Page 50 of The Nightshade's Bride
I didn't have many illusions about myself, but the implied rebuke irritated me.
"Damn your morals, where is she?"
I kicked his bed until the wooden frame crackedunder my boot.
"Leave," Bartholomew said, his lips set.
Weak. He was weak. My fingers itched to put them around his throat and squeeze.
He waved the sharp tines of the hay fork closer to my throat.
"You're a man of peace," I mocked. "I know you wouldn't dare to hurt me."
Stretching my hand out to grab the tool from him, Bartholomew jabbed it sharply forward into my chest, piercing the shirt's fabric and burrowing into my flesh.
Hell and godsdamn
The monk’s face was pale. "Perhaps I am. But I will not let you take Deliverance. You were cruel to her."
"What right do you have to tell me how to run my household?" I seethed, knocking the fork away.
"Is that what you call placing a whore above the wife carrying your child?"
"Damn you! My mistress is gone now."
"Is she? Rumors have it that there's a wild woman in the moors around here, heard howling and wailing like a banshee at night."
“Nonsense,” I snorted, but inside I wondered. Should I have just killed Ada? At the time I had thought killing her would be a kindness, and I wasn’t a kind man. But now I wasn’t so sure. . .
His knuckles were gripping the rake so hard they were pure white.
"You desire my wife, don't you?" I taunted angrily as the metallic stench of my own blood filled my nostrils. "And you know with your small prick you cannot have her."
Bartholomew's eyes flashed with an unexpected blue fire and he swung the fork down below my waist, only barely avoiding piercing my testicles.
"Get out and I'll be sure to redouble the guards around the fences. You won’t get in again."
"You can't keep me out forever," I spat. "I'm Gideon Nightshade."
My chest throbbing from the injury, I detoured into the brewery where the monks made fine, strong ale.
Despite the jab in the back from his hay fork, I grabbed a cask of ale and hefted it on my shoulders, ignoring his bleating.
Then I made my way out of the gates, and when they closed I sat right outside them, watching the grounds with narrowed eyes as I began to drink.
As soon as I saw Deliverance, I was going to pick her up by the back of her dress and drag her over the bars. Her objections be damned! Shebelongedto me.
I drank until I was in a dull stupor and still I didn't see my wife. It wasn't until sunlight again rose over the craggy hills that I saw her slim figure heading into the parts of the woods protected by the St. Mary's gate.
And I slid to my feet, sleek, predatory, despite my state of advanced drunkenness.
Change of tactics. Obviously she had been spending time with Bartholomew and his sermonizing. If I wanted to get Deliverance back, I was going to have to perform some penitence for her.
So I stalked her form, following as she wound her way around the herbs, plucking the fragrant bundles and holding them in her bag.
When she finally stopped, I fell upon the gate and rattled the bars fiercely.
"Deliverance, mercy!"
