Masked (Royally Hot 2)

Chapter 6

Iris

A pit-pit-patter of drizzle against my window was the background as I lay in bed my thoughts filled with Randal.

My stomach hadn’t stopped turning itself inside out since he left yesterday after settling me securely in the cottage. His last task before he left was to fashion a new door bolt from wood and iron he found in the barns, making me promise to latch it securely just after he left.

While his huge presence was a bit overwhelming at first, all of that just faded away behind the feelings he awoke in me. Not just desire, but longing, like he was the destination I’d been sailing toward my whole life, and only now had he come into view.

It meant the world to me that he had spent so much time helping me. Nobody had looked after me like that since my mother’s death in childbirth with what would have been my brother, and the subsequent deterioration of my father’s health.

And to think, he was coming back. This morning!

I listened for any noises from my father moving about the cottage, but heard none. Relieved, I gave myself a few more minutes of daydreaming about Randal, snuggling deeper into my bed as I listened to the rain. But try as I might to think only of him, other thoughts crept in. Like water leaking into a rickety dinghy.

The night before, after he’d left, my father came home drunk as a rabid skunk and twice as mean, pounding on the door when he couldn’t get in. I’d hobbled to let him in, finding him too drunk to wonder why the door wouldn’t open. I’d known it as soon he stepped inside—the way he walked told me I was in for a difficult night.

I should have been furious with him, should have told him what happened because of his drunkenness, being woken first thing in the morning to a thief in my bedroom. Instead, I cowered. The rage I saw in him reminded me of so many horrible things that he’d screamed at me, so many nights spent crying myself to sleep.

Always, the next morning, he would sheepishly ask that we start afresh. I hated that—the idea of starting over, that all the anger and sadness could vanish, like winter turning into spring.

But in spite of myself, I always forgave him. I forgave because it was easier than fighting; I forgave because it was easier than being constantly, endlessly afraid. I forgave because I told myself that it wasn’t his fault.

He’d always wanted a son, he’d loved my mother dearly, and to lose them both like that had been a tragedy. I forgave him, because I remembered how happy they’d both been, how proud in the face of jealousy from the other townsfolk that his wife had fallen pregnant so late in her childbearing years, after so many seasons with naught but a daughter.

Once inside the house, my father grumbled as I took a seat at the kitchen table, my leg elevated on a stool. He’d taken one look at the bandages and exploded at me.

“Get up off your ass, girl, and stop being such a fat, lazy cow!” His words were delivered with a spray of alcohol-drenched spittle, his red-rimmed eyes barely focused as he swayed on his feet.

“Me?” I finally responded, unable to contain myself as I slammed my palm on the tabletop just to draw his attention. “You have the nerve to tell me to…? When you’ve been drinking yourself into a stupor for nearly two days? Leaving me here to run this whole…” Fury made me quiver as I seethed, barely able to keep one thought in focus. “If you’d fixed that damned wobbly floorboard in the hall, I wouldn’t have even fallen!”

“Oh, that’s right, it’s all my fault, isn’t it?” He swayed as he stalked forward, reaching for his belt, no doubt to give me a hiding, but unable to find it with his drink-clumsy fingers. “As if I don’t have enough to do around here without every fuckin’ loose floorboard…”

I fumed as he finally stumbled to bed but told myself it was better than the alternative.

Now, thankfully, it was morning, and he was passed out. My leg throbbed with pain. Wincing, I slipped it out from under the covers, and saw the bruises had turned a dark green and purple, but that at least the swelling had gone down.

Using the post of my small bed for support to stand, I sucked in a big breath of air and braced myself for the pain, placing my foot on the floor and slowly shifting my weight.

It hurt, but not nearly as badly as I expected. I breathed a sigh of relief as I looked out at the farm through my window. The drizzle was lessening, to show off a beautiful sunrise. And it wouldn’t be long before Randal would arrive to help me milk the cows.