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‘Don’t stand there gawping with your mouth open like a beached fish, girl. Show our guest some courtesy. Fetch him some wine.’ Again her father’s bark bit into her. ‘I assure you, Donald, she is not simple, just willful. This girl enjoys stirring my ire, is all.’
Kenna’s mind was racing as she went to the table and grabbed the wine. Who was this man, and why must she dress up for him? Perhaps her father wanted a favour from him, a loan perhaps, to pay off his huge debts. He could be trying to impress Donald Menzies with his wealth, making the Moncurs seem less desperate than they really were. She was here to flatter him and make him welcome, to put the seal on a business matter or some such thing or perhaps…? The thought made her stomach sink, and took her breath. No, it couldn’t be that?
‘I wonder you can part with such a treasure?’ said the loathsome Donald.
Kenna spilt the wine over the side of the glass as her worst fears came horribly to life.
‘A daughter’s worth nothing to a man. What are women good for anyway apart from bedding and breeding? I will be glad to see the back of her, have her well married and not eating me out of house and home.’
It was so hard not to cry. Kenna held her breath with the effort of it. ‘No, no, no, no,’ she screamed, again and again, but only in her head. Bitter experience had taught her to keep her thoughts hidden and tongue tight. Somehow she made her way back to her father and handed Donald the wine, scarcely able to look at him. Surely he must know she didn’t want him.
Donald Menzies turned his head to one side and darted a tongue over wet lips, and Kenna was reminded of a dog dribbling over a bone. Any minute now, this foul creature would start chewing on her flesh. He smiled, his teeth missing or yellow stumps. Looking at that gaping grin was like peering into a grave.
‘My, but you’re a pretty little chicken, aren’t you.’ He pulled her in closer and cupped her cheek in his hand, bony fingers curling against her skin like dry leaves in autumn. ‘She’s a bit skinny,’ he muttered abstractedly to her father whilst his eyes roamed all over her face and down her bodice. ‘She’ll not birth easily. She’s scarce any hips on her, and there’s little meat on her bones.’
‘You can soon fatten her up, and I’ll not lower my price. I’m not selling her by the pound.’
‘Aye fair enough, and I’ll fatten her alright…with lots of sons to swell her belly.’ They both laughed, cruel fox faces, sly and merciless.
‘She’ll do her duty by you Menzies, I swear, and if she is not obedient, beat her until she is. That is my way, and that is what she is used to.’
Kenna desperately wanted to get away from her father’s satisfied grin, boring into her and from this foul old man who sought to buy her. This lecher would bargain for her as if she were a breeding bitch. Kenna turned her face to stone, masking her horror at what they were suggesting, for if she did not, she would feel her father’s fist in her belly, his boot in her ribs. Having long since learned how to lie, she kept her face blank, suppressing the urge to tear Donald’s hand away or vomit at the revulsion which rose up in her throat like a mass of writhing worms.
Her father came over and lifted Donald’s hands away from her, not out of kindness at her discomfort, certainly not that. He was merely trying to up his price.
‘Kenna’s been brought up a lady, with guaranteed virginity, Donald, a rare treasure in these times and yours for the taking. Now you know me as a serious man so it’s time to talk about money. He turned cold eyes to her. ‘Leave us, Kenna, go.’
She sped from the hall, anger threatening to burst her chest out of its bodice as if her heart would stop with the pain of it. How could he do this? Even for him, this was beyond cruelty. Her stepmother’s footsteps clattered behind her, and a moment later, desperate fingers grasped her arm and whirled her around. Kenna rounded on her.
‘How could you do this, Edme? How could you agree to sell me off to that man? He is the oldest, ugliest man I have ever seen in my life.’
‘You think I have any say in this, Kenna? You think I can do anything about it? I know Donald Menzies is not much to look at but.…’
‘Not much to look at! He is disgusting. It is a punishment.’
‘You always said you wanted to be married one day and leave this place, leave your father and all his sternness behind,’ she pleaded, her voice, as usual, a quivering whine of fear.
‘Sternness! What a soft word you use for his beatings, his despising me, his belittling me.’
‘This is your escape, Kenna. Donald Menzies is old and he may not last long, and then you will be a wealthy widow. This union will give you children, and the love you bear for them will be your comfort and consolation.’
‘I could never love anything which was part of someone so loathsome.’
Kenna tried to rush away, but Edme clung on.
‘You have time to reconcile yourself to it, my dear. His wife is ailing and soon to die, within weeks or months, so the wedding cannot take place until she has passed.’
‘His wife lives, and yet he is here haggling for another! What kind of a monster is he? And for my father to even consider him as a worthy suitor.…’
‘Please don’t defy him, Kenna. Don’t say anything. It will make him angry, and we will all suffer. His mind is made up. Can you not bear it for all our sakes?’
Edme’s words faded away to nothing. Serve her stepmother right if she got a beating too for standing by and letting him do this awful thing. Kenna pulled free, running as fast as she could, ripping at her awful hair, tears coming now and with it an awful fear. Just when she thought her life could not get any worse…
She could never bear it. Donald Menzies would marry her and then rape her, wet puckered lips pressed to her flesh, his spit on her mouth, his claw-like hands clutching at her. She would rather die than succumb to that dried-up old husk of a man, to have her body polluted by him.
Kenna rushed into her bed-chamber, tearing at the awful dress and her flesh with it, until her shoulders were streaked red.
Donald Menzies was hardly a man at all, and the very thought of bearing his children, having his seed squirted inside her belly, to swell with his terrible offspring. Oh no, she simply could not do it.
