Reed made ahmmsound and then replied, “You can’t see much in the dark, and maybe it’s better that way.”
I could not understand why he wanted to show me this. I was unsure as I turned my head and said, “Are you just tired of rubbing my back?”
We lay facing each other, noses grazing, and as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could make out the hollow where his left eye had once been. There were no upper or lower lids, just a depression covered by a twisted stretch of skin. The scars were smooth in the way of newer skin and yet still had a roughness to them in the way of many scars, both silken and coarse.
“And you think this might scare people?” I asked.
“It’s just easier,” he repeated. “People don’t have to think anything when they look at me. They just see a man with an eye patch. If they see disfigurement, they have to stop and address that in their own mind. It becomes a tangible thing then, between me and the person, a hurdle they have to clear before they can simply speak to me.”
“You can take it off around me,” I offered. “It cannot be good for the skin. To wear that leather strap all day and night.”
Reed did not reply.
“You have such a handsome face,” I sighed. I found myself growing sheepish at my blurting out yet one more girlish thing around him.
He exhaled through his nose. “That is kind of you?—”
“No.” I cut him off, but my tone was soft. “Recall that we have just discussed that I blurt out what I think. So do not accuse me of pity now. I thought it the first time I ran into you in the street. I like all your angles. And your mouth always looks like it is about to open and say something absolutely cruel, but it will be too smart for most people to understand its cruelty.” I laughed a little. “That’s why you are an utter bastard but only smart people can tell.”
This close, I could see him smile a little.
“It’s a terribly kissable mouth,” I confessed.
The tip of his nose brushed against mine as he mimed shaking his head, limited by our heads lying against the quilt. “That’s against my rules, Robbie.”
“Hmm. You only say my name when you are bossing me around. Try using it in casual conversation.” Then I leaned, my chin canted up just enough to capture his mouth with mine. My own lips caressed his upper lip. I could have parted them, could have slid my tongue inside his mouth, but I only kissed him chastely, lightly, as if to say, “It’s just a kiss.”
“Rule breaker,” he murmured as I pulled away.
“Professional outlaw,” I corrected him.
“Do it again.” His voice had a rawness in it, something new, something akin to fear. “Just one more and then you have to stop,” he added.
I leaned in and repeated my placement of my mouth on his, again taking that rakish, expressive upper lip between my own, but this time I bit him slightly and rejoiced at the trapped groan in his throat. This time, after my tender bite, I added my tongue to our kiss, an apology to where my teeth had been, a small flick, an invitation. When he did not resist me, I opened wider. I gave the inside of hismouth a sultry lick. For a breath, his own lips sucked at my bottom lip, a quiver in them, like he wanted to do more. Then he did and bit me back, letting his own tongue, slick and hot, run itself along mine.
It was like the lucky strike of iron on flint, that hit that truly sparks kindling. I sighed into him, my lips almost going slack, rendered defenseless and powerless by his kiss.
Then he pulled away and said, “That has to be the end of this.”
“Why?” I asked, but there was no ire in my question.
“Because,” he said, and he gathered me in his arms and pulled me close. “Because,” he continued, “I still have to rub your back.” He rolled back and positioned my upper half on top of him, his hands running along my spine.
I rested my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes. Something in my heart had cracked, a splitting, an opening that should not have been there. With just a few words in the dark, the exposure of his scars, the reception and reciprocation of my kisses, this strange man, this foreigner I knew so little about, a man who refused to swive me or kiss me anymore, had slipped into that crack like someone with magic would into a god tree’s door.
VI
WOMAN
69
THEN: COURTSHIP
The old blacksmith had only gotten daughters on his wife. And when he retired in his old age, Sheridan needed a new blacksmith. He had not owned the smithy. That was the lord’s. It was a keep-paid position as his guards were outfitted and armed by it. It was in the center of town, though, and the only smithy in the lord’s lands, so all Sheridan folk used it.
The old blacksmith had taken on an apprentice, but the boy abandoned the post and was never replaced. Torm Sheridan sent a letter to Eccleston’s smiths’ guild, promising lodging and good pay to come to the low country lands and be his holding’s blacksmith.
And that was how Avery Finch, my husband, came to me.
