Mist on Water (10 page)

A teasing glint entered her eyes. “Or that you are so afraid of the nix you refuse to take a bath.” With that, she scampered down the tree and stood looking up at me arms akimbo. “Come. Be the man I know you are. Take me as your wife or leave me be. The choice is yours.”

She was so utterly gorgeous standing there in her dirty linens. “You are a cruel woman to offer me so tempting an escape.”

“You will not have me, then?”

I leapt from the tree and landed next to her. Standing tall, I took her hand and kissed it tenderly, gazing over our hands and into her sparkling blue eyes. “You cannot be rid of me so easily.”

“Good.” She tucked the small square into my hand and her mouth quirked up at the edges. “A token of my love. Now off with you. I’ll see you tonight. Clean and pretty.”

“I cannot wait.”

I watched her saunter down the lane, her hair bouncing saucily and her hips wiggling provocatively. And for the thousandth time I sighed. No luckier man lived than me.

The day was growing short. I’d taken a bath and now made haste through the house, avoiding my father’s stare and my mother’s sudden fit of gentle weeping. God’s truth, I’d expected surprise, but tears and wary looks all because I’d confessed my love for Nari and our wish to wed?

My father stood by the fire, his gaze alternating between it and me. If he expected to divine my future from the ashes, he would be disappointed. I knew better than anyone what course to take. I had confidence even if he did not.

“This is what you want?
She
is who you want?” he asked in quiet tones.

“More than I can say,” I shot over my shoulder

Where had I put that shirt? I quickly rummaged through a short stack of clothes. I needed to look my best tonight; my future depended on it.

My mother sniffled lightly. “She was a wild child, ever into one trouble or another—”

“Just as I was,” I jumped in, defending my love. The shirt found, I clutched at my trews barely hanging on my hips, and hiked them higher. I needed a belt. My gaze careened round the room, searching for even a piece of string to hold up the sagging cloth. Ah-ha. There the belt lay, draped over a chair in the corner. I snatched it up, nearly knocking my mother over in my haste.

Gentle hands took hold of my arm and turned me around, forcing me to stare into her watery eyes. I had avoided their probing in fear they held condemnation for my choice. Yet, no censure could I find. Only love. “But I do believe she has grown into a fine woman, and I cannot find a fault. My tears are of a mother’s loss. My son is grown.”

“But are they compatible?” my father asked, coming alongside my mother to drape an arm over her shoulders. His concern was no less than my mother’s and he was far more vocal than she. “Do you complement each other?”

I faced him. “Does the sun complement the moon? Does the flower complement the meadow? Nari and I are suited in a way that scares me, for if I cannot have her, I may well die.”

A tremulous smile touched my mother’s lips and she patted my arm. Not so my father. Worry etched deep lines between his brows. “Her father may well refuse you.”

“He won’t. I’ll make him agree.” I shrugged on my shirt, threw on the belt and bounded out the door.

My parent’s followed me to the threshold where the sniffles of my mother spurred me on.

“Be smart about this, Ryne,” my father warned. “Tread softly, for no man willingly gives up his treasure.”

I stopped in my tracks and cast a hopeful backward glance. “Is that a blessing, then?”

My father’s firm face softened. “If you love her, then so shall we. Godspeed, son.”

A sudden lightness infected my being, as if the heavens had opened and the stars shone down on me and only me. I gave my parents a distracted wave as I strode toward the village. Tonight, I would persuade Nari’s father to let us marry.

My trip to her door was uneventful. I hesitated, and pulled her gift from my pocket, a symbol of her affection. My calloused thumb rubbed over the design. Small beads stitched securely, and bright threads locked in a pleasing manner to form a series of wild flowers surrounding her monogram. She would have to create a new one, for soon the letters would change. She would be mine.

Putting the cloth away, I stepped to the door and unlike before, this time I knocked with decided purpose. With Nari’s love in my heart, I had no fear.

The door sprang open to reveal the sour expression on the new wife’s face. “Again? My rock chimney fair gleams with new stone, my walls are straight and the stable will withstand the strongest gale. What more would you fix?”

“I am pleased all is well. May I inquire if your husband is home? I wish to speak with him.”

She narrowed her tiny eyes. “About what?”

“It is of import between him and me.”

“We are philanthropic only to the poorest of the poor.”

“I wish no money.” And worse, I’d none to give.

“You wish no work and you wish no money? A fine thing that. What can a lad like you wish to gain by speaking with my husband?”

“Ryne,” Nari’s happy voice sounded behind the new wife.

It was as if the light finally dawned. Could she really have been that ignorant of the love blossoming beneath her own roof? Even though Nari and I kept our meetings private, everyone we met seemed to cast us curious looks. Clearly, the new wife had not wanted to see what was taking shape before her. But she did now.

“Oh no you don’t,” she leaned forward and snarled. “I’ll not have you curse this family, too. What kind of love would have a man subject a woman to such a terrible life? I’ll see her off to work the piggery before you have her. And she’ll thank me for it in the end, I’ll wager.”

She pulled back and made to close the door when a large hand interrupted her plans. Nari’s father forced the door wider until his weather-roughened face peered out at me. “Ryne. What brings you here?”

“He was just leaving,” the new wife insisted and shot me a glance daring me to disagree.

I would not be put off.

I swallowed hard and faced Nari’s father. “I beg only a moment, sir.”

“I told him we need no more of his services, but he is persistent, and not to his credit.”

“Is he?” The tall man lifted his pipe and clamped the stem between his big, strong teeth.

The new wife cast me a triumphant smirk. “He is. Send him off, my love. We need not be bothered at our own door.”

Puffs of smoke ringed his face while he looked me up and down. Sweat prickled the back of my neck, but I did not squirm. I held my ground and regarded him with an open countenance.

After a long moment, as the new wife continued to mutter her usual doom and gloom predictions regarding my future, he nodded. “You are just in luck. I find myself with a stack of spare moments. Come join me for a spell.”

“God preserve us.” The new wife threw up her hands and rolled her eyes toward heaven. “No good will come of this. No good, I tell you.”

Nari rushed ahead and placed two chairs by the fire. As I stepped inside, she motioned me toward the chair she stood behind, her face wreathed in a luminous smile. I could barely breathe against my rising panic. My father’s words reverberated in my head. What if he refuses?

After greetings that included news of my parents and how business faired, he stopped talking and stared straight into my soul. Nari had moved behind her father and now nodded her head at me encouragingly.

“Sir,” I squeaked, and then swallowed and tried again. “Sir,” I managed in a more manly tone, “I have come to ask for Nari’s hand in marriage.”

I was fair pleased I said it all without a single stutter.

The new wife moaned her distress which morphed into a loud keening that shook the plates and rattled the candles until they tilted in their stems. Her distress was so loud, it was sure to draw the neighbors.

“Woman,” Nari’s father shouted, “desist your howling. I cannot think amid the noise.”

Shocked at the force of her husband’s demand, for he was not one to lose his temper in all the years they had been married, the new wife abruptly sputtered to a stop, granting the quiet he requested.

Nari’s father didn’t so much as blink during his outburst. His gaze stayed fixed on me in a most discomforting manner.

Silence stretched, gobbling up minutes as greedily as the night catches shadows. Soon, the pre-dusk hour had sunk into evening and all that illuminated the room was a small fire and a few slanting candles.

“Tell me the tale.”

“What?” I could not have heard him correctly. But I had. I could see it in his questioning eyes. “You know it. Everyone for miles does.”

Nari’s father cast a quick glance at the new wife. “I’ve heard rumors …”

My stomach tightened uncomfortably. “I can’t stop people from talking.”

“I suspect–can only imagine–’tis a painful condition you’ve been forced to endure.”

“At times…” I frowned. What was he getting at?

His gaze intensified, narrowing to peer at me through the veil of pipe smoke. “And do you believe your father?”

“He…”

What could I say? I would never disgrace my father to anyone. He was a good man. The best of men. My jaw grew stiff; my tongue thick. I looked down at my hands. My knuckles had turned white as they gripped my knees painfully. “My-my father would never lie.”

“It is what I believe…”

I glanced up at Nari’s father. The smoke from his pipe curled lazily around his head, drawing my gaze to the taut skin around his eyes. When I wasn’t looking, he had taken hold of Nari’s hand, a simple enough gesture, but there seemed to be a deeper meaning to it–a protective act.

I straightened in my chair, squaring my shoulders and looking him in the eye. “I would love and honor Nari for the rest of my life.”

“I know you would, but what kind of life would that be? One filled with ridicule? You can’t pretend not to know. Gossip follows you everywhere. If she married you…well…”

My heart skittered roughly in my chest and my lungs ached as my breathing suddenly stilled. I saw my once full future spin back in time to the moment of my birth and my father’s fantastical tale of a beautiful yet vengeful nix who lived in the lake. I’d never stood a chance at a normal life. Never.

Within the horror of the moment, a seed of anger burst forth. Yet again, I was being defined by a tale that held no truth. Everyone thought they knew me. Everyone had their own opinions about me and my family. I had tried to defy the superstition that determined my place in the village, but it hadn’t mattered. I was and would always be doomed.

I quickly stood and executed a quick bow. My throat convulsed as I gazed down at my feet. I’d tried to place them in a world of reality, but no one wished to see me there. I was a living myth. Cursed by God. A danger. Unwanted.

And he was right. I could not subject Nari to that kind of life.

“Thank you for your time,” I managed to say.

I headed for the door, passing the new wife and her gaping visage, outpacing Nari and her pained expression and soft pleas to stay. But I could not remain here. How did she expect me to look at her and be content knowing she could never be mine?

Flinging myself out of the house, I came up short. The neighbors, who were drawn by that horrible keening, had collected around the door and were debating on whether they should intrude on the sorrow within. I pushed through them just as the new wife burst out. Her tale of woe rose from her lips to encompass the whole village. “Safe, my friends. We are safe, though only by a hairsbreadth did we find our luck.”

I lengthened my stride, focusing on the shadows of the forest. Only there would I find peace. Only there could I lick my wounded pride.

“What disaster did you escape?” I heard a woman ask.

The new wife laughed. A laugh of the nervous. A laugh of the disbelieving. “A disastrous marriage.”

I plunged into the night, ignoring my name quivering on Nari’s raised voice. The plaintive cry caused me to shudder. She could not want me. Not now. Not after her father made it clear how horrible our life together would be. I didn’t expect her to follow. Truthfully, I believed her father would have stopped her. I should have known better. On the surface Nari was a beautiful woman, but beneath the skin, in the depths of her soul, she was and would always be the dirt encrusted lad I’d known in my youth. A fighter. A rebel. But not a redeemer. Her family would not allow her that role, and I could not blame them.