Laurell Hamilton - Never After

“Step away! Leave this young woman in peace!” Harwin thundered.

“You wouldn’t be defending her if you knew what kind of soiled goods she was!” shouted the man who had been knocked to the ground. Unfortunately, he was now on his feet.

“I would defend any woman, no matter how debased, from someone as contemptible as you,” Harwin snarled in reply.

I had to admit, that surprised me a little. That he would say such a thing, and about a woman he scarcely knew—and that his size, posture, and attitude indicated he would be able to make good his boast.

“Would you?” sneered the other man, and then he leaned in to hiss some kind of accusation in Harwin’s ear. I noticed that Dannette, floundering about with her wet skirts, suddenly grew very still.

Whatever he said didn’t impress Harwin unduly. With his free hand, he shoved the man hard in the chest, knocking him into his unsavory companion. “Leave her in peace,” he said. “ Now , unless you truly want to contest her virtue against my sword.”

The two men growled a few more insults but slouched away, glancing back over their shoulders twice. Half turned to watch them leave, Harwin extended his free hand to Dannette to help her out of the fountain. I shook off my captors and ran over to Harwin just as Darius came racing up from the stables. In a moment, we were all huddled together around Dannette, and Darius was stripping off his jacket to put it around her shivering shoulders. Only then did I realize that we had gathered a small audience of townspeople, standing in the corners of the square and peering out from the surrounding storefronts. All of my companions ignored them, so I did, too.

“What happened? Who were those men?” Darius demanded.

Dannette gave him one despairing look. It was an unfamiliar expression to see on a face that was usually so merry. “They were from Borside,” she said.

It was a town toward the western edge of the kingdom. I supposed it couldn’t be far from where we were now.

“They recognized me,” she went on in a halting voice, “and they said things—”

Darius looked around in swift fury. “Where did they go? I’ll turn them both into toads.”

“No!” she cried, and grabbed his arm. “Harwin was here to defend me, and I don’t want to cause any more uproar. Let’s just go.”

His arm still in Danette’s grip, Darius gave Harwin a stiff little bow. “If there was ever a debt between us, it is canceled now,” he said with unwonted formality. “Thank you for coming to my sister’s aid.”

Harwin shrugged. “Any man would have done the same. This erases no imbalance between us.”

“To me it does,” Darius said.

“Let us discuss who owes whom at some later date in more privacy,” Gisele interposed. “Come. Let’s gather all our conveyances and go.”

Darius was unwilling to be separated from Dannette, and I did not want to intrude on her unhappiness, so we completely redistributed ourselves. We swathed Dannette in a cloak and bundled her into the coach, Darius beside her. Harwin parceled out the meat pies he had just bought for all of us, then took the reins of the wagon. Gisele rode Harwin’s horse.

I sat beside Harwin, getting to know the wrong potential bridegroom.

But I didn’t mind because I was dying to ask him a few questions.

“How do you know how to drive a wagon?” were the first words out of my mouth.

He was negotiating around a narrow turn, the last little kink in the road before we were able to leave this benighted town behind, but he had attention to spare to cast me a sardonic look. “Why wouldn’t I be able to? It’s no harder than driving a team, and you know I keep my own stables.”

“Well—but—I never thought about it,” I said.

“Imagine how surprised I am,” he said dryly.

I bounced a little on the hard seat. “What did those men say to you?” I demanded. “Did they tell you whatever Dannette’s dreadful secret is?”

“I suppose.”

“What is it? Tell me.”

He gave me another look, this one considering and troubled. “I’m not sure it’s my place to repeat it.”

“Are you going to make me ask her?”

He thought it over and then, in a voice completely devoid of emotion, he said, “It seems that when she lived in Borside, Dannette was found in a compromising situation—with another woman. There was a scandal because the girl was the daughter of a prominent local lord. Apparently this was not the first time Dannette had been known to take women as intimate companions.”

It took me a moment to comprehend exactly what he meant with his delicate phrasing. Then I said, “So?> She prefers women. Who cares?”

I could tell I had surprised him, but I didn’t know why. “You seem singularly free of shock,” he said. “You live a life so sheltered that I would have thought you would find the concept hard to grasp and perhaps revolting.”

I shrugged. “My father’s apothecary and her assistant have been sharing quarters since I was born,” I said. “And there are days I like them better than anyone else at the palace. But I don’t see why anyone would care—me or you or those men who assaulted Dannette or anybody .”

“No,” Harwin said, clucking to the horses to encourage them to improve their speed, if only a little, “neither do I.”

“I would have thought you would be even more conventional than I am,” I said. “And yet, you don’t seem offended.”

He considered a moment. I had always found it irritating that he often paused to think over his replies, but now I found myself respecting his unwillingness to give an easy or incomplete answer. “I have seen too much damage caused by individuals who were certain that theirs were the only ideas with merit,” he said at last. “It has engendered in me a passionate desire to extend tolerance to anyone who does not seem to be harming anyone else by his or her actions. I am not always quick to adopt new or unfamiliar behaviors—but I am slow to condemn them.”

I sat back against the bench. “But that’s admirable!” I exclaimed. “Why do you say it so apologetically?”

I thought I caught the faintest trace of humor on his face. “Perhaps because you dislike so many of my opinions that I always feel apologetic when I am talking to you.”

I felt a hot blush spread over my face. “No—not that—well—I think perhaps I have not always extended tolerance to you ,” I said in a rush.

“You think me dull and lumpish, and you think that being married to me would seem like a lifetime sentence in prison,” he said calmly.

“No!” I exclaimed, feeling even worse. Because of course he was exactly right—except it didn’t seem quite so true as it once had. “It’s just that—perhaps I am silly and shallow, as Gisele has said—”

“But you’re twenty-one and you think life should offer a little excitement and romance,” he said, nodding as if that was a perfectly legitimate expectation. “And I do not seem to embody those traits.”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I unwrapped my meat pie and took the first bite. Neither of us made the obvious remark. Darius embodies both those traits, and quite beautifully, too.

“Well,” Harwin said, clucking at the horses one more time, “perhaps this trip will give you as much excitement and romance as you can handle, and then you might assess how much of it you really want in your life.”

I thought he was probably right on both counts.

We didn’t stop again until nearly nightfall, when Gisele circled back for us on Harwin’s horse. We had long ago lost sight of the faster carriage, but Gisele had moved between the two vehicles a couple of times during the afternoon. By the pleased expression on her face, I could tell she relished the freedom of riding in the open air.