Chapter 13 #2
Agnes stared at her, aghast. ‘I’ve no need of love potions and no wish to use one,’ she said archly.
Ellen nodded and turned back to her work.
‘As ye wish. We need to bring the fever down. There’s cold water in that jug.
’ She indicated a large clay jug sitting beside a metal basin.
‘Take those up, and ye’ll find some clean cloths in that cupboard.
Tell Mistress I’ll be a while yet. It needs time to steep. ’
The sound of voices drifted out of the half-open door as Agnes, balancing jug and basin and cloths, reached the guest bedchamber.
‘Have you seen his back?’ The voice was Jonathan Thornton’s.
Agnes paused, her hand on the door, as Kate’s soft voice responded, ‘Dear God, who would do that to another human being?’
‘Ah, Kate. These are cruel times we live in. Have you forgotten how ill they treated me?’
‘No,’ Kate’s voice held a tremor. ‘I’ll never forget … or forgive.’
Agnes knocked on the door and opened it slowly. She had thought to allow the couple sufficient time to collect themselves but found them in an embrace, Kate’s head resting on her husband’s chest, his arms around her.
The tenderness of the gesture touched her. James had never been outwardly demonstrative with her, or indeed his wife, in public or private. Whatever rumours may have been rife in Charvaley, their public behaviour had never been anything less than entirely proper.
The man on the bed moaned and flung himself onto his side, the sheets tangling around his hips, exposing his back to her.
Agnes recoiled, the metal bowl slipping from her grasp.
It hit the floor with a deafening clang.
Jonathan retrieved it and set it on a table.
Recovering her composure, Agnes set the jug down.
She understood now what Daniel had not wanted her to see. James had once had a miscreant whipped for stealing fruit from the orchard and had made the entire household watch as a deterrent. The man had twisted and screamed under the lash but the result had been nothing like this.
The interlaced pattern of heavy scars across the hard muscles of Daniel’s back had been laid on with a vicious ferocity that should have killed him.
‘They used a whip with a metal end,’ Jonathan Thornton said, ‘It would have torn the flesh from his bones.’
Agnes tore her gaze away from Daniel and looked up at him. ‘How does anyone survive such a thing?’
Kate Thornton straightened. ‘Luck and a strong will. Where did this happen?’
‘It must have been Barbados,’ Agnes said.
Jonathan raised an eyebrow and gave a low whistle. ‘They sent him to Barbados? Good God, they may as well have given him a death sentence.’
As if aware of the audience gathered around him, Daniel rolled back onto his back and opened his eyes. He squinted up into Agnes’s face.
‘I thought I told you to go away,’ he mumbled.
‘You did, but I’m not going anywhere. It would be extremely inconvenient if you were to die on me,’ Agnes responded.
He tried to laugh, but it turned into a cough.
Ellen entered the room with a flask and a beaker in her hands. With the practice of two people long used to working together, Kate raised Daniel’s head and Ellen administered a decent dose of the tincture of Jesuit Bark.
Daniel swore and coughed, screwing up his face in disgust. ‘Filthy stuff.’
‘Aye, it may well be, but nothing that’s good for you was ever made to taste pleasant. I think ye know that lad,’ Ellen said, laying him back on the bolsters.
‘He needs to rest,’ Kate said. ‘Mistress Fletcher, you must be exhausted from your travels. Let me show you to a room and I can arrange for a bath … ’
Agnes shook her head, her eyes only for the man on the bed.
‘I will sit with him a while,’ she said and looked up at Kate with an apologetic smile. ‘This is not what Daniel would have wanted and I … we … would not wish to inconvenience you any more than we have. I can see to him.’
Kate Thornton’s calm, grey eyes rested on her for a long moment.
‘Very well. He is your friend; of course, you may sit with him. I advocate that you bathe his face and wrists to try and cool the fever. Ellen will come and relieve you later.’
Agnes waited until the others had left the room, although Ellen seemed somewhat reluctant to leave her patient in Agnes’s inexperienced hands.
Taking a deep breath, she poured the cool water into the basin. Soaking one of the cloths, she perched on the side of the bed and sat there, holding the damp cloth in her hands, suddenly afraid to touch him with a degree of intimacy that their relationship had not permitted up until now.
In his austere dark clothes he gave an impression of being of slight build, but naked, at least from the waist up, his hard muscles confirmed the evidence of a life lived in physical labour.
He opened one eye. ‘Still here?’ he enquired.
‘Yes, and I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.’
He sighed and closed his eyes as a feverish tremor shook his body.
Agnes knew nothing of marsh fever, except that once a person contracted it, it returned again and again — and it could kill.
After everything this man had endured, he could not die here, so close to home, and she would do whatever lay within her power to keep him alive. Even if that one thing was prayer.
His left hand lay outside the covers and she picked it up, turning it over.
There were scars on his palm and calluses on the long fingers that curled with a curious vulnerability.
She touched the cool cloth to the inside of his wrist, where the blood flowed closest to the skin. He turned his head away from her.
Using the cloth she began to stroke the long muscles of his arm, feeling the hardness beneath the fabric of the cloth. He gave a sharply indrawn breath and she looked up.
‘Do you want me to stop?’
He shook his head. ‘No, it feels … ’ His eyelids flickered. ‘ … Nice.’
She ran the cloth across his chest, dampening the dark hair into soft whorls.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were ill? We could have stopped … ’
‘I hoped it would pass. I didn’t want to give into it … not in an inn. You wouldn’t have known what to do,’ he murmured, closing his eyes again.
‘You must think very poorly of me,’ she bridled.
He didn’t reply and appeared to be asleep. She brushed a lock of hair away from his eyes. ‘I can’t let you die,’ she whispered. ‘You are my only hope of seeing my son … ’ She broke off, her heart pounding at the disastrous slip, but if Daniel had heard her, he gave no sign.