Author's Note: This story is the third part of my Wish Granted series. It's turned out to be much shorter than I thought it would be. I almost feel rather guilty over it, but I spent a lot of time cutting out useless padding, so maybe it will be okay. There won't be sex right away, but there will be sex. It will simply take a long time for sex to happen. There will be some homosexuality/bisexuality. All graphically described sexual contact in this series as a whole involves characters who are at least 18 years old, often older than that.
******
Someone was roughly clawing against his bare shoulder, shaking him up.
An older woman's voice bore into his ear with absolutely no patience. "Up! Up, you sagging, great thing!"
Kristof groaned out his feelings. They weren't happy feelings. They were gritty, aching feelings. He flipped himself over, moving his blanket aside as he did so. His bare body felt the morning's spring air. His eyes opened, slowly, reluctantly, and then they focused on the woman leaning over him in the morning light. It was the housekeeper, Rina. Her gray coiffure was tight and uncompromising. The same could have been said of her expression, despite all the wrinkles.
"For your health, Man, you need to leave this place!"
And go where? To Henrisk? He wasn't in the mood for the Social Season. He had heard something about the Adurants some time ago. There were two sons, apparently, and they both had dark hair and gray eyes. That shriveled prune actually rose from the marriage bed, and now he had two boys to boast about! He even gained a reputation for being kind and charitable. The incident with his mad, murderous parents didn't matter in the end!
Meanwhile, Kristof didn't even have a sister anymore.
His vision blurred up as that last thought punched him in his belly.
Bethaline was gone. Three damn years had flashed by since her suicide, and he still had to remind himself about it.
He was shaken again. Rina's eyes narrowed and her wrinkles deepened. "Go to the sea, or to the parks! Go and see people! Exercise is fine and well, Master, but your heart needs it too. Do something trivial! What of that actress you liked so well?"
Kristof yawned into his fingers. Then he told the woman, "She abandoned me for Prince Stephan." That was the second son of the king.
The housekeeper's withered hand went to her forehead as she groaned at him. "Women beg to be near you, go find another one."
Kristof's lips pouted a bit. Then he wrapped a portion of his blanket around his waist. "I don't like those sorts anymore. They can be so ungrateful."
"You're acting like a brat!" Rina stepped out of his view. "Ride down to your favorite bordello and find the cleanest strumpet."
"If I leave the castle, will you cease your nagging?"
"For today." He almost heard the housekeeper's shrug.
"I'll go for a walk in Osgarth, then."
Duke Kristof Bransted, Lord of the Wyden province, was a defeated man.
***
Disbelief.
Panic.
Her aching hands were pounding on the door of the seamstress' dress shop. The hot wood of the stoop scraped against her bare feet. Her throat had finger shaped bruises on it. Even with her hoarse crying and begging, she heard people laughing at her. One person stopped to pinch her barely covered backside, causing her to jump. All she had on was a chemise, and that was horribly embarrassing, nearly disgraceful.
Thanks to a black eye and tears, it was becoming more and more difficult to see anything. Her insides, particularly between her legs, felt chafed and raw, even though there was blood and semen seeping out and trickling down her legs. There was also blood on her hands, particularly at her fingernails.
"Don't abandon me! Please! I have nowhere else to go!"
How?
How could a person be so venomous?
Wasn't it obvious that this wasn't her fault? Wasn't it obvious that she was the victim, the wronged party?
Then again, she imagined that her employer's brother was probably held in higher regard.
Damn it!
"Please! Don't ruin me!" She kept pounding onto the door, but then a man's voice stopped her.
"Do you need help?"
Please, God of Hope! Please let this be a kind person!
She wiped her good eye with the back of her wrist. Then her arms wrapped around her bosom. She turned to look at the person.
He was the richest looking man she had ever seen, wearing a fashionable springtime coat of a lemon yellow color. Brown and blue embroidery was all about the button holes and pockets, forming delicate branches of pretty trees with happy little flower buds. She noticed the man's tall, uncompromising form, and felt a little bit more intimidation than normal. When her dark green eyes slid up to the man's face, or rather, her good eye slid up, she cringed, because her intimidation levels were overflowing. She wanted to shrink away into nothing like a small bit of water over a blisteringly hot stove.
His chin had a subtle cleft. His cheeks were high and proud. There was a set of lips that were close to being feminine, but not quite. Brown hair, thick and beautiful, was tied over his shoulder with a silk ribbon. His eyes were a slightly darker brown, but every bit as sparkly as his hair. The nose was straight, but not very thin. It was a firm man's nose, a calculating man's nose.
And on his hat, there was a golden pin with the Bransted's family crest carved into it, a fierce hawk.
It was the lord of all of Wyden!
She never thought she'd ever meet such a man.
Even in her bloody, almost nude state, she rushed to curtsy.
She saw the duke flick the air with his richly colored cane. "Don't concern yourself with pleasantries. You're in no position to give them. I'll have your name instead."
Her eyes went to her reddening feet. "My name is Laileen Madock, Your Grace."
She heard the slithering noise of fabric swiping against fabric. Then she felt something hot envelop her, smelled an almost sinful cologne of lemongrass, cloves, and moss. It took her a few seconds to understand that the lavish coat that had so beautifully adorned the body of the duke had been placed around her shoulders.
Laileen's face warmed as she closed the coat over her body. Her black eyelashes lowered. The tip of her nose was round and a teeny bit wide, but the bridge was straighter and thinner. So, when her nose scrunched up as she took a few uncertain sniffs, her slightly wide nostrils constricting, Laileen imagined that this aristocrat was probably thinking she had an ugly, ungainly nose.
"Let me take you to a physician," the duke said. His voice wasn't very ... caring. It was confident, firm, pregnant with the knowledge that she wouldn't refuse him.
It was worth the risk. Laileen nodded her head, feeling her black hair slide and shuffle about her neck and back.
She thought she was meant to walk with the man, and she lowered one of her feet to a step of the stoop, but Duke Bransted stepped up, putting a great hand to her shoulder. He sounded oddly triumphant as he said, "I won't let your dainty little toes touch the filthy street."
Well, what was she supposed to do, leap into his arms?
Laileen's full lips were suddenly at the mercy of her worried teeth. The man was actually reaching up to her, his fingers expectantly moving as if trying to lure her to him.
"Your Grace, I don't understand."
"Come into my arms, Miss Madock. It's the safest option."
She blinked at him.
The tip of her nose that she hated so much turned pink.
