Page 86 of By the Sword
He shook his head. ‘English.’
‘Good,’ she said, ‘I’m not so sure about the Scots. I’ve heard terrible stories of them. Come to the house, sir, and I shall see to some food. Can you stand?’
He nodded and she helped him to his feet. He collected up the reins of his horse and followed her to the house. She called for a boy who came out and took the horse, his eyes wide with curiosity but he asked no questions.
Throwing open a door she ushered him into the kitchen and saw him seated at a table. An older woman stood by the kitchen range, wiping her hands on her apron and glowering at the filthy, ragged stranger.
‘The household is busy with the harvest,’ the girl said. ‘It’s just Maggie and I and the lad in the stable. Maggie, fetch this man some of that stew.’
So not the daughter of the house…the mistress. Jonathan’s spine tingled a warning but he was beyond caring.
Maggie deposited a large bowl of hot stew, accompanied by bread and ale, in front of him. Without the slightest recourse to manners he downed the stew, and at a nod from her mistress, Maggie refilled the bowl.
‘What day is it?’ he asked when he had eaten his fill.
‘Friday,’ she replied.
‘Where am I?’
She smiled. ‘Just south of the Forest of Dean,’ she said.
Herefordshire?
Jonathan laid his hands on the table and looked down at his fingers. Ten days since Worcester and he seemed no closer to freedom.
The girl reached over and took his left hand.
‘You’re hurt,’ the girl exclaimed.
With all his other difficulties, the savage cut across the back of his hand had just been another inconvenience and he had hardly thought of it, but the girl seemed concerned and bustled around finding bandages and salves.
The tattered, filthy bandage Kate had tied so many days ago had become well adhered to the wound and the young woman had to soak it off. Despite the ill-treatment, the wound seemed to be healing without putrefaction.
She salved and redressed the wound and when she had finished her ministrations, Jonathan rose to his feet. He inclined his head. ‘Thank you for the food and the care, mistress. I must be on my way.’
‘Elizabeth Griffith,’ she said, placing herself in front of him. ‘My name is Elizabeth Griffith. Please, there is no need to leave yet. As I said, you’re quite safe here.’ This last was addressed more to Maggie than to Jonathan. ‘You must surely be desperate for a night’s rest and,’ she added, pulling a face, ‘a bath would not go amiss.’
He hesitated. He knew he stank to high heaven. A wash would have been pleasant and a bath even better. And the prospect of a night in a bed could not be so easily dismissed. He looked at the girl’s pretty face and the not unsympathetic face of the maid behind her and decided that it was a risk worth taking.
***
Jonathan woke from a deep dreamless sleep with a start. For a few moments, he had no sense of time or place and only the bright day beyond the unfamiliar window told him he had slept too long. He lay with his right arm behind his head, relishing the sensation of being clean and lying between fresh sweet-smelling sheets and giving silent thanks that young Mistress Griffith had not betrayed him–not yet.
The click of the door latch caused him to turn his head as Elizabeth Griffith, carrying a pile of clothes in her arms, entered the room. He cast a glance around the room but saw no sign of his own ragged, filthy garments. She laid the clothes on the bed and smiled at him.
‘I thought you would sleep forever,’ she said. ‘It’s nearly midday.’
Jonathan sat up, pushing the dark, tangled hair from his eyes. She sat down on the bed beside him and her eyes flicked over his naked chest with a bold gaze that caused Jonathan to pull the bedclothes a little higher. Her lips parted and Jonathan found his own eyes resting on the inviting swell of her breasts beneath the fine lawn of her collar.
‘What did you do to your shoulder?’ she asked, reaching out to touch the ugly scar that marred his left shoulder.
He shivered against her light touch, and grasped her wrist, drawing her closer. A sweet scent, redolent of jasmine enveloped him and he wondered if she had dabbed on a perfume. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, his voice husky with desire. ‘Just an old wound.’
‘It doesn’t look all that old.’ She looked at him from under her long lashes. ‘My husband has gone to London. I don’t expect him back for some considerable time. You could stay here for a little longer. Regain your strength.’
The smoky look in her eyes and the gentle pout of luscious, red lips made her meaning clear. She leaned towards him, with her eyes half shut and he drew her closer. An hour or so lost in the pleasures she was so blatantly offering him would be a salve to his bruised and battered soul.
As he felt the touch of her lips on his, the heady scent repulsed him and he thought with longing of another, softer scent…that of rosemary. He dropped her wrist and gently pushed her away.
