Scotch Swords, Muskets and Love

Robert began panting, and the ends of his nerves in all of his extremities started to tingle.

This was terrible. He couldn't watch it. Why was it taking so long? How far was she going to go with this man?

Then it happened. Seamas slyly shifted his hand up behind Susan's head, running his fingers through her mane of auburn hair, and pulled her face closer to his. She tilted her head to the side, as did he as he moved in for the kiss.

Then their lips met.

Robert wanted to vomit.

Then their tongues were inside each other's mouths. Robert couldn't do this anymore – watching this was killing him, it was torture, sheer and utter torture. He'd rather be on a stretching rack or locked inside an iron maiden that have to watch another second of this.

But watch he did, unable to take his eyes off the horrific spectacle that was unfolding before him.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, they parted, both panting from the duration and intensity of the kiss. Seamas leaned in for another kiss, and tried to slip a hand inside Susan's blouse, but thankfully she resisted. They talked a while, and again they kissed. Seeing it again was even more painful than the first time; it really felt as if hundreds of blunt, rusty blades were piercing Robert's flesh, tearing through his meat and bones and destroying his internal organs.

After yet another long and intense kiss they parted, and spoke some more. But after this time, Susan stood up, said goodbye to Seamas, and left the room as quickly as possible.

Robert staggered back from the window, feeling as if he had been trampled by a bull. Watching the woman he loved being intimate with another man had been one of the most trying ordeals of his life – and now all that he could do was pray that it had been a successful, that all that pain and agony had not been in vain.

It took three minutes for Susan to get from Seamas's room to Robert's, but those three minutes truly felt like an eternity. And inside her head a tornado of clashing and conflicting emotions was raging. She could not deny that part of her had enjoyed what had just happened; she was ashamed to think that during the kisses with Seamas, the opening between her thighs had quickly become wet, hot and ready, and a deep desire had begged for him – that, hard, throbbing part of him – to be inside her again, as it had once been.

But at the same time, a far bigger part of her mind had felt nothing but disgust for the man. Not only had he cheated on her, but now she knew that he had robbed and cheated many people out of their life savings and lands, and that knowledge, even more than what he had done to her when they had been together, that knowledge made him seem like nothing more than a pure, evil monster from the depths of hell itself. And she could truly say to herself, despite the little part of her that had enjoyed this experience, that she never, ever wanted to have anything to do with that man again.

She knocked on the door, and when Robert opened it she could see that he was an emotional wreck from witnessing what had just happened between her and Seamas. She felt tears burning instantly at the corners of her eyes, and she ran over to him and hugged him tightly.

“Please,” he whispered hoarsely in her ear, “please never, ever put me through something like that again.”

“I'm so sorry,” she replied, choking on a sob. “But it was the only way... And... I got a confession from him.”

Robert stepped back from their embrace and stared deeply into her eyes.

“My God... You did?!”

She nodded, now proud of what she had achieved, despite what she had had to do to achieve it.

“I told him that my father and I were in severe financial trouble. I said that my father had come up with an idea to become a loan shark, but not just any loan shark – a loan shark who steals back the money he loans people, and then forces them to repay with whatever they had signed as surety against the loan. I asked what he thought of the idea, and of course, he said, 'well, that's a brilliant plan, but I already do that with my friend Lord MacNally,'. So I asked if he could help me by explaining just how he had gone about doing it, so that my father and I were sure to succeed with our plan. I asked him to describe a few cases, a few robberies that he had pulled off. He actually listed a number of them – and yours was among the cases he said that he had done. He described how, late at night on the same night you had taken the bag of gold from Lord MacNally, he followed you home, waited for you to fall asleep, and then climbed up to the top floor of your house, crept in through an open window and stole the gold from your kitchen. It has to be true, because that's exactly how you thought it got stolen.”