Page 109 of By the Sword
Thwack.
The unmistakable sound of a cane being applied with force on a solid object, followed by another scream.
Jonathan threw open the door of the parlour, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of his sword.
Dame Judith held the child by one arm her cane raised to strike the child, who she held by one arm.
She looked up and her mouth curled in an unlovely snarl. ‘So it’s true. You’ve come back.’ She glanced at the sword. ‘Would you seek to run me through, you whoreson Jonathan Thornton?’
With difficulty, Jonathan restrained himself from that temptation and lifted his hand away from the weapon. For all Bet’s assurance that the old lady was not long for the world, she did not seem to have lost any of her vigour or spite.
‘I’ve never yet taken my sword to a woman. Leave the child be,’ he said in a low, quiet voice.
He took a step towards the woman and she released her grip on Tabitha, tossing her aside like a bundle of rags. She straightened to face him, her face twisted in hate.
‘Why have you come?’
‘Stephen Prescott sent me,’ Jonathan replied.
At that name, her gaze wavered. ‘Prescott? What dealings have you had with him? He was a good man.’ She pointed a gnarled finger at him. ‘You did him a grave wrong when you debauched his wife. I have prayed that he would seek you out and take his rightful vengeance.’
Jonathan returned her scornful gaze. He was no longer a stripling boy in the flush of his first love and he had no wish to relive the confrontations of his past.
‘Stephen Prescott is dead,’ he said.
The old woman’s mouth curled up in a cruel parody of a smile. ‘And you killed him? Add murder to your sins, Jonathan Thornton. May your soul burn forever in the torments of hell.’
‘Aye, it probably will.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘But if it does, yours will burn with mine. You bear as much responsibility for the past as I do.’
‘I?’ Her eyes widened. ‘It was you who ravished my granddaughter and cuckolded her husband.’
‘It was you who forced her into marriage with a man she did not love. I would have married her.’
As he took a step closer, she picked up the cane and brandished it threateningly at him.
‘And do you plan to beat me as you have my daughter?’ Jonathan said with icy composure.
He caught the cane as she brought it down in his direction. With an easy movement, he wrested it from her grip and broke it over his knee. He flung the pieces aside and stood facing Dame Judith.
‘Tell me, what this child has done that you should treat her so?’
‘She is a lying, deceitful Jezebel. The spawn of a whore and the devil. She must need be beaten to correct her wicked ways.’ Dame Judith’s voice cracked with the fury of her emotion.
Jonathan looked away from the woman to the child, who cowered on the floor sobbing into her hands.
‘Come to me, Tabitha,’ he said softly.
The child looked up at him from between her fingers and he held out his hand to her.
‘Tabitha?’ He smiled at her.
She rose unsteadily to her feet and stood looking from her great-grandmother to him. Dame Judith had eyes only for Jonathan and if those eyes could have shot sparks of hell fire, they would have burned him to the quick, but she was just an old, unpleasant woman and she had no hold over him. Not any more.
Jonathan ignored the old woman and turned his full attention to Tabitha. Hesitantly she took a step toward him.
He knelt and held out his arms to her. Stumbling over her skirts, she ran across the room to him, falling into his arms. He held her close, feeling the warmth of her small, fragile body, stroking her hair — his daughter.
HIS daughter. He could never let her go again.
