The Barmaid & The Blacksmith

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

“Fiona!”

The redheaded vixen turned at the bar to see Jerud swagger in the door, with his scowling face gleaming angrily.

“My love, what’s happened to you?” she asked as she saw a bloody cut on his chin.

“Nothing you need to worry over, Fi,” he said. “Get me some ale.”

“But you look horrible! You’ve been fighting again, haven’t you?”

“Not your worry, Fiona,” he answered darkly. He gave her a swift smack on the behind and sent her on her way.

Fiona returned with a tankard of the tavern’s best brew, then sat down across from her fiancee, trying to discern what manner of predicament he was in. Too hot-headed for his own good, Jerud would be in some kind of scrape nearly every week.

She watched him down a full mug of the ale and wipe his face on his sleeve. She suspected that he’d already been drinking, the way his breath smelled so foul and his expression hardly had the tender softness she was used to seeing, especially when he was speaking to her.

“So you won’t tell me your woes?” she asked, very cautiously.

“I said, it’s not your worry.”

The tavern door opened and one of Jerud’s burly friends, Kevin Stroud, strode inside. Spying Jerud, he moved toward their table. “He’ll fight you, brother,” Kevin announced.

“And I’ll beat him to a bloody pulp,” Jerud said, with a grimace that made Fiona shiver.

“Please, Jerud, don’t go fighting again?” she pleaded with him.

His eyes softened, but for only an instant. “This doesn’t concern you, you keep to yourself.”

“Jerud you’re not thinking clearly,” she tried again.

“Get on,” he scowled as he turned back to Kevin. “We can settle this tonight,” he said. “You tell him. If he has the guts!” Jerud was shouting as his friend made a hasty purposeful retreat.

Fiona graced her fiancee with a pair of sad green eyes, afraid to speak with anything but her facial expression.

“Don’t say it woman,” he told her.

“You don’t have to be angry with me, Jerud,” Fiona shot back indignantly. “I’m only thinking about you.”

He eyed her carefully, letting his gaze go beyond the surface level, to the more pleasing aspect of his relationship with the sensuous woman. He inspected her bosom, that was pressed against the wooden table, the generous cleavage appearing to beckon him away from all other thoughts. He didn’t have time to take her properly, but maybe something quick, in the shed behind the tavern. He seized on the thought and let it settle in on him. His c**k was responding pleasantly in his pants, beginning to throb against the rough fabric. The prospects of her dark hole lured him, as did the vibrant dark eyes that reached out to him with a steady assurance that there was some peace within her limbs and fragrant body.

The ale swimming through his system was making him a little light headed, a good brisk f**k would bring the blood back into his body, where he needed the strength for a good fight. Rising from his the table, he grabbed Fiona’s hand.

“What are you doing?” she exclaimed in surprise.

“You’ll find out.” Jerud was not acting like he usually did. The good-natured man that so easily wooed her was absent, replaced by a man whose darker passions were riding on the surface, as a cloak of frightening agitation.

“Jerud, please!” she said, trying to squirm away.

He grabbed her about the waist, and half carried her out of the Tavern’s back door.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Fi, just take a little from your arse to inspire me!”

“You can’t now!” she howled, as her legs and arms kicked and flailed.

“I’ll take what’s mine,” he informed her, hauling her into the wooden shed. “And give you a good whipping you don’t mind me!”

His hands worked at a frenzied pace, once he set her back down on her feet. Hastily pushing her over a stack of firewood, he lifted her skirt while he pulled his hard c**k from his pants.

The woodpile scratched her arms, the suddenness of the assault frightened her, and she would have done anything to get away. Yet this was Jerud, and he’d never hurt her before. Her best instincts were to simply relent. When her ass was bared, he played with the pink white cheeks, his hands diving into the waiting warmth. The familiar feel of her lover’s hands soothed Fiona’s fears, and a silly excitement seemed to flow from him to her, so she struggled less to get away. When he thrust his prick deep into her hole with an eager zeal, it sent a shock of sparks through her whole system.

Jerud was not for one minute the man she was used to. There was something more, like a devil was in him. And yet, she was still succumbing, even as she was so mixed up she didn’t know what she should do. Her burning loins were exploding with too much s****l heat to suddenly squelch the feeling.

Jerud banged against her back side hard, his hand occasionally slapping her rear as if he was riding an animal.

“Oh, god, oh no,” she burst into tears, not so much from pain, but the hard driving effort. He smacked her ass harder still, the lusty warmth of it making her own orgasm about to break loose, even if felt like Jerud had forced it from her body. But, her quick rush of pleasure was cut short, as Jerud rammed himself against her, and cried out with a vibrant roar of finality.

He did not pull away at first, but collapsed against her, so she could feel his heavy muscled body pressed tightly to her backside. His c**k was still hard and throbbing, but as the moments passed it began to subside and slowly soften. His groin seemed fused to her, a prickly sensation beginning to make her squirm, as the air hit their sweating, out of breath bodies. It felt as if some lead weight was being lifted from her backside when Jerud finally pulled away leaving Fiona to stand on her own. She had no idea what manner of man would greet her as she recouped from the ruthless screw. The fierceness scared her. And one look in his eyes and she could see that the copulation had only taken part of his frightening darkness away.

“You’re a good woman, Fiona McTavish,” he said, his large hands reaching out and bringing her close to him, so that he cradled her in his arms.

She began to cry again, though she had no explanation for the tears. He stroked her head with gentle hands, but she could still feel the brewing agitation in him. And when they began to hear the commotion outside the woodshed, he pushed Fiona away.

“I have to go, luv. You stay in the tavern and take care.”

“You’re going to fight this man?”

“I have no choice,” he replied.

“No choice? What is this about?”

“I told you, it’s none of your concern, you stay in the tavern and don’t come out!” He was more sullen than ever, and the scowl that broke out on his face scared her. His tone of voice was so severe. He’d never ordered her around this way. She might have thought that her own life depended on her staying in the tavern, but she assumed this fight, with whoever it was, was a personal matter between Jerud and the scoundrel that enraged him.

At the door of the shed, he motioned her to his side, and pushing her through toward the back of the tavern, he gave her a fierce shove. “Stay inside, or I’ll thrash your ass like I never have before when I’m done with this deed!”

She saw him skirt around the side of the building, and out of sight.

Inside the tavern, Fiona heard a few shouts, but nothing more. As the dreadful minutes dragged on, she wanted to race outside to see what was happening. Jerud and this sworn enemy must have been fighting in the field beyond the tavern.

“I have to see what’s happening!” she finally told Jon Travis.

“Don’t Fiona! It’s Jerud’s battle not yours. You’re of no good to him going out there and inciting more of this nonsense.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

He looked at her cautiously, his eyes narrowing as he stared into her green ones. “You don’t know?”

“Know what!”

He cleared his throat and stared longer, as if he didn’t want the unpleasant task of this explanation. “He’s fightin’ over you, Fi.”

“Over me? Why in heaven’s name?”

“Some bloody fool from the north county was saying some pretty mean things about you. Your Jerud is defending your honor.”

“Damn with defending my honor!” she roared. She was grabbing for her shawl, ready to bolt from the door.

“Don’t go, Jerud is right. You’re better off out of sight. It really started with that, but there are other things. Your Jerud doesn’t know how to hold his tongue sometimes.”

“Then he needs me to help him, the bull-headed bastard!” she exclaimed.

But as she was about to bolt from the tavern, she heard scuffling just outside the door and backed away. When the door suddenly burst open, a half dozen men, including the gallant blacksmith that had tried to secure her honor, and several of Jerud’s friends were carrying her lover into the safety of the tavern.

“Been hurt awful bad,” Kevin said.

Fiona looked at Jerud’s face, seeing nothing but blood, that looked as if it was flowing from his eye, and a deep gash above it.

“Didn’t know he’d have a knife,” she heard Jerud groan. It was the only thing he said, and it was not necessarily to her, since it was unlikely that he even knew that Fiona had pressed her way to his side. The men carried him to a room at the back of the tavern where there was a bed for him to lie on.

“It’s bad miss,” the blacksmith told her.

“Why did you do this!” Fiona screamed loudly, as she tried to put her hand on Jerud’s bloody brow.

“Hush miss,” someone said, and as she watched the blacksmith mop Jerud’s brow with a cloth. The blood continued to flow and the well beaten man passed out.

“Will he be okay?” she asked, looking up at the men for some encouragement. Her eyes ready to gush with a flood tears.

“I don’t think so, Fi,” Kevin said, kindly. He pulled at the side of Jerud’s vest, to show an even bloodier wound at his side. “The knife went deep,” he said.

Apparently the knife in Jerud’s side went as deep as the one that suddenly pierced Fiona’s heart. She covered his body with her own, as the life passed out of him, as one minute she could feel his breathing chest and the next minute she could not. He lay so still, soundless, no blustery commands, no gallant smile, no witty repartee, no Jerud left in the room, just an empty shell of a man.

“You cry your heart out all night, Miss,” the blacksmith told her at the tavern door. The commotion of the night had ended, and the crowd of curious were dispersing.

“I suppose I will,” she agreed, as fresh tears were surfacing. It felt better doing this than holding in the grief. For a gruff man, the blacksmith was being awfully kind. So much kinder than the others.

“They blame me, don’t they?” she said, looking up at the man’s dear face.

“It was Jerud’s battle, not yours,” he replied.

“Jerud would say that,” she conceded. But now Jerud was dead, and there was no lover, and no one to defend her. “I should ask your name, sir, we’ve never been introduced.”

“Joshua, Joshua Kane.”

“Thank you, Joshua Kane,” she said, smiling lightly, pouring out sadness and gratitude in the same instant. She was weary, with too much to think about, and no desire for one blessed thought at all. She wished she could just curl up and die herself, let the angels take her to Jerud wherever his soul was. It seemed much more pleasant than living her life without the future they had planned.