The father looked down at his son before looking back up at the girl on the block. “Nay, lad. We canna pay such a sum.”
Marcus looked down at the man, unable to help himself from asking, “Is this normal practice?”
The father looked up at him. His nose wrinkled, confirming Marcus did, indeed, reek of a dung heap. Even so, the cut of his clothing and the fine horse he sat upon had the man doffing his hat. “A wife auction, ye mean?”
“I never heard of such a thing.”
“Oh, aye. Not verra commonplace but ’tis a way for a ’usband tae rid ’imself a wife. I seen it a time before many years ago. An older woman then.” He nodded at the slight figure on the platform. “No’ so young as this. She’ll fetch a fine price.” The man glanced at the girl wistfully. Marcus turned his attention back to the hapless girl. The bidding had reached nine pounds now. An old man stood beside the auctioneer. Her husband? Why would he wish to rid himself of a young wife?
The auctioneer’s voice boomed over the crowd, cajoling the men to dig deeper into their pockets. The onlookers chimed in, hooting and shouting encouragement as well.
“Gentlemen! Wot ye thinking to let this one slip from yer grasp?” He stood behind her and gripped her by the shoulders, forcing her to step forward as though they all needed a better view of her.
Something stirred in Marcus’s stomach at the man’s thick hands on the girl. Despite all his extolling of her hardiness, she was thin. She could easily break beneath someone bigger and ruthlessly inclined. A description that fit a fair number of men in this crowd.
The auctioneer snapped back her cloak, parting it to reveal her body, still mostly hidden within a sack-like wool gown. She snatched at the edges of her cloak and covered herself again, glaring at the auctioneer.
Marcus felt himself smile. There was fire in her. His smile slipped. How long would it last after this day’s unpleasant business? After she was crushed beneath the boot of a man who bought her as though she were a broodmare? How long until the fire was snuffed out completely?
“’Tis a fine body! She’ll give ye countless sons tae work in yer trade. At two and twenty, she ’as many a year left tae breed. No green girl ’ere, nay! She can work yer farm, run a ’ouse and care fer bairns.” He forced her to turn in a circle. She stumbled slightly as though her shoes were too big.
“But can she work a cock?” an anonymous voice cried out.
The crowd erupted into laughter. The auctioneer stomped his boot on the platform. “Wot scoundrel said that?”
A bent-backed old man in a vicar’s collar rebuked the crowd. “Mind yer tongues! I’ll not stand fer it!”
Marcus shook his head. But the vicar would stand for such an exhibition as this? As long as there were no obscenities?
The girl’s face was fiery red as she faced front again.
Marcus stared at that face, thinking of his sisters, Clara and Enid. Safe back in Town. Pampered and genteel, shopping and taking tea in the parlor and rides in the park. He hoped that would always be so. That this side of life would never touch them as it touched this wretched creature.
The bidding stalled and the auctioneer looked displeased. “Come, men! Ye would let such a fine lass go fer so paltry a sum as thirteen pounds!”
“Why didna ye plow ’er, Beard?” a man heckled. “Ye weren’t man enough fer the task or the lass be squeamish?”
The old man turned red-faced.
The auctioneer shouted, “Enough of that!”
“Bite yer tongue, MacDunn, or I’ll ’ave a word wi’ yer mam!” a heavy matron called out.
MacDunn wasn’t to be fazed. He hollered back. “Untried as she is, we’ve a right tae ken if the lass can perform ’er duties!”
“Aye, thirteen pounds should get us a sampling, Hines!”
Hoots of approval followed this. The girl actually looked alarmed, her gaze flitting over the surging crowd as though Hines might agree to such a thing.
Frustration flashed across the auctioneer’s face. He was losing control over the horde and he knew it.
In an impulsive move, he grabbed her by the chin and forced her face higher. “She be fair enough.” He peeled back her lips. “And a fine set of teeth. A proper sign of ’ealth!”
Marcus’s stomach squeezed anew and he had the urge to vault onto that platform and give the man a good thrashing. He never could stomach the sight of a woman being manhandled. No matter her rank. Farm girl or lady. He supposed his stepmother had something to do with that. She’d raised him to be a gentleman—more than his father ever had. His father always accused him of being weak. Too soft.
He pushed thoughts of Graciela and his father aside. His stepmother was part of the reason he was out here in this godforsaken little backwater. He would not think of her now.
The girl’s head sprang forward at Hines. The auctioneer lurched away suddenly, yanking his hands from her as though she were afire. “Ouch! The little ’ellion bit me!”
The crowd laughed in approval.
“Och! There be some spirit in ’er!”
Marcus grinned. Served him right.
The auctioneer glared down at her crossly, nursing his wounded hand.
A man suddenly cried out, “Take off ’er dress!”
The auctioneer flipped her cloak back off her shoulders, revealing her in her ill-fitting brown wool gown.
Despite his disgust at the sordid scene, Marcus couldn’t look away. He should turn and leave. One voice commanded that, but another part of himself was rooted in place, taking it all in . . . taking in her, this proud girl with fire in her eyes.
The auctioneer gestured at her. “Aye, she be endowed well enough, gents! More than a ’andful there!”
The crowd had fallen eerily silent. Lust gleamed in the eyes of the men and several licked their lips. Every man here was evaluating her, stripping her of her modest attire and imagining her on her back, deciding if she would be worth the coin.
The auctioneer persisted. “Wot say ye? Ye’ll ’ave ’er to use fer life. This be no temporary investment, lads!”
At that, the girl’s face went even more pale, if possible. She’d suffered all the insults and indignities thus far with admirable mettle, but that declaration made her look as though she might disintegrate into the boards of the platform.
A man called out from one of the stalls at the edge of the square. “Sixteen pounds!”
Marcus examined him. He wore a tanner’s apron covered with blood and gore and bits of offal. His skin had a waxy yellow appearance that bespoke of a poor constitution.
When the auctioneer’s voice rang out in approval, “John Larkin, my good man!” the girl’s pale face turned a shade of green. “Of course ye ken a bargain when ye see one, fine businessman such as ye be!”
The tanner was at least twice her age. Younger than her husband, but still somehow less appealing. He was cadaver-thin, mostly bald with several long greasy strands of hair stretching across his oblong-shaped skull. He smiled at the auctioneer’s compliment, revealing brightly yellowed teeth.
“Now do we ’ave any other bids? Anyone else unwilling to let John Larkin beat them and win such a prize?”
Marcus stared at the girl again. Several strands of long brown hair dangled around her face. Her eyes were large beneath a set of eyebrows several shades darker than the brown of her hair. She looked so young.
Those wide eyes scanned the crowd anxiously as though still searching for someone, still hoping for rescue. Escape.
She was nothing to him. Just a peasant girl, but he wished that for her. Wished that she could escape. That someone would rescue her. Anyone.
“Nay? Verra well then! The lass goes to John Larkin fer the sum of—”
“I’ll give fifty pounds for the girl!”
Chapter 4
And the dove finds herself freed from one cage and placed in another . . .
Sold!
The word reverberated in her head.
Sold like livestock. Like go
ods at market.
Like a slave.
Slave. As awful as that word was . . . the other words were more awful. All those words shouted by the jeering crowd that made her feel less than a person.
A man had bought her. This fact was no small thing that went unabsorbed in her consciousness. The knowledge of it bitterly coursed through her.
He was out there somewhere. A face in a crowd of hundreds. He’d stared at her. Evaluated, judged her and found her worth the coin. Perhaps his voice was one of the many who yelled horrible, demeaning things at her.
Her heart raced. Her pulse jumped at her throat. He’d bought her for fifty pounds. A significant amount. More than anyone else was willing to spend and that was its own form of embarrassment. So very few had even wanted to bid on her.
These friends and neighbors she had lived beside all her life had stood by as she was haggled over like a piece of property. A few had bid, but most had not. Most had averted their eyes when she looked at them—as though sharing her shame.
No, the men to bid on her had been strangers. Men with leers on their faces and lasciviousness in their eyes. They had come from other villages. Maybe it was easier to buy a woman when you did not know her. When her father had not been a respected member in your community, a teacher to the village children.
All except John Larkin the tanner. She shuddered. Sadly he was no stranger. She had known him all her life, much to her regret.
“Come on, lass.” Mr. Hines tugged on her halter. The rope cut into her throat, the rough hemp abrading her skin, forcing her forward. She grabbed the lead and tugged back. He tossed her an annoyed look as though he were the one being mistreated.
She held on to the lead as she followed him down the platform steps, lifting her gaze to scan the crowd, searching . . .
As though she would somehow know him when she saw him—this man who had claimed her to wife. As though there would be a sharp moment of recognition when she clapped eyes on him.
She may not have seen who bought her, but his voice still resonated inside her ears. She knew instantly he wasn’t from around here. He had been English, his voice deep and impenetrable as a dark wood calling out: I’ll give fifty pounds for the girl.
She hadn’t seen his face but sweet relief had rushed through her to have escaped the clutches of John Larkin. The tanner would not own her. Her fate would not be with him . . . it would not be that.
Her nostrils twitched in memory. She could almost smell his stench even now. He always reeked of coppery blood and rotting animal carcass.
Another shudder rolled through her.
Fifty pounds. It was a small fortune. Mr. Beard’s eyes had bugged out from his head. She sent him a quick glance. Even now his eyes gleamed with avarice. He shifted anxiously, clearly eager for his money. She knew he had never seen a sum like that in his life. She always budgeted the household accounts and she knew he could never call that amount of money his at any one time.
She was good with numbers. Always had been. Papa had schooled her from a young age. From the time she had learned to walk, she had been taught Latin and French. Her bedtime stories had been Chaucer and Shakespeare. There were only a few books in the Beard household but she had read them countless times. She missed books.
She had been looking forward to moving to London where she could visit libraries. She’d heard they had libraries where anyone could walk in and have access to books. It boggled her mind. When Yardley had abandoned her, he had taken that dream with him.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. Now she couldn’t even imagine what her future might be.
“This way.” Mr. Hines led Alyse and Mr. Beard to the rear of the platform near the animal pens where a small table was positioned. Mr. Hines’s son sat behind it with ledger books spread before him. He wouldn’t meet her gaze. He busied himself scrawling inside one of the ledgers.
She glanced around again, wondering if any of the curious onlookers watching the proceedings could be him. Her salvation or doom.
“Where’s the buyer?” Hines demanded.
“Here he is!” an anonymous voice called.
The tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
Anyone is better than the tanner. Anyone is better.
The mantra whispered through her and she grasped for it, needing it for strength.
For all her curiosity, she could not turn. Could not look. She was too nervous. She felt ill.
He was behind her now. The man whose voice had cracked over the air, saving her moments before she was sold to the likes of the wretched tanner. Nothing could be worse than him. She felt certain of that. Even the unknown had to be better.
John Larkin always made her skin crawl. As far back as when she was a little girl and she accompanied her father to his shop, the tanner had always made her uncomfortable . . . luring her to the side with a sweetmeat as Papa browsed, petting her hair, remarking what pretty braids she had and how far they went down her back.
The few times she had accompanied Mr. Beard to Larkin’s shop, he’d always found a way to get close to her . . . a way for his hand to brush or grope some part of her body. Never, in her worst imaginings, could she envision him as her husband. She shuddered again.
She could not seem to stop the reaction. Even though she had escaped that fate, it was enough to make her shake and the bile rise up in her throat. Who knew the untold miseries he would have inflicted on her before she managed to escape?
She sucked in a breath and fought back another shudder. She had vowed to stay strong. Whatever happened today, she’d survive it. Just because she was being cast into the unknown as the wife of a stranger did not mean her life was over.
This stranger would be better than the tanner who smelled of rot and animal carcasses and whose touch made her recoil. Hopefully he was a reasonable man. She could talk him into releasing her. Or she could work off the money he spent to procure her. If that failed . . . well, she would tackle that obstacle when she came to it, but she’d existed as a glorified slave for long enough. She was done living that life.
Suddenly the stench of manure reached her nose. For a moment she wondered if thought of the foul-smelling tanner had conjured the aroma.
Then a deep, decidedly English voice asked, “Where do I pay for the girl?”
Turning, she found herself pinned beneath a deep blue gaze. For a moment, it was all she could see. A dark ring of blue-black surrounding cobalt. Those eyes stared back at her. The air froze in her chest and she had the utterly ridiculous thought that no wrong could be committed by a man with eyes like that.
And yet even as mesmerizing as those eyes were, nothing could distract her from the fact that the man smelled like a barn.
No, worse. She enjoyed the smell of a barn when it was full of fresh cut hay. This man smelled like the back end of a mule. Her gaze swept over him. He was a big man. Tall. Bearded. She could see little more than those impressive eyes and the straight slash of his nose above that heavy growth of hair.
It was difficult to determine his age but his hair was a rich dark brown, very nearly black. Not a strand of gray so he couldn’t have been very old.
And this man is your husband.
She was now bound to a man (at least temporarily) that didn’t look like he had taken a bath in the entirety of his life.
“Ah! There ye be. Come this way.” The auctioneer led them to the table, releasing his grip on the infernal rope, much to her relief. She pulled it over her head, flinging it to the ground as though it were a poisonous serpent. She rubbed at the skin of her throat where it had chafed.
Her skin prickled again and she looked to the side to find the stranger studying her again. Stranger. Husband. She did not even have a name for him yet.
He looked away then and stepped past her, joining Hines and Beard at the table.
“Jus’ need both ye tae sign these documents and then ’ere again in the ledger. My son ’as already detailed the sale. Yer signature is the only re
quirement.” He paused to laugh. “And the money, o’course.”
The stranger reached inside his jacket and pulled out a pocketbook. He opened it and removed the money, handing it over as if it were nothing for him to part with such an exorbitant amount. The glimpse she managed told her there had been more inside that pocketbook, too.
Mr. Hines accepted it and handed it to his son. After taking out a small fee for their services, Mr. Hines handed Mr. Beard his cut. “I trust ye are pleased, Beard. She brought a ’efty sum.” He turned his attention to the buyer. “And I ’ope yer ’appy in yer purchase.” Mr. Hines sent her a stern look. “Be a proper biddable girl and keep ’im satisfied, Alyse.”
She seethed, inhaling through her nose.
“You’ll not address her by her Christian name.”
At this deep-voiced rebuke, Alyse blinked, looking at the dark, bearded man. Ironically, she didn’t even know her surname. She was Alyse Bell originally. She still felt like Alyse Bell even after she married Mr. Beard. She always would.
Hines blustered, his face reddening.
Mr. Beard hastily pocketed his money, clearly eager to finish with the lot of them. Especially Alyse. He bent over the table and picked up the quill, quickly making his mark. She knew it well. It was only his initials. JB. Something he had perfected over the course of his life. Those were the only letters of the alphabet he knew.
Her husband-to-be stepped forward and took up the quill next. Unlike Mr. Beard, he took his time reading the document. And there he hesitated. He looked at the words, then to her, then back to the words again. She couldn’t read them from her vantage, but she well imagined the substance of the document. They severed her ties to Mr. Beard and made her the stranger’s wife now.
“Well, on wi’ ye then,” Mr. Hines snapped, all goodwill he had felt toward the stranger gone. “I’ve things tae do yet. Many more animals tae be auctioned.”
The man leaned over the table, quill braced tightly between long fingers. Filthy or not, she could not help noticing he held himself differently from other men. At least differently from all the men she had known. The men of the village.