The Merchant's Daughter (Dubious Consent, Historical Erotic Romance)

The Merchant's Daughter

Dubious Consent, Historical Erotic Romance

Dalia Daudelin

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It had been a long day, and only getting longer. The grass was soft and the trees sparse enough that you could at least see anyone coming for almost half a mile, and that was a fair blessing but the young lady in my charge didn’t seem to take a comfort from it. Her speaking voice was beautiful, but when she shouted in shrill tones her voice lost its beauty.

“You wait: your heads will roll after my father hears about this!”

We’d been hearing it for the better part of an hour. At first it had been threatening but as time passed, our horses failed to return, and the rear group was not to pass this way for more than a day. Suddenly, the threat of thieves, of wild animals, loomed much larger than a demotion, even if it meant I was back to late nights on guard duty.

I looked up at the sky, and thought for a long time about my wife, at home with our fifth child. She had been pretty once—marvelously beautiful and he’d asked God how he’d been able to woo such a woman. But that was twenty years passed now, and making four children had not been kind to her. The young lady, daughter of an Irish merchant, was hard to look away from for long, and I was starting to feel a familiar feeling in my loins. It had been years since I felt it without a bellyful of ale.

“When your father hears about it,
if
he hears about it…” a voice piped up, “That’ll be then. This is now. So keep your mouth shut.”

It was the youngest, Richard, who was fresh off the boat from England. He’d do well to learn to keep his mouth shut, I thought. I spoke automatically, thoughtlessly.

“Begging your pardon, Miss Dempsey—young Richard has a foul mouth, but he’s worth putting up with if trouble should arise.”

The sentiment was fair enough, but it left out the fact that every man seated around the horseless carriage, every man out on patrol agreed with what he’d said. I began to wonder if maybe I’d been dealing with too many high-born folks who demanded I walk on eggshells. Perhaps it would be wiser to try to get myself into a position to train the new boys, so I could speak my mind without too much fear of repercussions. I almost smiled at the thought, imagining seeing my own sons growing up with their father around every day. A shrill noise yanked me from my dreams—a scream.

I was on my feet before I knew what was happening, scooping a knife off the ground as I rose. My sword lay beside it in heavy wooden sheathing, but if it were a varmint or snake I hardly wanted something so heavy. Richard—a snake of another kind entirely—had been leering at the young lady with poison in his eyes, and when she wandered off like a fool, he made his move. He had his knee pressed into her chest and unlacing his breeches, and I knew what he intended even as he covered her mouth to prevent another scream.

He didn’t see me coming, saw nothing but a wet hole he thought he could stick his cock into. I pulled him off and pinned him down. I pressed my knife into his throat and when his eyes focused on my face there was a mix of confusion and fear in them, the haze of lust gone.

“Richard, I swear to you: If you don’t yield to the King’s law, you’ll be left dead on this spot, and the wolves will feast on you in the coming cold.” I pressed the knife harder, and the look in his eyes, of a caged animal, didn’t leave him, but I could see him weigh his options. And then his head laid back and his eyes lost their focus altogether.

We bound him in leather thongs and set him aside for trial—road or no, civilization or no, there are some things a man can’t do to a woman and still get away with it. I was overcome by a powerless anger, and I feared I might kill him. Not only had he failed to uphold our most basic mission, not only had he attempted to violate a Christian woman, but on some level I felt personally offended by the way that he had tarnished my reputation and the reputations of my men who had only wanted to do their jobs. At the same time, I felt angry that I had so wrongly judged his character.

And below all that, buried so deep I couldn’t articulate it, was the jealousy that he thought he could have this beautiful woman who I knew I could never have. It was a dark, animal thought and even though I knew no one could see inside my thoughts I felt deeply ashamed. I knelt and prayed for the Lord’s forgiveness. I was surprised to find the young lady Dempsey beside me when I had finished my prayers.

“Did he hurt you, mistress?” She opened her eyes and looked at me, with an expression I’ve seen too many times from boys coming back from an ugly battle, when they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. “Are you alright?”

Her voice was soft when she replied, “I will be, sir. Thank you, for…” she paused. “Thank you.” She rose and was away, facing away from me, from my men. I suspected she might be crying, and I chose to let her be. I wanted her to feel okay again, not wanting the fear to get deep-set into her like I’d seen many times before. I knew that I couldn’t provide any solace for her that would last.

I thought of Brigid back home, large with child, and I knew fear for the first time in a long time—thinking back to that winter before we were wed, and the state she was in when I found her. I shivered and leaned into the fire that was just starting to pick up, alone with my thoughts.

I heard from the broken carriage, the sounds of Richard fussing against his restraints, almost worried he would snap the bounds he’d been left in—but he hadn’t much in the way of muscle, and when I thought it honestly through I decided he didn’t provide anything to worry about. I set Seamus to guard duty and told me to wake him for four hours, or should things should go sour. I woke to the moon in the sky, visible barely between the thick tree branches. The young mistress was awake, sitting on a trunk, staring almost unblinking at the stars. She didn’t look over at me so I don’t know how she knew I was awake.

"You know, I received a boy’s education in Dublin, sir. They taught me about these stars."

She pointed at a cluster.

"That there's Orion. Mighty warrior, he is. He's got a club in one hand, and the other hand is holding a lion at bay, strong and fierce and protective."

She looked down, looked at me.

"You protected me."
I didn't know what to say to her.

"I was just doing the Christian thing, mistress. Don't know what I need to be thanked for."

She stood, laid in the grass. If I watched closely I could see her breasts straining just so against the bounds of her dress: lying flat, and yet at the same time, only accentuating their softness. She spoke softly, and I could only just hear her.

"Do you know your bible, sir?"

“Some, but not so well as some might, mistress.”

"Do you know the story of the good Samaritan?"

“I’ve heard the Father tell it at mass.”

"A Samaritan—a heretic and a gentile—was more Christian than so many Christians, in the story. Just because you were doing the right thing doesn't mean you shouldn't be thanked."

She got real quiet at the end, like she was just saying it to herself. She looked up, like a lost child, and I almost lost my arousal for her altogether, seeing her so fragile. I turned to the fire, warming my hands in the cold.

It was a surprise when I felt a warmth against my back, arms encircling me. I turned, ready to tell young Dempsey off, when I saw her face. She'd been crying again, quietly enough that I hadn't heard it over the sound of the fire popping and crackling. She looked afraid again, as afraid as she'd been after she was attacked, and lonely.

"Sir, I need help. I just..."

She trailed off and hiccuped, crying again anew.

"I don't know what I need. It all feels so awful and I can't make it go away. Make it go away, Orion. Save me."

I took her in my arms and I held her like a child to my breast, sang her a lullaby I'd learned from my mother. It was in Gaelic and I didn't know what a word of it meant. I’d spent too many years speaking the King's English and none speaking the language of my mother's mother. I've never been much for singing and my voice cracked more than once, trying to keep track of the tune and sing what was gibberish to me, a song I hadn't heard nor sung in nearly thirty years. My own children hadn't heard it sung, what with Brigid doing all the lullabies. She'd heard me sing one drunken night and had made the right decision in declaring herself queen of her castle and the only minstrel in it. It'd been a cute way of phrasing it, now that I think back, always a smart girl, talking with her cleverness about so many things. She'd have made a fine poet if the situations were reversed and I were the mother at home mothering, and she the man winning bread for the family. But I hadn't been asked who I'd rather pick, and it seems neither had she.
When I looked down, the young lady had fainted dead away. I laid her down, sleeping soundly, in the warmth of the fire and tried to look anywhere that wasn't untoward. I can't say I succeeded the whole night, but she kept her modesty and I committed adultery only in my heart.
When day broke, I was woken first by the youngster on the last watch of guard duty. He informed me there was nothing to report. I noted that I hadn't heard young Richard during my term at the post, and asked if he'd heard anything and indeed he hadn't. Perhaps the hotheaded young Englishman had finally calmed himself down and seen reason.
But indeed he hadn't. When we opened the carriage to remove him from it, well aware that the next group would be nearby within a matter of hours, he lashed out, having somehow released himself from the binds that tied his arms, but having failed to fix the problems of the lock on the doors. It took three of us to subdue him, holding him down as he begged to be let go, for they would surely hang him in Dublin and he had a family back home in Birmingham, he insisted that he could make it worth our while. I took out on him the anger I'd had the evening prior, having welled back up in my breast. I felt my fist connect with his jaw, through the heavy riding gloves, and he blinked stars out of his eyes and was, at long last, silent. For that, at least, I was thankful.

The party who had been assigned to bring the remaining luggage came up before noontime as we had anticipated and we were able to load our cargo onto their carts, but there was little in terms of seating and so with miss Dempsey seated on a bench in a wagon, and the soldiers marching, we went along slower than we had anticipated. It seemed that another night on the road would be needed, in spite of my dire hope to be home and done with the job.

That night, at least, we had access to beds in a small hovel they'd set to stay the night, having not made such gross errors in judgment as those of us less experienced in hauling furniture and luxury goods. The rooms were small, and there were only two. Being courteous and Christian, we offered the one to the lady while the men and I took the other. The movers acquiesced to this plan after a promise of a small sum, and so it was.

The night passed long and I found myself unable to sleep. My thoughts were occupied with Richard, with his attempts to flee and awful shenanigans. I lay in my bed, lost in my thoughts and my fears, and I didn't hear the door open—often a fatal mistake. In fact it shames me somewhat to say, but I hardly even heard the sound of the steps leading up to me, as if they were occurring in another world, one where the fact of the noise was completely disconnected from the consequences of them.

When they were nearly upon me, I finally became concerned and sat bolt upright, looking around for the source. I tried to think where the nearest weapon was in case of attack. Naturally, I thought, if one were to attack our young ward, the first thing any intelligent fellow would do, would be to attack her better-armed companions and minimize the risk of being caught unawares. So I thought.

Only, it wasn't an attacker. It wasn't a burly young lad, hoping for revenge on his Captain. It was a girl: a very nude young girl, less than half my age. I blinked, certain I was dreaming. When she beckoned, part of me hesitated, certain it was no dream, while another encouraged me to cut loose for the day, let myself fall to temptation and see what this girl's flesh had to offer. My cock was hard as a stone, and its hardness won the day.

I slid from the bed, careful to avoid the creaky spots on the floor. I looked down at young Dempsey, impassive and trying to be the professional as she stood on her toes and kissed me. I tried hard to keep my face still impassive, willing myself to deny her for the sake of being a good Christian man and her chaperon. In the end I reached down, around her small waist, and I kissed her back. Consequences be damned.

She led me silently to her room, across the hall. She had been wearing a shawl, sheer and leaving little to the imagination, but in the candle-lit room, she turned to me and dropped, and nothing was left at all. Her breasts were smaller than I would have imagined from her dress, with pink nipples tipping them. They still had perk in them and I descended on them, entranced.

She gasped and whispered that she had no experience with these matters and that I was to be her guide in them. I kissed her and said nothing. I felt her quim, moist and willing, and I rubbed her clit gently. She gasped and got weak in the knees, her legs bowing slightly, and I helped her to the bed, still rubbing. She was breathing ragged by this time, and she looked up at me, wanting to know what would come next. I would oblige. I pulled my leggings down, freeing my cock. She watched it bounce curiously.

"Touch it, Miss Dempsey."

She reached out, tentatively, as if she were afraid to hurt me.

"Don't worry, I'll tell you if you're doing something wrong. You just get comfortable with it."