Victoria's Demon Lover (17 page)

    The sword was
sheathed and fastened to Lord Brigayne’s belt and the men mounted their bored
horses.  As they swung up, one of them saw her in the doorway.  She had
carelessly moved into sight as she watched them.

     “Oh ho,” he said
and they all turned.  She ducked back into the house and leaned against the
door frame.  She could hear them outside.  “I see you finally got married,
John,” one of them said.

     The men laughed
licentiously and she twitched.  “Let us see little Maggie, John.”

     She cringed
against the wall, knowing he would be furious.  This is exactly what he had
warned her would happen.  She listened for his boots and there he was,
darkening the doorway.  His eyes were angry and the set of his mouth told her
she had better not speak.

     She told him how
miserably sorry she was with her eyes and let him grab her by her upper arm and
steer her toward the visitors.

     She stumbled up
to them and kept her eyes on her feet.    Jack still had his hand on her.

     “Let’s see her
pretty eyes, John.   Big eyes the color of violets.”

     Jack shook her
arm a little and she raised her eyes to look at their landlord. He was average
height and about thirty five years old.  His body was still strong from riding
and hunting, though he had begun to broaden a bit in the belly from too much
rich food.  His eyes and hair were a soft brown and he wore elaborate velvets
and polished leather.  Lord Brigayne raised his eyebrows.  “Remarkable.  Such a
deep blue with that coal black hair.  Good job, man, good job.” He nodded to
Jack, then waved his riding crop.  His horse moved away obediently.  His men
followed him.  When they were a polite distance away so they would not raise
too much dust, the horses broke into canters and soon they disappeared around
the bend of the road.

     “Oh God,
Maggie.  What have you done?”  He sounded desolate.  She had planned to fuss at
him for being a brute, but those imagined words never materialized.  He dropped
his arm.

     Instead she
apologized.  “I’m sorry.  I wanted to see you give him the sword.”

     “And now he has
seen you.”

     “This is a bad
thing?”  She wondered aloud.

     He looked at her
sharply.  “What do you mean by that?  You have lived in this county your whole
life.  You know what this means.”

     Maggie probably
did but Victoria was lost.  It was possible that Lord Brigayne might want to
fuck her, but even a lord of a manor would not dishonor such a man as Jack, his
smith and an important townsman.  Or would he?  She tried to call up some of
Maggie’s memories.

     “You are not
safe now until he has taken you.  One of his men will come when I am gone and
drag you to the manor.  A few days later another servant will return you to
me.  He is not gentle.  You will be bruised and sore.  You may never like it
again.  Don’t tell me the girls and the women never told you these stories. 
Why are you playing me, Maggie?”

     Victoria opened
her mouth and inhaled deeply.  These stories were now coming back to her
through Maggie’s memories.  Many stories.  For years, ever since he got his
cock to stand for the first time, Lord Brigayne had plagued the village women
with his lust.  His father, the previous lord, had only stepped in when Brigayne
had started to eye the vicar’s wife.

     She nodded.  Now
she understood.  Why hadn’t Jasper just told her?  She would have crawled under
the bed and stayed there.  She made a face.  “I’m sorry.”

     Jack sighed. 
“Well.  It was bound to happen sometime.  You are famous for your beauty,
Maggs.  It was just a matter of time.  I had hoped to have you swell with my
child before he saw you.  He has the sense to leave a woman full of babe
alone.”  He pulled her to him and kissed her.  “Perhaps he will be delayed by
business and you will have a huge belly before he comes back.”  She felt him
harden under his breeches as he said this.  He pressed it against her belly for
emphasis.  “I will plant the child now.”  He looked over his shoulder at the
dust settling on the road, then put his hand on her arm again and steered her
back into the cottage.

He could have planted
the child.  Victoria squirmed on the mattress.  It certainly felt like she was
being plowed.  He was not gentle this time and the determined look on his face
as he heaved his cock inside her at her made her suppose he was thinking of
Lord Brigayne instead of sweet nothings.  His hands had held her down with
possession and his arms had pinned her with ownership.  His hard cock pressed
in and out with a fierce purpose instead of casual pleasure.  His face hardened
with his last thrust and his eyes glittered instead of closing in ecstasy when
he shot his seed into her.  He didn’t make love to her this time.  He fucked
her.  Hard.  She saw a bit of the demon in them as he grimaced in his release. 
He clenched his teeth together hard and his hot cum like the demon’s.

     “A child,
Maggs.  Grow a child,” he said with a ragged breath.

     Victoria nodded
as Maggie but she did not want a child.  Yet, anyway.  She understood that was
her purpose in this place and time, and she understood his desperate need to
keep her away from Brigayne.  She wondered if he really believed she had a
choice in the matter.  If it meant sex every night, she could see the advantages
to his desire for progeny. But Victoria was more reticent.  Childbirth in this
century was not pretty.  There was little jov in the birthing process, no
shining Mylar balloons and gift bags.  There would be no heavenly sedatives or
Demerol dreams.  There would be no emergency caesareans or clean instruments
and antibiotics.  She wrinkled her nose.  She did not want a child.  Not here. 
Maggie’s mind gave her images of a witnessed childbirth, all blood and pain and
tears.  She shuddered.

     He thrust one
more time and this time closed his eyes with a sharp intake of his breath and a
long groan.  “Please, God,” she heard him whisper.

     When she woke
she was again in the Shrewsbury cottage, not the lake house.  Victoria felt
same way you feel when you are on vacation in a foreign country and you go to
put your hand on your passport…and it’s gone.  This had happened to her in
Venezuela once when she was on a business trip with her supervisor.  She had
that fleeting panic attack until she found it in a pocket of her luggage.

     There was no
passport for this place.  Or was there?  She slid from the bed, careful not to
wake Jack and set her feet to the floor.  It was colder, and she felt
different.  Her center of gravity was wrong.  She lost her balance a little and
steadied herself on the edge of the table.  She would not forget the porridge
this morning.

     She knelt to
stir the fire and get the pot boiling with water from the wooden bucket next to
the hearth.  When she braced herself to get up again she felt the difference
again.  She stopped.  The fire flickered in front of her, but she felt a chill
that had nothing to do with the weather.  She pushed open the shutters and
looked out at the fresh morning.  When she had gone to bed last night it had
been high summer.  Now the leaves were all the colors of autumn. Some were on
the ground and the moon was low and big as it set on the horizon.

     She put her hand
over her belly again. 
I am pregnant
.  The bulge was small enough that
only she would notice it.  She lifted her nightdress and pressed her hands all
around her belly button.  Her uterus felt firm, like there was a softball
inside her.  She dropped the nightdress.  If she went back to her old life,
would she be pregnant there?  Am I trapped here until the baby comes?

     She glanced at
Jack stretched out in the bed, still snoring.  Does he know?

     Victoria
frowned.  She needed answers.  Until now it seemed she had been playing a role,
enjoying herself with Jack, exploring the nether realms.  This was different. 
She put her hand over her belly again.  Three months?  Four?  She didn’t know.
She could not think of this as a game anymore.

    Later, Jack
grinned as he ate his porridge, his eggs and his toast.  He knew.  He went out
to the forge whistling and swinging his hammer.  Victoria watched him walk away
from the door way, drying her hands on a cloth.  He had a long striding gait
because he was so tall, and his shoulders moved side to side because he was
carrying the heavy hammer.  She sighed. 
This would be heaven.  This could
be everything I ever wanted.

     
But something was wrong.  It had been wrong from the first day she came
here.  Jasper had warned her.  Now the oppressive feeling was stronger.  Her
day was set out for her.  Every day was.  There were more tasks than could be
done by one woman.

     “Mam?”

     Victoria
jumped.  A girl stood in the doorway wearing an apron and smiling shyly.

     “I’m here.  What
do you want me to start on?”

     Victoria was flooded
with information.  The payment for the sword had gone for many things.  A
servant girl from the village was one of them.  She smiled.  The girl’s name
was Katy.  Victoria even knew what their tasks were for the day.  “First the
cow and chickens, Katy.  Then we bake today.”  Katy dipped a little curtsy and
moved away to get a bucket from the drying board outside in the yard by the
well.

     Well then. 
Victoria picked up her own bucket and went to the well for more water.  She
heard the first ringing sounds of the hammer on metal and the low roar of the
fire.  She realized that every day she listened for those sounds.  Every
morning she waited until she heard them before her own tasks could be started. 
There was something comforting in the regular pounding that told her that Jack
was here and that he was doing what he loved to do, and that she could stop
what she was doing at any time and go watch him make something useful out of a
lump of metal.

     He liked it when
she was there, but she could not use her time in idleness often.  She might
hurry today, though.  While the last loaves were baking she might have an hour
to sit near the forge.  She nodded, planning that moment as she set her bucket
down and reached for the well handle.

     She had not
heard him behind her.  As she leaned forward to steady the rope someone grabbed
her around her waist and jerked her back, off her feet.  A gloved hand was
pressed over her mouth and both her air and her scream were cut off in a
muffled squeak.  She was dragged backwards; her shoes were ripped off by her
dragging heels.  She could see over the hand that Katy was still in the barn. 
Jack and his forge were hidden by the bulk of the cottage, and as ever, the
sounds from the fire and the hammer would mask any sounds softer than a cannon
shot.

    Victoria kicked
as hard as she could, but the man who had her had arms like steel.  She was
turned and handed up to another man on a horse, hands changed places over her
mouth and the horse leaped to the road.  As she was repositioned on the saddle
by her captor, her eyes spun around to see Katy staring open-mouthed between
the barn doors.  The ringing of the hammer faded and became the pounding hoof
beats of the horse beneath her.  Her mouth was free now and she screamed, but
knew her voice would not be heard.

     She was sick and
sore when she was finally taken down from the saddle.  She bent and puked her
breakfast in the grass.  The two men waited for her to finish, then strapped
her wrists and ankles with leather thongs.  After she was trussed they picked
her up and carried her to a two wheeled cart filled with straw hidden among the
shrubs near the road.  One of them tied a gag over her mouth and buried her in
the straw while the other hitched one of the horses.

     This ride was
not as painful as flopping over the back of a galloping horse, but the straw
made her sneeze and the bindings were too tight.  Now she was angry.  She knew
better than to kick or struggle, as this would only exhaust her and tighten the
bindings.  She waited, thinking.  Her greatest weapon of defense was her mind. 
After all, unlike the people of these times, she had read hundreds of books and
watches scores of movies.  She would be able to anticipate what was happening
to her and come up with any number of scenarios that might get her free.

    She guessed she
was being taken to Lord Brigayne.  That was easy.  The time slip was not.  She
woke up this morning months later.  Would she wake up tomorrow even further in
time? Could time advance when she was not asleep?  She thought about this.  She
had been shown her wedding night, and experienced it.  She had been shown the
first few days of her married life, enough to be used to it and realize how
much she loved Jack.  She had been warned about Brigayne.  Now this.  The
segments of her life with Jack seemed to be selected for particular events.

     Obviously this
abduction was an important event in the history of their marriage.  She
waited.  The sun was passed midday when the cart stopped and she was carried
into a great dark house and up several flights of stairs.  She was deposited on
a bed and the gag removed.  One man bent to unfasten her wrists and ankles
while the other stood at the door fumbling with a ring of heavy iron keys. 
They were gone and the door locked before Victoria could moisten her mouth and
inhale to respond.  Her hands and feet were numb.