11

Once a Captive

Belle intended to show her husband a very different side of herself that night, wanting to continue what they had begun that morning. But after all of the emotional excitement and exhaustion of having her children home safe again and listening to their extraordinary tale of finding gold in the cave they had taken shelter in—if the gold were real, Belle found she was too tired afterwards to muster up any energy other than just enough needed to put on her nightgown and go to sleep.

While she was changing, Rumple was sitting on the bed, rolling the gold nugget inbetween his hands and saying, "I can bring this to the assayer tomorrow and make sure it's legitimate. And I'll make sure no word about this crosses his lips to anyone but me."

"How will you do that?" Belle called from behind the screen.

"I'll threaten to slap him with a lawsuit that will impugn his credibility in his field," replied the tailor. Even without his magic, he was no dummy. He knew quite well how contracts worked and the reputations that were built upon them. Especially in business.

"That's very clever, Rum," Belle said, coming out from behind the screen, her hair loose and flowing. She held a brush in her hands.

Seeing that she looked rather tired, and wanting to help her, he offered, "Let me brush your hair for you."

She yawned. "That's not really necessary, Mr. Gold."

"But I want to." He patted the bed. "C'mere."

She sat next to him, presenting her back to him, and handed him the brush.

He began carefully to draw the boar bristle brush through the thick strands of her hair, which was a delightful mixture of sable and russet highlights. As he brushed he hummed a Scottish tune he had heard down at the bar when he had gone there one afternoon with Jack, an old love ballad.

"That's a pretty song," Belle said quietly, luxuriating in the feel of him running the brush through her hair. No matter how many times she brushed her own hair, she had never felt this way as she did when her husband brushed it for her. It made her quiver and long to turn and lay her head in his lap. "Is it from Scotland?"

"Aye, 'tis," Rum replied, never ceasing his brushing. "It's called "My Bonny Scottish Lass" and I liked how it fit you." He deftly detangled some knots in her hair and then began to plait it, as she usually wore it that way to sleep, since the plaits kept her hair from getting too tangled.

She gave him an arch look and said, "Where did you learn to braid hair? Do you have a daughter you're not telling me about?"

Rumple chuckled. "It's not hard. I learned how to braid horse hair and string, a person's hair is no different. I'm a tailor, dearie, and used to working with thread. What's hair but just a different kind of thread?"

"You have magic hands, Mr. Gold," she teased.

"No," he said quickly, suppressing a shudder. "I'm just an ordinary man."

"No man is just ordinary, Rum," she corrected softly. "We are all special and unique with our own gifts and talents. As God intended."

He shrugged a shoulder. "If you say so."

"You don't believe me, I can tell. But perhaps one day you will," she said serenely, knowing how hard it was to believe anything good when people had always told you otherwise.

When he had tied off her plait, she turned and took his hands in hers. "Thank you, Rum. I haven't had anyone dress my hair since I was a child and my mama used to help me. It was very soothing and comforting."

"I was happy to do it," he murmured. He cupped her chin in his hand. "May I give you a kiss goodnight?"

"Of course," she agreed, thinking that most men wouldn't have even bothered to ask.

He brought his lips down on hers, intending it to be brief kiss, but his body and mind had other ideas.

As soon as his mouth met hers, he felt a jolt like lightning surge through him and he instinctively deepened the kiss from merely platonic to passionate. He wanted to go slowly, to not frighten her with the intensity of his feelings, but his restraint hung by a thread and he could barely control himself. His hands wrapped around her and pulled her to him, as he kissed her as if he were a flower starved for sunshine and rain.

At first Belle was startled that her husband was actually volunteering to kiss her, but as the kiss deepened, changing from a brief brush of lips to something more fiery and consuming, she found herself responding to him, her hands slipping about his neck, fingers tangling in his silky flyaway hair, pulling his head down so she could devour his mouth like a sweet confection. She knew she was behaving boldly, in a manner totally counter to her usual demure self, but she couldn't bring herself to care at the moment. All she wanted was to kiss him and never stop.

Gold's eyes widened as his wife kissed him back, matching his passion with her own. He was shocked Belle desired him as much as he did her, considering Milah never had thought he was anything special in the romance department. She had once said his kisses were that of a milksop and not a real man. Of course that had been after he had returned home branded a coward, but now that he thought about it, she had never truly been enthusiastic about their lovemaking even in the beginning of their marriage, try though he had to be gentle and considerate, as the spinsters who raised him had taught him.

He tasted of chocolate, a hint of cinnamon, since he flavored his cocoa that way, and mint from the tooth powder he'd brushed his teeth with. She had never felt so alive or so filled with desire before, she burned as if with a fever and only his touch could quench it.

She made him quiver all the way down to his feet, his breath catch in his throat, fire licking through him. Her lips tasted delightfully of honey and tea, sweetness and light, he gently sipped it like a bee plundering nectar from a flower.

Finally he drew away, saying huskily, "Good night, dearie."

"Sweet dreams, Rum." She murmured with a dreamy note in her voice.

If she hadn't been so weary she would have allowed it to go further, but she was tired and she needed her sleep.

Rumple snuggled down beneath the covers and thought his dreams would be quite sweet indeed tonight.

Still savoring the kiss, his eyes shut and he slept.

He was awakened several hours later by Belle thrashing and whimpering in her sleep. Her hand hit him in the head. "No . . .please . . .don't . . ." She jerked violently and screamed, "You shot him!"

"Belle . . .dearie, it's all right . . .you're having a nightmare," he soothed, sitting up, both so he could shake her gently and to escape her flailing fists and avoid getting a black eye.

At his touch, she opened her eyes, their cobalt depths filled with pain and terror. " . . .they shot him . . .and now they're coming for you . . ."

He reached out and captured her hands gently. "Belle, Belle, it's a dream. Nobody's coming to get me, I'm right here. Shh . . .shh . . ."

She relaxed and then he released her hands.

"It was . . .so real . . .I was back there . . .the day it happened . . ." she gasped, her heart thundering in her chest like a runaway locomotive.

"Back where?"

"At the Indian encampment, when the soldiers came, and they demanded that all white captives and any with white blood be returned to them," Belle said raggedly. "It was in the middle of the wedding feast, and Storm, he—he refused and said, "You can't take my bride, she belongs with me. Or my daughter." And . . ." she began to tremble.

Rumple slid an arm around her, for he feared she would shake herself to pieces. But he didn't interrupt, sensing this was something she needed to speak of, to lance the old wound that was poisoning her spirit.

" . . .and then one of the soldiers laughed and said, "You think we give a damn about your heathen customs, Injun devil? She comes with us, she's as white as we are, and she belongs back with her people!" I tried to tell them I was no longer a captive, that I had chosen to stay but they didn't believe me. They called Storm a beast and when he went to stop one from putting his hands on me . . .they shot him . . .he didn't even have a weapon . . .and they shot him because of me . . . !" Tears streaked her face. "He fell . . .and I screamed in Algonquin, "No! My husband!" and I tried to help him . . .but there was so much blood . . .all over . . .and it was a direct shot to the heart . . . he died whispering my name and that he loved me . . ." Suddenly a storm of sobs overtook her as the grief that she had imprisoned in her heart burst free and flowed through her with all the force of a raging river.

She turned and buried her head in Rumple's shoulder and sobbed raggedly, feeling the death of her husband as if it were newly born, as she had suppressed most of the horror and grief of that day because she needed to be strong for Regina and to show the soldiers she was no coward. And afterwards she had been too busy trying to reacclimate and help Regina and somehow she had locked away her griefstricken heart until now . . .now she wept against another man's chest for the warrior she had lost.

Rumple held her, murmuring softly, and rubbing her back. "Ye poor thing . . . did ye never mourn what ye had lost . . .?" he crooned.

She shook her head, still sniffling and crying. " . . .had to be brave . . .show them . . ."

"You've been brave long enough. What is it the Good Book says—there is a time and purpose for all things—a time to live and a time to die, a time to mourn?" His hand rubbed her neck gently.

"I . . .I thought I had . . ." she whimpered, a catch in her throat.

"Not enough, mo chroi," he crooned. "Not nearly enough."

"But over a year has passed . . ."

"Grief has no timetable, dearie." He stroked her hair, undoing her braid.

She dissolved into tears again, and wept until she was hoarse, and all the while he held her in his lap, his hands providing solace and comfort she had never known she needed until now.

She lay with her head on his chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart, and realized with some chagrin that she was in his lap, her nightgown about her knees, disheveled, and had soaked his nightshirt. She flushed, but made no move to leave, because it felt so very good to be held, like she was a precious porcelain cup, or a treasured book.

For long moments they lay together, until Rumple asked, "Feel better now, dearie?"

She raised her head, her face blotchy with tears, eyes luminous, and said, "Yes . . .I'm sorry . . .for . . .waking you up . . .with my stupid dream . . .and then crying all over you like . . .a blubbering baby . . ."

"Hey," he gently wiped the tears away and grabbed and handkerchief off the stand. "You can wake me up anytime you need to. And I'm always available if you need to talk or cry on my shoulder . . .anytime, mo chroi."

"Rum, what's that word mean?" she asked, blowing her nose.

"It means my heart in Gaelic," he replied, he had learned it from a book of rhymes by the Scottish poet Robert Burns.

"Mo chroi. That's beautiful, Rum. Storm used to call me his little wise owl in Algonquin, but this sounds just as nice," she said. She laid a hand on her heart. "I still miss him . . .even after all this time . . ." Then she looked away. "Forgive me for talking about . . .my late husband . . .I'm sure you don't want to hear about the man I used to love . . ."

Her cheeks flamed.

"Why not? I want to know how someone like you fell in love with a man who was not even of your own culture . . .someone that most of the townsfolk here regard as a heathen savage," Rumple encouraged. "Tell me that story, Belle . . .the story of the captive bride." He leaned back against the pillows, and drew her back to lie against him.

"Well, it's kind of like the story of Beauty and the Beast, in a way . . ." she began. "My papa, Maurice Valcourt, was a scientist and engineer, he attended a great university in France and came here to make his fortune. He arrived in Boston and while he was making his way in the academic and scientific circles, he met my mama, Elise Merriman, herself the daughter of a Harvard professor. They fell in love and married, and soon they had my two sisters, Anna and Rose, and I came later. We were happy for a time. Papa went to Washington and got a commission there to help the war department with some secret thing, and then he worked for a time on improving conditions in the mills and factories with new machines, like the spinning jenny and the sewing machine." Belle smiled nostalgically. "He always came home with some new trinket for us and a tale to tell."

"He sounds like he was a good man."

"He was, and I can still recall the way Mama's eyes used to light up when he came in the door and cried, "Where's ma petite filles? I have returned!" We would all run to him. But one day he returned home sick with fever, and Mama nursed him until she too fell sick, and by then so had the rest of us. It was scarlet fever . . .and though Papa, me, and Anna recovered . . .Mama and Rose didn't. They passed away, and we were never the same afterwards. I was eight, and Anna was twelve . . .and Rose had always been the sister she was closest to. She became very bitter and angry, almost jealous of the fact that I had lived instead of our mama and sister. Once she even shouted that I should have died instead of Rose. Papa heard that though, and came out of his study and scolded her and when she wouldn't apologize for her hateful words, he paddled her behind. But I'm afraid it had little effect, because Anna still resented me, calling me brainy bookworm and saying no man wanted a bluestocking who could debate Wordsworth and Byron and not know how to bake a pie or mend a shirt."

"Sounds like grief made her petty and spiteful." Rumple remarked.

Belle nodded. "Yes, and it grew even worse when we were older. She wanted to marry a handsome dashing man, only those who came courting were mostly scholars and scientists, and she wanted nothing to do with them. Until Mark Evans came to call . . . he was a planter from Virginia and he was handsome and very athletic, rode to hunt and played tennis. But he wanted to court me, even though I was only sixteen. Anna . . .Anna was furious, since she was almost twenty and an old maid, as she thought it. So she . . .made up some story about me being . . .fanciful and given to visions and in short, she made him think I was touched in the head . . .so he broke off his courtship and turned to her. She married him six months later and moved down to Virginia and the last I saw of her was at Papa's funeral, he died suddenly of heart trouble when I was twenty. And he left the bulk of his fortune to me."

"I'll bet that didn't set right with her," Rumple surmised.

"It didn't. She practically caused a scene when the will was read, even though she had plenty of money from Mark as his wife. By then I was living on my own, in the house I'd grown up in, and working as a librarian. After Papa died, though, I felt that I needed to get away, I needed a change, and there was an advertisement in the paper about a librarian needed in a rural town called Storybrooke in Maine. I wrote to Mayor Spencer, sent him my references and credentials, and he agreed to pay my fare to come to the town and fill the position. So I settled my affairs, sold my house, wired the money I received to the bank in Storybrooke, and boarded the train that took me part of the way over here. I was twenty-two and this was the first time I had ever been out of Boston in my life. At the last stop on the line, I boarded a coach that was going to take me the rest of the way to Storybrooke. And that was when it happened."

"You were attacked on the road," Gold guessed.

"Yes. We were about ten miles from Storybrooke when it happened, and it was like they came out of nowhere. One minute we were going along, and it was me, the driver, and another man going to take the waters. The next we were surrounded by Mesquakie warriors screaming war cries and arrows sprouting from the coach like porcupine quills. The driver died before he could even call for help." She shivered slightly in remembrance and snuggled closer to Rumple.

"I was sure my days were over and I was going to end up scalped and hung up on a pole or some other grisly fate awaited me. I had heard all the stories—of captives beaten to death and made to run gauntlets and tortured until they died and women robbed of their virtue."

"But the stories weren't true."

"Oh they were—for other tribes and war bands who raided for vengeance. But not then, not for me. Because Storm led them, and he wasn't out for blood. He was out for captives to replace those they had lost in the great fever epidemic. His wife, Cora Miller, the daughter of a trapper who lived among his tribe, had died of the scarlet fever, along with many of the tribe. Regina herself barely survived. So he was out looking for someone to replace her dead mama. I didn't know that at the time though. Or of that particular custom among his people. I was sure I was going to join Papa in heaven. Instead I ended up being dragged out of the coach and thrown across Storm's Appaloosa, Gray Mist. Then we were racing back into the trees and I thought I was going to lose my lunch right there."

"I would've."

Belle grimaced. "Well, I did throw up later when he put me down. It made some of the younger warriors, like Night Moss and Striking Cougar laugh, but Storm didn't. Instead he asked them in Algonquin how they would have fared. Of course I didn't understand them then. But later I did."

"Who taught you their language?"

"Regina mostly. Then Willow Heart later. Both of them and Storm spoke English fairly well. But at first, I was just another pair of hands, and I was almost like a servant in Storm's wigwam."

"Did he treat you well?"

"At first he was very . . .forbidding and cold. He barely spoke to me, and Regina took my clothes and the women all led me to the river and made me bathe in the water, it was freezing and I was sure I was going to catch pneumonia, and they wanted to kill me off. But that wasn't the reason. It was to wash away my old life as white woman, and to make me reborn anew as a Mesquakie. It was like a baptism, and it made me one of the People.

"Willow shook her staff over me and smudged me with cedar and sage and white pine and gave me my Mesquakie name, Bright Owl. And that was what I was called from that day on. Regina took my clothes and gave me new ones of deerskin, tunic, leggings, and moccasins, they had been Cora's, and now they were mine. I was bewildered and confused. I didn't understand what they had done to me."

"No one explained it to you?"

"Not at first. I think I was meant to figure it out. In the beginning I thought I was no better than Storm's servant, meant to serve him and cook and sew, tan hides and gather food in the fields. Regina taught me their language, but at first she wasn't very welcoming, until Willow spoke to her and then she grew to look upon me as a friend. And as I learned their language, I saw that the way I was treated wasn't like a servant, because all the Mesuqakie women did these same chores around their wigwams. They worked hard, but then life is hard on the frontier."

"Is it true that the women do all the work and the men do nothing but smoke and drink and lie around all day?" Rumple queried, having heard that kind of talk down at the tavern.

Belle shook her head, her chestnut hair cascading over her shoulders. "No. The men hunt and track game all day to keep their families fed and they also trapped for furs to make clothes and some warriors stayed home to guard the camp and make weapons and some were artisans and made pottery bowls and other useful things. The second war chief trained the young boys in the ways of the hunter and warrior, and others fished and trained the horses in their herd. But it was the woman's place to tend to the crops and the house because the woman owned them. Like the Earth Mother, she was fruitful and only by her hand would the crops grow strong. All the things in the wigwam were hers as well, when a man married, he left his parents' house and came to his wife with little more than his personal possessions. And that's how it remained."

"The opposite of the white way."

"Yes, because if a woman decided to divorce her husband, according to the Mesquakie religion, which only permits divorce on certain grounds—like infidelity, or incompatibility, or if abuse occurs—then the woman only has to take her husband's weapons and clothing and put them outside her house to end the union and release him from his vows." Belle related. "But that's not something that you see a lot, and a Mesquakie girl, like a white girl, comes chaste to the marriage bed at first, they aren't loose like the whites assume."

"It seems there's much some people could learn from you."

Belle nodded. "If they cared to ask. But most people don't, Rum. I tried . . .I tried to tell them when they brought me and Regina back to Storybrooke the truth of my captivity—and how I grew to love my adopted people and was treated as one of them—they didn't look down on me, or force me to convert to their ways, I learned how to heal from Willow because I wished to, because healing seemed to fill this great hole inside me . . .to do something useful, to help people . . .in a way I never would have been permitted to do in Boston. There are no women doctors in our society, Rum. Men think we're incapable of learning how to heal, that we don't possess the intelligence or the emotional fortitude or whatever."

"Judging by the look on your face, I'd say they were very wrong. And you'd like to beat them over the head with a stick," he chuckled, for the look Belle was giving him was one of vast irritation and annoyance.

"Oh I would! But it's funny, when people get sick and are afraid they are dying, they cling to anyone to make them well again, regardless of who they may be. If they can cure, they accept them. It's only once they're well that I go back to being Belle the Injun harlot and the Mesquakie war chief's woman." Her mouth tightened.

"Idiots!" Rum snorted.

"They never understood that Storm was no savage, he was fierce fighter, but he had a gentle heart and he was an honorable man. More honorable than those blasted soldiers." Her eyes darkened with anger as well as sorrow. "Since that day I have tried—I have tried so hard to forgive those murdering cowards for shooting him—but may God forgive me, I'm still angry . . .and I still can't forget they shot him down like a dog because that's all they saw him as –a beast that needed killing. But he wasn't, Rum! He was a man—a good man who loved me, and it didn't matter that my skin was white and his was red, or that I was a bookish maid bluestocking—he loved me-all of me!" She looked up at him, fresh tears glittering on her lashes. "Like you do. Or am I wrong, Mr. Gold? Are you repulsed now by what I've told you?"

She knew many men of her class would have been. Instead Rumple drew her to him and said, "I could never be repulsed by you, Belle. You're a remarkable woman, to have lived through what you have. You are brave and resourceful and intelligent, and I don't mind your outspokenness at all. Without it, you wouldn't be you."

Belle stared at her husband, and thought that here again was another remarkable man, different as day to night from her warrior husband, yet alike in the ways that mattered. For both possessed loving and intuitive hearts, and saw with them and not with their eyes.

"And you are remarkable too, Mr. Gold." Then she rolled over, half on top of him, and began to kiss him breathless.

Astonished, he could only ask, "Belle, what are you doing?"

"Seducing you," she replied with a smirk.

"Excuse me!" he sputtered. "You mean you . . ."

"Yes. I wasn't ready for you before, Rum. But now I am. Make me your wife, Rumford Gold. In every way. Forever."

"You're certain? I can't take it back."

"I don't want you to. I want to be one with you, as I said in my vows."

"Why, dearie?"

"Because I love you," she replied, and as she spoke the words she knew them for the undisputed truth.

His heart leaped in his chest at her words. "Belle . . .I love you too, but . . .I wasn't always the good man I am now . . ."

She put a finger to his lips. "I don't need a confession, Rum. We all have ghosts in our pasts, things we have done that we regret and wish had never been. But that is what makes us human. Not one of us is without sin. Have you murdered children? Abused your son? Raped women?"

"No! Never!" he cried appalled. "Not even at my worst."

"Then that's all that matters."

"Does it? Dearie, I killed a man that was coming to take my son away . . ."

"And so had Storm. Yet I loved him. And I love you." Her mouth found his and kissed him, long and deep.

I was a cursed monster, part of his heart cried. But at the moment none of that mattered.

All he knew was that he had found someone who loved him, and whom he loved with all of his heart and soul. They were two outcasts, yet together they had become whole.

Their mouths met again in a kiss that stole the breath from their bodies . . . and then returned it, as they gave each unto the other the deepest part of themselves, without reservation, holding nothing back. It was a kiss that seared them with its tempestuous fire, the magic of true love irrevocably binding them together forever.

He laughed, straddling her, and proceeded to grant her wish, loving her with every fiber of his being, at turns wild and tender, sweet and satisfying, conjuring magic with the merest brush of his fingers against her sensitive skin, completing her, until they lay spent, entwined in each other's arms, one heart, one soul, one being, the beauty and her beast together.

As they lay together, basking in the aftermath, Gold turned to Belle and said, "Today, I'll bring the gold into town and we'll see what they say."

"Be careful, Rum. I don't trust Tolle or Spencer."

"That makes two of us, mo chroi." He whispered. "I'll watch my back."

He would. For he wanted nothing to ruin this fragile love that he had coaxed from a spark into a flame.