Fascinated

'I've lived in Birminghamshire for the last thirty years,' she said truthfully. There was no need to lie, not anymore. She was neither young nor wealthy nor in any way desirable other than to this man. 'Land's End is no longer my home.'

'Yet you are here.'

'Yes, I am here. My husband died penniless. The vicar who replaced him was a bachelor; he was kind enough to let me be his housekeeper. Last month he married. There was not enough work for two women, so I… volunteered to retire my position. My parents left me a small plot of land.' Pride intervened; she could not bring herself to tell him that it was a plot of land no larger than a matchbox and that the Branwells, in a place of poverty, had been the most poor. 'I had nowhere else to come.'

'Did you see your parents, before they died?'

'No,' she said. Lingering regret flitted through her. 'They died of influenza.'

'Did you come back for their funeral?'

'My parents never forgave me for marrying a man who was not a Cornishman. No, I did not come back for their funeral. By the time I was alerted of their deaths, they had already been buried.'

'Would you have attended, if you had known about it in time?'

'I don't know.'

Or did she?

Megan had not wanted to return to the poverty or the grim austerity of the Cornish people.

'Did you like it when I put my tongue inside your mouth?'

Her breath caught in her chest, remembering the dual penetration of his tongue inside her mouth and his manhood inside her vulva. 'Yes.'

'I, too, found it enjoyable.' Bright color circled his cheeks. He dropped his hands. 'The gig will be ready.'

Megan grabbed her cloak off one of the rusted hooks that acted as a wardrobe, and the Windsor hat off the bed. Rushing back, she retrieved her gloves and the French letter she had put inside the pocket of the discarded dress.

Chapter Five

Ragged pieces of cloth hung from thorns, mothers' last-year votive offerings torn from swaddling cloths to appease the old gods.

He stared at the clear spring water, and wondered why he had brought Megan to Madron Well.

The truth chuckled and bubbled out from underneath the rock.

Hilla-ridden-to have the stag-was a West Cornish term for a man whose life was riddled with nightmares. Legend claimed that a man could be cured if he washed in Madron Well.

He wanted to be cured.

He wanted to wash in Madron Well and bathe the past away.

'It is said that in 1650 there was a cripple named John Trelilie,' Megan said. The brim of her hat and the fold of black veiling hid her face from his view. 'He dreamed three times that he should wash himself in Madron Well. But he was crippled, and no one would bring him, so he crawled here to wash himself in the waters. It cured him, they say. They say he walked away from the well upright.'

'Do you believe the story is true?' he asked neutrally.

'It is certainly less farfetched than some other Cornish legends.' Megan looked up; sunlight sharply illuminated her white skin and the network of fine lines that defined it. 'Are there similar legends in your country?'

Arabia was filled with legends. Of genies. Of magical oases.

He opened his mouth to tell her of Arabia. 'Eunuchs have been known to marry,' he said instead.

It was not what he had intended to say.

Her moss green eyes remained calm. 'What did you mean, earlier, when you said that eunuchs such as yourself grow erect? Are there eunuchs who do not… grow erect?'

A bird warbled; the spring gurgled.

It all seemed so far away, the years he had been whole and the day he had been altered.

'There are three types of castration,' he said, feeling as removed as the bird's warble. 'There is the sandali, or castrati, in which a boy's-or man's-penis and testicles are cleanly cut off by a razor; there are those who have their penis only cut off; and there are those like me, who have their testicles either crushed or removed.'

He spoke dispassionately, as if it had happened to someone else other than himself; as if the crimes perpetrated were not monstrous, but were perfectly acceptable.

In Arabia, they were.

The horror he had earlier expected to see in her eyes was clearly visible. 'These men who do not have their manhood- how do they relieve themselves?'

'They urinate through a straw. Or else they squat.'

Like a woman.

But they did not deserve that analogy-not from a fellow eunuch.

'And so these men-these men who do not have their manhood-they must suffer, without any consolation at all.'

'A eunuch's level of desire corresponds to the age he was castrated,' he said stoically, unable to lie and tell her that a eunuch never felt desire, because they did feel desire.

Even those who were castrated before the onset of puberty.

Even those who were sandali.

'At what age were you?…' She paused, unable to say the word.

'I was castrated when I was thirteen,' he said flatly.

He had matured early. At thirteen he had sported the shadow of a beard and his testicles had dropped.

'But those men who lose their manhood…'

She did not have to finish her observation. Or perhaps it was a question.

How did a man who had no manhood yet who still possessed desire find satisfaction?

'Some eunuchs take consolation in giving women pleasure.'

'I cannot imagine always seeing to the pleasure of others without being able to physically share it.'

Yet she had loved a man who had not seen to her pleasure.

'Eunuchs who have neither a penis nor testicles marry,' he said reluctantly.

She remained silent, her gaze suddenly alert.

Instantly, he regretted his confidence.

He did not want to talk about his past. He did not want to think about his future.

He simply wanted to enjoy the day, and his first-and last-woman.

Even should he have the ability to find release in a prostitute, he would never be content with passionless union.

Reaching up, he slid out her hatpin and plucked off her black hat. Sunlight turned her chestnut brown hair to a blaze of red and bronze, autumn colors streaked with the silver gleam of winter. 'You have beautiful hair. Why do you wear it pulled back so tightly?'

Reaching up, up, up, she said, 'You have beautiful hair, too. Why do you hide it in a turban?' and pulled free the end of the white cotton that was tucked inside to hold the turban in place.

He held still, staring down at her upturned face and the faint lines that contradicted her youthful impulsiveness. 'A Muslim man may not show his hair in public.'

She unwound the cloth, breasts thrusting against her black cloak, against his chest, focusing upon his turban rather than his gaze. 'An Englishwoman may not wear her hair loose in public,' she said, breath caressing his chin.

It smelled of tooth powder.

'We are not in public,' he said, more aware of her touch and the unwinding turban than he was of his own heartbeat.