Chapter 86: A Change of Heart

The woman beneath me sighed and smiled, wiggling her ample hips and patting my sweating back. "That was fine," she sighed, "monstrous fine. Now you'd best get back to your chores." She lay spread across the quilts of her big, high bed with its carved headboard, knees raised, her dark hair fan-like beneath her.

"Really," she moaned as I continued, snorting with passionate effort, sure I could come again with another score of thrusts, "the mister will be back directly and the cook's here now. Save some for Monday." She pushed on my chest with both hands, and I reluctantly withdrew. We had created a swamp anyhow. She sat up and pulled her shift down. Overripe was the only word I can think of to describe her, eager and overripe.

The preacher's plump young wife had been a bonus to my second job as a man free of military constraints. He was a Baptist or a Methodist or some such fractious dissembler, a small man in a dark suit who wore white shirts and a floppy hat and rode the circuit every week which gave me and his strumpet of a wife plenty of time to get acquainted and test the mettle of the preacher's bedstead.

At first we were at it two or three times a day as well as many of the nights, and I was eating like a dray horse trying to keep up my strength and stealing naps when I could, but now we had scaled back our activities to daily couplings in the mid-morning or late afternoon which almost always lasted an energetic hour or so. He usually was home for his supper on Saturday so we had started swiving shortly after breakfast as part of our morning chores, and she pushed me off when she heard the big clock in the hall clang out eleven. After only two weeks, I decided I had found the ideal situation. Easy work and endless sex; it seemed that the more often we did it, the better we both got.

The minister, the Rev. Mr. Charles R -- was his name, had no church of his own but preached penance, salvation and revivals in the houses of his flock and out among the trees. His randy and childless wife, Melissa, was about twenty years his junior and a pleasant, licentious woman with sparkling eyes and a full figure; she probably weighed a good twelve or thirteen stone. She generally spilled out of her clothes and seemed to take pleasure in bouncing her meaty attractions where men could enjoy and admire them.

I'm sure I was neither the first nor the last to take advantage of her husband's schedule nor of her willingness to make the beast with two backs in various. tireless and inventive ways. She came quickly and often, and she obviously enjoyed every minute of our prolonged shagging, sometimes braying with pleasure in a most unladylike manner.

I was busily white-washing when the muddy buggy came into the yard followed by two well-mounted Redcoats of some cavalry regiment that used blue facings and white breeches. The reverend nodded at me and the two officers tossed a glare in my direction as they went into the house. I took care of the three horses and then returned to splashing paint and nailing back loose boards when I encountered them on the assorted outbuildings.

I was called to supper in a half-hour or so and washed up as best I could. The R-- family had the democratical notion that all, master and servants, should eat together. Their elderly and stone deaf cook served the meal and then sat opposite me at the far end of the table while the reverend gave the honor of asking the blessing to one of his ruddy guests who intoned at some length in thanks which included blessings for the King and both houses of Parliament.

"Odd to hear that from a good Scot," said Reverend Mr. R-- as he carved the joint. "Didn't your families support Prince Charlie a generation ago?"

"Never, sir," said the one who had asked the blessing. "We were as loyal then as we are now. Twas them hillies that was traitors; barely human that lot."

The elderly cook, who must have known what the minister's woman and I had been doing, and I ate quietly while the conversation, much of it to do with how soon the terrible rebellion was likely to be properly beaten and that it was only a matter of time. The captain at my left finally elbowed me while he wiped his fleshy lips on his sleeve. "How about you, sirrah," he said, "have you no opinion on this mad conflict, this vile rebellion?"

"Opinions are for those that can afford such," I told him meekly.

"Quaker rabble are you?" asked the other Redcoat. "We Presbyterians can understand your reluctance but hardly admire it."

"No sir," said I, "just trying to stave off hunger and earn my keep."

"And he's a good worker, too," said the reverend Mr. R--.

"That he is," echoed his wife with a flickering glance in my general direction. She licked her lips and smiled down at her almost-empty plate and sat as demurely as she could with her full, high breasts barely hiding in their bed of frothy decoration and tight-laced broadcloth. She surely was a tester of stay laces. "Fine meal, Esmerelda," she yelled at the cook who beamed and nodded as she rose to clear away the plates. Mrs. R-- also abandoned the table but no port appeared. The Reverend did not approve of drink.

"So you've avoided the fighting," asked the larger of the Scot officers. "How'd you acquire th' nick in your brow then?"

"Carelessness," I said, mopping the trencher with a piece of bread.

"What do you know of this oversized man?" asked the other officer as the tablecloth was withdrawn.

Mr. R--shrugged. "He needed work and we had work that needed to be done so we feed him, give him a place to sleep and promised him, what, five shillings at month's end."

I nodded and stood. "Must get back to my brush," I told him.

"I think we'd best have a better look at you," said the leaner and younger of the two guests. "Let's go out to the barn."

The three of them followed me across the yard while I wished I had kept my belt and blade beside me. In the shadowy barn, the younger Redcoat produce a fine, small pistol with an octagonal barrel and said, "Strip."

"Sir?" I said, trying to look as innocent and confused as I could.

"Do as he says," said the minister, and I took off my shirt.

"Turn around," said the man with pistol. He poked at some of my more recent wounds and old stripes. "Where'd you get the boots?"

"The reverend give 'em to me," I said.

"That's true," said Mr. R--. "He arrived bare footed."