinized the brothel, thoughtfully taking in the immodestly dressed girls and their bedecked patrons.

“There’s a good one.” She pointed toward a tall man, sitting alone at a corner table, hunched over a tankard of ale. His crude brown cape was pulled up over his head so she could not discern his features. At his side, leaning against his stool, was a long wooden staff that had a dragon carved into the top of it. “'is name is Jared.”

Gwyneth gave Irma an exasperated glare and began to rise, ready to head back to Windrose and spend the night crying across her bed. “I do not want a man.”

Irma cocked her head to one side. “All noblewomen want a husband.”

“Not me.” Gwyneth shuddered, remembering Irma lying on the dirt beneath the grunting brute who pumped himself into her. She wanted none of that. And no babies either. The women she rescued from the prisons needed her more than some man needed heirs. “I do not wish to marry at all.”

“'ear me out, now, I say.” Irma latched onto Gwyneth’s forearm in a tight grip. “'e comes in every week and pays me to bathe ‘im and that is all. ‘e’s unmanned. It must ‘ave something to do with the injury of ‘is legs, because ‘e never asks for a good tupping. ‘e’s got long scars from his groin to ‘is knees, and even when I touch ‘im ‘e stays soft as a floppy carrot.”

A giggle welled in Gwyneth’s throat at Irma’s description even despite the bleakness she felt in her heart.

“'e told me once all ‘e wanted was a cottage in the woods and a place to raise ‘is birds—'e’s a falconer—and a kind one at that. ‘e speaks to me as if I were a lady and ‘as never tried to pinch me in any way. ‘Tis almost as though there is a deep sadness in ‘is ‘eart. ‘e comes ‘ere, drinks ale, we a-go to a bedchamber, and I bathe ‘im. You’d never ‘ave to worry about the consummation. ”

Gwyneth pursed her lips; Irma’s mad plan had more and more appeal as she kept talking. “I cannot believe I am listening to this,” she muttered.

“'e’s a peasant—jes marry ‘im, give ‘im a bag o’ gold and send ‘im on ‘is way. It ain’t like ‘e’s going to find some other woman, bein’ unsexed and all.”

Shifting on her stool, Gwyneth took in the man, trying to determine if Irma had spoken truth. He had turned slightly, and she could see a little beneath his hood. His face, still covered in shadows, was an interesting blend of darkness and light. He had straight, dark hair that hung past his shoulders, winged brows, and a mustache and goatee. She could not make out the color of his eyes, but his expression seemed pensive. He looked a little dangerous to her.

“Are you sure he’s unmanned?” she asked warily.

Irma nodded. “For certes. ‘e never even twitches down there during the whole bath. It’s plain odd, it is. ‘e’s the kindest man I’ve ever known—not that any man is kind, because they all have black, dirty souls—but ‘e never even tried to pinch me titties.”

Gwyneth leaned forward, trying to peer deeper beneath the man’s cowl. Darkness shadowed his cheeks. He didn’t look kind.

He looked lethal.

Still … Irma hated men, so if he’d been kind enough to win Irma’s regard, he must be special. A man who didn’t try to paw at women in a whorehouse was rare indeed. Irma knew a lot more about men than she did.

Mayhap the plan might have merit after all.

“Perhaps he’s a half-wit,” Gwyneth suggested.

“All the better. We don’ need ‘im’s brains, only ‘is hand in matrimony.”

The reversal of roles, the thought of forcing a man to marriage rather than the other way around, made a small spark of power surge up Gwyneth’s spine.

“We can’t steal a man,” she said rationally. But another part of herself wondered if the plan, addled as it seemed, might work. She would no longer be hounded and bothered by marriage proposals that she had to work her way out of.