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Love Story Fiction:
- 1: Becca in the Woods
- 2: Becca Escapes
to Sea - 3: Becca Gets Her Sea Legs
- 4: Becca’s Faux Honeymoon
- 5: Becca Comes Ashore
- 6: Becca Outlaw’s Sea Battle
- Outback Love: 1
- Outback Love: 2
- Outback Love: 3
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Becca in the Woods,
Part 1
by Neale Sourna
Cornwall, England UK;
1680s
Becca’d
been on her way to her betrothal, or rather she’d escaped from crowded,
maddening London, back to her stormy, Atlantic tossed Cornwall coast;,three
hundred miles further west than most London courtiers would ever venture.
The
whole world was in mad upheaval! Pirates raided coasts. Neighbor killed
neighbor, for God and Right. Their Catholic king’d run away and his daughter,
with her Dutch Protestant husband, now ruled; as Becca’s healthy loveliness and
strong family name remained besieged by an earl, whose grown heir had died, and
now he wanted another, by her.
Unlucky
Becca.
She’d
lost two babes; both to fever, then lost her beloved, gentle husband in the
king’s senseless wars and now this earl, older than her father, had reached out
his covetous hands, to make her his countess, in payment for her father’s
impending bankruptcy.
Both
men had kept a vigilant eye upon her, until the indomitable earl had thrown an
“intimate” party of great size, in relief of signed promises between THEM,
about her.
They’d
blinked, whilst toasting each other’s great fortune, and she’d run.
*
* * *
Running
straight here wasn’t a great idea, except not one of her family’d been home
from court in ten years. Besides, she’d gone to the modest hunting lodge in the
dense, pine scented forest overlooking the lovely, tempestuous sea.
Her
lady’s maid had been bubbling like champagne to soon be living in a castle; so
Becca’d come alone, her nearest neighbor a hermit in a hovel several miles
away, said to have been an Anglican priest, who’d fallen in love and love had
shattered him for all human company.
“If
a man can be a hermit, so can I.” But the cottage was long unused and without
food, so she’d gone out. “Men hunt. I can hunt and, oh, goodly sized mushroo—.”
“Don’t!”
She
froze, startled. This goodly sized man was clearly no hermit, as he was dressed
like a fighting sailor; an officer of a lucrative privateer vessel, perhaps, by
his fine cloak.
“Wh-Who
are you?” His bright gaze was rather rude, his brighter smile impertinent,
which is to be expected of an Irishman.
“Someone
who knows those mushrooms you’re about to harvest are poisonous.”
“Says
who?”
“Says
God, who created them.”
“Oh.
Who—?”
“Am
I? A man seeking natural beauty in nature, and finding it.” She blushed,
despite herself; then frowned at his weakness to his charm. “Actually, I’m a
pirate.” Her eyes grew large, and then she recovered her court matron’s worldly
decorum, until he said, “And yah must be the runaway lady.”
“Wh-What?”
“You.
Clearly. Fair. Of Cornwall. A good man’s widow and a foolish man’s daughter,
who a less than great nobleman wishes to wed, bed, and bear his progeny.” Her
eyes flitted side to side, as if cornered. “No one’s here for you, yet,
darlin’. I talked up a groom at your parent’s home, when I espied the frantic
activity there in search of yah. They’re a few miles off, as you’re here, with
me.”
“I’m
not with you.”
He
stepped forward, and she back. “To answer yah, I’m Aidan.” She was about to
say, “Who cares,” and other things along those lines to the smug Irishman, when
it abruptly downpoured and rumbling lighting struck near with great violence,
and so he grabbed her and ran to her cabin lodge, the only solid shelter for
miles.
*
* * *
“Well,
sir, I’d offer you tea and cakes, but the servants haven’t stocked the larder
lately.”
He
smiled, rather smugly she thought, with a charming crooked turn of his lips, as
he put down his travel pack and pulled from it, an imported wine—a good one,
cheese, bread, and even a French roasted chicken.
“Perhaps,
Lady Becca, since you’ve provided shelter from the storm, I can provide the
meal? And we can be friends?” Her stomach made an unladylike rumble.
“Are
you Catholic, Irishman?”
“Ah.
Religious differences. I’m a man and you a woman; we need no more opportunity
for war than that. Or are yah not hungry enough?” He gave her a generous amount
of wine in an engraved silver travel cup, then fired the hearth to burn away
the damp, as they at their meal.
It
was pleasant here, alone with him, and the rain.
“So,
Aidan the pirate, whose engraved silver hawk is this that you’ve stolen?”
“Not
‘stolen.’ A gift. From a fine lady with fine, strong thighs for long nights of
bedridin‑.”
“Don’t
be insulting and coarse.”
“You
asked. Why’d yah run from such a fine betrothal?”
“I-I
don’t want to speak of it. Did a lady truly gift you this silver?”
“Yes.
‘Truly’.” There was a long, self-conscious silence, which hid a strong mutual
recognition and attraction. “I-I see why your bridegroom-to-be has fallen all
over himself to have yah.”
“Really?
And should I care what a pirate sees or says?”
“Yes.
A pirate’s a rogue, who sees what others are too self-conscious to admit; he
seizes what servants must carefully tend and fear to take; he says that
although a certain woman’s nose is a bit crooked, she is a heart stopper.”
“My
nose is NOT crooked!”
“Oh,
I didn’t mean you. You don’t stop my heart.”
“Humph.”
“You
make it pound, like a war drum.” And when Becca gazed in his eyes for signs of
deceit, Aidan had none.
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