Free The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) by Rebecca Lochlann Page B

fantasy. She’d kept her eyes closed so she could pretend it was her imaginary lover touching her, kissing her, pressing her into the hay. When confronted with the reality, she’d only wanted to escape.
    How daft was that? Would she spend her life wishing for a man who didn’t exist?
    “Have you too few brains to get in from the rain?” Douglas had come around the corner of the byre, leading their Clydesdale. Leo nickered and bobbed his head at the sight of her.
    “It doesn’t bother me,” she said bravely, though as she spoke, she realized the shoulders of her jacket were soaked, as was her face.
    “Aye?” His callused thumb swiped at her cheek. “Are you wearing paint?”
    “Where would I get such a thing?” She jerked away from his touch.
    His eyes narrowed and he cuffed her, hard, with his knuckles.
    “It’s the cold air!” She rubbed her cheek. Her jaw felt half-dislocated. There would be a bruise later, and it would hurt to eat.
    “You should’ve had the milking done an hour past.” With a scowl and a curse, he went on about his business.
    “Someday,” she said, “I’ll have a life free of beatings, and no one will tell me what to do.”
    “Sit down,” Beatrice said when she returned to the kitchen. “I have things to say before Isabel wakes and our day is thrown to the wind.”
    Morrigan hung her jacket on the peg, carried the egg basket into the larder, and wondered what she’d done now.
    Her aunt gestured to the other chair at the worktable and joined her, frowning as she glanced at the spot Douglas had cuffed. Morrigan could feel it swelling.
    “Yesterday, when you were doing the wash….” Beatrice regarded her teacup and sighed, grimacing as though she’d tasted something bitter.
    Morrigan waited, chewing on the rim of her thumbnail.
    “Christian kissed you,” Beatrice said finally. “Bold as could be, and you let him.”
    A blush flooded Morrigan’s cheeks clear to her scalp. She knew Beatrice saw it from the way her aunt’s eyes narrowed.
    “Are you ignorant, or deliberately wicked?”
    Damn you, Morrigan . Kit’s furious sneer materialized along with a wrench of shame.
    “Your father would never consider that lazy, penniless lout good enough for you.” Her voice escalating, Beatrice added, “I hope you don’t think to trick him into marriage by lying with him.”
    No one could accuse Beatrice Stewart of not saying what she meant. If she were to find out about last night, she would tell Douglas, and he’d skelp the hide from her bones. He’d throw her lifeless body into the loch and consider himself well rid of her. Fish would eat her eyeballs. Eels would play in her ribs….
    “I shouldn’t have to remind you that you must never allow a man to touch you, I don’t care who he is or how long you’ve known him. Gossip of any kind will ruin you, but d’you think the tarnish rubs off on the man? You alone must be spotless, or no man will ever have you, and no decent woman will speak to you.” Beatrice’s unblinking gaze burned halfway through Morrigan’s forehead. “When you marry, you must be untouched. Ignorant. After you wed you’ll find out the hard way what’s expected. Married women must suffer it, suffer and suffer for the rest of their lives, in misery and pain, as the Bible demands.” She rapped her knuckles against the table. “After you’re wed, then you’ll submit, even when what he does makes you wish you were dead, and it will. This is woman’s sorry lot.”
    Morrigan stared at her aunt. If suffering was what came of marriage, then why were women expected to want it? Dismay crept through her memory of the night. Kit had been like a stranger, almost violent when he’d pushed against her. He’d bitten her. There had been a moment when she wasn’t sure he would stop, no matter what she said or did.
    “I hope, if he ever does make advances, that you’ll have sense enough to put him in his place. Listen to me or not, I cannot always be there to