“Come on, now. ’Tis all right. They won’t harm you.” Cate urged him onward, leading the horse ahead. “I will protect you.” She smirked.
“Perhaps not, but you seem quite sure they would eat the horse without hesitation.” Owen crossed his arms over his chest.
“His name is Dinner.” Cate mimicked his stance, raising an eyebrow. “The son of an earl, eh? Scared of a few old ladies and children?” She scoffed. “Never have I heard something so preposterous.” Cate laughed, shaking her head at the thought.
“You mock me for a valid concern?”
“No, I’m laughing at you.”
Owen sighed. “All right, Cate. We shall play this your way, but if one person so much as raises a blade at me…”
“You need a physician.” She spoke over him, exasperated.
“As do you. I’m no healer.”
“Then we shall suffer his ministrations side by side… and absent of all blades.” Cate clucked her tongue at Dinner and urged the horse onward.
Cate brought Owen into the village by way of the narrow main road. Furrowed by wagon wheels on each side, she kept to the soft grass strip separating the deep, muddy lines. Sharply veering to the right, she changed directions and followed a narrow path through a plowed field. The horse snorted, tossing his head when Cate pulled him to a halt outside of Wallace’s small, modest home. “Wait here,” she told Owen. “I must speak with Wallace and inform him you are here. He will see to your safety while you are here.”
“Brilliant…” Owen muttered, a scowl curling his lips.
Cate handed over the reins and approached the door. It flew open before she could knock. Wallace towered over her, draped in his linen night shirt. He gripped the edge of the door with white knuckles and wide eyes as if she were a spirit. Then burly arms wrapped around her in a viciously endearing hug.
“Oh my, Cate. Ye gave us all such a fright.” Wallace pushed her back while clutching her about the forearms, giving Cate a once over. “Are ye well, lass?”
Cate returned the embrace, breathing in the familiar scent of her life-long friend and confidant. She let out a deep sigh, content to linger in his presence. “I have seen my fair share of better days.” Cate broke the hug, turning toward Owen. “The viscount could use a physician.”
Wallace shifted his eyes to Owen, pushing Cate aside.
She pushed back. “Wallace, he saved my life! We can at least mend his wounds and feed him before we cast him out. We are not heathens. Well, not all of us.” Cate pointed toward the deer carcass slung over the horse.
“Alice,” Wallace called out to his English wife. She appeared in the threshold within moments. “Go fetch Thomas Blake.”
Alice wrapped her night coat tightly around her middle and hurried from the house, disappearing in the shadows.
Wallace heaved a heavy sigh. “Well then, come in, the both of ye. I’ll hang up the deer.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “I thank ye, Cate.”
Owen handed Wallace the reins and followed Cate through the door.
The home, while of basic wattle and daub construction, was warm and welcoming inside. The fire pit had long since died down and only glowing coals remained, casting harsh shadows on the arched walls of the long house. Cate paused, taking in the smells of long ago faded memories. She had spent many a night inside these walls and had even helped to patch the thatch roof one summer, as she was the only one nimble enough to climb the exposed rafters. And willing. God, so willing to earn her father’s approval.
Summer straw crunched beneath her boots along the hard-packed earthen floor as Cate moved further into the house. A small table and two benches sat tucked against the far wall. A window with shutters closed tightly against the night air framed the space between sleeping quarters and the empty byre opposite each end. The byre was filled with sacks and barrels now that warmer weather was upon them, with Wallace’s livestock turned out to graze in the back pasture. Cate spotted a few areas in need of repair, and she told herself she would see to them soon.
Wallace entered and Cate turned, startled from the moment of abstraction. “Thomas should be here presently, my lord, eh…” Wallace bowed slightly, albeit stiff and forced.
“Banebridge. My thanks, erm… I am afraid I do not know your full name.” Owen held out his hand in greeting.
“Wallace MacKenzie, my lord.” The burly Scot gripped the nobleman’s palm in his own briefly, seemingly not wanting to offend. “I mean ye no disrespect, but we aren’t used to hosting nobles, and forgive me for being wary of one who has tried to kill me.”
Owen gave Wallace a reassuring pat. “My sentiments as well.”
“Cate, I expect ye’ll be wanting to open yer father’s house now that yer home, aye?” Wallace rushed about the open space of the house, lighting candles and stoking the fire, adding two logs over the soft orange glow of the coals. Flames licked at the wood, igniting with a luminous blush of orange and red.
“I suppose I could take up his craft…” her voice trailed off. He would want her to carry on the bow making in his stead, but if she were to tell the truth, she feared the pain would only inhibit her ability to channel his expertise. She had not stepped foot in her home since learning of his death. The constant ache in her chest was far too great a pain to cope with. She had gathered a few things, taken the best bow, and left Hawkhurst.
Alice returned shortly after Owen and Cate seated themselves at the table, weary from the day’s journey. She brought them bread and bits of cheese, followed with wine and several refills to each of their cups. She fussed about the house, tidying what few trinkets they owned, and swept the floor near the fire pit, readying a bed for Owen. Cate, she’d declared, would sleep with her and Wallace in the separate sleeping quarters. Cate thought she’d heard the old woman mutter words having to do with murdering and baby making, but in her exhausted state, she couldn’t be too sure. There certainly wouldn’t be any of either, although Cate briefly entertained the idea of the latter.
Thomas Blake was a fairly stout man with a speckled beard and deep set eyes, quite the opposite of his protruding girth. He wore a simple tunic over his crinkled linen hose and carried a satchel of assorted medical necessities, which he plopped neatly on the table after entering the house. His chest puffed with over abundance when he addressed Owen with his title after asking how he was to be addressed. Cate rolled her eyes in disgust. Title or not, Owen was a man like any other. Flesh and blood.
“Will you be needing my services as well, girl?” Thomas peered down his long nose, his eyebrows raised in question.
Thomas Blake made her blood boil. “Do you think I wear this for your pleasure?” She pressed her palm against the blood stained tunic she wore.
Alice hissed her disapproval of Cate’s chosen words. “Come with me, Cate.” She beckoned her from the open room and to the sleeping quarters, picking up a lamp along the way. “Let us leave the doctor to his work. A young lady shouldn’t be seeing certain… areas of a man, injury or not.”
“Just who do you think bandaged his wound the first time?” Cate whispered to Alice, following her. She closed the door after entering the bedchamber.
Alice sat on the raised pallet bed and patted the woven blanket beside her, informing Cate to sit. Cate did as she was told. “All right now, let me have a look at this wound of yours.” Lifting the side of her tunic, Cate exposed the dirty bandage. The once clean strips of linen were now ragged and coated in dried crimson. Alice sucked in a surprised breath. “Heavens, child, how did this happen?”
“’Tis a very long story, Alice, one that I am sure will be told time upon time again in the coming days, but the short of it is I was attacked, and I was caught between a man and a blade. Owen stitched me up.”
“Owen?”
Cate corrected herself. “Lord Banebridge. The man sitting at your table.” She lowered the tunic.
“And he allows you to address him so informally?” Alice seemed horrified by the mere thought of it.
“At his request, I assure you. He is quite… well, unlike every man I have ever met, that one. The quiet ones are the ones you need to be wary of.”
“And a handsome one, to boot.” A grin appeared on Alice’s weathered face. Her long chestnut hair hung about her shoulders, complementing her infectious smile. A set of matching eyes beamed at Cate.
She waved off the insinuation. “That has nothing to do with it. He saved my life, I saved his. We are even.”
“So what is he doing here in Hawkhurst?” Alice folded her hands in her lap. They disappeared in the folds of her night robe.
Cate pressed her lips together in thought. “I do not know. I sort of… invited him, I think.”
“Well, let’s get you cleaned up and see if the physician is ready to see you. I believe I still have some of Rebecca’s things tucked away.” Alice spoke of her daughter, who died giving birth some years back. Rebecca was Alice’s only child, and in some ways, Cate felt as if she filled a certain void in Alice and Wallace’s lives. She didn’t mind the role, as they served purpose in hers, too.
Alice left the room in search of clothes for Cate, and she followed her to the threshold, peeking through the crack in the door. Owen lay sprawled out on a blanket in the center of the room, disrobed except for a small blanket covering his manhood. Thomas worked diligently on the gash to Owen’s thigh, cleansing it with liquid from a small flask and several different concoctions from small jars he retrieved from his medicinal bag.
Owen drank from another flask, downing the Scottish whisky Wallace kept on hand for special occasions. Cate could only assume this indeed called for something a bit stronger than ale. Owen grunted and muttered words Cate wouldn’t dare repeat, but she committed them to memory anyhow. Deep lines formed on his chest when he contracted his muscles, the skin growing taught from the pain. A light dusting of dark hair trailed from his navel, dissipating beneath the covering. Owen took another swig before lowering his head to the floor. He let out a long sigh, and Cate prayed the drink was finally taking effect. She didn’t envy the pain he must feel.
Alice’s face filled Cate’s vision, and she took a hasty step back, startled. The woman shooed Cate deeper into the little room with her free arm. The other was full of clothing, a brush, and a wet cloth inside a small bowl of water. “You will keep your eyes averted, if you know what’s good for you.” She set the bowl down on the small circular stand next to the bed and tossed the garments onto the bed. Helping to remove the sullied tunic, Alice pulled Cate’s arms through and over her head. She discarded it to the corner of the room. “Good heavens, Cate, you are nothing but skin and bones. Have you not fed yourself, girl?”
She averted her eyes, and the question. “That belongs to Bane — Owen— I… I should return it,” Cate muttered, knowing the tunic was doomed.
“I am sure his lordship has aplenty to spare.” Alice set to work untying the strips of linen from around Cate’s chest, careful to wet when needed as to not disturb the wound. When she reached the stitched skin, Alice put her hands to her hips, tilting her head to the side. “He did this?”
Cate nodded. “Is it terribly ugly?” She grimaced at the thought of being disfigured for the remainder of time.
Alice released a light chuckle, inspecting the neat row of horsehair knots. “No, in fact he did a right proper job, he did. Most likely saved your life.” She pressed her fingers against the area, checking for lumps and feverish spots. “There does not seem to be any broken ribs, but I suppose they will ache mightily for a good while. Still, we should have Mr. Blake give you a thorough inspection before he leaves.” Alice took up the cloth, wringing the excess water back into the bowl. She washed Cate’s arms, face, and middle, taking care to not catch the stitches. “Does it still seep?”
“A little, mostly when I… move about. Alice, I will pay you and Wallace for the physician. Do not think I will not.”
The woman took Cate’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. “’Tis no cause for worry, dear.”
Once sufficiently cleaned, Alice helped Cate to disrobe and slip into a clean shift and brushed her hair, removing bits of twig and leaves as she worked. Once finished, Cate’s long, dark locks cascaded neatly down her back in gentle waves.
When the women reentered the common room of the house, Owen was seated once again on a bench next to the table, with Wallace seated opposite him, both imbibing in a cup of drink.
“Ahh, there she is,” Thomas Blake called out when spotting Cate. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Cate’s eyes darted to the table. Owen fumbled with his cup, nearly knocking it over in his feeble attempt to stand. His injured leg stuck out straight from under the table, his upper thigh wrapped tightly in fresh bandages. He slunk back to the bench and steadied himself. Cate supposed he was a bit too drunk to accomplish much of anything, let alone standing.
“Please, sit.” Thomas motioned her to a small sitting stool next to the fire. “Where is your injury?”
“My side,” she answered.
Alice wrapped a blanket around Cate’s waist, and Cate plopped to the stool and wrenched up the shift enough to expose her wound, tired of being prodded like a deformed animal. The physician examined her, rubbed a salve over the stitched area to aid in healing, and told her to rest. When finished, Wallace produced the man’s fee and escorted him from the house, thanking him for his service at such an hour.
Wallace offered Owen his own bed out of formality for his title, spitting the words out with a forced infliction. Owen declined, stating he would feel more comfortable on the floor near the fire. Alice scurried about seeking quilts and some padding for him to sleep on. Cate, meanwhile, was hastened into the back room without so much as a goodnight.
Not that she expected it.
Cate tossed in her little makeshift bed on the floor, turning on her side. She smacked her head against a solid object in the dark and winced, bringing her palm up to cover the sting. She muttered a curse before remembering she shared the room. Stifled, Cate kicked back the covering. She needed air. She needed wine. She needed… something. Rising, and tripping herself up in the long shift she was not used to wearing, Cate exited the bedchamber, closing the rickety door behind her.
A dim glow from the fire illuminated the room enough to allow Cate to make her way to the table and pour herself a cup of wine from the pitcher. She gulped the liquid, the sweetness of it satisfying her thirst. Turning toward the fire, Cate glanced at Owen. He laid on his side, his silhouette dark against the smoldering of the embers. She focused on the steady rise and fall of his chest before placing the cup on the table, and rounded the bench to return to bed.
“Will you not bid me goodnight?”
Cate stumbled to a stop. The husky tone of his whisky-laden words warmed her skin, as if she were standing near the fire directly. “If I choose not to… what of it?” She questioned.
“You would force an injured man to rise and seek his own goodnight kiss, then?”
She coughed out a laugh. “Bold words. Is that the whisky or the man talking?” Cate put her hands to her hips and stared at his shadowy figure.
Owen rose up on his elbows. “I find it hard to distinguish between the two in recent days.”
“You use that little scratch as a way to gain favor?” Cate gawked at his unclothed chest. She had seen many an unshirted man in her days, but none had ever stirred her insides so. The harsh shadows hinted at the power resting just beneath the surface of his taut build. She wondered if his heart pounded in the same erratic beat as hers. She took a few steps closer to Owen as to not wake the lightly snoring Wallace behind the bedchamber door with her words.
“I fear the good man Blake does not have as gentle a touch as a woman such as yourself. If you would be so kind as to check the bandages for me, I would truly appreciate it. My fitful sleep has wrenched them loose.”
“All right. I will check them for you, if you insist.”
“I do.”
Cate crossed the
expanse of the long house to the fire. She knelt beside Owen’s temporary bed, pulling her shift out from under her as she sat. “Damn thing,” she grunted, fighting with the expanse of linen. She removed the quilt coverings from his wound. A fleshy thigh was revealed, the nakedness catching her off-guard. She had expected clothing.
“So?” he asked. He choked out the word, thick and guttural.
Cate stared at him, at a loss for words.
“The bandages. Are they secure?”
Numbly, Cate lowered her eyes to the linen wrapped around his upper thigh. She fingered the cloth, testing the tightness. His bandages were in perfect order — not even seeping. Fabric brushed against the back of her hand and she withdrew it, startled.
“Touch me, Cate,” he whispered.
She swallowed hard, his want for her evident beneath the peaked woolen blanket. She was frozen, as if caught in a winter’s storm. Instinct told her to bolt, but her heart held her pinned to the floor. She dared not leave his side, fearing she would miss the opportunity to kiss him. His kiss… truly something she needed to experience again. She wanted to feel that fire ignite once more deep within. It had scared her before, but now she craved it.
Owen sat upright, the blanket falling low about his middle. Tucking a dark lock behind her ear, he cupped Cate’s cheek with his free hand, gently caressing the high arch of her cheekbone. “I have dreamt of nothing else.”
“Your bandages have yet to fray.” Cate released the words on a whisper, somehow finding her hand upon Owen’s bare chest. She marveled at the subtle intricacies of the uniform lines shaping his midsection. His heart thumped beneath her palm and she lingered there for but a moment before trailing her hand lower, stopping over his abdomen.
Owen closed his eyes and drew in a wavering breath. “I willingly confess to the ruse.”
“Mmm. Well played, my lord. And what did you expect to gain from this ruse?”
“It brought you to my side, did it not? My view has changed for the better, at least.” His hand settled about her waist and he fiddled with the thin lining of Cate’s shift. “After losing to you in the wood today, I needed to find some way to turn the upper hand to my favor. And as of this very moment, I do believe I am winning.”
The Archer's Daughter Page 7
