“Do you know why we married you?”
“You just told me!” I shouted. “Lust at first sight. You simply had to have me. You’re like a pirate, taking whatever you want.”
Logan circled around, behind Ford, and stopped to stand beside us. “We understand you’re upset, sweetheart, but you do not have to be insolent.”
I bit my lip, but made it clear I was not happy by narrowing my gaze. His response was to laugh. How he could find humor in this situation was beyond me. Ah yes, Logan wasn’t legally married to me and he’d had his cock sucked. He was the only one free to walk away from this… predicament. But he didn’t move away; instead he moved in closer, until they both towered over me, making me feel small and helpless—and aroused. I stared at Logan’s lips as he began to speak.
“Mr. Samuel Jenkins is approximately sixty years old. He is missing a front tooth right here.” Logan pointed into his mouth. “He favors chewing tobacco and bathes about once a month.”
I shook my head, unable to process more lies. “No, he just turned forty in January.”
Ford shook his head. “His two sons are in their twenties and are very eager to make your acquaintance. They planned to share you between them once the old man was finished with you. They bragged about it last night at the saloon.” While his fingers tightened on my wrists, it wasn’t because he was trying to hurt me, but because of ire, and it wasn’t directed at me.
This couldn’t be true. It simply couldn’t. “No. He wrote that his boys are small, still in primary school.”
“Did he also tell you that the older boy, Tad, is nearing thirty, a half head taller than I, and eager to fill you with his seed?” Logan asked. “Or that his younger son, Harry, has only ever fucked whores, but he and his brother have a reputation for treating a woman so rough that the prostitutes in town refuse to service them?”
I thought back to the boring, if somewhat vague last letter I’d received. “Well, no. He said his two sons would need my—attention.” I sucked in a breath and tried not to toss the contents of my stomach onto the hard ground. “Oh, my God.”
Logan ran his big, strong hand up and down my back as if that would help soften this blow. Did I dare believe them?
Looking up into Ford’s too serious gaze, I realized that I did. I believed every word. “Samuel Jenkins was planning to marry you, Lizzie. That was the truth. He was also planning on sharing you with his fully grown sons.”
I tugged at Ford’s hold and he released me, but I didn’t go anywhere.
“What was it that he said?” Ford asked Logan. “Oh, yes. He said that any child would be a Jenkins, no matter whose seed took root.”
I gasped, more than confident I understood exactly what that meant, especially now, with Ford’s seed sliding down my inner thighs. How could this be true? Would a man be so cruel as to lie about everything and send for a woman—a woman who was desperate to escape her current life—only to dishonor and abuse her in such a way? It was abhorrent.
I glanced between Logan and Ford, one then the other, then back. They looked at me steadily, waiting. They weren’t lying. I could tell that every word of it was the truth. Bile rose in my throat at how close I had been to living trapped in a new kind of hell. Perhaps remaining at home and marrying my uncle’s choice, the stodgy and formal Mr. Partridge, would have been better. He stunk of tobacco and lamp oil, and had grown children, but I doubted he’d planned to give me to them to fuck.
“What about you?” I stuck my pointing finger in the center of Ford’s broad chest. I was angry and hurting, and hating all men in general at the moment. “You married me and shared me with him.”
“I did,” Ford responded quickly. He wasn’t denying it? “All of the men you met in Hayes are from the same military regiment. We were stationed in Mohamir. Have you heard of the country?”
I nodded, for I read every newspaper I could get my hands on, always had. Much to my uncle’s discontent.
“Their custom is designed to protect and treasure their women. Each woman deserves more than just one man to marry and care for her. To cherish her.”
I felt the sincerity of his words and my hand drifted over my racing heart. The wild swing of emotions over the last couple of hours was taking its toll, and the abused organ actually ached as if I had a fist inside my chest squeezing the wounded heart of me.
Logan’s rough voice took over the telling of their story. “Mohamir is a wild place, the country unsettled and remote. Their customs ensure the woman’s safety and well-being. Should one husband die, his widow will not be alone or unprotected. Neither will her children.” Logan’s voice gentled on those words and I imagined him with a bouncing, laughing baby on his knee, and his strong, protective arms holding a wee babe to his chest, rocking a little one to sleep at night. “We spent many years fighting, watching our friends die. We faced death many times ourselves and we know, too well, how short life truly is. We adopted their custom, Lizzie, so any woman we claimed would be well protected, her safety and well being placed above our own. We have simply been waiting for the right woman to claim.”
“You,” Ford said.
Something they said had taken a moment to sink in and my new understanding startled me. “The others, Daniel and Evan, and the other men, they follow this custom as well?”
“Yes,” Ford offered.
“My sisters are with them!” What were the men going to do to them? Seduce my sisters, as Ford and Logan had seduced me?
“Your sisters are safe. You heard the men. They will protect them with their lives,” Logan insisted. “And they will not touch your sisters. They are not rapists, Lizzie. They won’t touch an innocent, not without the vows of marriage and a woman’s consent. They are honorable men. I give you my word.”
My panic receded to simmering worry for my sisters as Logan’s
words settled in my heart. Perhaps my mind had been addled by the pleasure I experienced at his hands, but I believed him.
“We kept you from marrying Mr. Jenkins to protect you.” Ford lifted my chin with his fingers, forced me to look at him. “But I wanted to fuck you, Lizzie. We wanted you hot and naked between us. We married you out of honor, but we lied solely because we could not risk that your own honor would have forced you to marry Mr. Jenkins. I have no doubt, given the fire I’ve seen the last few hours, that our suspicions were correct, and you would have confronted him about his intentions. Either way, we could not allow his evil to touch you. As your men—your husbands—your safety comes first, even if you aren’t happy with our actions. We will do what’s best for you.”