A Hope Divided by Alyssa Cole (20)

CHAPTER 19

Marlie was exhausted. They had stopped to eat the corn cakes hours ago and then continued walking through the night. It had rained, cold and hard, and they passed through mud that went up to her shins and threatened to suck her boots right off her feet. Both of them had fallen into rain-filled ditches, leaving their clothes soaked through and coated in a layer of grime. The moon gave them some light, but even the brightest patches of forest left them prey to gnarled roots that caught at their feet and threatened to snag their ankles and branches that seemed designed to poke out their eyes and scratch at their faces. Her feet ached, her body was exhausted, and she was facing the possibility that they were utterly lost.

“I think we should have passed into Guilford County by now, or maybe Forsyth if we’re heading west like we were supposed to,” she said as she lifted her skirt for the thousandth time that night. It snagged onto a bramble despite her attempt, and she found herself suddenly on the ground. She was so exhausted that the resistance of the skirt had dragged her down. She tried to pull the skirt away, but her hands were clumsy and ineffective with fatigue.

Helplessness enveloped her. Had she always been this weak, or had her life of luxury with Sarah reduced her to this? She had always felt strong when she was with her maman, but her strength in the Lynch household had been based in a sedentary life of reading and experimenting. She pressed her knuckles to her eyes, and did not remove them even when she felt Ewan gently pulling her skirts away from the bushes. Tears squeezed through spaces between her fingers, their salty warmth stinging at her healing wounds.

“It will be day soon and we haven’t seen anyone who can pilot us or provide some other assistance,” Ewan said. “Perhaps there’s a house nearby, or a barn we can hide in. At worst, we’ll have to find cover in a pinery and hope no one happens upon us, but I’d prefer to get you somewhere safer than that.”

Marlie wiped at her eyes and looked about. She had seen nothing but trees for miles. She wondered if perhaps she was stuck in some kind of purgatory, where she’d walk endlessly through the Carolina woods. She stood and felt the jostling of something against her bosom. Her John the Conqueror root. She placed her hand over it, closed her eyes, and wished like a child who still believed in such things.

When she opened her eyes, Ewan was staring at her again. She wondered what he was thinking. He’d be judging her for her tiresome behavior if he knew what she had been asking of an inanimate object, but that no longer mattered. In any case, she’d often felt his gaze on her as they moved through the forest. One might have imagined that he was reluctant to look away from her, if one wanted to think dangerously.

She tried not to think of how she’d awoken in the root cellar, with her hand in his, or how he’d pulled her close in the outhouse. She hated that she still felt this strange pull toward him, and she hated that when he looked at her now she wondered if Stephen had looked at her mother the same way. Vivienne was so much stronger than Marlie. If she could be taken advantage of, how could Marlie trust herself?

“Can you manage?” he asked, rubbing his hands against his trousers.

“I’ll have to,” Marlie said. She pushed ahead through the bushes, not waiting for him. They walked on in monotonous silence, searching for shelter as Marlie tried to hide her ever-growing panic. They passed into a heavily wooded area that required every ounce of concentration to avoid falling, and only her fatigue delayed her realizing that her feet were on solid ground one moment and then weren’t the next. The ground had given way and Marlie was sure she was falling to her death, but instead she landed a short distance below, unharmed.

“Marlie? Marlie!”

“The ground gave way!” she called out, surprised at the fear in Ewan’s voice. “I’m all right.”

“Where are you?” he demanded.

“Can you follow the sound of my voice? I didn’t fall very far.” A moment later Ewan clambered into the dark space and lit a match, revealing what Marlie had suspected.

“It’s a skulker’s cave,” she said as he lit a candle that had been left behind. He picked it up, illuminating more of the small space. It certainly couldn’t be called roomy, but there was enough space for them to sleep and a small fire pit to warm the coolness retained by the earthen walls, if they kept it low and smokeless.

“I’ll head up and repair the foliage that you fell through,” Ewan said, and then he sprang into action doing what he did best: being of service. The man couldn’t sit still knowing that there was work to be done, and when there was no physical work . . .

Marlie sighed. She was a pastime, something to keep his mind occupied when there was no wood to be chopped or plants to be organized. Reminding herself of that was the only way she’d survive their journey with her heart intact. She couldn’t repeat her mother’s mistake.

The knowledge that that’s what she was, essentially, a mistake born of trickery, hit Marlie with a fresh wave of sadness. Had her mother thought of Stephen every time she saw her strange eyes? Had she regretted that Marlie had ever been born? She thought of the day Vivienne had sent her away, and how rarely she had seen her after. Marlie had convinced herself that her mother had sent her away out of love, but that was before she had known the truth.

The pain of the thought started her tears anew. Marlie sank to the ground, wrapped her arms around her knees, and wept. She had escaped Lynchwood, but Melody had truly won. She’d taken her home, her sense of self, and now—most unforgivably—Melody had taken away her mother. Marlie had nothing at all, and she realized that she never had. Like her time with Ewan in her rooms, it had all been an illusion that couldn’t survive the light of the truth.

* * *

Marlie awoke to the smell of peaty smoke. She stretched, and found that her bare toes dug into the earth. When had she removed her shoes? Something shifted and she glanced up to find Ewan staring down at her. His face was expressionless, his gaze piercing. Marlie wondered what she must look like: caked in mud, hair snarled from being caught on low branches.

“I started a fire to dry our things.” Wood popped and crackled out of her line of sight, as if verifying his claim. “There’s warm water if you want to clean up. And maybe . . . I dried my clothes and our shoes. I wasn’t sure if you wanted . . . your dress is still rather damp from your tumble into the ditch.”

A flush spread across his sharp cheekbones, erasing the years so she could imagine what he’d looked like as a boy. Not childlike—she was certain he’d always been quite serious—but softer, less hard-set. She wanted to trace the rosy path with her fingertips up into that auburn hair of his, but she pulled herself to her feet instead.

She walked over to the fire, where he’d set up a few sticks in the ground at an angle from which to hang their clothes.

“I’ll turn away,” he said, and when she looked over her shoulder he was facing the wall. Her bag was beside him, and atop it, the ledger in which she kept her mother’s papers.

Her fingers froze on her buttons. “You went into my bag?”

“I wanted to keep watch for a bit, in case we were encroaching on someone’s daytime hideaway.” She saw his shoulders rise and fall.

“And you thought that my private papers would serve as entertainment while you waited?” The anger and despair that she’d felt before crying herself to sleep returned twofold. Marlie had never been quick to anger, but she felt an evisceration on the tip of her tongue waiting to fly forth.

“I was ensuring they hadn’t gotten wet during our journey,” he said in a dry tone that spoke to how offended he was. “And as I looked the papers over, I realized that you’ve been given an emotional shock without even the benefit of hearing it from your mother herself. I thought perhaps it might comfort you to read for yourself, and to know something more than the invective Melody threw at you. Because this is now more than your mother’s story. It’s yours. You deserve to know.”

Marlie sucked in a breath. She thought about Ewan’s penetrating gaze and how it sometimes saw into her thoughts. Perhaps he had the gift others often credited her with? She resumed unbuttoning the heavy dress.

“What if I don’t wish to know?” she asked quietly. “What if I don’t wish to find out that my mother didn’t want me at all?”

Ewan laughed, and the sound raised her pique again.

“Perhaps I’ve failed in my job as a translator. As I’ve said, my French is subpar. But if we’ve been reading the same thing, the only logical deduction is that it was written by someone who loved you very much.”

Marlie didn’t say anything as she tugged her sleeves down. She stared at Ewan’s back, watched the movement of his elbow as he scribbled down a few words.

“My mother was attacked before we came to the US.” He was still writing. “During the Clearances, when they forced us off our land. She had never been on a boat before the weeks-long voyage and thought her sickness was caused by the tempestuous sea. It was only after she arrived that she realized she was pregnant. My sister Donella looks like no one in my family. She was the product of the most horrific moment of my mother’s life. And damned if she’s not Mum’s favorite child, exasperating as she is.”

Marlie struggled to get her sleeves over her hands, to free them so she could wipe away the hot tears coursing down her face, but she was hopelessly immobilized by the bunched wet cloth at her wrists. She let out a sob and Ewan turned.

“I’m in need of assistance,” she managed before gasping another sob.

Ewan placed the papers carefully back into the ledger and came to her. He pulled her sleeves back up to her shoulders, then pulled them down again from the cuffs, carefully, methodically, avoiding the mess she had made of things. He pulled one hand through, then the other.

“I don’t know the circumstances of your conception,” he said as he turned her. There was a tug at the string of the apron she had tied over her skirts, then another at the dress itself. Both pooled at her feet, leaving her in her chemise. “The only thing I know is you. No matter how you came to be here, you are beautiful, intelligent, and brave, and I’m sure your mother saw that, too.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked. His gaze was trained on her face, despite her state of undress. Her heart was beating wildly, and she wished she could breathe properly but she seemed to have forgotten how.

Her anger and sadness weren’t forgotten, but something sweet and warm was pushing its way to the fore, crowding out all her anger and suspicion. Something that made her want to press a kiss to the freckles on the bridge of his nose. Something that didn’t care that they were both in various states of undress, but was very much aware of what could pass between two willing adults in such a state. She was suddenly feeling quite willful.

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice strained. “I must admit, I haven’t quite been myself since I met you.”

“Likewise,” Marlie said, and was surprised to find herself smiling. “To be certain, I hadn’t made a habit of kissing strange men, no matter how handsome I found them.”

Now Ewan was smiling, too, a harsh upturn of the corners of his mouth that spoke to something more than amusement.

“And I’m not in the habit of taking liberties with beautiful women, no matter how competent I find them.”

“Liberties?”

Ewan’s only answer was to take a step forward, cup her face in his calloused hands, and press his mouth against hers. Marlie made a noise of surprise, Ewan groaned, and the sound of both noises together thoroughly scandalized her. Marlie already knew he was more than proficient at kissing, but when his tongue curled into her mouth it sent a stab of pleasure through her core.

His knee bumped against hers and she realized he was walking her back across the small space.

“What are you doing, Ewan?”

“Straying far, far from my ship,” he replied as the hard-packed earth hit her back. His hands moved down from her face, his thumbs leaving trails of sensation on her neck as they traveled down to brush over her nipples as he cupped her breasts.

Marlie had touched herself before—had even imagined Ewan touching her while doing so—but perhaps her creativity only lent itself to matters of science. She could never have imagined the brazen insistence of his calloused thumb against the taut tips of her breasts, nor the way the friction of his fingertip and the fabric of her chemise against her sensitive skin would multiply by a hundredfold, a thousandfold, the pleasure that trembled between her legs and in her womb and then spread everywhere in her body. His tongue lashed hers as his hands worked her breasts, and she moaned and sighed like a wanton woman.

One hand slid down and squeezed her at her hip as something hard and hot pressed against her belly. That was Ewan. All of that.

“May I touch you?” he asked.

“You are touching me,” she said through the haze of pleasure.

“May I touch you between your legs? Please?”

Marlie let out a shocked laugh into his mouth. Trust it to Ewan to manage to be both polite and forward in the same sentence.

“Yes, you may,” she whispered.

His hand stayed at her waist but his fingers began to stretch and curl, stretch and curl, pulling the fabric of the chemise upward, gathering it. When his fingertips pressed into the bare skin of her waist, her hips thrust forward of their own accord. She closed her eyes in embarrassment.

“I don’t have much experience,” she said. “And by much, I mean any.”

A gentle kiss brushed over one eyelid and then the other. She opened them to find him staring. “Well, I don’t have much, either, but I’m hoping my ingenuity suffices, as ever.”

Marlie’s gaze swept over his face; he was a beautiful man.

“But you’re so . . .”

“Easy to get along with?” he ventured as his hands worked the tie of her drawers. “Friendly? Nonjudgmental?”

Marlie laughed but that was short-lived. Ewan’s long fingers were stroking the hair at her mound, petting her, sliding down farther with each stroke. Her breath came fast and heat sparked through her, but however wonderful his touch was, it wasn’t enough.

“You’ve pleasured yourself before?” he asked.

She nodded, and then his teeth were nipping at her ear, his tongue tracing the shell of it. His hand cupped her and stopped moving. “Show me how to please you.”

Her hand left her side and covered his to find that she wasn’t the only one shaking. She pressed down on his fingers, showing him the right amount of pressure. She gasped and bucked a bit, tantalized by the difference in size and strength in the feel of his hand and hers. She moved her fingers in a circle, keeping up the pressure, and he took up the motion. Then Marlie’s hands fell away and her head dropped back because, of course, Ewan was touching her exactly right.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered.

His head dropped to her breast and his teeth grazed at her nipple through the material as he changed the pressure of his fingers just a bit, pushing harder at her slick center, circling relentlessly as pleasure built in her toes and fingers, slowly wending its way through her body to the source of her bliss.

“Ewan.” She reached out and caressed the length of him through his pants with her fingertips and he groaned. She didn’t know what compelled her to do it, other than a curiosity to see if she could have the same effect on him that he did on her. Apparently, her hypothesis was correct. He shuddered and his hips bucked forward. His free hand fumbled at the fasts of his pants and then instead of rubbing the rough fabric of his trousers, she had the hard, hot length of him under the loose curve of her fingers. Her bandaged hands wouldn’t allow for more.

Marlie’s eyes squeezed shut against the sensation building in her, and then she opened them to meet his gaze. “I’ve imagined touching you,” she admitted.

“Oh.”

“I want . . . to do that. Touch you. How you’re touching me. But my hands . . .”

“Oh.”

Marlie had expected more of a reaction, but then he stepped closer to her. His hand moved from between her legs and the length of him slid between her folds. Marlie froze for a second and then realized he hadn’t penetrated her, that he wasn’t even trying to.

“I have found some useful things in all of those dusty old Greek books,” he said. “Is this all right?”

He was thrusting his hips slowly, the angle as they stood meaning the rigid length of him slid up and against her sensitive nub as he moved. The moisture of her own pleasure coated his penis, easing his path. The pressure was even more intense, more erotic, than his hand had been.

“Yes. That’s perfect, Socrates.”

“Ewan,” he said roughly.

“Ewan,” she repeated, on a moan.

He kept thrusting. His mouth covered hers again but his eyes stayed open and she followed suit. She pressed her thighs together harder and he huffed against her lips, dropping his forehead to hers.

“God, Marlie, I—I—” He shook his head then and kissed her instead. His thrusts were rough now, uncontrolled, and his eyes slammed shut as his body shook with need. Marlie’s entire body throbbed on the precipice of release, and seeing the ever-reserved Ewan falling to pieces . . .

Lightning or some other natural phenomenon struck Marlie then. Her back arched, her hands clutched Ewan’s arms, and she bit into his shoulder to muffle her cries. Then his back hunched, his hips jerked, and warmth slid down her thighs.

They both stood shaking in the aftermath, Ewan’s weight pressing Marlie into the earthen wall.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Quite,” she answered, but she was definitively not.

She pressed her face into his chest for just a moment, listened to his heart thudding heavily, and reminded herself that he had just rendered her a service—a pleasurable one, but one that he’d benefited from as well.

She moved away from him, toward the water warming near the fire. She reached into her bag for the soap she had shoved in with her other belongings, holding it between her fingertips for a moment as she stared into the flames.

Yes, best to remember. Service was all it was, and all it could be, with Ewan McCall.