“Gavin comes with us. Promise me you’ll save them,” she murmured as she fell back asleep.
He shook her again. “Elizabeth. Wake.” But she did not, and worry churned through him. Taking her in his arms, he spoke to one of the men. “Take the boy.”
He settled her on the horse in front of him, wrapping his cloak around them both. “’Tis not far. We passed an inn on our way to bring you home.”
She did not wake. It took them longer than he would’ve liked to make their way to the inn. Knowing she’d escaped Radford, that the man would be after her, Robert bellowed at the innkeeper for rooms. He sent one of the men to see to the horses, and when he told Gavin to go to the stables, the boy pulled a small knife from somewhere on his person.
“I stay with the lady. She saved me, so I owe her my life.”
Robert could appreciate the debt. “Then you shall be her personal guard. Do not let any harm come to our lady.”
The boy stood up straight, raising his chin. “You can rely on me.” He scampered up the stairs, unharmed from the ordeal and snow, as Elizabeth had used her body to shield the lad from the cold.
In the small room, a woman knelt, stoking the fire. “My wife requires a bath. She was out in the snow. We must warm her.”
The woman dusted her hands on her dress. “I shall see to it. I’ll bring food and drink for ye, my lord.”
“Gavin. Tell the men we leave in the morning. There is a storm coming, and I want to be home before it hits.”
Robert didn’t know what made him do it. To say she was his wife. Nay, that wasn’t true. He’d said it because of her reputation. He did not want the innkeeper and the servants to think she was a woman without virtue. ’Twas the first step to making all right with her.
Robert settled Elizabeth on his lap in front of the fire. He rubbed her hands, removed her boots, and rubbed her frozen feet, noticing the pink paint coming off her toes. Once he had heard Anna and Charlotte talking, and they said ’twas called polish. The normally pale skin of his lady was even whiter. He marveled at the unblemished and unmarked skin, smooth as a babe.
At last she stirred. “Where are we?” She blinked up at him.
“We cannot travel in the dark. I have acquired rooms at an inn. Don’t worry; we’ll be safe here, and in the morning we will resume our travels.”
“But he’ll find us.”
Robert shook his head. “Nay. I sent a messenger to Radford. The man will say you were seen traveling north, towards Leeds. And we go south to Highworth.” He brushed a lock of purple hair behind her ear. “What were you thinking? You could have frozen to death, been assaulted or killed. Your death would have been a tragedy of immense proportions.”
“So now you’re concerned for my welfare? Why now? You’ve been nothing but an ass since I woke up in your bed.” She shifted and he pulled her closer, holding her until she stilled.
“I should not have let you go.” He held himself stiffly, knowing he was wrong.
She sighed. “I should hate you for how you’ve treated me, but I find my need for answers outweighs my anger.”
He touched a finger to her cheek, pleased to see the color slowly returning to her beautiful face. “In time, Elizabeth. I swear, in time.”
The scent of roses filled the air as the serving girls filled the bathing tub with steaming water.
“Shall we help you into the bath, lady?”
Robert answered, “Nay, I will see to my wife.”
The door shut and she scowled at him. “Wife?”
“I did not want your virtue questioned. Can you stand? Your bath is ready.”
She groaned, teeth chattering. He looked to her hair as his lips twitched and he coughed.
“What’s so funny?”
He couldn’t help it: he threw back his head and laughed. “’Tis your hair. It matches your lips.”
“It isn’t funny.” She sniffed. But he saw the twitch of her mouth as she tried to hold the laughter at bay.
Elizabeth touched the sleeves of her dress. “I can’t undress by myself.”
The thought of her bare skin made him swallow hard. Was it as soft and unblemished all over? “I will call the girl back to help you.”
As she swayed on her feet, he caught her in his arms. Green eyes looked into his, into the depths of his soul and his black heart. Did she see the ugly truth of him?
“No. You’ll have to help me. I’m about to fall asleep again.”
He didn’t want to admit how worried he was about her, so he nodded. “I will do my best not to look upon your form, lady.”
“I care not. Where I come from, being nude is no big deal.” At the look on his face, she touched a finger to the corner of his mouth. “After all, we all have a body. A face and lips. All men are basically the same, and so are all women.” He watched her mouth twitch, heard the giggle escape.
“The lady is amused?”
Elizabeth chewed her lip. “Froggy. Now, he is not like you at all. His belly is like Jell-O and he smells, but you, you have the most amazing stomach. I could run my fingers across your abs for days.”
Robert didn’t know what Jell-O was, but understood it wasn’t complimentary. “You find my form pleasing?”
As she swayed back and forth, she pretended to gag. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Now get me into the bath. I feel like an ice cube.”
He helped her undress, swallowing as his fingers encountered bare skin. She was still cool to the touch, but he no longer worried like a woman. Robert thanked the fates for not letting her die, for him finding her in the snow.
As he undid the last button and helped her out of the dress, she stood in front of the fire in nothing but her chemise. The fire and candlelight turned the garment transparent, showing him every curve. His mouth went dry. She was so beautiful. Seeing her so close to death unlocked something within him. He didn’t want to admit he cared for her, but he knew it was thus. Mayhap the moment he woke next to her, she had stolen his heart.
He turned his back as she slipped out of the chemise. Imagining what she must look like, he thought of all manner of unpleasant things to distract him.
“Do you require assistance into the bath?” He heard a splash followed by a groan and turned to see her in the tub, up to her chin.
Robert handed her a cloth with which to wash, and a small ball of soap. She took it and sniffed. “I thought I smelled roses.”
“I brought it with me remembering how much you like to bathe. Roses remind me of you.”
“They do? Why?”
“While they are beautiful, they have thorns and will draw blood if you reach out and take without being careful.” He pressed his lips together. “I am filled with regret for my treatment of you, my lady.”
A servant knocked on the door and entered laden down with trays of food. “Do you need anything else, my lord?”
“No. Thank you for all you have done.” Before Robert could close the door, Gavin slipped inside, looking around.
“Where is my lady?”
Robert pointed. “Your lady is having a bath. Are you hungry?”
Elizabeth snickered. “He’s a boy. He’s always hungry.”
“Take a plate to your lady and then you may eat.”
Gavin piled a plate high and brought it over to her. “I’ll fetch you a cup of wine.”
When he came back and sat down, Robert poured the boy a cup of ale.
“Tell me about yourself. How you came to be with Lord Radford. How you and the lady escaped.”
Between mouthfuls of food, the boy told his tale. When he finished, Robert sat back, elbows on the rough table, fingers under his chin. Gavin took the empty plate from Elizabeth and refilled the wooden cup. “You’re going to be all wrinkled. Don’t you want to get out?”
Robert couldn’t stop looking at her. The color was back in her cheeks, her lips no longer blue. She looked like a water goddess come to life.
“I’m getting out now.”
The boy looked h
orrified. “We must leave the room, lady. ’Tis not proper.”
Robert chuckled. “The lady has peculiar ideas about what is proper and what is not. Turn your back, but hand her a drying cloth when she gets out.”
Gavin made a face but did as he was told. Robert peeked out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t resist. She was well formed and shapely. How he ached to kiss her again, had thought of her lips on his ever since she woke in his bed. He swallowed. There would be hell to pay for her escaping Radford. But ’twas his fault, and he would see it made right.
“Hand me the chemise, will you?”
Robert stopped the boy. “She will not wear anything from Radford. I brought her clothes to wear. In the satchel on the bed.”
Gavin rummaged through the sack, pulling out clothes. “Shall I fetch a girl to help you dress, lady?”
“I can manage, but I’ll need you to do up the buttons. Think you can handle that?”
The boy stood up straight. “Aye, lady. My lord says I am to guard you, so I will be here for you always.”
Once Elizabeth was dressed, she sat down in a chair in front of the fire, the tiredness evident in her face.
“Go and seek your bed in the stables, Gavin.”
The boy shook his head. “Nay. I will not leave the lady to sleep in the room with you alone, my lord.”
He caught Elizabeth’s eye. She winked.
“You can sleep in front of the fire.”
Robert ran a hand through his hair, tired from riding hard the past three days. “You should not have run. I was coming for you.” He looked at the boy. “Nor should you. You are Lord Radford’s property.”
He looked back in time to see Elizabeth’s eyes flash. “Human beings are not property.” She took another drink and set the cup down with a bang. “I know here in your time they are, but where I come from people are free. It is difficult for me to see people treated badly. There are three girls I left behind. We have to help them.”
Robert had a bad feeling as Elizabeth went on to explain to him why he had to rescue the girls. Horror filled him. He knew of many lords who dallied with the serving girls. Many illegitimate babes born of such encounters. But the way she described how he forced himself on the servants, beat them, made Robert’s stomach turn. He was a dolt.
“You have strange notions, Elizabeth. Don’t you think it’s time to tell me where you are from? How you came to be at Highworth, in my bed?” He looked down, but Gavin was fast asleep in front of the fire.
She yawned. “Tomorrow. I’ll tell you tomorrow. Let me sleep.”
He carried her to the bed and covered her up. “Never fear, lady. I will find a place to sleep with the men.”
She grabbed his sleeve. “Please. Don’t leave us alone.”
Robert knew he should not stay, but the look in her eyes made him reconsider.
She patted the bed. “It’s big enough for both of us. You stay on your side and I will stay on mine. We are both dressed. There is nothing wrong with you sleeping next to me.”
The thought of sleeping close to her, those luscious curves only a hairsbreadth away, made Robert swear. He yanked a blanket from the bed. “Nay, I will sleep next to Gavin, in front of the fire.”
She shrugged, and he didn’t know if it was hurt he saw in her eyes or something else. “As you wish.”
As Robert made his bed in front of the fire, he kept stealing glances at Elizabeth. Part of him wanted nothing more than to take her home and keep her safe.
Forever. But the other part of him warned him: Get rid of her. She will be in danger at Highworth. Connor is not well enough to travel yet. As Robert fell asleep, he wondered what to do about the meddlesome lady who had captured his heart and soul.
Chapter Twenty-Four
When Elizabeth woke, the first thing that ran through her thoughts was she was finally warm again. She and Gavin had made good time as they’d escaped from Radford’s clutches. Instead of spending any of the stolen gold, they’d spent the first night in an abandoned cottage. It was the second day when she’d grown careless.
All the walking in the cold made her sleepy. Gavin had twisted his ankle when he tripped over a half-buried tree limb and was limping, making the going even slower. Used to being outside in harsh conditions during protests, she thought she was in good shape. But this was not walking; this was hiking over hills and through mud and snow. She was exhausted.
When they came upon a small stand of trees, they agreed to stop for the night. Anything to get out of the biting wind. The brush not only helped with the wind, it sheltered them from anyone out and about. They’d encountered a few travelers but hurried past each other, eager to get to their respective destinations. In case Radford’s men were close, they didn’t dare build a fire. Gavin huddled next to her, the cold sending them to sleep. She should’ve known better than to go to sleep in the ice and snow.
On the third day, she’d been awakened by pain shooting up her side. A pile of rags was kicking her. The smell of unwashed bodies made her gag, and by the time she was coherent, they were surrounded.
The men were dressed in little more than tatters, with matted beards full of twigs and things she didn’t want to think about. Before she could stop herself, Elizabeth screamed, imagining they were characters out of Game of Thrones, come to kill her. The leader was difficult to understand, and she kept getting distracted by the number of teeth he was missing. All of them were missing several if not most of their teeth. One of the four shimmied up a tree as lookout. The leader with the black beard wore an old-looking sword in a scabbard at his waist.
The other two looked at her, the lust clear on their faces. Not only had she worried for her own safety, but also for Gavin’s. The men were discussing what to do with them when he arrived. Elizabeth had never been so glad to see the odious man.
By then her hands and feet had gone numb. She vaguely remembered Robert drawing his sword. The man falling. When she’d come back to herself, she was in a rose-scented bath, with vague memories of drooling over Robert’s abs. The bed linens weren’t the cleanest, not to mention kind of scratchy, but to her it was a five-star room. The warmth from the roaring fire was bliss. When she woke again, Robert and Gavin had gone, leaving a serving girl waiting quietly.
“I’m to help ye dress, lady.”
The girl was efficient, and while she did up the buttons, Elizabeth’s stomach growled.
“You can break your fast below—unless you wish me to bring you a tray?”
“Lead the way.”
In the short time she’d been here, she’d come to enjoy drinking warm spiced wine for breakfast. There was a hearty bowl of porridge, and she decided whenever she made it back to her own time, she would eat the stuff in the winter. It stuck to her ribs, keeping her full until lunch. No, dinner, she corrected herself. Dinner or supper. To her those words meant the evening meal, but here dinner was lunch.
On the way outside to look for Robert, she caught sight of the innkeeper’s wife in a back room, putting some kind of black goo on her hair.
“I’m sorry to intrude. Are you coloring your hair?”
The woman wiped a spot of black off her cheek. “Aye, I darken it to hide the gray. I know it’s vain, but I was quite a beauty when I was young and I don’t like growing old.”
“My grandmother used to say it’s hell getting old.” Elizabeth stepped further into the small room. “Could you help me?” She reached up and pulled the cloth off her hair.
The woman gasped and crossed herself. “Is it true, then? Are ye a faerie?”
Used to the reaction, Elizabeth touched her hair, anxious to be rid of the head-turning colors. “No, I’m like you. I wanted a change, and this is what happened after too many drinks late one night.”
“A man, was it?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“We best change it back, then.”
“Growing up, my hair was brown.” Elizabeth sniffed at the mixture in the bowl. “What’s in it? Is it permanent?�
�
The woman had a stained cloth wrapped around her neck to keep the dye off her dress. She gestured to Elizabeth to sit on a nearby stool.
“A bit of this and that. Plants, bark, minerals, and walnuts.”
“It smells medicinal. Like something I used to use at home.” It reminded her of a shampoo she liked. As much as she’d had fun with the rainbow-colored hair, it was a distraction and a problem here in the past. Everyone assumed she was a faerie or a witch, either of which could get her burnt at the stake. And people tended to avoid her.
The woman rummaged around in a box, came up with another cloth, and draped it around Elizabeth’s shoulders and neck. “To keep the mixture off your beautiful dress.”
“How long will it take?”
“An hour or so. I’ll send my girl to tell your husband you’ll be a while.”
Elizabeth refrained from correcting her, remembering he had checked them in as husband and wife. For a man who said he despised her, he’d gone out of his way to help her. If he hated her so much, why did he come after her? Why save her?
If he was as nice to her as he was to his servants and men, she knew she’d be head over heels. It was only her he treated so rotten. Did she remind him of an ex?
Elizabeth remembered her first job. She was a senior in high school and her grandmother helped her land a job working for a big law firm. During the first week, one of the female partners had taken an instant dislike to her. A week later Elizabeth found out it was because she looked just like the woman’s nanny. And the husband had been cheating with the nanny. Left his wife for the girl half his age. When Elizabeth found out, she resigned, understanding why the woman reacted the way she did. There was no way she wanted to be miserable at work, not when she’d be spending a huge portion of her day there.
Her parents had been horrified when she interned at the law firm, so they were thrilled when she quit. They didn’t care why. When she landed the nonprofit gig, they were ecstatic. Proud as could be when she was arrested the first time for protesting contaminated water.
Forever Knight: Thornton Brothers Time Travel (A Thornton Brothers Time Travel Romance Book 2) Page 11
