by Hope Tarr
He shook his head. “’Tis the Border Country of Scotland we’re in, no Paris, France. All of us here ken how to comb our own hair and wash our own arses. As for flowers, most died upon the frost this fortnight past, but I’ve a vegetable garden out back and you’re welcome to help me harvest what’s left o’ the turnips and peas when ye’re no at Alistair’s.”
It was not often that Claudia was struck speechless but certainement the present moment stood to be one of those rare times. To fetch tankards and pints for the loudmouthed louts she’d seen in the taproom the day before like a common slattern. To grope in the dirt for roots like the lowliest peasant. It was too horrible, certainly too patently unfair, to even put into words, English or French.
Seemingly satisfied, he rose to put the box away and then promptly removed all sharp objects from her reach with the admonition that she keep from killin’ herself until after they’d supped.
Coming out of her stupor, Claudia perched on the bench while he made short work of the rest of the potatoes, and then an assortment of vegetables and herbs, his movements marked by a brisk efficiency, a grace, she couldn’t help but admire. At some point, the black-and-white cat jumped down from its perch on the armchair and strolled over to sniff her feet. She must have passed muster for the beast began slinking about her ankles. Claudia hesitated, then reached down to stroke the soft fur, then to scratch that spot of chin where she recalled cats adored being scratched. Once she’d had a cat, a fluffy gray kitten with large, luminous jade-green eyes, but that had been a long time ago and, owing to Phillippe’s contempt for all creatures furry and four-footed, had ended so badly that she’d sworn never to take in another.
Eventually the one-eyed cat moved on and Claudia’s tedium mounted until finally, desperate for the sound of a human voice, she remarked, “Your accent, monsieur, your Scots ‘burr,’ it is not as strong as that of the others in the village. You speak almost as a gentleman.”
Closing the cupboard, from which he’d just taken down a round of cheese and a loaf of brown bread, he turned to regard her. “Oh, my accent, is it?” He made a sound low in his throat, which emerged somewhere between a snort and a mmphm.
Still smarting over the potato-peeling debacle, nerves frayed to a thread from brooding on just what manner of “reception” she could expect when she presented herself at the inn, she lifted her chin and snapped, “You do not like me, monsieur. I wish to know why.”
He set the cheese board down on the table and glanced over at her. “’Tis no a matter of liking or no liking. Mostly I’m just no used to havin’ a wee foreign female underfoot and such a talkative one at that.”
Ignoring her smarting thumb, she gestured with her hands to encompass the room’s four walls. “And where in this…this palace to which you have brought me shall I take myself so that I am not under your feets?”
“Underfoot,” he repeated mildly, returning to stir the stew, “and though you’re fine as you are, you might set the table as supper’s a’most ready.” With his elbow he pointed to a pine cupboard built into one corner.
Yet more manual labor! If she were to stay and serve out the six months, she’d be worn to a nub. With a huff she rose and stomped over to the cupboard, pulling out stoneware bowls and cups and slamming them down upon the table.
True to his word, a short while later he announced that supper was indeed ready. “Best eat it whilst it’s hot,” he advised, handing her a brimming bowl from which a cloud of steam rose.
Accepting it and then taking her seat, she stared down into the murky depths of roan colored mush and asked, “What is it?”
He vented a put upon sigh. “We call it hotchpotch.”
“Hotchpotch?” Having tested the word on her tongue, she decided the dish sounded no more appetizing than it looked. “What is in it…other than potatoes, I mean?”
Back to her, he lifted his amazing shoulders in a shrug. “This and that.”
She stirred her spoon about, excavating a bit of carrot here, a stray pea there. Coming up empty, she glanced across the table to the man who would serve as the sole source of her body’s sustenance for the following six months—at least until she found the means to escape—and asked, “No meat?”
The sudden scowl beetling his high brow made him look fierce indeed but, Claudia reasoned, as he hadn’t struck her thus far, he wasn’t likely to interrupt his supper to do so now. “Betimes I’ll put in a bit o’ salmon, but I’ve no exactly had the time to fish these few days past, now have I?”
More by way of conversation than complaint, she asked, “What of the chickens I saw in the yard? And certainement there must be rabbits and deer in those woods?”
It was an innocent question. She hadn’t meant to offend, but the tightening of his jaw told her she’d done that and more.
Color rising, he gave an adamant shake of his head. “The chickens I keep for their eggs and their company. As to the other, ’twould be akin to supping on the flesh of a friend.”
What manner of man kept company with chickens? Wondering if he might not be a bit mad himself, she cleared her throat to ask, “If you do not eat meat, how is it then that you live?”
Ladling broth into a second bowl, he answered with a question of his own. “Do I look to be wastin’ away, then?”
Unprepared for the question, Claudia drew a deep if shaky breath. Broad of shoulder, with powerful arms and thighs the circumference of small tree trunks, Jack Campbell appeared to be both hearty and hale. Indeed he was the biggest man she’d ever seen, yet there wasn’t a jot of fat on him. Even his forearms, dusted with golden hair and exposed by his rolled-up shirtsleeves, were knotted with muscle and pulsating with power.
Finding her voice, husky though it was, she admitted, “No, monsieur, you appear to be quite, er, robust.”
“Well, then,” he said, taking his seat across from her. “There’s your answer.” Spoon in hand, he delved in, proving that he did indeed possess a hearty appetite.
Wisps of steam still rose from her soup bowl, carrying the aroma of spices and herbs upward to tickle not only her nose but her taste buds as well. She slid her spoon into the broth, blew gently on the filled reservoir and then slowly slid it between her parted lips.
“Hmm,” she murmured in pure appreciation, running her tongue along her slightly scored bottom lip to cool the burn.
Opening her eyes, which she’d closed to better savor the surprisingly delicate flavor, she caught Monsieur Campbell’s stark gaze riveted on her face and his spoon clenched in midair.
Recalling her former high-strung chef, she hastened to reassure him. “C’est magnifique. It is magnificent. I think,” she teased, “the reason you will not tell me the ingredients is that you fear I will steal your receipt.”
His face relaxed, he lowered his spoon and, miracle of miracles, his mouth lifted in a for-once unguarded smile. Setting down the spoon in favor of cutting bread and cheese for two, he said, “You’d be safe if ye did, for I doubt it’s worth so much as five shillings.”
Oh, he was sharp, she’d give him that. To show she hadn’t missed his meaning, she shot back, “You would know, would you not, Monsieur le Borreau?”
Instantly she regretted having spoken so, for his smile dissolved into a look of wary puzzlement. “What is it that you call me?”
She cast her gaze down to her food. “Borreau. It is the French word for executioner.” They ate in awkward silence for a while until, weary of the tension, she struck up the courage to ask, “Do you…” How to put it? “Do you enjoy your work?”
He looked up from cutting a wedge of cheese in two to hold her gaze for a long, unnerving moment before shrugging. “It’s a living. And,” he added, amber eyes glinting, “most times no so messy as peelin’ potatoes with a French lassie who doesna ken a turnip from a potato.”
Claudia had to resist the urge to poke out her tongue. “Touché. But you are an educated man, monsieur, un homme des lettres. Non, do not trouble yourself to deny it,” she sa
id when he showed signs of shaking his head. “For I have seen the books upon your shelf. Certainement you need not resort to murder to earn your living.”
Amber eyes narrowed, glowing lethal bright. “I’ve never murdered anyone. Those I meet upon the scaffold have been tried in a court of law where learned men have found them to be guilty. Guilty of terrible crimes that, for all your worldly-wise ways, would shock even you.”
The memory of that morning, of how very close she’d come to the gibbet herself for what amounted to a moment’s mistake, throbbed raw and fresh as the cut on her thumb. Forgetting fear, abandoning caution, she spat out, “To steal something that is said to be worth more than…but what was this princely sum? Ah, yes, five shillings. A crime most shocking indeed.”
A muscle ticking in his square jaw, he reached over and stabbed the blade of the cheese knife into the table boards. Caught unaware, Claudia jerked back, the breath catching in her throat.
From the opposite side of the quivering blade, he glowered at her. “I’ve yet to meet the thief who could claim to have plied his trade without takin’ at least one life along the way.”
Pulling her tattered dignity about her, determined not to be afraid, she hoisted her chin and said, “Perhaps you are dining with one now.”
Something in his gaze, the sudden stark pain that lay just behind his eyes, made her regret having started down this path. Feeling as though holes were being burned into her flesh, she broke eye contact at last. Stirring her spoon about, all too aware of his gaze trained on her, she waited for the unnerving tension to ease.
When after a time it showed no signs of doing so, she demanded, “Why do you stare, monsieur?”
“From here on, if you want an answer from me, you’ll call me Jack.”
Message delivered, he turned his attention back to his supper, leaving Claudia with little choice but to do the same. Between spoonfuls of soup and bites of bread and cheese, she waited once more for him to end their silence.
But despite calling out to his dog and twice ordering the cat away from the table, he didn’t address her for the remainder of the night.
Chapter Six
Claudia had never understood that odd species of individual known among the English as a “morning person.” In the days before bloody revolution had driven her to flee home and country, she’d rarely if ever risen before noon. Indeed, “rising” had constituted little more than sitting propped against a bank of snowy pillows, sipping her cup of chocolat and nibbling at her croissant, which Evette would have carried in on the silver breakfast tray along with the morning post.
And yet the big hand descending on her shoulder felt nothing like Evette’s tentative touch, the palm broad and warm, the long blunt fingers holding fast to her flesh.
Clinging to the memory of better days nonetheless, Claudia turned her face into the pillow and murmured in French, “Evette, I did not ring for you. It is early yet. Away, away.” She flexed her shoulder, seeking to dislodge the hand holding her back from bliss.
It wouldn’t budge.
Still muzzy with sleep, she became aware of the strong, clean scent of evergreen hovering over her like a cloud. Mingled with the mint associated with a man’s shaving soap, it marked the identity of her morning “caller” as indelibly as did his red hair and towering height.
And, lest there be any residual doubt, there was the deep, rich timbre of his voice as he said, “I dinna ken any Evettes, but what I do ken is ye’re getting your arse out of this bed and now.”
Hoping she might be dreaming still, that the past forty-eight hours would prove to be a fiction of her fraught mind, Claudia rolled onto her back and cracked open a cautious eye.
Candle in hand, Monsieur Campbell—Jack—scowled down at her, his strong Nordic jaw locked in the clear determination to have his way. The flickering light cast the clean, strong planes of his freshly shaved face into sharp relief, at the same time softening the grim set of his wide and rather pleasantly shaped mouth. The marks of a comb’s teeth showed in the thick mass of red hair, still damp at the temples, that he’d gathered back into a tidy, leather-bound club. The latter cued Claudia to the terrible truth: it must be morning.
Not yet prepared to face reality, let alone a fanatically early-rising Scotsman, she snapped both eyes closed, yanked the coverlet to chin level and rolled back onto her side. “Go away.”
“Come now,” he said, a hint of coaxing tempering the steel in his tone. “’Tis your verra first day. Ye’ll no want to be late,” he added reasonably, then treated both her and the mattress to a gentle jiggling.
But Claudia was in no mood to be coaxed, reasoned with or jiggled. Her body, coming into consciousness despite her best efforts, was beginning to register the ill effects of the previous forty-eight hours, including the night spent on the cold and very hard stones of the prison cell floor. She’d yet to do more than shift position, and already she ached in places for which she hadn’t names.
“I do not care.”
Another nudge, firmed with purpose, as was the voice that replied, “Be that as it may, I care. And I canna wait about all mornin’ while you take your beauty rest.”
By now well and truly awake, Claudia grabbed hold of the covers with both hands and bolted upright, fixing him with an openly hostile gaze. “But of course, you will have an eventful day, monsieur. No, do not tell me but allow me to make the guess. Places to go, people to murder? That is it, yes? Eh bien, do not let me keep you from these labors most worthy. Au revoir or better yet, adieu.”
He slammed the candle atop the bedside table, sending wax splashing onto the sides of the brass holder. “Aye, I’m minded to strangle someone a’right, but ’tis only one wee Frenchwoman, and that’s only if she doesna get her arse out of this bed and dressed in the next five minutes.”
Cinq minutes! Claudia’s first impulse was to laugh, but slanting an upward glance at Jack’s set and entirely serious face she thought better of it. Folding her arms across her breasts, she announced, “Five minutes, I fear it is impossible.”
He shook his head. “Oh aye, ’tis no only possible, ’tis verra probable, for I’m no goin’ anywhere ’til I see ye risen.”
“As you wish.” Vaguely aware that some small, sick part of her had begun to enjoy their sparring, she let go of the covers to pat the vacant patch of mattress on either side of her. “Do you prefer the right side or the left?”
A low growl confirmed that he was neither tempted nor amused but to his credit he held his voice low and even as he said, “As you will.”
She was on the verge of claiming victory when, in one swift motion, he reached down and ripped the bedcovers, quilt, blanket and sheet down to her toes. The icy chill of an autumn predawn penetrated her thin shift in seconds, raising gooseflesh on her bare arms even as her face heated with outrage.
“Serpent! Cochon! Fils de chienne!” Having exhausted her stock of apropos animal expletives, she snatched at the sheet, but he easily blocked her. “Only last night you promised you would not lay a knuckle on me.”
Bending down, he brought his face to hers, so close that the tips of their noses all but brushed. “That would be finger and what I said was I’d no beat you provided you do as I bid which, so far as I can tell, has yet to happen.” Gaze locked on hers, he added, “Just as I gave my word to Milread that I’d have ye there in time to help her lay the cook fire.”
“But I am injured, see?” Claudia lifted her left hand and wiggled her bandaged thumb.
Straightening to full, towering height, he answered with a scoffing sound low in his throat. “Ye’ll maybe live, though to be sure I’ll have a look at it before we’re off. Either way, I gave my word that I’d see ye there and there ye will be. If I must carry ye thither and deliver ye to Milread in your shift, then so be it.” On the mention of her shift, his gaze flickered to the vicinity of her breasts. “Ye’ll find it a more pleasant trip, no to mention warmer, if ye’ll but dress, aye?” He looked back up, a smile crinkling the c
orners of his eyes and heating the honey-brown irises to rich chicory.
Grands Dieux! Glancing downward, Claudia confirmed that her shift, or rather Evette’s shift, was well worn indeed. Through the thin, cream-colored linen, her areolas shone pink as rose petals, the nipples stiffened to firm points from the chill. At least, she told herself, it was the chilly air that accounted for her embarrassing state. Certainement it could not be the sudden awareness that she was abed, and the nearest thing to naked, with a handsome and very virile Scotsman looming over her. Even more unnerving than the threat of being paraded nearly naked through the village was the prospect of once more being clasped against that broad, hard chest, of feeling those whipcord arms braced about her.
It was a wise woman who knew when to accept defeat. Claudia crossed her arms over her breasts and glared up at him. “You will permit me privacy in which to make my toilette?”
He hesitated, then nodded, a faint flush climbing his throat. “Verra well, use the chamber pot if ye must, but be quick about it and mind ye dump the filth in the privy beyond the house.”
It took a full moment for his words to sink in and by the time they had, he’d turned to go. Too fuddled to find the English words to express her shock and outrage, Claudia grabbed for the pillow and threw it just as the makeshift curtain fell back into place.
Sitting at the kitchen table, his mug of tea growing cold in his hand, Jack watched the dance of light and shadow upon the drawn curtain and promptly forgot to breathe.
The splash of water, the rustle of soft feminine clothing as it fell about even softer feminine skin, a curse in French that like as not consigned him to Hell.
But she was too late, for Jack already burned.
From the time he’d stood over her bedside that morning and gazed down upon her sleeping form, he’d been a slave to one image, one fantasy. Black hair splayed across a pillow, a full pink mouth moaning his name, and gooseflesh rising on white, white skin as hands—his hands—slid the shift from her shoulders…