Tangled Hearts (15 page)

“Is that your only prerequisite? That ye like me?”

“No,” she said. “I like a good many people. You also smell clean.”

He frowned. “I am clean, but Will’s about to be clean, too. Would ye be asking him to show ye—”

“No! Will’s like a brother.” She seemed to shiver. “That’s just evil.”

Will apparently didn’t feel the same.

She continued. “I have to like you, more than… not like a brother.” A flush rushed up into her face again. “Anyway,” she breathed and forced her gaze to meet his. “Isn’t that what all your hand holding and words meant? And the kiss before? That you want to swive? If it is, I accept.”

“Ye accept,” he parroted.

“For educational reasons.”

“So ye don’t want to follow the nun’s advice.”

“I already pray, but I don’t about swiving.”

Ewan glanced at the blue sky for a lightning bolt—God’s, not Dory’s.

“’Tis good. Best to keep that out of yer prayers. I meant about waiting until ye wed.”

She shook her head. “I don’t plan to wed.”

“All beautiful lasses wed.”

There was that adorable blush again. “I don’t know anyone wed. Well, Geoffrey says he has a wife, but none of us have ever met her, so I don’t think they do much swiving.”

Ewan almost laughed at the serious look on her face.

“And children?” he asked, rapt by what next might come from her sweet mouth.

She looked closely at him. “Ewan, one can have children without being wed.”

“It’s frowned upon.” He forced his mirth to stay bottled inside. These were very serious topics.

“There are too many unwanted children in this world.” Her face grew sad. “I will just love some of them as my own when I want a babe. No use to tie myself to some cheating bloke just to have children.”

“Some of us clean blokes don’t cheat once we’ve wed,” he said. She needed to be set straight about a few things. The thought of her never wedding, raising someone else’s children without the help of a husband, twisted Ewan’s gut.

“How do you know? Are you wed?”

“No, I’m not. But if I were to promise to be faithful to a woman, to love her, I wouldn’t step out on her.”

She studied him as if uncertain if he were telling the truth. “And what if your wife stepped out on you?”

“That wouldn’t happen.”

She raised the arch of her delicate eyebrow. Did she plan to be a cuckold? Then her smile broke along her face, her eyes dancing. She laughed and patted his knee. “I am certain that any woman you ask to wed would be so enraptured with you that she’d never dream of straying.”

“Bloody right!” he said, and then joined her in her laugh. It was easy to laugh with her, as if they were friends, comrades riding the borders. Yet she was so much bonnier than any of his friends. What would Caden or Donald think of his lovely lass? His lovely lass? Ewan’s laughter faded. She wasn’t his.

As unconventional as the swiving discussion should have been, it wasn’t nearly as awkward as the silence that now stretched between them. A starling dove from the top of a budding fruit tree as another swooped after it. He cleared his throat.

“So when did ye want to…” He started and stopped. Blasted, he refused to blush. Warriors didn’t blush. “Swive?”

“How long will it take?”

He exhaled long. Never before had he met a lass like Dory. “Bloody hell,” he murmured. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve done this before, right?”

“Aye.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “It depends on…lots of things.” He looked around the barely concealing shrubbery. “And we’re certainly not doing it out here in the garden.”

“Of course not. It would be much too cold to lift my skirts out here and someone could come along any moment.”

He just stared at her. At least the whore had included privacy as a requirement.

As if on cue, two men hurried out of the side door, one pointing down to where they sat, still clearly in view. Ewan stood, his hand instantly finding his sword.

“A short blade is much easier to use in close quarters,” Dory said and slipped one up from under her skirts.

“I don’t carry a
sghian dubh
.” He tried to step in front of Dory, but she moved around to stand next to him.

William Spencer strode down the gravel path with a servant following. “Lady Wellington!”

Bloody hell, she was a Brody!

“Yes?” Dory replied in a gentle voice. And to think swiving had just moments before been her favored word.

Spencer came to a halt before them, a hand fluttering at his chest. “There… there is a girl here, a dirty young girl at the gates.”

Dory looked to Ewan. He shrugged. “Yes?” she said.

“She asked for Lady Brody.”

“Which she is,” Ewan replied.

“She says she’s yours,” Spencer continued and held out something small.

Dory opened her palm and Spencer laid a silver object in it.

It was Dory’s tiny thimble.

…

Dory clutched the hard thimble in her hand as she stepped down the kitchen steps into the cooking garden. The child stood with her hands folded, grasping the gray woven hat that had apparently held up her shoulder-length hair. Dory could usually guess how things would go with a rescued child by their eyes. Either they would be defensive and belligerent, or a puddle of sadness and pain. Both types were scared to death and needed security around them.

Dory squatted, her obnoxiously massive skirts pillowing around her. “I’m so glad you came,” she said and the girl looked up. The same big blue eyes from the day before in front of the tower stared back at her. They glistened wet and Dory could see the bruise up high on her cheek. Anger tightened her stomach, twisting it until she thought she might be ill, but she smiled instead and reached out a hand, palm up.

“I gave the man the thimble,” she said, misinterpreting.

Dory shook her head. “I just want to have your hand.”

“And yer name, wee one,” Ewan whispered from behind.

The girl’s mouth firmed into a line. “I’m not a wee one,” she said. She straightened her shoulders and Dory hid a grin. “I’m almost twelve, I think.”

“Your hand, please,” Dory repeated and the girl gave it. Dory nearly jumped at the girl’s near-to-exploding system. Her heart pounded. Her blood rushed. She was ready to run if needed. But what hitched Dory’s breath were the bruises. Besides the one on her face, several pools of blood sat just below her young skin between her legs, on her budding breasts, and on her backside. Dory held her breath as she reached further into the girl with her senses, listening for the tell-tale whisper of internal trauma.

Dory released her breath. The girl was a virgin. She tried to grab back her hand, but Dory was much stronger, and she sent a pulse of magic into the girl. “Be still now,” she instructed as the girl gasped, probably at the blue glow along her hand and the heat that accompanied healing. She sent steady pulses into all the girl’s muscles, healing and rejuvenating. Ewan could be mad at her if he must, but there was no one around and she wasn’t going to have the girl suffer on top of being scared. The healing was easy and would just make Dory a bit tired.

Dory finally let go. “We need to get some food into you.”

“What did you just do to me?” she asked.

“I fixed your bruises,” Dory whispered back. “It’s a secret.” She waited for a nod that the wide-eyed girl finally gave.

“I know how to keep secrets.”

“I guessed that,” Dory said. “And I won’t ask how you got all those bruises, but I’d say you are about as tough as that Highlander frowning behind me.”

The girl blinked and then a grin spread on her dirty face. “How did you know he was frowning?”

Dory shrugged. “Because I’m pretty sure that he’s ready to hunt down and punish the person who did this to you. And… he likes to frown.”

The girl giggled. Her spirit wasn’t dead, just bruised. Good.

“Who did this to ye?” he asked.

The girl’s smile faded. “You said you wouldn’t ask.”

“Nay,” he said. “She said she wouldn’t ask. I’m asking.”

Dory used Ewan’s well-muscled calf to help her stand.

“It was that older boy, Randolph, wasn’t it?” Ewan continued. “Did he force ye—”

“No,” Dory answered first and looked at Ewan. “But I’m guessing that’s why she left.”

Ewan’s muscles didn’t relax one bit. “If ye want food, I want yer name.”

Dory frowned at him. He shouldn’t be bullying the girl. “You can give us any name you want, but we need to know what to call you.”

The girl thought for a moment. “I once heard the name Charissa. I like it.”

“Charissa it is,” Dory said and ignored Ewan’s muttering. “Let’s get you something hot to fill your belly, and a warm bath.” She placed an arm around the slender shoulders.

The girl was rigid. “I can go in? What do I have to do?”

She’d definitely been raised in the street. Things didn’t come from the goodness of someone’s heart.

Dory looked her square in the eye. “Very good of you to ask. Let’s see, I will expect you to clean yourself, wear the warm clothes I provide, and serve as a lady’s maid to me. Do you accept the position?”

“I don’t know how to be a lady’s maid. I can’t weave hair or—”

“I’ll see to your training. If I ask you to do something you don’t know how to do, you must tell me. Agreed?”

“That is it?” She glanced at Ewan. “Do I take care of him, too?”

“No,” Dory said. “He can take care of himself.”

“Have been since I was a lad,” he added. “And I don’t know how to weave hair, either.”

Charissa smiled and followed them inside the warm kitchen full of lovely yeasty bread smells. Tilly stopped just inside the door at the sight of them.

“Tilly, could you please send a bowl of stew and a loaf of that lovely bread up to our rooms?”

“I… I just took some for…” She reddened and tossed her hand back out the door.

Blast! “Were they still bathing?” Dory asked, and the maid’s red cheeks answered. “Quite sorry about that, Tilly.” She’d smack Will if he answered her door naked. “Could we perhaps take some ourselves for my new… lady’s companion, Charissa.”

“Oh,” Tilly said and bobbed her head. She moved to the cook fire and ladled out some steaming stew. Ewan grabbed one of the fresh loaves off the cooling rack.

“Thank ye.” He nodded to her. “I’ll see that those two,” he pointed upward toward their rooms, “are properly attired before ye see them again.”

“Who two?” Charissa asked.

“Captain Bart and Will,” Dory said to the girl and squeezed her hand. “The captain is good and kind and Will, he’s like my brother and I’ll keep him in line.”

The girl looked a little nervous but took the handful of bread Ewan handed her. She bit into it and chewed as they followed Ewan down the hall.

“It’s good you stayed away from the docks,” Dory said conversationally. “That you came here instead.”

“Randolph said that he’d sell me at the docks if I didn’t make myself useful.”

Ewan stopped. “Sell ye?”

Charissa nodded. “He said that there were slave traders down there looking for strays.”

“Strays, as in children?” Ewan asked.

“Yes,” Dory said low, her stomach tensing. “I’ll let Captain Bart know.”

“Why?” Ewan asked.

Dory exhaled. She hadn’t actually told him the main function of the
Queen Siren
. It was a much guarded secret, which was how Captain Bart and the crew could easily move in and out of the most disreputable circles. “He has experience with finding good homes for children.”

“Good homes?” Ewan asked with a slant that showed he suspected something else entirely. She wasn’t going to have this conversation with him in the halls of Hampton Court with Charissa.

“Yes,” she hissed. “I was quite lucky to be born on his ship.” Dory took Charissa’s empty hand and proceeded down the corridor. Without the hard heel of her boots, the slippers couldn’t punctuate her mood. But she tipped her chin up and marched on. “You are in good hands now, Charissa.”

Dory stopped before her door. She was about to push into the room, but Ewan’s arm shot out, stopping her. “Listen.”

The ribald verse of a sea chantey seeped out through the oak. “Blasted devils!” she cursed. Charissa covered her mouth, but her shoulders showed that she laughed.

“I better go in first,” Ewan said but Dory’s shoulder was already through the door into the room.

“First you scare Tilly, then you threaten my… Ewan,” she yelled. “Then order a blasted feast, and now you’re sitting naked singing about filling whores’ sails. I should have left you in the Tower!”

“Naked!” Ewan growled and lifted her, spinning her behind him. “Charissa, close yer eyes.”

Dory stared at Ewan’s broad back long enough to appreciate how the fabric fit his contours, and then stepped quickly to the side.

“Relax, Highlander,” Will called out.

“Panda,” Captain Bart said, “we have sheets around us so we’re hardly naked. And besides, no clean clothes have arrived as of yet. We stayed in the water until it turned cool.”

Will flexed his hands over his head, probably showing off his muscles as he was want to do. “Aye, but that water,” he sighed and lowered his arms, “was as warm as a fresh whore’s—”

“Enough.” Ewan’s voice muffled Will’s expression. Dory was used to it and hadn’t even flinched. But Charissa must be frightened. The girl just stood next to Ewan, actually against Ewan. She was scared.

“Captain Bart,” Dory said. “We have a new child to care for.”

“Hmm?” But he’d already caught a glimpse of her.

“Captain Bart, Will—this is Charissa. I believe she’s alone in the world and needs our help.”

She was happy to see Will pull his sheet over his shoulders so that it resembled a cape to totally cover him. Most abandoned or abused children feared nakedness, especially in a grown man.

Captain Bart did the same and came to stand in front of the girl. He bowed formally. “Pardon, m’lady. We were misbehaving a bit.” He winked. “But Dory here, she keeps us right in line.”

“Ha!” Dory laughed.

Captain Bart wobbled his head. “We’ve been celebrating our freedom.”

“Will’s a bad influence on you,” she chided.

“Aye, I certainly am,” Will boasted.