Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

The more time John spent with Anna, the more he yearned to keep her by his side forever. After the close call with the soldiers, they rode hard the rest of the day, stopping only when it was too dark.

She helped him make camp. He couldn’t resist. “Tell me about the snakes.”

Her face burned.

“You mean the solider?” She gave him an odd look, and he realized she had called the man’s member a snake.

He responded with a rude jest, though in Norman French so she wouldn’t think him uncouth. John grinned.

“The lady has a wicked mind. Not that snake. The beasties you said live in Florida.”

Pink spread across her neck and face, making her eyes sparkle.

“Oh, I knew that.”

He resisted the urge to tease, instead waiting for her to tell him about the creatures.

“In Florida, there’s a large swampy area.” She shuddered. “Not unlike a bog with shallow water hiding all kinds of things. There are more than a million alligators in Florida alone. Many other warm states now have alligators in bodies of fresh water.”

“So many. And they can eat a man? Are they hunted and eaten?”

She wrinkled up her nose, which he noticed she did whenever she was thinking. How this woman could think she wasn’t beautiful was beyond his reasoning. She had the clearest green eyes, reminding him of a summer meadow, and her skin was so soft and smooth that he constantly found himself aching to touch her.

“They’re usually shy creatures. But yes, some have eaten humans. And if someone’s pet gets too close to the water, an alligator will snatch it. I rather like them. I always have, ever since I was a child. So I wish they weren’t hunted, though I understand why they are. Yes, people do eat them. I never have. To me it would be like eating your pet, though people say they taste like chicken. And shoes, belts, wallets, and purses are made from their hides.”

She turned a deeper shade of pink, making him wonder what she was going to say.

“I told you I used to sing to them when I was little. And I fed them marshmallows.”

“What did you sing?”

He could imagine Anna as a small child, her shimmering hair blowing in the breeze as she sang to the beast. The animals would be so enchanted by her voice that they would not eat her.

“And what are marshmallows?”

“My voice isn’t very good, but I love to sing when I’m alone. It’s one of the things I miss about being here. I used to get in my car, turn up the radio, and sing. When I was little, I didn’t have a favorite song; I would sing whatever song I liked at the moment. Though I mostly made up really silly songs to sing to the alligators. We had a dock that went out over the water and I used to sit on the edge, my legs crossed, and stare into the water, singing as if I could conjure them up from the depths. And it always seemed within a few minutes, one of the alligators would surface. He would sort of rock back and forth in the water, listening to me. He would come almost to the dock and what I know now about them…”

She shuddered, as if remembering something unpleasant.

“What do you know now?”

“Alligators can jump their length. And many of the alligators in the water behind our house were between six and fourteen feet long. So any of them could have easily jumped up and snatched me off the dock to eat me.”

“But none of the beasts ever did. They were so enchanted by your voice. Knew you loved them so they would not eat you. Even if you fell in, they would not eat you. One of the great creatures would let you climb on his back and take you to safety.”

She laughed. “And I thought I was the one with the fanciful imagination. I used to think that’s what would happen. You don’t know how desperately I wished I could swim with them. That they would let me ride on their back. I… Oh my.” Anna covered her mouth, trying to hold in her laughter.

“What?”

“Promise you won’t tell him?”

“Aye. Who?”

“Henry.”

John was perplexed. What did Henry have to do with alligators?

“I had a favorite alligator. He was twelve feet long and only had one eye. When I sang to him sometimes he would roll, showing me his belly, and he’d come up to the edge of the dock. But the funny part is…I named him Henry.”

John grinned. “Your secret is safe with me.”

She handed him a peach and sat close to the fire he’d built up.

Before he took a bite, he looked at the fruit. He’d seen her arse when she undressed. It reminded him of a peach. John shifted from foot to foot.

“What are marshmallows?”

“They’re hard to explain.” She looked around, picked up a rock, and held it in her palm. “The big ones are about this big, and white in color. The little ones, more like the size of a pebble.”

Anna tossed the rock aside. “When you bite into a marshmallow, well, it’s sort of like biting into a cloud. Airy and sweet. It’s really hard to explain. I’d try to make them for you, but I don’t think I could re-create them, especially since I’m a terrible cook.”

She snorted. “They don’t have much of a taste, but for some reason the alligators loved them. Marshmallows float. So I would throw one into the water, and when the alligator surfaced he would slowly swim over…then snap , the marshmallow was gone in a second. It was the most amazing sight to a child, and I would laugh and clap my hands every time they ate one.”

When she was talking about something that made her happy, she lit up from within. He knew there was no woman in the whole of England more beautiful than she.

“If we ran out of the big marshmallows, I’d have to take the small ones.”

Her face turned sad. “My mother used to get so mad at me for taking all the marshmallows. She played cards and always took a dessert with marshmallows. And I was always taking them. We bought bagfuls.”

He was trying to imagine what the food tasted like. “Are marshmallows served for dinner?”

“You don’t eat them as a meal. They are more of a garnish. Like adding carrots to stew. The carrot isn’t the whole meal…bad example. For some people carrots are a meal. The marshmallow is a topping. And the little ones, the alligators would eat them, but I don’t think they liked them as much because it was more work for them to chomp all the little pieces.”

John wanted to ask her more about alligators and the large snakes she said were in Florida. Before he could ask, he sensed movement.

John threw Anna to the ground, covering her with his body. Pressed against her, he felt the length of her against him. For a moment he wanted to stay like this forever. He said quietly, “We are not alone. Stay still.”

He drew the dagger from his boot and rolled to his feet, the other hand on the sword at his hip, crouched in front of her, to protect her with his body. They had stone at their back. The enemy would have to meet him first.

“Show yourself, whoreson.”

The old woman stepping out into the firelight could not have surprised him more.

“You live. Rabbie said all perished in the fire.”

Magda’s eyes gleamed. When she grinned, he could see she was now missing a tooth on the side of her mouth. She cackled as she said, “’Tis not so easy as all that to kill me.”

She turned to gaze upon Anna. “Who have we here?”