by Hope Tarr
By way of offering an olive branch she added, “But it is a most pleasant surprise. Perhaps in the evenings we will read aloud together?”
He dusted off his hands and reached for the bellows. “My evening hours are my own, mistress, but you may do with yours as ye wish.”
Seeing that he meant to ignore her, Claudia fell to roaming the room. As fear dissipated, curiosity returned and soon her restless footsteps bore her toward the shadowed alcove that, until now, she’d avoided. Sans headboard, the simple rope bed was crudely constructed and yet the mattress looked to be sturdy and more than able to accommodate two, with a quaint quilt serving as a counterpane. Wondering if she would be expected to share her gaoler’s bed as a condition of her parole, she stole a glance at the Scotsman’s broad back. She still feared him, yes, but he intrigued her, too. Would his red-gold hair feel as silky as it looked? Could his arms and chest possibly be half as hard, as beautifully sculpted as the outline beneath his shirt promised?
Phillippe had been accounted to be a fine figure of a man; certainly Maman had never tired of telling her how fortunate she was to have such a young and handsome protector. Yet the sight of his slender, wiry form had never stirred Claudia. As for Monsieur Campbell, she wasn’t entirely sure she even liked the man. Certainly she abhorred his “profession.” And yet, consummate liar that she was becoming, she still hadn’t the trick of lying to herself. Monsieur Jack Campbell moved her.
She dealt herself a brisk mental shake. The man was a borreau and thus a brother to Monsieur Sanson, who operated the guillotine in France with such lethal skill. Vowing not to forget that all-important fact again, she turned her attention to the bed.
“I thought ye might have need of this.”
She whirled to find Monsieur Campbell standing just behind her, her valise dangling from one hand. Caught up in her thoughts, she hadn’t heard him come up. On eye-level with the triangle of his dun-colored waistcoat she could see the shadow of crisp chest hair beneath the well-worn cloth of his white shirt and felt a strange fluttering low in her belly.
“Merci. Thank you.” All too aware of the bed at her back, of the fact that they were well and truly alone together, she swallowed hard and backed up a step.
“I suppose ye’ll be wantin’ a moment to yourself and forbye supper will no cook itself.” He set the valise atop the blanket chest at the foot of the bed and turned to go.
Glancing at his broad, retreating back, she blurted out the question that had been preying upon her mind since they’d left the hall. “Have you had a change of heart, monsieur? Do you mean to sleep with me after all?”
The clumsy question seemed to stun both of them, freezing Monsieur Campbell in midstep. Heart pounding, she watched him slowly turn back to face her.
Scarlet limned his Viking cheekbones and his eyes were fierce as he stared her down. “Duncan granted me leave to beat ye, no to bed ye.”
Claudia had all but forgotten that particular condition of her punishment. Faced with the threat, and her gaoler’s obvious ability to act on it, she curled her hands into fists at her sides.
Her chin shot up. “Do not think to lay so much as a hand on me, for if you do I will scratch out your eyes!”
It was false bravado, and they both knew it. If he so wished, he could overpower her in a second, draw up her skirts and turn her over his knee or the kitchen table, as he pleased.
Even so, she fancied there was a grudging respect in his voice and a growing softness to his amber eyes when he said, “Dinna fash, lass. I’ve yet to raise a hand to a woman, so I dinna suppose I’ll start with you.” Holding her gaze, he added, “Nor need ye be worrit that I’ll come to ye in the night for I swear to you that I willna.” In answer to her unspoken question he added, “My plaid and the floor shall suit me well enough, and after we’ve eaten I’ll hang a blanket or some such so that you may be private.”
“Thank you.” Fidgeting under the intensity of his gaze, Claudia looked away. “I did not mean to insult your honor, monsieur, I only thought—”
“That I spared ye from being hangit only because I’d reconsidered your er, offer?” he asked, gaze narrowing, daring her to deny what they both knew to be the truth.
Thinking on how she’d humbled herself before him, offering herself up as though she was a common harlot and a desperate one at that, had the heat of embarrassment blistering her own cheeks. Reminding herself that she was une femme du monde, a woman of the world, she tried for a shrug. “We are strangers, monsieur. If not to take me to your bed, then why put yourself to the trouble of speaking for me today?”
“You mean why would I lie for you?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Oui. Yes, why did you?”
He pulled a hard swallow, and Claudia watched the long ripple travel down his throat, saw the big chest rise, then fall, heard the slight rasp in his voice as at last he admitted, “I canna say as I know, mistress. Truly I canna say.”
Supper, likewise, proved to be a strained and embarrassing affair. The ordeal commenced with Monsieur Campbell dumping several musty-smelling lumps—some sort of an edible root, she supposed—from a burlap bag onto the table, plunking a wickedly sharp knife beside the pile and instructing Claudia to “Have at it.” Without further instruction, he picked up an empty wooden pail and headed out the door. When he returned minutes later with a full bucket of water, she was contemplating the largest of the round lumps, which she gingerly held pinched between her thumb and forefinger.
Wordless, he poured the water from the bucket into the largest of the earthenware pots and heaved the vessel onto the grate above the flames. Without turning around, he said, “Dinna tell me, only let me guess. Ye’ve ne’er peeled potatoes before?”
Les pommes de terre. Potatoes. So this was what they looked like in their natural state. Having tasted them in casseroles and the occasional ragout, Claudia found it almost impossible to reconcile those small, pearlescent, civilized cubes with the bulbous, dirt-covered lumps set before her.
Straightening, he rose and turned to her, a look of profound disgust marring the clean lines of mouth and jaw. “But of course ye havna. Ye’re French. And I dinna suppose that an earl’s daughter has much use for potato peeling, aye?”
The latter was so heavily laced with sarcasm as to assure her that he must have arrived at the hall that afternoon in time to witness the public reception to her desperate and ill-conceived confession of nobility. That he seemed to view both her claim and herself as something of a jest worked in her favor, of course—for him or anyone else to one day connect Mademoiselle Claudia Valemont to Lady Claudia Drummond would be a disaster—but it also rankled.
Equally insupportable, though, was that he had joined the rest of the village in judging her as une folle, a madwoman. Absurd as it was for her to care what this savage Scotsman, this bloodthirsty borreau, might think of her, the unhappy truth was that for some strange, unknown reason she did.
And so she shifted her shoulders in a shrug and said, “I only said so because I did not wish to be hung. Can you blame me, monsieur?”
“It’s no my place to judge,” he said, dropping onto the bench across the table from her.
“And yet you kill those whom others have judged?”
“Execute,” he corrected and took one of the roots in one hand and the knife in the other. “Now, shall we have a wee lesson in potato peelin’ before you begin? First ye’ve to get a good grip on it like so.”
“B-but it is…dirty.”
He glanced upward to the rafters as though calling upon the Divine for patience. Apparently finding it, he lowered his gaze to her and continued, “That would be what the water’s for, aye?” He held out his hand and after a moment’s hesitation, Claudia surrendered her potato. “Here, mind how it’s done. It’s verra simple really.”
He demonstrated, neatly shaving off a broad swathe of brown skin without so much as a nick to the flesh. A few more swipes bared the rest of the root which, barring a spot or two, gle
amed the gray-white of a pearl. A half dozen quick chops with the knife reduced the whole to a neat pile of cubes.
Facing her, he announced, “Your turn.”
Gingerly she took hold of the knife and another potato, then dug in with the tip of the blade.
Milky white water squirted her face. “Ouf,” she let out, then swiped her sleeve over the wetness.
“Ye’re to peel it, no butcher it.” Shaking his head at her, he made a scoffing—and utterly Scottish—sound low in his throat. “They’ll no be anything left to cook if ye cut deep like that.”
Angling the blade in imitation of what he had done, she drew it back, the shaving of skin curling to bare a narrow, snaking strip.
“No bad,” he conceded, offering a smile of encouragement that set her head adrift and her heart aflutter.
It is hunger, she told herself, and forced her attention from that firm, beautifully shaped mouth to the mountain of yet-to-be peeled potatoes.
The prospect of the latter quickly brought her feet back down to earth, and she heaved a heavy sigh. “But I fear I do not possess your…er, talent, monsieur. I will be peeling potatoes all night.”
Now that she’d mastered this peasant task, it lost all appeal. And she was hungry, starved really. At the prison they’d given her a single oatcake for supper and another for breakfast. Her stomach, if indeed she still possessed one, must be shrunken to the size of a peach pit. And she was sleepy, her shoulders stiff from the previous night passed on her cell pallet.
But if Monsieur Campbell was moved to pity, he hid it well. Shrugging, he said, “Then it’s maybe a good idea if ye learn the trick of it and fast, aye?”
“You, Monsieur le Borreau, are not a nice man.” Annoyed when he only chuckled and picked up a leek to start chopping, she stabbed the knife in the potato and yanked it straight back. The blade slipped, finding purchase deep in the flesh her thumb.
“Ouf!”
Monsieur Campbell’s red-gold head shot up. Expression pained, he said, “Och, but you’ve cut yourself, havna ye?”
Feeling unspeakably foolish, she shoved her hand beneath the table. Swaddling her bleeding thumb in her skirts, she said, “A small prick, it is nothing.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He stood and came around to her side of the table. “Let me see.”
Muttering curses in French, she brought up her hand from its hiding place. A scarlet arc spurted, putting her in mind of the fountain of burgundy wine from which she’d once drunk.
He went down on bended knee beside her. “Jesus, Joseph and Mary!” Beneath the ruddy glow of his tan, the edges of his face had gone the pearlescent white of a peeled potato. “Christ, woman, if this is what ye call a ‘prick,’ Callum should count himself fortunate ye dinna take his whole arm.”
Staring at the sight, Claudia felt herself growing woozy. She started to lower her arm.
He snatched her elbow and hoisted her arm. “Nay, hold it up.” He made an examination of the wound.
Feeling the warmth of his breath falling on her damaged hand and wrist, it occurred to her that the only time they’d been closer was the day before, in the tavern, when she’d cast herself into his arms. Thinking of that episode, of her own foolishness then and since, was all it took to bring whatever blood she had left shooting into her cheeks.
He looked up and said, “Ye’ll maybe live but it wants for tendin’.”
As the implication of his words sank in, she tried to pull away. “But you…you are not a physician.”
“Nay worries. My maither’s maither’s people were MacLays and like them I ken something of the healing. Ye’ve no cut into bone nor muscle and if ye hold still and let me tend it proper you’ll maybe no lose the hand.”
She gasped. “Lose my hand! But—” She stopped when she saw one corner of his mouth lift in the beginning of a lopsided smile. “Beast! You wish only to frighten me.”
He didn’t deny it. “Frighten some sense into ye maybe, and to coax ye to hold still.” Gently, very gently, he transferred the wounded hand back into her keeping and then rose. He tugged the loosely knotted neck cloth free from his throat and handed it to her. “Here, wrap this tight about it whilst I go to fetch my wee chest.”
She hesitated, then reached out with her good hand to take it. The starch-stiffened linen smelled of the strong mint-scented soap he used and held the warmth of his skin. As embarrassed as though she held his unmentionables rather than a mere cravat, she nonetheless managed a quick nod and did as she was bid. By the time he returned from rifling the kitchen cupboard, a small rosewood chest held between his broad palms, the cloth was crimson and the temporary numbness had subsided, leaving the wound to throb with the regularity of a beating heart.
Humming as if he did this every day—but then she supposed indifference to the sight of blood must be part of his job requirements—he flipped open the box lid and began taking out vials and setting them on the table. An “Aha!” apparently signaled that his search was met with success. He produced a small glass jar, removed the lid and sunk two broad fingers into the green gunk.
Claudia wrinkled her nose as the foul fumes rose. “What is it?”
He reached for her hand. “Oh, a bit o’ this and that. Helichrysum or ‘everlasting’ if you prefer, to stem the bleeding and tea tree and chamomile to keep the wound from turning putrid. As to the secret ingredient, trust me, ye dinna want to know.” Despite its strong odor and dubious color, the salve felt pleasantly cool on her skin. She was starting to relax when suddenly he said, “You’ve verra queer hands for a seamstress.”
Wondering what he might mean, she held out her other hand and regarded it. She’d always been more than a little vain about her hands. Unlike her mother’s, her fingers were long and tapered and tipped with strong, even nails.
“Dinna look so put out,” he cautioned, reaching inside the chest for a strip of clean white cloth to wrap about the wound. “’Tis only that hands tell a lot about a person. Most women who ply their needle with fair frequency have a wee callus on the thumb that wears the thimble. And the tips of their fingers tend to be rough on account of them pricking themselves, no smooth as yours are.”
Zut, alors! Thinking fast, Claudia settled on an explanation that cobbled together the best of fact with fiction. “Ah well, monsieur, you have found me out,” she said around a little sigh. “Caught me in the ‘little white lie,’ as you say in English, for I am not a seamstress by trade. Oh yes,” she quickly added, in response to the sudden lift to his roan-colored brows, “I know when we first met I told you I was on my way to work in a modiste’s shop—and I was, monsieur, truly I was.” For the sake of effect, she allowed her shoulders to slump just the tiniest bit before continuing, “But hélas, I was not entirely honest with my future employer, either, for my hope was that she might take pity on me and permit me to stay on to learn.”
“Then what is your trade?”
Claudia did not care for the way he accented that last word or for the speculative gleam in his amber gaze, which brought to mind that she had, after all, offered up her body as payment for his safe escort. Thinking on that humiliating episode, including his oh so humiliating refusal, she felt the heat of shame creeping into her cheeks even as she turned her attention to explaining how someone from the working class might have hands that were soft and unblemished and not rough and callused.
“I was a lady’s maid, monsieur.”
“Aye?”
She nodded vigorously.
“Exactly what does a lady’s maid do, mistress?” At her frown he added mildly, “I’ve always wondered, but as it happens you’re the verra first I’ve ever met to ask.”
Merde! What had her maid Evette’s duties been? “Well, I, er, dressed my mistress’s hair and helped her to bathe.”
He frowned up at her. “Was she an invalid, then, that she couldna wash herself?”
“She was a lady,” she shot back, well and truly annoyed, for Evette had indeed undertaken that office fo
r her, preparing delightful baths of milk and rosewater. “It was my responsibility to see to the keeping of her clothes—only light mending, though,” she added quickly, before he could question her. “She had a seamstress for the rest.” Warming to her tale, a more or less fact-based account of her life before the revolution, she went on, “And then there were the flowers from her many admirers—such roses, monsieur, you have yet to see, for they were known to be her favorite. When they came, she…er, I would arrange them about her boudoir. And then there were the calling cards and the invitations and the…Ah, well,” she said around a genuine sigh of regret for that gay, lost life, “It was a long time ago.”
“It all sounds verra grand,” he remarked, tying the ends of the bandage into a neat knot. “But ’twould serve you better now had you labored in the kitchen instead.”
He wished she’d been what, a scullery maid? Shuddering at the thought, she asked, “Why?”
“Well, because it occurs to me that while you’re with us you might make yourself most useful by helping out in the tavern.”
“You expect me to work in a taverne?”
“’Tis gainful employment, to be sure, and ye’d be servin’ a need as Jenny—that’s Milread’s cousin and the other barmaid—broke her arm this sennight past. The apothecary set the bone as best he could but until it heals, if it heals, she canna use it and so puir Milread’s been left to fend for herself.”
“Milread?”
“Aye, Milread,” he said again as though that name should mean something to her, and she didn’t much care for the censure she saw in his narrowing eyes. “Surely you must mind the woman who spoke for you in the hall today and, before that, helped me care for you when you’d fainted?”
And the very woman whom I caused to chase after me, she added mentally as the memory came streaking back to her. Slinking back to the bench, she ventured, “Surely there is some other occupation to which I am better suited, monsieur. Some better use for my talents?”