She’d backed away on her hands and knees, and, when she was sure she would not be seen, pushed to her feet, still backing toward the house. And that was when she brushed against an empty peat crate and knocked it over, the soft clunk sending her fleeing the short distance back to the stone house as if the hounds of Hell were on her heels.
Once inside the house she’d collapsed against the door. A quick glance at her watch had shown that barely ten minutes had passed since she’d gone outside to see where the smoke was coming from.
Her entire world had changed in ten minutes.
She’d barely slept that night. Every time she had closed her eyes, she saw him again. The delicious explosion had occurred twice more, no matter how much she tried to prevent it.
The same thing had happened every night since. Martha was beyond hope—utterly lost to the pleasures of the flesh: a child of Onan, as it were, not that she’d ever suspected that applied to women.
“Martha?”
She squeaked and jumped at the sound of her father’s voice, clutching her broom to her chest. Would he know what she was thinking just by looking at her?
“In here, Father,” she called out in a quavering voice.
The door opened and the vicar stood in the doorway. “Hello, my dear. I just wanted to let you know I was back from visiting young Lorn.”
“How is he?”
“It will be a while before his leg mends, but Mrs. Sutherland has already installed him in Denny’s old room and Lorn will probably be too plump to move by the time he’s healed.”
“I am so happy to hear it.” She glanced at her watch and saw it was after two. “Do you want me to come in and fix you something?”
“No thank you,” he said, patting his non-existent paunch, “Mrs. Sutherland puts on quite a midday spread. I shall be working on my sermon in my office if you should need me.”
Martha looked into his faded blue eyes and saw no condemnation of her—no disgust that she was an immoral wanton. Was it really that easy to hide thoughts that burned like fire inside her body? Is that what other people were doing while they were walking about the island?
Martha sighed and closed her eyes, resting her forehead against the cool stone wall. But Hugo was there, waiting for her.
Chapter 13
Hugo soon discovered that getting back to London was not going to happen as quickly as he’d hoped.
Once the euphoria of being free dissipated, he was in the same situation as before: he either needed to earn or steal his way back south.
Given his recent brush with transportation, he had no interest in breaking the law.
So that left working—at least until he could send a letter to Melissa and ask her to advance enough money for his journey. But before he could send a letter, he needed money to buy paper, ink, and a quill. He knew the vicar would have given him as much, but he was tired of relying on the poor old man and his daughter for everything from the food he ate, to the clothing on his back.
Fortunately, this was the busy time of year on Stroma and strong backs were in demand. While the men fished as many hours as they could, the women tended the crofts, caring for livestock and bringing in the harvest without the aid of their menfolk in many cases.
The Stroma crofters grew potatoes, hay, oats, and a variety of vegetables. But in the main, they grew corn. Most of the crofters kept laying hens and other fowl, a pig, a sheep or two, and some even a mule, although the plough was not employed on the island.
The island, fascinatingly enough, did not have one single tree. The main source of heat—peat—they had to import. Bringing the soft fuel to the island was the chief expense of most islanders, so a great deal of the local economy was barter, a skill which Hugo quickly mastered. He had two—well, he actually had three—valuable skills, but one would likely get him lynched. And so he sold his strong back and his braided cords.
Once he’d put his mind to earning money rather than stealing it, he labored every waking hour. He spent his days working for Mr. Stogden, who allowed Hugo the use of a structure on his land that resembled a lean-to, but more substantial and built from stone. It would never serve as a dwelling in winter, but Hugo hoped to be gone before it became too cold.
Hugo liked Mr. Stogden: the old man kept to himself and had no interest in socializing—unlike just about everyone else on the bloody island.
It wasn’t that Hugo wasn’t fond of a chin wag every now and then with whores, thieves, flashmen, and others of that ilk. But just what the hell would he have to talk about with a fisherman or farmer?
Would they swap stories?
If any of the islanders ever learned that he’d earned money by servicing other men’s wives or taking it up the arse, they would likely drive him from the island with pitchforks and torches.
That knowledge hung in the back of his mind like a specter and made avoiding socializing with decent people an easy decision.
Besides, he didn’t have time. After his long day at the quarry Hugo worked braiding cords. He first finished the vicar’s bell pull—free of charge—and then took a steady stream of orders from other islanders. In order to spend his evenings braiding, he needed to purchase peat to have firelight to work by.
Luckily Mr. Stogden kindly advanced him his first week’s wages after he’d worked only two days. “I can see you’ll be worth the money,” the old man had said when Hugo had shown his surprise. Naturally, Stogden’s kindness had made him work even harder. So maybe the old man was just a savvy businessman.
Hugo used the
