Blades of Men (on hold - sorry!)

Chapter Seven: Conrad

Chapter Seven: Conrad

   Memories were crisply swirling in my mind, like the early morning dew which collected on the grass all around me. I was supposed to ransom her, to earn some of the money I had left behind. Maybe one day, I would sail across the ocean and make my fortune in a foreign land.

   Yet I didn’t run away from problems and quandaries. I refused to rescind my honour and flee like a rat from a newly opened sewer.

   I wondered when this misplaced sense of duty had been instilled in me. Since birth? Did it run in the thick blood I carried, the same liquid I was constantly trying to live up to? After all, as I had constantly been reminded, I had years of inbred pedigree to continue, and what could be more important than finding a docile wife to produce an heir while I set about multiplying the gold and silver in my bank accounts?

   The very same fortune which wasn’t mine anymore. Betrayal stung, even more so when the victim was a naive boy, believing himself firmly ensconced in adulthood yet with the innocence of a child. The absence of hope and belief, since it had been so quickly extinguished, soon gave me the right to pronounce myself grown-up. It didn’t seem like a blessing anymore – more a curse that nature had thrust on me like a poor relation.

   At the same time, it wasn’t as if money was a problem. I could still comfortably be counted as one of the elite, as well as among the richest men in Ireland. It was just a different inheritance from the one amassed by my ancestors. It was one I had crafted myself and with the help of a few financial advisors.  

   I could see the rise and fall of Athalia’s chest from halfway across the clearing. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know her, didn’t own her. Even the fact that I had forced her to come with me seemed to pale into insignificance. This infuriating, beautiful, intelligent woman would stay by my side until death do us part – even if I had no wish to proclaim my feelings in front of a priest and a congregation.

   It was ridiculous. I had known her a full thirty-six hours. I knew nothing, nothing more than the grace of her body and the slant of her neck. Nothing except that she would rather gallop into the horizon than turn back, and that she held a courage most men prized. Why did it feel like that was enough?

   She woke up, her arms stretching above her head to paw the air as a delicate sigh absconded from her mouth. I realised that I had been staring at her, sitting on the damp grass as still and as content as a sleeping doe. I quickly pretended to be gathering our belongings into saddlebags, stalking around the clearing in a brisk manner. The early morning sunlight gave a calculating appearance to the very trees, and I could feel myself becoming flustered.

   “Morning,” she breathed, her voice rasping slightly from the long hours of disuse. I wanted to know what she would sound like after I kissed her senseless.

   “I trust you slept well?” I asked. My face was still turned away from her as I patted our ‘new’ horse. Everything was already packed and waiting, despite it having only been a couple of minutes since I started – in truth, there hadn’t been much to do. I had just been passing time until the lady herself joined me.

   “Where are we going today?” I didn’t know how to answer that question. That would involve my actual planning to give her back, and she was far too amusing for that.

   “I’m not sure. I want to get well away from here. We could maybe even cross to London or go to Dublin. That way we would increase the suspense, making it more profitable for us both, and then have the ransom sent there. I could get away, and you can...do whatever you were going to do before I came.” The words came out in a long rush. I wanted to say them as quickly as possible – as if that might make it true.     

   She raised an eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing. My acting skills were doubtful at the best of times – a blank mask of impartiality was the best I could muster.

   “I always wanted to go to London,” she said with a wistful note to her voice. She looked so heart wrenchingly sad; as if it was a half-forgotten dream she had no hope of realising. She was too young for that kind of grievance and hopelessness. I wondered – not for the first time – what she was hiding. It was as if the entire world was intent on keeping secrets from me.

   “You can,” I replied. I felt a smirk pull at the corners of my mouth. Her eyes glittered with possibilities, the sparkle of the young and youthful. I wanted to take her to the glistening ballrooms of the city; to the theatre and the dances and the dressmakers. I wanted to make her forget the story of hurt and loss that lay behind her smile. If only I knew what it was, I might be able to stop it happening once more in the same sickening cycle. What I would have given just for someone to know what I had felt would have equalled the gold and jewels of India. I could be that person.

   “Are we just going to leave?” She was almost breathless with excitement, but that same control that turned her tone to ice whenever her anger threatened to overwhelm her was evident just under her skin.

   “Of course. I want to leave in ten minutes.”

   I watched as she hurried away from the clearing, presumably to make her way to the same small spring as before in order to perform a lady’s necessary toilette. She was a quandary, and one that I wanted to unravel in both body and soul. She was so beautiful, but I could ignore that for the moment. I was more intent on finding out the truth behind her flight and the loss she contained in heavy chains.     

   It would involve the same tactics I had ruthlessly executed before, on girl after girl and woman after woman. Only this time it wasn’t a game of seduction and victory and taking a valuable memento on my way out. It wasn’t even the lazy indifference I had practiced whenever I had had the honourable title of a marquis and the ancient riches to match. In working my way under her skin and gaining her trust, I would have to be sensitive and abrupt in synchronisation, and every bit the insatiable, unscrupulous rogue she thought me to be.

   I couldn’t decide if that portrayal was more truthful or deceiving