Page 43 of The Ladies Least Likely
Because she hadn’t had the least expectation that Vaughn would be a menace to her. “We ought to go back inside,” Gwen said, retreating.
“I’ve developed the most violent attachment to you.” Vaughn advanced down the path.
“Violent?” Gwen said with dismay, backing into a hedge. Prickles of blackthorn caught her gown and stabbed at her lace.
“Go mad if I can’t have you.” He said this as if they were discussing the weather. Gwen nearly choked on a wild gasp of laughter. Was this his notion of wooing?
“This is—sudden.” She looked about for an avenue of escape. He was not much taller than she, but portly, and she flinched when his hands seized her shoulders.
“I am sure the madness will pass,” she said. “Let us go back inside and have a glass of cool lemonade, and?—”
His frame pressed against her, and she turned her head to the side as his hot, sour breath wafted over her face. She tried shrinking further into the hedge as his fleshy body nudged against hers. No, he wasn’t wooing her.
“Give you—what you want.” His face descended, lips parting.
“No,” Gwen gasped, twisting in his grasp. “I don’t want—this.”
“Will in a moment. Hold still.” He slid his hands to her breasts, squeezing, moaning as his wet mouth probed for hers.Slobber trickled down her cheek and neck. She knocked his hands aside, and he grabbed her waist.
“Trollop,” he muttered, panting as he tried to lower his mouth to her breasts. “Coming here taunting me, pretending to be so pure. I know what you are.” He pushed his hips against hers and groaned.
Gwen’s heart stopped beating for a moment. Had Anne said something? No, Anne didn’t know what Gwen had done.
Unless her brother told her. Panic and furious shame roared through her head. “No,” Gwen said fiercely, pushing her elbows between them and turning to the side.“No.”
“Hedge whore! Don’t think I’ll pay for it. You’ve beenbeggingme from the first.” Vaughn clamped his hands to her bottom, churning his groin against her. “Know how to satisfy a woman. Bet the others at your place can’t. Runts and cripples. Half men.”
Gwen froze against her will. What did he know? Had he heard a new man was at St. Sefin’s? He might make the connection to the missing Penrydd, if so. A fresh fear gave her strength.
“I saidno.” She drove her elbows apart and broke his grasp. In his moment of surprise she twisted away from him and the hedge, lunging for the path.
“Idohave to pay you?” He whirled and followed as Gwen backed down the path, one arm held out before her. His pale eyes glittered in the light from the window above. “Come back here, wench, and we’ll settle this. How much?” He stalked down the dark path toward her. “Don’t price yourself too high, now. You’re a Welsh piece.”
Gwen moved swiftly toward the doorway, safety and escape. Now that she’d gotten him off her, she felt bold again. She could outrun him if she had to, even in her skirts.
“St. Sefin’s is not what you say! Nor are its men.”
He sneered. “Every woman has a price. For most, it’s pretty words. ‘I love you. I’ll take care of you always.’ What’s your price, Gwen of the gutter?”
Gwen lifted her chin and crossed her arms over her chest. “Fifteen hundred pounds.”
He heaved out air. “Fifteen hun—you complete biter! No woman’s worth that price.”
“Anne Sutton is!” she flared. “Her dowry is twenty thousand pounds. What do you think she’ll do if I she finds out you accosted me? Or if she hears about Mathry, or any of the others?”
“You wouldn’t dare.” His face was mottled with shadow, his teeth bared. “I’ll run you aground. Every last of those thatch-gallows under your roof.”
“You’ll leave us in peace. Say a word against us, one foul whisper, and I will tell Anne how many women you’ve ruined hereabouts, how many maids have left this house because of you. She will believe me.”
The threat stopped him cold, but he still had the upper hand. “Don’t dare go back in that house, you sly boots. I’ll tell my mother you threw yourself on me. Stripped to your diddies and begged me to take you. Whining like a bitch in heat.” He adjusted the fabric at his crotch. “Won’t get a shilling more out of her. Nor anyone else around here.”
“Your mother knows what you are,” Gwen said.
He lunged for her, and she ran.
Gwen returnedthe horse and dogcart to the King’s Head and walked up Stow Hill, alert and trembling. Normally she would be unafraid of the night or the darkness. The evil lurked in the houses like Greenfield, where soulless men thought they could take what they wished without asking. Here in Newport,the honest merchants and the tradesmen’s families slept peacefully in the rooms above their shops. And, thanks to her and Dovey and the others, the desperate had somewhere to go.
But someone had attacked and killed the Jewish man from Merthyr Tydfil, and they still didn’t know who had attacked Pen. The reports continued of rough men from Cardiff starting quarrels at the wharves and hectoring ships’ captains about their cargoes. Gwen kept an eye on the darkest corners as she walked, pulling her shawl tightly around her.
