by Sarah Hegger
* * * *
Beatrice stared down at the scurrying figures. The smoke had materialized into a small village resting in the crook of a river. A squat stone steeple marked the end of the village. It was no more than a handful of whitewashed cottages around a green, but the green bustled with activity.
“It must be a market day.” Tom drew rein beside her.
Ivy stiffened against her back.
Markets meant lots of people and lots of people with wagging tongues. Beatrice understood Ivy’s reticence. However, people meant knowledge. Someone in that throng must be able to set them on the right path. Even knowing the name of the river would help.
“I shall go down and see what I can find.” The road meandered through some planted fields and into the center of the village. “Ivy needs to stay here and you can keep her company.” Her glance encompassed both men.
“Nay,” said Garrett and Tom, a hairbreadth behind him.
Beatrice gaped at them.
Male jaws hardened and, as one, they shook their heads.
“Nay.” Garrett didn’t shout, but authority ringed his voice.
Beatrice’s hackles rose. It was all very well for him to be puffing up his chest like a bantam rooster, but he’d got them into this pickle in the first place. Needs must. She raised her chin and braced for a fight. Men could be so illogical at times.
“We are lost.” She kept her tone civil. “We do not have time to wander around the countryside, hoping we find our way onto the right road. Ivy cannot be expected to go amongst a group of people. That lout could be looking for her.”
“He will be looking,” Ivy added.
“There.” Beatrice patted Ivy’s hand. “And she cannot be left here on her own.” She suppressed an eye roll as Tom and Garrett’s expressions didn’t change. In fact, they looked more resistant.
“Beatrice.” Tom fixed a stare on her. All Tom needed was the wimple and he would be his mother.
She narrowed her eyes at him. He needn’t think it would work on her.
“You cannot go into a village on your own and ask the way to London. For a start, you are a woman travelling on your own and those folk will make any manner of assumptions about you and secondly…”
The self-righteous ass was back to carping on the Ivy incident. Tom’s first point, however, had enough validity to warrant some thought.
“We must split up.” That would fix the problem. “Tom can come with me and Garrett must stay with Ivy.” She would much rather Garrett came with her, but given Tom’s demeanor toward the other woman, Beatrice didn’t want to burden Ivy with him.
“Nay.” Garrett’s jaw clenched. “You and Tom would stick out like a sore thumb. I have some experience of how not to draw too much attention to myself as a stranger.”
It made sense to Beatrice. “Fine.”
“I will go with Beatrice and do the talking.” He turned to Tom. “If there is trouble, it is more likely to come from down there. You and Ivy can stay here, concealed by the trees. If matters go awry, hide or run for it.”
Tom opened his mouth to argue, but Beatrice had heard enough from both of them. She looked at Ivy.
The woman gave a reluctant nod.
Tom grumbled as he dismounted. Stomping over, he stood beside Breeze and held his arms out to Ivy.
Ivy froze and stared at his hands.
“I only want to help you,” he said gruffly. “It is a long way down.” Tom gentled his voice. “And you are tiny.”
Ivy slipped from Breeze’s back.
Tom removed his hands the moment her feet were steady beneath her. “We will find somewhere in the shade and wait.”
Ivy led the way back into the trees. Tom followed, hovering just out of arm’s reach.
“Come along.” Beatrice spurred Breeze toward the village.
Garrett fumed along in her wake. He knew some very bad words and had an inventive way of stringing them together.
She slowed Breeze and waited for him to catch up.
He was a dreadful rider. His arms and knees stuck out like bristles on either side of Parsley.
Beatrice swore Parsley gave her an aggrieved look as his rider flopped around like a sack of meal on his back.
“You need to stop that.” Parsley carried him past Beatrice before Garrett was able to halt him.
With a grin, Beatrice fell in beside them. “Stop what?”
“Come along,” he mimicked her. “I do not ‘come along.’”
“And yet, here you are.” Beatrice laughed and spurred Breeze forward.
The village was bustling. More than one set of eyes turned to stare as she and Garrett entered through the end furthest from the river.
“Like a bloody sore thumb,” Garrett muttered. He dismounted with her. They left the horses tied to a water trough.
“Remember.” He caught her arm, halting Beatrice from joining the steady trickle of folk heading toward the green. “Let me do the talking. Follow my lead. Do nothing else.”
“Aye, Garrett.” She made for a collection of tables set out across the grass. People were sitting, drinking from tankards and it seemed rather convivial. They looked like her best chance to gather information. “Come along,” she called over her shoulder.
He caught the back of her tunic. “You, my lady.” He reeled her in. “Are in sore need of having your ass paddled.” His dark eyes danced good-humoredly. He slipped an arm around her waist and drew her up against him. “And I am just the man to do so.” He was hard and warm.
Her skin tingled. She brought her hands up to his chest. A teasing Garrett was impossible to resist.
“Now, behave.” His voice grew husky as his arms tightened. “Before these nice people think I am manhandling a boy.”
Beatrice’s face heated. She’d given no thought to her boyish attire.
“Although, no red-blooded man would think this belonged to a boy.” He gave her bottom a ringing slap.
Beatrice didn’t know whether to laugh or protest. Her bottom stung and she put her hand on the offended area.
Garrett strolled away from her. “Come along.”
* * * *
It made sense to replenish their supplies with an extra mouth to feed. It pleased Garrett how readily Beatrice agreed with him. With a bit of clever handling, this detour could become more time on the road.
The market was small but thriving. Loud calls, hawking everything from bullocks to hair ribbons filled the air. Young bucks, dressed in their best tunics, hair neatly slicked back, paraded about. Eyes flashing brighter than their bliauts, a giggling huddle of girls looked them over from the stone cross central to the green.
Garrett drifted from stall to stall, sharing a word or two here, testing the produce there, but all the while steadily working his way toward the tables outside the tavern. He tugged Beatrice out of the way of small band of children, shrieking with excitement, and chased by a pair of barking dogs. He and Beatrice appeared exactly as he wanted them to: two unremarkable travelers stopping for supplies. The beefy rich smell of meat pastries tempted Garrett into parting with some coins.
Of course, Beatrice in her chausses caused more than one passing comment. A rotund farmwife huffed indignantly from behind her baskets of greens. He should’ve thought to get her to put on a gown, but he’d been too intent on preventing Beatrice from descending on the village with her lavish smile and her noble accent. If her family was looking for her, and they damned well should be, he didn’t want to lay a trail for them.
As she followed meekly behind him, munching on her pie and confining her comments to him, he wasn’t displeased with the way things were going.
Beatrice had forgotten her haste, for the moment. Her expressions held him captive, shifting in constant response to what she saw and thought.
Moving amongst the press of people, Garrett allowed time to lag.
He stopped at a baker’s stall. Large, golden loaves spread across the table,
their yeast smell making his mouth water.
As long as no abused whore, starving orphan, or whipped dog stumbled across their path, they should get along without making too much of a ripple.
He should’ve known better than to toss temptation to fate. His nape pricked and he turned. His shadow was no longer where he’d left it. He caught sight of Beatrice stomping across the green. Her destination? Where else, but to the ragged creature confined to the village stocks. Jesu have mercy. He dropped the bread he was buying and dashed after her.
“Hey,” the baker shouted after him.
“I will be back.” He narrowly avoided crashing into a crate full of live chickens.
The crown of Beatrice’s head shone like a beacon from the far side of the green. The girl had accursedly long legs, which carried her quite a distance when she was intent on it.
Garrett reached her before she opened her mouth. He sweated freely as he clamped a hand around her already opening lips and hauled her back. He got a kick in the shin for his troubles.
“Settle down,” he whispered in her ear. “Do not speak.”
“Garrett.” She turned, her eyes big with outrage. “Did you see who is penned up like an animal? He is nothing more than a child.”
“He’s a thief, Beatrice.” He wrapped his arm about her shoulders and put some distance between her and the curious glances from the men drinking at the tables.
“But he cannot be. Look at him; he is only a baby.” Beatrice gazed at the puny miscreant in the stocks. Tears welled in her eyes.
Garrett glanced at the boy.
He was young, or mayhap small for his age, but he did make a pitiful figure. His skinny legs were liberally decorated with an assortment of scabs. His arms looked thin enough to pick a lock. Fresh smears of blood spoke of rough handling. Someone must have hacked off his hair, because bits of scalp showed through the patchy mess. Or the boy had the mange.
The boy’s eyes met his.
And Garrett knew him. He’d been this boy and known such a boy in a dozen or more different villages scattered across England. The runt was as clever and resourceful as a rat and just as dangerous.
Unfortunately, the boy had already taken Beatrice’s measure. Dismissing Garrett as of no use to him, the boy turned soulful orbs to Beatrice.
She clasped her hands to her chest.
Garrett dropped his arm to her waist to keep her clamped to his side. Over her head, the convivial group at the tables had all turned to watch them. From the market, more faces were looking their way. Visions of having to take on an entire village taunted him.
“The boy is a thief, Beatrice,” he whispered. “He may look pitiful, but trust me, that boy has a better chance of surviving than a plague of locusts. Come away now.” He tugged on her waist.
“I cannot leave him like this.” She raised her face to his and gripped the front of his tunic.
“Beatrice.” Garrett drew a measured breath. “The boy has, no doubt, stolen from one of these good, honest people. Look around you. Do these look like the sort of people who would lock a boy away without reason?”
To his relief, she did look around her and remained unresisting in his grasp. Then, she looked back at the boy. Her lips trembled, and she pressed them tightly together.
Garrett cursed.
“I do not care.” Up went her determined chin and her eyes shone with the fervor of a born Samaritan. “No child deserves to be treated in this manner. And if he did steal, I will wager it was because he was hungry.”
“Not all children are innocent,” he said.
“Well, they should be.”
He might’ve saved his breath to cool his pottage, because Beatrice had found another unfortunate to gather beneath her wing. Why had her family not curbed her of this? He vaguely remembered the pack of ugly dogs that sometimes followed her about Anglesea. He would lay his last coin he knew who’d acquired those.
“Please, Garrett.”
He steeled himself as she pressed closer to him. She didn’t intend the action as provocative, but his body reacted anyway. He’d had too many days of watching her ass in the saddle, the way her chausses clung to the long sweep of her legs. There was a bloody good reason why women should be put in gowns. Her breasts molded against his chest and her thighs pressed against his.
Garrett disentangled himself. He was beaten. “What is the boy’s fine?”
Heads swung to a large, authoritative man sitting atop a table. His tunic was richer than his companions. He lumbered to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. A big man, most of it girth, the sod was also as cunning as a fox. Garrett noted the way his beady eyes moved in his face, florid from drinking in the warm sun.
The man took it in: Beatrice, him, and the scraggly creature in the stocks. The big man put down his tankard and adjusted his belt. “Three marks.”
Garrett laughed. “What did he take, the king’s bloody horse?”
The man studied him, and Garrett let him. The conniving dog had read the situation correctly, but Garrett hadn’t spent his life surviving on his wits for naught.
“I tell you what.” Garrett studied the boy critically. “As he is such a scrawny little whelp, I will give you what I have. Five shillings.”
“Nay, Garrett.” Beatrice took hold of his tunic and tugged. “We have enough.” She found her purse and opened the ties. “See here.”
Chapter 15
Beatrice glanced at Garrett and bit the inside of her cheek. He’d barely spoken to her since they’d left the village. She shouldn’t have interrupted him, but she hadn’t realized until she said the words that Garrett was bargaining for the boy. She’d only been relieved there was sufficient coin to see him freed. Of course, the villagers had been most unpleasantly insistent they take him with them and leave right away.
“What, in the name of God, is that?” Tom rose as Garrett all but dropped the boy from his saddle.
Beatrice was glad they’d not left the boy there. The villagers were not such nice people. She didn’t say as much to Garrett. He looked angry enough to bite her head right off her shoulders.
“He has a name.” She dismounted and went to stand beside the boy. He was pitifully thin and her heart ached all over again. “What is your name?”
“Newt.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Newt.” He had a high piercing voice. His dark eyes darted in his face as he took everything in about him. “I am called Newt.”
“Surely that is not the name your mother gave you?”
“Do not know, never knew my mother.” Newt hawked and spat, drying his chin with the tattered end of his sleeve.
That was a bit disgusting. Beatrice stepped back and threw a speaking glance at Garrett. The boy was an orphan, without the benefit of a proper Christian name or a proper rearing.
Garrett’s glare made her shiver.
“You went for directions.” Tom threw up his hand. “How did you come back with that?”
“Newt,” Beatrice said. “He is not a that; he is a boy, with a name. Only, not a very good one.”
“You can call me whatever you fancy, my lady.” Newt sidled over and gazed up at her with limpid eyes.
Garrett growled, and Newt snapped his mouth shut.
“What is he doing here?” Tom loomed over Newt. The top of the boy’s scraggly head barely cleared Tom’s belt.
Newt tucked himself beside Beatrice.
“It was dreadful, Tom.” Beatrice’s heart twisted for the poor little mite. Tom was frightening him. “He was pinned up in these stocks and his poor limbs were protruding. See what those awful people have done to his hair.” She reached out to touch Newt’s head.
Tom caught her hand. “Do not touch him. There are things living in there.”
Beatrice dropped her hand. There was definitely some movement in Newt’s straggling remains of hair that couldn’t be attributed to the gentle breeze.
�
��I still do not understand what he is doing here.” Tom rubbed the back of his neck.
Beatrice hesitated, looking for the right words.
“Tell him.” Garrett hands clenched around his belt.
Beatrice sent him a mute appeal to tell it for her, but Garrett planted his legs apart and jerked his head at Tom.
“I paid his fine.” She got it out as quickly as she could.
“You did what!” Tom’s bellow made her wince.
Newt ducked behind her.
Goodness, the boy was fast. “I could not very well leave him there.” Beatrice looked to Ivy for support, but Ivy was eyeing Newt with distaste.
“Aye,” Garrett said. “She paid his fine.”
“With what coin?” Tom turned to Garrett.
“This is the good part.” Garrett strode back toward Tom.
Now, the two men chose to be in perfect accord?
“She paid his fine with the coin we were supposed to use to replenish our food.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.” They stood shoulder to shoulder, legs braced and hands tucked into their belts.
“He is filthy.” Ivy wrinkled her nose a little.
“Aye.” There was the tiniest glimmer of sympathy in Ivy’s face. Another woman would understand. “And see how thin he is. I do not think he has eaten in days.”
“I have a powerful ache in my belly.” Newt placed his hands over his middle and hunched over.
“I have a powerful ache in my ass.”
“Garrett.” She didn’t think he should use such language in front of the boy. “He is just a child.” Beatrice tried appealing to his sense of justice. Garrett wouldn’t let a child suffer. Not her Garrett.
Her Garrett turned his back on her and strode over to Parsley.
“That child, I will wager, knows more curses than you do,” Tom, the betrayer, said.
“Mayhap if we bathed him?” Ivy suggested.
