Authors: Fiona Knightingale
They started us off by squaring off. I moved around the ring to avoid any unnecessary contact. He was quick and the first jab actually made contact with my right ear. That ringing sensation was making me a little discombobulated.
“Most people would be worried about hurting a girl. I say that if you get in this ring then you’re fair game.” Apparently, he was all about equality. I wasn’t sure if I should take that as progressive thinking, or the fact that he just liked to hurt people. “I’m going to hurt you. Your best bet is to lie down and stop this before it goes any further.” I was tempted to do exactly that, but my ego didn’t allow me to play that card.
“I’m going to do this and I don’t care what you do to me.” This seemed to back him off and the smile changed to a bit of confusion. I was still hearing that ringing sensation. The referee checked on me, but I told him that I was perfectly fine.
The rest of the fight was a blur and most often than not, I was careless and reckless with my moves. He capitalized and I was already bleeding from the mouth and wheezing from the shots that I had taken against my ribs.
I was already limping and the best that I had gotten on him was one knee to the solar plexus. It seemed to stun him for a second, but it didn’t deter him from raining blow after blow on me. I thought that I would be able to at least stay out of his way, but he wasn’t about to let that happen.
I was limping and I actually thought that my leg was broken. I wasn’t giving up, even though I was going to look like a punching bag by the end of it. The big guy lumbered forward and I saw a weakness. It was minor, but I would take anything that I could find.
I hadn’t noticed before, but he was favoring that right hand. I went right after it and grabbed it. I slammed my knee over and over into it. He howled in pain and it must’ve been an old injury that had been acting up. I twisted his wrist and brought him down to his knee for a second, but that was all that I needed. I jumped up, grabbed him by my thighs and pulled him down onto the ground. I had his hand twisted and I was pressing my thighs against his head and cutting off his oxygen on the mat. He was screaming and I was determined. Before long, his pain threshold had reached its maximum limit.
“Give up…give up…give up.” I was begging him to do the right thing, but I don’t think that he wanted to give me that kind of satisfaction. I thought that I was winning and then he gritted through the pain. He lifted me and slammed me onto the ground, so hard that I was actually knocked out.
I awoke to find Stephen standing over me in the trainer’s room. “You did yourself proud. You didn’t win, but you did go the distance. Six rounds and $20,000 and all of that is yours.” I hugged him and he followed me out of there, while I was trying to walk on my own power. I passed by the guy that beat me. He put out his hand in respect for what I had done. I gave him that respect back and I was actually thinking that maybe I had a future doing this. I just needed a whole lot more training and several hours or maybe days to recover from my first fight.
“Stephen, I know that you’re not going to like hearing this, but I think that I would like to do this with you.” He kissed me and now we just had to find a way to tell my mother. That was not a conversation that I was looking forward to. I’m sure that she would have some cross words when she saw what condition I was in. I didn’t care and this was the way that I was going to live my life and nobody was going to stand in my way.
THE END
Victoria smiled at her reflection in the polished mirror and smoothed an imaginary stray hair back into the curled blonde twists on top of her head. Her maid, Abigail, shook her greying head and patted her shoulder.
“Miss, everything is fine. You look plenty fine for dinner.”
Victoria tossed her head in indignation and rustled her skirts as she breezed past the older lady.
“My father expects perfection, you know.”
Abigail smiled humorlessly and nodded as she straightened the dress around Victoria’s full bosom and slim waist, “Aye that he does miss.”
Victoria sighed dramatically, as only a tormented young woman can, and she swished her way out the door and down the massive stone staircase into the dining room.
The table was already set by the kitchen staff, and her parents awaited her arrival before eating. Her father scowled in her direction but said nothing about her late arrival. Her mother shook her head almost imperceptibly but also kept her mouth shut.
Victoria had not realized how hungry she was until the scents from the kitchen and the table tickled her nose. The vegetable soup, homemade bread, and various accompaniments all smelled divine and she eagerly pulled her chair up. Considering her petite figure, it was amazing how much food she could actually consume.
The soup warmed her from the inside and took the chill out of the fall air. She tried to be ladylike in her dining manners, as her mother, Lydia, had carefully taught her, but everything looks so good it was hard to resist trying the smoked ham and the cheese and the pickles and the apples. Even the bread smeared with peach chutney was delicious.
“Victoria,” her mother chastened, “you keep eating like that and you will get to be as large as one of those brutish and unrefined Scot women. They are not ladies such as us.”
“But Mother,” Victoria mumbled around a mouthful of food, “I’m hungry.”
“Victoria! Please do
not
talk with your mouthful! That is truly barbaric!”
She stared sullenly at her plate and finished everything she had taken. Despite her mother’s strong correction of her table manners and her etiquette, she knew her father’s words would be harsher if she wasted the food he worked so hard to provide. After dinner, the kitchen help cleared the table while the small family moved into the drawing room to sit by the fire.
They resided in a modestly sized but luxuriously furnished estate home, made of stones gathered from the fields nearby and furnished with the finest possible items from London as well as more exotic locations that her father traded with. The three of them hardly had to lift a finger around the house and grounds due to the constant vigilance of the help they employed.
The yellow and orange flames licked at the blackened stones of the hearth and Victoria curled up in one of the chairs, spread a quilt over her lap, and started to practice her reading. She knew, because her parents always told her, that she was fortunate in her lifestyle. Not many women were given the gift of literacy but they thought it would fetch a more desirable husband for her if she could prove their family’s proper breeding and higher education.
She had been a wild child when she was younger, and her parents had tried everything to tame her. They were afraid that they would be saddled with an untamed daughter forever. Slowly, as the training and maturity caught up with her, she had calmed down. But every so often, her mother had to repress a smirk when she caught Victoria sticking her tongue out behind her father’s back, or when she would sneak back in from the fields with her lips stained red from tasting the fresh wild raspberries that grew by the pond.
One of the kitchen staff delivered a large mug of ale to her father and a small glass of sherry to her mother. She looked up, hopeful and expectant, but was only given a cup of tea. She screwed her lips into a sneer but accepted it anyway.
Her porcelain cheeks appeared flushed from the flickering light of the fire, and her rosy pink lips moved slightly as she practiced the large words in her book. Her delicate finger slid along the page so that she did not lose her place. Her mother smiled softly as she regarded her daughter. When she was not being intentionally difficult, she was really a sweet and beautiful young woman. Both Andrew and Lydia hoped for the best possible union when they married her off. Of course, each of them had their own definitions of what would be considered the “best” union.
The Scottish winds blew down from the hills and ruffled the head of dark curls. Dylan brushed a stray curl from his eyes and tried to refocus his deep blue eyes. The target was being difficult, but he was determined to hit it. He took a deep breath, aimed his bow carefully, and let the arrow fly. With a satisfying thunk, it finally found the apple on his friend’s head.
With a crow of delighted victory, he tossed down the bow and loped across the field to claim his prize. His friend shook his head and bent over to pick up the apple and hand it to Dylan.
“You are going to kill me one of these days,” he muttered.
“I have a steady hand, my friend, and practice will help keep it that way.”
He withdrew the arrow and took a chunk out of the apple with a smile.
“Let’s go find some lunch. I don’t think this apple will hold us over.”
They strode back to the castle, clapping each other on the shoulder. It was a bright autumn day and the sun felt good on their shoulders as they passed through the vegetable garden. The rest of the group was already gathered inside and waiting impatiently at the large wooden table in the dining hall.
“About time you boys showed up! We were starving to death!”
Dylan shook his dark head and laughed at the rotund speaker, “You are in no danger of that.”
The group broke into hoots of laughter as the cook started to bring out the food. It was a simple but generous meal of smoked turkey on homemade bread with pickled carrots from the garden and more fresh apples. All of the men ate heartily, and washed it down with mugs of cider.
“What’s the plan for the afternoon?”
Dylan leaned back in his chair and scratched his reddish brown beard as he thought.
“We need to head into town soon, for supplies. Winter will be upon us before we know it. But I hate to waste such a beautiful day for a supply run. Besides, it is probably better that we set out in the morning sometime so that we are home before dark. I guess we can always go check that back field. When’s the last time we checked the flock?”
“Been a few days I think. Those sheep do have a way of wandering off,” one of the men mused.
“You mean, wandering off into someone else’s dinner table?”
“Something like that.”
Dylan grinned, “It’s hard to maintain this much land and property.”
He nodded to several of the men and bid them to check on that field. It was almost time to shear the sheep, and start working the wool for selling purposes.
“I’ve got a business arrangement that I need to see to but that meeting isn’t until tomorrow. I think I’ll take a couple of you, and go check on the food stores so we can start making a list of supplies. I have to head into town tomorrow for that meeting, so I’ll take a cart and a couple of you so that we can just do it all at once.”
They all nodded and pushed back from the table. One group headed to the field on foot and the other headed towards the barn.
The food stores seemed ample enough, but the clan was large and would need a lot of sustenance through the upcoming winter. Dylan, as the only son of the head of the clan, had been left in charge of the family when his father died. He had shouldered the responsibility well, and the rest of the family seemed agreeable when the authority had landed with him.
His long legs took huge strides as they approached the barn, and his broad shoulders seemed to fill the doorway as he strolled inside. They had been collecting the proceeds of the gardens through the spring and summer, and the fishing off the coast had been fruitful that season. The potatoes would keep for quite a while, most of the vegetables had been pickled for preservation, and the fish was packed in salt for curing. The chickens had been laying well through the warm months, and having them in the barn gave the family a decent chance of eggs through the winter. They would add some basics from the stores in town such as rice and coffee. The winter meals would not be quite as interesting as those from the growing season, however it should be enough to see them through.
Dylan was an unusual landowner, since he tried his best to look out for the peasants that surrounded his estate. He did not offer much from their own stores, but he tried to make sure they had enough of their own food to survive. He rarely took their food but sometimes requested their assistance in maintaining his own land.
Everyone finished their tasks for the day, and after a supper that closely resembled their lunch, the men shared a jug of cider before bedding down for the evening.
The next day, Dylan headed out to town with a few of his clansmen so that they could make the meeting and get supplies. He declined to mention that the meeting was to arrange a wife for himself. It would end up being an excellent business pairing for trading with the English, and he hoped that the daughter was at least pleasant to look at.
Andrew set out that same morning, for the same town. He and Lydia had briefly discussed the arrangement but even if Lydia had disagreed with the idea, Andrew was going to follow through. He did not like the idea of marrying his daughter off to some brutish and barbaric Scotsman, but the trading potential was more than he could resist. The Scot wool would fetch a nice price at the market and his grain was much heartier than what they could grow up there.