Chapter 17

"Captain, do you think it was wise for us to leave the road?" Maria questioned as she tripped over her third fallen tree branch. She couldn't for the life of her figure out why they had turned off of the clearly marked path and into the wood behind Pavel's Traumland.

"Don't you remember what Pavel told us? The train station is two miles from here. He said there was track laid halfway from the town to here. I'm thinking if we follow the wood instead of the path we'll run into that track somewhere along the way. Once we find it, we can just follow it to the train station." The Captain checked his watch, "It's ten-thirty now. Pavel said the next train was at noon. If we find that track we'll have plenty of time to travel the two miles to the train station."

They were walking parallel along the back of Pavel's fake town. From back here the "town" was no more than a bunch of wood fronts being supported by large wooden beams at angles. It wasn't very pretty and it made Maria sad to see Pavel's unfinished dream from this side. From the front it all looked so homey, peaceful and quaint. From back here it was rough, dreary and bland. It reminded her of what her heart felt like at the moment and brought more stinging tears to her eyes that she held back. Not allowing them to fall over the brim. She had cried enough, she told herself. Crying wasn't going to fix her life. At this point she didn't think anything could, so she just followed blindly behind the Captain.

"There look!" The Captain exclaimed pointing his finger toward the edge of the wood. Maria squinted to see what it was that the Captain thought that he had found. But she didn't see anything worthy of such a climatic exclamation. Nothing but more wood and leaves.

"Ahhh...I'm not sure what you're seeing Captain."

The Captain sighed at her, "Can't see the forest for the trees, can you?" Maria's head snapped up in indignation at his accusation. But before she could rally against his acute insult, he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward his revelation. She had no choice but to stumble along after him as he yanked her through the undergrowth and branches.

"Look," he stated when he came to a stop but still held her hand, "an obvious footpath that leads back to Traumland. Probably whoever brings Pavel his provisions follows this from town. If we follow this, I bet we'll find those train tracks." The Captain gave her his victorious smile, "We'll be home tonight in time to tuck the children into bed."

Then, as if God meant to punish the Captain for being too arrogant in his assumptions, the clouds that had been threatening from the east met the clouds that had been threatening from the west darkening the sky above their heads in an ominous gray glow. The ground under their feet shook from the force of the thunder that cracked just above their heads. The wind, picking up from nowhere, whipped around their legs. Dead leaves came up from the ground swirling around them like a bunch of angry bees as the dead branches nipped at their ankles. There was another loud crack of thunder, stronger than the first, followed by a several bolts of lightning.

The Captain strengthened the grip around her hand and yanked her back towards the safety of Pavels cottage just as the heavens opened up and poured rain down upon them. Within seconds Maria's skirts were drenched and heavy from the weight of the water. By the time they reached the open courtyard Maria was soaked clear through to her undergarments.

They sprinted the rest of the way to Pavel's cottage. Busting through the door in a trot, the wind whipped the door closed behind them before they even had the chance to close it themselves. Meanwhile the Captain kicked at one of the table chairs in frustration sending the innocent piece of furniture skidding across the floor.

"Where the hell did that storm come from!" He shouted out at nothing in particular.

"Captain!" Maria admonished his curse.

"Oh don't 'Captain' me!" He was so angry at this new set of circumstances he could spit fire right now. It was as if God just didn't want them to ever get back home again. "I swear God is punishing me!"

"God is not punishing you Captain, it's just bad luck, is all."

"No...you're bad luck." She gave him an indignant look at his insult. "And this," he waved his arms around the little room, "is my punishment."

"What would God have to punish you for?"

He harrumphed at that, "oh I don't know...for abandoning my children when they needed me the most….hmmm? For cursing him for taking away my wife….perhaps. Or...let's see...how about the greatest sin of all! For stealing his future bride's innocence? Yes...I believe that's the winner right there!" He slammed his fist onto the already marred surface of the old wooden table to drive his point home. "Without question!"

Immediately he regretted his outburst when he saw the melancholy look cross Maria's face.

He reached out to touch her arm as she backed away from him, "Maria...I'm sorr…."

"You said you weren't sure what happened." Her reminder of his own words cut off his apology.

Her naivety was normally quite alluring to him. However, given the circumstances of the past few days right now it did nothing more than grate further on his already tattered nerves.

"Oh let's not be daft, my dear. I may have no memory of it, but faced with the facts I do believe I know the truth." For some reason his eyes without his permission looked her up and down. He could feel the cynicism oozing from them even if he couldn't stop it. "And I think you know it as well as I do. Even if you had no previous experience to recognize the signs, I am positive there were things that morning that even you had to question."

If he had any doubts before they were erased by the shocked look on her face that faded quickly into guilt. He knew she was hiding something. More than likely the final piece of the puzzle that would tell the entire story.

Her nervous left hand fluttered across her abdomen, "I don't know what you mean, Captain."

Like a prat he of all people had the nerve to be annoyed that she kept her knowledge away from him. Didn't he, as well as she, deserve to know the truth?

"Here's what I know, Maria" He began to pace in small circles in front of the fire like an solicitor delivering his closing remarks to a jury of peers. "By Mikesh's account you and I were all over each other at the ceremony. I know that at some point we returned to our room- alone- and still under the influence of the drugged water. I know the next morning I awoke naked in the bed next to you. I know that you as well were quite undressed." Her eyes widened at this knowledge then her mouth opened as if to start a formal protest. He simply raised his hand to silence her. "And I know that there was blood on the sheets…"

"But that could have been there already!" She was backing away from him now. "You said so yourself." He shot her a look that said she had better stop right there.

He let out a long sigh before confessing, "It was also on me, Maria." He watched as she took in this last piece of evidence that he had just presented her with. Behind her eyes he witnessed her run through the gauntlet from confusion to understanding. "At least, I assume it was your blood. Did you notice anything that morning...perhaps when you used the restroom?" Her cheeks flamed red while her eyes narrowed at him and then went wide after a few seconds of pondering. When her hand flew to her mouth the final puzzle piece was pushed into place. There was no question now of what had taken place that night.

"Well there you go." He whispered ending the argument and sending a crestfallen Maria crashing down onto the nearest chair.

She looked down at her feet refusing to meet his gaze shaking her head in denial.

"But really, we still don't know for…"

He stopped her before she could finish her last attempt to hang on to her innocence.

"Even without the evidence Maria, I know the truth."

"But...we don't really."

He knelt down in front of her and tilted her chin forcing her eyes to find his. "Without the drugs, without my inhibitions being gone, before we even met the gypsies -it was highly doubtful you were going to get through that night intact. I believe that's a fact we are both well aware of."

"I don't understand what you're saying."

"Come now, please don't make me say it out loud." He pushed himself back up to his feet and began pacing the room. "You know what I mean."

"I can assure you Captain that I don't." She stood from her chair smoothing her skirts and ignoring his insinuating eyes. Damn she was more stubborn than the harrowing storm that still raged outside the walls of the cabin.

"We've been playing a dangerous game for weeks now." She turned away from him facing the fireplace that separated the main room of the cabin to the back room where Pavel had died. "Haven't we?" Her posture went ramrod straight as he placed his hand on the back of her shoulder. Shrugging off his gesture she knelt before the vacant fireplace.

"We should start a fire and dry our clothes, don't you think Captain?"

TSOM TSOM TSOM TSOM TSOM

The damn storm lasted throughout the rest of the day keeping them locked safe behind the cabin walls. Once it reached three in the late afternoon the Captain made the decision that they would be spending another night in Traumland. There wouldn't be enough daylight left to carry them to town and even when they arrived there they would be stuck until noon the next day waiting for the train. It was better to stay where they knew they had a place to shelter for the night with plenty of food to feed their bellies.

Their conversation remained minimal for the rest of the day. While they respectively kept busy with their chosen tasks, hers in preparing the food and his keeping the fire stoked and making a few trips to the woodshed and back with dry firewood. The wood was dry but he was soaked to the bone from the short walk to the shed and back in the driving rain.

Changing for the third time and hopefully his last for the day, the Captain was left with Pavel's last dressing gown for the night. Hopefully their clothes would dry by the fire during the night otherwise the Captain didn't want to even think about what he was going to have to wear the next day. He stared at the offending last piece of clothing that would fit him hanging in Pavel's closest and said a quick prayer. There was no way he was going to wear that outfit out in public. Although, somehow he already knew that God wasn't quite through with him yet.

After dinner he conned Maria into playing a few games of cards with him just to break up the boredom- and perhaps the tension as well. It didn't go quite as he had planned for the only conversation she had for him pertained to the game. It was the unspoken conversation though that haunted him throughout the rest of the night as he fitfully tried to sleep on the floor in front of the fire while Maria rested upstairs. He had chosen not to sleep in the bed that Pavel had expired in the night before.

Sometime after midnight he heard the creek of the floorboards above his head. From the glow of the fire he could make out Maria's form coming down the ladder steps.

"What's the matter?" He asked before she even made it down from the last step.

"I can't sleep." She whispered still facing the ladder with her back turned to him. Even though it was invisible to the eye the weight she carried on her shoulders seemed even too heavy for Hercules to carry. He should know for his too was weighing him down.

She came off the ladder and stood precariously in the middle of the small room. As if she didn't know exactly how she had gotten there. Or what to do now that she was there.

"Is there something that you wanted, Maria?" The Captain asked as he began to wrap the thin sheet that he had been using as a blanket around himself. It had been warm sleeping in front of the fire. The only thing he had found to lay upon on the hard floor had been the bearskin rug that had previously been covering the floor in Pavel's room. The rug, though cozy, was also quite warm especially since the Captain had lain a clean comforter over the rug for a barrier between his body and the collected filth from fifty years of covering a floor. So once Maria had retired up to bed for the night he had been stripping blankets and clothing off to deal with the extra heat. He was now only dressed in his knickers and nothing else.

"Ummm...ahhh…." Maria muttered from her spot by the ladder. She was obviously at some sort of crossroads and wasn't quite sure which way to go. He imagined she was thinking it was better to go back up the ladder and return to the safety of her hideaway.

Then she surprised him by letting go of the wooden structure and sinking down next to him on the bear skin rug. She sat Indian style and more faced the fire rather than look directly at him.

"Do you remember the other night at the…." she paused here and bit on the inside of her lip, "at the spring?"

He wanted to say, 'You mean at the hot spring where I conned you into kissing me and I almost ravished you against a rock...yeah I remember.' Instead though he just nodded his head.

"Do you remember what you said to me?" Oh no, his mind screamed, please don't remind me. Before he could answer of course she was all too willing to remind him of his own words. "You said that I needed to experience life before I could take my vows. You said that I shouldn't become a nun without knowing what I was leaving behind." He sat up from his blankets readying himself to run if this conversation went where he thought it was going to go.

"You said that it wouldn't be a sin if we kissed since in the eyes of the law we are legally married."

"Yes, I...I…" he began to stutter as he strategically got up from the mound of blankets while wrapping the sheet around his waist, "I did say that…"

"Then it wouldn't be a sin if we…." although the glow of the room was red from the flames of the fire, he was sure Maria's face grew redder by the second as her innocence choked the last words of her sentence back down her throat. "did that thing again that we think we did."

He scratched at his right ear.

"That thing we did?" His initial reaction was to chuckle at her inability to not be able to say the word while the rest of his mind whirled in different directions of where he should go from here. Of course the old philandering navy man inside of him was screaming… 'hell yeah' while the gentlemen that he wanted to be was telling him to tread carefully. At the current moment the two were fist fighting inside of his head creating an enormous headache.

"Maria," he began in his most fatherly voice, "we can't, I mean I can't…"

Embarrassed at being cut down she began to get up from her place in his makeshift bed.

"Maria, wait." He wrestled himself out of his sheets to stop her before she made it back up the ladder stairs. If she left him now and he didn't get to finish what he was going to say he was afraid the damage would be irreparable. He caught her just as her foot landed on the first riser. Resting both of his hands on her shoulders he stopped her escape and turned her around to face him.

However, she refused to meet his eyes and stared at the floor. In the glow of the fire light he could see tears streaking down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry Captain," she began to stammer, "I thought that you….I forgot about the Baroness...I just...It's not fair you see. I've never done that before and well...of course I was curious, I mean it is human nature and well, it's not fair you see that I can't remember what it was like and….I thought that since we are still legally married it wouldn't be a sin. God wouldn't think any less of me if we...if you showed me what it's like...Ohhhh." She covered her face in shame.

The Captain took her hands into his and removed them from her face. Slowly he wrapped her arms around is quite naked torso and then pulled her into a tight embrace. He laced his one hand through her hair and pulled her ear next to his lips.

"Maria," he soothed in a gentle tone, "it's not a sin for you to be curious."

"You don't want me." She stated it rather than asked it and his heart shattered. How could she think that?

He nuzzled his lips into her neck and grazed his way back up to her ear, "You have no idea how wrong you are."

"Then why won't you show me?"

He let out a long frustrated sigh. He didn't know for how long he would be able to stand on what little moral ground he had mustered up.

In the damp of the night air he felt her shiver through her thin cotton nightgown. Thinking only of her he led her back to the fire and motioned for her to lay down on his makeshift bed. She must have confused his gentlemanly gesture for acquiescence for she began to lift her nightgown over her head. As he took his place beside her he stopped her before the hem of the gown reached the apex of her thighs.

"No, Maria, please stop….before I can't stop."

Leaning over her she looked up at him with such confusion in her eyes. He would love to show her all that she wanted to know, but not like this.

"Maria, yes in my day I may have taken many a woman into my bed. I'm not going to lie to you. I have used them and they me as well. But you are different." She looked away from him glaring into the fire. But he wasn't having it, so he gently tilted her chin back to him. "With you it has to be forever. Are you prepared for that?" Her silence was his answer.

"But I want to know what it's like before I commit myself to God."

"Yes, I'm sure you do. And if you were any less than what you are, then perhaps I could be the rake that I normally am. But you make me want to be a better man, Maria." He swiped some errant hairs away from her eyes. "I just can't use you like that."

A/N...okay so this update-I know-has been a long time coming. I'm slowly getting slightly back into writing. I'm not making any promises though. This story had a clear beginning in my head, a hazy middle, but a good clear ending. The hazy middle is what is throwing me off and now the story is taking a turn that I can't seem to stop. So it's messing up my intended ending. So it's going to take me some time to sort it all out. Bear with me for the time being and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It's not what it was supposed to be so I'm wavering about it.