It was late when they rolled their plaids on the ground near the dying fire and went to sleep. Bronwyn stayed close to Stephen, happy enough to be near him without needing to make love. This feeling of closeness was new to her and made her feel warm and content.
Very early the next morning they hitched the wagon and rolled into the little walled town. There seemed to be hundreds of shops as well as tiny houses inside the walls, and the air was heavy and hardly worth breathing. The whole place made Bronwyn long for the out-of-doors.
She’d been to few towns in her life. Instead the merchants had traveled to Larenston to sell their goods.
Donald pulled the wagon off the narrow main street, just in front of an alleyway, and unhitched the horses. They set up a pot of the drink they’d made, then started to call to people to buy. Kirsty and Bronwyn sat inside the wagon and listened. Stephen’s deep voice boomed out over all the noise of the town. He made some rather extraordinary promises for the drink, talking about his own slight experience with it as if it’d cured him from leprosy.
But no one bought from them.
People paused and listened, but they offered no pennies to buy the miracle liquid.
“Perhaps you should do some of those body flips like you did for Tam,” Bronwyn teased.
Stephen ignored her taunts as he tried to coax a young man to buy by telling him the drink would improve his love life.
“Maybe you need some help, but I don’t,” the young man replied. The crowd laughed and began to move away.
“I think it’s time I gave this a try,” Bronwyn said as she began unbuttoning her shirt.
“Bronwyn!” Kirsty protested. “Are you planning to do something that’ll make Stephen angry?”
She smiled. “Probably. Is this low enough?” She glanced down at the generous curve of her breasts exposed by the unbuttoned shirt.
“More than enough. Donald would have my hair if I walked about like that.”
“The Englishwomen wear dresses cut as low as decently possible,” Bronwyn replied.
“But you’re not English!”
Bronwyn only smiled in answer as she climbed down the front of the wagon, on the far side of where Stephen stood.
Stephen smiled in surprise when he first heard Bronwyn call out. “This will cure anything from boils to the sweating sickness,” she was saying. He watched as the crowd began to move to the side of the wagon.
“Is your wife unhappy?” Bronwyn called. “Maybe it’s your fault. This drink will make you the most powerful of men. And as a love potion it’s unsurpassed.”
“Do you think it’ll get me something like you?” a man shouted.
“Only if you were to drink a whole hogshead of it,” Bronwyn replied instantly.
The crowd laughed.
“I think I’ll try it,” another man shouted.
“I’m going to buy some for my husband,” a woman cried before she hurried to the end of the wagon, where Donald and Stephen waited.
For a while Stephen was too busy filling the townspeople’s containers and taking pennies to really listen to Bronwyn. He was proud of the way she was selling and pleased that the people liked her. He chuckled once at the idea of an English lady acting as a barker with so much success.
It was when he began to hear the low, suggestive laughter of the men that she really got his attention.
One of the men holding out a cup turned to his companion. “She half as much promised to meet me by the town well.”
Stephen’s face turned cold. “Did she tell you that I’d be there too?” he asked in a deadly voice.
The man looked up at Stephen, at the challenge in the handsome face. The man backed away. “Don’t blame me, ’twas her that gave me the idea.”
“Damn her!” Stephen said viciously and threw the ladle into the drink. Just what the hell did she think she was doing?
He stopped when he rounded the corner of the wagon. Her shirt was unbuttoned, exposing a great deal of her high, firm breasts. She’d removed her concealing plaid, and her skirt clung to her hips. She walked back and forth in front of the ever increasing crowd of people. And the way she walked! Her hands were on her hips, and her hips swayed seductively.