Page 112 of By the Sword
Jonathan laid the child down on the hearth beside a cheerfully crackling fire. He knelt beside Tabitha chafing her frozen hands, as his aunt took charge of the situation, summoning a maid for blankets, dry clothes and hot milk.
Tabitha’s eyes, huge in her waxen face, flickered open and looked back at him. His heart lurched. The poor mite was too exhausted to even shiver. He cursed himself for his selfishness in pushing her through the day.
He summoned a smile. ‘It’s all right, Tabby. We are safe here. Aunt Henrietta will see to you and you’ll have a warm bed for the night in no time.’
Tabitha didn’t reply but her gaze flicked to Henrietta who knelt beside them.
Henrietta knelt beside Jonathan and took Tabitha in her arms. ‘Come here, my sweet, let’s get you out of those wet clothes.’
A maid appeared with blankets, hovering at her mistress’s elbow to take the abandoned garments. With practisedefficiency, Henrietta stripped the child of her wet clothes, and as she pulled off the child’s shift she gasped, recoiling in horror.
‘Jonathan. What have you done to this poor child?’
Jonathan sat back on his heels staring at the wheals that covered the child’s back and arms. The dark lines of the morning’s beating overlaid bruises of varying colour shades.
The old woman must have been in a habit of regularly beating the child. Jonathan stood and dashed his hand against the panelling in his anger and frustration, half regretting he had not taken his sword to the vile old woman.
‘That was not my doing, Aunt. Her great-grandmother…’ He tailed off. No words were adequate to describe Dame Judith Woolnough. ‘I took her from that witch this morning.’
‘Oh, poor darling. Only a monster would treat a child so.’ Henrietta held the child close to her, rocking her. ‘No one will hurt you again, my sweet.’
Nathaniel laid a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder.
‘You’re done in, Jon. Sit down and let Hen see to the child.’
Jonathan sank into a chair as Henrietta wrapped Tabitha in the blankets and forced some warm milk into the child’s unresponsive mouth.
Thomas poured Jonathan a brandy. ‘Perhaps you’d better tell the story, lad?’ he suggested.
Jonathan took a sip of the excellent brandy, feeling the warmth slide like fire into his frozen bones.
‘She’s Mary Woolnough’s daughter,’ he said at last.
His aunt and uncle looked at him and he saw the shock in their eyes. They both knew the early part of the unrequited love affair but not the sad epilogue.
‘I thought that was all over long before the war,’ Henrietta said.
Jonathan shook his head. ‘We met again in Oxford during the war. Only then it was adultery.’
He caught his aunt’s disapproving look and took another swig of the brandy as he continued, ‘I’m not proud of what I did, Aunt, but believe when I say Mary didn’t tell me she was with child when I left Oxford. I’d never have let it come to this had I known. I only learned much later that Mary and the child had died in childbirth. That was hard enough.’
‘And you’re certain this is Mary’s child?’ Nathaniel asked, always the lawyer.
‘Tabitha,’ Jonathan said. ‘Her name is Tabitha. I learned only recently that the child lived and resolved to seek her out. I found her living with Mary’s grandmother, Dame Judith Woolnough.’
‘Ah, yes. I recall that it was Dame Judith who sought to break your relationship with Mary,’ Nathaniel said.
Jonathan closed his eyes. ‘It was such a long time ago,’ he said. ‘Mary has been dead these six years past.’
Nathaniel sat back with a lawyer’s impassive face and looked thoughtfully at his nephew. ‘And you are sure she is your daughter?’
Jonathan leaned forward. ‘Yes, Uncle, I’m sure,’ he said.
‘Nat,’ his wife scolded. ‘You just have to take one look at the mite to see she is a Thornton.’ Henrietta stood up with the child in her arms. ‘I think it’s time for one young lady to go to bed,’ she said. ‘She has had more than enough adventures for one day.’
Jonathan took Tabitha from his aunt. ‘I’ll take her, Aunt Hen.’
‘Jon, you’re soaked to the bone and in need of food yourself,’ his aunt protested.
