11
They made to Selkirk by the deepening dusk and found an inn. Fortunately—or unfortunately as Mary deemed it—the only had one room and it was tiny little thing. Leith was then saddled with sleeping in the barn.
“Surely,” she begged the innkeeper and his wife, a woman with a body as thin and flighty as a feather, “surely there is something else you can do?”
The innkeeper’s wife gave her a rheumy stare toward the table, “Take it or leave it, lassie. We run a reputable establishment an’ have no place for fornicators.”
Mortified, Mary’s face turned crimson. “I beg your pardon! What fornicators?”
“Yer a whore, innit?” the woman said plainly. “There is no room for ye to be plying yer trade here.”
“Nay,” Leith rescued her, “There is nay such activity between us. I’m only escorting the lass to an asylum. She can take the room. I’ll take the barn. If you’ve some fresh straw on the ground and a blanket, t’will do fine for me.”
“But Leith—”
His eyes held compassion and amusement. “Lass, I’ve suffered much worse on the bare forest floors and rocky mountainsides than to murmur over the floor of a barn. It’s a warm place to sleep out of the elements. Take the room and I’ll see ye in the morning.”
After Leith handed over the silver coins and the innkeeper handed him a rough horse-hair blanket, he bade Mary good night and left the room. The innkeeper's wife stared at her. “Well?”
Following the woman to a room up the stairs, and then another to a room that was in the attic. The innkeeper’s wife pulled out a ring of keys from her apron and shoved one into the lock. With a grating screech, the door opened to reveal the aforementioned tiny room.
It was a dismal place at best, only holding a small bed with a lumpy straw-filled mattress that nearly took all the space inside and a wooden chair shoved against the wall. The floor was devoid of a rug or even a sprinkle of rushes. A single tallow candle was stuck to the window sill.
She sighed and dropped her sack on the chair and sat on the edge of the bed. Leith had kissed her, out of the blue, blindsiding her completely. With all the things that could be troubling him, she could have never expected that she was the reason. The kiss had changed something in her.
It had awakened an emotion that scared her. The bottom of her stomach burned and an unnatural warmth had settled in her chest. When his tongue had met hers, she had shied away at first then a deep craving for his touch had taken her over. It felt as if she had been standing on a shoreline only to be swept away and sink under a sudden tide.
Stripping down to her shift, Mary spread her coat over the bed and then, gingerly laid on it. Leith had told her what he wanted in a wife but not once had she heard him say the word love. He spoke about kindness and loyalty but nothing about love. He had plainly admitted that he had been with women but had said nothing about love and commitment. Did he even consider love? Was he like her parents who thought love was a useless emotion in marriages?
Could he love me?
She pressed her hand to her breast. What did love have to do with this?
I’m getting ahead of myself.
In the middle of her musing, a knock came to her door. Frowning, she sat up and took her cloak with her. She wrapped it around her before releasing the bolt and opening the door.
The innkeeper’s wife was there with a tray of tea and a hunk of bread and cheese. “Compliments of the inn.” The words were said so sourly that Mary believed they had curled the cheese more than the vat the milk was poured in.
“Thank you,” she said while reaching out for the tray.
With a curt nod, the woman left and Mary took the tray back to the bed to rest it before going back to bolt the door. She broke the bread then nibbled the cheese. Halfway through the makeshift meal, she set the bread away and sipped her milk tea.
With the cup back resting on the chair, she went to sleep knowing that they had to set out early the next morning. Her dreams were little more than grey mist but the feeling was daunting. As the mist came together it formed her mother who was staring at her with cold disappointment.
“You’ve ruined yourself, Mary,” Lady Harlington said icily. “All my efforts are now washed away in vain. How could you allow that man to taint you? You are no daughter of mine, if you are beginning to act like a harlot!”
The last words were snarled in such hate that Mary jumped out of her sleep and pressed a hand to her beating heart. She swallowed dryly and shucked the lapel of the coat from her side.
She stumbled to the window barefooted and pressed her forehead on the cold stone. “Mother…”
Mary did not need the powers of a mystic to know what the dream was trying to tell her. She knew she was supposed to be ashamed of letting Leith kiss her that way, but try as she might, she could not dredge up a speck of regret for it. Mayhap if Leith had not taken her from the safe shores of her naivety and thrown her into the deep waters of desire like he had, would she had ever dared breach them herself?
The bite of the cold floor was getting icier but she stayed at the window as the skies began to lighten. Truly this was God’s palette. The dark sky began to glow a pale pink and orange, both hues streaking through the night’s dark grayish purple. Soon the golden rays
