Reckless Angel Read online

  “Lay her down, sir, and I’ll send my boy for the leech.” She put a knowledgeable hand on the fevered brow and looked grave. “’Tis a powerful fever. Is the wound clean?”

  “Red and swollen,” Daniel said, bending to untie the makeshift bandage. “I know little of these matters and could do no more than wash away the blood.”

  The goodwife peered, sniffed the gash. “There’s no reek of mortification as yet,” she said doubtfully. “But ’tis early days. She’ll be best out of these clothes.” She began to unfasten the girl’s shirt, but the figure writhed violently, swinging an arm to catch the goodwife a hefty blow on the side of the head. “Ye’d best hold her down, sir,” the woman said a little grimly, rubbing her head.

  Daniel fixed his thoughts on little Lizzie as he assisted the kindly body in stripping the fevered girl. It was very clear, however, that this was no little girl but a grown woman, even if a very young one, and it was with considerable relief that he saw her at last respectably wrapped in a voluminous shift belonging to their hostess.

  “Now, sir, I’ll send the lad for the leech, and ye’ll be glad of a bite o’ supper, I’ll be bound.” She bustled to the stairs again.

  “I’ve coin aplenty, goodwife,” Daniel said, following her down to the kitchen. “Your kind hospitality will not go unrewarded.”

  “I’d ’elp a King’s man in any case,” the woman said gruffly, before giving brisk instructions to a boy of about fifteen who was honing a scythe in the inglenook. The lad grunted and set off, narrowly missing a headlong bump with Tom coming into the kitchen.

  “’Orses are bedded down, Sir Daniel,” Tom announced, going to stand foursquare before the fire, warming his backside with a contented sigh. The August evening was not cold, but there was something about a fire, something ordinary and comforting, that chased battlefield horrors as kin cut down kin into the unreal world of nightmare where they belonged.

  The goodwife stirred a pot on the trivet in the fire, releasing a rich aroma that set the juices running as the two ravenous men sniffed eagerly. “’Tis jugged hare,” the woman declared with a complacent smile. “No one prepares it better, my man used to say.”

  “Is ’e here?” Tom inquired, moving to sit at the long plank table.

  The goodwife shook her head. “Dead for the king at Naseby. There’s nobbut myself and our Jake now.” She ladled the succulent dark meat and gravy onto wooden trenchers, sliced thick hunks of wheaten bread, and filled tankards with good October ale. “That’ll put the heart in ye.” Seeing Daniel glance anxiously to the foot of the stairs, she said, “I’ll go to the lass, sir, don’t ye fret now.”

  Relinquishing his burden of anxiety for the moment, Daniel took the advice and ate heartily, feeling strength and optimism return with each mouthful, each draught of ale. They had just finished when the door opened to admit Jake and an old man in none-too-clean smock and britches, carrying a jar of leeches and a small bag.

  “’Ere’s leech,” announced Jake, helping himself to jugged hare.

  “Where be patient?” The old man peered myopically around the room, although his nose twitched, following the scent emanating from the pot.

  “Abovestairs.” Daniel rose to his feet. “The goodwife is with her.” He led the way, trying to quash his unease at the prospect of this individual’s employing his dubious knowledge and skill on the fragile creature raving on the cot.

  The goodwife greeted the new arrival matter-of-factly, deftly removing the patient’s shift, holding her still as the leeches were applied to arms and chest, lifting her so that more could be placed on her back. Daniel felt the jugged hare rebel in his belly as he saw the loathsome creatures swell, engorged with blood. With a muttered excuse, he went down to the kitchen again, leaving the physicking to those who ought to know better than he what they were about.

  Loud screams came from the loft, giving way to the most heartrending sobs. He thumped his tankard back on the table and leaped up the stairs again. “Enough! Has she not lost sufficient blood already?”

  “’Tis the only way to cool the blood, sir,” the leech informed him placidly, pulling his little pets off the girl’s skin and dropping them again into the jar. The girl’s body was covered in angry red bites and her sobs wracked the slender frame as if they would burst from it in solid form.

  “Get out!” Daniel ordered savagely, striding to the bed. “She is out of her mind with pain and fever and you have done nought but add to it.”

  The leech looked indignant. “And what about my fee, sir?”

  “You’ll have it!” Daniel reached into the pocket of his doublet and pulled out a shilling.

  The old man seized the coin, pocketing it and hastening down the stairs as if afraid that the gentleman would change his mind and exchange the shilling for a groat.

  “Well, if ye’ll not have the leech, sir, we’ll have to see what we can manage for ourselves,” the goodwife said. “I don’t ’old with all this bloodletting, meself. Weakens ’em when they most need their strength, seems to me.”

  “Aye,” Daniel agreed. “So why did we send for him?”

  “Ye wanted a chirurgeon, sir, and ’e’s the nearest we’ve got in these parts,” the woman said a shade tartly. “O’ course, there’s old Dame Biddy…a wonder with herbs, she is, but there’s those that say she ’as the evil eye. I don’t ’old with it, meself, but you takes your chance.”

  Herbs were a deal more gentle than leeches, Daniel reflected, and he did not believe in the evil eye. “Send Jake for her.”

  Henrietta awoke, aware of one amazing and most glorious thing—the absence of pain. Tentatively, she twitched her toes, wriggled her fingers, moved her head. There were no ill effects, so she tried opening her eyes. It seemed to be very bright after the dark, pain-wreathed world she had been inhabiting recently, but although she was obliged to blink several times, her eyes no longer hurt and her head did not pound.

  “’Bout time too,” came a mutter from across the chamber. Henrietta turned her head to see a figure who seemed vaguely familiar. A pair of green eyes, alarmingly crossed, squinted in a face wrinkled like a prune. “Nearly gave ye up.” The crone shuffled across the wooden boards and Henrietta, who knew all about the evil eye, instinctively shrank back from the cross-eyed scrutiny.

  The crone crackled. “I’ve done ye no harm as yet, little maid.” She laid a hand on the girl’s brow, nodding with satisfaction before turning her attention to the wadded poultice fastened to the wounded shoulder.

  Henrietta relaxed, recognizing the touch and attentions as accustomed and comforting. “What day is it?”

  “Monday.”

  But which Monday? How long had she been lying here? One week…two? She tried to sit up, then decided rather rapidly that perhaps she wouldn’t bother. It made her feel far too peculiar.

  “Y’are weak as a new-dropped lamb,” said her nurse. “But y’are young. Ye’ll get your strength back soon enough.”

  Footsteps sounded on the wooden staircase and another familiar figure from dreamland appeared at the head of the stairs. He was tall, very dark-haired, with sharp black eyes in a tanned face. Those eyes went instantly to the bed, then sparked with sudden relief. “Well, this is a pleasure.” His voice was deep and smooth, yet seemed to carry a chuckle in its depths, as if its owner found the world and its inhabitants in general amusing.

  Smiling, he came to the foot of the bed. “Is all well, dame?”

  “Aye, sir, that it is. Fever broke last night and she’s been sleepin’ like a babe since. She’ll be right as rain once she’s got ’er strength back, so ye’ll not be needin’ me anymore.”

  “I’d not have you leave until y’are quite certain there’ll be no relapse,” Daniel said sharply.

  “There’ll be none,” Dame Biddy declared. “I’ve other things to do, sir, than dance attendance on them what ’as no need of it. Five days of my time, ye’ve had.”

  “Ye’ll be well paid for it.”

  The old dame m
erely nodded and began packing things into a basket. “The goodwife’ll know what to do to feed ’er up and change the poultice. I’m off now.” Without so much as a farewell gesture to the girl she had brought back from the edge of death, she creaked down the stairs.

  “I was afeard, at first, that she had the evil eye,” Henrietta said. Her voice sounded a little stiff, as if from disuse.

  Daniel shook his head with a smile. “A fearsome countenance, I grant you, but rarely have I seen such skill. Ye’ve good cause to be grateful.”

  “Aye, I am aware.” She lay looking at him, not troubling to fight the insidious weakness of her limbs but simply enjoying the sensation of her body at peace. “And to you, too, Sir Daniel, I believe.”

  “So you know my name.”

  “I seem to have heard it spoken.” She frowned slightly. “I suppose I was sometimes in this world.”

  He nodded. “Perhaps you will return the courtesy now and tell me how you are called.”

  That same calculating look crossed her face and he knew what he was going to hear before she spoke. “Harry,” she said firmly, closing her eyes.

  Daniel considered his options. At the moment they were somewhat limited and until she was fit to travel he did not really need to know her family. “And how old are you, Harry?”

  There seemed little harm in answering that truthfully, Henrietta decided, and the victory she had just gained could allow a little conciliation. “I turned fifteen on the first of August.”

  “And what was a fifteen-year-old maid doing at the battle of Preston?” he inquired in a tone of mild curiosity.

  “I went to be with Will.”

  “Ah, yes.” He frowned. “So you did.”

  There was a moment of silence, then the girl announced, “We were to be married, only…only…”

  “Only you ran into a little parental opposition,” he supplied helpfully. “Were you eloping when this battle intervened?”

  Henrietta shook her head. “Will would not elope. He went to fight for the king, so I had to go too.”

  Daniel found himself unconvinced of the imperative here, but then he was not fifteen years old and in love. “Your family will be distracted with worry for you.”

  Her face closed again. “They will care only because if I am not there they cannot compel me to wed Sir Reginald—” She broke off abruptly.

  Daniel regarded her thoughtfully. Obviously she had realized that completing the name of the intended bridegroom might give her interlocutor some clue as to her own identity, or at least to the part of the world from which she hailed.

  He sat down companionably on the edge of the bed, noting absently that a week’s fever had left her wan and peaky. Her hair, which he suspected to be very fair, was now lank, straggling halfway down her back in limp, dirt-darkened strands. “And why does Sir Reginald not find favor?”

  Her features screwed themselves into a disgusted grimace. “He’s a fat, drunken sot and his breath reeks most foully! He has no hair and his teeth are green—those that he has—and he is old as Methuselah!”

  Daniel absorbed this horrifying image in comprehending silence before asking, “Why are you to be compelled to wed this less-than-paragon?”

  “Oh, ’tis something to do with bonds and staple-statute. A debt my father owes Sir Reginald.”

  “Upon staple-statute?” When she nodded, Daniel pulled at his chin. This debt the girl’s father owed would thus take precedence over all other claims on his land and property, and the man he owed could take possession of all land and property at any time he pleased until he was paid in coin of the realm. “So, this Sir Reginald will have you to wife instead. Is that it?”

  “No, he will not!” she declared with more strength than a week’s fever and a wounded shoulder should have permitted. “For I will not go home to be had.” Her face was suddenly wiped clean of all defiance and the brown eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “If Will had not been killed, I am certain I would have persuaded him to elope. Even if it meant he was disinherited and I had no dowry, we would have managed somehow.” She dashed the back of her hand across her eyes, sniffing dolefully.

  “Love alone is an insubstantial diet, child.” He stood up. “A man is like to starve with naught else to put in his belly.”

  “We could work. There is farm work, and I could be a dairymaid…But now…” Her voice faltered. “Will is killed, so…so…” The tears fell then, fast and furious. “It is not just,” she sobbed. “He was too young and I loved him so much.”

  Daniel had little comfort to offer. Too many young men beloved of their maids had gone to their deaths in the last eight years of civil strife. He stroked her head, gave her his handkerchief, and waited for the storm to blow itself out.

  “Now, now, what’s this?” The goodwife bustled up the stairs. “Lordy, sir, she shouldn’t be workin’ ’erself up like this.”

  Thus reprimanded, however unjustly, Daniel left Harry in the charge of the goodwife and went outside into the late afternoon. The story she had told him was hardly unusual, but no less unpleasant for that. Daughters were currency and not all parents were scrupulous in the manner in which they spent that currency. It did not alter his task, however. He had no choice but to return her to her home and deliver her up to whatever fate there awaited her, for all that he was aware a runaway daughter was unlikely to draw a light sentence even from the fondest parent.

  Of course, before he could do anything, she had to recover her strength and be induced to reveal her identity. Meanwhile he must kick his heels here, a mere half day’s ride from Preston, where Parliament’s army was still mopping up straggling Royalists. It went against all the laws of chance to imagine that the presence in this cottage of two strangers and an injured girl would go unnoticed in the surrounding countryside—and not all who heard of them would be of Royalist sympathy.

  Chapter 2

  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.”