Page 10 of A Promise of Love

S omething was hurting .

Her eyes would not open. No, that was not right.

Judith tried to blink again, fighting against the heaviness of her lids.

She reached to press her hand against her eyes, to free herself from the cloth, only then realizing that her hands were tied.

Bound together over her head so tightly that her arms ached with the discomfort.

She pulled on them, but all she accomplished by that futile gesture did was to tighten the rope which bit into her wrists.

Terror washed through her like a fountain of fear, bathing every pore in sour smelling sweat .

She let out a startled scream when a voice spoke near her ear. "Ah," it said, in a low, almost considerate tone, as a hand reached out and covered her mouth, "you are awake. Good. I would hate to think that you would be missing this next part ."

"Please," she pleaded, her words muffled by the pressure of that hand .

"And rob us of our fun?" Another low chuckle.

"I think not." The hand was replaced by lips that were too hot and too wet and she almost gagged at the insertion of a tongue into her mouth.

He tasted of brandy and tobacco. The revulsion she felt was enough to clamp her teeth firmly against that intrusion .

He recoiled immediately, his gasp of pain her only reward for momentary courage.

That, and the vicious blow strong enough to knock her head to the side.

She screamed then, as loudly and as strongly as she could.

It was the only thing she had left, the only defense.

But they only laughed at her screams, as if the sound of her terror excited them, wolves amused by the plaintive sound of fear .

The blanket was stripped from her body; the cool rush of air chilled her sweating skin.

She kicked out with legs that were free of bindings, but her thrashing movements only encouraged masculine laughter, they did not stop the stroking hand which obscenely and leisurely explored her body.

Nor did her struggles impede the invading fingers, which cruelly poked and probed.

Her hips bucked up from the mattress at the pain from those thrusting fingers, but that movement only seemed to foster ribald comments from those in the room .

The mattress sagged with one man’s weight. His legs brushed her own, the rough hair upon them scraping against her skin. Judith lunged upwards again, as if to dislodge him. A muffled groan followed by an oath indicated that she had managed to inflict some pain on her assailant .

"Stretch her legs out, Anthony, and fasten her ankles to the bedposts ."

She did not make it easy for them. Yet, even her strength, born of terror and underlaid with rage, was not enough in the end. The manacles fastened around her ankles were red with blood before she collapsed against the mattress. Still, she did not meekly acquiesce to their plans for her .

As she squirmed in abhorrence at the touch of the hands and lips which explored her body at will, arching her torso from side to side in the only movement allowed her, laughter was interspersed by coarse encouragement .

"By God, she loves it!" one voice shouted .

"Your bitch needs taming, Anthony !"

As if in punishment for her defiance, her breasts were tightly squeezed by brutal fingers. She moaned in pain, but that slight sound seemed to encourage her assailant, who bit her nipples cruelly in a parody of pleasure. Yet, even that pain was easily forgotten in the agony that followed .

Thrusting fingers were replaced by his male member, as it ruthlessly invaded her, tearing the walls of her dry passage, lubricating his rape with her own blood. Her assailant's grunt of pleasure accompanied her own muffled screams .

Nor did it stop there .

His release found, the first one left, only to be replaced by another. Still another took his place, marking her body with a series of vicious bites and sucking marks, driving into her until agony was just a mild word compared to the writhing torment that was her body .

Her mind was not occupied in this battle for survival, it sat outside of her body, watching with dumbstruck eyes as she was made victim. Wet warmth seeped from between her legs and she knew that she was bleeding freely. With each thrust, some part of her soul was injured along with her body .

But that was not enough for them. Her humiliation and shame were not what they wanted.They wanted more .

She did not fight as they unbound her feet, and turned her over. She was a body without will, a lump of flesh that screamed silently, nerve endings tortured, a receptacle of pain. Only when they violated her again, destroying her innocence totally, were they assuaged and spent .

J udith’s first waking thought was that she was alone, that the nightmare which had left her trembling and spent was only the stuff of memories.

It was not real. Not anymore. Anthony was dead and his brother far away.

She was safe in this burnt out castle. And that was the most fitting irony of all, wasn’t it?

That her father had unwittingly sent her to a sanctuary .

And Sophie MacLeod had offered an incredible bargain .

That the Scots found it necessary to honor such a bizarre ritual as her courtyard marriage was odd in itself; honor not having been a commodity highly revered in her past experience.

Her father thought it only a word used by weaklings, but then, he routinely cheated and lied if it meant reaping more profit.

Nor had either of her previous husbands seemed overly endowed with what might be called character .

Judith sat on the edge of the sagging mattress, noted that her hands still trembled.

The nightmare hadn’t come in months, but she was not unduly surprised it had visited her last night.

This place summoned ghosts and memories, this desolate castle with its burnt walls and its constant smell of soot .

She stood, looking out the window and the view of dawn which beckoned.

The scene itself was an oddity, so different from her first view of Tynan, so changed from somber night.

It was as if nature had arranged a sampler for her taste, a teasing bit of topography to stir the eye.

A gray angle of mountain sat far in the distance, its color dark mist topped by white, like foaming milk upon a slab of chocolate.

Tall pines thrust from a promontory to her left to soar to the sky, their branches so thick, the covering so solid, it was as if the earth were bearded in green.

The cliff fell to a sea which boiled up and crashed against huge boulders, then subsided into the gentle rock lined cove surrounding Tynan on three sides.

The slash of color was brilliant on this fine morning in the Highlands.

Deep cerulean blues from both the sky and the sea, emerald from the forests, white from the flecked waves and far off snows, gray from the shadowed mountains and deep waves .

Judith closed her eyes and sniffed. The tang of the air was so different from London; it did not come from emptied chamber pots, her neighbors' cooking, or the stench from the Thames. It was clean and crisp, a hint of ocean salt and recently turned earth. Nature's scent, not man's .

Three months was a relatively short time when her marriage to Anthony had lasted an interminable four years.

Three months was nothing, really, especially if it promised safety and freedom at the end of it.

Three months would carry her to autumn, when the roads should still be passable.

But she wouldn’t go back to England. She would start a new life, begin again some place new and as fresh as this dawn morning .

Judith would have washed with cold water and enjoyed it, had she remembered to fill the ewer the night before.

She'd been too eager to escape the kitchen table to concern herself with that chore.

Now, she simply sighed, dressed in the same dress she had carefully removed last night, scraping her hair back into a serviceable bun.

She squared her shoulders, drew a deep breath and opened the door leading to the hall .

And nearly collided with the object of her thoughts .

The MacLeod stopped, looked her over without comment, a sweeping inspection that carried with it neither derision nor approval. It was a totally expressionless examination, as if she'd not been there at all, and he studied the wall behind her .

Neither said a word, and yet a volume had been spoken .

She knew only too well what he thought of her.

Men like the MacLeod were no strangers. Graced with aristocratic good looks, strength of body and firmness of resolve, they normally wanted only one thing from a woman.

And usually experienced no difficulty obtaining it.

Judith thanked the heavens that he didn’t seem to wish it from her.

Yet, what if he changed his mind, and that look came into his eyes, and his stare focused on her chest?

There seemed to be something magical about the size of her breasts which sucked the brains from even an intelligent man.

Would he, too, make comments about her physical shape?

Brush by her accidentally, liken her to a mare eager to be mounted ?

Without a word, he was gone, down the curving staircase .

Moments later, she followed the route the MacLeod had taken, peering into the kitchen before she entered it. The room was empty, so Judith grabbed a grimy turnip for a solitary breakfast and sat upon one of the scarred wooden benches .

Would it be like this for three months? Her heart in her throat, her blood only pooling ice. How could she do it? How could she possibly do it? Three months stretched out in one minute increments. And yet, she had played that game before, hadn't she ?

What other choice did she have ?

She listed the alternatives in her mind the way a shop keeper would tally his profits, except the list was pitifully small and there was no joy at the sum. In the end, she had no other choice .

Seated upon the bench in the kitchen, with only the scrabbling sounds of vermin accompanying her thoughts, Judith Cuthbertson Willoughby Henderson MacLeod reluctantly conceded that there was, after all, only one option open.

As much as it frightened her, she would have to remain married to the MacLeod .

But only for a little while .