It was a week later when Tom rode up to the cottage, alarm etched in every line of the leathery countenance. “’Tis said a party of Roundhead troopers and a captain are combing the area, sir,” he blurted out as he jumped from the cob. “They’ve already found three wounded men holed up in a barn about five miles from ’ere.” He spat disgustedly on the ground. “Bastards fired the barn, although the farmer swore ’e’d no knowledge of the men hidden there. Poor sod lost ’is winter’s feed.”
Daniel glanced backward at the neat little cottage, the turning mill wheel, the harvested field, the round figure of the goodwife bent over a currant bush in the kitchen garden. After all the kindness shown them, they could not put the woman and her son at risk of losing their livelihood. It was time Harry was induced to tell the truth, so that at least they might flee in the right direction.
She had left her sickbed on wobbly legs the previous day, and was now sitting in the shade of a copper beech by the front door. He had been right about her hair. Freshly washed, it was the color of corn silk, feathering in soft tendrils around a heart-shaped face in which the brown eyes still appeared overlarge. She was wearing a borrowed gown that swamped her in shapeless folds, evidence of the goodwife’s rather different bodily structure. However, there was nothing waiflike about the smile with which she greeted Daniel as he approached.
“Are you come to amuse me, Sir Daniel? I am sadly bored just sitting here without even a book to while away the tedium.”
“Alas, child, I am come to annoy you, I fear,” he said. “We must move from here without delay, and I’ve a need to know in what direction our way lies.”
“Why, sir, how should I know in what direction your way lies?” she said, that mulish look upon her face again, replacing the previous smile. “’Tis no business of mine.”
“I think we had better continue this discussion in your chamber,” he said quietly. “I intend to have the truth from you.”
There was something about the quiet tone that caused Henrietta a quiver of apprehension. “I will not go home,” she said as he took her elbow and drew her to her feet.
“We will see about that.”
She pulled back against the hand that would lead her into the house, but even had she been restored to full health and strength her resistance could only have been token. “I won’t go home,” she reiterated on a note of desperation. “I can fend for myself if you must leave. Mayhap the goodwife will let me stay with her and earn my keep.”
“You talk foolishness,” he replied shortly, pushing her ahead of him up the narrow staircase. “Now, let us be done with this Harry nonsense. I want your name.”
Released, she thumped down on the cot, drawing her knees up and hugging them fiercely. “I am called Harry.”
“Of what family?” There was an edge now to the smooth, deep voice, and the hint of humor it normally contained was quite gone. His eyes were hard; his lips thinned.
Henrietta shook her head in mute refusal.
“If you were one of my daughters,” Daniel said softly, “I would make short work of your obstinacy. Do not try me too far.”
Her eyes widened. “How many do you have?”
“How many what?” The question threw him off balance, bearing no relation as far as he could see to the matter under discussion.
“Daughters, of course.” Interest laced her voice.
For a moment his expression softened. “Two, and a graceless pair they are.” A shadow crossed his eyes. “They want a mother’s care.”
“She is dead?”
“Aye, in childbed with Ann some four years past,” he replied bleakly.
“You do not seem that old,” Henrietta remarked, regarding him in speculative fashion over her knees.
Daniel looked astonished. “I do not feel ‘that old.’ A man of nine and twenty has not exactly one foot in the grave.”
“How old is your other daughter?” This was a much more appealing conversation, Henrietta decided, and might well serve to keep the other one at bay for a while longer.
“Elizabeth is eight.”
“And there are no other children?” A marriage lasting upward of five years would generally produce more than two offspring four years apart.
Daniel shrugged. “Two little ones died; one at birth, the other of milk fever when he was a week old.” And his Nan had never carried a child with any ease, had labored in long agony to deliver each one, until finally exhausted…He put away the futile train of thought and the guilt he had learned to live with.
The figure on the bed opened her mouth for another question, but Daniel, realizing how far they had drifted from the urgent matter at hand, cut her off before she could form the words. “Of what family are you?” He snapped his fingers impatiently. “This has gone on long enough.”
“I cannot go home. Surely you must understand that?” The obstinacy was replaced now with a soft plea. “Do you know what they will do to me? Sir Reginald probably will not wish to marry me any longer—”
“In which case you will be spared a rank and drunken bedmate,” he interrupted harshly. “I had thought ’twas that fate you had fled.”
She bit her lip. “So it was. And if I had managed to wed Will, then everything would have been all right. But I am afeard to go back unwed. ’Twill be a thousand times worse if Sir Reginald says I have spoiled my maidenhead—which I have not, because Will was too honorable,” she added. Daniel inhaled sharply at the slightly aggrieved note investing the addendum and he began to feel some sympathy for the girl’s parents. “But he could say it was so and refuse to marry me,” she finished with a helpless gesture that reminded him of how young and defenseless she was.
Daniel was defeated. There was no severity he could visit to extract the information from her that would not be surpassed by what she knew awaited her at home. He paced the tiny chamber while she sat on the bed, watching him anxiously over her drawn-up knees.
The sound of raised voices outside jarred the tense silence. Daniel strode to the window, his face paling beneath the tan as he recognized Tom’s angrily protesting tones mingling with those of a stranger. Was it Roundheads? But below he saw just one man, no more than a youth, engaged in exclamatory conversation with Tom.
Henrietta stumbled off the bed, the strangest expression on her face. Her legs were still weak and the weakness was not aided by her painfully pounding heart. She clung to the windowsill at Daniel’s side. “’Tis Will!” She looked up into her companion’s astounded face. “’Tis Will! He is not killed!”
Daniel was conscious of an overpowering relief mingling with utter bewilderment as to how this salvation could so mysteriously have appeared.
“Will!” Henrietta’s shriek set his ears ringing. “You are not killed!”
The young man looked up at the window, shading his eyes against the sun. “Do I look it, Harry? How the devil did you…? Oh, never mind.” He turned back to Tom, now stunned into silence. “D’ye see, man? I am no foe. I have been turning the countryside outside in looking for her, and those damned Roundheads are everywhere!”
Tom nodded. “Ye’d best go up, young sir.”
A bare half a minute later, Will Osbert entered the attic chamber. He was a big, untidy-looking young man with a shock of red hair and bright green eyes. “Y’are the most ramshackle girl, Harry,” he declared with feeling. “Where did you go? I thought ye safe in the inn.” He noticed her companion for the first time and his face flushed darkly. His hand went to his sword. “What business have you with Mistress Ashby, sir?”
“Oh, Will!” wailed Henrietta, dropping onto the bed again as her legs began to wobble anew. “You have betrayed me!”
“Betrayed you!” Completely at a loss, Will stared blankly. “What do you do here with this man?”
“Daniel Drummond,” Daniel said, extending his hand. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Master Will. I have heard much about you. But do pray enlighten me further. I cannot believe that Mistress Ashby truly goes by the name of Harry.”
“Oh, no, sir, ’tis but a nickname, short for Henrietta,” Will said cheerfully, quite reassured, although he was unsure why, by the manner of one who was so clearly a gentleman and seemed quite in charge of matters. “She is Henrietta Ashby of the Oxfordshire Ashbys. And I am Will Osbert, son of John Osbert, Esquire, of Wheatley in the same county.”
“Oh, you are so stupid,” Henrietta said in disgust.
Daniel’s lips twitched. It seemed he was about to hear an exchange rather resembling a schoolroom squabble than a lovers’ tiff. He was not disappointed.
“I am not at all stupid,” Will said hotly. “I told ye to stay in the inn, but when I reached there after the battle—and a deal of trouble I had getting there, I might add—they said you had been gone since early morning and had left no message. If that is not stupid, I do not know what is.”
“But I saw you fall on the field,” she said.
“What!” The young man gazed in disbelief. “What field?”
“At Preston. I followed you. I was in disguise anyway, so no one thought me out of place. I looked just like a trooper.” She became inordinately interested in her fingers, plaiting them intricately in her lap. “I thought if you were going to die, then I would rather I die with ye than be forced to return home.”
“You were at the battle?” Will, in his struggle to grasp this, was aware that he sounded like a child repeating his lesson.
“I was wounded,” she announced with some pride, looking up at him. “Sore wounded, was I not, Sir Daniel?”
“A pike thrust,” he agreed solemnly. “I’d advise you to keep a closer eye on your affianced bride in the future, Master Osbert.”
“Oh, Harry, what have you been saying? You know we cannot be wed.” Will punched a clenched fist into the open palm of his other hand. “I have told you so more times than I care to remember. Your father will not consent and so neither will mine. You will have no dowry and I shall be disinherited. What are we to live upon?”
Daniel felt his relief evaporate. The serendipitous arrival of Master Osbert did not appear to be the salvation he had believed.
“But d’ye not love me, Will?” Henrietta spoke with painful intensity, her hands gripped tightly in her lap. “We plighted our troth. I would not have followed you else.”
Will shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “Of course I love you, Harry, but we cannot be wed without money. You had no business running away as you did. You must understand, sir.” He turned in appeal to the silent older man. “She dressed in men’s clothes and ran away from home without telling me she was going to. She came up with me in London and would not go home.” He ran his hands distractedly through the unruly thatch of red hair. “She never tells me what she is going to do…just like following me to the battle when I had thought her snug in the inn.”
“But I could not tell you what I intended,” Henrietta protested. “You would have become exceeding perverse and said I should not.”
Daniel Drummond closed his eyes briefly. Mistress Ashby might well fancy herself in love, but from the tone of this exchange it seemed likely that love of the reluctant Will Osbert had merely offered excuse to flee the parental hearth and the prospect of wedding and bedding the ancient and unwholesome Sir Reginald. It looked as if he was not going to shed this burden for some time.
He interrupted their wrangling. “How did you escape the field, Will? Henrietta says she saw ye fall.”
“I did not fall,” Will said. “If I did not recognize Harry, it is possible she mistook someone for me.”
Daniel nodded. In that hell’s kitchen, clouded with gunsmoke, deafened by the clash of steel and the roar of cannon and the crack of musket shot, anything could have happened. “How did you light upon this place?”
Will scratched his freckled nose. “I have been scouring the countryside for days; dodging Roundhead patrols all the while. I could not see how she could just disappear, sir, so I thought if I made inquiries at every inn and in every village someone would have some news.”
“And lo and behold…” Daniel said dourly with an encompassing swing of his arm at the assembled trio. “If you heard we were here, the patrols won’t be long behind.” He walked to the window. “Without passes, we shall have the devil’s own time journeying south, and Henrietta is still far from strong.”
“I am not going,” Henrietta declared. “So you need not concern yourself with me. The Roundheads will not trouble me here—”
Daniel swung around from the window. “Mistress Ashby, my patience is not inexhaustible!”
“But I am nothing to do with you,” she protested with perfect truth.
“’Tis so, Sir Daniel,” Will put in. “We will shift for ourselves now that I have found her. You must look to your own safety.”
Daniel looked at the young man’s flushed earnestness and smiled reluctantly. “I appreciate your concern, Master Osbert, but I have a feeling that I can more effectively ensure Henrietta’s return to Oxfordshire than you.”
Will glanced worriedly at Henrietta, who had slumped despairingly on the bed. “She cannot return, sir. You do not know Sir Gerald, or Lady Mary, Harry’s stepmother.”
Daniel frowned. “Some punishment for such an escapade is surely merited? You would not deny that. Is it the rod ye fear?”
“There’s worse things than the rod,” Henrietta said, looking at Will, who returned her look in gloomy comprehension.
Daniel sighed. “Very well, we will leave the question of your ultimate destination to be decided later. But we will essay the journey south together. D’ye have a horse, Will?”
Before Will could answer, footsteps sounded on the staircase and the goodwife, white-faced, stumbled into the room. “Soldiers, sir,” she gasped, dabbing her lips with her apron. “Roundheads, some fifty yards down the road, Jake says. They’re comin’ ’ere, sir. What’s to be done?” Her voice trembled on the edge of hysteria. “They’ll burn the ’ouse over our heads, drive off the cow, they’ll—”
“No, they will not, never fear, goodwife.” It was Henrietta who spoke with sudden energy. She was pulling back the cover on the cot. “Will, get under the bed.” She picked up her nightcap, cramming it on her head, tucking up her hair beneath it. “Quickly, Will…Oh, do not argue with me…Sir Daniel, you must hide in the linen chest. ’Twill be a bit cramped.” She lifted the lid, and the strong aroma of camphor filled the little chamber.
“I’ll not hide to be smoked out like a rat in a hole,” Sir Daniel protested. “Do not be absurd, child.”
“They’ll not come into a plague chamber,” she told him. “No farther than the top of the stairs, if that. The goodwife must tell them there is plague in the house. I will do the rest. Have you some amber pastilles, goodwife, to burn so that it seems as if you try to ward off infection?”
“Aye, that I have.” The woman seemed to have steadied herself now. “And vinegar. There was plague in the next village only last month; ’twill not seem strange that we are afflicted.”
It just might work; might at least give them sufficient breathing space to make their escape. Swallowing his pride and the honor of the Drummonds, Daniel clambered into the linen chest to be near suffocated by camphor as the heavy lid closed under Henrietta’s impatient hand.
Henrietta struggled to remove the oversize gown before leaping into bed and pulling the covers up to her chin. The air filled with the acrid scent of vinegar as the goodwife sprinkled it over the floor and the covers. Then she lit the wick embedded in a cone of aromatic paste.
The sound of jingling spurs and the clatter of hoofs sounded from below, and Henrietta opened her mouth on a blood-curdling scream of agony.
The goodwife, who had no need to pretend to a distraught mien, hastened down the stairs as another scream rent the air. “Oh, mercy, sir, what d’ye do here at such a time?” she gasped, stumbling outside to where a troop of horsemen stood, pike and halberd gleaming in the sun sparking off the close round helmets that denoted their allegiance to Parliament.
“What the devil is it?” The captain gazed up at the window where the screams were continuing.
“’Tis my daughter, sir. She ’as the swellings. I’ve tried to cut ’em, but they’ll not burst.”
The captain paled, instinctively bringing his hand up to cover his mouth and nose as if he could thus prevent taking in the pestilential vapors. “Ye have the plague in the house, woman?”
“Aye, sir, God have mercy upon us,” she wailed, burying her head in her apron. “Out of ’er mind with the agony she is, sir.”
As the captain continued to stare up at the open window from whence emanated those dreadful sounds, a figure clad only in a white shift appeared. She climbed onto the sill to sway perilously, tearing at her body with distracted hands, her eyes wild and unseeing.
“Oh, Lord have mercy, sir, she’s for killing ’erself,” gasped the goodwife. “The pain ’tis that bad. Will ye help me tie ’er to the bed, sir? I cannot manage ’er myself, so strong as she is when the madness takes ’er.”
“Goddammit, woman! Ye’d have me infected!” The captain backed his horse away rapidly, a look of horror on his face. “Get inside, ye should all be shut up.” With that, he wheeled his horse and galloped away from the pest house, his troop following, pursued by the frenzied screams that lifted the scalp and sent graveyard shivers down the spine.
“They have gone,” Henrietta said matter-of-factly, stepping off the broad sill. “I have quite hurt my throat.” She rubbed her throat as Daniel, choking, emerged from the chest and Will rolled out from beneath the bed. They both looked at her in some awe.
“Never have I heard such an appalling racket,” declared Sir Daniel. “’Tis no wonder you have a sore throat.”
“But the ruse was successful.” She beamed on them. “The goodwife was most convincing.”
“For pity’s sake, sir, ye’d best be away from here without delay.” The goodwife appeared at the head of the stairs. “The young lady sounded just like my Martha did when the plague took her. ’Tis a sound to strike to the marrow.”
“Aye,” Daniel agreed. It was a somber play Henrietta had enacted, but it could not detract from his relief at her success, or from the urgency to make good that success. “Henrietta, you’d best don your britches again and travel in that guise. Ye may ride pillion with me. D’ye have a horse, Will?”
“Indeed, sir, and I have Harry’s nag also,” Will said. “She left it at the inn. I tied ’em up beyond the mill.”
“That is all to the good, but she is not strong enough to ride alone yet. Ye may lead the nag for the time being. Make haste and get dressed now, child. Goodwife, we must come to a reckoning.” The two went down to the kitchen in deep discussion, leaving Henrietta and Will.
“I do not care for this,” Henrietta declared. “We are in no wise obliged to travel with Sir Daniel. While I am most sensible of his kindness to me, he holds no authority over us, Will. We will make our own way to London, and if you will not wed me, then I will find employment in some household—”
“In what capacity?” demanded Will. “Had you not better get dressed?”
“Why, as governess,” she replied stoutly. “I am book-learned.” A note of derision entered her voice. “There’ll be many a Parliamentarian family anxious to educate their daughters in the ways of the gentry, I dare swear.”
Will regarded her doubtfully. “’Tis possible, mayhap. But y’are such a ramshackle creature, Harry, and any respectable family will want to know whose name you bear.”
“I can lie.” She shook out her britches, examining them critically. “These will still serve, but my shirt was torn with the pike and the jerkin is sadly stained…and I must procure suitable garments if I am to go as governess—”
“Governess!” The exclamation came from Sir Daniel, appearing at the head of the stairs. “I cannot imagine any man who has not escaped from Bedlam entrusting the care of his daughters to such a one as you!”
“You do not know me.”
It was a simple statement, curiously dignified, and for some reason gave him pause. He smiled. “No, perhaps I do not.” He turned to Will. “Why do you not fetch your mounts? Tom is packing knapsacks and could do with some assistance.” Will accepted his dismissal without demur and with some relief.
“I have brought you a shirt,” Daniel said. “The goodwife said it belonged to Jake when he was rather smaller than he is now, and it should do you.”
“My thanks.” She took the garment, unsmiling, and launched into her prepared speech. “While I am most sensible of your kindness, Sir Daniel, I must decline the offer of your escort. Will and I would not burden you with our company. We will make our own way to London.”
“But if our ways lie together, it seems only practical to combine forces,” he remarked casually. “We may each be of service to the other. Without safe conduct, ’tis a long and dangerous journey we undertake.”
Henrietta busied herself putting on the shirt. Her shoulder was still stiff, although the gash had healed well, and the operation was a little awkward, but it gave her time to contemplate her response.
“Let me do the buttons for you.” The hint of humor was in the deep voice again. She looked up and saw both amusement and understanding in the shrewd black eyes bent upon her.
“I can manage, thank you.”
“I do not doubt it, Mistress Ashby, but it will be quicker if I do it. We are in somewhat of a hurry.” He gently put aside her hands and fastened the buttons. “There now.” A long finger beneath her chin tilted her face to meet his amused regard. “Trust me,” he said softly. “I will not allow any harm to come to you.” Now whatever had made him say such a thing…undertake such a charge? Henrietta Ashby was not his responsibility. But the words had said themselves and he could not have withheld the promise had he tried.
Surprise glowed in the big brown eyes and that fierce, prickly resolution faded from the set features. “You will not make me go home?”
“I will not allow any harm to come to you,” he repeated.
A puzzled frown drew the arched eyebrows together. “I do not see how you can prevent it if I must go home. I am my father’s daughter when all’s said and done. He may do as he pleases with me.”
“Do not be too sure of that,” he said with a confidence that alarmed him. The girl had spoken only the truth after all. Who was he to interfere in a man’s jurisdiction over his family? But he’d made the promise. Hopefully the means for fulfilling it would come to him when necessary. Her eyes were still fixed upon him, expressing mingled trust, hope, and doubt. Smiling, he kissed the corner of her mouth, telling himself that it was a salute of the kind he would have given Lizzie or baby Nan when they were in need of reassurance. It did not seem quite the same, though.
“Put on your britches,” he said, suddenly brisk, drawing away from her. “I’m not minded to sit here waiting for Parliament’s troop to return.”
Henrietta turned away from him, stepping into the garment, tucking her shift into the waistband, fumbling with the hooks. Her face was unaccountably hot and for once she found herself at a loss for words. Will had kissed her often, but it hadn’t made her feel like this—hot and quivery. Perhaps the fever was returning.
“Horses are saddled, Sir Daniel,” Will called from the bottom of the stairs.
“I am coming,” Daniel called back. “Sit on the bed, Henrietta, and I’ll help ye with your stockings. You do not wish to wrench your shoulder.”
She obeyed, somewhat reassured by the crisp tone that restored matters between them to their former footing. “You had better become accustomed to calling me Harry again,” she said matter-of-factly, holding out her foot. “Henrietta in britches is a contradiction in terms.”
He chuckled. “Aye, y’are right.” He smoothed the stockings over her calves and helped her into her boots. “We must ride as far from here as possible before dark. ’Tis to be hoped your strength will hold.”
Three hours later, Henrietta knew that she had reached her limit. She sat astride the big black charger, trying not to lean against the broad back of Daniel Drummond in front of her. The charger’s gait had seemed easy enough at first, but now, as fatigue softened muscle and sinew, it began to feel like balancing on a rolling wave and her shoulder started to ache unbearably.
They were traveling cross-country, keeping to the woods and the shelter of hedgerows wherever possible. There had been one heart-stopping moment when a troop of Roundheads passed on the road on the other side of the hedge while they cowered, scarcely daring to breathe, praying that one of the horses would not betray them with a whinny or a jingle of bridle.
Daniel’s expression grew grimmer after this incident. The only way they would have a chance of reaching London unchallenged would be to ride by night and hide by day. Night riding was inevitably slower, and a three-week journey was going to be stretched to four weeks or more. At least Tom, in his anonymous garb, would be able to enter towns and villages to buy provisions or take a horse to the farrier if one of them threw a shoe. Not for the first time, Daniel sent a swift prayer heavenward for the loyalty and devotion that had kept Tom at his side.
So lost in thoughts and calculations was he that he only slowly became aware of the weight against his back. Henrietta had yielded the struggle to keep herself upright and now flopped against him, her head resting on his shoulder. “Harry?”
Instantly, she drew herself upright again. “I do beg your pardon, Sir Daniel. I felt a little sleepy, but I am quite awake now.”
“Ye do not appear to be,” Will said, looking anxiously across at her. “Y’are as white as whey, Harry.”
Daniel reined in sharply, twisting in the saddle to look over his shoulder. “Foolish child! Why did ye not say something?” Anxiety informed the exasperation, but Harry was too exhausted for analysis. Tears filled her eyes and fell without restraint.
“There is no need for tears.” Daniel swung down and lifted her to the ground. “Is your shoulder paining you?”
“Aye.” She sniffed desperately in an attempt to regain control of herself, then sat abruptly on the stubbly earth of the newly harvested field.
“We’d best rest a while, sir, ’till the maid feels stronger.” Tom looked around a landscape illuminated by the mid-afternoon sunlight. “Not much shelter hereabouts.”
“There’s a ditch,” Will suggested, gesturing with his whip toward the far side of the field. “’Tis away from the lane and the hedge will offer some concealment.”
Hiding in ditches was not a Drummond habit; then, neither was fleeing pursuit like the hare before the hound. But locked up in some Roundhead prison he’d be of little use to his children, Daniel reckoned with grim resignation. “It will have to suffice. Come.” He scooped up the collapsed figure at his feet and put her back on the horse, this time mounting behind her, holding her tightly against him with an encircling arm. “Lie back, Harry. I’ll not let ye fall.”
“I expect you are most kind to your children,” Henrietta observed, settling thankfully against the strong support of his broad chest. “’Twould be pleasant to have such a parent.”
He glanced sharply down at her, ungratified by the observation. Did she really see him as a father figure? “I am far from old enough to have sired you,” he declared.
“Nay, of course not,” she agreed tranquilly. “But I still think it must be agreeable for Elizabeth and Ann to have you for a father. I do not expect you would try to compel them into a distasteful marriage, or believe everything their stepmother might say to their discredit.”
“Your stepmother does not care for you, I take it?” They had reached the far side of the field and Daniel drew in his mount.
“She hates me with a passion,” Henrietta said. “She has done so from the first moment she walked into the house when I was but five years old.”
Daniel dismounted and she slipped from the charger into his waiting arms. “Of course I was not very nice to her either, but I think she could have tried to understand that I was afeard, d’ye not agree? She was six and twenty, a widow, and she brought her three children to live with us too.” She stood rubbing her shoulder and looking down into the ditch. “Is it dry, d’ye think?”
“Dry enough,” Daniel said, taking a small animal skin container from his knapsack. “Settle down and take some rest now. I do not wish to tarry here overlong.” He encouraged her down the little slope to the bottom of the ditch, saying over his shoulder to Tom, “If we turn the horses loose to graze, they’ll not draw attention.”
He sat on the grass, leaning against the sloping side of the ditch, stretching his legs in front of him. “Lie down and put your head in my lap. I would look to your shoulder. The goodwife gave me some ointment to rub in if it became sore.”
Henrietta obeyed a little awkwardly, resting her head and shoulders on muscular thighs, looking up into the face bent concernedly over her. She moved to unbutton her shirt, but he brushed her hands aside with the calm injunction to be still. Her shirt came undone and he slipped the sleeve of her shift off the injured shoulder. The warm air stroked her bared skin, and for some reason Henrietta shivered.
“Are you cold?” Daniel asked, taking the top off the small skin container. “’Tis warm enough, I would have said.”
“Nay, I am not cold,” she denied rather weakly. “’Tis fatigue, I expect.”
“As like as not,” he agreed, dipping a finger into the strong-smelling ointment. “I will try not to hurt you, but I must press hard if y’are to feel the benefit.”
She closed her eyes because it seemed easier and less awkward if she did not have to look up at him. Gently but firmly, he massaged the ointment into her aching shoulder. It hurt and she inhaled sharply, biting her bottom lip. The pressure did not diminish, however, as Daniel steeled himself to complete his task. But at last it stopped and her eyes opened.
“Nay, do not look so reproachful,” he said softly. “’Tis sometimes necessary to cause a little pain in order to do good.”
“This pains me more than it does you? Is that what you would say?” She smiled ruefully. “That has been said to me many times, Sir Daniel, but I have never found it convincing.”
Chuckling, he buttoned her shirt. “Nay, I do not subscribe to that thesis. ’Twas said to me also many a time, and I could never understand why those who wielded the rod should suffer more than those who felt it.”
“Exactly so,” Henrietta agreed fervently. She sat up, flexing her shoulder. “’Tis easier,” she said. “If ye wish to continue the journey, sir, I am certain I am strong enough.”
“Mayhap you are,” he said. “But there are those amongst us who are not.” He gestured a little way down the ditch to where Tom and Will lay prone. “We’ll all be the better for an hour’s respite, and there’s less danger of discovery if we travel under the moon.” He lay back against the side of the ditch, closing his eyes. “Ye may find it more comfortable to use my legs as pillow. Twill provide support for your shoulder.”
Henrietta looked a little doubtful, but he appeared quite relaxed and the bare ground was certainly bumpy and unyielding. She resumed her former position; the sun bathed her eyelids, creating a warm red darkness; aching fatigue yielded to languour; the living flesh beneath her head embodied safety and reassurance. Henrietta slept.
Daniel listened to her soft, regular breathing; felt the heaviness of her unconscious body; sensed her unquestioning trust, and hoped mightily that the trust was not misplaced. He would not have chosen to flee the lost battlefield of Preston with a weakened maid and her reluctant swain in tow. A rational man would not have pledged himself to protect a runaway maid from the legitimate wrath of her parent. Yet for the life of him, he did not know how else he could have acted. Daniel Drummond slept.