Free Bittersweet Endeavors by Tamara Ternie Page B

e what he had later learned marked Myra ’s twentieth year , he saw her as a woman and no longer a girl.  T he curves on her body drove him in to distraction, and not only had he began to view her as a woman that day , but he saw her through the eyes of a man. 
    He pulled himself from his reverie and tried chucking the memory aside .  He wished he still saw her as that girl.  Yearnings for her didn’t haunt him then as they d id now.  He felt pain ed when he considered that he’ d never feel her soft caresses or the velvety touch of her lips on his , and it intensified his torment.  E ven though his heart edged him forward , he couldn’t place himself in a position where he’d be forced to choose between her and his father .  
    Temptation — more than he was able to bear — forced Seth into fle eing the room, vowing that he’d never return.
    *                    *                    *
    The next four days p laced Seth in a torturous array of guilt, worry, and agony that raged within him.  He did what he had said and avoided Myra’s hu t on the hill, where she yet laid unconscious.  Only three times had Lucia le ft the abode for longer than a few moments, and each time Seth stopped himself from secretly go ing and check ing on Myra.  No one in the servant areas talked about her after the first day.  He ran out of excuses for entering the areas where the servant women worked and gathered.  Although he hoped he’d overhear i nformation about Myra’s we ll-being, their silence wa s all he received.  He suspected his father had set orders that kept them silent .  Household titter-tatter was the norm among the maids, and he now found their sudden restraint uncommon.  Someone closed their mouths.  Mayhap, he thought, he could send one of his sisters, surely they were concerned.  They had taken to Myra the moment they met her, envied and impressed by her refinement, especially for someone born a common birth.  It amaze d him, too.  His sisters often whisper ed about her, and his curiosity lure d him in to eavesdrop ping on many occasions .  They once discussed that his sister, Rachel, claimed she overheard Lucia and Myra state that she was from the royal line .  Of course they laughed and thought it pleasantly amusing, but it angered him that Myra didn’t heed his warning.  Even with lies , she still received his sister s’ heartfelt affections.  There was n o doubt about it, she easily grew on a person and was able to warm them like a — “ A fever!”
    His patience all but left him .  With determined strides, he ascended the snow-covered hill and marched to ward her bark-covered door.  Before his hand reached the latch, Lucia scurried out the door .  T he hard expanse of his chest denied her exit .
    Fear gripped him when he saw the pain and tears in her eyes. He grabbed her by the arms and firmly shook her.  “What has happened, Lucia?”
    “ Tis Myra ,” she cried out. 
    “What is it? ” he pressed.  “ She’s not—”   He couldn’t say it aloud. 
    “ Please, w e must retrieve a physician . She’s not faring well and I fear she ’ll not survive another day .”  Lucia sniffed back tears, but the effort moot, for the tears flo oded down her cheeks.
    “What of the powders the physician gave in aiding the wheezing in her chest?”
    “ Physician ?” she asked surprised. “ There hasn’t been a physician,” she said angrily .  “He’ll not send for one.”
    Lucia tried walking around him but Seth wouldn’t let her leave.
    “What do you mean the physician hadn’t come ?  My father said he’d bid a worker to fetch him from town . Tis what he said after I left Myra that first day . ”  Certainly h is father wasn’t so cruel that he’d allow her to suffer until death consume d her , all for the sake of separating them.   Seth looked toward the lane that led into Jamestown , but because of the snow storms and accumulation of