She said she was thinking about what she just told me. I smiled because I thought she had reconsidered her words. ?Give me your wedding ring? she co...manded. ?You are not my husband, you are my slave? she said. I slipped the ring off of my left hand and gave it to her. ?Open your mouth? she told me as I kneeled before her. I opened my mouth as wide as I could and held it that way for what seemed like a half an hour. It was likely only a minute while she worked up a mouth full of saliva. I bent and kissed her gently.She gestured to a chair, rang a small bell and smiled again. Tea appeared in Rosa's hands along with crackers, sweets and small open-faced sandwiches. She poured, we drank and when the servants had left, she put down her cup."Damn," she said, hunching her shoulders, "it is good to see you. You are just about the first honest face I've seen since I've been in this mannerless, overgrown hamlet." You are associating with the wrong people," I told her as straight-faced. I had stayed hard, but tried to ignore it.She was a luscious young woman, and I had been eager to bed her and plunder her ripe body before her stupid brother and his crew of redcoated jackals appeared. I shot the boy officer off his horse and then we ran, she in her frilly shift and half-loosened corset and me still booted thank you very much with my shirttail flapping and flies ahoo.Now we lay together in a ditch while I showed her how to prime properly and snap the frizzen closed. We kissed. The door opened. I remember him framed by the light behind him. He was a delicately good looking guy, around five foot nine I think, smooth faced, always smartly dressed with a sense of style that was more evolved than the usual image seen in the village. My rehearsed plan and certainty fell apart quickly. The ‘Hi’ I whispered under my frightened breath was barely audible. His clear and self possessed ‘Hello’ in return only added to my troubles. I had totally lost control of the situation.