Constance sat on the edge of her bed, brushing her hair as it dried. The balmy silver of the moonlight filtered through the gauze of the netting at her window, there to keep the bugs away while still allowing the cool night air to permeate the room.
It was high summer, and the days were brutal. The sky was burnished pewter, the sun a blazing coin, the sea a flat green mirror stretching to the horizon. A lethargic doze lay over Veradoga during the day, muting the babble of the marketplace, and while squabbles were more frequent, they were short-lived and spiritless. It was just too hot to dispute.
When dusk spread her purple veil, and the temperatures dropped, the island revived with life. Even now, drifting in on the breeze, Constance could hear the distant strains of music and singing from the taverns by the wharf, from the field to the east of town where a festival was going on.
In years past, she might have gone to the festival. Her father might have escorted her, or she and Rob and Enrique could have gone together. Dancing, laughing, eating too many spicy delicacies, coming home late and pleasantly weary.
Not so this year … this summer. She remained a veritable prisoner in the house, but that was just as well, for she couldn’t bear to show herself in public.
They would know. She was sure of it. Anyone looking on her would see and know the shame written in large letters on her face.
She couldn’t count how many times in her life Nana Eva had cautioned her about them. First boys, then men, but the lesson was always the same – a lady had to be on guard for the sake of her purity, couldn’t be ruined.
But now she was ruined. And not even in an excusable, overlookable slip of giving herself to her true love a bit in advance of the wedding.
Ruined … by her own brother.
He hadn’t touched her in the week since, but his final words from that terrible, fateful night still haunted her.
She’d fled the parlor to her own room, holding the torn remains of her dress around her, grateful that no one was about to see her in such a state. Upon reaching her room, she had flung herself into the tub though there was only the unheated water from the cistern on the roof. She had scrubbed until her skin was scarlet, soaked until she was wrinkled, and only then emerged to look at herself in the mirror.
What a sight that had been! The bath hadn’t been able to take away the soft puffiness of her lips, left so by Enrique’s punishing kisses. Nor had it been able to erase the darkening bruises left from his pinching of her breasts. No amount of rinsing could take the taste of him from her mouth.
She bore a scrape on one thigh, done by the signet Rob wore, though she hadn’t felt it at the time, being far too concerned with what else he was doing. She felt it now, though, a stinging line that hadn’t bled but was reddened.
But worst of all, she could see it in her own eyes. She was impure. No longer a virgin. The prize of her maidenhood had been cruelly taken from her by her own brother, in an incestuous act that was made a thousand times more shameful and repugnant because she had responded.
Oh, but her treacherous body had leapt willingly to his invasion! Had spent helplessly beneath his ministrations … twice!
And so she had slunk to her room and endured an endless night, aching and exhausted but unable to sleep for fear of what her dreams might bring. When at last she had fallen into a fitful doze, it had been the old dream, the pirate dream, but this time as she looked out from her mother’s eyes at the pirate captain, he had Rob’s face.
When morning came, she wanted to stay hidden away in her room, but hunger had finally impelled her downstairs. There, gorging on a late breakfast on the patio, were Rob and Enrique, looking as if they’d had the best night’s sleep in all creation.
Acting as if nothing at all was out of the ordinary. Acting as if nothing unusual had gone on the night before. Acting as if it never was.
They had been jovial and cheerful as ever, but Constance had only been able to endure a bit of it before returning to her room. She did not know if they hoped to make her think she’d imagined it all – how could she, when the marks were still visible on her flesh? – or what their intent was. All that she knew was that she couldn’t bear to be in the same room with either of them.
Later that day, the servants had returned from their short holiday and resumed their normal duties. Nana Eva had been with them, fresh from a visit with her daughter in the village, brimming with tales about her clever grandchildren.
Constance had claimed illness and stayed abed, waiting for the moment when the old woman would look sharply at her and
know
, the way Nana Eva said she always knew when a girl had been tainted. But that moment never came, and Nana Eva only fussed over her as she had done since Constance’s earliest childhood.
The week had gone by, and still that moment never came. The marks on her body faded, but the memory remained vivid, troublingly so. Rob continued carrying on as if nothing was amiss, living heartily in his role of governor while their father was away.
But she began to notice a cloud over his friendship with Enrique, and it did not take her long to divine the cause. Enrique still
looked
at her, in that yearning and speculative way that had been so disturbing before, but it was underscored now with something more. With knowledge … he no longer had to wonder what she looked like beneath her clothes, because he knew. And resented, perhaps, Rob’s refusal to let him have his way with her?
Her relief when Enrique was called home to Santa Martina knew no bounds. His departure earlier today had lifted a weight from her soul, and for the first time as she got ready for bed, she felt safe. Enrique was gone, the servants were in attendance, and nothing more could happen to her. It wouldn’t be that much longer until Father came home, and when she told him …
No … Rob was right about that much! How could she tell anyone? How could she tell them that she’d writhed like a slut beneath her brother? That she had driven her hips up against him to bring on the first of her traitorous spendings, the one that had made it all into most vile incest?
A shiver raced through Constance as she remembered it, her body reacting with far less abhorrence than her mind. Her body cared nothing for their blood relationship, or the indecency, or the ruination. Her body only cared that his clever touch had brought her to melting, a sweet hot melting like butter flowing …
She caught herself, realizing that she was drawing the brush through her hair in slow languid strokes, eyelids dreamily half-mast, the movement of her arm making the fabric of her nightgown slide enticingly over her breasts.
Her nipples poked at the silk, taut little points, and when she touched one, she gasped. An answering twinge came from her loins, as if her nipple and the tiny hidden nub tucked away down there were connected.
She set down the brush and, hardly aware of what she was doing, cradled her breasts in both hands, feeling their rounded shape and soft but firm weight as if she had never noticed them before.
The silk was cool, the skin beneath warm, and Constance slid her hands up. She squeezed gently, rolled her thumbs over her nipples, and sighed at the delicious thrill. It
did
seem to reach all the way to her loins. She shifted her hips slightly, aware of a mild but not unpleasant discomfort.
It was … quite nice, in fact.
She reclined on the sheets, bathed in diffuse moonlight. She caressed her breasts with one hand while the other stole, seemingly of its own volition, lower to brush against the silk-covered mound at the juncture of her thighs. Her knees drew up and parted, causing the hem of her nightgown to slide up to her hips.
